I'm going to stick my chin out there so DU'ers can take a swing at it for the umpteenth time...

I tend to keep my opinion to myself when it comes to "global warming" "global climate change" and the notion that parasites the likes of humans can make such an impact on an ecosystem the size of the earth so as to cause it to come to an end.

I do that for good reason as far as I'm concerned; Here at DU, if you're not totally on board with the notion that humans are causing climate change to the degree that all life on this planet will cease to exist in short order due to the actions of said humans, you're not only a "denier", you're a total ass, and your opinions are not only suspect, but possibly and most likely biased to the point of being paid for by someone who has a stake in CAUSING said end of human existence on this planet.

Phil Jones now says that his scientific pronouncements stem from flawed scientific methodology, specifically faulty record-keeping.

What. the. Fuck?

In his own words... "for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming". No wonder the ass has admitted to contemplating suicide.

Forgive me for being a skeptic, or not. I will though, since I'm just as good a "scientist" as Phil Jones, put forth this hypothesis concerning "global warming", "global climate change", or whatever it might be called next week or next year in order to make the description describe the claim: Tectonic shift which happens every second of every day of every week of every month of every year is causing the GROUND TEMPERATURE of Terra Firma to rise due to the proximity of magma to the earth's crust to such a degree as to warm the oceans from UNDERNEATH, therefore causing 5,000 foot thick glaciers to break due to less than 1 degree Fahrenheit rises in ambient air temperature.

Beat me up for what I think... Ask that I be banned from DU, even though I can't find anything in the rules that says I MUST be onboard with the notion that "global warming", "global climate change", or any other reason to believe that the snow I'm dealing with today is because of a change in climate SOMEWHERE ELSE even though 5' of snowfall happens where I live every 40 years or so. CONSTANTLY.

Wanna discredit ME? Discredit PHIL JONES first. Fair enough?

Thanks.

That's why the bark beetles have been so prevalent, correct?

5 feet in one day? You are just overdue, that's all.

But it sounds like the UP of Mich, not the mountains north of Sanberdoo.

Big Bear Lake is a man-made lake whose dam was first built in the latter part of the 19th century in order to form a collection point for water intended to irrigate citrus crops in the Redlands area.

It has no feed other than annual rainfall and runnoff from snow melt. No stream or river feeds Big Bear Lake. Currently it's a little less than five feet below its MAXIMUM level. Estimates are that after the spring rains following winter snow, water will have to be released from the dam into the Santa Ana River.

We're talking historically here. The lake has been low, really really low in the past. Mud puddle low. Now, a lake in the So. Cal. mountains which has NO natural feed other than runnoff is going to be FULL no later than April 1st. It's been a natural ebb and flow since the late 1800s.

I eat bark beetles for lunch.

we don't do the Earth service with the junk we are putting into the air, the water, and the soil. I think I am going to have to agree with George Carlin....."Save the planet? If the Earth wants to, it can shake us off like a bad case of fleas. Just another failed species."

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has ever, even once, ever said that "Global Warming" would end all life on earth.

It's very likely not going to end the human race.

What it means is the earth is changing, our environment is changing, and we are the likely cause. It will mean the end to a great number of species, and the diminishing of others, and the flourishing of even others (the jellyfish are doing quite nicely right now). What it means is that the planet that we have inhabited for 1000s of years, and, over the last few thousand, done quite nicely on, is not going to be the same as we have known for all of recorded human history. And we likely won't sustain 6 billion of us on this new planet, and we won't live in the same areas that our forefathers inhabited.

It means the displacement (already happening, btw) of millions of people. And a change in the way of life for millions if not billions. Some will do alright, some will not.

And, yes, humans can and do have an affect on our environment. Do you hear wolves or coyotes howl at night? Most of us don't, but 200 years ago, most of us DID. Where are the thundering herds of buffalo on the plains of the midwest? You think they just sort of got lost somewhere? Humans did that. We changed things. And we are continuing to change things.

Those that don't accept this notion are dense beyond words.

Wow. I guess that as a scientist, your mind is made up and there is no room for discussion.

The earth changes EVERY MINUTE. You're telling me that humans are fueling that change and are the only impetus for the same.

I hear coyotes howl EVERY NIGHT.

you put that on them.



Aside:
A very, VERY small percentage of the people living in the lower 48 has ever heard a coyote howl in any natural environment at any time in their lives.

Your world is not the whole world.

She is in Oklahoma.

So what.

I didn't say that there are no coyotes left.

But there numbers are smaller (much smaller) than they were 200 years ago. Your sisters experience was almost EVERYONE'S experience before the white man arrived on this continent and established towns and cities. Now, it's only the experience of the small minority of us who live in rural areas.

As for wolves...

I hear coyotes nearly every night.

Sit back, take a deep breath, and ask yourself what a "natural environment" is. Is a "natural environnment" a place where humans have NEVER tread? Or is a "natural environment" simply the "environment"?

My world is INDEED the "whole world".

and we have since the dawn of civilization. We gotten much much better at in in the last 200 years.

Those that don't accept this notion as true are dense beyond all hope.

Of course humans are not the only thing changing the earth (and, possibly, it's environment). But to deny that human change can and is happening, is, well, dense beyond words.

Good that you hear coyotes howl every night. I'll write congress and tell them that all is well in the world. There is no climate change, the coyotes are doing great, so are the polar bears and the wolves and all the other creatures that inhabit this planet. A DUer named CherokeeProgressive told me so. California cannot be in a drought because it had a good winter (at least in southern California). All is well. No need to worry about water resources anymore, the reservoirs are full! Need I add :sarcasm:

...explanation of Global Warming/Climate Change. Maybe it will make sense to you.

The thing is... whether you choose to believe it, or not... doesn't mean it will stop happening. You may as well err on the side of caution, don't you think?

on global warming, or global climate change.

Tell me that Bill Nye isn't your only source of information...

But, yes, I swear to GOD that I've already changed my lifestyle in an effort to minimize my negative effect on the world around me.

We brush our teeth using no more than a cup of water.
My wife and I only flush the toilet when we poo, NOT when we pee.
Showers in our house last no longer than 5 minutes.

Seems an awful waste of time to me. Those scientists are all full of poo! The earth does what it does. What we do doesn't matter. So, flush away, right? Might as well, according to your logic.

Truer words were never spoken.

Go to southern Arizona and take a tour through Kartchner Caverns... and then tell me the earth changes only when humans force it to.

Goof

Who says that? Certainly not geologists. Silly!

Humans may be a contributing factor in the current punctuation in the equilibrium. The punctuation is something between an apocalypse and a catastrophe: it must be an apostrophe!

Seriously, though. No one is saying anthropogenic climate change will wipe out life on Earth. It may, however, make things very inconvenient for big mammals like humans for a very long time. Evidence suggests that humans have only been able to engage in agriculture and reap the rewards of the resulting food abundance only because Earth's climate has been unusually stable for the last 10000 years or so. A destabilized climate could very well put an end to that--and to all luxuries that we have as a result.

Will Earth survive anthropogenic climate change? Sure! Will humans survive? Yeah, we're almost as good at it as rats. Will civilization survive? Not exactly. Will polar bears, narwhals, and kakapos survive? Not likely, and we will all be poorer for want of them.

As for the tectonic theory, there's no evidence that crustal temperatures are increasing, and lots of evidence that atmospheric temperatures are.

Everything humans do is natural, of course, because humans are a part of nature just like beavers and elephants and rabbits and all other animals that alter their environment. For that matter, asteroids like the one that caused the non-avian dinosaurs to die out are natural too. But unlike asteroids, we have some choice about our destiny, and we can decide to minimize the crater we leave, or at least decide to plot a course that will allow us to survive the changes and preserve what we can. I'd say we owe it to Earth and to our animal kin to make the effort.

Tucker

situation. Some changes are planetary and we have nothing to do with them. Other changes are caused by humans alone and still others are caused by both

I only mentioned him because Rachel Maddow had him on the other nite & he kept it simple.

Kudos on all the positive things you're doing, as well. (Just in case it turns out to be true... ;-)

Just because he hosted a kid show once doesn't discredit him. Silly climate change deniers. :crazy:

misunderstanding about the general consensus of what global climate change will likely represent in it's impact on natural life and the economic systems of man - or if it is simply your intention to avoid legitimate debate altogether by attempting to begin from reductio ad absurdum.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The sweetest lady I worked with had TWO college degrees and lived in a trailer court.

I lived in a trailer court before I bought this creaky old Victorian.

Anyone reading this post on the internet can surely Google reductio ad absurdum and find the Wiki.

It does not land in your favor. Sorry.

BTW, your alternate explanation for climate change is laughable, both as science and as an attempt to communicate in the English language. It's hard to take an idea seriously if it looks like it was Google Translated from English to Cantonese and back by way of Swahili and lolcat. Verb tense agreement is your friend.

Nor are you a source for good argument. All you did was state your opinion with nothing to back it up, and you tried to be funny about it.

You did accomplish one thing though... You convinced me that I'm incapable of communicating in the language you call English. I guess I'll have to work on that.

It's been my experience here at DU over the last five years that when someone has no argument to offer, they tend to do their best to attack spelling, grammar, and syntax.

The Keeper of the Data has admitted in his own words... he's not even sure he can find the data... Don't you hate that?

One scientist working on this said there were some problems with his particular pool of data. Not all of the data from the thousands of researchers working on this from many different angles. Not all the glacial melts and ice cores and observations of climate-sensitive species in previously unlikely areas and changing ocean circulation patterns and measurements from satellites... Just his data ambient air temperatures. I'm not even a scientist by training (by a long shot, my discipline is way off in the math-free, subjective land of the extremely liberal arts) and I can tell that's hardly an indicator of a collapsing theory. At best it indicates problems with a very simple visual model of rising global temperatures that I'm given to understand was already out of favor due to the development of better, more complex models anyhow. You're overinflating the problem to make your own point. That's just dirty pool.

For the record, this "one line of evidence didn't hold up, therefore a well-supported theory based on many lines of evidence is in peril" line of argument is crap. You can tell it's crap because if you change a few of the nouns around (say fossils for temperatures and evolution for climate change) it sounds like an argument a creationist would make.

one scientist keeping sloppy records among thousands that do not isn't a condemnation of climate science.

There are far better sources from which to gather information upon which to develop an opinion than the popular media. Where climate change in concerned.

Here is a climate change site where actual scientists discuss climate change issues and go to some effort to make an extremely complex issue accessible to the general public: http://www.realclimate.org/ Take a look at the "Start Here" link for basic information and FAQ.

Recommended reading: "Storms of My Grandchildren" by James Hansen. An excellent treatment of some basic climate change concepts, as well as a chronicle of Hansen's efforts to turn science into policy, especially during the Bush Administration. Hansen's work and reports were the ones manipulated by non-scientists in the Bush Administration for political purposes.

Finally, the IPCC is the definitive source of information regarding consensus (http://www.ipcc.ch/). There are links to the IPCC reports on this page.

Yes, the Earth's biological and physical systems evolve continuously. That isn't denied by scientists; in fact, a great deal of effort goes into explaining to non-scientists, especially in the U.S., the simple facts of physical and biological evolution. It's the rates of change, and both the quality and quantity of waste streams from human activities that are the issue. Humans are releasing carbon that has sequestered for tens and hundreds of million years at a rate faster than typical of the carbon cycle.

(and I mean that seriously)

"The Planet" is just fine, and will be regardless of what we do to it...short of cracking it into pieces. Cool or warm, "The Planet" adapts.

OUR future on the planet may be at risk, however...and that's O.K. too. The vast majority of species that have ever lived on this planet are dead now...even those who clawed their way to the top of the food chain. I mention it because it's a distinction that most people overlook. People tend to think of what's bad for US as bad for the planet and that's simply not the case.

WE'RE in jeopardy (maybe). The planet is fine. Any suggestions that carbon emissions are harmful to "the planet" are self serving.


That said, it seems likely that the planet is going through a time of climate change. We probably didn't CAUSE it, but we may be accelerating it. MAY be.

...so it's in our own best interest to do things that maintain the climate we're used to. Part of that MAY be reducing carbon emissions. It's worth a try.

How's the bottom line this quarter? Good? Good :)

One good volcanic eruption has more of an effect on "climate change" that we could possibly make in decades.

The planet is just fine.

WE may not be.

plant and animal, for food sources, and that number shrinks in very real ways every single year.

My point (again) is that the planet is just fine.

Suggesting otherwise is just childish.

For myself, I find it incumbent upon us as a sentient species and a new force of nature to try to cause as little unnatural suffering and disruption to the natural world as is possible, within reason.

Good God man. I still buy toilet paper!

But I don't consume animal products other than dead dinosaurs whenever possible.

It's been ice about six million years. Roughly the time of our journey into human and oddly gullible.

IT'S MELTING. Six million years ice. Now, not ice. THAT convinces ME.

1. You have used a severely out of context quote. That is bad form at the very least.

2. I know of no scientist that has said, let alone published, anything to indicate "humans are causing climate change to the degree that all life on this planet will cease to exist in short order due to the actions of said humans." Do you have a source for that?

3. You claim that "Phil Jones now says that his scientific pronouncements stem from flawed scientific methodology, specifically faulty record-keeping." Where and when did he say this, and about what specifically was he speaking?

4. Your tectonic shift nonsense implies that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas. Now you have a problem with more than just climatologists.

5. Your tectonic shift nonsense suffers can't explain stratospheric cooling.

Thanks for playing.

I'm stunned at the Op's lack of depth with this subject.

Think climate change...think climate change.(continually punching you with my fist):spank:

that all the crap and pollution we have been spewing onto our planet and into our atmosphere (and lungs) for hundreds of years is causing this noticeable climate change.

So a hundred years from now, when we have finally convinced even fools that our pollution caused significant weather problems, what do we do? Find another planet? Enjoy our new desert landscape? Create cities inside of bubbles? It will be too late to fix with a starving population.

All because we wanted to wait and prove to the most foolish people that polluting our environment could kill us.

regardless of what is natural in Climate Change, be it volcanoes spewing tons of stuff into the atmosphere, magma rising beneath the surface, magnetic pole shifts...the reality is, humans have driven up the effects exponentially by what they have done. If x is the natural occurrence, everything humans have done/do drives the x factor higher by exponent. It can be x+y or any multiple of such. In any case, there are various things to look at, and human involvement is part of the equation, a big part.

Not just the use of carbon fuels, but how we have taken to stripping the landscape of carbon "cleansing" trees, and the huge ranching and agricultural production we have pushed to the point of severe ecological damage as well. This is not unique to the US, although we have become quite adept at destruction...but worldwide, with the rising population, the loss of natural resources relatively easily available and a host of other things we have done in the name of progress.

Progress is not bad, but it should be responsible progress. The more we add science into the equation, the more we learn about how we have affected the planet as a whole. It is not difficult to see what humankind has done to a relatively self sustaining ecosphere...we've gone on like things are constantly being replenished as quickly as we've used them; that's not the way the planet works, and humankind has had dramatic effects, that is undeniable.

But deniers exist because they really don't want to be "inconvenienced", it is work to do some things we don't "have" to do, and people in general are pretty darn lazy when it comes to how we deal with things.

It is preposterous to think we have not had a negative impact on nature and the planet...the real question is, what can we do to leave something for those who follow us?

Just kidding. Here is some credible scientific evidence and I'm certain MANY will disbelieve and ignore. Yes, humans are the most self destructive creatures on earth; biggest problem is they also destroy many other species.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-causes

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-extinction--the-greatest-threat-to-mankind-397939.html

NOW, do YOU want a left hook or a right uppercut? I promise it will hurt.....a lot!

"...I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Where the OP found "Phil Jones now says that his scientific pronouncements stem from flawed scientific methodology, specifically faulty record-keeping" is anyone's guess.

If so, it speaks ill of the OP's commitment to getting the whole story.

denying the existence of global warming and climate change. So much for journalistic credibility.

...climate change denialists have nothing but out of context comments and facts, innuendo, and outright lies to bolster their opinion. Their goal doesn't involve getting things right, it is about "winning."

The media, of course, just want to keep making money. So there is no reason for them to set matters straight, as it eats into the profits.

Chicxulub made the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba H bomb look like a wet firecracker and it dwarfed the Krakatoa, Tambora and Santorini volcanic explosions..

But the scientific consensus at the moment is that it ended the reign of the dinosaurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater

It is the one political topic I have banned from discussions between my husband and I. He thinks it is bunk. He does think we should work towards reducing pollution, green energy etc... but just does not buy climate change.

...I AM in favor of environmental regulations that protect citizens from pollution. All that crap pumped into the air may not cause any climate change, but it certainly can cause health changes for local residents.

"I'm going to stick my chin out there..."
"Forgive me for being a skeptic..."
"Beat me up for what I think..."
"Ask that I be banned from DU..."

Quite the impressive cross a martyr can build for himself with enough forethought...

earth's capacity to keep those changes moderated. MODERATED.

The earth's climate is becoming more volatile. More extreme.

The earth having so much of its trees cut down and extra carbon in the atmosphere is like a smoker who never exercises getting bronchitis.

A healthy person who exercises and doesn't smoke can easily shake off a mild case of bronchitis.

A smoker who never exercises might end up with congestion in the lungs and die from what otherwise might have been a mild case of bronchitis.

Human behavior has impaired the earth's ability to mitigate the normal cyclical changes.

The Arctic Circle isn't melting. Islands aren't sinking. Weather isn't getting more severe. The Frozen Tundra isn't melting and glaciers aren't receding.

Obviously you don't want to be confused with facts

and rising.

I've said on DU numerous times calling it "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" is stupid and mis-leading.

The CO2 levels heading where they are going could cause the Earth to turn in to a giant ice cube, could do nothing, or could make it much hotter. We don't know. Most of our scientific data shows an increase in CO2 will cause the Earth's climate to retain more heat from the sun. This could lead some areas to be warmer, some colder, some wetter. We may be heading for a giant ice age and CO2 levels going up could be offsetting it. Again we don't know.

What we do know is that human's are pushing the CO2 levels higher than they would be if we were not burning dinosaur oil, coal, etc.