First oil, then warming, now ..cooling?

First we had oil at 147 a barrel because we were running out. If we didn't do something we were all doomed. Now we are at oh 35 a barrel or so. Still running out but OPEC is cutting production by 50%. Yes we will run out but not when the wackos say we will. Cooler heads prevail.

Then we had warming, oh sorry, climate change as it is called now. Since warming cannot be proven factually the wackos went for climate change since that accomodates for if the earth warms or cools. But then again it could cool because of global dimming caused by global warming. Eh ok. I think some people are quite dim themselves.

Now we have global cooling. Hehe. Yep it's in the news now. Remember though if we don't act to stop global warming we and all the polar bears are doomed to die horrible deaths. But wait last year was colder than most and now we have snowstorms in Las Vegas. Uh oh. Now some are saying global warming has stopped or been reversed (even though they previously said all of our attempts to curb warming wouldn't be sufficient and we were dead anyways). So let me get this straight. Last year if we didn't act immediately and pass all kinds of ignorant laws about CO2 and all that we were dead. Even if we did pass the laws we wouldn't feel the effects for 20 years or so. Now in ONE year all that warming trend has been erased? Some websites are saying that the net drop in temperature in the last two years has erased any net gain that was being used to tout global warming.

Fools.

I'm not in the global warming or cooling group. Both have a huge money trail. I think I'm just gonna sit back and laugh until the next new crazy theory comes out and dooms us all.

Either way we are all dead right? It's interesting that in this information age we actually get to see these wacky theories develop much quicker than before and they become commonplace very fast. In the 1970's it was cooling, in the 90's it was warming and now from 2002 to 2008 it has gone through both warming and cooling. So in a span of 6 years we have seen the money trail go from the warm side to the cool side. I wonder what is next? Oh and now finally some of the outlets that claimed CO2 was the main cause of warming now say that solar output is causing cooling...but they don't dismiss the warming effects of CO2...but that solar output is a much bigger factor than CO2. Nice. They also say that at no time in history has cooling been good for a civilization. In fact they say cooling is worse. So they just admitted that solar output is a huge factor in cooling when just last year they dismissed the very same thing to explain warming. What a bunch of idiots. So I think most warming websites should say they are simply climate change websites. When the climate changes donate money to us and we will fix it by taking away your freedoms. So if it gets hotter...it's our fault and if it gets cooler...it's our fault. So in reality aren't they just against technology and progress of any kind?

Wake up. This isn't scientific progress people.

;)

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Now we have global cooling. Hehe. Yep it's in the news now.

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That doesn't make it true. According to NOAA, this November was one of the WARMEST ever on record. Some parts of the US and probably elsewhere in the world have seen serious winter weather this year, but that's hardly proof of cooling.

Additional energy in the atmosphere can manifest in many ways. For instance, by pushing cold northern air farther south than it usually goes. As always, in a system as complex as the Earth's atmosphere, it's practically impossible to prove any kind of causal relationship on any timescale shorter than a few hours.

Regardless of what the weather looks like out my window, I believe the overall global temperature measurements. The Earth is getting warmer.

I believe the earth is indeed getting warmer - we're still coming out of the last ice age. Duh.

As for the oil - yes, we were at 147, now at 35. Why the rise to 147? First, it was because of "Katrina". Then, "Rita". Then, this last spring, it was due to a "shortage" from cutting over from winter to summer mixtures. Now, they are blaming it on the "Traders" driving the price up. It's all the oil companies. Do they think we're dumb? The traders work for the oil companies. Duh.

On Jay Leno the other night, he had a joke - "Times are getting tight at Exxon / Mobil ... they had to lay off 50 congressmen."

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Originally Posted by Dino

I believe the earth is indeed getting warmer - we're still coming out of the last ice age. Duh.

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I don't know if humans are the cause of the warming temperatures, or if that's even a falsifiable statement. I do know, from basic chemistry, how CO2 operates in the presence of thermal radiation. I have no reason to doubt the results of the equations which predict what sort of impact a change in CO2 levels would have on the mean global temperature. I'm not willing to throw my entire faith in basic chemistry and physics out the window, just yet.

The science predicts a rise in temperatures as CO2 levels rise. Such a correlation is observed. I don't see the controversy there. Are these rising CO2 levels due to human activity? Again, maybe not falsifiable, but the obvious correlation with the beginning of the industrial age is hard to ignore.

Just because you look out your window and see snow doesn't really mean anything.

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The science predicts a rise in temperatures as CO2 levels rise.

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Actually from what I have read the science shows that CO2 levels lag behind the temperature changes. Always temperature first then CO2. The main culprit in warm and cool cycles is solar output which is something we have no control over.

All I know for sure is that winter's had a hell of a lot more snow when I was a kid. These days we might get a few good snow storms, but most of the winter there's hardly any snow on the ground. Today is a great example of the messed up weather -- it's 14C in Toronto now! Weird.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck

I don't know if humans are the cause of the warming temperatures, or if that's even a falsifiable statement. I do know, from basic chemistry, how CO2 operates in the presence of thermal radiation. I have no reason to doubt the results of the equations which predict what sort of impact a change in CO2 levels would have on the mean global temperature. I'm not willing to throw my entire faith in basic chemistry and physics out the window, just yet.

The science predicts a rise in temperatures as CO2 levels rise. Such a correlation is observed. I don't see the controversy there. Are these rising CO2 levels due to human activity? Again, maybe not falsifiable, but the obvious correlation with the beginning of the industrial age is hard to ignore.

Just because you look out your window and see snow doesn't really mean anything.

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Actually its mostyl deforrestaton and disruption of plankton growth that has the largest effect. Both of these are responsible for 99% of the conversion of CO2 to O2. Fewer trees/les plankton means the carbon dioxide builds up to a higher concentration. Luckily, the higher the concentration the more an individual tree/microbe can process up to a point, so it is difficult to get into a runaway situation, but we are effecting it. Forget the whole driving cars things, that really has little effect on long term CO2 concentrations.

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Actually its mostyl deforrestaton and disruption of plankton growth that has the largest effect. Both of these are responsible for 99%

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From what I heard that was meant to be around two thirds.

Apparently, only trees in sub/tropical climates do a lot to prevent warming. Trees further from the equator convert less CO2 and reflect less light. Which is basically meant to warm the planet more.

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All I know for sure is that winter's had a hell of a lot more snow when I was a kid.

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Hardly a scientific fact or observation but duly noted.

Getting cooler? This year, temperature has scarcely dropped below 0 and there still is no sign of snow in the south parts of the country, despite temperatures having been able to reach -20 a few years backs.
I wonder...

you people worry too much :P I tell you that bananinus the flying banana fish was created 'cause we throw too many bananas out in nature, don't belive everything you hear ;) meh, just give it a rest, nobody needs more stress in life ;)

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Originally Posted by Elysia

Getting cooler? This year, temperature has scarcely dropped below 0 and there still is no sign of snow in the south parts of the country, despite temperatures having been able to reach -20 a few years backs.
I wonder...

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But my country has had a cold summer (20C - 30C), or at least it hasn't started yet ;). Last year it also snowed in winter -- in Australia! And not even near the alpine region, nor greatly above sea level.

I wish we did have global cooling. Summers are getting way too hot!

I wish we had more global warming. The winters are too cold ;)
But then again... summers are hot...

In all admittance, the only real change I've noticed in the weather is the fact that it's been fluctuating greater than I've ever remembered. In New York it's been going from 12F one day to 60F the next. I don't remember any deltas that great in my life.

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Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

In all admittance, the only real change I've noticed in the weather is the fact that it's been fluctuating greater than I've ever remembered. In New York it's been going from 12F one day to 60F the next. I don't remember any deltas that great in my life.

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Seconded. I believe that this is the real problem. For all the stupid observations made in this thread, (sorry) it doesn't really matter if the winters stay cold or the summers stay hot. If you want my anecdote, Michigan almost beat the all-time record for annual snowfall in late November-December. As normal as that may seem, normally we aren't close to it until late January. What scares me more than what the television and everyone in this thread seems to be focusing on is the end of seasons. It's hardly scientific either, but I remember celebrating my sister's birthdays in April a few years ago and it would be snowing out. It wasn't even normal then before the mass hysteria.

And a couple years ago it got really warm like it was supposed to when spring starts, but then it got cold, and nearly frosted over the plants again. We had freezing rain I think. Though they have a different expectation for winter, it happened in California too, and that made citrus expensive. The seasons should be like clockwork and they haven't lately here.

25 years ago, people in Germany panicked over "waldsterben". All the woods will die in about 25-30 years because of acidic rain. Yeah. Like hell. As an allergic person, I'd like to know where this "waldsterben" is that they kinda promised? Those green stuff is still happily procreating in public. Damn it.

I think it's a problem that people think things stop being problems when they aren't reported on the news. Doesn't mean I'll believe what they say, but if you have to scare people to get them to pick up their trash or care about the environment, then maybe we need to revisit our priorities, and drop political leanings while we're at it.

As long as I can remember the weather in Alabama has always been rediculously bad at being cold one day and hot the next. This past week it was in the teens at the beginning of the week and in the 70s by christmas. That's how it's always been here, but it seems that when something becomes an issue you hear about on the news you just process that temperature change differently in your mind. It could be that weather hasn't changed much at all, it's just our interpretation has changed because of the warnings we hear in the news.

Which I guess is a downside of how information is passed in this day and time. It's kind of like a giant exagerated version of a rumor. It starts out as, "Jim got a new cow" and winds up being "Jim is leaving his wife for a younger woman!" Or some such nonsense ^_^

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25 years ago, people in Germany panicked over "waldsterben". All the woods will die in about 25-30 years because of acidic rain. Yeah. Like hell. As an allergic person, I'd like to know where this "waldsterben" is that they kinda promised? Those green stuff is still happily procreating in public. Damn it.

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Yeah, that prompted germany and other EU countires to stop using coal as its main source of power. This has greatly reduced the acidity in the rain compared to what it was in the 80s. While claiming that all trees would be dead by now sounds like scaremongering, there is no better way to get stupid people to do something than to fill them full of fear. Anyway, that was an avoidable problem; same as that other problem with CFCs, we just stopped producing them and the problem went away. With CO2 the situation is different because we cant stop creating it.

Climate changes should be measured by the span of decades, not a year or two.

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Climate changes should be measured by the span of decades, not a year or two.

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Precisely. And this is why all these 'theories' should never be taken as fact prior to substantial scientific proof.

2 cool years does not a climate trend create. I would even say 30 years does not a climate trend create. Hundreds of years might produce a climate trend. So in essence we do not have enough factually recorded data about our own climate to make dire or non-dire predictions. This is a problem of theory being fact long before the theory is proven.

Let's hope we don't continue to make laws based on unproven theories that could have huge economic impacts. Lesson learned. I seriously doubt it. The climate religion is in too much of a full swing to just die out.

My post, BTW, is a complete sattire of the common 'theories' being flung around about our planet.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Precisely. And this is why all these 'theories' should never be taken as fact prior to substantial scientific proof.

2 cool years does not a climate trend create. I would even say 30 years does not a climate trend create. Hundreds of years might produce a climate trend. So in essence we do not have enough factually recorded data about our own climate to make dire or non-dire predictions. This is a problem of theory being fact long before the theory is proven.

Let's hope we don't continue to make laws based on unproven theories that could have huge economic impacts. Lesson learned. I seriously doubt it. The climate religion is in too much of a full swing to just die out.

My post, BTW, is a complete sattire of the common 'theories' being flung around about our planet.

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Agreed!

We won't have to worry about any of this since 2012 is only 3 years away ^_^

Honestly the only problem I had with the Kyoto treaty was that China could pollute as much as it wanted. I don't see a problem with a coordinated effort to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. The so called "huge economic impacts" are probably the costs to fuel trucks and other transportation that have engines with better gas mileage. Cry me a river.

>> We won't have to worry about any of this since 2012 is only 3 years away
The world does not end so conveniently.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

And this is why all these 'theories' should never be taken as fact prior to substantial scientific proof.

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Satirical indeed. It only takes a theory this hard to disprove for people to think it a fact. Add a pinch of fear and you're on your way to make a lot of money.

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Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

In all admittance, the only real change I've noticed in the weather is the fact that it's been fluctuating greater than I've ever remembered. In New York it's been going from 12F one day to 60F the next. I don't remember any deltas that great in my life.

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Larger diversions and generally chaotic behavior are something you'd expect in a highly nonlinear system when you start dumping more and more energy into it.

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Larger diversions and generally chaotic behavior are something you'd expect in a highly nonlinear system when you start dumping more and more energy into it.

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Except when the medium absorbing the energy has become saturated to the point that the addition of energy results in an insignificant overall change. To attain the temperature changes stated by some you would almost have to pour in an infinite amount of heat into a substance that has scientifically been proven to have a logarithmic absorption rate. However some of the models suggested would mean that the medium (CO2) would have to have an exponential absorption rate.

And we must agree like any other medium, gas, solid, etc. that CO2 must surely have a saturation point where it simply cannot absorb more heat which would mean that CO2 has a maximum finite and measurable amount of heat that it can trap or absorb. If we assume that CO2 can absorb an infinite amount of heat then I would love to see that equation worked out on paper.

But overall I think most of us can see that a little information in the hands of the media is a dangerous thing indeed. They report before they research and they speak before they think. There is a huge void in the news right now of simple objective factual information. When the news begins to only report on 'what if' scenarios they have far surpassed their purpose.

I also believe most of us can agree whether the climate is warming, cooling, dying, thriving, wet, dry, calm, stormy, etc., none of the outrageous claims or dire predictions made by any group regardless of position are warranted or even justified by scientific evidence. I can't wait until we get back to 'boring' science and move away from 'Hollywood' science because it's usually the closest to the truth.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Except when the medium absorbing the energy has become saturated to the point that the addition of energy results in an insignificant overall change. To attain the temperature changes stated by some you would almost have to pour in an infinite amount of heat into a substance that has scientifically been proven to have a logarithmic absorption rate. However some of the models suggested would mean that the medium (CO2) would have to have an exponential absorption rate.

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I'm not sure where you're getting that info, nor even what the majority of your paragraph means, but for gasses at reasonable temperatures (such as in the atmosphere) the relationship between absorbed energy and temperature is linear.

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And we must agree like any other medium, gas, solid, etc. that CO2 must surely have a saturation point where it simply cannot absorb more heat which would mean that CO2 has a maximum finite and measurable amount of heat that it can trap or absorb. If we assume that CO2 can absorb an infinite amount of heat then I would love to see that equation worked out on paper.

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It has been worked out... The relationship is linear. At any rate, the concern isn't the amount of heat absorbed, but the overall temperature, which is easily seen to be rising on the graphs.

CO2 does not absorb the entire spectrum of IR and the IR radiated by the earth's surface is not solely in the CO2 absorption range. So adding energy in an area of the spectrum that CO2 does not absorb results in no net temperature gain since there is no net energy absorption gain. Just saying they are linear is a bit misleading. Perhaps linear in as much as the energy is in the absorption range but definitely not linear with respect to the bigger picture of total amount of energy absorbed. The temperature effects of atmospheric CO2 are logarithmic, not linear, and certainly not exponential.

As well the earth does not radiate limitless amounts of energy and thus CO2 must compete with clouds and water vapor for available energy to absorb. There isn't an infinite energy budget and all the energy is not absorbed by one little gas. So the accumulation of one simple gas does not mean that we will have a net temperature gain since it does not absorb all the available energy in the first place. If one gas was increased AND all radiated energy was in the that gas's energy absorption range then you would have a completely linear absorption rate and a linear change in temperature. However that is simply not the case here. And I would be interested to see exactly how you find the absolute mean surface air temperature of the entire planet.

But like I said I'm not for or against. I am on erring on the side of "let's know what we are doing before we pass expensive policies to fix a problem that either isn't fixable, isn't a problem, or isn't something we fully understand."

I believe there are huge holes on both sides of the debate and that ultimately we just don't know yet. We know what we have observed but we don't fully know why we have observed it. By the time we figure out the why the observations will have changed. I'm not going to get into the smear tactics that have been employed by both sides. I'm merely stating that this is not a closed debate and you are not a moron if you do believe humans are causing it no more than if you don't believe humans are causing it. If you are saying the theories are facts and that the scientific debate is over on this then you are not very scientific.