Global Warming Is Undeniable

actually the burning practised before european colonisation of australia was much more prolific than natural burning, and changed the nature of australia's ecology irreversibly, and the level of forestation decreased with repeated burning as only the fire-hardy species (acacia, eucalypts and sheoaks mainly) survived. so there was a shift in carbon balance.

Even if that is so, it is utterly irrelevant to the recent and future carbon balance.

Global warming is undeniable? Yes. Everyone knows that --- except a tiny minority that frauds smart having read some few fresh articles on internet.

What nature spent millions of years to put underground so as to make life hospitable, we unleash in 100 years. Only ignorants of all sorts would have us believe that such an act will have no effects.

first you argue that there was no shift in the carbon balance through prehistoric burning, so it wouldn't influence climate. I argue that historical data suggests that there was a definite shift from forest to shrub, a massive release of carbon over thousands of years (at comparable - if not faster levels than the release of CO2 currently), with no impact on prehistoric climate, only vegetative patterns, and you dismiss it as irrelevant! If the release of carbon was as high if not higher then, why  didn't the earth  heat dramatically 50000 thousand years ago when australian aboriginals scorched the earth to the extent that they wiped out all the mega fauna, and deforested a continent?

global warming happens, as do ice ages. my point is that there is nowhere near enough proof that we are warming the planet to any appreciable degree (or that it is even warming at all). all of the computer models that the IPCC tout as proof of global warming predict a massive warm-band in the upper atmosphere over the tropics (already - these models applied on historical data show it should be visible now). These are nowhere to be found, so they have been shown to be (at best) completely inaccurate. So if we aren't seeing that, why should we even consider the long range predictions proposed by these models?

justjoshin, most of the things you state are guesses without foundation or estimates of quantities [Post #44 consists of virtually nothing else, but bear in mind Australia's CO2 emissions are just over 1% of the world's, despite its large area], or carefully selected from crank's blogs or non-peer reviewed papers etc.

I have no doubt that you could continue to spout them indefinitely, but there is not time to deal with everything regardless of quality.

I can state my personal viewpoint in very few words.

1. Human actions do affect the global climate
2. Large effects will occur in a rather rapid timescale if nothing changes, and will certainly be very damaging to significant parts of the world
3. The fossil-based economy cannot last long (historically speaking), regardless of this
4. We are in a position where where a modest investment will allow a transition to a predominantly renewable world this century
5. Let's do it for the sake of future generations

And I'm glad to see that there is a steady trend towards unanimity in this opinion among those who are in a position to make it happen.

Liam, I posted those estimates in response to posts where you dismissed the carbon shift from trees to airborne as irrelevant (which you dismiss out of hand).

to support the claim that carbon was released on a massive scale by prehistoric Australians.

Miller, G. H. 2005. Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction. Science.

If you wish to challenge the validity of sources, I would also challenge you to find sources are not dependant on AGW for their funding.

I don't like condensing arguments to dot points, but ...

1. global warming (and cooling!) has always happened and will always happen (until the sun burns out).

2. there is no proof linking recent warming with anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, as historical data suggests that CO2 is lagging temperature by hundreds of years.

3. historical warm periods have been times of plenty, and there is no evidence to suggest any warm periods in the future will be any different, indeed, if anything is to be feared it would be global cooling.

4. temperature reconstructions presented as "proof" of "unprecedented" global warming, have been shown to be statistically invalid, and will produce a hockeystick when any random red-noise is pumped in.

5. recent satellite temperature measurements have been proven unreliable due to faulty sensors. (google "satellitegate" if you want to find out more).

6. we have no current shortage of fossil fuels and have a long time to improve the viability of other energy resources before we run out, a gradual transition would be a lot less harmful to the global economy. Current costs for energy from solar/wind is at more than 3 times the price for fossil fuel energy.

The IPCC is a political organisation (which has a few scientists) and was established by Margaret Thatcher with the directive of proving AGW (Thatcher was terrified of the coal miners union at the time). Given it's root's it is hardly surprising that they keep pumping out AGW papers and that dissenting scientists have quit the IPCC due to being unable to get their opinions heard.

Scientists who speak out against AGW have a lot to lose. They are ridiculed by the media and they lose funding. I'm glad that some still have the integrity to speak what they believe.

justjoshin,

your logical sense is just out of order. Accordingly, your seeming arguments say nothing but mirroring a confused mind.

"Historical data suggests that CO2 is lagging temperature by hundreds of years." What is that supposed to mean?

At the same time, I would really like to hope that there is no such thing as anthropogenic destructions of nature. You are very fortunate, justjoshin, to afford not only such hope, but even a firm belief in its already being an established truth. Congratulations. "No worries, mate!" Isn't that some saying common in Australia?

justjoshin, wild assertions can look a bit silly when they clash with hard data.

Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are currently about 29 billion tonnes of CO2 per annum. This is mostly additive from year to year (based on measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere).

Global crops are around 2 billion tonnes. So if all of the crops in all the world (much of which is a lot more fertile than most of Australia) were burnt, it would make a not very big percentage addition to CO2 emissions in one year (bear in mind that plants are mostly water). This should give you a clue as to how thin a straw you are clinging to when you wrongly suggest that aboriginal Australians produced CO2 on a scale comparable to the approximately 7 billion humans currently alive by burning some Australian vegetation (a one-off or cyclic process).

my point is that australia wasn't always so dry, historical data suggests that it was deforested. most of a tree is cellulose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose), not water (most of a person is water, not a tree, unless they are burning succulents, which australia does not have an abundance of), so the large scale burning of trees will release massive amounts of CO2. They were not burning crops, they were burning wood. The same wood which would have eventually decomposed and become the fossil fuels the IPCC blame for all of man's woe's.

There is a well researched documentary that doesn't have Al Gore in it (but does have eminent scientists including some ex-IPCC dissenters) that may be worth watching. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647).

if you want the views on some scientists that aren't in the IPCC, and probably haven't made it onto the news (as they aren't part of the IPCC propoganda machine)

   *        "I am a skeptic ... . Global warming has become a new religion." -- Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

        *        "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly ... . As a scientist I remain skeptical." -- Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology  and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years."

        *        Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history ... . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." -- U.N. IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist.

        *        "The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds ... . I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists." -- Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the U.N.-supported International Year of the Planet.

        *        "The models and forecasts of the U.N. IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." -- Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

        *        "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." -- U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

        *        "Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." -- Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

        *        "After reading [U.N. IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." -- Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an associate editor of Monthly Weather Review.

        *        "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" -- Geologist Dr. David Gee, the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer-reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

        *        "Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp ... . Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." -- Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch U.N. IPCC committee.

        *        "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." -- Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.

        *        "Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense ... . The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." -- Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

        *        "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another ... . Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so ... . Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot." -- Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

        *        "The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds." -- Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

 

To say that scientists agree with the theory of AGW is media sensationalism at best.

The fact is that a rise in temperature precedes (happens before) a rise in CO2 throughout all of the measurements scientists have taken (see the graph i posted on the vostok ice cores), by hundreds of years. This suggests that CO2 does not cause global warming (at least not for as far back as we can measure) , it is caused by global warming. There is a very soundly understood chemical principal behind this, solubility of gases. At higher temperatures, CO2 is less soluble in water. So historically, the Earth would warm, and after hundreds of years, the oceans would start to warm (they are a massive heat sink), and then they would give off CO2.

I don't suggest that there is no anthropological input into climate, only that data suggests it's extent is minimal and the science is completely unclear.

I have heard that expression. What worries me is that people are blindly swallowing what is put in front of them and it will cost the world trillions of $ (and condemn nations to poverty for generations), by demonising the cheapest energy source we have available.

"The fact is that a rise in temperature precedes (happens before) a rise in CO2 throughout all of the measurements scientists have taken (see the graph i posted on the vostok ice cores), by hundreds of years. This suggests that CO2 does not cause global warming (at least not for as far back as we can measure) , it is caused by global warming." This doesn't actually say anything, does it? Why compare old natural history with recent human history? You are extrapolating natural-historical data --- taken for granted that this data holds (but still held in suspense by your own statement that the "science is completely unclear") --- onto present day effects from human activities. These are two different regimes; the human natural history has emerged violently during the last 150 years. In effect, your argument annuls human activity, and "explains" it away by recourse to old natural history data. That is not right, is it? 

Besides, human activity does not only disturb and destruct climate, but all kinds of registers, be them of micro, meso, or macro --- water, soil, air, genes, etc. It is everywhere, and in fact what we are today witnessing, is a form of generalized and globalized destruction. (Were we to be observed from somewhere in outer space, the one thing astonishing about our way of life is not really tellys, cell phones, automobiles, moon landings, fertilizers, and so on, but the massive destruction of our very conditions of existence and survival.) Thing is that a certain scientific world view (very outdated, but still hegemonic) combined with predatory capitalism (same applies) threatens to ruin the world economically, politically, culturally, ecologically, and so on. We live in a world devoid of responsibility, with so-called leaders preying on this vacuum.

Humans are doing many things to the planet, but there is no compelling evidence that we are forcing the climate to any appreciable degree. The historical data suggests that CO2 has not forced climate to any appreciable degree, and was always driven by climate, but now we are being told that a minute increase in CO2 will render the world uninhabitable.  The human impact on the planet is real, the impact on the climate would appear to be minimal.

I am sorry that you see your species as a blight on the planet, and I hope that at some stage we (humanity) can do something to redeem ourselves in your eyes, but I maintain that crippling humanities use of the cheapest fuels that we currently have available will harm us more than any tiny impact on the climate we manage to have (which would be likely to help more than hinder us anyway).

"and I hope that at some stage we (humanity) can do something to redeem ourselves in your eyes." A fantasticly drab sentence.

Minute increase? Is this a banker or what?

I do agree with some of the other points, especially regarding genetic tampering by big companies for a profit. There is something we need to stop! I only maintain that the hard science (not the propaganda pumped out of the IPCC) suggests no major AGW effect.

Not a banker I'm glad to say, I'm an engineer. I've been a science geek from the age of 8. I'm currently writing software for embedded systems, but intend to do a postgrad degree in physics when my kids are a bit older.

You know I know you lie.

what exactly are you accusing me of lying about?

A statement which is false, referenced using a link which does not at any point support the assertion. Trees are in most cases over 50% water. Any plant in a hot dry climate either dies and reseeds during dry spells or stores a lot of water, with the consequence that that they have higher water content than the average tree in a temperate climate. Clearly trees are not exempt from this logic.

if you read the page on cellulose, it states

"About 33 percent of all plant matter is cellulose (the cellulose content of cotton is 90 percent and that of wood is 40-50 percent).^"

And most of the Australian tree's in question are Acacias, Sheoaks and Eucalypts (which are hardwoods which don't have a lot of water stored in the leaves - in fact they contain a lot of volatile oils like Eucalyptol). So the figure of 50+ % water may *ahem* hold water in most forests, but not in reference to Australian trees. The harder the wood, the higher the Cellulose content. Which is why if you are burning a log fire you want a harder wood so that it burns for longer, as there is more combustible material.

As a reference to the above statement (which you might be tempted to dismiss as the ravings of a madman :-P )

http://businessbiomass.blog.co.uk/2010/03/21/brazil-biomass-hard-woodchips-eucalyptus-reduce-co2-emissions-cellulose-and-mdf-8214483/

which gives the carbon content of Eucalypt woodchips at about 52%, and details the high cellulose content of eucalypts.

The main point of significance to the topic of this discussion is that even if the trees were made of pure carbon, you need to somehow show that Australia had vastly more biomass than the current entire world's crops in order to justify your original suggestion that aboriginal deforestation was comparable to modern fossil fuel burning as a emitter of CO2.

(Your references do not refute my claim that trees are typically mostly water, or support your claim that Australian trees are mostly cellulose: "most" means greater than 50%. Bear in mind that woodchips are dried wood. The outer wood would be expected to be the part of the tree highest in cellulose and lowest in water, with the centre of living branches and trunks, and the leaves, being higher in water content. In any case, I believe we agree that cellulose and water are the two biggest components of trees, and they are both large fractions of the whole).

[Australia is a fascinating country. Just learnt some interesting things about Australian history from seeing Jason Donavon tracing his ancestry on "Who do you think you are?" It never struck me before how very few non-Aboriginals there were there in the early 19th century.]