Scientists: World likely won't avoid dangerous warming mark

[ucfengr]

Americans are absolutely 100% hellbent on shirking all responsibility for their actions.

It’s the defining attitude and belief-system of our nation.

Anybody else see the irony in global warming alarmists typing posts about CO2 emissions from fossil fuel powered computers?

 

[Ridgerunner]

The only effect from that increase in carbon dioxide would be a huge increase in agricultural production.

With all due respect, it will take more than ordinary agricultural production. Not long ago, I read an extract of a study done by agronomists at Texas A&M. They maintain that if all the grasslands in the U.S. (about 1/3 of the total) were managed properly, they would consume all of the carbon dioxide produced in the country by human activity.

Then there are the forests and the agricultural land. Forests are interesting from the CO2 standpoint. Proper forestry can make a lot of difference if one is interested in reducing CO2. Unfortunately, government forests are left to grow however they happen to grow. That results in overcrowding and a high percentage of slow-growing older trees. The real consumers of CO2 are the “adolescent” trees. With hardwoods, that’s a tree with a diameter of about 15 inches at a height from the ground of about 15 inches. Older trees almost don’t grow at all.

With hardwoods, the best use of the older trees would be to cut them down and use them for furniture, flooring, even dimension lumber. That sequesters CO2 indefinitely.

Ironically, causing utility bills to “skyrocket” as Obama promises, causes people to burn wood more than they otherwise would, releasing CO2 (and lots of other things) into the atmosphere.

If this government really cared about CO2 levels other than by causing people discomfort, they would encourage, even subsidize proper grassland and forest management. But the government doesn’t do either one even on its own land.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Okay, the idea that Earth is going to be completely uninhabitable doesn’t give humans enough credit. But it is going to mess a lot of things up.

And a jump from 300 to 400 ppm is huge. Granted, CO[sub]2[/sub] isn’t a big part of our atmosphere to begin with, but if it was 0 ppm, then Earth would be too cold to live on.

And a jump from 300 to 400 ppm is an increase by a third of what it was before, and we’re not done as far as we can tell. And Earth’s climate has already warmed by about a degree and a half Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, most of that since the 1970s. For the record, the Ice Age was a difference of about 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which we as a world are on track to break, but going the other direction, by 2100.

The Northwest Passage reliably opened for the first time in history in 2013. The government of Kiribati is already planning mass evacuations to get everyone out of the country before it sinks. St. Louis has already lost its below-zero days. As mentioned before, Walden is blooming two weeks early.

There is a mountain of evidence that global warming is happening. Pretending it isn’t will simply make it worse.

Then again, it might be fun.

The increase in carbon dioxide is less than trivial.

Minuscule.

Microscopic.

A barely handful in PARTS PER MILLION.

… from 0.03% to 0.04% … in percentages.

Pretty much undetectable.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

There are plenty of counter-studies, and they have been posted on here many times. Perhaps a couple of years ago, I cited some of them myself. But it gets nowhere because there are so many MMGW articles, and it ends up like a high school debate; “my quote is better than your quote”. You have participated in it, and you know what I am saying.

“Plenty” is a technical term I am not familiar with, so I cannot tell if I disagree with you or not. The “high school debate” argument is yet another attempt at discrediting MMGW debate as a special case of discrediting all debate that references authorities. That is absurd, because if we omit those debates based on references, we are left with debates that do not use references, which is even worse. A debate without references would not pass muster, even in high school debates. And by the way, don’t disparage high school debates. They may surprise you.

Anymore, quite frankly, I simply state that I am skeptical of any alleged “settled science”, particularly when it consists in interpretations of data collection and computer projections, because such things have a way of being tossed aside from time to time when better information is discovered.

This is a bit of a strawman arguement, as most scientists involved in MMGW do not claim it is “settled science” (although some politicians without a good understanding of how science works might have made that claim).

And through it all, there’s no climate change going on that anybody experiences. Certainly I don’t experience it even though I really do live in a zone in which even a small change in climate would be very apparent to anyone who works on the land as I do.

This is a non-sequitur, as there is no reason to expect that everyone everywhere ought to be able to detect MMGW through their personal lives.

Possibly that’s why belief in MMGW is slipping and has slipped below 50% with the American public.

Bandwagon fallacy. Except that here we are supposed to jump off the bandwagon because 51% of the public has done so.

And this government spends vastly more on pushing MMGW in one way or another than, say, the oil companies or coal companies do. With people like Obama, it’s apparently either ideological on his part or on the part of people who support him, despite the fact that in no way does he live as if he believes it.

Unfortunately, sometimes the ideological fixations end up harming people. In my state, the anti-coal regs are said to result ultimately in a $1500/year increase in utility costs. I can afford that, but some people can’t. If it served a genuinely useful purpose, I could see it. But forcing that on people just because of a bunch of computer projections and anti-energy ideology, to me, is simply wrong.

These are important political and social issues, but they have no bearing on the subject of this thread, which is the case for or against the science of MMGW.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

And massive sea-level rise that will displace hundreds of millions of people.

For the past few thousand years, sea level rise owing to the melting of the glaciers was in the neighborhood of 3 millimeters per year.

Normal, virtually undetectable and trivial.

There IS coastal amount of subsidence. When the barrier islands sink.

Pacific islands sink. Normal behavior for volcanically formed islands.

Sea level RISE and land subsiding are two TOTALLY DIFFERENT PHYSICAL PHENEMONA.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

With all due respect, it will take more than ordinary agricultural production. Not long ago, I read an extract of a study done by agronomists at Texas A&M. They maintain that if all the grasslands in the U.S. (about 1/3 of the total) were managed properly, they would consume all of the carbon dioxide produced in the country by human activity.

Then there are the forests and the agricultural land. Forests are interesting from the CO2 standpoint. Proper forestry can make a lot of difference if one is interested in reducing CO2. Unfortunately, government forests are left to grow however they happen to grow. That results in overcrowding and a high percentage of slow-growing older trees. The real consumers of CO2 are the “adolescent” trees. With hardwoods, that’s a tree with a diameter of about 15 inches at a height from the ground of about 15 inches. Older trees almost don’t grow at all.

With hardwoods, the best use of the older trees would be to cut them down and use them for furniture, flooring, even dimension lumber. That sequesters CO2 indefinitely.

It would be interesting to see an economic study of both of these proposals. For example, how much would it cost to build furniture, etc. out of all the adolescent trees that would need to be cut down to maintain a continual healthy tree population? Do we have enough uses for all that wood? For how long? What is the economics of utilizing trees 15 inches in diameter? Same question with the grasslands management. Is the CO2 sequestered, or just put back into the atmosphere? Does it continually go into the soil, building up topsoil? Then there is the question of the economic impact of reserving so much grassland for nothing but CO2 sequestration. At least with the trees there is some economic benefit to balance the cost.

Ironically, causing utility bills to “skyrocket” as Obama promises, causes people to burn wood more than they otherwise would, releasing CO2 (and lots of other things) into the atmosphere.

Very few people are in a position to substitute burning wood for their current fuel source. If you count the labor it takes to haul lumber and feed it to a stove, burning wood is still more expensive than utility power, even if they do “skyrocket”, which I assume is maybe a 15% increase? Did Obama ever put a number on it? I don’t think so.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

For the past few thousand years, sea level rise owing to the melting of the glaciers was in the neighborhood of 3 millimeters per year.

Normal, virtually undetectable and trivial.

There IS coastal amount of subsidence. When the barrier islands sink.

Pacific islands sink. Normal behavior for volcanically formed islands.

Sea level RISE and land subsiding are two TOTALLY DIFFERENT PHYSICAL PHENEMONA.

Are you implying that Florida is doomed regardless of sea level rise?

 

[vz71]

Literally every person on the planet experiences global warming.

People experience local weather.
Not global.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Are you implying that Florida is doomed regardless of sea level rise?

1. Florida is NOT doomed.
2. Sea level is NOT rising.

If you look at Florida’s soil types, it may subside … a little.

Look it up.

What is Florida’s geology?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It would be interesting to see an economic study of both of these proposals. For example, how much would it cost to build furniture, etc. out of all the adolescent trees that would need to be cut down to maintain a continual healthy tree population? Do we have enough uses for all that wood? For how long? What is the economics of utilizing trees 15 inches in diameter? Same question with the grasslands management. Is the CO2 sequestered, or just put back into the atmosphere? Does it continually go into the soil, building up topsoil? Then there is the question of the economic impact of reserving so much grassland for nothing but CO2 sequestration. At least with the trees there is some economic benefit to balance the cost.

Very few people are in a position to substitute burning wood for their current fuel source. If you count the labor it takes to haul lumber and feed it to a stove, burning wood is still more expensive than utility power, even if they do “skyrocket”, which I assume is maybe a 15% increase? Did Obama ever put a number on it? I don’t think so.

I think you misunderstood. Adolescent trees are precisely the ones we should NOT be cutting down, as they are the “fast growers” and therefore the ones that sequester more carbon. In government forests, the old slow-growers are rarely harvested, which discourages the growth of young trees. Eventually the old trees drop limbs, die, fall and rot on the ground, releasing most of their carbon into the atmosphere. At times, of course, in a really old forest, they catch fire and release all of their carbon into the atmosphere.

And non-use of grassland is exactly the wrong thing. Much of grassland CO2 is sequestered long-term, but not all. If properly managed, the “old” grass is trampled and becomes part of the soil. If it’s left standing because no ruminants eat it (as with much government land) it slowly decomposes in the air and goes back into the atmosphere. Soil contact is the thing. Yes, cattle do belch methane, but they also return about 80% of the carbon they eat back into the soil. People eat cattle, live, die and are buried (sequestered). “Properly managed” does not mean “non-use”. It means proper management. Among other things, if one grazes properly, the root growth is robust, thick and deep. That’s a lot of carbon taken out of the atmosphere and put under the ground.

And wood-burning is very much a growth industry, particularly the burning of pellets. Corn-burning is also growing. People do that because it’s cheap. Research it and you’ll see. Not much labor to either of those.

Utilization of wood for things like furniture, flooring, gunstocks, even dimension lumber, depends on its price. Nobody puts in a faux wood floor made of vinyl if he can have real wood. Everybody prefers real wood for a lot of things. And who wouldn’t want to have oak or ash framing timber in his attic instead of the soft fir now being used most of the time? Builders used to use it, but now it’s expensive.

So why make people who might prefer to put wood flooring in their houses or have honest wood furniture spend all their money needlessly on artificially expensive energy and pellet stoves?

 

[lmachine]

The increase in carbon dioxide is less than trivial.

Minuscule.

Microscopic.

A barely handful in PARTS PER MILLION.

… from 0.03% to 0.04% … in percentages.

Pretty much undetectable.

Things are easily detectable in parts per million. I don’t know where you get the idea that substances measured at those levels are trivial.

 

[lmachine]

For the past few thousand years, sea level rise owing to the melting of the glaciers was in the neighborhood of 3 millimeters per year.

Normal, virtually undetectable and trivial.

There IS coastal amount of subsidence. When the barrier islands sink.

Pacific islands sink. Normal behavior for volcanically formed islands.

Sea level RISE and land subsiding are two TOTALLY DIFFERENT PHYSICAL PHENEMONA.

I’m well-aware subsidence and sea level rise are different things, I have an oceanography degree. Subsidence affects local sea level, which is why sea level rise appears accelerated in some areas. Global sea level is also rising at an accelerated rate.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I’m well-aware subsidence and sea level rise are different things, I have an oceanography degree. Subsidence affects local sea level, which is why sea level rise appears accelerated in some areas. Global sea level is also rising at an accelerated rate.

Subsidence means that the shore line falls into the water.

Sea level means the water level goes up.

Changing and or creating new terms is not helpful and merely creates confusion.

Sea level is sea level.

Sea level is measured vertically at an accepted solid stable datum.

The datum is defined and stated.

 

[Saints_Alive]

I think we’re getting ready to find out what happened to the dinosaurs.

 

[lmachine]

Subsidence means that the shore line falls into the water.

Sea level means the water level goes up.

Changing and or creating new terms is not helpful and merely creates confusion.

I didn’t invent or change a term. A distinction between “local sea-level”, or sea-level measured relative to a point on land that varies due to subsidence and weather factors, and “eustatic sea-level”, or overall global sea-level affected by amount of water in the oceans and thermal expansion, has been made in the literature for a century now. Standardized use of “local” and “eustatic” is about 60 years old now.

 

[Exiled_Child]

I think we’re getting ready to find out what happened to the dinosaurs.

Yes. Humans as a species are probably too stupid to survive much longer. If we are to survive, it will be due to a relatively awake and intelligent minority finding some way to overcome innate human idiocy, laziness and the pronounced human tendency to simply ignore problems. There’s no reason to dance around it. Some have eyes to see, some don’t. Searching for consensus is pointless and counter-productive.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes. Humans as a species are probably too stupid to survive much longer. If we are to survive, it will be due to a relatively awake and intelligent minority finding some way to overcome innate human idiocy, laziness and the pronounced human tendency to simply ignore problems. There’s no reason to dance around it. Some have eyes to see, some don’t. Searching for consensus is pointless and counter-productive.

Consensus is only obtained in totalitarian societies, and then it’s only feigned.

 

[XndrK]

I think we’re getting ready to find out what happened to the dinosaurs.

Wait, we were talking about global warming, not a meteor strike.

 

[Exiled_Child]

Consensus is only obtained in totalitarian societies, and then it’s only feigned.

Both of these books are great and worth reading:

amazon.com/gp/product/0321011473/

amazon.com/Groupthink-Psychological-Studies-Decisions-Fiascoes/dp/0395317045

The Irving Janis one spells out exactly how and why humans are obediently closing their eyes and marching toward a cliff, lemming-style. The Cialdidni book is way more lively and better written, though.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Subsidence means that the shore line falls into the water.

Sea level means the water level goes up.

Changing and or creating new terms is not helpful and merely creates confusion.

Sea level is sea level.

Sea level is measured vertically at an accepted solid stable datum.

The datum is defined and stated.

Sea levels rose dramatically after the last ice age. They receded during the “Little Ice Age” which ended in about 1850, and have risen at a fairly constant, and very low, rate since then; a little less than 3 mm/year.

The Little Ice Age lasted between 500 and 300 years, depending on whose version one accepts. There is no particular reason not to think we’re still in “Little Ice Age Recovery”

Subsidence, of course, is another thing.