Matthew, isn't the admission of a problem the first step toward therapy? Until then almost everything enables. Can't really have it both ways. I think if you have to use a large deisel truck to do your plumbing, that's what you have to do to do your service. That's not the same as driving a large Dodge Ram for pleasure, thinking all the while that it's OK because some climate science denialist says it's just fine, excusing you of any further reason to think about it.

Anyway, I ride scooters/motorbikes to save gas. I started about 5 years ago to do something. I've had a few crashes and broken bones in order to see that through and still persist - plus it's pretty fun. I ride bicycles for fun, recreating and excercize. I have access to a sailboat nearby, so that's a small footprint. I drive my Chevy Aveo as little as possible. I buy organic food and buy green energy since I can't put my own solar panels up being surrounded by trees. Virtually everything I do is thought of in terms of how it affects things. We are all intelligent so why shouldn't we take everything into consideration? The term 'entitled' is getting thrown around a lot these days. I think many people feel entitled to too many things and this affects judgement. When I think about the other animals on the planet and how they have nothing really, and live their entire lives with no extras except the nests they make, I wonder what and why we are doing what we are doing. Our big problem is that we can't see the collective damage we do and it is in the interests of many to hide that damage from us. It could be very different - more sustainable as they say. If people knew how much they were borrowing from the future they would do something. Many changes are being made now and hopefully there will be time to change.

Edited by wildlife on 08/03/2012 00:10:38 MDT.

Rog said:
"The unwavering perspective that matters is that of the ruling committees of the mainstream scientific institutions, which nailed their colours to the mast years ago, and thus gave up science to enter politics"

Craig said:
It's truly entertaining watching you go back to these blanket statements about the scientific community

Many scientists within the scientific community have been continuing to do impartial and objective science. Many of them have resigned from the scientific institutions of which they were formerly members because they object to the administrators who run those institutions making *position statements* on 'global warming' despite the high level of uncertainty on key issues such as the attribution of climate change to specific causes. Hence my reference to ruling committees. This was not a "blanket statement" about 'the scientific community'.

Matthew asked:
"The real questions are; do we spend our resources preventing the change or adapting to the change?"

Nail on the head.
Given that we have not a clue whether the climate is going to remain warm, get warmer or get cooler, the only sensible policy to invest in is that of readiness for change, whichever direction that change takes.

In deciding how much of a priority determining policy and spending levels for climate change should be, we need better assessments which are made against data which are produced in accordance with agreed standards. That is standard practice in other areas of science and policy activity and climate science should not be exempt.

There was a strong push from the interested parties to railroad the public into massive spending and lifestyle change during the period when the temperature measurments seemed to indicate a rapidly accelerating change in climate. But for the last decade, the measured surface temperature has changed very little, apart from years when natural phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have been dominant.

Also during this period, it has come to light that there has been a goodly amount of data bending going on with the temperature records in many countries. The recent scandal in New Zealand is a good exemplar. This matter is now before the courts. Furthermore, the theory on which the claim that human activity has strongly influenced surface temperature is based have been taking a lot of hits as science moves on and makes new discoveries.

Cardellini et al's 2011 empirical work on measuring the co2 emission from old lava fields in central Italy at 9 Giga-tons a year is a case in point. This calls into question the assumption that humans are responsible for all the increase in airborne co2 since the 50's, which is based on theoretical calculations which put the *global* emission of co2 from volcanic sources at 0.138 giga-tons a year - nearly 100 times less than *a small part of Italy*

Science progresses, new facts are discovered, old tired theories sometimes need to be discarded. But when politics and money rule science, dogma trumps truth. We need to embrace new knowledge, not be in denial of it in order to suit a political or emotional agendas.

I care about our environment and it grieves me to see the environmental lobby hitching its horse to the global warming bandwagon. When the theory falls, as it will, the environmental movement will suffer in the backlash. We need to be dealing with real environmental issues, not tilting with windmills.

The politicians love 'global warming' because it gives them a platform to make high sounding speeches about saving the planet while reaping tax and doing nothing. If the co2 emissions really were a serious threat, the 170 Billion Euro which disappeared into the fat cats pockets could have replaced the European continent's fleet of coal fired power stations with gas turbines and cleaner coal fired plants using the latest flue emission technology and cut co2 emissions across the continent by 40% or more. It would also have solved the unemployment crisis. We could even have put a lot more solar panels on roofs to keep people like Dan happy too.

"Many scientists within the scientific community have been continuing to do impartial and objective science. Many of them have resigned from the scientific institutions of which they were formerly members because they object to the administrators who run those institutions making *position statements* on 'global warming' despite the high level of uncertainty on key issues such as the attribution of climate change to specific causes. Hence my reference to ruling committees. This was not a "blanket statement" about 'the scientific community"

ruling committee or community, the verbiage matters not - your insight seems to rely heavily on the same dismissive gestures time & time again. Sweet, but the vast infrastructure that is set out to shed light on these matters? You don't have the capacity to appreciate every nuance - hence why your insight about human ego/politics being postured as the dominant engine behind discovery is tired as phvck

"Many of them have resigned from the scientific institutions of which they were formerly members because they object to the administrators who run those institutions making *position statements* on 'global warming' despite the high level of uncertainty on key issues such as the attribution of climate change to specific causes."

Can you name some?

Many?

So it sounds like the 'old' lava fields of the world have suddenly started emitting CO2 when they hadn't before 1950? If this is all true, it seems that CO2 levels would have risen before now. You keep pushing these carts of stuff out for us to sniff Rog and I don't buy it.

I actually/really had a conversation with an acquantence this morning that is over here from France and she said that is was in their news that Gulf Stream changes have been what is bringing all the rain to the UK and northern France. I have not heard about this so I will look into that a bit. That is the sort of thing that has been predicted with Climate Change. Let's call it what it is Rog. It's Climate Change - it's not a straight line 'Warming'. She also said that people do not talk about Climate Change there either for the most part.

And Rog, you try to make it look like we don't have an accurate fix on how much C02 humans are producing. You expect people to believe that? What we might not have a fix on is the amount of methane being given off by thawing Tundra in the Arctic. I'll bet that's a bit more sizeable than ancient frozen Lava Fields.

I found this article at Rog's website that shows there may have been substantial glacier melt in Greenland in the 1930s. Right from the start though, the author points out that there is a difference between the primarily atmospheric melting back then and current melting which is more ocean AND atmosphere oriented. I think we could even say this may point to an anomolas difference in weather in the 1930s and a difference in climate now. I will read the article later to see just where the author's bias is. Does he just use the prior melting pattern to show that melting has gone on before and therefore the current melting is no big deal? I'm wondering if he glosses over the qualitative difference that he makes in his intro statement;

"Furthermore, the recent retreat was
matched in its vigour during a period of warming in the 1930s with comparable increases in air temperature. We show that
many land-terminating glaciers underwent a more rapid retreat in the 1930s than in the 2000s, whereas marine-terminating
glaciers retreated more rapidly during the recent warming."

http://nyheder.ku.dk/alle_nyheder/2012/2012.5/gletsjere_gronland_klimaforandringer/ngeo1481.pdf

Certainly it can be shown that sea level rise and ocean warming was not the issue back then that it is now - that these are in fact very different types of melting. Certainly the period of melting in the 30s came to and end. Currently it is open-ended and accelerating.

Edited by wildlife on 08/03/2012 14:56:18 MDT.

My computer works so had getting to page 133 of this post that the lights in my house dim.

We've found the enemy and it is us.

Keep that humor going to lighten things up Daryl. :>) Hey, maybe the authorities here could just erase everything except 20 pages or so and just keep the most current pages going - a galloping running 20 pages. It would be helpful to not have to maintain so much. What say ya'll?

On a lighter note, how about some mountaineering on Mars? How many will be hoping for a safe landing this weekend? It will be amazing if they pull this one off.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/7-minutes-of-terror-curiosity/68906

Edited by wildlife on 08/03/2012 18:54:23 MDT.

Dan,

Humor?

OK, try this.

My brother-in-law worked for Weyerhauser (sp?) and was at an employee picnic. One of his co-workers was getting a lot of puzzled/confused looks with the tee shirt he was wearing. In big letters it said "EARTH FIRST".

In small letters it said "then we'll log the other planets".

Daryl

"On a lighter note, how about some mountaineering on Mars? How many will be hoping for a safe landing this weekend? It will be amazing if they pull this one off."

I am definitely going to have my fingers crossed.

So a probe travelling at 15,000 miles an hour is going to enter the atmosphere of mars and decelerate to zero in 7 minutes.

In the later stages it will be lowered to the surface on tethers by a rocket powered sled.

The thing is the size and weight of a small car!

While i fully believe the robotic exploration of Mars will suffice for now, i would completely volunteer for a manned mission even if the return journey was not guaranteed.

Imagine; the first thru hike of the Valles Marineris ( A canyon deeper than the GC and nearly the length of the US) .. Exploring subterrainian caverns of another world (what lies beneath a world when the oceans evaporate?).. the summit of Olympus Mons (The solar sytems largest extinct volcano)...

I love the Earth but i have only a short time left here.
I would be totally okay with spending the rest of my time exploring another world.

Yes, i am very excited about Mars as well as Saturns moon Titan (Liquid Methane seas and hydrocarbon rain in a thicker than earth atmosphere) to say nothing of Enceladus and also Europa around Jupiter (Moon wide Oceans beneath an icy crust)

Most likely i shall be pushing up daisies before man sets foot on any one of those worlds.

For now, good luck to the Curiosity rover and may the trail gods shine upon it.

I'm amazed at just how quickly the time has past since launch! It's almost better than the Olympics. It's good to hear somebody express a love for Earth. I just finished the 78 episodes of Battlestar Gallactica and their search for Earth and I enjoyed the aspect of timelessness it put forward - This has all happened before the Cylones kept saying. It was funny how they had no way of distinguishing the Cylones from Humans. This is where I segue into wondering why people can't seem to tell the difference between AGW and some kind of natural warming. LOL. Anyway, yes Earth, gotta love it!

I'll have to post a link to a poster I have of astronauts skiing on Titan. The mechanics of consciousness and awareness is interesting to think about - how and where it pops up. We could end up in another Galaxy next time around and wouldn't even know it. Another Universe?

Edited by wildlife on 08/03/2012 23:18:54 MDT.

I would be happy to come back as a butterfly...
Dreaming it was a man...
Dreaming it was a butterfly.

The most incredible gift of humankind, as far as I can tell, is our capacity to imagine.

Post Script: I was going to add skiing on mars to my first post (as if spelunking was not enough) but i did not want to undermine my credibility for a manned mission.. LOL.

Edited by Ice-axe on 08/03/2012 23:29:37 MDT.

"I love the Earth but i have only a short time left here.
I would be totally okay with spending the rest of my time exploring another world."

But, Matthew, just think about how long it would take to get a gear package by UPS.

--B.G.--

@ Bob Gross .. Hadn't thought of that.. How ever will i get my "Astronaut freeze dried Neopolitan sandwich" then?

Actually i thought of that..

Resupplies would be dropped from orbit at pre-determined locations.
Similar to earth you can drop light packages from altitude and they reach a terminal velocity depending on surface area.
Either you decelerate packages from orbit or you deliver them from a derigible in the atmosphere itself.
O2 and sustenance would be dropped at 15 KM intervals along the length of the Valles Marineris and located by radio transmitter proximity triggered smoke signals.
If i miss one i can still make it to the second or even the third before i die.

Yes, i have alredy been there.. in my mind.

The payoff for humankind would be the nuances of humankind... 98.6 degree humankind.

Edited by Ice-axe on 08/04/2012 00:04:56 MDT.

Maybe Carbon Flame War is Cylon for Love Fest. Do you guys remember Space Food Sticks? They where like a Soft Tootsie Rolls - early 70s bivi food.

"Space Food Sticks"

Absolutely. I purchased them until around 1980.

Then around 1990, I found a bunch of them in the pantry. I didn't stop to think how stale they must be. Yuck.

--B.G.--

@ Dan..
While i live in the People's Republic of California.. don't push it.. LOL!

I'm Californian through and through and proud of it! Hale Senior Brown!

Here's tha link to Titan Base. Sorry it's got the Company name in it - am really not trying to advertise - am just lonely. I took the pic and everything, after having too tall Rainiers.....yes, I climbed Mt Rainier twive tonight to pull off this task.

http://mchalepacks.com/ultralight/detail/Titan%20Base.htm

At least it says ultralight. Daryl will get a kick out of that!

It's reminds me of a Bev Doolittle - there's probably monsters hiding in the snow over there.

Edited by wildlife on 08/04/2012 01:19:41 MDT.

Dan says:
So it sounds like the 'old' lava fields of the world have suddenly started emitting CO2 when they hadn't before 1950?

If that was the case then a huge carbon sink would have had to start operating at the same time to absorb all but a couple of extra parts per million each year.

Dan says:
And Rog, you try to make it look like we don't have an accurate fix on how much C02 humans are producing. You expect people to believe that?

Human emission is calculated from the amount of coal, oil and gas produced. The issue here is how much nature is producing and re-absorbing. We understand a lot less about the rest of the carbon cycle (95% + of it) than we thought we did.

Dan says:
What we might not have a fix on is the amount of methane being given off by thawing Tundra in the Arctic.

Satellite measurements have a pretty god fix on that actually. Here's the graph:



As you can see Dan, the increase of methane in the atmosphere during the global warming period is very small (measured in parts per billion rather than per million), and decelerating. Your rhetoric isn't matched by reality. You are no different from most other global warming pundits in this respect.

Dan says:
Certainly it can be shown that sea level rise and ocean warming was not the issue back then that it is now.

Sea level rise has been slowing since 2003, back towards the 1.7mm/year it has been at since the end of the little ice age. The Romans had bigger problems with rapid sea level rise than we had. Check out the archaeological history of ports such as Ravenna.

Edited by tallbloke on 08/04/2012 01:23:36 MDT.

You are amazing Rog. I'll just leave it at that and get back to the Cylon love fest. The Romans had a problem with sea level rise because of all the corpses they threw in the Ocean.

Post Script for Matthew; I was going to mention stale Space food sticks - I swear to Gods! (That's a Battlestar God joke)

Edited by wildlife on 08/04/2012 01:32:25 MDT.

Lol. I'll be visiting the padded cell in October Dan. the Royal Society has invited me to participate in a conference on problems in predicting weather and climate.

They have done that because they realise that although sceptics have been a thorn in their side, we are actually quite well clued up on sorting fact from groupthink and have a contribution to make to the study of climate science.