It's possible some positive regional effects could come out of it. It's definite a large number of negative effects will. As noted above, even small differences in temperature have a large impact on hurricane formation and peak power. Coastal flooding will increase. Ecosystems will change suddenly (ones to tens of years) enough that significant extinctions are inevitable. The list goes on.

You're correct that we don't understand all aspects of the issue. The scientific community doesn't claim to. As a matter of fact, the prevailing sentiment is a humble one-- we don't understand everything about the atmosphere, so we shouldn't alter it recklessly.

NOTE TO VALG: PLEASE ACTUALLY READ MY POST INSTEAD OF SKIMMING IT. THANKS. CARRY ON.

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Thanks for the links, but guess what: there is at least as much reputable scientific research that points in the opposite direction as well. There is both good and junk science on both sides because the issue is so enormously politicised.

I'm not saying which side is right, I'm saying that this is NOT a question that has been definitively answered by science. Acting like it is a totally settled fact because you can post a few links is irresponsible and overly simplistic.

Furthermore, TMS is not the appropriate place for such a debate. Proof of that is the existence of grossly immature statements like the following from you:

Hmmmm. What an odd attack. I said in my own post that I:

1) Want CAFE standards doubled
2) Our consumption of oil/gas is excessive and needs to be curbed.
3) The oil lobby is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, hindrances to addressing the problem.
4) The internal combustion engine needs to go.

Every single one of those positions is anathema to the current administration. How then am I some kind of Fox News/Scott McClellan zombie?

Just because I am well read enough to know that this is not a decided question does not mean I claim it does not exist. It also does not mean I am opposed to conservation, environmental regulation, and such efforts (in fact, I support many of them - as I said in my original post).

The fact that you still can't help but trot out the "Fox News/Bush Suckup" card just proves how irrational you are on the issue. It also proves you skimmed my post rather than actually read it.

Perhaps you also skim science articles and that is why you think it is a decided question when it simply is not. Actually, it seems like you do just that. The very first link of yours that I clicked on specifically notes that it is not a decided question and that the issue of the sun getting hotter is still being studied:




This is not a decided question of science. It is still being heavily researched and there is data on both sides of the issue. Whether global warming exists or not doesn't matter all that much to me, because I still agree with most of the actions global warming believers want to take. I am different from the zealots in that I am keeping an open mind while the scientific issue continues to be studied.

From

There is a difference, at least in my view, between these sorts of tentative predictions, couched as they are in various disclaimers, and accusations of purposeful, blind and indeed criminal wrongdoing in the oil industry.

You want to strike at the heart of high energy costs, organize purposeful, long term, meaningful reductions in consumption.  If oil companies are having more luck convincing people to buy than you are convincting them not to buy, I would like to encourage you to analyze your message and see if you can't come up with perhaps some more exciting, positive ways of getting your point across and motivating the population in general, because I myself at least am worn out on all the back and forth of how almost everything and everyone is just unacceptably morally bankrupt if they do not take this or that political or economic stand.

I suppose I could have just said "ditto Ilkidarios ".   I just wish.. I just WISH that we had a political party that would cut the right and the left out and govern from the center.  I don't think the Democrats or the Republicans can.  To cut their base is to lose elections, but a new party could appeal to the broad middle, and it would be ever so good for the public discourse I think.  I was approaching being actually hopeful when Sharon basically did this in Israel, parting from his own party to stake out the middle ground.  It's a shame he had to have his stroke now, of all times.  Still, the idea is out there now.  Sure wish I knew where to go to find someone willing to do that in the good ol' U. S. of A.

1) You wrote that "There is very little responsible science that supports global warming." I cited multiple articles showing that the overwhelming consensus in the community is precisely the opposite. Those kinds of statements get tossed around often, and they're utterly false and irresponsible.

2) The hypothesis that the sun could have gotten hotter is worth exploring, as the Stanford site mentions. But there isn't evidence that it has, and even some turns up, it's trumped if that sunlight doesn't strike the Earth due to being scattered in the upper atmosphere. The fact that meterological stations around the world are measuring warming at the same time they measure decreasing sunlight is troubling. (The Science study I cite acquired data from a huge number of international locations.)

3) There is an unequal volume of good and junk science on both sides of the issue. You might be able to find an article in primary literature claiming that global warming is imaginary, though I couldn't. (Neither could the UN group studying the literature.) But there is overwhelming consensus by every major research organization that warming is real, human-caused, and significant. It's why I cited a review of studies, rather than any one study, and why I took my information from the most widely-read and most respected sources. You can certainly find political sources which will claim just about anything, but the scientific literature is remarkably uniform on this.

4) Not all theories are equal. For example, there's a group that has been publishing their theories on "cold" (room-temperature) fusion for at least two decades. Thing is, they've never produced any results, so people ignore them and go back to thinking about fission or wind or geothermal or some other form of energy harvesting. The "sun is warmer" theory is more or less conjecture at this point, and it has an uphill battle because significant evidence exists which suggests the opposite is true vis-a-vis impact on Earth.

I think humans think very highly of themselves if they think they can damage the earth enough to destroy it completely. Killing a couple million people off might be good for it so it can regrow just like it always has.

Just random thoughts, of course. I still promote environmental awareness, I'm just cynnical about it.

Has anyone advanced the theory that global warming could do that? I think you're exaggerating it a bit.

Accelerated species extinction is a believable threat, however, if local ecosystems change rapidly. Humans are very adaptable to changing conditions (though vulnerable in general due to overpopulation), but most simpler organisms aren't, as evidenced by the sheer number of species which have gone extinct since the Industrial Revolution. This can nonetheless impact humans either directly (changes in arable land, migration of pathogens to populations with low immunity, etc.) or indirectly (the pharma industry relies heavily on "leads" from naturally occurring substances, and lowered biodiversity would hit them hard).

I hope no one's claiming that global warming will trigger Day After Tomorrow-type cataclysms overnight.

I think given 18 years, the IPCC could locate some evidence against global warming if it was being published. They don't do the research themselves, by the way-- they just report what is going on within the primary literature. As for bias, the IPCC is heavily biased... towards industrialized countries who tend to benefit the least.

The makeup: Brazil, Japan, Mauritius, United Republic of Tanzania, India, Kuwait, Bolivia, Chile, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Norway, Syria. Each country appoints one expert-- the US sent someone from the EPA.

If you don't trust the UN's motives for whatever reasons, you can take comfort in the fact that every major US scientific organization relevant to climate study (listed in the first Science link mentioned previously (*)) has done independent review and come to the same conclusion: Climate change is real, significant, and man-made.

Scientists are notorious skeptics. If you ever end up at a conference, Q&A sessions often make the TMS "flames" sound like high tea. If it was one guy or one group trumpeting this stuff, I would be skeptical too. But there comes a point of massive, overwhelming consensus where saying "There is very little responsible science that supports global warming." is the policy equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The more people believe that falsehood, the longer the government can get away with ducking pollution controls and reform.

(*): Don't make me bust out the vide supra.

It's not like we can't. If we set our minds to it, we could turn this ball into a desolate wasteland.  That's why people worry about the environment, they know what we're capable of.

If the environment isn't a good enough reason for high oil prices, how about reducing tensions that fuel the chances for war with China?

Good article today in the New Republic (gotta register, though it's free):



--matt

I'm all for it - for both reasons.

I caught the very end of a news report today that was talking about ethanol, and that it supposedly costs the END USER about 60 cents a gallon. Brazil has fully switched to it in order to protect themselves from being reliant upon Venezuela.

It is a testament to our worthless, totally broken, crooked two party system that Brazil is outdoing us so blatantly in a matter of technology, economics, and national security.

I'm pretty sure if we got into another war, it'd be between us and Europe.  China's too smart to fight a war with their biggest market, and we're too smart to fight a war with the country we buy most of our products from.  If anything, China would be our ally.

The EU on the other hand, their view of America has constantly been falling since Vietnam.  I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Western European countries got into a war with us.  I've always figured it'd be us, China, and Japan (the two export-based countries that make most of our goods) against some EU countries.

Heh, I'd like to thank Spoke for turning me into a card carrying conspiracy theorist again, if only for a little while.

Interesting post to say the least.

Well, there were too many numbers there for me to understand it very well, could somebody put Spoke's post into simple terms for me?