We don't have 12 years to stop climate change, we have 12 years to be

[rkpetersen]

The few people trying to do their part driving an electric vehicle are being harrassed by gas guzzling trucks. It shows that there is no hope for us, our time is limited.

Saw a news article related to this business.

As an experiment, a guy with a Tesla X tried towing his sister's 5000 lb Silverado truck with the parking brake on.

The Tesla hauled that truck away with ease.

So go ahead and block that Supercharger spot. "Your truck? I don't know what you're talking about, was your truck here?"

 

[rkpetersen]

Debating scientific topics by sharing opinions on the science has rarely been productive.

Anyone who looks beyond their confirmation bias can easily google main climate drivers and the associated timescales. With a couple exceptions big climate events have always been CO2 and/or CH4 driven.

What I struggle to understand is that unlike the ozone crisis for example this one has sadly become a politically charged issue. However, it’s not unlike decades of denials and belief camps around health effects of tobacco.

The science is pretty settled, the questions in my mind are what we can do and what we will do. Nobody is going back to live in huts or giving up their ACs or fish tanks. I haven’t seen good solutions which is why I find the topic depressing.

For the sake of the argument let’s assume the latest changes are not anthropogenic, there’s still that small issue of what are we going to do about all the consequences. Either to cope or slow down changes. We know with a pretty high degree of confidence what’s happened in the past when the earth reached the concentrations of CO2 we are approaching.

Pretending that nothing is going on is not much more than the triumph of hope over experience.

Well said. The mental gymnastics and convolutions people go through, grasping at the flimsiest and tiniest scraps of evidence, simply to justify their preconceptions because they're unwilling to think the unthinkable; smh.

Anyway, we haven't seen anything yet. As the methane clathrates in arctic permafrost start to vaporize, global warming will really start to accelerate beyond even the most ridiculous skeptics' ability to deny it. Too late, of course.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Well said. The mental gymnastics and convolutions people go through, grasping at the flimsiest and tiniest scraps of evidence, simply to justify their preconceptions because they're unwilling to think the unthinkable; smh.

I often find the most alarmist people to be those who know next to nothing about the science.

, we haven't seen anything yet. As the methane clathrates in arctic permafrost start to vaporize, global warming will really start to accelerate beyond even the most ridiculous skeptics' ability to deny it. Too late, of course.

"Nasa's Gavin Schmidt has previously argued that the danger of such a methane release is low, whereas scientists like Prof Tim Lenton from Exeter University who specialises in climate tipping points, says the process would take thousands if not tens of thousands of years"

 

[7hogwarts]

Debating scientific topics by sharing opinions on the science has rarely been productive.

Anyone who looks beyond their confirmation bias can easily google main climate drivers and the associated timescales. With a couple exceptions big climate events have always been CO2 and/or CH4 driven.

What I struggle to understand is that unlike the ozone crisis for example this one has sadly become a politically charged issue. However, it’s not unlike decades of denials and belief camps around health effects of tobacco.

The science is pretty settled, the questions in my mind are what we can do and what we will do. Nobody is going back to live in huts or giving up their ACs or fish tanks. I haven’t seen good solutions which is why I find the topic depressing.

For the sake of the argument let’s assume the latest changes are not anthropogenic, there’s still that small issue of what are we going to do about all the consequences. Either to cope or slow down changes. We know with a pretty high degree of confidence what’s happened in the past when the earth reached the concentrations of CO2 we are approaching.

Pretending that nothing is going on is not much more than the triumph of hope over experience.


Is that observed anywhere or just your hope?

It is my hope. And it does seem logical (or at least to me).

 

[kschweer]

Respectfully, warming or cooling can be measured but any discussion of who's idea of the cause is correct is hopelessly tied to politics. One can not separate the two, and even more sad is that wide political divisions make any real discussion impossible. This thread is therefor necessarily a political discussion in my humble and likely less educated opinion than many participating in the thread

If I could throw out my thoughts on several points in this thread anyways

I drive a Prius, but I drive it because I am cheap and if I can use half as much gas to get back and forth to work so be it! I have a Camaro for when I want to go fast! I keep the heat on 69 all winter, and run aC in the summer! Of course it makes sense to polute as little as possible, and I try to do what makes sense for me and my family. I am certainly not ready to wish I had fewer kids over it, and if I was really so worried I couldn't sleep over the issue, I wouldn't be wasting electricity on something as frivolous as an aquarium.

I see the oil companies investing in green technologies and I'm fine with that. I also know that they only do so for some perceived benefit to themselves,be it financial or political. If I were them I would definitely think about the need to throw a bone to those that wish to govern me out of existence for the chance to continue on. Companies are there to make money plain and simple. They may use marketing tools to manipulate the masses into thinking they are better corporate citizens than the next company, but that is a means to pry more money out of someone's wallet.

I've long been of the opinion that coral reefs have been through much worse than humans. The fossil record proves they have overcome mass extinction events which unfolded much faster than climate change, which the facts show have been going on for as long as we have a way to measure. Has humanity contributed to the speed of the current warming period? The facts are no one knows for sure, which is why the discussion is political in my mind. Several of the charts provided seem to show there have been periods of warming and cooling for eons at a similar pace. The difference I feel is we now have a way to measure in intervals that are meaningless in the big picture. In the end I suspect coral reefs will be in existence long after the earth shakes us off in preparation for the next dominant race.

I feel if people really want to make a difference in the worldwide pollution game they would be going after the largest per capita polluters. These countries have been mentioned and I don't want to be labeled a racist for mentioning them again. I feel that a person who really cares to bring about a change would be focusing on helping-educating people in an area that don't know or understand what their actions are doing. I doubt many reading this forum are pumping raw sewage into a reef, or have smoke stacks billowing pollutants that most developed countries have been working to reduce for decades.

So after all that I hope we are still all friends and I really dream that someday we will again have a society where it is ok to have a difference of opinion without being attacked by the other side!

I agree to an extent. I guess what I’m saying is please no “left wing right wing this” or “if X wasn’t president” or “republican/democrat this and that”. I hope that makes sense as I can’t find a better way to say it. The discussion in itself may have political overtones but it can be discussed without making it overtly political.

 

[EmdeReef]

It is my hope. And it does seem logical (or at least to me).

It seems logical but unfortunately in practice that's not what's been observed, at least not on the timescale relevant for people.

There are coral reefs in cold waters as north as Norway and Sweden (although if I remember correctly the Swedish reef was struggling). Unfortunately, it's not as simple as species just moving to a different zone. While through recorded history most species have been able to somewhat extend their range, once the primary habitat is gone very few species survive extinction for a number of known and unknown reasons. If the changes are too rapid there's simply not enough time for any adaptation. Up to 90% of the coral cover is gone from the Carribbean over the last 30 years from both bleaching events and other destruction and there haven't been any signs of coral "relocation." The habitat range gets limited by many factors including lack of shallow waters etc.

If you applied even smaller % to humanity you'd get a very bleak prognosis for the human race regardless of our mobility, technology and intelligence.

 

[Pmj]

Respectfully, warming or cooling can be measured but any discussion of who's idea of the cause is correct is hopelessly tied to politics. One can not separate the two, and even more sad is that wide political divisions make any real discussion impossible. This thread is therefor necessarily a political discussion in my humble and likely less educated opinion than many participating in the thread

If I could throw out my thoughts on several points in this thread anyways

I drive a Prius, but I drive it because I am cheap and if I can use half as much gas to get back and forth to work so be it! I have a Camaro for when I want to go fast! I keep the heat on 69 all winter, and run aC in the summer! Of course it makes sense to polute as little as possible, and I try to do what makes sense for me and my family. I am certainly not ready to wish I had fewer kids over it, and if I was really so worried I couldn't sleep over the issue, I wouldn't be wasting electricity on something as frivolous as an aquarium.

I see the oil companies investing in green technologies and I'm fine with that. I also know that they only do so for some perceived benefit to themselves,be it financial or political. If I were them I would definitely think about the need to throw a bone to those that wish to govern me out of existence for the chance to continue on. Companies are there to make money plain and simple. They may use marketing tools to manipulate the masses into thinking they are better corporate citizens than the next company, but that is a means to pry more money out of someone's wallet.

I've long been of the opinion that coral reefs have been through much worse than humans. The fossil record proves they have overcome mass extinction events which unfolded much faster than climate change, which the facts show have been going on for as long as we have a way to measure. Has humanity contributed to the speed of the current warming period? The facts are no one knows for sure, which is why the discussion is political in my mind. Several of the charts provided seem to show there have been periods of warming and cooling for eons at a similar pace. The difference I feel is we now have a way to measure in intervals that are meaningless in the big picture. In the end I suspect coral reefs will be in existence long after the earth shakes us off in preparation for the next dominant race.

Where is the evidence for that? When people say, the earth has gone through heating and cooling periods for eons, that's true. AFAIK, the pace has never been similar (short of mass extinction events), which is the issue.

I feel if people really want to make a difference in the worldwide pollution game they would be going after the largest per capita polluters. These countries have been mentioned and I don't want to be labeled a racist for mentioning them again. I feel that a person who really cares to bring about a change would be focusing on helping-educating people in an area that don't know or understand what their actions are doing. I doubt many reading this forum are pumping raw sewage into a reef, or have smoke stacks billowing pollutants that most developed countries have been working to reduce for decades.

So after all that I hope we are still all friends and I really dream that someday we will again have a society where it is ok to have a difference of opinion without being attacked by the other side!

One reason is b/c we (the developed world) exported manufacturing to them. The other reason for them not to care is we went through the same stages, and it's a bit like pulling up the ladder behind you to say "you can't have cheap energy to develop your own country" after we did the same thing. We have to help them do it.

 

[Muttley000]

Where is the evidence for that? When people say, the earth has gone through heating and cooling periods for eons, that's true. AFAIK, the pace has never been similar (short of mass extinction events), which is the issue.

One reason is b/c we (the developed world) exported manufacturing to them. The other reason for them not to care is we went through the same stages, and it's a bit like pulling up the ladder behind you to say "you can't have cheap energy to develop your own country" after we did the same thing. We have to help them do it.

I don't have evidence and really don't want to argue, but no one has ever showed me accurate data of climate change in a 5, 10, 20, or 50 year spans 10k years ago when the last major ice age ended before people were a factor. There could very well been greater rates of change but there is no ability to take such tiny slices of data that I know of.
I think we may actually be saying the similar things on your second point. My view is if you want to really effect global pollution help under developed countries do the right thing, getting Americans to reduce further is not going to have nearly as big an impact. The easy water has been squeezed from that sponge where other areas haven't been squeezed at all yet. Now what to do about countries that have the money to reduce but refuse, I don't know another way than forcing submission militarily and I am not suggesting that is a correct way. They are making a choice to not be good global citizens and convincing them to be is above my pay grade Manufacturing left the US in my opinion because of the political actions of a group of people taxing and regulating to a point it had to leave to survive. Having no envronmental controls whatsoever could not have worked either. Government intervention always has unintended consequences no matter which side of the aisle you reside on.

 

[User1]

The few people trying to do their part driving an electric vehicle are being harrassed by gas guzzling trucks. It shows that there is no hope for us, our time is limited.

Electric vehicles are not really efficient. You still have to generate the electricity to feed the car while also dealing with a disposable battery when replaced. There isn't anything magical about it.

Solar panel production, depending on what state you live in, isn't that efficient for the consumer. Getting there, but not at the same level as the space station or deep space exploratory missions. If everyone was worried as they say they are about global warming then we would all be using nuclear power because that is the cleanest source of power on earth for the masses.

 

[Pmj]

I don't have evidence and really don't want to argue, but no one has ever showed me accurate data of climate change in a 5, 10, 20, or 50 year spans 10k years ago when the last major ice age ended before people were a factor. There could very well been greater rates of change but there is no ability to take such tiny slices of data that I know of.
I think we may actually be saying the similar things on your second point. My view is if you want to really effect global pollution help under developed countries do the right thing, getting Americans to reduce further is not going to have nearly as big an impact. The easy water has been squeezed from that sponge where other areas haven't been squeezed at all yet. Now what to do about countries that have the money to reduce but refuse, I don't know another way than forcing submission militarily and I am not suggesting that is a correct way. They are making a choice to not be good global citizens and convincing them to be is above my pay grade Manufacturing left the US in my opinion because of the political actions of a group of people taxing and regulating to a point it had to leave to survive. Having no envronmental controls whatsoever could not have worked either. Government intervention always has unintended consequences no matter which side of the aisle you reside on.

No arguing here, I meant to add that your post was written very thoughtfully even though I may not agree. I do think the rate of change is the issue and wanted to bring that up, and posted an xkcd about it earlier.

 

[EmdeReef]

I don't have evidence and really don't want to argue, but no one has ever showed me accurate data of climate change in a 5, 10, 20, or 50 year spans 10k years ago when the last major ice age ended before people were a factor. There could very well been greater rates of change but there is no ability to take such tiny slices of data that I know of.
I think we may actually be saying the similar things on your second point. My view is if you want to really effect global pollution help under developed countries do the right thing, getting Americans to reduce further is not going to have nearly as big an impact. The easy water has been squeezed from that sponge where other areas haven't been squeezed at all yet. Now what to do about countries that have the money to reduce but refuse, I don't know another way than forcing submission militarily and I am not suggesting that is a correct way. They are making a choice to not be good global citizens and convincing them to be is above my pay grade Manufacturing left the US in my opinion because of the political actions of a group of people taxing and regulating to a point it had to leave to survive. Having no envronmental controls whatsoever could not have worked either. Government intervention always has unintended consequences no matter which side of the aisle you reside on.

There's a lot of data of climate changes, using several proxies that span thousands and even millions of years. Not sure what you mean by no accurate data and you may choose to ignore such data or disagree with it but it's there and has been largely accepted by a scientific consensus even before we started talking today's climate change. Geology has been around for a while.

With respect - manufacturing has left the US because people in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, (you name it) are willing to work for ~$2-3/hr and can still survive on such salaries, we all want cheap stuff and there are ways to make more money doing "easier" jobs. No amount of regulation/deregulation will ever bring it back short of stopping the global trade. We have/had a shot at hi-tech manufacturing, including green tech but we've ignored to make meaningful investments (similar to those made for oil and gas which have been heavily subsidized for almost 100yrs now) and so will be importing that from China as well.

 

[TexasReefer82]

Just to put this into our reef topic. since there is warming of the oceans and it is too warm for corals, that would indicate that the areas that were too cool for reefs should now have new reefs developing. I want to know where they are. No one seems to be looking for them.
And as for reef parameters being a bit out of order. How many reefers out there have different parameters in their tanks and are successful?

It is happening... But you'll never hear about it from the media.

According to Park rangers I spoke with a Biscayne Bay national Park this summer there are now healthy fabulous reefs along the east coast of Florida more North than they previously grew.

I have some specific coordinates near the Legare Anchorage site that were recently reopened for public access after having been closed since hurricane Andrew in the 90s that I intend on visiting. Word is the reefs there are phenomenal.

 

[theMeat]

There is an around 800 year lag between atmospheric temperature and ocean temperature. As makes sense given the medieval warm period

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Ok but can we all agree to reduce our consumables usage this year to help keep our environment (especially oceans) cleaner? pleeeaaassseeeee

 

[theMeat]

Yes. We as people of ruining the planet on many levels. Controlling the climate is not one of them

 

[Muttley000]

There's a lot of data of climate changes, using several proxies that span thousands and even millions of years. Not sure what you mean by no accurate data and you may choose to ignore such data or disagree with it but it's there and has been largely accepted by a scientific consensus even before we started talking today's climate change. Geology has been around for a while.

With respect - manufacturing has left the US because people in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, (you name it) are willing to work for ~$2-3/hr and can still survive on such salaries, we all want cheap stuff and there are ways to make more money doing "easier" jobs. No amount of regulation/deregulation will ever bring it back short of stopping the global trade. We have/had a shot at hi-tech manufacturing, including green tech but we've ignored to make meaningful investments (similar to those made for oil and gas which have been heavily subsidized for almost 100yrs now) and so will be importing that from China as well.

What I meant is that I have seen nothing that tells us what the rate of change was from 11500bc to 11450bc and such. The Data before we were here to measure it is garnered in different ways than thermostats. To be sure temps have gone up and down over the eons, but the rate before a several hundred years ago is much less clear.
I can not comment on your second point without getting political but I respect your points of view!

 

[Brian1f1]

What I meant is that I have seen nothing that tells us what the rate of change was from 11500bc to 11450bc and such. The Data before we were here to measure it is garnered in different ways than thermostats. To be sure temps have gone up and down over the eons, but the rate before a several hundred years ago is much less clear.
I can not comment on your second point without getting political but I respect your points of view!

We absolutely do have multiple methods to assess the rates of climate change in the past, and we absolutely do have much of that data available already. You can access it yourself if you have a proquest subscription.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

What I meant is that I have seen nothing that tells us what the rate of change was from 11500bc to 11450bc and such. The Data before we were here to measure it is garnered in different ways than thermostats. To be sure temps have gone up and down over the eons, but the rate before a several hundred years ago is much less clear.
I can not comment on your second point without getting political but I respect your points of view!

It cannot be determind wether or not past climate variability on short timescales is slower or faster than the mild warming of the last 300 years.

Paleoclimate Proxy Span and Resolution

Tree rings, ice cores, and sediment deposits in lakes and seas are just a few examples of paleoclimate "proxies".
Tree ring records span the most recent few thousands of year; ice core records go back as much as hundreds of thousands of years; and fossils can be up to hundreds of millions of years old.

Two factors related to time are important measures of paleoclimate proxy data. The two factors are the span of the record and the resolution of the record.

"Span" refers to the range of time for which data from a given type of proxy exists. Tree ring records span the most recent few thousands of year; ice core records go back as much as hundreds of thousands of years; and fossils can be up to hundreds of millions of years old.

"Resolution" tells us how much detail is to be found in a given type of proxy data.

Each ring in a tree corresponds to a growing season, so tree ring records provide a resolution of one year. We can use tree ring data to assemble a climate record with an annual resolution; we can know what conditions were like each year.

Ocean sediments, on the other hand, have resolutions on the order of a century. The uppermost layers of ocean sediment can be disturbed by currents or by creatures burrowing through the sand, so short-term trends in sediment types can get blended over time. So we can tell, using ocean sediments, whether two centuries had different climates, but we can't determine what the decade-by-decade trend was like.

Typically, records that have information about the distant past tend to have poorer resolution than do records of more recent times. Data sets that have large spans tend to have lower resolutions, while records with short spans tend to have better resolutions.

Our knowlege of paleoclimates gets blurrier the further into the depths of time we plumb.

 

[theMeat]

Well wadaya know. C02 blocks solar radiation.

From NASA

 

[Brian1f1]

I don't have evidence and really don't want to argue, but no one has ever showed me accurate data of climate change in a 5, 10, 20, or 50 year spans 10k years ago when the last major ice age ended before people were a factor.

I commend you for acknowledging upfront that you have no empirical support for your beliefs about climate change, a very complex, very specialized, but well researched scientific matter. That’s more than what many folks are willing to admit. I do wish you’d take it one step further though, and realize that since you lack the requisite data (and/or likely the training to understand it), it makes absolutely no sense at all, and it is generally not in anyone’s best interest ever for folks to formulate, and certainly not to disseminate their own strongly held, but un or under-informed beliefs. That’s actually one of the great things about the scientific method, it seeks to minimize, to the greatest extent possible (this part is often admittedly difficult, willful work, as bias is ever present in all facets of our existence, and therefore as scientists, and as concerned citizens, we must strive to avoid it, and it is true, mistakes are sometimes made, but we are but human, after all), personal thoughts and wishes about empirical matters, and to emphasize the story the best available data is telling.

Without beating on your post much past the first few lines, I’d like to ask you just a few questions. Who have you asked to provide you data on climate change from 10k years ago? Were they researchers (preferably reputable climatologists, doctoral level experts focusing exclusively on the matter) with access to and/or knowledge of how to obtain said data sets at least? How do you know that what they provided you with was inaccurate? Are you trained in interpreting this sort of data? What caused you to reject it? Were there problems with the underlying model, the statistics used to interpret the data, or the raw data itself, and how did you know it? How do you know that 5, 10, 20, or 50 year climate spans are the best and indeed critical units to analyze the relevant historical data sets in? Or was it just that those numbers appear to have some face validity, and aren’t as abstract to you because they fall within our own anecdotal human experience (science doesn’t care about that, unfortunately). How do you know that comparing the end of the last ice age’s rate of climate change is the critical thing to look at to judge and predict our own era’s? There are many factors involved in this process, and again, while it may strike you as face valid to focus on the end of the last ice age, there are many relevant differences between then and now that make it a very poor comparison in myriad ways, not the least of which, we are certainly not in an ice age currently, so our decent into the ecological hellscape of the anthropocene is extremely unlikely to mirror the changes of that era. Sure, we can use such data sets to help build the climate models, but a straight comparison is, truly, a gross oversimplification, and a highway to the logical fallacies plaguing our current culture.

That is all to say, if you don’t understand something, and you know that don’t, isn’t it much better to rely on the fields experts than to invent your own take on the matter, or to say you are poking holes in something you don’t have an actual clue about? For example, you likely are not an expert on general problems with mitosis, or even more specifically on uncontrolled osteocyte division. Therefore, if you had severe bone pain, you’d probably ask your MD for help. If they told you that they feared you might have osteosarcoma, (uncontrolled osteocyte division, “bone cancer,” and an extremely malignant kind at that) instead of inventing hypotheses about the statistical odds of such a dx being accurate, and on the nature of the role of shortened telomeres in uncontrolled cellular reproduction, you’d likely seek an even more specialized expert medical opinion, that of an osteo-oncologist. From there, maybe you’d get another opinion (but with a tumor doubling time of 11 days, perhaps not), but if they concurred, you’d accept the facts as they presented them, and begin their recommended course of treatment, even though you don’t really understand the disease well at all, and don’t have the training to really do so at the cellular and genetic level, because you trust the experts, even though you know they don’t have all the answers about cancer yet either, you know they have a lot more knowledge than you do, and you want to live. Climate science isn’t really any different.

And btw, I picked your post, but this was generally an exercise in my frustration with many people’s spreading of misinformation both here and elsewhere. We can do so much better!