[han]

Maybe it is time to revisit the climate discussion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/...h/02cnd-climate.
html?ei=5094&en=7f0ce59ee7d312e5&hp=&ex=1170478800&adxn
nl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1170448352-xHXKQ+/VANV2wA5pJCWkCA

[han]

Maybe this works better:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/...VANV2wA5pJCWkCA

[hrothgar]

Dr. Todd will be thrilled to know that Exxon-Mobil is already bribing scientists to provide him with new talking points:

http://www.guardian....2004399,00.html

[DrTodd13]

Surprised you took time out of your busy schedule of watching for the sky to fall and insulting everyone to post this message. Grow up. Excuse me for allowing myself to be a skeptic when even the latest climate report puts the probability at only 90% that humans are causing it. 90%...lol....hardly scientific proof.

[pbleighton]

"90%...lol....hardly scientific proof."

... to one who's clearly been drinking the Kool-Aid...

Peter

[jtfanclub]

DrTodd13, on Feb 2 2007, 04:43 PM, said:

Excuse me for allowing myself to be a skeptic when even the latest climate report puts the probability at only 90% that humans are causing it. 90%...lol....hardly scientific proof.

Actually, it's more like 70% likely, according to the report. Global warming itself is considered an absolute certainly, but it's virtually impossible to prove what's causing it. Even if humans are causing it, it's tough to say if it's water pollution, air polution, cutting down trees, cow farts, or pavement that's doing it.

I think it's pavement, myself- black tar absorbs an unbelievable amount of heat. If we painted every black road in the world a bright white, I think we'd have a surprising effect on global warming. But that's just me.

[han]

Quote from the NYT article:

But it is the first in which the group asserts with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950.

Note that "more than 90%" is not 90%, it is more. 70% is not.

[cherdano]

DrTodd13, on Feb 2 2007, 11:43 PM, said:

Surprised you took time out of your busy schedule of watching for the sky to fall and insulting everyone to post this message. Grow up. Excuse me for allowing myself to be a skeptic when even the latest climate report puts the probability at only 90% that humans are causing it. 90%...lol....hardly scientific proof.

Not sure what you are laughing about. Are you saying it is not science because it gives a probability instead of certainty? Or are you saying that 90% certainty isn't enough reason to work towards a change of our CO2 production?

If the first, you are misunderstanding how science works, when it is dealing with complex systems that we can't understand in full detail. If the latter, then I can't help you.

You go a doctor after having an almost heart attack. He gives you a medicine. I assume you take it? Well if the doctor were honest, he would say that we know with 95% certainty that this medicine helps, and that you have an expected likelyhood of (say) 40% that you won't have another heart attack if you take the medicine, but 70% if you don't take it. He would mention that there is a 5% chance of some negative side effects, and a 0-0.5% chance of some serious detrimental side effects (we don't really know). He would then tell you that if you change your eating habits, do some exercising, and so on, you can (according to our knowledge with about 95% certainty) further substantially reduce this risk.

By your climate change logic, I am sure you would ignore this advice, refuse to take the medicine, and start smoking?

Arend

[luke warm]

it wasn't very long ago that someone (i think) posted that mt. st. helens put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere when it erupted than mankind has in recorded history... does anyone know if this is true, or even mostly true?

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Feb 3 2007, 02:35 AM, said:

it wasn't very long ago that someone (i think) posted that mt. st. helens put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere when it erupted than mankind has in recorded history... does anyone know if this is true, or even mostly true?

Its entirely possible that someone could have posted this little factoid. However, it doesn't appear to be true. I did a quick scan of the Internet looking for comparisons between greenhouse gas emission from Volcanos and humans. The sites that I checked seemed pretty clear that greenhouse gas emissions for ALL volcanos is fairly insignificant compared to man made sources.

Here's what Real Climate has to say

"One point that is also worth making is that although volcanoes release some CO2 into the atmosphere, this is completely negligable compared to anthropogenic emissions (about 0.15 Gt/year of carbon, compared to about 7 Gt/year of human related sources) . However, over very long times scales (millions of years), variations in vulcanism are important for the eventual balance of the carbon cycle, and may have helped kick the planet out of a 'Snowball Earth' state in the Neo-proterozoic 750 million years ago."

Here's another result from the same search

"At Mount St Helens the maximum measured emission rate was 2.2X10^7 kg per day. The total amount of gas released during non-eruptive periods from the beginning of July to the end of October was 9.1X10^8 kg . I do not have an estimate for the volume of CO2 released during the Plinian eruptions. As a long-term average, volcanism produces about 5X10^11 kg of CO2 per year; that production, along with oceanic and terrestrial biomass cycling maintained a carbon dioxide reservoir in the atmosphere of about 2.2X10^15 kg. Current fossil fuel and land use practices now introduce about a (net) 17.6X10^12 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere and has resulted in a progressively increasing atmospheric reservoir of 2.69X10^15 kg of CO2. Hence, volcanism produces about 3% of the total CO2 with the other 97% coming from man-made sources. For more detail, see Morse and Mackenzie, 1990, Geochemistry of Sedimentary Carbonates."

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/frequent_que...estion1375.html

[DrTodd13]

cherdano, on Feb 2 2007, 03:18 PM, said:

DrTodd13, on Feb 2 2007, 11:43 PM, said:

Surprised you took time out of your busy schedule of watching for the sky to fall and insulting everyone to post this message.  Grow up.  Excuse me for allowing myself to be a skeptic when even the latest climate report puts the probability at only 90% that humans are causing it.  90%...lol....hardly scientific proof.

Not sure what you are laughing about. Are you saying it is not science because it gives a probability instead of certainty? Or are you saying that 90% certainty isn't enough reason to work towards a change of our CO2 production?

If the first, you are misunderstanding how science works, when it is dealing with complex systems that we can't understand in full detail. If the latter, then I can't help you.

You go a doctor after having an almost heart attack. He gives you a medicine. I assume you take it? Well if the doctor were honest, he would say that we know with 95% certainty that this medicine helps, and that you have an expected likelyhood of (say) 40% that you won't have another heart attack if you take the medicine, but 70% if you don't take it. He would mention that there is a 5% chance of some negative side effects, and a 0-0.5% chance of some serious detrimental side effects (we don't really know). He would then tell you that if you change your eating habits, do some exercising, and so on, you can (according to our knowledge with about 95% certainty) further substantially reduce this risk.

By your climate change logic, I am sure you would ignore this advice, refuse to take the medicine, and start smoking?

Arend

My point is this. If you went to people on the street who believed in anthropogenic global warming and asked them about it, they would tell you it is a scientific fact. If asked to give a percentage of likelihood that humans were causing global warming, do you believe that they would have said 67% up until a few days ago or would say 90% now? I seriously doubt it. They would likely say 99 or 100%. The proponents have done a disservice to themselves by not being honest and giving the real number. They have overstated their case intentionally to try to motivate action. To want action is ok but you should do it honestly.

[DrTodd13]

luke warm, on Feb 2 2007, 03:35 PM, said:

it wasn't very long ago that someone (i think) posted that mt. st. helens put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere when it erupted than mankind has in recorded history... does anyone know if this is true, or even mostly true?

Volcanic eruptions cool the planet not warm it up. There is some evidence of a global temp decrease of about 1 degree for several years following an eruption in the western pacific rim some two or three hundred years ago.

[mike777]

As I posted before I am still betting on some cheap co2 scrubbers to be invented out of China to save the planet and the economies.

Saw the Al Gore movie, powerful if very biased as had been posted on several sites but still powerful, if he is this charming he may be President in 2008

May be what they mean when they say..."SAVE THE CHEERLEADER, SAVE THE WORLD"

[hrothgar]

mike777, on Feb 3 2007, 04:12 AM, said:

As I posted before I am still betting on some cheap co2 scrubbers to be invented out of China to save the planet and the economies.

Silly question Mike:

Why would anyone bother investing resources to research this wonderous CO2
scrubber?

Even if the plans for a C02 scrubber were to fall into our laps from on high, why would anyone pay money to install it on their car/power plant/whatever?

This type of innovation doesn't happen spontaneously. It (typically) requires the possibility that someone is going be able to make a profit introducing a new business model or technology or whatever. More specifically, if you want this type of innovation to happen then you require some kind of government intervention that taxes carbon emissions.

[Winstonm]

Did anyone other than me vote YES on global warming - why should San Diego and Santa Barbara have all the fun.

Serioously, this latest study is the most thorough yet produced and the most telling that global warming is a real phenomenon, and when a bunch of scientist who usually are aghast at stating whys claim in unison that 90% are sure it is of human origin then it is a significant scientific finding. Trouble is, the report also says that nothing we do about it now will make any difference for a long, long time as it is already begun and the progression cannot be halted.

Like social security, medicare, and the payment for the war on Iraq - we won't have to pay the price - the future will have to do so.

[hrothgar]

Winstonm, on Feb 3 2007, 05:09 AM, said:

Trouble is, the report also says that nothing we do about it now will make any difference for a long, long time as it is already begun and the progression cannot be halted.

Not quite true:

The report makes it clear that our descendents are screwed, however, we have the option to make things a lot worse for them.

[Winstonm]

hrothgar, on Feb 2 2007, 09:10 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Feb 3 2007, 05:09 AM, said:

Trouble is, the report also says that nothing we do about it now will make any difference for a long, long time as it is already begun and the progression cannot be halted.

Not quite true:

The report makes it clear that our descendents are screwed, however, we have the option to make things a lot worse for them.

touche'

[han]

Winston, I thought the following sentence offered some hope, but I agree, the future looks rather bad: But the warming can be substantially blunted by prompt action, the panel of scientists said in a report released here today. What do you suggest, we give up on earth and play bridge until it's over? Not a bad idea actually..

I think that it would be nice if people wouldn't copy DrTodd's 90%. It's not 90%. It's not like these scientists think it's 10% likely that the warming is not influenced by humans. As Arend said, this is very complicated and nobody can say with 100% certainty exactly what is happening. This report is made by a large group of scientists who all have (perhaps slightly) different opinions. What they agree on is that global warming is happening and that it is near certain that it is for a large part caused by us. Some may think it is 99.9% certain, others maybe think 95%, but they can all live with "at least 90%".

This is not the same as a statistical experiment with data suggesting a fact with 90% certainty, and with a 10% chance that it is all wrong.

[han]

I wonder how people would react to the following hypothetical scenario:

A comet approaches earth at an incredible speed. Scientist know for certain that it is coming in this direction. They are near certain (more than 90%) that it will hit the earth, and if that happen then it will be a terrible disaster. If we don't do something now then we won't be able to stop it later.. should we do something?

[keylime]

Yeah but even global warming advocates are saying they are overselling it.

Keep in mind that the 6,000 page text is going to be released in June/July due to the need of political correctness.