Re: What is YOUR view?

On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 12:19:34 -0500, RonO <rokimoto@cox.net> wrote:

On 3/31/2024 5:59 AM, David Brooks wrote:

The new MARTIN DURKIN DOCUMENTARY : CLIMATE: THE MOVIE
 
https://www.climatethemovie.net/
 
It's rather an uphill battle I fear.
 

>
The NCSE had to take up global warming denial because the ID perps had
become the most effective organization for keeping creationism out of
the public schools because they were running their bait and switch scam
on the rubes that had converted over to ID creationism, so the
creationist attempts were effectively stopped because the creationists
had never listened to the science side of the issue, but when the
creationists scam artists selling you the scam told the rubes not to do
it, they tended to listen.  Science denial is science denial, but what
is the real issue with global warming?
>
We are putting out a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Some
people worry about methane, but the effect is likely negligible because
methane doesn't last very long in the atmosphere.  We likely did
accelerate global warming with our increased output of carbon dioxide,
but we did it at a time when global temperatures had already been
increasing for thousands of years.
>
We need to better define what the crisis is.
>
We probably should be nearing the end of the current warming period. For
the last million years we have had the 100,000 year ice age cycles. The
earth has been cooling for the last 3 million years, but for the last
million we went to a cycle of around a hundred thousand years of cold
interspersed with 20 to 30 thousand years of warmer climate.  The
temperatures of the cycles seem to have become more extreme in the last
500,000 years.  The last warm period got warmer than it is now, and more
ice melted and sea levels were 20 meters higher than they are now.  We
have not reached that point, yet in this cycle, so things are not yet as
bad as they got without human industrial interference.
>
There was an article put up on TO, maybe a decade ago, that claimed that
the current carbon dioxide levels could prevent a recession into another
ice age.  We might delay the next ice age.  This really doesn't seem to
be that bad.  We got a taste of what things would be like when
temperatures fell for the mini ice age that started in the 1300's and
didn't end until the start of the industrial revolution that is supposed
to be responsible for our current global warming.  Since we are around
the end of the warm cycle it may be that things would have just kept
getting colder without human intervention.  Europe would have been
rendered nearly uninhabitable.  The Greenland colony died out during
this cold period.  North America's northern latitudes would have likely
failed to be colonized by Europeans.  The industrial revolution would
have likely shifted to countries closer to the equator.  We would be
crying about very different circumstances if the world had continued to
get colder instead of warming back up by 1850.
>
So, we likely have to figure out what the crisis is.  The earth has seen
warmer climates that had more ice melting and sea levels rising to the
levels that they claim may occur this time, but they obviously happened
before.  So the regions that will be flooded will just be a repeat of
what happened last time a hundred thousand years ago.  If we delay the
next ice age arctic ecology will suffer more than last time if the warm
period is extended.  What we observe today are the remnants of what has
survived thousands of years of reduced habitat.  A lot of arctic species
had already gone extinct before the industrial revolution.  Arctic
ecologies have their heydays during the glacial periods when currently
highly populated regions like New York were under a mile of ice.  Things
started to get warmer before the glacial maximum 25,000 years ago.  It
may be that the climate should be getting colder at this time, but is
that something that we want to happen?  Do we want to go back to a time
when New York city was under a mile of ice and polar bears had sea ice
year round to hunt all the seals that were lying around?  The Islands
worried about being flooded out would instead see their coral reefs dry
out and more of the coral atolls be exposed.  They would have issues
with things like getting the reefs reestablished in what was deeper
water, and they would have to try to reduce erosion so that there would
be something above sea level during the next warm period.
>
So, the crisis has to be defined, and what we should do about it,
probably, has to be figured out.
>
Ron Okimoto

The crisis is from not just  the high levels of CO2 and CH4 but also
CO2's unprecedented rapid rise, making it difficult for both nature
and civilization to adapt to AGW changes.  CH4 levels are also
increasing, not just from anthropic sources, but also from rotting
organic matter which was previously sequestered in permafrost, but is
now exposed due to AGW, one of many positive feedback loops.  That CH4
is removed from the atmosphere more quickly isn't nearly as important
in the short term as its greater ability to absorb solar energy, which
is 26-87 times that of CO2. 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCt2MhOzWVE>

If you think past glaciers were no fun, just consider living during
the Permian Extinction.  AGW deniers would have us do nothing until
the world's continents become deserts and the world's oceans become
anoxic swamps. 

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge