The Climate Change ULTRA MEGA AWESOME Thread

I read Harry Potter, and I didn't believe it. I can never understand why people think every book they read must be true simply because a few people with letters after their name or a handful of stats wrote it.


(edited to be more on-topic and not upset Minux)

 

Basically that's the way these threads go Im afraid on forums such as this(where one boasts about the rate at which their car can convert fossil fuels to greenhouse gases......that would be how many kWs it has............:whistling)

The vocal majority have no clue(or are so gullible they cant see basic fraud in productions such as the great global warming swindle, or dont even watch shows that dissect productions such as GWS for the rubbish they are, because they are on the ABC. Apparently I am the only one that ever watches the ABC on this forum!) and say its all rubbish because all they can think of is that they might have to pay more for their energy or change their current practices.

It really does make me laugh, no evidence of climate change? What has been stressed by the experts is that there will be wide variations in climate.....are not we seeing that, does anyone who lives in metro melb and most other areas of Vic forgotten about the water restrictions we have in place because the climate in the catchment areas has changed?(ie not much rain)

Average temps in Australia are increasing, as is the level of the snowline in our Alps. Rising sea levels in tropical queensland have already destroyed vast wetlands by salination of the soil......I could go on, but Cheap 6 has covered basically everything and Ive been there before.

The labour government got the vote from many because of the recalcitrant attitude to climate change displayed by our ex government(the pray for rain policy!) So many want them to do something about it, get used to it......you have been outvoted!

 

The fact that water infrastructure hasn't changed to equal the rate of population growth has nothing to do with it?

Simple mathematics. You have a dam with a maximum capacity that can service a set number of people. The number of people increase but the capacity of the dam stays the same. The rainfall stays around the same. More people using more water means diminished supply. The answer? Restrict the amount of water the people can use.

 

The spin that some of you try and put on things such as this is amazing as well as the dedication to persue it, surely you cant keep a straight face typing that nonsense into the computer. Perhaps a head hunter from a tobacco company will take you on and they can preach that smoking and cancer are unrelated.:bang:

Go and look at some figures, go to bom site etc, the rainfall in our catchment areas and just about everywhere else in the state has not stayed the same......it has been significantly below average for several years now.......like the rainfall for may, june, july, august etc last year .......below average.

Farms that have turned into dust bowls?, just thirsty people that have settled in outer Melbourne are responsible?

Just listen to the weather on your tv station on the last day of every month if that is too hard, they'll tell you how many mms or rain there was and how far below average that is. That is why our water levels are so low compared to previous years, not the increase in population. Did you ever visit places such as Eildon wier 20+ years ago and have seen it recently....must be all those extra thirsty people in the city again......!

How do you account for the fact that the levels in the dams are still dropping and the actual water flow out of the catchment areas is extremely low due to the water restrictions........(even simpler maths), the amount going in has been severely decreased(that would be rainfall

Yes we are going to need to put in more catchment facilities to cope with the decreasing rainfall and increasing population, its called adapating to climate change.

 

I know people have different opinions based on what they have read and what they believe - it's like religion - people are easy to manipulate. But what i don't understand is irrespective of how why or even if this phenomenon is occurring why is is so hard for people to agree that if we do a few things differently this world with last long and will be a better place.
Maybe all the crap in the air isn't causing us to heat up, maybe it is - i'd rather breathe clean air!
Why finger each others meat pie about it over and over? why not just get out there and make a difference.

While you're at it get out and support an emergency helicopter in the southwest. Crap roads= more accidents but this government doesn't want to know about it. I feel like i live in no-mans-land as far as our state governments are concerned.

 

No such thing as human-caused global warming...full stop.
"Climate Change", perhaps, but it is always changing...it's now one f the cooler periods in Earths history, and one of the VERY few times when we have had ice caps at both poles.
The largest contributor to "greenhouse gases" is methane farts from cows and sheep, and if we are talking natural causes, there is a volcano in Antarctica which is venting more carbon dioxide each year than all manmade sources on the planet put together...

I also notice how the big push for carbon taxes comes from countries who get the vast majority of thier power from non-carbon-emitting atomic energy...they don;t care about countries like us who are that stupid that we have some of the largest uranium deposits in the world, yet refuse to have atomic power ourselves and keep burning coal...:bang:

 

A Most Interesting Debate?

Having read all the comments herein, I can see that many are aware of the "agruments or lack thereof" for their chosen cause.

I have some experience as an academic in a Faculty of Science, though I would not claim to be a world authority.

I have asked a couple of questions of those who claim higher knowledge/intellect than I do on this subject.

My understanding is that the earth's atmosphere itself has always provided a greenhouse effect on the world's climate. Without that effect, the days would be much hotter and the nights much colder, i.e. a far greater daily temperature range. In fact, the earth would not be inhabitable by animal life as we know it today.

The biggest greenhouse gas is water. Has anyone noticed that during dry weather, the daily maximums tend to be higher and the minimums lower than when we have humid or wet days. Has anyone in the south east seen a 46 degree day other than when it is very dry? At sea level, are frosts almost always limited to mornings following cloudless nights? You see, the greenhouse gas works both ways. It reflects some heat trying to get in and holds heat trying to get out. It is not a one way effect only. The result is that increased greenhouse gas in the case of water significantly moderates temperature range.

Then why is carbon dioxide different as a greenhouse gas to all the others? No one has explained to me the mechanics of why carbon dioxide does not reflect incoming energy, but reflects back outgoing energy. Strike one for me against global warming.

Secondly, no one has been able to dispute that the earth was in fact warmer during the mediaeval warm period. This was the period of discovery, when ships from Europe spread out exploring the world. They found a whole pile of coral attols around the world and mapped them. These coral atolls seem largely unchanged since those original maps. If temperatures increasing now is going to see them disappear under water, why were they not under water then when the temperatures were in fact higher? The answer to this one is the classic, "Our modelling shows ....". Lets ignore facts if they don't agree with our position, and invent our own through modelling. Strike two against global warming.

Thirdly, evidence exists that Greenland was called Greenland during the mediaeval warm period because it was actually green, at least over much of its land mass. The covering of snow and ice came later as the world cooled. This seems to be provide prima facie evidence that the world has been warmer than it currently is, and that this higher temperature co-oincided with a period of increased global prosperity, not calamity. The so-called experts have not provided any answer to this enigma. Strike three.

My favourite comment is the one that says the melting of the Arctic ice sheet will cause the level of the ocean to rise. The fact is that the Arctic ice sheet is floating in water. Basic maritime engineering tells us that an object floating in water displaces its weight in water. Thus when is is the same temperature as the water it floats in (i.e. melted), it displaces the same volume as when it was solid ice. Effect on ocean levels = zero.

There is also an argument re the Antarctic ice, but I am running out of time to keep addressing everything that raises doubt in my mind.

Now I did have one expert who raised the Arctic eventually concede my point, but then say that the volume of water would have expanded because of the higher temperatures. My response was that so would the land mass. He bugged out when I asked him for comparable coefficients of expansion for land and water, so he claimed to be an expert, was adamant that he was right, but really knew very, very little.

My current position? Climate change is occurring. It is always evolving. Is the earth getting hotter? I am not convinced. Even if it is, I remain far from convinced that this would lead to calamity. History suggests otherwise, and in fact points to global cooling as the big danger.

What would convince me otherwise? All I hear is that everyone has to "pay" as the problem is so big. The proponents of global warming calamity are generally not themselves making big changes to the way they live, supposedly because it would not make a significant difference. This equals cop-out to me. Put your lifestyle where your mouth is, or stop demanding that I do.

My final "scientific" comment! Modelling = BS. As PM Disraeli once said, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics". How right he was IMHO.

 

What scientific qualification do you have that doesnt let you understand that or research this for yourself, rather than come to a car site to look for important information on this? incredible.....

There are hundreds of websites that can explain this for you......or even some chemistry text books.

Incoming energy from the sun is basically broad band radiation with a high % of the energy in the visible spectrum. This causes heating of the earth and all gases in the atmosphere. When the earth faces away from the sun it cools, because the earth is hotter than empty space. The earth only heats up marginally during the sunlight hours, the average surface temperature of 15C(whatever it is) can only release heat in the form of relatively lower infra red energy. (black body radiation)

The structure of the CO2 molecule, strength of bonds, masses of atoms etc, cause it to absorb the energy easily of the released infrared energy(mainly from the surface) and oscillate in sync with that of the radiaton.

The CO2 molecule is basically too big to be excited by the shorter wavelengths of the broad band spectrum emitted from the sun and increasing amounts of CO2 will not result in increased reflection of the energy in the non infra red reigons of the sun's output

There are two basic modes of vibration which allow the CO2 molecule to absorb well at two particular frequencies in the IR band. The infra red is constantly absorbed and reemitted by the CO2 molecule in random directions, enough of it being reflected back down at the earth to make a difference in the earth's temperature. There is also the fact that the molecule vibrates faster, hence its internal energy becomes higher( ie its temp increases). As the CO2 molecule comes in contact with other molecules in the atmosphere then energy is transferred to them(nitrogen mainly) however, the data for how much of the energy is transferred in this manner rather than as redirected infra red is a little hazy.

You and others talk about how in extended history there have been times where the earth was warmer etc. What we are concerned about is the rapid change in the earth's temperature which is unprecedented in past times.

This is directly related to CO2 compostion in the atmosphere and bascially has been precipitated by the industrial revolution: This site shows a good graph it:What is Global Warming? -- WWF-Australia

With a little more effort I could find one with a graph that extends to 2007, unlike the producers of the GWSwindle that stopped theirs at 1980!......(choosing to ignore major changes that have happened in the last 25 years) in order to show that temps were not rising!

You'll see even from that graph that we have now already exceeded the temperature reached in the medieval period and the line is rapidly going upwards in the last 100 years with no sign of decline.

 

LOL... This this reminds me about something I read a few weeks ago about some idiot saying that cows also contribute the causes of climate change because the amount of flatulence (Sp?) they release in to the atmosphere. LOL....

What a crock of ****!!!

Do cows really fart that much?? I though camels are worse.

 

I heard that cows were the LEADING contributor of greenhouse gas in Australia because we have so many. No idea of whether it's true.

I didn't read most of the posts here because my eyes hurt, someone may have said this, but temperature increase... Sure, our average temperature rises 3 degrees every year or something. Now, how does this damage the climate? At night, it's cold. During the day, it's warm. Every day has a different temperature. So what difference can you really notice? What does an increase in average temperature have to do with anything if your temperature varies 40 degrees between day and night in some places, and is different every day anyway? Seriously?
Yeah, what would I know... I'm not a scientist... But you don't need to be a scientist to understand that every day the temperature is different, so what difference does it make if the temperature is on the same day the next year is different? It was always going to be different. It could have been hotter, or colder, regardless of global warming.

 

That is rather silly!

The daily temperature of particular regions is subject to variations due to weather, however, the temperature of the earth as a whole is not. It is the increase in the average temperature over time that is important.

With increases of daily increases of 2C in the next 30 years or so, that means instead of daily maximums of say 25, 27, 24, 30 in the middle of January, those same temps may be 27, 29, 26, 32 in another 30 years. a couple of degrees, so what.....Im not going to fry am I? Even small changes can change the whole nature of ecosystems and weather patterns(read rainfall) and this has the potential to change where things grow, how much they grow etc, sea levels rise etc.....upsetting the whole apple cart.

 

I'll add you to my list of people who have not answered my question. I did not come to this website seeking information. I come because I drive a Commodore, and joined in a discussion thread.

Yes, there are tons of websites that talk about this issue. IMHO, they just add hype. They are not authorative. Your comments on carbon dioxide molecules are not quantitive. I would be pleased to see a quantitive analysis of carbon doxide effects versus other green house gases that considers their relative partial presssures.

I remain amazed that so-called "thinking" people accuse GWS of fraud because they perceive some perceived "error of omission". The graph that was presented was reproduced from a source that was only current until 1980, there is no evidence of fraudulent ommission of later evidence. Also, those same "thinking" people blindly accept the "Inconvenient Truth" as fact even though there are "similar" or worse errors of omission. IMHO, both were largely hype. I would take neither as authoritive.

You seem to claim scientific credentials. If global warming is a fact, then why did the earth's temperatures reduce over the period 1945 to 1975 when carbon dioxide was increasing? You no doubt are aware that the scientific evidence is that temperatures have been stable over the last eight years, even though carbon dioxide has continued to increase.

If your answer is that these periods of time are to short too make meaningful findings about climate change, then I totally agree with you. But then I ask, why is the period 1975 to 2000 supposedly not subject to this qualification? The whole global warming "theory" is based on the temperature data from this period, or very selectively picks other periods over which to make assessment. GWS was right on one thing. Over modern times, the graphs of carbon dioxide levels and the earth's temperatures bear little correlation.

Please answer some questions. If you are so convinced of the problem, have you drastically cut your activities that produce carbon dioxide? Do you ever use air conditioning? Do you ever drive your car when you could walk?

If you answer yes to either, my only comment is "incredible".

 

You can find out the partial pressures of the every gas in the atmosphere at the drop of a hat from any atmospheric sample. What's it going to tell you? The infra red absorption spectrum of all known gases are firmly established in physical chemistry literature.......look at those too. I dont know what you reckon the scientists have overlooked here?

Whether you call it an error of omission or fraud, I dont care, it simply didnt represent the FACTS available. If I claim the world is flat, because I errored in not examining data available since 1492, do you think there might be some problem? The same thinking people, didnt need to go to the movies to find about facts about global warming.......I agree Al Gore's production was just as much a hoax and fraud, and I havent even seen it.

I think that was you!

I dont know the answer to everything(but flattered that you think I do), wasnt there a volcano that erupted somewhere in that time period that cooled things down for a while?

No Im not aware of the evidence you speak of, perhaps you can tell us all where you got it from.

Yes, seems like the only source of info you have is from the GWS. It was discussed on a review of this show on the ABC by eminent outraged currently practicing scientists(not retired cash for comment professors). Here is how I remember what was quoted(correct me if some other explanation was offered): There is always a lag between increased CO2 and increased global temperature......it just takes time for the earth to heat up. However, at present the lag has basically disappeared because the CO2 concentration has just been increasing rather than cycling high and low. The lag is still there, if no further incrase of CO2 occurs we would still see global temps rise in the next few years.

Oh, this takes the cake, the all so common puerile mutterance :

those that believe there is a problem should make huge personal sacrifices(that by themselves will have absolutely no effect) so that the ignorant, selfish, stubborn or just plain stupid can continue to do as they wish.

What I do personally is non of your business(please no childish: "from this I can assume"....no you cant), whether Al Gore's carbon footprint is larger than a small town is also irrelevant, it does not change the facts on this issue.

 

Minux do you know what a greenhouse is ?, if you fill up a small area as is the Earths atmosphere with gases, crap and dust that insulate it from space it will get warmer. There is no ifs or buts, that is just how things work. There's no point even arguing about it. I'm sure we will reach a point where evaporation of the sea and rainfall will increase massively and then start to make things stable again so I don't think it will be a totally bad thing (the warming part) but we will all be sterile and dead along time before that thanks to general pollution of the enviroment

 

let's blame the usual suspect ~ GOD it's he's foult.