Pope Francis urges UN conference to ‘act without delay’ on climate change

[LeafByNiggle]

Criticizing this idea of man-made “climate change” is not lying nor is it denialism. In many ways, climate activists are the original post-modern social justice movement that is gravely harming college campuses.

Also, many of the people who try and alarm others on climate change are not scientists, nor are they qualified to assess the situation.

Finally, disagreeing with the Pope on this issue is fine indeed, especially since evidence shows man’s role to be very limited.

I could go along with everything you said, up until your false claim about “evidence shows”. Please present that evidence if you have it.

 

[lynnvinc]

“Record heat despite a cold sun: Global temperature goes from heat record to heat record, yet the sun is at its dimmest for half a century” realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/11/record-heat-despite-a-cold-sun/

A question was raised earlier on this thread about how we can know the global warming is from increased GHGs in the atmosphere. One way is to look at the other factors that cause warming. An important one is the sun, which has short-term cycles of getting brighter and dimmer (about 11 year cycles). So now the sun is in a “solar minimum” part of the cycle, yet each year the earth surface temps get warmer and warmer.



Note the solar cycles and how about up until 1980 or so the earth’s temps followed them, and thereafter took off in an upward swing, following instead the increasing CO2.

 

[Saints_Alive]

washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/17/the-north-pole-is-an-insane-36-degrees-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends/?utm_term=.114d2695463c

In case it wasn’t mentioned yet.
Seems the North Pole has a heat wave going on.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Understanding global sea levels: past, present and future

academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/hastindw/MS1410-001_FA08/handouts/2008SLRSustain.pdf

 

[Ender]

Yes, it is so much simpler to dismiss them as greedy population control manipulators of data rather than to counter their arguments.

I don’t condone dismissive, personal attacks regardless of who makes them. Since it is likely that a gentle reminder that this is a poor argument - coming from someone who shares ones overall perspective - will be more effective than a sharp attack from someone who rejects it, I’ll try to remember to respond to those among the “deniers” who make it. Perhaps you can try to do the same for the “alarmists.”

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I don’t condone dismissive, personal attacks regardless of who makes them. Since it is likely that a gentle reminder that this is a poor argument - coming from someone who shares ones overall perspective - will be more effective than a sharp attack from someone who rejects it, I’ll try to remember to respond to those among the “deniers” who make it. Perhaps you can try to do the same for the “alarmists.”

OK. Sounds fair.

 

[JW55]

An interesting note on expanding wildlife populations is the coyote. Thirty years ago the coyote was rarely seen east of the Mississippi. Today their range extends all the way to east coast. This has nothing to do with “global warming”. In the Midwest, despite extensive “varmit hunting”, the range and number of coyotes continues to expand… It very common to see them in suburbia and even within major cites themselves.

There may be some issues that man does that do have some effect on the climate, particularly on a local level but we tend to think of the world on too short of a time frame. in North America there have been 4 major glacial advances or evidence of the ice age, the last about 10,000 years ago. We had extreme heat and wet periods 70-100 million years ago during the days of the dinosaurs. Sea levels rose, it got cold again and receded. We also had extreme weather conditions in the 1880’s, 1930’s and 1970s. I remember in the 1970s people were screaming another ice age was coming. We had incredible snowfalls in 1967 and 1978. World climate is on a big scale, you can’t just limit it to a 5-10 year period and thing you have the answer. You have to look at the big picture.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

An interesting note on expanding wildlife populations is the coyote. Thirty years ago the coyote was rarely seen east of the Mississippi. Today their range extends all the way to east coast. This has nothing to do with “global warming”. In the Midwest, despite extensive “varmit hunting”, the range and number of coyotes continues to expand… It very common to see them in suburbia and even within major cites themselves.

There may be some issues that man does that do have some effect on the climate, particularly on a local level but we tend to think of the world on too short of a time frame. in North America there have been 4 major glacial advances or evidence of the ice age, the last about 10,000 years ago. We had extreme heat and wet periods 70-100 million years ago during the days of the dinosaurs. Sea levels rose, it got cold again and receded. We also had extreme weather conditions in the 1880’s, 1930’s and 1970s. I remember in the 1970s people were screaming another ice age was coming. We had incredible snowfalls in 1967 and 1978. World climate is on a big scale, you can’t just limit it to a 5-10 year period and thing you have the answer. You have to look at the big picture.

For the big picture, look here. What you will see is that from the last Ice Age, the global temperature has warmed just about 5 deg. C. But since 1916 the rate of warming has be seven times faster than at any time since the last Ice Age, and it is accelerating. Yes, do look at the big picture.

As for 1970’s, there was a cover of Time magazine, but only a few people were predicting an ice age. It was nothing like the level of global recognition we now have for global warming, which is not just predicted, but is already in evidence. I do like your recognition that a 5-10 year period is too small to be definitive. Many people were claiming there was an 18 year hiatus in warming, and that disproved global warming. But of course it did not, for the very reason you mention.

 

[Tony_Micelli]

we had incredible snowfalls in 1967 and 1978. World climate is on a big scale, you can’t just limit it to a 5-10 year period and thing you have the answer. You have to look at the big picture.

the signal of man made climate change is irrefutable at this point, they can directly measure it now. all other possible causes have been ruled out, it has been well over 6,000 years since we have seen global temperatures this warm, when n. hemisphere solar insolation was higher. Trump is a disappointment when it comes to preventing future dangerous climate change, hopefully the rest of the world takes a different course.

 

[ucfengr]

the signal of man made climate change is irrefutable at this point, they can directly measure it now. all other possible causes have been ruled out, it has been well over 6,000 years since we have seen global temperatures this warm, when n. hemisphere solar insolation was higher. Trump is a disappointment when it comes to preventing future dangerous climate change, hopefully the rest of the world takes a different course.

If it’s irrefutable, why are the power players flying their private jets to Davos and Rio not taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. I got news for you, Donald Trump’s carbon footprint is much lower than President Obama’s. When is he going to start living his life like there’s a problem?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

If it’s irrefutable, why are the power players flying their private jets to Davos and Rio not taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

This has absolutely nothing do with whether global warming is irrefutable. Who are these “power players” anyway, and why should their actions be taken as a better indicator of temperature rise than reading actual thermometers?

 

[utah_rose]

Here is the problem with the secular climate change people.

They all choose the planet over people.

They believe the answer is: birth control, abortion, euthanasia, tough regulations REGARDLESS of the negative financial impacts it has on families, tough regulations REGARDLESS of whether the regulations will actually work.

These people also take an extremist view. They believe that climate change is 100% man made. (NOTE: there are extremists on the other side too, who believe that climate change is 100% natural).

Personally, I believe climate change is most likely a combination of BOTH manmade and natural. But I have no idea regarding the break down. Is it 50/50, 90/10, 75/25, etc? Don’t know and science doesn’t know either.

Well said!

Pope Francis mainly wants individuals and companies to do everything they can to protect the environment. This is honorable and holy.

However, a lot of secularist society wants to use MAINLY population control & institute communist/socialist policies.

The fact is, if climate change is manmade, it is a result of sin… replacing sin with sin isn’t going to make things better. The answer is less sin, not more.

 

[Convert_in_99]

I just wanted to point out that the Holy Father doesn’t travel in a large 747, accompanied by just three priests and a cardinal.

I wouldn’t expect him to travel on a commercial flight for security reasons, but his carbon footprint isn’t much different than a commercial flight considering how large his entourage is (about 30 people) and the press (about 70).

Yes.

 

[JW55]

For the big picture, look here. What you will see is that from the last Ice Age, the global temperature has warmed just about 5 deg. C. But since 1916 the rate of warming has be seven times faster than at any time since the last Ice Age, and it is accelerating. Yes, do look at the big picture.

As for 1970’s, there was a cover of Time magazine, but only a few people were predicting an ice age. It was nothing like the level of global recognition we now have for global warming, which is not just predicted, but is already in evidence. I do like your recognition that a 5-10 year period is too small to be definitive. Many people were claiming there was an 18 year hiatus in warming, and that disproved global warming. But of course it did not, for the very reason you mention.

Thank you for the diagram. Unfortunately, this is not the big picture. This is a tiny picture.This only illustrats the time basically from the retreat of the last major glacial advance (Wisconsinan ). It does not address the 3-4 previous glacial advances such as the Illinoisan or those prior to it, nor the warming interludes between. This is over millions of years. If we assume the time of the creation of the earth at 5 billion years your 12,000 yrs is just a speck of time. What you show addresses basically a modern micro period of time. Or about 1/400,000 of total time of the earth’s existence, There have been many cycles of extreme heat and cold in the earth’s history. Using this timeframe it is easy to see why looking at climatic change over period of 100 yrs is simply not realistic. Even 12000 yrs is like 15 seconds out of an hour when we look at the history of the earth. The projections at the end of the diagram are also purely hypothetical based on the trend of recent yrs. not over the continuum of total history.

As I stated on an earlier post, man obviously does have some impact but I feel that too much emphasis is placed on this impact. Certainly when compared to other countries we in the U.S. have made greater strides toward changing and being environmentally conscious than the majority. If people really want to make an individual contribution to lower the Carbon footprint, recycle and go on a plant based diet as opposed to a largely meat based diet which most people are not willing to do. The methane contribution in raising livestock and clearing huge areas of forest for their grazing is added a considerable contribution to methane contribution. Until we get countries like Brazil, China, India, the African equatorial countries to make a major shift it will continue to increase. They are probably not going to change in these developing countries where they will do what is necessary to develop their economy and they are not going to worry about greenhouse gases to achieve it…

 

[JW55]

the signal of man made climate change is irrefutable at this point, they can directly measure it now. all other possible causes have been ruled out, it has been well over 6,000 years since we have seen global temperatures this warm, when n. hemisphere solar insolation was higher. Trump is a disappointment when it comes to preventing future dangerous climate change, hopefully the rest of the world takes a different course.

6000 yrs. Not much time at all in a geologic sense. Read my other posts. At Six thousand yrs ago we had barely past the last ice advance. You are talking about seconds of time in comparison to the natural overall cycles of the earth.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Thank you for the diagram. Unfortunately, this is not the big picture. This is a tiny picture.This only illustrats the time basically from the retreat of the last major glacial advance (Wisconsinan ). It does not address the 3-4 previous glacial advances such as the Illinoisan or those prior to it, nor the warming interludes between. This is over millions of years. If we assume the time of the creation of the earth at 5 billion years your 12,000 yrs is just a speck of time. What you show addresses basically a modern micro period of time. Or about 1/400,000 of total time of the earth’s existence, There have been many cycles of extreme heat and cold in the earth’s history. Using this timeframe it is easy to see why looking at climatic change over period of 100 yrs is simply not realistic. Even 12000 yrs is like 15 seconds out of an hour when we look at the history of the earth.

During most of the earth’s history, it was uninhabitable for humans. Extreme events that took place during that time where due to conditions that no longer exist. Nor do we care what happened that long ago. The question before us now is what is likely to happen in the next 50, 100, or 200 years. For that we certainly don’t need to look back any further than the last ice age. I would argue we don’t even need to look back that far. Just going back 1000 or 2000 years gives you a pretty good idea of the range of natural variation without man - not so much for absolute changes and for the** rate** of change. The temperature we are experiencing right now is not unique in recent history. It was warmer than now all the way from 9000 BC to 1300 AD. What is unique is the rate of warming. As I said before, the warming over the last 100 years has been seven times faster than at any time in history or pre-history, as far as we can tell. It is this rate that shows that it is not just natural variation, which has never done this before. Ever.

The projections at the end of the diagram are also purely hypothetical based on the trend of recent yrs. not over the continuum of total history.

Most scientists think recent history is more relevant to the projections than 20,000 years ago. But go ahead and ignore the projections if you like. They are not needed. Just stop at 2016 and you get the picture that industrial activity is warming the planet.

As I stated on an earlier post, man obviously does have some impact but I feel that too much emphasis is placed on this impact.

The question of “emphasis” is not a scientific question. It is a political one. But there is a scientific question you could ask, and that is to quantify what man’s impact has been. Whether anyone emphasizes it or not is beside the point.

Certainly when compared to other countries we in the U.S. have made greater strides toward changing and being environmentally conscious than the majority.

For the record, I totally agree with you. But I was not talking about remedies or who should do what, or who is not doing enough. Others maybe. But not me. I was talking only about the scientific facts. What someone may do with those facts is a whole other discussion.

If people really want to make an individual contribution to lower the Carbon footprint, recycle and go on a plant based diet as opposed to a largely meat based diet which most people are not willing to do.

Right.

The methane contribution in raising livestock and clearing huge areas of forest for their grazing is added a considerable contribution to methane contribution.

There is a good side and a bad side to the methane story. The bad side is that methane is about 100 times worse than CO2 as a heat-trapping gas. The good news is that methane lasts only about 10 years in the atmosphere, compared to 100 years or more for CO2. Another bad news for methane is that as the planet warms, trapped methane will be released, warming things further.

Until we get countries like Brazil, China, India, the African equatorial countries to make a major shift it will continue to increase. They are probably not going to change in these developing countries where they will do what is necessary to develop their economy and they are not going to worry about greenhouse gases to achieve it…

Now you are talking mitigation strategies and politics. Probably an important discussion. I just don’t know what to say about that.

 

[JW55]

My point above is that you can’t effectively measure the events of true climatic change over such a short run as you are proposing. Nature is a much bigger and more complex entity than this. The weather forecast most of us get is short term prediction, which by all accounts should be correct. I can’t begin to count the errors in this I have witnessed. They say it will rain and the storm turns and goes north or south. The conditions are present for a tornado, but we don’t know if one will form or not. They predict 3" of snow and we get 10" or none at all. truthfully, unpredictable in a great deal of circumstances. How can one predict global warming, if we can’t even get the weather forecast right tomorrow.

One can make an educated guess, at best. Climatic change is a subjective assessment rather than one surrounded solidly by facts. Gravity is a “fact”. Climatic changes are not. A “theory” at best. An apparent trend over the short run may alter itself unexpectedly and present a new trend. We can propose a hypothesis, but substantiating it can only be proven fact over the course of time and hindsight.

Should we ignore it? No. However, we should seek to make educated changes that we can do on a personal level. That is all we really have control over. Aside from climatic change we need to take solid steps that are environmentally sound and not trendy. We need to do them because they are pragmatically sound and cost effective. Many proposed changes are “pie in the sky” ideas. As I stated earlier, the bigger offenders of environmental harm are not in the U.S. They are in areas the U.S. has no control over. The island of Madagascar has largely been deforested but the residents as they have used it as a source of fuel. Can you tell a people to stop doing something that will ensure their existence for tomorrow or next week. Much of the world doesn’t have the luxury of concerning themselves about CO2, methane gases and carbon footprints. They are just trying to make it through until tomorrow.

 

[lynnvinc]

For the big picture, look here. What you will see is that from the last Ice Age, the global temperature has warmed just about 5 deg. C. But since 1916 the rate of warming has be seven times faster than at any time since the last Ice Age, and it is accelerating. Yes, do look at the big picture.

As for 1970’s, there was a cover of Time magazine, but only a few people were predicting an ice age. It was nothing like the level of global recognition we now have for global warming, which is not just predicted, but is already in evidence. I do like your recognition that a 5-10 year period is too small to be definitive. Many people were claiming there was an 18 year hiatus in warming, and that disproved global warming. But of course it did not, for the very reason you mention.

Also re the 70s idea of tipping into an ice age (shared only by a very few scientists), I think is was based on natural cycles, plus factors that were not well known back then, such as the cooling effect of SO2, another byproduct of industrialization like CO2, except it has a cooling effect & is also a terrible pollutant that when it changes to sulfuric acid under certain weather conditions harms fish in lakes, forests, crops, monuments, and lungs.

The issue is that SO2 only has residence in the atmosphere for a few weeks, unlike CO2 half of which they say is up there for about 100 years, but a portion of which can be up there for 100,000 years. Or, CH4 (methane, another climate warming gas) which is up there for about 10 years before degrading into CO2, etc.

Because SO2 has such deleterious impact on environmental and human health, it has been reduced (thereby reducing its cooling effect). Also its climate impact was seen to be not as strong as CO2 & CH4.

Within science there will usually be some scientists making outlier claims or suggestions. That’s the nature of science. Right now the balance of evidence is so strongly tilted toward warming from industrial gases that there is little chance that could be wrong.

Scientists need a lot of evidence before they make claims; they usually need to be 95% confident. I call this the “scientific model.” Back in 1995 was the first time a couple of studies reached 95% confidence (.05 p on the null hypothesis) that global warming was happening and has a human cause, even though it had been warming since before the 1980s – it just take science a long time to make a claim; they are “reticent.” Since then many many studies have supported the claim that warming is happening and mainly human caused. When there are many such studies science refers to this as a “robust” claim.

As for doctors, laypersons, and policy-makers, they all are concerned about addressing serious problems and threats, which I call the “medical model” or good ole prudence. They do not need such an extreme level of confidence before acting. You won’t hear a doctor telling a patient, “Your cancer test came back at 92% confidence that the lump is cancerous, so we’ll just wait a few more years to see if we can reach the 95% confidence level to treat it.”

Considering that climate change and its many negative knock-on effects (plus collateral effects of harms from local pollution, resource extraction & processing, etc) are so threatening to the environment (on which we depend for human survival) and to human lives, plus to the economy, it has always seemed ridiculous to me that we needed to wait until science reached 95% on global warming or became very robust (which I’d say happened around 2000 or 2005) to do the needful to reduce our GHG contributions – especially when doing so for the most part saves us a lot of money and reduces other harmful impacts.

 

[lynnvinc]

It seems to me we live in this bizarro world of climate change denial were human lives don’t really count, children don’t count, and future progeny are not even to be considered, and the poor are out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

I just don’t understand it. Where is Christianity? Where is morality? What about our immortal souls?

Okay, so we don’t want to solve the climate problem with abortion or harming the poor or the disvalued people. So let’s face this difficult problem and come up with solutions that do not harm others or ourselves. Let’s ask for God’s help. He is just waiting to help us in ALL our needs. His grace is abundant. Prayer is one of the most important components of mitigating climate change, since the problem is so complex and the various solutions are myriad. If one truly prays to God, God will show him/her ways to reduce GHG emissions that will astound.

Follow the Little Way of Environmental Healing. Do whatever you can in your daily lives. Take baby steps, one step at a time. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, become energy/resource efficient/conservative. It does take prayer to find the solutions and prayer to help one get off their duff and do the needful. Been there

God bless all who do not lose heart but continue to seek to do the needful for God’s kingdom.

 

[Cathoholic]

LeafByNiggle.

You said in post 87 . . .

This whole population control and global governance stuff is a red herring.

Would you would say the same thing about someone who is USING the Global Warming Hoax to get a quick and easy profit?

Is THAT just a “red herring” too?

Pope Francis seems to think its NOT a “red herring”. (I don’t think these issues are mere “red herrings” either)

I already showed it to the readers of this thread in post 86 (here).

POPE FRANCIS Caring for ecosystems demands far-sightedness, since no one looking for quick and easy profit is truly interested in their preservation. Pope Francis Laudato Si (36)

The Global Warming Game is about Population Control and Global Government!

**The Global Warming Game is primarily about . . . . **

• **Population Control **
• Global Government

There is probably SOME aspects of helping the environment too, but NO ASPECTS that necessitates the Global Governance that these guys are calling for!

The fact that the IPCC is furtive (or sly and covert) with their language is not evidence that they are Pro-Life.

I’ve already shown you UN documents that call to INSURE . . . what? . . . UNIVERSAL ACCESS to . . . . to what? . . . . . sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights!

Insure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights . . .

And if you have been following the UN for years, you KNOW they include this for little girls too!

And you KNOW of the battles that have been going on behind the scenes for the document LANGUAGE.

And you know the IPCC (which is commissioned by the UN) has never distanced itself from this language.

And when the late Father Marx TRIED to get the UN language such to ensure protections of life, he was ostracized by the globalist elites (as were many others).

And it would be absolutely naive to think that Global Governance is not a key goal to all of this.

Just read their documents. Just listen to their people.

That’s WHY the Globalists were whining after COP21.

Because these “provisions” had “no teeth” (and other such synonyms).

You and I both know “teeth” in this context means Global Governance and an International ENFORCEMENT mechanism.

That’s essentially a Global Police force. You can call it whatever you want, but to “enforce” these Globalist takeovers of mining, water, farming, chemical engineering, etc. etc. etc. is going to mean ENFORCEMENT!

And this agenda is cloaked in language that is utterly innocent sounding.

When you look at the inside cover of the DVD “An Inconvenient Truth” you see things like turning off light bulbs when leaving a room, turning the heat down, driving less, using less water, etc. etc.

But when you look at their agenda it includes CONTROL over mining, agriculture, CONTROL to define what studies are considered academic or “acceptable”, forming a racket for Global “certification”, built-in mechanisms to perpetuate their power, the power to oversee itself (just like the Federal Reserve does now), and of course emissions trading.

There are many other things too.

And you call this a mere “red herring”.

If you want to think this is all incidental to the Global Warming mongering, go ahead and think it.

But I am not going to fall for it.