Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

HA!

 

[sinewave]

actually, he did have a hand in developing the internet into what it is today, but he did not make up global warming. i know it's a joke, but it's a lazy, intellectually dishonest one.

 

[sinewave]

not sure if this has been posted here yet.

Southern Baptist leaders shift position on climate change

* Story Highlights
* Southern Baptist leaders: People have biblical duty to stop global warming
* 46 leaders denounce denomination for being too timid on environmental issues
* Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

(CNN) -- Several prominent leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention said Monday that Baptists have a moral responsibility to combat climate change -- a major shift within a denomination that just last year cast doubt on human responsibility for global warming.

Forty-six influential members of the Southern Baptist Convention, including three of its past four presidents, criticized their denomination in a statement Monday for being "too timid" in confronting global warming.

"Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed," the statement says. "We can do better."

The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, adopted a resolution last year urging Baptists to "proceed cautiously in the human-induced global warming debate in light of conflicting scientific research." The resolution said "many scientists reject the idea of catastrophic human-induced global warming."

On Monday, however, dozens of Southern Baptist leaders expressed a different view.

"There is general agreement among those engaged with this issue in the scientific community," their statement says. "A minority of sincere and respected scientists offer alternate causes for global climate change other than deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels."

The signatories pledged to do their part to fight global warming "without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem or our responsibility to address it. Humans must be proactive and take responsibility for our contributions to climate change -- big and small."

The signatories include Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention since 2006; James Merritt, president of the convention from 2000 to 2002 and Jack Graham, president of the convention from 2002 to 2004. The group posted the statement on its Web site.

The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that some of them were skeptics at first.

"Some of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that these are real problems that deserve our attention," the statement says. "But now we have seen and heard enough to be persuaded that these issues are among the current era's challenges that require a unified moral voice."

The Southern Baptist Convention's 16 million members make up roughly 7 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to the convention and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The competing and evolving views on climate change within the Southern Baptist Convention mirror a debate that has played out among members of the theologically like-minded National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents about 30 million people in 45,000 church congregations, including many Baptist congregations.

Its Washington policy director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, has pressed for years for more action to combat climate change, saying in a recent documentary that "to harm this world by environmental degradation is an offense against God."

His advocacy raised eyebrows given that global warming sometimes conjured "impressions in people's minds of being liberal, democratic, left wing, big government, tied to population control, all these kinds of things," Cizik told CNN last year.

Several conservative evangelicals signed a letter in 2007 urging the association to rein in Cizik or encourage him to resign. The signers included James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate and president of American Values.

"We have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children," their letter said. "The issue (global warming) should be addressed scientifically and not theologically."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/10/baptist.climate/index.html?iref=newssearch

i'm curious to hear slim's thoughts on this article.

 

[SuBe]

i'm curious to hear slim's thoughts on this article.

I'm never curious to hear Slim's thoughts.

He'll just repost an article about Global Cooling....

 

[jaguarr]

So far the title of this thread has failed to deliver.

jag

 

[SuBe]

I think that the Title should have been:

Global Warming just broke into my house, what do I do?

 

[jaguarr]

Haha! "Global Warming Stole My Neighbor's Car. Should I Call The Cops?"

jag

 

[SuBe]

Or "You know..... How big is your... you know.... global warming?"

 

[jaguarr]

"The Global Warming Lounge"

Merk: Hey, how you doin'?

squeekness: Hot! It's so hot I'm having to run around naked!

oakzap: *naked Yaoi drawing pictures*

Master Chief: I saw a polar bear melt LOLZZZZ




jag

 

[sinewave]

I'm never curious to hear Slim's thoughts.

He'll just repost an article about Global Cooling....

oh no you di'in't!

 

[SuBe]

"The Global Warming Lounge"

Merk: Hey, how you doin'?

squeekness: Hot! It's so hot I'm having to run around naked!

oakzap: *naked Yaoi drawing pictures*

Master Chief: I saw a polar bear melt LOLZZZZ




jag

LOL

MR Sparkle: global warming is real.

Celldog: Nay I say!

MR Spakle: Yeah, you would.

Celldog: Nope, it's global Cooling.

SupermanBeyond: What does any of this have to do with the FairTax! I'm outty!

 

[Tron5000]

http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm

New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible

Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was.

That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center.

After studying it, Zágoni stopped calling global warming a crisis, and has instead focused on presenting the new theory to other climatologists. The data fit extremely well. "I fell in love," he stated at the International Climate Change Conference this week.

"Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations," Miskolczi states. Just as the theory of relativity sets an upper limit on velocity, his theory sets an upper limit on the greenhouse effect, a limit which prevents it from warming the Earth more than a certain amount.

How did modern researchers make such a mistake? They relied upon equations derived over 80 years ago, equations which left off one term from the final solution.

Miskolczi's story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution -- originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today -- ignored boundary conditions by assuming an "infinitely thick" atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always.

So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference ... but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down.

NASA refused to release the results. Miskolczi believes their motivation is simple. "Money", he tells DailyTech. Research that contradicts the view of an impending crisis jeopardizes funding, not only for his own atmosphere-monitoring project, but all climate-change research. Currently, funding for climate research tops $5 billion per year.

Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his resignation letter, "Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results."

His theory was eventually published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in his home country of Hungary.

The conclusions are supported by research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research last year from Steven Schwartz of Brookhaven National Labs, who gave statistical evidence that the Earth's response to carbon dioxide was grossly overstated. It also helps to explain why current global climate models continually predict more warming than actually measured.

The equations also answer thorny problems raised by current theory, which doesn't explain why "runaway" greenhouse warming hasn't happened in the Earth's past. The new theory predicts that greenhouse gas increases should result in small, but very rapid temperature spikes, followed by much longer, slower periods of cooling -- exactly what the paleoclimatic record demonstrates.

However, not everyone is convinced. Dr. Stephen Garner, with the NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), says such negative feedback effects are "not very plausible". Reto Ruedy of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies says greenhouse theory is "200 year old science" and doubts the possibility of dramatic changes to the basic theory.

Miskowlczi has used his theory to model not only Earth, but the Martian atmosphere as well, showing what he claims is an extremely good fit with observational results. For now, the data for Venus is too limited for similar analysis, but Miskolczi hopes it will one day be possible.

 

[Carcharodon]

http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm

This is something I've been thinking about as well. The exponential models always seemed a bit flawed to me, and it seems as though there would be some equilibrium or balance reached.

That's not to say that the effect wouldn't be harmful, or that we'd reach that balance immediately (we could see so-called, "runaway warming," for a time, but only until such an equilibrium of energy input/output is reached), but I'm almost tempted to point it out as a common misconception.

 

[Pied Piper]

The Earth goes through periods of heating and cooling. We just happen to be in a period of heating.

 

[Carcharodon]

The Earth goes through periods of heating and cooling. We just happen to be in a period of heating.

You are aware that data from past cycles indicates that we should be in a cooling period, right?

I mean, if you're going to regurgitate a lame excuse, at least make it interesting, or put a little spin on it.

 

[Tron5000]

You are aware that data from past cycles indicates that we should be in a cooling period, right?

I mean, if you're going to regurgitate a lame excuse, at least make it interesting, or put a little spin on it.

Check the posts. Newbie just tryin' to throw a little shame in our game.

 

[Carcharodon]

There'll be no shame in my game.

 

[Tron5000]

There'll be no shame in my game.

Then you gotta keep the party goin' till the broad daylight.

G-E-T-L-I-V-E, alright?

 

[Memphis Slim]

HEY! It's gonna start warming up! Spring will be here in 2 weeks!!

 

[Memphis Slim]

Did you even read the following post? Jesus, you just make this easier and easier.

So, now we've established that Slim is either illiterate or very, very selective in the posts he choses to read. I like to think it's a mix of both.

In any case, Bill gave a completely verifiable and scientifically-backed explanation for the bizarre weather (just after Slim's 1,000,000th cold-weather post), and Slim craps all over it with his patented brand of, "put fingers in my ears and go, 'lalalalalala!'"

After three days of being away, I gotta say...it's good to be back.

And Bill is now an authority on this subject? Because Bill said it, that's it? I can find scientific info to counter it! That's why it's up for debate! t:LOL You are funny!

 

[Memphis Slim]

Did you even read the following post? Jesus, you just make this easier and easier.

So, now we've established that Slim is either illiterate or very, very selective in the posts he choses to read. I like to think it's a mix of both.

In any case, Bill gave a completely verifiable and scientifically-backed explanation for the bizarre weather (just after Slim's 1,000,000th cold-weather post), and Slim craps all over it with his patented brand of, "put fingers in my ears and go, 'lalalalalala!'"

After three days of being away, I gotta say...it's good to be back.

And Bill is now an authority on this subject? Because Bill said it, that's it? I can find scientific info to counter it! That's why it's up for debate! t:LOL You are funny!

 

[Memphis Slim]

The Earth goes through periods of heating and cooling. We just happen to be in a period of heating.

Oh really??

World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

Update 2/27: The graph for HadCRUT (above), as well as the linked graphs for RSS and UAH are generated month-to-month; the temperature declines span a full 12 months of data. The linked GISS graph was graphed for the months of January only, due to a limitation in the plotting program. Anthony Watts, who kindly provided the graphics, otherwise has no connection with the column. The views and comments are those of the author only.



Basically......nobody knows what's happening!!!

 

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Bob Dole says Global Warming can kiss my ass!

 

[Bill]

And Bill is now an authority on this subject? Because Bill said it, that's it? I can find scientific info to counter it! That's why it's up for debate! t:LOL You are funny!

You see, I'm not saying anything at all about verifying Global Warming, or being an expert on it. I merely said that large amounts of snowfall in the areas that you keep posting do not negate it at all. Lake effect snowfall can be easily researched. We get it all the time off Lake Ontario when the lake doesn't get cold enough. When the lake doesn't freeze or cool as it should, fronts that move over the water gain strength and moisture from the relatively warm water and dump the precipitation once the front reaches land.

If you want to keep posting about areas that receive copious amounts of snowfall, make sure that they're not around or near large bodies of water. Otherwise, you're not helping your point at all. There is no scientific info to counter lake effect snowfall. It is simply a (verifiable) weather phenomenon.

 

[Hotwire]

You see, I'm not saying anything at all about verifying Global Warming, or being an expert on it. I merely said that large amounts of snowfall in the areas that you keep posting do not negate it at all. Lake effect snowfall can be easily researched. We get it all the time off Lake Ontario when the lake doesn't get cold enough. When the lake doesn't freeze or cool as it should, fronts that move over the water gain strength and moisture from the relatively warm water and dump the precipitation once the front reaches land.

If you want to keep posting about areas that receive copious amounts of snowfall, make sure that they're not around or near large bodies of water. Otherwise, you're not helping your point at all. There is no scientific info to counter lake effect snowfall. It is simply a (verifiable) weather phenomenon.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, "global warming/climate change" causes shifts in the jet stream. This would force colder air into areas it would not normaly have been. This would explain the freaky weather.