IS CLIMATE CHANGE MAN-MADE?
So, although I can’t offer a fully developed opinion, I will offer a strong opinion.
Without knowing to what extent, if any, climate change results from man-made factors, wouldn’t it be prudent to become more environmentally friendly anyway, in order to limit the chance that man-made factors don’t increase or expand and influence climate change in the future?
Although I might not know to what extent any existing climate change might result from man’s activities, I think I can safely say this:
Man likely is one of the causes of climate change.
Why? Well, I could be wrong, but I’ve never read anyone disagree that the following points are true:
- The earth’s temperature has risen dramatically over the years.
- The level of carbon dioxide has risen dramatically over the past several decades.
- Carbon dioxide warms the earth, and therefore increased levels of carbon dioxide increase warming.
- Man's activities have increased carbon dioxide over the past several decades.
(Perhaps these points are rarely, if ever, challenged, because there are relatively few ways in which to challenge them. The points involve the simple recording of measurements and observation of the effects of carbon dioxide. Perhaps if it were possible to plausibly challenge these views we’d see the current debates extended to these points).
So, if carbon dioxide warms the planet, and if the level of carbon dioxide has risen dramatically over the decades, how could man not be contributing to global warming?
I would say that the question in the media should likely become: How much of the global warming is due to man? Instead of the question leaning towards: Is any of it is due to man? (Assuming that carbon dioxide warms, and has been increasing due to man's activities, the only manner in which man, overall, couldn’t be at all contributing to global warming is if man is unknowingly engaged in other activities that actually reduce global warming enough to offset the warming from the carbon dioxide. This is possible, although I’ve never heard anyone suggest this).
Now, I’ve already mentioned that even if climate change is not primarily a result of man’s activities, at least some environmentally friendly measures should be implemented for these reasons:
1) If benefits outweigh the costs, as described at the start of this article.
2) The prudence of limiting the chance those man-made factors will expand and influence climate change in the future.
I will now add a third reason why environmentally friendly policies should be considered for implementation:
Even if man’s activities cause only a small portion of global warming (say, 0.2 percentage points out of a 2.0% annual rise in earth’s temperature), eventually that contribution will eventually be enough to trigger environmental disaster (if you assume, of course, that indefinite increases in temperature lead to a point at which the temperature will become so warm that disasters will occur. I don’t see how this could not be the case).
An example: Let’s say that disaster will occur if the earth warms 2.0% one given year. Let’s say the earth warms 1.8% due to non man-made factors, and 0.2% due to man-made factors. Without the man-made warming, the earth would’ve warmed 1.8% that year and not be hit with a disaster (that quickly, anyway). In that case, if man hadn’t been a partial cause of global warming, the earth wouldn’t have tipped into disaster that year.
Think about this. If man is annually contributing to 0.2 percentage points out of, say, 1.5 percentage points of global warming, then over a 20-year span man has contributed to 4.0 percentage points. It adds up!
And if those extra 4.0 percentage points accelerate warming by two years and mean that mankind suffers disasters two years sooner than it otherwise would…
It might very well turn out that those two years were the extra two years mankind was counting on to reverse the global warming trend, as they race against the clock. But they simply ran out of time.
It's kind of sad how one-dimentional your view of the universe is. In these articles, you seem to think that you can just pull apart all these factors and add, subtract, or otherwise manipulate them as if it's laid out for you in some easy to solve first order equation.
ReplyDeleteIt's not. In fact, nothing is.
Many known and unknown factors exist that impinge on each other, making the universe impossible to navigate with "logic" alone.
Solutions require you to think outside the box. Well, not you specifically. It doesn't appear that you're capable.
It would do you some good to take a step back and look at all the assumptions you've made in your blog articles. Maybe you'll discover that you live in a world bound by limits that you've created out of convenience.
Perhaps that's why you've scored so high on a man-made tests but have little other accomplishments to your name. You are quick to understand that which is already understood, but are incapable of seeing anything beyond those boundaries.
Again, a very logical analysis.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the problem I have with man-made climate change -- other than the fact that I think it's bullshit -- is that there are taxes involved, which is probably the main reason I came to the conclusion that it's bullshit.
Even if anthropogenic climate change was happening, how is taxing CO2 emissions from exclusively Western countries ever going to solve the problem? Answer: it won't, because the world economy and population will keep growing. And then you've also got the issue of CO2 being only one of many so-called greenhouse gases.
I truly believe globull warming is a scam, and I believe the majority of ordinary people share my opinion.
I want to make it clear that you are not remarkably intelligent. Your articles are horrible and wrong. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteReader 73,
ReplyDeleteThe least you could do is explain why you think his articles are "horrible and wrong".
Somehow I know you aren't a book critic.
Sixty five million years ago, there was much more carbon in the environment than there is today. Things were much warmer then. (Antarctica was tropical.) A big rock fell down from the sky. Much of the carbon got buried and turned into oil and coal.
ReplyDeleteToday, we are taking all that oil and coal and putting it back into the environment. It would be bizarre in the extreme if the climate did not warm up. Humans and the rest of life on the Earth is adapted to current conditions. If we keep dumping carbon, we will be able to adapt, however, it will not be fun.
Stop pumping Co2 into the air before the dinosaurs come back to life and eat us all.
Reader 48,
ReplyDeleteyour claims mean nothing to me unless you can actually point out some examples and logic to support your claims.
You claim:
"Many known and unknown factors exist that impinge on each other, making the universe impossible to navigate with 'logic' alone. "
Of course you can navigate using logic...if it's impossible to navigate using logic, then how did you navigate the creation of the response that you wrote to me?
Yes, there are unknown factors that influence life. So what's your point? At any point, based on the existing known factors, there's a logical method to use that information. If that changes once unknown information then becomes available, so be it. Do you suggest that we live life randomly in anarchy?
Reader 58,
ReplyDeleteyou're probably right that taxing Co2 wouldn't be a long term solution. It would likely reduce usage in the short term only.
Buddy, who are you. You have such an inflated opinion of yourself it's laughable. "Ranking 74th in the world..." hahaha what??? You took a test on Facebook, cool. I don't think you are getting into Mensa any time soon. If you honestly think you are close to being the 74th smartest person in the world, I pity you.
ReplyDelete"Friends used to call me Mr. Dictionary when I was a child, and more recently friends would say "He knows everything!" WOW! Seriously, wow. thats unbelievable. Make sure to put that on your resume.
I read a couple of your posts and honestly, you are a mediocre writer and your ideas are by no means original or earth-shattering in the slightest. Your logic-based evidence that you seem to believe justifies your arguments is so porous that it's painful to read. You say you notice things no one else has noticed. However, the majority of your latest post is you analyzing other people's quotes. Huh? How is that original insight in any way. Obviously, you are insecure because although you are intelligent, you want to be much more intelligent than you really are - this site is some type of ego-boost that you desperately need. But please don't delude yourself into thinking you are some type of genius.
Again money is the driving factor behind something man is involved in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you to a point that money is involved because if there was no profit to be made in this, we would never have heard about this "catastrophic temperature change that is threatening mankind".
I believe it is b.s.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteif you think it's likely that someone who placed 74th out of 500,000 to 1,000,000 people would not be able to qualify for Mensa, than it's you that should be pitied (unless you were thinking the unlikely thought that the limiting factor would be related to the fault the traditional IQ tests have in providing some subjective verbal questions).
You make several claims about my writing, yet offer nothing to back it up except this:
"However, the majority of your latest post is you analyzing other people's quotes. Huh? How is that original insight in any way. "
What a bizarre claim. I offered two links, and offered a very limited assessment of them:
"All I’m saying is that in this type of environment, with misinformation everywhere, it can become hard to know what to believe unless you examine the evidence in great detail yourself."
I then go on to say that I don't examine the scientific evidence in great detail, and I offer insight unrelated to those two links.
Does that sound like a majority of my post was related to analysing the two links? Of course not.
I suspect I'm going to have a bit of fun at your expense if you continue to post on my site!
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteyou are incorrect in assuming that climate change alarmism must be primarily due to someone wanting to make money.
Why couldn't it theoretically be due to liberals wanting to HARM those who make money...capitalists like oil companies?
I sense a certain level of arrogance in these responses, as though the reviewers are deigning to claim a higher level of intellect than is actually displayed. I find that what I've read so far in these posted articles would make for some significant in depth conversation, approaching the discourse of some of the lectures attended earlier in my own life. The no quarter / no middle ground position held both extremes is at best tedious, contentious, and not at all productive. I applaud the statement regards the appropriate question to be asking: what percentage of climate change is sourced by specie homo-sapien? In my own circle of influence, I've long argued that there are things that we can and should do, as well as so much of what is purported to "save the planet" being (at best) wishful thinking. To that end, in my humble view: there is no greater heresy than to pervert and otherwise corrupt data or the interpretation of that same data. To wit: mr Mann and his infamous hockey stick graph model, it only works (formulaic-ally) by denigrating certain properties of CARBON by a negative exponent factor of between 2 & 4 while at the same instance increasing certain other properties by an exponent of 4???? While this may a solution for manipulating portions of an equation, with those altered properties it is no longer CARBON, or it is no longer applicable as a functional tool to describe carbon or its effect.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous wrote:
ReplyDelete"I sense a certain level of arrogance in these responses, as though the reviewers are deigning to claim a higher level of intellect than is actually displayed. "
Thank you. Very well said. This phenomenon is common among my readers' comments.
I think what's happening is this: Many readers are intelligent (perhaps IQ of 110 or 120), but not intelligent enough to see my point.
Because these reviewers are intelligent, but not intelligent enough, they are literally communicating on a different plane than I.
You write:
"I find that what I've read so far in these posted articles would make for some significant in depth conversation, approaching the discourse of some of the lectures attended earlier in my own life. "
Thank you. I've been thinking like this for years, but only now have I decided to write regularly. I hope to be discovered and become a recognized thought leader!
You write:
"I applaud the statement regards the appropriate question to be asking: what percentage of climate change is sourced by specie homo-sapien?"
It seems like such a simple concept, yet you so rarely (if ever) see a debate about that!
I agree with a lot of what you have said. I think human induced global warming is a scam. You want to know ask you elders. You know the people who are 80 years old and have lived in the same place since they were born. See what they have to say about the weather.
ReplyDeleteAs for the blogger in question. You are undoubtedly arrogant and those numbers of how smart you are mean little. You have good arguments but you are no Einstein. I agree with another that you act like you are as smart as you want to be but fall short of the mark. Besides what is smart, math, physics, reading, social abilities, xbox. One man perception of smart could mean nothing to another. you may Be able to do the hardest of math problems yet can not even operate a chain saw or dirt bike in which case I would think you are not so smart.
In general anybody who boost about something generally are not as secure about that particular thing.
@ The anonymous directly above me:
ReplyDeletePersonally, I wouldn't ask some random old person to tell me about climate science for the same reason I wouldn't hire someone off the street at random to fix the engine in my car: climate science, like being a mechanic, is a skill.
And the people who have that skill, who actually know how to analyze the climate, pretty much all agree that man-made global warming is occurring.
This study should answer any questions you have about the topic:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html
But yeah, I agree with you that this guy clearly suffering from a severe case of anal-cranial loopback.
Hey No Such Thing, I may not agree with everything you say but at least you're passionate and enjoy debate and intelligent conversation.
ReplyDeleteHowever I caution you from believing the logic that this quote displays:
"Because these reviewers are intelligent, but not intelligent enough, they are literally communicating on a different plane than I."
I have an IQ of 147(Stanford-Binet) and while I do find I often grasp things quicker I very rarely find "intelligent people" cannot keep up.
In fact the attitude you have can keep you from spotting errors in your own logic.
That being said I invite everyone to consider the question: Regardless of what you believe when it comes to global warming, should companies be able to pollute as much as they are despite the already proven negative effects of CO2.
In the 1970' or 1980's both Time Magazine and Nesweek had covers labeled about "the coming global ice-age"--That was what the scientific consensus was at that time.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was based on approx 50 years of global cooling (1930-1980) for which they plotted a trend into the future. Today, the scientists are doing the same using more recent data to project into the future. And of course, this time is different (lol).
To prove or disprove a hypothesis, one should devise tests. Tests are impossible, you cannot minitiarize the atmosphere. Or, one should be able to use the theory to predict outcomes. Over the past century and decades, the sea water level has risen far less than predicted or expected under climate warming hypothesis
All the recent seasonal hurricane predictions (since Katrina at least) (in both numbers and intensity) have been WRONG, substantially off the mark. But the scientists have never apologized for them or admitted they were wrong.
And they still predict seasonal hurricane predictions, as if it really had scientific validity.
And even if global warming hypothesis is correct, the effect of man is debatable--The biosphere has much more plant life (including sea algae) with great effect on earth, than realtively insignificat effect of human being on the climate. I dont doubt that earthworms have probably a more significant effect than man.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteif they are basing future projections simply on past trend data (and not an analysis of what may have caused both past and future trends), that is a SERIOUS mistake.
Look at the housing market. People claimed that the national market wouldn't drop, since it had never dropped annually. Huge mistake. Times change. There is NO reason to automatically believe that current and future circumstances will stay as they were over the past 50 years.