always knew global warming was a hoax

Here's the reality of climate science that most laymen never notice or realize: Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf just published a paper claiming the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has slowed dramatically. Climate models predicted it and Mann and Rahmstorf found it. It's being touted in lots of places since Mann has a well-oiled PR machine. Of course the implied blame is man.

Here's one example of the news covering the new paper: "Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans — with potentially dire consequences" http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/23/global-warming-is-now-slowing-down-the-circulation-of-the-oceans-with-potentially-dire-consequences/?tid=pm_business_pop

And another: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/atlantic-circulation-weakens-compared-to-last-thousand-years/



This paper used computer models and proxies to determine the AMOC has slowed down. Only problem is that NASA claimed it had actually sped up slightly over the last 20 years or so:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/atlantic20100325.html

The difference is that NASA used actual measurements.

Who are you going to believe?

Mann and Rahmstorf paper: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2554.html

Quote: PBguy

Here's the reality of climate science that most laymen never notice or realize: Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf just published a paper claiming the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has slowed dramatically. Climate models predicted it and Mann and Rahmstorf found it. It's being touted in lots of places since Mann has a well-oiled PR machine. Of course the implied blame is man.

Here's one example of the news covering the new paper: "Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans — with potentially dire consequences" http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/23/global-warming-is-now-slowing-down-the-circulation-of-the-oceans-with-potentially-dire-consequences/?tid=pm_business_pop

And another: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/atlantic-circulation-weakens-compared-to-last-thousand-years/



This paper used computer models and proxies to determine the AMOC has slowed down. Only problem is that NASA claimed it had actually sped up slightly over the last 20 years or so:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/atlantic20100325.html

The difference is that NASA used actual measurements.

Who are you going to believe?

Mann and Rahmstorf paper: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2554.html

There's no "choosing" here. Not only did you not read the paper, but you couldn't even read the abstract either. They explicitly say that "Since 1990 the AMOC seems to have partially recovered." This is discussed in the paper too.

I know some people really want to "challenge the orthodoxy" because it's the new cool thing, and Galileo, and "sanctity of science" and "cuz I'm an American" and all that...but you actually have to understand it first.

Quote: cmc0605

There's no "choosing" here. Not only did you not read the paper, but you couldn't even read the abstract either. They explicitly say that "Since 1990 the AMOC seems to have partially recovered." This is discussed in the paper too.

I know some people really want to "challenge the orthodoxy" because it's the new cool thing, and Galileo, and "sanctity of science" and "cuz I'm an American" and all that...but you actually have to understand it first.

Do you believe corals are really proxies for the speed of the AMOC?

There are lots of other problems with this paper but hey it's getting the press they expected and they "validated" the models so it must be right!

Just don't look under the hood.

Since this topic is often a political debate, one thing I notice is conservatives seeming to take the position that the Earth is the one thing where there is a "free lunch." In other words, you can take or do to the Earth without considering repercussions, except in the form of liberals coming up with fictional costs.

Yet time and again that idea is rejected by the Earth, at least in the sense that the Earth can't keep up.

Can you keep farming without crop rotation? Can people in Beijing pollute the air without cost? Did we not take the most populous bird in the U.S. and make it extinct (passenger pigeon.). Did we not reap the physical costs of strip mining and deforestation before doing land reclamation? Both looked more like nuclear attacks. Lakes have been so polluted they've caught on fire. Some of this we've fixed. But in other countries you can see results of water that is unsafe to swim in, and other failures of man.

So, can you frack without consequences (like earthquakes), and can you put more CO2 into the atmosphere without climate change? That's the current, our "free lunch" from the Earth that people want to believe is without significant costs.

Quote: rxwine

Since this topic is often a political debate, one thing I notice is conservatives seeming to take the position that the Earth is the one thing where there is a "free lunch." In other words, you can take or do to the Earth without considering repercussions, except in the form of liberals coming up with fictional costs.

So, can you frack without consequences (like earthquakes), and can you put more CO2 into the atmosphere without climate change? That's the current, our "free lunch" from the Earth that people want to believe is without significant costs.

Actually, I can say the same thing about liberals.

Liberals want electric cars yet think the electricity comes from their wall outlet and ignore the collateral costs to their EV or hybrid, for example all the mining done to get the lead, lithium, and other items needed to make the battery pack. That windmills will not kill more birds. That when you ban a good pesticide you needed 1oz of you may have to replace it with another that requires 1lb for the same effect.

In my life I have found that the liberals who "love the earth" are the most clueless about how nature works. They go by what they have "learned" in books or media. Conservatives are more likely to have had a life or job that gives them practical experience. Maybe as a hunter or oil worker or farmer. In a sentence Conservatives understand that "caring for the earth" does not mean it must or even can be that the earth looks as if we were never here.

Quote: AZDuffman

Liberals want electric cars yet think the electricity comes from their wall outlet

You'd have a good argument if the U.S. electric grid was a static, unchanging thing. But the grid is changing fast, far faster than I ever would have predicted. U.S. wind power has doubled since 2009. Solar installations have quadrupled since 2010!

I'm not talking about hippies in Berkeley. The real revolutionaries are cattle ranchers in Texas. The state's initial pie-in-the-sky goal of 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy in 1999 was eventually increased to 10,000 megawatts by 2025. The state passed that milestone five years ago.

Quote: AZDuffman

Liberals [...] ignore the collateral costs to their EV or hybrid, for example all the mining done to get the lead, lithium, and other items needed to make the battery pack.

Do you have any data to back up this statement?

Nissan's own data comparing their Leaf to Nissan's gasoline vehicles (Versa, Altima, Maxima, etc) is pretty straightforward:



Even if we assume that Nissan is an unreliable source due to their bias for selling Leafs to stupid hippies, other researchers have come to the same conclusion:



Separately, the Automotive Science Group compared 1,300 car/truck models sold in the U.S. and Canada and determined that the Leaf had "the smallest life-cycle environmental footprint of any model year 2014 automobile available in the North American market (with minimum four person occupancy)."

Automotive Science Group was created with the express purpose of valuing environmental factors in its ratings. Of course it is biased towards EV's since that is it's stated purpose.

Quote: reno

You'd have a good argument if the U.S. electric grid was a static, unchanging thing. But the grid is changing fast, far faster than I ever would have predicted. U.S. wind power has doubled since 2009. Solar installations have quadrupled since 2010!

The electrical grid has always been expanding. My point was not that it was not, my point was that liberals very often use a static analysis and look at just one dimension when they see a problem. Then when they pass some kind of law to solve it the law of unintended consequences bites them back.

Quote: AZDuffman

Liberals [...] ignore the collateral costs to their EV or hybrid, for example all the mining done to get the lead, lithium, and other items needed to make the battery pack.

Do you have any data to back up this statement?

Nissan's own data comparing their Leaf to Nissan's gasoline vehicles (Versa, Altima, Maxima, etc) is pretty straightforward:

This all assumes CO2 is a pollutant, which it is not. CO2 is plant food and a natural emission produced by every breathing thing on the planet. I do not care that the PC attitude is to say otherwise, BTW, so no need to tell me the EPA says that it is. The point of my statement is that the same liberal who is against a coal mine or digging up oil sands is perfectly happy to ignore all that must be done to get the rare earth metals for the batteries. Said rare earths come from China, who is not exactly the greatest protector of the environment.

Or they worry about lead in anything but are happy to ride around with it and cause the need for more production. I am serious, the whole thing is about buying an indulgence pass from their Church of Latter Day Anti-Global Warming Saints.

Quote: AZDuffman

This all assumes CO2 is a pollutant, which it is not. CO2 is plant food and a natural emission produced by every breathing thing on the planet. I do not care that the PC attitude is to say otherwise, BTW, so no need to tell me the EPA says that it is.

This is the kind of stupidity that only belongs on coal or gas company commercials. Just because CO2 is a plant food does not mean that too much of it won't cause harm to the planet. I mean seriously the poison is in the dosage. The planet needs some CO2 just like humans need some salt that does not mean the earth can absorb an infinite amount of CO2 anymore then humans can consume an infinite amount of salt. I mean you really cannot be stupid enough to believe that sentence is not completely moronic right?

Quote: Twirdman

This is the kind of stupidity that only belongs on coal or gas company commercials. Just because CO2 is a plant food does not mean that too much of it won't cause harm to the planet. I mean seriously the poison is in the dosage. The planet needs some CO2 just like humans need some salt that does not mean the earth can absorb an infinite amount of CO2 anymore then humans can consume an infinite amount of salt. I mean you really cannot be stupid enough to believe that sentence is not completely moronic right?

Well, based on the name-calling I must be winning the discussion. And yet more proof that liberals look at most things just in one dimension.

An inconvenient truth is that 97% of CO2 is generated by non-human sources!



Are you really expecting me to believe that a 3% difference is going to Cause gasoline to be $9 and milk $12.99/gal each by June 8, 2015?