Global Warming: Additional Information People Need

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Originally posted by Sven:
In other words, if we are to achieve an 80% reduction in CO2 production by 2050, what would life really be like?

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Who knows what life would be like. It depends on what kinds of choices we make. For instance per capita France's emissions are a fraction of the US'. Is their life much different? Of course France gets most of their power from nuclear energy - the great "evil" which can never even be discussed in most environmental circles here. Interestingly Mother Jones has an article on nuclear power in their current edition where I quote:

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Can nuclear power really rescue our warming planet? And if you answered quickly, answer this too: Are you for or against because you know the science, or because someone said you should be?

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In the article you quote the author writes dismissively that even if every vehicle in 2050 was a Toyota Prius we would still be 40% above the 80% reduction target for that sector. But so what. A single company devouting a small percent of their research budget into fuel efficient vehicles produced a vehicle that could - in regards to that sector of our energy use - get us half way there.

Are major changes needed? Yes, but life today is way different from life 40 years ago. I know lots of people who recognize the scale of problem that global warming represents and who have made significant changes in their own lives without much difficulty considering that our government and businesses don't make it easy.

On the other hand it is hard to think of people who have recognized the severity of the issue and challenged their world view. It seems when any crisis comes along, it only confirms to most people that their long held political ideology is the only way to solve the problem. Is global warming a serious problem? Most people would say yes. Is global warming a serious enough problem that you have to question the way you live? Most people would say yes. Is global warming a serious enough problem that you have to question the way you think about problems and their solutions? Hell no - it is the other people who have to recognize that their ideology is faulty and mine is correct. It is fine and beneficial to read (as policywonk mentions) a book like Monibot's "heat" written by a long time socialist from a socialist's perspective, but is AGW a big enough problem for us also to consider the solutions offered from Lombourg's "Cool it" or perhaps from Gingrich's new book of which I haven't yet read and can't think of the name. Is the planet important enough to consider the ideas of those who we disagree with politically?

For instance Newt Gingrich and Preston Manning have both decided that global warming is a problem. Lucky for them their brand of far right free-market conservatism represents the perfect - in fact the only - solution. I don't think that they thought for a second that this issue is big enough that perhaps they should question even a small part of their political ideology to see if their might be a better solution ever crossed their mind.

On the other side many on the left who recognize the problem use this as a platform to push their socialist agenda. It isn't a possible solution, or the best solution - it is the only solution. The same goes for my Green Party and the same goes for the Liberals. The only people I can really think of are a couple Libertarians like Michael Shermer and Ronald Bailey who upon recognizing that global warming was real and human caused also recognized that their brand of libertarianism couldn't solve the problem and actually advocate a small role for government (Probably the reason why most libertarians still deny AGW. Bailey by the way had written 2 books in the late 90's and early 00's which called global warming a hoax, a conspiracy and a scam - both of which are still widely quoted by deniers despite Bailey now saying that the evidence in support of AGW is so overwhelming that anyone who still denies it ought to hang it up).

[ 28 April 2008: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]

I am not sure what additional information we need with regards to global warming. The facts seem pretty clear. We have added far more CO2 to the atmosphere then the earth can cope with, as a consequence the climate is changing. With unpredictable consequences for all life on earth.

It matters little if one is a capitalist, socialist, pink or brown, it is going to impact everyone. And all will see the obvious soon enough and will have to adapt or become extinct. Lucky for us there are communities that have a sustainable footprint. All we have to do is learn from them and adapt it to our personal situation.

It might be a bit hard to swallow for some of us that the Cubans, Peruvians and Nepalese have the high adaptive technology that we need.
[img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

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Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
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Actually, Bubbles, humans as the cause of GW hasn't yet been proven and that is part of the problem.[/b]

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Source, Michael? You'll find babblers are a tough crowd sometimes.

An international panel of scientists are in agreement that there is a [url=http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/15/debate_... percent chance[/url] that humans contribute to global warming.

While I agree with what both Fidel and M. Spector have written, neither of those provides "proof" of global warming as Michael Hardner appears to be asking for.

A greater than 90% chance that we are causing AGW is not "proof." Neither is the increase in ghg's in the atmosphere "proof" even though over a hundred years ago scientists showed that ghg's must trap gas as that still requires that ghgs follow the same laws of physics up in the atmosphere and there is no "proof" that they do (God might be sneaky or there might be some unknown force or..., or..., or...). Still no "proof." Just as there will never be "proof" of evolution for the creationists. It doesn't matter that science doesn't work that way, and it doesn't matter that they accept solid evidence for everything else. Fuck the overwhelming evidence. Fuck the predictions which have been made using that evidence and which have come true. We need "proof."

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Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
[b]

Actually, Bubbles, humans as the cause of GW hasn't yet been proven and that is part of the problem.[/b]

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Nothing is ever proven in science.

Things can sometimes be proven in the social sciences, for example:

The fact commoners often use phrases like "evolution is just a theory" or "global warming is not proven" is proof we need more science education in our high schools.

And to think, did Hardner not recently post that he would want only informed people like him to get the vote? If the vote were only to go to informed voters, he would not qualify - unless his post was a sarcastic prank.

[ 29 April 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

A few available technologies for home owners (some can also be used by renters) that can drastically reduce personal in-home energy use and CO2 emissions right now:

1 - Switch to low-drain compact florescent and/or LED bulbs and Energy Star appliances to reduce your need for electrical power to a minimum.

2 - Install a solar-thermal hot water system, and an on-demand water heater to top it up. This gives you the fastest pay-back on your outlay, and hot water heating accounts for ~35% of home CO2 emissions.

4 - Replace older windows with double-glazed thermopane windows and properly weather-strip all doors.

5 - Add more insulation in your attic and an attic fan (solar-electric, wind-driven or electric).

6 - Install a roof-top solar voltaic system to either supply at least part of your residential electrical needs directly, or feed back into the grid as with Ontario's "standard offer" system. In Toronto WISE (West Toronto Initiative for Solar Energy) has put together a package of a bulk equipment supply vendor, installation contractor, and financing to offer a bulk purchase price for individual home owners. Their co-op model is starting to be emulated by groups in other cities. Yes, it's expensive, but it can pay back the cost over 20 years, and let's face it, cutting CO2 byy 80% is not going to be free or painless. The gov needs to up the standard-offer per/kw price if they really want this to take off, though, as it did in Germany.

7 - Switch to a ground-source geothermal heat pump system for home heating. Yes, it's the most expensive action, but it will completely eliminate the burning of natural gas or fuel oil for home heating. It's very expensive to put in the wells, while a horizontal pipe bed needs lots of area, and you also take a bit of hit in increased electric power usage to run the water pumps. I'm working on planting the idea with my local councilor that cities should begin putting in the infrastructure to make it widespread in urban areas. For example, every time a street is torn up for repaving wells can be drilled and feed pipes laid to the edge of the city-owned street allowance, and then a hook-up and use fee can be charged to homeowners as they tie into the system. For that matter, wells can also be drilled in front yards at the edge of the street allowance, and in the centre boulevard on streets with them, and in city parks and school play yards and sports fields.

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Source, Michael? You'll find babblers are a tough crowd sometimes.

An international panel of scientists are in agreement that there is a 90 percent chance that humans contribute to global warming.

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You can't source a non-proof, Fidel. Do you have a source proving that pigs didn't build stonehenge ?

Scientists do generally think that human activity is a cause of GW but even a 90% chance is not proof. Despite what 500 Apples says, it is possible to prove this.

It's true that many of the same people who doubt that GW is caused by humans are the ones who said a few years back that there was no GW. All you need to do is show them a graph and they wither away...

But convincing proof of human made GW would hold a great political reward, in that such proof would help build support for massive societal change.

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Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
[b]I checked Wiki on this and the term used to describe this issue is "consensus". Scientists have reached a consensus that GW is caused by Human Activity.

Proof, however, is still waiting out there...[/b]

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You should read the wiki page on Bayesian statistics to get a better understanding on how modern science is done.

What's wrong with this one?

Quite a rational position.

Can you give me a link - I'd like to read more...

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Actually, Bubbles, humans as the cause of GW hasn't yet been proven and that is part of the problem.

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Michael,
It is pretty difficult to prove anything in as big a place as our atmosphere since there are so many variables. But we have several correlations between changes in the atmosphere and human activity. Several have been mentioned by others above.

If someone offered you a tray with 20 attractive drinks, one of which would cause terrible agony. Would you consume one of those drinks?

And that only gives you a probabillity of five percent of getting struck by a terrible agony.

Now it seems that very many , that have been studying the atmosphere for many years, seem convinced that we are playing Russian roulette with five bullets in a six shooter.

I am not sure how else to convince you that it is a serious gamble with terrible odds that you insist on playing.

This is my first post to babble. The info I have on this topic can be found yourself if you are curious.

- Volcanoes, bacteria, animals, and warmer oceans emit CO2. Humans and industry emit 3% of Earth's CO2, a figure not disputed by the UN IPCC

- This past decade has seen increasing worldwide volcanic activity. 70% of volcanoes are under water, hot lava has warmed the oceans, which in turn melts ice. Warmer oceans also have greater evaporation, which leads to more rain and snow (and floods)

- Cities are artificial living environments, black asphalt increases summer temps. Accurate temperatures are rural. The hottest year this past century in rural USA was 1936

- According to a recent BBC article, the UN is predicting this year to be colder

- The role of CO2 in the atmosphere is asymptotic, or a little goes a long way, and more doesn't make much of a difference. A little bit gives us a much needed 6 degrees of global warming, as we have currently. The very most warming that huge amounts of CO2 can give us is an additional 1.5 degrees C.

- The Earth has had 17 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere in the past as at the present level of 380 ppm. The Earth once went in to an Ice Age at 10 times our present level

- Pollution kills, but CO2 has never been a pollutant, trees and all vegetation grow faster with greater concentrations of CO2. It is part of the natural carbon cycle on Earth. The more CO2 we pump out, the more Oxygen we get back.

- Al Gore has a law firm that makes money on selling carbon credits. See:

[url=http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover031307.htm]http://www.canadafre...

- 90% of the time on Earth is spent as Ice Ages, we are in an 'interglacial time period'. There will be an Ice Age in 1000 years, or sooner.

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Originally posted by This:

This is my first post to babble. The info I have on this topic can be found yourself if you are curious.

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The "info" you have found on this topic shows that you have absolutely no understanding of climate science and yet through some astounding level of arrogance believe that your couple hours of searching out denier conspiracy theorists makes you more qualified than scientists who 1) actually went to school and have spent years studying how the world works and understanding laws of physics etc and 2) have spent years and sometimes decades researching climate science. That takes a real special kind of arrogance and you have it in spades.

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- Volcanoes, bacteria, animals, and warmer oceans emit CO2. Humans and industry emit 3% of Earth's CO2, a figure not disputed by the UN IPCC

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How many times do I have to read this stupidity? If someone chooses not to attempt to understand the simple differences between types of CO2 emissions then they shouldn't be writing or posting BS. Quite simply you prove here that you don't possess even the most simple understanding of atmospheric ghg levels. So instead of searching out more conspiracy BS you should go back to square one and start at the ground floor. It is like you are trying to write the great Canadian novel but can't read well enough to make it through a "Dick and Jane" book.

Animals emit CO2! Wow! But guess what? Animals don't create carbon!! So how do they get it?? Hmmmm a real mystery. You see what happens is plants take carbon out of atmosphere (in the form of CO2) they convert it and store it as sugars etc. Animals eat the plant transferring that carbon into themselves they then get rid of the carbon by breathing it out into the atmosphere (again in the form of CO2) and then the process repeats itself. In absolutely no way does that lead to an increase in carbon in the atmosphere (please do not continue until you understand that sentence). It is a natural cycle. The same thing goes for bacteria - they don't create carbon nor are they taking carbon that has been out of circulation for hundreds of millions of years and introducing it into the atmosphere. Oil and coal on the other hand take carbon that has been stored deep within the earth for hundreds of millions of years and spew it into the atmosphere. Completely different thing.

Your argument is the equivalent of looking at fountain in a park which has a pool with a 100,000 litres of water in it. The water fountain takes 100 liters out of the pool every minute and sprays it up into the air and it falls back into the pool - yet the water level stays the same because that is just a natural cycle (also some of the water evaporates from the pool and it rains into the pool on occasion so the water level does go up and down slightly but on the whole it stays the same and has over decades). Then one day some ignorant fool - who I will call "This" takes a hose and starts adding 5 or ten liters of water a minute from a well into the pool. Over a week or so the water level starts to rise and it is now about to overflow the sides of the pool. But don't blame "This" because in his deluded mind the fountain is much more to blame.

Volcanoes emit ghgs but the amount is miniscule (at most 4% of what humans emit if my memory serves me).

Yes warmer oceans hold less CO2. It is due to a couple simple gas laws (like Graham's law). To state things in a really basic way if there is more CO2 concentration in the atmosphere than in the ocean then much of it will diffuse into the ocean until there is equilibrium or if there is more CO2 in the ocean then much of it will diffuse into the atmosphere until there is equilibrium (hence why your open pop goes flat - the carbon diffuses into the atmosphere as it goes from a liquid with a very high concentration of CO2 to the atmosphere with a very low concentration). However when the temperature of the liquid increases it loses its ability to hold onto those gases so the equilibrium changes and it is a fear that as the ocean warms further it will lose its ability to absorb much of the CO2 we are currently emitting (I think it absorbs almost half at current) and eventually will actually start emitting CO2 instead of absorbing.

However the implication that many deniers are trying to make that the oceans are emitting CO2 is 100% the opposite of the truth.

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- This past decade has seen increasing worldwide volcanic activity. 70% of volcanoes are under water, hot lava has warmed the oceans, which in turn melts ice. Warmer oceans also have greater evaporation, which leads to more rain and snow (and floods)

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This has got be one of the most idiotic statements ever. Congratulations. Please provide evidence for this increase in volcanic activity. Please provide a calculation showing how much ocean volcanic activity would need to increase to provide the necessary energy to increase the temperature of the ocean. The amount of increased volcanic energy would need to be so high... well lets just say you are a real piece of work. (Not to mention that it wouldn't account for the surface and troposphere temperatures also increasing at the same time).

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- Cities are artificial living environments, black asphalt increases summer temps. Accurate temperatures are rural. The hottest year this past century in rural USA was 1936

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Guess what? In cities we generally measure temperatures not by measuring the temperature of asphalt, but in parks. There is almost no difference between increases in temperatures in urban areas vs rural areas (it is statistically insignificant and in many areas it has been warming faster in rural areas than urban areas - not too mention why is it "This" that the temperatures are rising fastest at the poles where the population is almost nil? Answer me that o-wise one.). Such are the conclusions by about dozen meta-studies looking into urban heat island effect. No deniers have ever been able to show any influence of heat islands. The US is not the whole world and the hottest year for the US was in the 30s - so what? That is the same whether they take all of the US (urban and rural) into account or just rural as the lie you are attempting. Guess what? There was a dust bowl, a massive drought across the continental US at that time. It should be no surprise that temperature were higher then with those conditions. It should be shocking to anyone with a brain that temperatures in the 90's and 00's were almost statistically identical without those extreme continent wide drought like conditions to amplify the temperature.

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- According to a recent BBC article, the UN is predicting this year to be colder

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Oh shit. If it doesn't get hotter each and every successive year then climate change is a fraud right?

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- The role of CO2 in the atmosphere is asymptotic, or a little goes a long way, and more doesn't make much of a difference.

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BS without the ghg's of which CO2 is the main one the temperature of this planet would be more than 30 degrees cooler. Hardly any difference at all.

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A little bit gives us a much needed 6 degrees of global warming, as we have currently. The very most warming that huge amounts of CO2 can give us is an additional 1.5 degrees C.

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Says who? Not the scientists who have spent years studying this. Sure maybe Tim Ball might say this because the note with the wad of cash from the oil companies told him to say that. I have no doubt that Tim Ball doesn't believe a single word he says.

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- The Earth has had 17 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere in the past as at the present level of 380 ppm. The Earth once went in to an Ice Age at 10 times our present level

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Possibly true, but completely irrelevant to current conditions. First of all the Sun used to be at about 75% of its current intensity (and yes I know you will now say "see it is the sun - it is getting hotter" and yes the Sun is getting more intense - it will be about 1% more intense in the next 100 million years or so - relevance to the world right now? None. Relevance to the current problem of climate change? Also none). Much, much higher levels of ghgs would be required to maintain the current temperature. Hence it was also very possible for the earth to go into an ice age with a higher concentration of ghgs than we currently have (Especially as Milankovich cycles influence ice age cycles). But conditions on the earth hundreds of millions of years ago or billions of years ago have about as much relevancy to current life on earth as conditions on mars do. Better would be to look at say the last 100,000 or 150,000 years when the earth had basically the exact same solar intensity and the continents were in basically the exact same locations as they are today. When you look at that it gives a pretty strong warning.

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- Pollution kills, but CO2 has never been a pollutant,

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So what? The Sun isn't a pollutant either and in a couple billion years it is going to completely destroy the planet earth along with the other planets close to it. Water isn't a pollutant but too much of it can kill you. And yes too much CO2 (and it doesn't take much) can kill you.

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trees and all vegetation grow faster with greater concentrations of CO2. It is part of the natural carbon cycle on Earth. The more CO2 we pump out, the more Oxygen we get back.

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Go talk to a farmer. There is more to crop growth than CO2 levels.

And furthermore - why in the hell do you think that it is a good thing for the planet to have more oxygen?

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- Al Gore has a law firm that makes money on selling carbon credits.

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The bastard. Imagine someone discovering a problem and setting up a company to try to help solve said problem.

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- 90% of the time on Earth is spent as Ice Ages, we are in an 'interglacial time period'. There will be an Ice Age in 1000 years, or sooner.

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That's funny - according to this wikipedia article (which I know isn't the greatest source, but a lot better than your source) on Milankovitch cycles another ice age is not expected in the next 50,000 or 100,000 years.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Present_conditions]mila... cycles[/url]

[ 08 May 2008: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]

Rich people have the lifestyle and level of consumption they are assustomed to.

We can be as critical as we feel like of them- and rightfully so.

But if we carry a message in the public- even an implicit one- that if you don't wear a hair shirt then what you do for climate change doesn't count... then start counting down the years until the time of our sojourn on this planet is over.

And practically speaking- its the same for the legions of friends and family we all have who consume way too much by any measure. They may not be rich, but they are just as much a part of the problem, just as much have to change.... and if all they get is guilt trips, most of them won't.

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Humans and industry emit 3% of Earth's CO2, a figure not disputed by the UN IPCC

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I always laugh at this sort of thing Trevormkidd.

The amount of the human contribution to CO2 is higher or lower depending on what is being measured. But in any event, it is seldom measured much higher than 5%. So the deniers say, "our contribution isn't big enough to have an impact!"

Yes, and splitting a tiny atom wouldn't do a darn thing. That tiny microscopic bacteria couldn't possibly hurt you. And PCBs measured in parts per million, what can they do?

It is an asinine argument at best. It is even more asinine as it only looks at the human contribution to GHGs and ignores human destruction of the earth systems that then manage, or at least did manage, GHGs for us.

I have given up arguing with the skeptics as it is a waste of time.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
I have given up arguing with the skeptics as it is a waste of time.

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Well I will always argue that they are not skeptics but deniers. I have long considered myself a skeptic and to me that means that I accept things based on evidence. So in the case of climate change it is simple one side has come with a testible theory that upholds all current evidence, natural laws, makes predictions that can and have been tested etc, etc. The other side has come with nothing. Their claims go against all the evidence. (And at the same time both Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic magazine have each produced two specials on climate change - in each case coming down very strongly on the side of science.)

But the word denier fits well. For instance someone is not a "Holocaust skeptic" because denying the holocaust means denying the evidence. If they were to use any degree of skepticism towards their own position it would fall apart same goes for the climate change deniers.

[ 08 May 2008: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]

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Based on the very predictable Milancovic cycles the next ice age isn't due for another 10,000 to 15,000 years minumum, perhaps as much as 40,000 to 50,000 years.

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But are you not forgetting about the civilization cycle? [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] It is probably a new kid on the block and its operating paramaters are still somewhat uncertain, but it could relegate the Milancovic cycles to a byproduct of civilization, the scrapheap. If we can alter the climate into unpredictabillity, it is not difficult to imagine that the Milancovic cycles might be destined for man induced manipulation in a misguided atempt towards getting global climate control. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

We are getting a fair understanding of what goes on around us, Transplant, but seem to have still little understanding about ourselfs. Sometimes I think that the key to all these messes we get into is a better understanding of ourselfs.

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Or are you suggesting that humans could actually try to alter earth's orbit or tilt of axis?

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I would not put it past us to try that. All we need is to find the lever. And the earth with its atmosphere and oceans with its tides, a magnetic iron core floating in molten rock and a big moon nearby, would suggest that the material to make that lever is not impossible to conceve.

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Originally posted by This:
Here's some homework for anyone interested in becoming well informed on this topic. It's really well written, and understandable. I think most of the important technical questions asked of me are answered in it:

[url=http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html]http://www.middle...

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Yawn. There are 1000s of scientific journals out there - let me know when this clown publishes his amazing global warming is hoax findings in any of them.

He doesn't even allow comments on that page - which to me means he is only interested in telling sheep what to think and not interested in debate. Reminds me more of the likes of Singer and Ball who hide, then respectable "skeptics" like the Pielke's.

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- 90% of the time on Earth is spent as Ice Ages, we are in an 'interglacial time period'.

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While we are certainly in an interglacial of the Pleistocene Ice Age, I'm not sure what you mean by the first statement. If talking about humans (our time on Earth), the figure is either 100% (Homo Sapiens evolved during this ice age) or somewhat less, as even the more recent interglacial periods are considerably longer than 10% of the length of glacial periods between them.

If you are talking about the Earth, ice ages are a very small percentage of the total geologic history of the Earth.

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Originally posted by This:
[b]Here's some homework for anyone interested in becoming well informed on this topic. It's really well written, and understandable.[/b]

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Which does not make any of it correct.

Why is it that those who are in denial about global warming almost [b][i]always[/b][/i] provide links to opinion pieces that offer an interpreted view of the science and almost [b][i]never[/i][/b] provide links to actual scientific papers?

For one thing, the vast majority don't know how to find them.
For another, they don't know how to read and understand them when presented with them.
And for another thing, there are very, very few that support any of their assertions.

But that doesn't prevent them from happily taking someone on the internet's word for it that those who actually do the science, write it up, present it at scientific conferences and publish it in the scientific journals to be critically examined and reviewed by their peers and colleagues don't know what they are talking about.

At first pass it looks like your James A. Peden, who is on Senator Inhofe's list of 'expert' scientists, has assembled the usual denialist arguments and made the usual factual blunders, but since he does indeed hold a Phd in physics he is worth more than a cursory look, so I googled his name and came up with this little [url=http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:9oCAN_jmtIMJ:answers.yahoo.com.au/qu... e-cached[/url] critique of what he wrote:

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Thats two more papers than I surmised by reading part of the article. There are more errors in the paper than I want to list, but the first few are:
1. Peden does not understand PCA and accepts McIntyre's mistaken view uncritically. PCA is basically an eigenvalue method that uses the dot products of all pairs of (normalized) data vectors to form a covariance matrix. The covariance matrix is diagonalized to yield eigenvalues and eigenvectors and the original data vectors can be represented as a linear combination of eigenvectors. If the method works well, most of the variance is explained by the first few eigenvectors. If random data is entered, correlations between data vectors vanishes and a straight line result is expected. The baseline for the pre-industrial period is flat because the data fluctuations are random. Steve McIntyre wasted two years discovering the obvious. He could have arrived at the same result in less time by enrolling in an 1 term undergraduate course in linear algebra. It took me just 2 days to code the PCA algorithm in C++, including the supporting vector and matrix class hierarchy and a GUI.

2. The first figure is poor and the second figure representing the thermal black body curve is wrong. The Planck distribution is well known an not that hard to calculate. As a 'scientist', Peden ought to get this elementary feature right.

3. Peden confuses atomic spectroscopy (electronic transitions) with molecular spectroscopy (vibrational and rotational transitions).

4. Peden does not understand that a saturated absorption broadens and the wings become important. There is no mention of thermal broadening or collision induced broadening.

5. Peden confuses the Van der Waals size of a molecule with its absorption cross section and arrives at an incorrect and misleading result citing Dr. Heinz Hug. Peden ought to have consulted Dr. Gerhard Hertzberg instead who worked out the basic physics 50 years earlier and received a Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions. I suspect that Hug is a proctologist rather than a physicist.

6. Peden then makes the comment "Man-made CO2 doesn't appear physically capable of absorbing much more than
two-thousandths of the radiated heat (IR) passing upward through the atmosphere." which directly contradicts Dr. Hug's experimental data cited immediately before. (Hug does the wrong experiment with an unsuitable instrument and botches the interpretation, but his data is essentially right). In fact, the absorption is quite strong: My spectrometer can follow changes in the local CO2 concentration with every breath of a person standing near the instrument.

7. Peden repeats Dr. Spenser's incorrect estimate of the water vapor contribution to the greenhouse effect. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, but the contribution is more like 75% - 85% rather than 95%. At least Spenser does not make the absurd claim that Peden does to the effect that O2 and N2 are greenhouse gasses. These molecules do absorb in the infrared, but their absorption cross sections are 12 orders of magnitude smaller than the absorption cross sections of greenhouse gasses like H2O and CO2.
8. Oxygen at 35% of the atmosphere??? Fine until there is a little spark.

I find it difficult to conceive of a practicing scientist making so many blunders. Is Peden actually alive, or is someone else abusing a name taken from a tombstone? If he were dead that would explain the lack of papers.

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I'll go through Peden's missive tomorrow and then post my own comments on what he presents at your link.

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[b]Transplant, we got off topic a bit discussing Ice Ages which is my fault for bringing it up. Regarding the Milankovic cycles being used as predictors for Ice Ages. If you look further in to it I think you'll find it was disproven for this back when radiocarbon dating came out. Milankovic’s models ‘predicted’ ice ages at 25,000 and 72,000 years ago, but there are geologic records of 25,000 year old peat (warm time) and ice retreat 72,000 years ago for instance. Other problems with his theories are noted here:[/b]

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If I were you I would be hesitant to quote Sean D. Pitman, MD, on anything seeing as he's a notorious proponent of the pseudoscience known as intelligent design.
One might suspect that as a believer in ID/creationism he has motive to disprove cycles that have periods longer than 6000 years.

Again, why link to a reputable reference when you can grasp at the first wingnut naysayer that google turns up.

[ 11 May 2008: Message edited by: Transplant ]

Once again, This goes not to scientific sources for graphs, data or explanation and interpretation of that data, but to sites operated by those who have already concluded that climate change is bunk and seek out, cherry-pick and collect illustrations of how it is bunk.

Exactly what does This expect to find on such sites, objectivity???

The very first critique point of This's Peden reference that I found and posted above describes how Steven McIntyre is utterly wrong about the statistical technique used to generate Michael Mann's 'hockey stick' graph, yet This accepts McIntyre's critique of Mann's work without question.

Ignorance is a correctable condition. Willful ignorance, on the other hand, is not. Denial is a very powerful psychological defense mechanism when one's ideology or fundamental world view is challenged by reality.

It's crystal clear from his writings here that This is starting from the same conclusion as the references he seeks out, namely that human activity is not causing climate change.

I see no further point in engaging him.

Policywonk, it is clear that This is not at all interested in learning more about the science of climate change. He has consistently demonstrated that he is perfectly happy reading and uncritically regurgitating pseudoscience talking points without making any attempt to understand them. If he had he would have quickly found out that not only are they not right, but that they are not even wrong.

In other words, This is simply trolling.

I agree with the trolling thing, but I just wanted to say that I personally appreciate the info that's given in response to it. It helps a lot when I hear the same sort of comments elsewhere whether netwise or face to face.
There is a lot of 'crap' out there about this issue and it helps when people that have a deeper understanding of the science involved and can point out the the spin and 'crap' for people like me at least.
So a big thank you. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]