So what if there climate predictions where wrong. It’s an incredibly complex system. Maybe it’s not so wise latching on to any of those predictions.
CMIP6, yup I’m following. Basic smell test, grand solar minimum says we should be cooling. Melting ice all over the planet and ocean temperatures show the planet is certainly not cooling. Solar forcing is part of the system, it’s just not the dominant facter right now.
>Klaus Schwab
No idea. Why even say that?
>Early in the Phanerozoic eon (started ~when trilobites first showed up in the fossil record,) atmospheric CO2 levels were approximately 7,000 PPM. Yet, we didn't have runaway global warming.
We have completely different conditions now, let alone 7.8 billion people depending on the planet as is to survive.
I stand by my predictions. As the data changes, I will change. We are on track to loose all sea ice in the arctic within a decade. After the sea ice is gone things are very likely to get ugly, including the real possibility in collapse of most farming in the northern hemisphere.
We currently cannot predict dumping 36 million tons of CO2 per year will turn out okay, and there is increasing evidence to suggest it will turn out badly.
Yes, I think a world vote on this topic is very fair.
Yes, I would vote to immediately start cutting CO2 as outlined earlier.
I have my own thoughts on Climate Change which are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but it occurs to me we are faced with a moral dilemma.
If one , no matter their personal opinion were to assume Climate change is caused by humans and is responsible for major environmental catastrophes, and we need to stop using fossil fuels immediately, what effects would that have of an equally catastrophic nature?
Would we be able to feed 8 billion people w/o fossil fuels? How do you run a global economy w/o fossil fuels? Clearly alternative forms of energy are not in any scalable anytime soon.
Seems like a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation.
Yes, this case is special in that if we fully stop fossil fuels, there will be some economic pain to say the least. But we should at least stop growing. Let's at least ground all planes and all non-necessary releases of CO2. Let's stop cutting down forests. Let's prioritize nuclear power plants. Farmers have to be part of the solution. Listen to one of Gabe Brown's talks. At worst leave the soil alone and carbon content goes up.
Oh Travis, if only people would listen to that kind of wisdom.
Instead, our powers that be have done the opposite whenever given the chance. Case in point was the CARES Act. The Congress (USA) bailed out the airlines to the tune of (if I remember correctly) 10s of billions of dollars. And you know what? I never heard one Congressperson from either major party try to justify it. None of them ever said WHY we needed to bail out the airlines. And if we look at Big Ag or our forests, the same kinds of arguments can be made.
So sad.
Proverbs 16:31 Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.
And from the richest man of his time, Job.
Job 12: 12-13 Is not wisdom found among the aged?
Maybe the absence of grey hair and the wisdom of the aged is the reason Google has gone off the rails and has become an example of the antithesis of its motto, “Don’t be evil.”
travissidelinger wrote:
So what if there climate predictions where wrong. It's an incredibly complex system. Maybe it's not so wise latching on to any of those predictions.
Travis,
Computer models are only expected to get it close. When the models overshoot (as the CO2 models continually do,) wholesale tweaking is justified. As I stated, to the IPCC's credit, they are investigating alternative pathways to more accurately predict future climatic conditions on earth.
I agree that it isn't wise to latch onto predictions (using methodology) that have proven to be horrendously wrong time and time again (and always wrong in the same direction.) Nonetheless, do you ever consult a weather forecast before venturing outside? I bet you do. Even if it isn't exactly accurate, it gives you an idea of what to expect.
So, if you're not going to latch onto any of the predictions, how can you promote the idea that CO2 levels are detrimental to all life on earth? Don't you think we should improve the forecasting ability by examining all sorts of inputs to see if any make sense - or should we just stick with blaming CO2?
CMIP6, yup I'm following. Basic smell test, grand solar minimum says we should be cooling. Melting ice all over the planet and ocean temperatures show the planet is certainly not cooling. Solar forcing is part of the system, it's just not the dominant facter right now.
Here is graph of sunspots versus years with a forecast for SC 25. As you should be able to decipher is that we're entering a period of reduced sunspot activity. We're not there yet. Have you noticed that the warmest day of the year rarely falls on summer solstice, but rather later in the summer. For similar reasons, there is a decade or two of lag between the grand minimum/maximum end and when temperatures respond. We're just starting to see that now.
As far as SC 25 magnitude is concerned, I've seen forecasts that mostly predict SC 25 will be similar to SC 24. NASA is predicting reduced solar activity (as shown above.) Prof. Valentina Zharkova (as mentioned by Bomber in post #2) uses a double-dynamo-model of the sun to predict that we'll be in a grand solar minimum into at least 2053. This has profound implications for growing crops and those who eat those crops.
On the other hand, I've seen another model (although I don't remember who to attribute it to, sorry) that bases their forecast for the next solar cycle mostly on the length of time the prior cycle existed. Since SC 24 ended earlier than expected, that modeler's expectation is for a stronger than average SC 25. Which will it be? We had an unexpectedly strong beginning to SC 25; however, that was short lived and we're back to a spotless sun. We should be able to make a pretty good guess concerning the strength of SC 25 in a couple of years.
I noticed that you mentioned solar dimming in post #33. I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. Could you elaborate?
>Klaus Schwab [Travis' quote of Grover's writing.]
No idea. Why even say that?
I tried to find a neutral article for you to learn about this man. I looked at nearly a dozen. All were very extreme - with some exceedingly fawning and others exceedingly flaming. He's a lightning rod and wants to push his personal ideas on humanity (with him in command.) You would be wise to learn about him and his goals!
“You’ll own nothing” — And “you’ll be happy about it.”
“The U.S. won’t be the world’s leading superpower”
“You won’t die waiting for an organ donor” — They will be made by 3D printers
“You’ll eat much less meat” — Meat will be “an occasional treat, not a staple, for the good of the environment and our health.”
“A billion people will be displaced by climate change” – Soros’ Open Borders
“Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide” – “There will be a global price on carbon. This will help make fossil fuels history”
“You could be preparing to go to Mars” — Scientists “will have worked out how to keep you healthy in space.”
“Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.” – “Checks and balances that underpin our democracies must not be forgotten”
"The Great Reset" is basically his idea. He and the members of the World Economic Forum (WEF - top 0.0001%) essentially want to destroy the existing cultural and economic infrastructure so they can "Build Back Better." Biden adopted this slogan for his campaign. Boris Johnson has the same slogan. Other world leaders use it as well. Is that just a coincidence? I don't think so.
Point #1 says that you'll own nothing and be happy about it. In essence, the State will own everything and you'll just rent what you need. That sounds pretty good until you start to think about it. Isn't that communism? Have to read enough history to know that in communism, the plebes get screwed and the elite do the screwing. They claim that you'll be happy. Of course, if you complained in Stalin's Russia, you got shot. See - everyone's happy.
They've been using catastrophic climate change as their issue to cause enough fear in the great unwashed in order to get the plebes to vote for them to save us. Even with the pain only a decade out, the potential pain wasn't immediate enough. Then, magically, we get the plandemic. All of a sudden, they have an immediate fear to instill into the plebes. Isolate yourself, wear a mask, and wash your hands.
Bill Gates has been associated with the WEF for nearly 25 years. Bill Gates has been pushing vaccines to combat Covid-19 since early last year. (Are you aware of his "Event 201"?) Did he acknowledge hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, or vitamin D3 + zinc + quercetin to battle the virus? Nope! If there were an effective treatment, the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccines wouldn't have been issued. Those vaccines would have had to go through standard testing and approval. Of course, if an effective treatment were to exist, we wouldn't have to muzzle ourselves in public and we wouldn't need an untested vaccine.
As I said in Post #118, once they are in power, they won't give a rat's ass about any of the great unwashed (us.) We'll be following their orders. They'll be the ones issuing those orders. They'll be the ones flying all over the world to meet with other "important people." In essence, they'll keep the earth's bounty of fossil fuels for their own purposes. Either way, it will get consumed.
>Early in the Phanerozoic eon (started ~when trilobites first showed up in the fossil record,) atmospheric CO2 levels were approximately 7,000 PPM. Yet, we didn't have runaway global warming. [Travis' quote of Grover's writing.]
We have completely different conditions now, let alone 7.8 billion people depending on the planet as is to survive.
Actually, the atmospheric conditions aren't that different now compared to when CO2 levels were approximately 7,000 PPM. At that time, CO2 comprised 0.7% of the atmosphere whereas now, it comprises 0.04% of the atmosphere. The point I was trying to make was that the earth's atmosphere has experienced much higher concentrations of CO2 than we currently have. Yet, we didn't experience the runaway global warming that all the climate-change-______-______ warn us about. Geological evidence says it isn't a problem. What evidence do you have to say it is a problem?
I stand by my predictions. As the data changes, I will change. We are on track to loose all sea ice in the arctic within a decade. After the sea ice is gone things are very likely to get ugly, including the real possibility in collapse of most farming in the northern hemisphere.
We currently cannot predict dumping 36 million tons of CO2 per year will turn out okay, and there is increasing evidence to suggest it will turn out badly.
I certainly hope that you will change your mind when the data changes. I really don't hold out much hope. Even though the CO2 based climate models predictions continue to predict higher temperatures than what we subsequently observe, you still stand by your predictions. Hmmm.
Dumping about 36 million tons of CO2 per year is about what we've been doing for the last decade. Before that, we dumped not quite as much, but still lots. The atmosphere responded with an increased concentration of CO2. Since fossil fuel consumption is the biggest manmade contributor, and since fossil fuels are rapidly depleting, isn't your worry a moot point?
Yes, I think a world vote on this topic is very fair. [concerning continued burning of fossil fuels.]
Yes, I would vote to immediately start cutting CO2 as outlined earlier.
Travis, if your vote was just about your choices and didn't force me to comply with your choices, I'd be all in favor of letting you go about your business unimpeded. Did you open the link I provided for the radiative forcing? I'd bet dollars to donuts that you didn't. Why should you bother to read a couple of pertinent paragraphs? If you bury your head in the ground like an ostrich, nothing can hurt you - right?
Grover
With due respect to Grover and Travis, who have made compelling posts, I personally don’t think climate change (CC) is worth the argument. The science is difficult for even intelligent people to fully grasp and the issue has become highly politicized.
I believe that the environmental movement has really missed the boat with its continued drum banging for CC. There are so many very important, potentially existential, and often far more tangible environmental issues that are being almost ignored with the hyper focus on CC: peak oil, the problems of plastic, the destruction of our soils, etc. I think things like cutting plastic use and promoting regenerative agriculture can be “sold” much more easily to the general population than CC. The ironic thing is, if we substantially reduce plastics and destructive chemical Ag, we’ll cut greenhouse gasses proportionally.
Over the last few years as glaciers recede, there have been interesting finds in wide spread locations.
Tree stumps and other plant matter has been uncovered as the ice disappeared.
Carbon dating in the range of 3000 to 8000 years old.
For the species uncovered to grow where it would need to be around 2 degrees warmer than present.
Back then sea levels were around 2 meters higher than present.
And in those times CO2 was 260-280 ppm
A troubling inconsistency.
Can the models hind cast and match the observed data?
Cheers Hamish
You miss the point. You have a very narrow movie playing. Yes gray hair gives you wisdom to some extent. In our current state of affairs gray hair is fucking the young. Wise for them for the young not so much.
I feel so old after watching the "Millennial YIR" video, lol! I got a healthy dose of inter-generational culture shock, that was both eye-opening and educational.
It is indeed eye-opening to spend time in the Millennial world! Though I'm mid-60s, I've spent a lot of time there over the last couple years because it's the BTC world.
Some of the brightest young minds are in the crypto world. And without doubt, the hope for the future is to be found among the BTC crowd of Millennials. At times I feel transported back to the bars and inns before the American Revolution, observing young bright minds hash out the philosophical underpinnings for the next iteration of social and political culture. Only, this time they're thinking globally.
Hanging in the BTC Twitterverse fills me with hope for the coming First Turning. It's all going to be alright. The deep revolutionaries with strong libertarian convictions are Bitcoin maximalists.
You fall into the trap of the Hegelian dialectic and feed into a false narrative, fomenting another source of divisive conflict, that of young vs. old, and unfairly making the boomers the scapegoat. Do you really think the average grey haired pensioner, just trying to get by, is the source of the plight faced by the Millennials? What’s next? Saying the Jews are the source of all the problems on the planet?
The Millennials fill me with optimism too. I have two of them for children and they are wonderful people. I do have some concerns about them (which, right or wrong, has always been true about the older generation for the younger generation) but I have even more concerns about the Gen Xers who are coming up to bat. That’s a whole different subject though. The problem with the Millennials and their relationship with BTC is that they are adopting and counting on a largely defensive strategy. You don’t prevail in conflicts with a defensive strategy. Neither do you win conflicts if you don’t truly know who your enemy is and target the enemy accordingly with effective measures.
Gyro - Clearly Earth has gone through periods of hotter, colder, high CO2, lower CO2, all of which happens over thousands or even millions of years with wild highs and lows. Over the last million years or so these gyrations have leveled out more and more resulting in a fairly stable climate over the last several thousand years allowing for human development.
At issue now is humanity has upset that stability by pumping ever larger amounts of CO2 at an ever increasing rate over a relatively short time. The outcome is well understood, has been for over 200 years.
You can try and counter gravity by not believing it and jumping off a tall building but the outcome will be the same as trying not to believe in AGW.
I think that comparing co2 levels and temperature from times when continents were arranged differently falls into logical fallicy categories.
But in the last million years I suspect that the changes in contenintal layout could be considered insignificant for this issue.
For roughly the last million years we have been in an ice age where much of the USA, the whole of the UK, much of Europe is covered in ice sheets, interspaced with 10 to 15k year interglacials.
Sort of half way through this interglacial, when CO2 levels were much lower than present, it seems that it was much warmer than present.
CAGW holds that CO2 is the primary temperature control knob.
If that is true, how is it that a few thousand years ago there were forests where we now have glaciers.
A theory is invalidated if it cannot explain a single exception.
Warmer with lower CO2 would seem to be an exception.
So for CAGW to stand this anomoly must be explained.
You “pumping ever larger amounts of CO2 at an ever increasing rate over a relatively short time. The outcome is well understood, has been for over 200 years.”
Did you slip a decimal point? They knew of CAGWA 200 years ago???
You “trying to not beleve in AGW”
It seems that you are making a common believers error of assuming that I, like many CAGW skeptics do not belive the world is warming and it is not the cause.
I ( like many skeptics ) agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and man is contributing to increasing its levels, and that the world has been warming.
What I have yet to see sufficient evidence of is that man is the dominant cause of the warming or that the warming will be catastrophic.
Cheers Hamish
What was the big picture climate like at that time in a global sense? Also CO2 is not the only factor. Orbital cycles on the order of tens of thousands of years are the prime driver of the cycles of ice ages and interglacial periods over the past few million years. If I remember correctly, the orbital forcing towards warmth peaked about 5000 years ago. Absent CO2 changes, we are due for another ice age sometime soon.
>So, if you’re not going to latch onto any of the predictions, how can you promote the idea that CO2 levels are detrimental to all life on earth? Don’t you think we should improve the forecasting ability by examining all sorts of inputs to see if any make sense - or should we just stick with blaming CO2?
Can you predict the current 36 million tons/year CO2 will turn out okay? No, you can’t.
Our climate is a very complex dynamic system with possibly thousands of inputs and feedback loops. We may never be able to fully module our climate system.
We know the greenhouse effect. We understand ocean acidification. And there are many many other effects we understand. Do we fully understand how these all interoperate, well no.
We have very actually measurements of OC2 levels. The primary driver of CO2 levels is human activity, mostly the burning of fossil fuels and changing land use.
Like all systems with multiple inputs, they are very difficult to understand. We know we are inputting the CO2. We know we are causing measured CO2 levels to rise.
In the scenario where we would like to keep feeding 7.8 billion people, dumping 36 million tons of CO2 year over year is NOT my idea of a good experiment to run. It’s experimenting!! You and nobody else knows for sure that experiment will turn out just fine. This is our only plant. Mass experimenting with our atmosphere is a non starter.
> s far as SC 25 magnitude is concerned, I’ve seen forecasts that mostly predict SC 25 will be similar to SC 24. NASA is predicting reduced solar activity (as shown above.) Prof. Valentina Zharkova (as mentioned by Bomber in post #2) uses a double-dynamo-model of the sun to predict that we’ll be in a grand solar minimum into at least 2053. This has profound implications for growing crops and those who eat those crops.
I’m not sure what you are concluding there. Maybe global warming meets global cooling and we get a happy medium
If only that was what we were seeing.
> I noticed that you mentioned solar dimming in post #33. I’m not quite sure what you are talking about. Could you elaborate?
Solar forcing. Same stuff.
> Klaus Schwab
Well if your plans are that widely known, something tells those are not the real plans, ,or you messed up royally. I’m not that concerned yet.
> As I said in Post #118, once they are in power, they won’t give a rat’s ass about any of the great unwashed (us.)
We’ll see on that one.
>Geological evidence says it isn’t a problem. What evidence do you have to say it is a problem?
Well there is a huge amount of CO2 and methane locked up arctic permafrost. If those were to release there is supposedly enough to raise CO2 several hundred ppm in a short period of time.
We are headed towards an ice free arctic. It’s the cold ice in the arctic with a hot equator that maintains the jet streams.
I don’t know if we will have a runaway greenhouse effect. It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that we keep the same jet stream pattern that we have been used to. If in 10 years the jet streams are bringing 6 months of rain and then 6 months of baking heat, we won’t be able to grow crops.
One study (I think it was 2014) of arctic permafrost found very large amounts of nitrous oxide locked up in the permafrost. Normally we don’t need to worry about nitrous oxide in soil as it’s naturally broken down, except in the case where it’s trapped and melts. Out of that study they concluded there was many times the amount of nitrous oxide needed to wipe out all ozone on the planet, and that we should study this in much more depth. Now I don’t know if that will happen, but all life dead within a few years sounds like a pretty bad outcome that we should just maybe make an attempt to avoid. (You seem to be more on the “hell, let’s see what happens side”)
It’s the rate of CO2 dumping and the rapid pace of climate change that are the biggest problems. If we moved to 7000ppm of CO2 over a period of 70000 years, I understand the impact on climate would be much less.
This last year (2020), we have several weeks of 95F temperature in our area May/June time frame. Later that summer we went to our normal farmer about 30 miles outside the city to buy some straw. No straw available. Everybody was short, and they were having to import straw themselves.
In 2019, we saw solid rain for most of the spring. Corn crops couldn’t get planted until mid June. Then it switched from cold and wet to hot and dry. The farmer I talked to said there was one rain shower in late August that saved their butts.
These types of weather changes have been happening and getting worse over the last decade. This is mostly likely our future.
My prediction, any year now we could see major crop failures, both in the US, Europe, Asia, or all at the same time.
Yes, I did. Did you read it? That is not a paper for the general public to consume. Basically they are including radiative forcing in the next IPCC climate module. I didn’t see any conclusions there, other than they are still studying it. Correct me if you have a different interpretation. That was not an easy read.
I certainly hope that you will change your mind when the data changes. I really don't hold out much hope. Even though the CO2 based climate models predictions continue to predict higher temperatures than what we subsequently observe, you still stand by your predictions. Hmmm.
90% of the extra heat is going into the deep oceans and melting the ice. Again, the climate system is extremely complicated. "A model's predictions turned out wrong therefore all it's ideas are wrong". In a simple science, that might be true. In a system as complex as our climate, that is not true. There are very complex interactions and feedback loops going. Maybe over time we will make better modeling progress, and maybe not.
Travis, if your vote was just about your choices and didn't force me to comply with your choices,
My vote is to keep things as they are and move a lot slower. A conservative vote. A safer vote.
Your vote is to radically proceed into the unknown with the only life support system we have.
Again, go find a different planet to run your experiments on. This one is taken.
-Travis
Travis,
Believe it or not, but I was just trying to alleviate your angst about climate change. I started by showing Worldometer’s compilation of fossil fuel reserves as reported by various companies/countries. These numbers are motivated by financial/economic concerns and should be taken with a grain of salt. Frankly, I see those numbers as the upper bound of what’s available to consume. Those fossil fuels will be consumed as long as it is economically viable. The only questions are when will it be consumed and by whom?
Then, I tried to show you that current climate change science is moving toward accepting solar forcing as the dominant cause of the recent warming. Predictions about the future are always fraught with peril; however, because of the sun’s reduced activity since the early '90s and the decade or 2 lag found with earth’s temperature response, I will safely predict that arctic ice will not disappear within the next decade. It is more than likely to freeze more in the winter and melt less in the summer - at least for the next decade or two.
I tried to show you that the earth has experienced much higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the past. If it were to lead to a runaway greenhouse effect, how do we have such placid conditions today? But, you’ll have none of that. You worry that we’re dumping 35+ billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and destroying the ecosystem. You also worry about feeding the 7.8 billion humans on the planet. Have you seen what world population was before the industrial revolution? The carrying capacity (sans fossil fuel usage) is likely in the range of 1.5 billion humans.
You also worry that the weather is getting more extreme and that it will get much worse as time goes on - as if that is an artifact of AGW and has never happened before. If you looked at geological evidence, you would see that drastic and prolonged climatic changes occur repeatedly. It is the norm, not the exception. Even in the last century, we’ve had extreme events that lasted for years and caused massive damages. Just look at the Dust Bowl as a pertinent example. How can you blame AGW for that?
It now looks like Joe Biden will be our next president - for at least a day. He has asked John Kerry to be his climate czar and move us back to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas limitations. That means that they will institute draconian measures to limit consumption of fossil fuels. It will either be outright quotas or higher taxes. Meanwhile the government will be able to consume as much as it “needs” to perform its functions.
You probably have a job that allows you to work from home. Imagine having a job that can’t be performed at home - grocery store worker, builder, maid, etc. Their costs are going to increase at the same time that their employers will not be able to raise compensation. Why? The economy won’t be able to support it. Shopkeepers will have a hard enough time avoiding bankruptcy. It’s the little people who will pay an outsized price for this new policy.
As I pointed out about Klaus Schwab and the “Build Back Better” slogans used by world leaders, they want to destroy the economy so they can rebuild it green. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? Where are they going to get the energy to do that? Meanwhile, who’s pulling the levers behind the curtain? Hmmm.
Mohammed Mast said that there is no solution for climate change. I agree with him. Twalker5 said that there are more important issues to focus on. I agree with him as well. We’re in a Fourth Turning. We won’t be able to peacefully resolve the dramatic left-right differences without fighting for all the marbles. We’re heading to Civil War 2.0. The only way to avoid that is to conjure up an external enemy (China or Russia) and convince both sides of the looming Civil conflict that we have an existential threat bigger than our petty differences. Just imagine the nuclear winter that would result from such a war. At least, we will have prevented anthropogenic global warming.
I’m an old, white-haired man. My best years are in the rear view mirror. Granted, I won’t have to live with the consequences of business-as-usual fossil fuel burning - like you probably will. Everything I’ve seen in life convinces me that all economically viable fossil fuels will be consumed regardless of whether or not I participate. Fossil fuels are just that valuable. Those who use it gain mechanical leverage, and that results in economic gain. The sociopaths (who feel no empathy) will use your empathy against you. They’ll convince you that your sacrifice helps humanity - and you’ll fall for it so hard that you’ll vote to force me and everyone else to comply as well.
It’s just the way it is. I wish you the best and hope you can come to grips with your outsized angst before it is too late. You can have the final word on this subject.
Grover
I recently read a book covering the evolution of man, his spread over the world through to recent times.
The author noted that the archaeological evidence supports the theory that agriculture was not invented in one place and spread, but developed in multiple locations around the same time.
He had no theory as to why that was.
My hypothesis is that it was a tesult of increasing CO2 levels.
Look at it this way. If you plant a grain of wheat, at 260ppm you get 10 grains at harvest, but at 280ppm you get 30 grains.
At some stage plant productivy increased sufficiently to make the EREOI high enough for agriculture to be a viable lifestyle.
Even in the last 30 years this effect has been contributing to greater agricultural productivity.
As Quercus bicolor noted, the obbit linked warming forcing peaked 5000 years ago.
Looking at tempature reconstructions of the last million years, we are overdue in the decent back into an ice age.
Cheers Hamish
Ps. Grovers post showed up after I posted this.
Very good post Grover
