A very simple and easy to understand explanation of why climate change is REAL.

This is a typical angle taken by those who deny.

None of what you are saying here comes from scientists studying climate change. NONE.

Yes, there are lots of things to think about in forming public policy in recognition of what we know concerning climate change. In fact, so many that how could one possibly bother to consult science on reasonable approaches?

Then, you toss in "the sky is not falling" - obviously intended as an accusation that people are taking the problem too seriously while at the same time impeding discussion of how immediate or serious various impacts might actually be.

Good marks for regurgitating the Project Denial cheat sheet!

 

Your plan for rational public policy decision making:

Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore

 

Al be the Pied Piper.

 

Well said

 

You really have very little knowledge about this dont you??

It is not just the sea level rise it is the CLIMATE CHANGE

Think on it - we rely on the climate being a certain way to grow crops and keep livestock - when the climate is no longer predictable...........

 

You would prefer Lord Monckton??

 

Do you know what photosynthesis is? Do you know what its by-product is? By the way, how was that April blizzard?

 

...or, you could try to answer his/her question.

 

He's got YOU following him - that's for sure.

 

Yeeerrrs we do know - and that is some of the problem WE know - you obviously only have a limited grasp of all of the factors

 

The climate is always changing, just as it has prior to the industrial revolution (the bogeyman to the left on this issue).
To think that you know what the weather is supposed to be, and actually think that us mere mortals can change it makes you a climate change denier by definition.

 

The SPEED of the change is the issue. A couple degrees over a thousand years is adaptable. Over 100 years or less is less so

And yes...we can affect big things. There are a lot of us and we have a lot of "stuff". We've already altered the oceans...and the air

 

We already have a vast number of people who zero in on one issue- and can't see anything else. If your boat is headed to the rocks at high speed, but you are screaming about a leak and demanding everybody bail water....

And that is what you are saying. Keeping sight of the big picture is some sort of denial? I'm not denying change- but I am saying change has been going on for millions of years, and your exhaust pipe is not the sole cause of it. The glaciers that used to cover a good part of North America melted before we got here. Who is responsible for the climate heat-up that did that? That is a fact you are in denial of? We have already made extensive efforts to change our contribution to the issue, and are having success. However nature contributes it's own factors too- and like it or not, those are not going to change

Balance, focus, all the facts matter. If they don't support the panic that some people jump too, then everybody else is in denial? That calls for remedial education for the panicky.

This from NASA, in an article covering the changes in ocean current temperatures which translate into warming effects:

"Is Current Warming Natural? In Earth's history before the Industrial Revolution, Earth's climate changed due to natural causes not related to human activity. Most often, global climate has changed because of variations in sunlight. Tiny wobbles in Earth's orbit altered when and where sunlight falls on Earth's surface."

My god. Even NASA is in denial. What fools.

 

I'll see if I can book you a ticket on the first panic-ship leaving the planet for someplace where nothing ever changes.
I think you should talk to farmers to learn more about the predictable climate, then study some Maya culture to see how they controlled it so well.
Or perhaps you could read the post a few more times in the hopes of understanding what it said.

 

That's the first rational response to the post yet. You are right, and I agree.
We should do what we can in regards to the things we can control. However it is important to know what we can and cannot control.
And we are making efforts- although the effort is no doubt irregular and sometimes mis-directed; needing improvement.

If you look at what changes are being made, you see that a lot has been done successfully. One example is cars. Mileage is double what it was 30 years ago (cutting fuel consumption in half) and emissions are reduced even more. This is also true at power plants and many other places that produces large amounts of pollutants. What we don't control well are things like rain forest clearings.

Very importantly- we really don't know as much about this as most people think. Take the rain forest in South America, which has always been considered a huge source of oxygen. A new documentary has found something we didn't understand at all, and understanding how things work is critically important when you think you are going to "fix" them.

Sand/dust storms over the African desert put massive quantities of the dust at altitude levels .
This crosses the Atlantic on trade winds, meets the cloud structure over the Amazon, and gets washed down in the rains.
This turns into an effective fertilizer, fueling Amazon growth.
The trees (more the better) pump water upward, which evaporates into clouds, strike the Andes mountains, turn into rain that feed back into the rivers.
The recirculating flow of air and water carries part of that fertilizer to the oceans-
Which makes a tiny organism called a diatom reproduce rapidly in massive numbers, so large clouds of them can be observed in the oceans from space.
Turns out the diatoms in the ocean are the real oxygen contributors- not the forest. We now that they produce more than half the earths oxygen.

It' never wise to fix things that aren't broke, and if you don't know how things work but attempt to fix them anyway- that is usually what happens.
If one doubts that, look at all the plants and animals we have imported to fix a problem with the best of intentions, which then became a different and much larger problem of their own.

 

Do as you wish with your stuff. It’s when you stick your nose into the business of MY stuff that becomes the time where I tell you to pound sand.

 

You're playing games here.

Specifically, you're picking quotes on historic change and implying that they are the serious causes of today.

NASA did NOT tell you that.

There is nothing legitimate about this technique of yours. It is PURELY political.

 

You are wrong about this idea of yours that there is an assumption or goal of there being no change. That is on you for not listening.

Climate change has to do with change that occurs over long periods of years. Though there is a connection, your comment about farmers is off base.

That's two significant mistakes and then you suggest someone ELSE is not understanding?

 

This was not a change made in an effort to moderate climate change. It came from competition as foreign auto makers and gas prices combined to create the cars that people wanted - without regard to climate.

This is important to remember. Today, the federal administration and much of congress is in total denial concerning climate change and is actually moving toward eliminating the small amount that has been done.

The scientific community stands behind the conclusion that the major contribution to warming is CO2.

 

SORRY, BUT ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE IN ERROR. WRONG. DIDN'T CHECK BEFORE YOU RESPOND- YOU JUST ASSUME YOU CAN BE WRONG.
It's really tiring to listen to people deny half the facts to make their case seem absolute, for anything. The world doesn't work that way- just fools think that way.
The site below is not the first nasa source- it's the second. It's not hiding from you.

Read the first paragraph on this nasa.gov site:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/

It reads:

Global Warming
By Holli Riebeek Design by Robert Simmon June 3, 2010
Throughout its long history, Earth has warmed and cooled time and again. Climate has changed when the planet received more or less sunlight due to subtle shifts in its orbit, as the atmosphere or surface changed, or when the Sun’s energy varied. But in the past century, another force has started to influence Earth’s climate: humanity.

 

If the automotive issue was only about competition, we would have a mileage war- not rapidly reducing omission standards that have been driving Detroit nuts for the last 30 years.

 

The thing people ignore About Milankovitch cycles resulting from changes in orbit/tilt is that they take about 100,000 years. Where thawing from ice ages is concerned, we would expect something like a degree of warming over a thousand years. We are currently trying to avoid more than two degrees over the next century or so. Sure, other things factor into it. But so what? The modern trend is clearly very rapid and pronounced even against the backdrop of natural trends.

 

??

I'm pointing out that the post to which I replied ignored that last NASA sentence.

You were headed off on what happened many centuries ago.

Scientists are well aware of what happened back then - they were the ones to figure it out!

 

No, it wasn't ALL about competition.

Emissions were more of a regulatory requirement - at least until hybrid and electric cars.

There were CAFE standards that were ridiculously low. Those became less important when Toyota and others determined it was a marketable feature to deliver good mileage.

Toyota also noticed that people wanted cars that required little maintenance and had good fit/finish.

Remember the Detroit exec who told congress the reason US auto was failing was it wasn't producing cars that people wanted - competition.

 

how much heat does this add? how much have we heated up? what percentage does co2 contribute? why do some physicists say that co2 also reflects some heat? is the net addition measurable?