Happy Atheist Forum

What? Still no topic on this?

Of all the stupid things for politicians to oppose this issue has got to be the most dangerous... if it's true. From what I hear there are some meteorologists who oppose it (although I suspect they are politically motivated). I want to cut away from all the biased crap and rubbish in the media. What are the leading experts saying on the matter? What is the most persuasive evidence of Global Warming? Anybody know of the most credible sources on the matter?

The problem, as always, is that someone decides to take a scientific issue and throw it into the arena of politics. What started out as worrying trends in global climate ended up with a very stupid label of "global warming"â€"an insanely horrible oversimplification and misrepresentation of what's really going onâ€"which is then spoon fed from one side, the left, with no real scientific arguments, which triggers the right to go on the offensive because god forbid (can I use that on an atheist forum?) the other side ever be right about anything. Now it's this big stupid mess where the right is screaming that there's no consensus and pressuring scientists to back up their bull crap denial while the left moves center on the issue because that's what they do in the US.

Global climate fluctuations caused both directly and indirectly by things like the industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels and domestication of animals is here. We're at 390 ppm of CO2, which is above the 350 ppm that's supposed to be our ceiling, and there's about a 30 year lag time on the effects of greenhouse gases. It would seem that, when we really, honestly ask the scientists and experts, there's a consensus. Unfortunately, this is lost in the noise of the politically framed debate between pundits and curiously well funded think tanks and politicians.

Gavin Schmidt (climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute) and Joshua Wolfe (photographer) authored a book, Climate Change: Picturing the Science (http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-Picturing-Gavin-Schmidt/dp/0393331253), recently which has photograph after photograph of the effects of climate change. It's probably the strongest and most breathtaking evidence you can present to people. I strongly recommend checking it out at your local public library if you can.

What I don't like about this "global warming" thing is that it has been taken out of the scientific community, moved into political area and mutated into a kind of religion. When I saw the documentary "An inconvenient truth", I was shocked about the Doomsday scenario that Al Gore presented us. So, I  went on a search to figure out the truth behind the "Inconvenient truth". What I found out was that most of the claims in the documentary had been debunked over and over again by many meteorologists, who were not willing to give up their scientific integrity. That some of their arguments have been debunked by meteorologists, who happen to believe in the global warming, only shows me that 1. there is no mutual consensus among meteorologists about "global warming" and 2. we are not able [yet] to create accurate computer models to predict climate changes and what causes them.

Yes, the current debate is weird as hell - very hard to figure out who's correct. I've heard scientists on both sides lecture on this. The best I can tell is - yes, C02 levels are up but it is not known with certainty whether humans play a significant part in that buildup or whether it's just a naturally occurring cycle/process or what the long term effects are, correct?

Ditto that politics driving this is issue is TOTAL BS!!! An independent counsel of scientists needs to inform the politicians what is certain and what's not. If man is causing an unnatural climate shift then we are all going to be paying through the nose to stop it which is fine - IF.

I'm not sure about this.  The scientists are divided, and not a few think it's bunkum.  Meanwhile the public has been whipped into a frenzy by the media and, as Tom said, it's mutated into a kind of religion.
I've seen these panics before, seen them come and go.  Not too long ago we were worried about global cooling.
However it seems to me that we need to behave as if it's true.  Not only on the precautionary principle - the stakes are pretty high - but because we need to stop squandering our precious resources.
There are so many things for which our limited and insecure oil supply is really vital, yet we burn it as if there were no tomorrow.  Burning coal pollutes the air, and we still haven't decided how to dispose of our nuclear waste.
So when I turn on my lights I really don't know whether I will warm the planet via the CO2 I'm indirectly producing, but I do expect that my grandchildren will suffer for lack of the resources I'm squandering now.

I don't know... i would call myself a skeptic on this topic. Globaling warming is potentially a problem but is blown way out of proportion by people not even in the scientific community. Many do not speak out because people will simply call them stupid etc just like the red scare where people who questioned things were deemed commies or after 911 when people who questions bush were un-american. I just want the debate to be civil and weigh the possibilities so we can get sensible solutions. Here are some skeptics: http://www.cato.org/special/climatechan ... rsion.html (http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/alternate_version.html)

We were talking about this at work today actually. One of the guys showed me this magazine ad from 1962. How things have changed.

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage3.examiner.com%2Fimages%2Fblog%2FEXID29137%2Fimages%2Fhumble_oil.jpg&hash=e49050d2c5c7d6679dcf2e002af90e0b2f1b325a)

It's kind of ironic I think.

It seems only fair to link the post (http://www.examiner.com/x-29137-Tallahassee-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2009m11d19-Big-Oil-melting-glaciers-since-1962) it's from. The blog post is not necessarily representative of my opinion.

Thanks for the input everyone.

While I don't doubt the climate is changing I just don't know if we're responsible for it. Although the logic seems almost too simple that if CO2 is being trapped in the atmosphere and we're putting out CO2, then, uhh.....

Hi Sophus,
First of all thanks to you for providing two links on global warming. As far as science is concern and if the topic is global warming, it always fascinates me. You are looking for some deep information on global warming. Few months before I received a document on my e-mail regarding the global warming. Let me try to find it out as it is no longer in my in-box. If I find it, I will share on this forum. Thanks,

Did ya'll hear that Obama is skipping Copenhagen?

http://blametheotherguy.blogspot.com/20 ... imate.html (http://blametheotherguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/obama-wont-attend-copenhagen-climate.html)

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/ ... openhagen/ (http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20091026_climate_expert_to_obama_come_to_copenhagen/)

Here is some info from MMCC skeptics:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -data.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229740/Hackers-expose-global-warming-Claims-leaked-emails-reveal-research-centre-massaged-temperature-data.html)

Emails hacked showing the numbers have been 'messaged'. Looks like a lot of massaging is going on  both ways and that's what all the confusion is about?

Also this:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/ ... paper.html (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html)

and:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125686509223717691.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125686509223717691.html)

I also find it interesting that the Bush administration came around on the issue.

Quote from: "prestonwatson"Hi Sophus,
First of all thanks to you for providing two links on global warming. As far as science is concern and if the topic is global warming, it always fascinates me. You are looking for some deep information on global warming. Few months before I received a document on my e-mail regarding the global warming. Let me try to find it out as it is no longer in my in-box. If I find it, I will share on this forum. Thanks,

Thanks! Look forward to it.

Another source is the CFL System Study. I know Doug Barbour, and have spoken with him at length about this. Hoping to get aboard the Amundsen someday for a looksie and to volunteer to help with a little primary research. Information on it here:

Doug Barbour's photo site (Doug is the brother of lead researcher Dave Barbour, and is himself, a professional photographer, hence my connection to Doug).

http://dougbarberphotography.com/index.html (http://dougbarberphotography.com/index.html)

And link to the CFL System Study site. Be sure to check out the book preview "Two Ways of Knowing". It's awesome. I just bought a couple of the books for our high school (friend is an Earth Science teacher there), and myself. The things that these folks worked so hard to get accomplished are amazing!

http://ipy-cfl.ca/index.html (http://ipy-cfl.ca/index.html)

I'm also going to see if our high school will pony up the money to participate in their "Schools on Board" program. We'll see.

realclimate.org's response to the CRU email hack:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... -cru-hack/ (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/)

Some hacked emails published (from a AGW skeptic's view)
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... -scam.html (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/hackers-prove-global-warming-is-scam.html)

Out of curiosity: how do scientists claim to know the temperatures from hundreds as well as thousands of years ago?  

Quote from: "Sophus"Out of curiosity: how do scientists claim to know the temperatures from hundreds as well as thousands of years ago?  

Studies of strata, maybe? I could be wrong though. I'm not a geologist.

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Everyone wants to continue their way of life and keep procreating. As long as this trend continues, we're fucked. I get frustrated when i hear the media trying to create an argument against global warming as if there is something there to argue about in the first place.

Any biologist worth their salt will have cultured bacteria on a petri dish in agar. They will also have seen how a culture begins exponential growth, experiences a lag phase, then dies out as the resources dwindle. The ever-increasing levels of toxin created by their own waste, finite resources and the limited space in which to live cements their eventual downfall. Human population growth is identical to this process, just a little bigger. We are currently on the upward exponential growth phase. Our population has yet to stabilise. It is up to us to stabilise it artificially or let our environment do it for us.
It is amazing the amount of experiments which can be performed in a lab which mimick macro events on the micro scale. These tried-and-tested methods give us understanding of complex processes and help us predict future trends. Scientists have been out there for decades predicting this stuff and entire governments have been ignoring it wholesale.

It's not just global warming. I could literally give thousands of examples of how humans are steadily decreasing their own ability to survive on the planet but i can't be arsed. It's late. What i will say, though, is that all minor environmental effects are cumulative. A good example would be the Aral sea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea)
The fallout from this disaster only goes to prove how fragile ecological systems are and how dependent humans are on it.

I don't think this situation terrifies people enough.

Quote from: "Sophus"Out of curiosity: how do scientists claim to know the temperatures from hundreds as well as thousands of years ago?  

I think the most common way is ice cores in places like greenland

Just like tree rings, really, -icecores you can quite literally tell how cold was the year 232341BC.

And if there is a weakness in one core, there are multiple cores to compare and compute against each other.

This would be directly taken out of Al Gores film!




Overall the thing that strikes me about the climate change debate is how oversimplified it is, as Will said. Honestly, even if climate change is less anthropologically caused than is the current scientific consensus (bar a few dissenters), there are still so many other disasters that we are not doing enough to avoid. We are running out of oil. We are losing our freshwater reserves. We are running out of minerals. Climate Change or no Climate Change, something is going to give, and if we don't take action to avert it, it will result in starvation, bloodshed and misery.

Just my two cents worth :p

Anybody read Not By Fire but By Ice? Here's a little tid bit:

http://americandaily.com/index.php/article/2950 ..... thoughts?

moved this thread.

Quote from: "Sophus"Out of curiosity: how do scientists claim to know the temperatures from hundreds as well as thousands of years ago?  

I know that it's actually studies from glaciers that give scientists a good idea about global temperatures. Coring into the ice from various glaciers give an idea about the temperatures going back millions of years. Less ice layered more warmth more ice layered more cold. It's all really scientific. Check this out about how ice coring works in relation to temperature. http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/MoreInfo/Ice_Cores_Past.html

It's kinda sad that our best resource for looking into past temperatures and things like asteroids and things like volcanoes erupting and what not are being destroyed while we sit here and debate global warming.

One more non response post

Earth Now
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.beachbrowser.com%2FCool-Stuff%2Fimages%2Fearth_map.jpg&hash=bfcdce772642d0b2b5da057c6ce90f02a6f27d05)

Earth After
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvrstudio.buffalo.edu%2F%7Edepape%2Fwarming%2FworldMap.jpg&hash=f31dda9c17af196c6912870c9a436888e3a5caac)

North America
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvrstudio.buffalo.edu%2F%7Edepape%2Fwarming%2FamericaMap.jpg&hash=d57f7973f8e13ad736d961157daf55acd73c26d2)

http://vrstudio.buffalo.edu/~depape/warming/100meter.html

Just some maps that show how the earth could change if the ice really does melt.

Reviving a thread from the early years of this site. It's possible that the large lacuna here may be due in part to the lost content event about ten years ago. Extreme thread necromancy. Too extreme? Maybe.  :snicker1:

Also maybe-- some good news. Maybe not though and we'll await further pertinent information. Were I the headline editor I'd have inserted weasel words: "appears to have"

"Capturing carbon from the air just got easier" | EurekAlert! (https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061894)

QuoteCapturing and storing the carbon dioxide humans produce is key to lowering atmospheric greenhouse gases and slowing global warming, but today's carbon capture technologies work well only for concentrated sources of carbon, such as power plant exhaust. The same methods cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, where concentrations are hundreds of times lower than in flue gases.

Yet direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO2 levels, which have reached 426 parts per million (ppm), 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won't reach humanity's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preexisting global averages.

A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions. The porous material — a covalent organic framework (COF) — captures CO2 from ambient air without degradation by water or other contaminants, one of the limitations of existing DAC technologies.

"We took a powder of this material, put it in a tube, and we passed Berkeley air — just outdoor air — into the material to see how it would perform, and it was beautiful. It cleaned the air entirely of CO2. Everything," said Omar Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and senior author of a paper that will appear online Oct. 23 in the journal Nature.

"I am excited about it because there's nothing like it out there in terms of performance. It breaks new ground in our efforts to address the climate problem," he added.

[Continues . . . (https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061894)]

Of course the paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08080-x) is behind a paywall.

QuoteAbstract:

Capture of CO₂ from the air offers a promising approach to addressing climate change and achieving carbon neutrality goals. However, the development of a durable material with high capacity, fast kinetics and low regeneration temperature for CO₂ capture, especially from the intricate and dynamic atmosphere, is still lacking.

Here a porous, crystalline covalent organic framework (COF) with olefin linkages has been synthesized, structurally characterized and post-synthetically modified by the covalent attachment of amine initiators for producing polyamines within the pores. This COF (termed COF-999) can capture CO₂ from open air.

COF-999 has a capacity of 0.96 mmol g^–1 under dry conditions and 2.05 mmol g^–1 under 50% relative humidity, both from 400 ppm CO₂. This COF was tested for more than 100 adsorption–desorption cycles in the open air of Berkeley, California, and found to fully retain its performance. COF-999 is an exceptional material for the capture of CO₂ from open air as evidenced by its cycling stability, facile uptake of CO₂ (reaches half capacity in 18.8 min) and low regeneration temperature (60 °C).

Carbon capture is interesting. Nature itself does it in form of forests. Of course, when the trees die and rot, they release that captured carbon back into the cycle. However, should they become chairs and bed frames and roof beams before such time... Those can hold on to their carbon for a very long time indeed.

Of course, planting and chopping down and replanting forests comes with its own set of challenges, and I suspect depletes the soil in the long run. A chemical (colloquially speaking) solution is probably called for.

Still, my money is kind-of on atmospheric seeding of the more reflective variety.

On a cold and miserable day in England, I can't help thinking climate change is a good idea.

https://theconversation.com/the-uk-and-irelands-climate-was-tropical-26-million-years-ago-heres-why-that-matters-now-238467

A possible result of climate change/global warming is the collapse of the Gulf Stream (https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/key-atlantic-current-could-collapse-soon-impacting-the-entire-world-for-centuries-to-come-leading-climate-scientists-warn). Paradoxically, that would result in the climate in the UK becoming more extreme, including colder winters.


If any chemistry geeks are reading, I found access to the paper in my post above. Properly it would go in the "Materials Science" thread but . . .

The full paper is available at the Yahgi Laboratory site (https://yaghi.berkeley.edu/publications.html). Currently it's the top paper in the "2024" section, click the "Full Article" link to get access with a token. I was looking for any information regarding practical application of covalent organic frameworks like COF-999. The paper doesn't address that except for a comment at the end:

Quote[T]he scalability of this COF and the design of a practical device will be an important priority for future implementation of these materials.

As of yesterday we are on track for 3 degrees rise by end of century.
https://www.politico.eu/article/united-nations-emissions-gap-global-warming-data-climate-change-report/#:~:text=With%20the%20policies%20currently%20in,2.6C%20and%202.8C.

It should compensate for the Gulf Stream switch off.

I'm so looking forward to COP29 in Baku.
https://unfccc.int/cop29
Delegates enjoy your business class flights, your 5 star hotels and your wining and dining, then come home having achieved more promises.

Quote from: zorkan on October 25, 2024, 01:28:26 PMAs of yesterday we are on track for 3 degrees rise by end of century.
https://www.politico.eu/article/united-nations-emissions-gap-global-warming-data-climate-change-report/#:~:text=With%20the%20policies%20currently%20in,2.6C%20and%202.8C.

It should compensate for the Gulf Stream switch off.

That could happen (https://archive.ph/t0Gtf):

QuoteThe loss of this warm water would obviously result in a cool down in Northern Europe. But calculations indicate that the shutdown isn't likely to take place until after the planet had warmed enough to offset this cooling.

Or it could go differently:

Quote from: ibidThe underlying scenario here—the complete shutdown of the AMOC and thereby the Gulf Stream by midcentury—is likely to be science fiction. But the work indicates that one of the ideas about what would happen isn't: Europe really would cool down enough to more than offset the warming climate by the end of the century.

So a roll of the dice--maybe it'll be fine.  8)

Prediction is very difficult, especially the future.
From 2010.
https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/218537/Dawn-of-a-new-ice-age

From 2017.
https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-predict-mini-ice-age-could-hit-uk-by-2030-11186098

Yes.

It's difficult to identify all the variables involved and then figure out which variables matter to what degree. From there, even small discrepancies early in the model may result in huge [compounding] discrepancies at the moment of comparison. That's mostly why ye meteorological forecast charts tend to balloon like the Big Bang the further you are from t=0.

On the subject of the Big Bang, where did all the energy come from to cause it?

One hypothesis is colliding cosmic membranes.

Yeah... More questions than answers. It is kind-of fascinating though.

Any clue as to why bouncing branes appear to produce only energy in all its different forms.
What is all the energy for?
Average temperature of the universe is what?
"It has a temperature of 2.735 K (-270.415°C)."

Could we be living in "god's" fridge?

I don't think thinking of it as a "fridge" is particularly helpful.

If you assume that you start with nothing - no energetic interractions of any kind - then you are at absolute zero. Add a photon, propagating it's merry way through space, and you have added a measure of energy - a temperature to it. Most of the Universe is ass-numbingly cold in our reference frame because very little happens there, as judged from the sum total of our perspective.. (As in, a lot still does happen, but there is generally "more stuff that does stuff" at the point between these *point* two hairs on my forearm than at a similarly-sized point somewhere between the Sun and Betelgeuse)

The energy is not for anything. It exists, and due to its existence, things like matter can arise.

Take your seats for David Attenborough's new flick called Ocean.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0wjxg0ex1o

However, The 94-year-old says his "heart was sinking deeper into my boots" every time he boarded a plane. In his lifetime, it has been estimated Sir David has travelled 1.9 million miles – the equivalent of flying around the world 763 times – and has made almost 400 trips to 94 different countries. As at 8 Dec 2020.