Yikes, Bill goes wildly off course in his update here. Not a big deal. He gets a whole heap of facts wrong but, I’m just not in the mood to even read the whole thing much less reply. So be it. One of the things he gets wrong is that he says I was going to make a global warming post… I offered to if he wanted, I never said I was going to… but what the heck…
Lemme do this in as few words as possible.
Proving that the global warming crowd is wrong is, by definition, impossible without the benefit of decades. Proving a negative always works out that way. But we can look at the theory critically and determine if it is even credible. As soon as I post this, 100 believers will try to play semantical word games… Especially since I’m doing this (again) in as few words as possible, I’m sure someone will have a problem with the way I say something. I challenge them to skip the word games and stick to the larger points.
While it can be expanded for days, the basic “global warming we’re all going to die” theory goes like this: We release nasty things like CFCs and CO2 in to the atmosphere. This causes a hole in the ozone layer (and/or acts as a thermal blanket) allowing more radiant energy from the sun to hit the earth causing the earth to warm… which in turn causes any number of scenarios, all of which end with, “and we’re all going to die.” (nobody said I couldn’t have fun with this post.) [yes I know I greatly simplified that– deal -Ed]
The “evidence,” such that it is, can be lumped into 2 broad categories.
1) We are getting warmer than we were a few years decades ago so it is already happening and
2) We can measure the hole in (or the thinning of) the ozone layer and that proves the theory is true.
Additionally, it is ASSUMED that these 2 phenomena are caused by humans. We can’t even prove the first 2 much less that we caused it. Let’s look at each:
#1) Depending on who you talk to, the earth is about 4.5 BILLION years old. We have reliable temperature data from about the last 200 years. The “believers” routinely compare the temperature today with the temperature just a few decades ago. That is just silly. Even using all 200 years of data we are looking at the last 1/22,500,000th of the history of the planet.
To put that in terms you can wrap your mind around, we just had about 120 million people vote in the last election. Imagine Gallup releasing a poll where they sampled 5 registered voters, all in the same city and called it scientific. They would be laughed at because the sample size was so small.
Yet the environmental crowd expects us to consider the last 20 years of temperature readings important on a planet 4.5 BILLION years old. 20 years would be (statistically) the same as asking 1/2 of 1 person how they were going to vote and from that, predicting a winner.
THEN toss into the mix we know the temperature of the planet has swung wildly thru history and it quickly becomes obvious the people citing this data have a screw lose.
But I’m a generous guy…. I’ll give them the point. [Are you out of your mind? Trust me. -ed]
Let’s pretend we really can tell something from the fact the average temp raised 0.8 degrees in the last 200 years. AND I’ll be even more generous and give them that man did it…. OK, Why did it happen?
Which is more plausible:
The established theory: CFC’s (et al) don’t destroy ozone at seal level, (or we would not have smog) they magically hold there electron stripping potential till they get to a higher altitude where they strip electrons off ozone and blah blah blah blah blah (there are tons of holes in the theory but I won’t even bother poke holes in it now)
OR
Paul’s Theory: You know, if we are getting hotter for the last 200 years, it might have something to do with this little thing called “heaters.” You know, those things we use to warm us up. Those of you in the Boston area might be familiar with them. To see the effects of man made heat generation, just watch the evening news during the winter. They give one temp in the city and one for the surrounding area which is generally 4 or 5 degrees cooler. Where do you think all that heat goes?
Hundreds of years of us producing heat to keep ourselves warm and produce steam for electricity is far more likely to be the cause of any warming that the nonsense the environmentalists are touting. If we can change the temperature locally by as many of 5 degrees, it is too much to believe that over hundreds of years we can move the average 0.8 degrees? (assuming man is moving the climate which is doubtful)
The environmentalist love to point out that sparsely populated nations have not had as large a temperature increase. DUH! They don’t have as many heaters, hot engines, electric generating plants etc etc.
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So what have we learned?
First, the data that we have is worthless because the dataset is too small and second, EVEN IF you hold stock in the data, there is a FAR more plausible explanation than the one the environmental community is spreading.
Which brings us to #2.
I so eviscerated #1, I really don’t even want to bother with #2. (I’m beat) But I will add this to the mix briefly and expand later if needed.
#2) Much of the ozone data suffers form the same incompleteness as the temperature data, (or worse) we’ve only measured it for about 20 years. But there is more to be said:
The theory goes that we are “depleting” the ozone layer. I love when people tell me this, I ask them how much ozone we have now and how much we need. It is a great way to make people realize they are arguing from complete ignorance. I literally had a girl one time tell me she thought there was a fixed amount of ozone up there and when we depleted it, we all fried. I disabused her.
Ozone is produced by lighting — that’s what replenished the ozone layer naturally. The theory holds that as the globe warms we get more freak storms. hmmmm More storms means… (say it with me….) more lighting!
So even if we have all these freak storms they will produce more ozone, keeping it in check! Ain’t the earth cool?
[Note: I’ve only posted 1/10th of the flaws with the theory, there’s plenty more.]
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Conclusion
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Have I proven a negative? No, you never can.
Have I proven the current theory to be fatally flawed?
I think so.
This discussion could use some facts and I’m currently reading a book “Satanic Gases’ which has some. GW is real, although the causes are not really known. Some certainly are not man-made and some probably are. Data exists which shows that by 2099 the warming extent will be about 2 deg. at night in the Winter and 1 deg. during the day in Summer. The warming is not distributed the same by season/time of day. This Winter warming should result in reduced heating costs and fewer hypothermia deaths. Overall soil moisture content will increase slightly. This coupled with higher CO2 will result in increased crop yields. The more even temperature differentials around the globe should result in lessened severe weather – hurricanes, El Ninos, etc. The sea level will probably rise a few inches. Bad for the Maldives not much of a problem for anyone else. Since all of this is from real measured data, and disagrees with the apparently still very immature models of the Chicken little GW ‘industry’ we now see ‘tipping point’ arguments. Their arguments seem to be that OK the data doesn’t look very bad but just a degree or two of change will somehow tip the environment into a completely new, and very BAD, mode and kill us all. There is no evidence for this.
Accurate temperature data in U.S. cities is barely 100 yrs. old. For 99% of the earth’s surface, we still don’t have any data.
But look at a map. If the worst case came true and the ice caps melted, nearly every blue county on both coasts would be flooded. And the problem is? I think I’ll go out and leave my SUV idling in the driveway.
You know krakatoa, It’s hard to lighten up when everybody is attacking you no matter what you do or say.
He sez it’s commentary; he gets slammed right and left for it not being factual complete with citations and references. He tries to write a more factual article; he get’s slammed for not making it a treatise. And all these people that you say know so much more, I don’t see them writing their own refutation of the report – just slamming Paul.
And a lot of the criticism has been unnecessarily personal, for example, the person who wrote, “you are acting like an Ass.”
So, maybe you and others are the ones who need to lighten up. And let’s see some articles by the know it alls, so other people can have an equal opportunity ripping it and them personally apart.
Actually, there is temperature data around the world, but for many of the undeveloped countries it is satellite only data. While that is somewhat reliable, it only goes back a couple decades.
For what it’s worth, every meteorological computer model is flawed. They can’t accurately predict the weather in three days, much less 30 years from now. The guy I rely on for most of my forecasts (Joe Bastardi from Accuweather Pro) uses the models, but then takes them apart for not picking up small things that affect the weather. For hurricanes, every computer model has them going on different paths.
Granted, climate modeling is a different animal than weather modeling. I don’t see how they can be accurate either, because they are only as reliable as the data entered into them. That data can be skewed to make the model say anything, so it depends entirely on the viewpoint and bias/lack of bias of the modeler.
Bottom line, I think that GW is a bunch of crap. However, this doesn’t mean we don’t look for ways to clean the place up a little bit. Let’s raise emissions standards and find other sources of fuel. Let’s keep the air clean, not because of GW but for health reasons.
OV- “First let me make a small point. One reason for the disparity between urban and rural temperature for the same region might have to do with thermal mass. “
hmmm then the delta should be greater during the summer than winter yet the opposite is true. Certainly thermal mass is part of it but the fact people are heating their homes is the bulk of it.
(I’ll read your link)
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ProphetCat that is a hell of a point. (cities growing)
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Tim, I mentioned both the 03 depletion AND the thermal blanket effect. I stressed the measuring of 03 over the thermal blanket effect because that is the one we have numbers for. We have numbers of C02 concentration but we have no wat to correlate that to temp… (Think about this for a second, it might not be clear at first) The thermal blanket stuff is NOT in #2 but #1. (We can measure temp)
So no, I did mention it and I got it correct.
As for your sampling issue, that is assuming even distribution. We (obviously) don’t have that. That is why I said “in a single city” go read it for yourself.
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Jess, yes word games. Most of what you said is a superset of what I said.
As far as lightNing vs lighting I meant both of them. I typed that part at like 3 am then saved as draft and went to bed. The next morning I did not catch the goof. I should have read something like
Ozone is produced by lighting — that’s what replenished [should be “replenishes”] the ozone layer naturally. [One theory is that as we the earth warms we’ll have more freak storm which means less *lighting.* But lightNing also produces Ozone.] hmmmm More storms means… (say it with me….) more lightNing!
So even if we have all these freak storms they will produce more ozone, keeping it in check!
What I’m trying to say is that even if we have more storm we still produce ozone.
Oh and if you think lightNing doesn’t produce much ozone. read this.
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Hobgoblin: “But you have just ignorantly and arrogantly brushed off two legitimate posters on the chemistry of atmospheric ozone”
Where? point me and just for you, I’ll address them.
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Mantis: “If you seriously think that a single election is an apt analogy to analysis of global climate over billions of years, you really need to go back to classes, or at least read a book”
Mantis, my analogy is fine. Use a nickel to buy a life. If you talk about elections or coin flips, statistics always uses analogies. You have taken a statistics class, right? right?
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Scott… Now THIS is irony. YOU beat be up for discussing the actual global warming debate and not the policy debate… that’s funny. Did you notice the name??
My OBLIGATORY Global Warming Myth Busting Post
I called it that because I am addressing GW now because (here’s the irony) I got beat up on my last post (discussing policy) for not addressing GW.
I discussed the policy deabate earlier and I got beat up for not discussing GW. Now you beat me up for the reverse!
It just goes to show no matter what I post, one of you will whine. lol
I realize that at times attacking the messenger rather than the message can be counter-productive, but I thought I’d take a look at the folks who produced this report. Turns out the Center for American Progress bills itself as a “progressive” organization (we all know what that means). Their home page (today) features an article on “Bush’s assault on women’s rights”. This is not some scholarly, or scientific group, it’s a left-wing think tank.
Paul —
You’re joking, right? I said “Lighning [sic] makes ozone, but it’s not the main source in the atmosphere” and you respond with “Oh and if you think lightNing doesn’t produce much ozone…” Huh?
Look, I’m aware of the research you cited. But unlike you, I also know the difference between the troposphere — where those measurements were made — and the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is. I repeat, there is no lightning in the stratosphere, so lightning is not what will replenish ozone depletion.
Also, did you really just call my corrections of scientifically incorrect comments you made a “superset of what [you] said”? Is this the closest you get to admitting you got your facts wrong?
Henry said:
“Paul, sorry to but in, but we banned CFC’s for their ozone depletion factor.”
Geeze Henry That is what I freaking said!
If you are going to contradict me at least say the opposite of what I said!
sigh….
Never mind, I’m done.
ya’ll have fun.
You’re joking, right? I said “Lighning [sic] makes ozone, but it’s not the main source in the atmosphere” and you respond with “Oh and if you think lightNing doesn’t produce much ozone…” Huh?
DID YOU READ THE GADDAMN POST JESSE?
No you fucking didn’t!
or you didn’t understand it!
geeze, I’ve learned my lesson.
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EDIT: Ok the show is over. I’ve learned my lesson for like the 5th time.
No matter what I say someone will whine. I talk about policy and not GW and Bill whines — so I talk about GW over policy and Scott whines.
Henry corrects me by repeating what I said… What’s up with that?
And Jesse, POTENTIALLY one of the smarter people here is so worried about winning a rhetorical debate he leaves his brain in the drawer and says things that if he thought about he would not have said. (multiple times)
This has devolved into nothingness.
I’m done.