Comments on: Global cooling predicted for the next 30 years

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:11:00 +0000

Burning fuel is an exothermic reaction (releases
heat), so it is reasonable to assume it makes our planet a little warmer every time we burn something. Theories about greenhouse gases are theories, and scientists or laypeople can argue ad infinitum about whether CO2 or water vapor or methane or whatever “traps heat in” but the net effects of basic physics and chemistry are that when we burn something (or air condition, which generates more heat than it removes) we heat the planet. It is nihilistic to say “that is such a tiny fraction compared to what we get from the sun and reflect into space”. Tiny amounts add up, and because weather is inherently chaotic, by definition it only takes tiny changes in atmosphere or sea temperatures to cause massive changes in weather. All the rest of the discussion is people focusing on the wrong thing. By the way, trapping solar energy to make electricity would likely have a net effect of converting heat (in the form of radiant energy) into other forms of energy, thus cooling the planet. Similarly, plants converting CO2 and water to glucose and oxygen is endothermic (net cooling effect), and wind turbines turning wind into useful electric energy would have a net cooling effect (slowing down air movement to convert it into other forms of energy). All the talk about CO2 and greenhouse gases misses the point; CO2 is just a MARKER for exothermic reactions. That is, CO2 is released into the air when chemical reactions occur that release heat into the air. CO2 is taken out of the air (in general) when reactions occur that take heat out of the air (such as converting CO2 and water into plant material, that if stored for millions of years may turn into fossil fuel).

By: Jonathan_Duhamel

Jonathan_Duhamel — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:41:00 +0000

Readers will notice that some commenters are hypocritical; on one hand they strongly state climate change is real but deny climate change unless it is due to carbon dioxide. They proffer warming, an effect, as proof of the cause.

We also see an unwarranted belief in the consensus myth. See this post on consensus in science: http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2012/11/24/on-consensus-in-science/

“The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”

We also have a commenter who is so enlightened (in his own mind) that he is completely intolerant of other views and resorts to name-calling rather than refute my report with facts. He apparently also sees conspiracies everywhere.

As a geologist, I have studied Planet Earth and its changes for a living. The views expressed in my posts are based on physical evidence and observation. It is, of course, possible to have several different interpretations of the evidence, and I present the one that seems to fit with Earth’s long history of changes. In my view, proponents of catastrophic global warming due to human carbon dioxide emissions have yet to present any compelling physical evidence to support their view. They keep claiming that the evidence is “overwhelming” but just can’t seem to come up with it. I remain skeptical of the predictions and scenarios of garbage-in-garbage-out modeling that ignores the physical evidence – computer modeling is not evidence; it is speculation.

By: Bo Pearl

Bo Pearl — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 13:30:00 +0000

lol, I accidentally replied to your comment thinking it was Ado’s, Dave. And obviously read it wrong. Well, hopefully this spirited few will take a glance anyway.

By: Bo Pearl

Bo Pearl — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 13:26:00 +0000

You know, in all honesty, for the past 7 months I’ve rigorously educated myself on the subject of climate change, and doing what I’ve suggested every day since I realized climate change wasn’t the hoax cnn and fox news led me to believe. Every single time I ran across an article sourced to forbes, it was an article that leaned skeptical, or in denial of climate change. Every one. Besides being the world’s most powerful search engine, articles up to date regarding climate change would be much more dense concerning the fact that it was some widescale money-grabbing hoax, wouldn’t you think? And why the support by so many discussing things other than the reality of climate change, like the impact it’s currently having? Why does the science actually make a lot of sense, considering the fact that some things can kill you, some things taste nasty, and some substances trap heat? The same dirty substance that comes out of the tail pipe of up to a billion cars, continuously for the past 70 years, followed by evidence of a sharp increase in temperature in a short period of time correlating to a massive spike in human population growth? With a reason to believe why backed up by 30 years of eidence? The fact is we’ve acted ignorantly and recklessly in a lot of areas of life, and the course human history is on, if you haven’t noticed, doesn’t seem to be the brightest. That’s not because I’m a cynic, it’s because I’m a 25 year old young man who understood he’s been duped into thinking oh, war, famine, poverty in the billions, obesity, disease, pollution, religion, drug culture, poor educational systems in an interlinked global society dependent on resources and the predictability of services natural systems provide and the ensuing effects on a rapidly growing, dysfunctional global society, what of it? I think you guys need to wake up and for the sake of those already suffering the consequences of a fractured world you refuse to accept, open your mind to the possibility that there truly IS something happening to the environment we live in. It’s hard enough coping with complex situations under complex circumstances without humanity’s selfish arrogance getting in the way. Why actively contribute to the preventable disruptions of our way of life and the option to live peacefully? Because you’re scared some scientists want a pay raise and the entire world is just going to let the US economy burn to ashes?

By: Dave Paiz

Dave Paiz — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 12:38:00 +0000

Wow…you really have no idea what a weak response this is, do you? Are you aware of the difference between science writing and op-ed stuff? This piece originally appeared in Forbes, and was written by a columnist who writes about economics, politics and human interest stories. Going over his past stuff, it’s quite clear that Hendrickson is a red-baiting stooge for the Corporate State who has no real grasp of what’s going on in the world. Still dry-humping a dying idea – that a way of life premised on unlimited growth on a planet with finite resources is anything but a prescription for self-inflicted near-term extinction.

By: Bo Pearl

Bo Pearl — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:07:00 +0000

While you’re at it, I dare you to type in global cooling. Look at how many articles are actually about global cooling. And then type in climate change hoax and see what pops up. Everybody’s wrong but you two!

By: Bo Pearl

Bo Pearl — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:59:00 +0000

look at the results you see when you do a search on climate change in google, clicking on the news link. Look at all of those articles, written by all of these crazy journalists and hoaxers. Look at the wikipedia page on climate change. Look at the most recent statement made by the American Meteorological Service on climate change. Look at reason — 7 billion people. Nearly a billion vehicles spewing out a heat-trapping gas. 70 years. Non-stop. Insurmountable evidence of a warming world at an unprecedented rate. It really isn’t all that hard to grasp.

By: Bo Pearl

Bo Pearl — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:50:00 +0000

It may seem like 3% isn’t a lot, but it adds up. Imagine a faucet running water down the drain of a bathtub. The flow of water has been equalized in a way that the tub never fills because there is a balance. Over time, it adds up and disrupts the natural flow. The tub begins to fill. Makes sense to me. This is how the climate changes — by a cause. The global climate doesn’t just “naturally” change, it changes for a reason, whether it be solar activity, volcanic activity, or massive continuous emissions of a greenhouse gas.

By: Ado Christian

Ado Christian — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 03:15:00 +0000

Well most of us are able to use a search engine, but here is a short paragraph from the first one that popped up for me.

“Is the earth getting warmer? We should hope so for at least two reasons: First, the world emerged from the Little Ice Age in the 19th century, so it would be worrisome if it weren’t getting warmer. Second, all the history indicates that humans thrive more during warmer periods than colder ones. It is likely, though, that earth has warmed less than many official temperature records indicate for a variety of reasons, including: few long-term records from either the southern hemisphere or the 71 percent of the planet that is covered by water; distortions from the urban heat-island effect and other faulty siting (e.g., temperature sensors next to asphalt parking lots, etc.; the decline in weather station reports from Siberia after the fall of the Soviet government; the arbitrarily ceasing to include measurements from northern latitudes and high elevations, etc.) The most accurate measures of temperature come from satellites. Since the start of these measurements in 1979, they show minor fluctuations and an insignificant net change in global temperature.”

The old hysterical warming theory is crumbling. The data used to support the theory was both bad in some cases and incomplete in others. When the data is unreliable, the old data processing saw holds true: Garbage in, garbage out. It really isn’t all that hard to grasp.

By: Dave Paiz

Dave Paiz — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 02:23:00 +0000

No, I went ad hominem from the start for the simple reason that there are already far too many stupid people in the world as it is, and I hate it when I see people like Duhamel going out of their way to make more stupid people. Would you care to show me some hard, credible evidence that these so called “theories” are falling apart under “current scientific scrutiny?” Please, enlighten me.