An excellent summary of the situation. I might just have to buy the book. I'm also going to pass this link along. Thanks!
Duncan Young wrote:
He starts out saying that "there is zero evidence that the rise in CO2 levels has anthropogenic origins".
And then he goes on about solar and orbital causes for contemporary climate change.
Of course he is demonstratively, factually, wrong on both counts, but there would also appear to be a logical disconnect.
Self-aggrandizement, martyr complexes, and general toolishiness know no ideological boundaries.
Bob the wandering cynic wrote:
>Self-aggrandizement, martyr complexes, and >general toolishiness know no ideological >boundaries.
No, no they really don't.
Heheh, ain't it a b**** when old friends keep switching sides on ya?
PS refusing to acknowledge actual, documented solar changes doesn’t refute them.
K wrote:
Good news about the nuke plants though. Now if we can just start clear cutting the old growth forests and replanting, maybe we'll start getting someplace, carbon wise. Not to mention dropping house construction costs in the process. We should also move the speed limit up and start a huge emergency road building program to stop carbon producing traffic jams.
AGW: It's not just for socialists any more.
Heh heh.
FC wrote:
Cockburn wouldn't want global warming to burn his... oh never mind.
brian d wrote:
“there is zero evidence that the rise in CO2 levels has anthropogenic origins”
Dang, someone beat me to it. Of course he's wrong, but as with so many on the internet, he probably doesn’t care about being correct. The data is widely available, approximately 300PPM CO2 in 1900 and approximately 400PPM CO2 today. Isotope data also proves he’s wrong. Where is the shame these days?
Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Cockburn comes across as someone utterly impervious to objectively demonstrated facts. This is great; it serves to discredit everything else he's said too.
Hale Adams wrote:
Brian D,
One small problem with your statement. A lot of that increase in CO2 occurred during a time of global *cooling*. Using your logic, we really should be in an ice age by now.
The most you can say is that the increase in CO2 is made by man. You have NO basis for a statement that the increase in CO2 is responsible for the minimal amount of warming we've seen so far.
Oh, and before you slam someone for not paying attention to facts, I notice you're silent about the role the Sun plays in climate change. Its output, and therefore its power to warm the planet, ain't constant, y'know.
Hale Adams wrote:
Brian D,
One small problem with your statement. A lot of that increase in CO2 occurred during a time of global *cooling*. Using your logic, we really should be in an ice age by now.
The most you can say is that the increase in CO2 is made by man. You have NO basis for a statement that the increase in CO2 is responsible for the minimal amount of warming we've seen so far.
Oh, and before you slam someone for not paying attention to facts, I notice you're silent about the role the Sun plays in climate change. Its output, and therefore its power to warm the planet, ain't constant, y'know.
Hale Adams wrote:
Oops, I read the advisory on how to leave a comment, and I *still* double-posted. ^_^;;
Sorry, Rand.
Karl Hallowell wrote:
It still means that Mr. Cockburn is claiming something that he really shouldn't be, if he wants to be the voice of reason in this debate.
And Hale, at a glance, it appears that there hasn't been any global cooling since about 1910 which is before most of the human CO2 emissions (this chart doesn't show CO2 released from deforestation).
Mac wrote:
Carbon credits = Indulgences.
Keep an eye out for the next Martin Luther. Maybe someone will tack a demand list to Al Gore's plane door.
mz wrote:
It's funny, practically every time Rand posts something about global warming, it's completely counterfactual.
Andy Freeman wrote:
> Isotope data also proves he’s wrong.
Not so fast. The isotope data only shows that the ratios are changing. The ppm numbers show that total CO2 is increasing.
However, those two facts do not prove that fossil fuel use is driving CO2 up.
Bio processes often prefer one isotope over another. If they happen to prefer the "not fossil fuels" isotope, we'd see a shift towards more "fossil" CO2 as a percentage no matter what else is happening.
If there was also an increase in "not fossil" CO2, we'd see an increase in total CO2.
Andy Freeman wrote:
> The most you can say is that the increase in CO2 is made by man.
Actually, we haven't seen the evidence for that.
We've seen increased CO2 levels and a change in the isotope mix.
However, we know that bio processes often prefer certain isotopes over other ones. If they happen to prefer the "not fossil" isotopes, we'd see a change towards a greater percentage of "fossil" isotope in the atmosphere no matter what was going on.
Meanwhile, the increase in total CO2 can be driven by an increase in "not fossil" CO2.
Do we know what correlates with CO2 changes in the past? How about that sun thingie?
Since the late 1990s, Asish Basu, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester, has been sampling water and sediments from two of the world's largest rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra of the Indian subcontinent, to understand a period in Earth's history called the Great Cool-Down. Forty million years ago, the global climate changed from the steamy world of the dinosaurs to the cooler world of today, largely because the amount of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, dropped significantly. Scientists have speculated that the cause of this cooling and the decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide was the result of the rise of the Himalayan mountains as the Indian and Asian continental plates pushed into one another. They believe the erosion of the new mountains increased the rate of removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere since the process of weathering silicate rocks such as those in the Himalayas absorbs carbon dioxide. This erosion may have depleted the atmosphere of a potent greenhouse gas and triggered the Great Cool-Down.
This planet was well on its way to another Snowball Earth episode until we came along.
Grok wrote:
It's wonderful to see the American dumbf*ck in their native environment here, flailing around with concepts that are well beyond the understanding of their simpleton minds. Keep up the good work, guys, this is great stuff!
Paul F. Dietz wrote:
No, it's established beyond any reasonable doubt that the current CO2 increase is driven by fossil fuel combustion. We know how much fossil fuels are being burned (since governments tax the stuff!), and so have a very good handle on how much CO2 is being produced. The total CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion has exceeded the rate at which CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere for over a century. Were we not burning fossil fuels, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would be declining right now (as the pulse of CO2 previously emitted equilibrated with the ocean surface waters and the terrestrial biosphere).
The carbon isotope evidence simply confirms this picture (by also ruling out CO2 release from the oceans as the source of the CO2 buildup in the atmosphere.)
Alan K. Henderson wrote:
There hasn't been any warming since 1998 - see this graph straight off of Wikipedia. What happened?
Leland wrote:
Alan,
Based on that chart, it appears a global war, with manufacturing industries working building carbon spewing vehicles that will only be destroyed, can set back global warming by nearly 4 decades. Perhaps instead of Kyoto, AGW scaremongers should have supported the GWOT.
Grok wrote:
Of course, Paul knows he can't win against such stunning intellectual sophistication, but he feels obligated to try anyways, because above all, he really does understand the methods by which temporary truths are thus derived.
mz wrote:
Alan Henderson, it's a noisy trend where not every year is higher than the previous one, but if you look at say 9 years before 1998 and after it, the average of the years after it are higher than the years before it.
You can't say from looking at the graph that "global warming stopped in 1998". Rather that 1998 was a very hot year compared to the surrounding ones. Actually, from the top ten hottest years in that graph, 6 are from after 1998.
Of course, that it stopped in 1998 is just another disinformation meme.
To steal from Adam Savage, "I reject your disinformation meme and substitute my own." Though the original quote works perfectly well.
Leave a comment
Note: The comment system is functional, but timing out when returning a response page. If you have submitted a comment, DON'T RESUBMIT IT IF/WHEN IT HANGS UP AND GIVES YOU A "500" PAGE. Simply click your browser "Back" button to the post page, and then refresh to see your comment.
About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on January 30, 2008 9:19 AM.
An excellent summary of the situation. I might just have to buy the book. I'm also going to pass this link along. Thanks!
He starts out saying that "there is zero evidence that the rise in CO2 levels has anthropogenic origins".
And then he goes on about solar and orbital causes for contemporary climate change.
Of course he is demonstratively, factually, wrong on both counts, but there would also appear to be a logical disconnect.
Self-aggrandizement, martyr complexes, and general toolishiness know no ideological boundaries.
>Self-aggrandizement, martyr complexes, and >general toolishiness know no ideological >boundaries.
No, no they really don't.
Heheh, ain't it a b**** when old friends keep switching sides on ya?
PS refusing to acknowledge actual, documented solar changes doesn’t refute them.
Good news about the nuke plants though. Now if we can just start clear cutting the old growth forests and replanting, maybe we'll start getting someplace, carbon wise. Not to mention dropping house construction costs in the process. We should also move the speed limit up and start a huge emergency road building program to stop carbon producing traffic jams.
AGW: It's not just for socialists any more.
Heh heh.
Cockburn wouldn't want global warming to burn his... oh never mind.
“there is zero evidence that the rise in CO2 levels has anthropogenic origins”
Dang, someone beat me to it. Of course he's wrong, but as with so many on the internet, he probably doesn’t care about being correct. The data is widely available, approximately 300PPM CO2 in 1900 and approximately 400PPM CO2 today. Isotope data also proves he’s wrong. Where is the shame these days?
Cockburn comes across as someone utterly impervious to objectively demonstrated facts. This is great; it serves to discredit everything else he's said too.
Brian D,
One small problem with your statement. A lot of that increase in CO2 occurred during a time of global *cooling*. Using your logic, we really should be in an ice age by now.
The most you can say is that the increase in CO2 is made by man. You have NO basis for a statement that the increase in CO2 is responsible for the minimal amount of warming we've seen so far.
Oh, and before you slam someone for not paying attention to facts, I notice you're silent about the role the Sun plays in climate change. Its output, and therefore its power to warm the planet, ain't constant, y'know.
Brian D,
One small problem with your statement. A lot of that increase in CO2 occurred during a time of global *cooling*. Using your logic, we really should be in an ice age by now.
The most you can say is that the increase in CO2 is made by man. You have NO basis for a statement that the increase in CO2 is responsible for the minimal amount of warming we've seen so far.
Oh, and before you slam someone for not paying attention to facts, I notice you're silent about the role the Sun plays in climate change. Its output, and therefore its power to warm the planet, ain't constant, y'know.
Oops, I read the advisory on how to leave a comment, and I *still* double-posted. ^_^;;
Sorry, Rand.
It still means that Mr. Cockburn is claiming something that he really shouldn't be, if he wants to be the voice of reason in this debate.
And Hale, at a glance, it appears that there hasn't been any global cooling since about 1910 which is before most of the human CO2 emissions (this chart doesn't show CO2 released from deforestation).
Carbon credits = Indulgences.
Keep an eye out for the next Martin Luther. Maybe someone will tack a demand list to Al Gore's plane door.
It's funny, practically every time Rand posts something about global warming, it's completely counterfactual.
> Isotope data also proves he’s wrong.
Not so fast. The isotope data only shows that the ratios are changing. The ppm numbers show that total CO2 is increasing.
However, those two facts do not prove that fossil fuel use is driving CO2 up.
Bio processes often prefer one isotope over another. If they happen to prefer the "not fossil fuels" isotope, we'd see a shift towards more "fossil" CO2 as a percentage no matter what else is happening.
If there was also an increase in "not fossil" CO2, we'd see an increase in total CO2.
> The most you can say is that the increase in CO2 is made by man.
Actually, we haven't seen the evidence for that.
We've seen increased CO2 levels and a change in the isotope mix.
However, we know that bio processes often prefer certain isotopes over other ones. If they happen to prefer the "not fossil" isotopes, we'd see a change towards a greater percentage of "fossil" isotope in the atmosphere no matter what was going on.
Meanwhile, the increase in total CO2 can be driven by an increase in "not fossil" CO2.
Do we know what correlates with CO2 changes in the past? How about that sun thingie?
For the really long term, see Secret To Earth's 'Big Chill' Found In Underground Water:
This planet was well on its way to another Snowball Earth episode until we came along.
It's wonderful to see the American dumbf*ck in their native environment here, flailing around with concepts that are well beyond the understanding of their simpleton minds. Keep up the good work, guys, this is great stuff!
No, it's established beyond any reasonable doubt that the current CO2 increase is driven by fossil fuel combustion. We know how much fossil fuels are being burned (since governments tax the stuff!), and so have a very good handle on how much CO2 is being produced. The total CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion has exceeded the rate at which CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere for over a century. Were we not burning fossil fuels, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would be declining right now (as the pulse of CO2 previously emitted equilibrated with the ocean surface waters and the terrestrial biosphere).
The carbon isotope evidence simply confirms this picture (by also ruling out CO2 release from the oceans as the source of the CO2 buildup in the atmosphere.)
There hasn't been any warming since 1998 - see this graph straight off of Wikipedia. What happened?
Alan,
Based on that chart, it appears a global war, with manufacturing industries working building carbon spewing vehicles that will only be destroyed, can set back global warming by nearly 4 decades. Perhaps instead of Kyoto, AGW scaremongers should have supported the GWOT.
Of course, Paul knows he can't win against such stunning intellectual sophistication, but he feels obligated to try anyways, because above all, he really does understand the methods by which temporary truths are thus derived.
Alan Henderson, it's a noisy trend where not every year is higher than the previous one, but if you look at say 9 years before 1998 and after it, the average of the years after it are higher than the years before it.
You can't say from looking at the graph that "global warming stopped in 1998". Rather that 1998 was a very hot year compared to the surrounding ones. Actually, from the top ten hottest years in that graph, 6 are from after 1998.
Of course, that it stopped in 1998 is just another disinformation meme.
There is a way to look at what kinds of trends could be useful in long term climate data here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/05/the_significance_of_5_year_tre.php
Of course, that it stopped in 1998 is just another disinformation meme.
There is a way to look at what kinds of trends could be useful in long term climate data here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/05/the_significance_of_5_year_tre.php
To steal from Adam Savage, "I reject your disinformation meme and substitute my own." Though the original quote works perfectly well.