Challenge to Democrats/Leftists: If you believe climate change is an existential crisis, prove it

Frankly, I'm not expecting any serious replies, but let's go at it.

Climate alarmists have been announcing our doom for decades, but now they're hysterically claiming humanity is in an existential crisis with only a decade or two in which to turn things around. They claim to have science on their side while keeping mum about the most inconvenient fact: 1 degree C.

When humans have doubled the atmospheric concentration of CO2 from the 280 ppm it was at in 1750 (the start of the Industrial Revolution) to 560 ppm in 2050, after three centuries, the most that CO2, by itself, can increase temps is 1°C:

The radiative forcing due to doubling CO2 from the pre-industrial 280 ppm is approximately 3.7 Watt per square meter (W/m2). This energy inbalance would eventually result in roughly 1 °C of global warming in the absence of feedbacks. This is easy to calculate and undisputed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Different_forms_of_climate_sensitivity​

Quick review: Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, etc.), the Earth's average temp would be 0° F instead of 60°F as it is now.

Other factors, such as the sun, affect climate, but climate itself is not random. It is the long term result of what happens in the atmosphere when the inputs (mostly the sun's energy) are reduced or increased by such things as the Earth's albedo (how reflective the Earth is) and the amount and type of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, CO2, methane, etc.).

As to why CO2 is given more attention than methane (which is many times more potent a greenhouse gas), it's because CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere far longer than methane, so its heating is more enduring.

That said (and this is what the alarmists don't like to talk about) CO2's ability to warm an atmosphere is not linear, it's logarithmic as shown in the image below.


And so you get 1 °C of warming just from the CO2 after 300 years.

Does that sound like the seed of an existential crisis? No.

And that's where the alarmists's argument falls apart. In the earliest days of climate alarmism, there were dozens of planet-ending results from increasing CO2, one example being CO2 warming the sea bottom, along with the permafrost, releasing methane that would cause the climate to warm out of control.

None of those disasters are still considered serious threats. So what's left?

Extreme weather and sea level rise.

Yawn.

Neither of those so-called calamities threaten our existence or even our way of life. If they do occur, they'll require human ingenuity to engineer our way out of the problems, and that's all.

 

Proof? Pfffft . . . they don't need no stinkin' proof because they've got feeeeeeeeeeeelings and plus all those 'scientists' working for governments with a vested political interest in human generated climate change being real say that they have got proof . . . even though upon examination it always falls short.

 

They will keep writing promissory notes of doomsday . Just accept it. And they will say the science predicts it when it really doesnt .

Humanity has predicted doomsday for a long time mostly by the religious people and have been let down horribly. Now the new priestly caste is predicting it. The climatologists.

All they are missing are the brightly colored vestments and rituals!

With or without man's contribution of c02 the warming cycle will continue .

At some point the seas will rise from cyclical warming and man will be affected and he will adjust. It does not matter if this happens earlier than later . For it will happen even if we stopped all c02 emissions today

One day the northern ice cap will be gone with or without man. Followed by an ice age.

So why the worry? It makes no sense and this is why the lefty alarmists are so full of BS as to be ludicrous.

Why are they incapable of seeing reality
that is what they need to face.

This is what the science should be informing them of . And since that is not happening what good are these climatologists? Worthless as teats on a boar hog

 

Gosh, who to believe?

Do I believe Random Guy on the Internet, or thousands of science labs and research teams all over the globe?
Do I believe my own eyes when I dive on coral reefs and see them dying off more each year - or do I believe Random guy on the Internet?
Do I believe in draught? Or should I just take Random Guy on the Internet's word that it's nothing to worry about?
Do I look down at my sea wall and see new high water marks - or does Random Guy on the Internet come down and measure water
hight each day and that's why he knows more than my own eyes?


Questions ... Questions ... I think I'll go grab a beer.

 

That's alright, it's easier to go with the majority than to examine the facts. Fortunately, the majority has always been right when it comes to scientific theories.

But if you feel like doing just a little work, you might try to explain what the justification is for the Left claiming climate change is an existential crisis. Or not. I don't want to stress you.

 

Are you serious about this? Sea Wall? Do you actually take note each day of where the high water marks are?

"Sea Wall" implies tides. Don't those marks change quite often? Sometimes up, sometimes down? "Sea Wall" implies storms. Don't storms raise the tide level above what is normal? Are you seriously saying that you have noticed that the sea level is higher now than it was, say, 10 years ago? Maybe your sea wall is sinking?

 

When faced with a dilemma like this, I always believe the random and anonymous guy on the internet over the skilled professional.

 

Snicker. You mean you don’t engage with a random guy who provides sourced facts because you don’t know enough yourself to debate the science. Sheesh, I remember when Dems claimed to be the party of science. Based on the competition so far, you wouldn’t know it.

Cripes! It’s an existential crisis but you can’t be bothered to learn the science?! Pathetic.

 

No, dude. So. Florida has been having flooding problems for a few years now. No storms. Just everyday high tides that are now cresting sea walls and
flooding streets. We've just decided to abandon one of the smaller Keyes because the street flooded so often that repairs were impossible. They're abandoning the houses there. We're calling it "Managed Retreat" - and that's coming from the Republican Governor and big Trump supporter, so you know it's bad. It's no joke in
Florida.

 

"Facts"? Dude - your own chart has an asterisk at the bottom with "Assumed" starting the sentence... you may have research what a fact is.

 

Is Miami underwater yet? It was supposed to be.

Environmental apocalypse predictions have failed for half a ...
www.washingtonexaminer.com › opinion › environmental-apocalyps...
Sep 20, 2019 - Climate change activism is warming up this week with climate strikes, a U.N. ... by saying, “What's not realistic is Miami not existing in a few years. ... West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water.

 

How long have you lived at your sea wall? How much would you estimate the sea has risen since then?

 

Dude, that graphic was one I grabbed off the internet because it showed the logarithmic effect of CO2 warming from 0 to 580 ppm (the point of doubling). The blue section you were so quick to jump on had nothing at all to do with what we're discussing. Here's another version:

 

Well, parts of Florida are undergoing subsidence, other parts are suffering from incredibly inept civil engineering, and other parts flooding because of sea level rise. Can you be more specific?

And is this your example of what's leading to an existential crisis that will end in humanity's extinction in 10 to 20 years? Seriously?

 

You are dealing with liberals, their belief is proof enough for them. Emotion is more important than facts, science, numbers or anything else.

The reason these climate folks harp on CO2 is they can blame that on humans, they want nothing to do with methane or anything that can't be directly tied to large numbers of humans...

 

It seems strange to me that you would dismiss sea level rise if you saw it as a possibility. Displacing millions of people tends to impact everybody. We can develop cleaner technology, or have to deal with famines and wars. You seem to imply that anything short of human extinction is worth burning all the coal and oil we can find.

 

No, I'm not dealing with liberals. American Liberalism is Leftism with all of its authoritarian qualities: censoring free speech, seizing control of the economy through phony science crises, etc.

Today's American Conservatives are more liberal than American Liberals. Somebody should sue to force them to just call themselves "Leftists".

Other than that, I agree with your post

 

Does it seem strange? Probably because I didn't dismiss it. If you reread what I said, it's not an existential crisis, nor does it threaten our way of life.

We can develop cleaner tech, but so far we've blown billions in green tech with a lot of failures to show for it:

• Nearly $1 billion in loans defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit.
  
• Solar Roadways: An Engineering FAILURE
  
• 14,000 Idle Wind Turbines a Testament to Failed Energy Policies

Meanwhile, thanks to the Trump administration:

• US CO2 Emissions Plummet Under Trump While The Rest Of The World Emits More

And that's with a phenomenal economy on overdrive. So let's elect a Democrat for president so we'll jump back into the Paris Accords and can emit more CO2 like the other treaty members!

Sea level rise is gradual, so if it becomes a problem, we have many ways of dealing with it:

• Sea walls
• Natural sand dunes and constructed dikes, dams, and floodgates provide defense against storm surges from the sea (works for Holland)
  
• River dikes preventing flooding from river water (works for Holland)
• Drainage ditches, canals, and pumping stations (historically: windmills) keep the low-lying parts dry for habitation and agriculture.(works for Holland)

It's all engineering.

So is that your example of what's going to kill us all as Greta has claimed?

 

Right. Because "conservatives" are so concerned with facts, evidence and logic.

As in dismissing them when it's convenient. Like when the Mueller Report came out, and when the witnesses uniformly testified that Bonespurs tried to squeeze Ukraine for help in the 2020 election.

Or when the consensus among scientists is that climate change is, at the very least, being accelerated by us.

 

So you're changing the subject because, when it comes to climate change, you don't have a lot of knowledge. Is that a fair assessment?

Or do you want to substantively contribute by answering either of my points:

• Does 1 °C of warming just from CO2 seem like it will result in feedbacks that will cause us to go extinct real soon now?
• What examples can you provide of what Greta thinks will end up killing human beings?

 

Yeah, because your inability to comprehend scientific consensus is really frightening to me.

Eek, and stuff. See?

 

No. The absurd post that I mocked had nothing to do with the subject at hand.

You understand that science has no ideology, right?

Well, at least it didn't used to be that way.

 

But wait, is your claim that it isn't real, or that it's slow, or that we don't know? If we really don't know, that's not very comforting. It seems like you don't know, but are only supposing it's slow.

I'll admit this isn't my area, but I know that the surface of Venus is hotter than the surface of Mercury because of CO2, and so your OP graphic is, at best, misleading. The effect does not become negligible at higher concentrations.

And if the sea level rises due to temperatures, lots of other things happen at the same time such as increased forest fires, increased droughts, increased intensity of storms, and at some point you make the environment inhospitable to an important link in the overall ecosystem. A sudden die-off of an important species, e.g. that produces oxygen in the ocean, is something that could make it catastrophic, or a major shift in the ocean currents which makes the distribution of heat uneven (has caused ice ages in the past). But even flooding portions of the world could shift things towards famine and war.

I find it strange that conservatives treat a lack of certainty on the effect as evidence that there is no effect. It's really quite insane to imagine that humans, controlling so much of the world on a wide scale, would not affect the climate.

 

Alrighty then! Since the Lefties can't supply argument in their favor, I'll do it for them:

From the Grauniad's "Climate crisis already causing deaths and childhood stunting, report reveals" article:

It pointed to a 2018 report from the World Health Organisation, which predicted that between 2030 and 2050, global warming would cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from heat stress, malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea. But Misha Coleman, one of the report’s authors, stressed that deaths were already occurring.
​

So rather than supply people at risk with fresh water, decent food and medicines, we should restructure the global economy! Leftism at its best.

And of course, can't discuss the human race going extinct without mentioning the clowns who brought us the existential crisis theme: Breakthrough's "DELIVERING MAXIMUM PROTECTION: An effective goal for a climate emergency response". The short paper lists not one footnoted fact. It's all unsourced hyperbole such as this:

The goal of the UN Framework Convention on Climate, adopted in 1992 , was to “prevent dangerous anthropo- genic interference with the climate system”. But by 2020, the damaging impacts of climate change (via intensi- fied and more frequent extreme weather events and earth system, ecological and social process changes) are so great that it is now clear that humans have failed to achieve the UN Climate Convention’s goal – we are now living in the early stages of catastrophic climate change.
​

And this gem:

A THOUGHT EXERCISE – THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
If there is a flood or bushfire we come together as a community and act swiftly to achieve Maximum Protection of people, animals and property. This is a great example of one type of emergency response.
Despite recognising the climate emergency, the overwhelming majority of governments, compa- nies and people are not taking on an effective emer- gency response.

Many believe we need a physical disaster to bring home the reality of the climate crisis so people will ‘wake up’, but climate related disasters have been happening with increasing severity and frequency for the last 20 years.

The climate crisis needs to be recognised as a suite of disastrous changes being intensified by global warming. Addressing each disaster in isolation, ignoring the deeper causes, will not lead to an effec- tive climate rescue and safe climate restoration.

Imagine the current climate emergency situation as the combination of climate disasters that we are experiencing around the world, linked by common causes. You know that this year alone many millions, if not billions, will be severely impacted and many killed by this super disaster. How should we act in the face of this emergency situation? How can we pull off a desperately needed climate rescue?​

Oh, but based on this science, let's listen to Greta and change the global economy to let Leftists take over!

 

^^^^

*LOL*

https://www.skeptic.com/reading_roo...MI8ZP84fbo5wIVCKrsCh1aFAVGEAAYAiAAEgKGn_D_BwE

I think that I'll trust the scientists instead of an internet ideologue. Silly me.