Global warming shrinks mountains

[2_Salukis]

I don't know why so many people think reducing greenhouse gases is such a bad thing. Other than forcing people to change their habits and making companies more environmentally/socially responsibe, what's so negative about it?

Vdub, I don't think anyone is saying reducing greenhouse gases is a bad thing. Reducing our output into the environment is a good thing, whether that's gases, solid waste, or Barry Manilow music.

The issue is global warming, the cause, and our ability and need to change it. It's turned into a frenzied, one-sided (like calling any debate "silly"), movement that is already making people rich. It's when people tell others what they can or cannot do. Kind of like no one says that helping out the poor and less fortunate is a bad thing. I donate and volunteer regularly to charities. But I take big time issue with the government taking my money and giving it to someone they think is more deserving, or telling me I have to "volunteer," or forcing someone to give to the less fortunate when they don't want to.

[Mark A Steiner]

If global warming shrinks mountains, then where did all those fossils near the summit of Mount Everest come from?

One highly questionable aspect of this global warming argument is reliability of data. Frankly, even if good data has been collected (and one wonders what the definition of "good data" is) we simply don't have enough of it over a long enough time period to say yea or nay. Windows-based computer modeling of climate changes is less than 25 years old. Mention solar or geothermal influences governing global temperature change and the man-caused global warming proponents run and hide - because these are two factors they cannot control. So this issue is not really about warming but population control: through global governance and excess taxation which, if they were honest, they would admit this much.

Until Al Gore reduces the size of his Bigfoot carbon footprint, I'll be derned-tootin' sure I won't aim to reduce mine.

Oh - and if the concentration of CO2 goes below 220 ppm, we're all in trouble. That means everyone.

[pw]

One highly questionable aspect of this global warming argument is reliability of data.

Not only reliability of data, but interpretation of what it means. This story on one of the most well known symbols of global warming, Kilimanjaro, is just a few days old. Some scientists are attributing the melting glaciers to destruction of local forest, not global warming. So there is still a lot that isn't understood about what it going on.

http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... 20550.html

A scientific theory has linked the loss of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro to deforestation and dismissed suggestions that the dwindling of glaciers on Africa`s highest peak was due to global warming.

The theory is highlighted in a recent study report compiled by two researchers from Britain`s Portsmouth University, Nicholas Pepin and Martin Schaefer, who surveyed the mountain`s glaciers for 11 days.

The researchers, who revealed their findings at a news conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, said the mountain`s glacier surface had shrunk from 20 km in 1880 to a mere two kilometres in 2000.

They said the development was caused more by local than regional factors, with Pepin suggesting that deforestation mainly due to extensive farming as the major cause.

[Mark A Steiner]

Fine point PW, including the discussion of Kilimanjaro.

Amplifying just a bit, areas where glaciers have been shrinking doesn't necessarily mean that the cllimate near these glaciers (or anywhere else) is necessarily warming. Take southeastern Alaska, for instance. There are enormous glaciers there and the climate by our reckoning is still quite cold. Compared to the continental interior (such as Kansas), it snows profusely up there. But one factor not often mentioned is that these areas just aren't receiving as much precipitation as they used to in order to change the "glacier budget" from negative to positive. It takes tremendous quantities of snow to intitiate and maintain alpine glacier systems against periods of time when available moisture - for whatever reason, including a cooler Japan Current - slacks off.

Arapahoe Glacier has been shrinking not necessarily due to warming, but do to the extensive dry periods we've seen - at least since I've been here (first time in 1967).

[tundraline]

If global warming shrinks mountains, then where did all those fossils near the summit of Mount Everest come from?

One highly questionable aspect of this global warming argument is reliability of data. Frankly, even if good data has been collected (and one wonders what the definition of "good data" is) we simply don't have enough of it over a long enough time period to say yea or nay. Windows-based computer modeling of climate changes is less than 25 years old. Mention solar or geothermal influences governing global temperature change and the man-caused global warming proponents run and hide - because these are two factors they cannot control. So this issue is not really about warming but population control: through global governance and excess taxation which, if they were honest, they would admit this much.

Until Al Gore reduces the size of his Bigfoot carbon footprint, I'll be derned-tootin' sure I won't aim to reduce mine.

Oh - and if the concentration of CO2 goes below 220 ppm, we're all in trouble. That means everyone.

Enough data have been collected from enough different sources to make it wildly apparent to anyone with any scientific skills or an iota of logic that global warming is a reality, and that it is indeed man-induced. What I find so interesting about this "debate" is that some people actually believe that if they protest and proclaim loudly enough that global warming is some sort of left-wing conspiracy, their protestations will somehow mature into reality (see, for example, the Rush Limbaugh show). This is like believing the sun won't come up tomorrow because you say so. Even GW has publicly acknowledged that carbon emissions are a problem, and that something needs to be done about them, in his recent statements regarding the Kyoto Protocols. Thirty years from now you should tell your children and grandchildren all about the nifty political (not scientific) theory you once had about global warming. As responsible members of society we can choose to do something about the considerable impact we have on the natural world around us (including global warming), or as irresponsible and selfish citizens we can choose to ignore the growing problems which surround us, many of which are related to things other than global warming (such as population growth). I think American society today may have become too politicized, too polarized, too selfish and too fragmented to do anything about global warming, pollution, or any of a host of big problems we now face (such as illegal immigration, which is predicted to swell our population by tens of millions by 2050; the U.S. Census and the Pew Foundation predict the U.S. population will be about 446 million by 2047). The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act be almost impossible to pass into law today because they would surely be branded as left-wing conspiracies that would bankrupt the taxpayer -- and a lot of people today would buy into such tripe. The idea of government doing good and constructive things that only a government can do -- like regulate emissions from smokestacks or drainpipes -- has become passe and anathema to "freedom-loving" Americans, who have bought into the ridiculous idea that they, like the top 0.01% of the population, might someday win the lottery and be ultra-rich too. I'd rather have my freedom and responsibility too, and I'm willing to pay for it -- because it will cost money.

[Solo+1]

Don't buy any of that global warming crap. That is all it is. Gore and his cronnies are being sued by several countries for false information. All it is a way to get people to put more money in his already DIRTY hands. If we have global warming, why in the hell did Colorado have record snowfall this past year. Why did we snowed on this past Saturday up on Uncompahgre??? If Gore is truly worried about global warming, and others, he sure wouldn't be flying around the world in the most polluting private jet made.

[tundraline]

Al Gore is a politician, not a scientist, who happened to make a movie about global warming. He is wealthy, lives in a big house and travels by air far more often than any of us. All these things are true. But that does not change or affect one iota what is happening to our planet, right before our very eyes. According to climate change models, Colorado should receive more precipitation (and more snow) as the climate warms. The current pine beetle infestation in Colorado's high country is also a consequence of climate change: it's a few degrees warmer in the winter nowadays, and no longer gets cold enough for long enough during the winter months to kill off pine beetles. More snow should not be confused with "global warming is a lie."

[pw]

Enough data have been collected from enough different sources to make it wildly apparent to anyone with any scientific skills or an iota of logic that global warming is a reality, and that it is indeed man-induced.

Oddly enough, there are a number of people with considerable scientific skills who are skeptical about human contribution to warming. Anthony Watts has documented how poorly sited many weather stations are, calling into question temperature data. Freeman Dyson has pointed out flaws in the computer models used to project climate change out a hundred years or so. A number of climatologists have pointed out the role of solar cycles in temperature change, and by the way, 400 days without any sunspots, possibly indicating cooling ahead. Climatologist have also noted a lack of warming for the last 10 years. Anyway, there are legitimate skeptical points of view on the subject.

[JayMiller]

Rob Runkel writes:

JayMiller wrote:Rob Runkel says:
Only two? How about 31,072 and growing...
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Did anyone actually read this petition. It actually says, Honest to God:
"The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."


I think that just about says it all about the people who signed this petition.

What exactly is that? You've got me on the edge of my seat...

OK, you can get off the edge of your seat now. :D

Please keep in mind that the primary method of reducing greenhouse gases is the reduction and eventual elimination of the use of hydrocarbon fuels primarily by eventually doing away with gas or diesel vehicles, coal and gas fired power plants, and in the longer term, reduction in the use of wood and charcoal in third world nations.

I need you to answer the following questions to convince me the signers of the petition are working with full decks.

1) Please explain how doing away with the use of hydrocarbon fuels with their resultant greenhouse gases, poisonous gases, and particulate matter is going to “harm the environment”? It seems to me this would actually help the environment.

2) Please explain how spending billions of dollars on research and development of alternate clean energy sources is going the “hinder the advance or science and technology. Again, it seems to me that spending money on science and technology would actually push science and technology forward.

3) Please explain exactly how cleaning up the air, reducing the amount of poisons and particulate matter in the air is going to “damage the health and welfare of mankind”. I guess I just didn’t understand how healthful pollution really is.

Solo+1 writes:

Gore and his cronnies are being sued by several countries for false information.

I did a fairly extensive search of this statement. I couldn’t find a single news article making this claim. If you can substantiate this information, please do.

I did find several articles about one of the founders of The Weather Channel (he’s now a weatherman for a tv station in San Diego) talking about suing Al Gore, but nothing indicating that that any suit has actually been brought.

Solo+1 also writes:

why in the hell did Colorado have record snowfall this past year

This kind of statement shows a basic lack of understanding of global warming. Global warming is based on worldwide weather patterns. Erratic and wide swings in local weather patterns are predicted by the current models.

And lastly, maybe I and Mr. Gore are wrong. Maybe there is no such thing as global warming. But I would rather be wrong and spend hundreds of billions of dollars weaning America off Big Oil and OPEC and cleaning up the environment than be right, do nothing as the naysayers advocate, and destroy our planet as we know it.

[tundraline]

Enough data have been collected from enough different sources to make it wildly apparent to anyone with any scientific skills or an iota of logic that global warming is a reality, and that it is indeed man-induced.

Oddly enough, there are a number of people with considerable scientific skills who are skeptical about human contribution to warming. Anthony Watts has documented how poorly sited many weather stations are, calling into question temperature data. Freeman Dyson has pointed out flaws in the computer models used to project climate change out a hundred years or so. A number of climatologists have pointed out the role of solar cycles in temperature change, and by the way, 400 days without any sunspots, possibly indicating cooling ahead. Climatologist have also noted a lack of warming for the last 10 years. Anyway, there are legitimate skeptical points of view on the subject.

You will also be able to find people who believe the earth is flat and that the Holocaust never occurred. Contrary to the popular mythology foisted on the public by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and other blowhards, there really is very little legitimacy to the idea that climate change in not occurring, that the earth is not warming up, and that humans have nothing to do with it. There are a few fringe types out there who espouse such ideas, and even a few trained scientists who have the same point of view. They are in the distinct super-minority, however. The overwhelming majority of scientists who are trained in the field and actually know something about it arrived at a solid consensus several years ago that climate change is real and unmistakable, that the earth is indeed warming rapidly, and that humans are to blame. The issue of climate change will be determined by the laws of nature and what actually happens in our atmosphere, on the ground and in the oceans, and certainly will not depend on what Rush Limbaugh or any other crackpot says.

A spokesman for the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, said: “The world’s leading climate experts at the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believe that it is greater than 90 per cent likely that human activity is responsible for most of the observed warming in recent decades." That is a pretty strong consensus.

“The science has come a long way since 1998 and it continues to point in one direction - the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert dangerous climate change.”

[Mark A Steiner]

Before I believe in the likes of Al Gore et al, I want to re-emphasize (if that is possible) the forces already at work that are capable of providing climate changes with far more disastrous consequences than mankind's relatively feeble efforts.

Since we don't learn from history, consider this: In 1812 the Tambora caldera in Indonesia erupted and produced so much ash into the stratosphere it effected the climate across the planet for a number of years. In New England the year of 1816 saw what was called "the year without a summer". Several crop plantings failed in June and July because of hard freezes and snow. The following winter it ws so cold in NE that mercury froze in thermometers. OF course, later the atmosphere returned to "normal" because it was created to deal with these extremes.

I think Solo+1's post is interesting and useful from a local standpoint (early snow on Uncompahgre), but cannot of itself be used to support warming or cooling.

The greatest sources of CO2 are from unseen undersea volcanism and of course, volcanoes like Tambora, Vesuvius, St. Helens and Pinatubo and Kilauea. Anyone want to propose legislation to regulate the CO2 emissions from these vents?

One massive or super-eruption in the North America and all this talk about global warming would vanish in a Yellowstone minute. For now, I don't want to see anyone have to cut back on their enjoyment of the 14ers or other natural features in Colorado or elsewhere because some wealthy globalists tell me its for the good of the planet. This is still the United States, although it may not be for long. Elections, anyone?

[JayMiller]

Mark A Steiner says:

The greatest sources of CO2 are from unseen undersea volcanism and of course, volcanoes like Tambora, Vesuvius, St. Helens and Pinatubo and Kilauea. Anyone want to propose legislation to regulate the CO2 emissions from these vents?

I think there is a flaw in your argument. These sources of CO2 have been around millions of years. They are part of the natural balance that has been achieved over millions of years. It is the additional CO2 and other greenhouse gases man is adding to the atmosphere that is the problem not the naturally occurring gases the planet has already balanced.

Mark also says:

One massive or super-eruption in the North America and all this talk about global warming would vanish in a Yellowstone minute.

Correct me if I am wrong, but are you saying we shouldn't do anything about global warming because Yellowstone is due to erupt sometime in the next 200,000 years or so.