Derails from Climate Change News thread.

[mistermack]

I don't think people quite understand what effect the raised CO2 levels have on plants in the arid areas.
Plants need CO2 to photosynthesise. In order to take in the CO2, they have to open little holes. The problem is that they inevitably lose a bit of water, while these holes are open.
Raised CO2 levels mean that the holes don't need to be open so long to collect the required CO2, so the plant loses less water.

All that means, in real terms, is that with higher CO2, a plant can grow where it previously couldn't. On a patch that would previously been too dry. That's the greening effect of marginal land that can be seen and photographed from space satellites. And on the ground, before and after photos of the same spot shows very considerable greening in many places.

Obviously, it only makes a difference where the land is on the margin, of supporting plants, or not.
It doesn't make the plants hold less water, or soak up less, It just allows plant cover, on areas that were previously barren.

One degree of warming will also move the useable limit of land farther north. And if you look at the amount of land in the far north, in Russia and Canada, any small move north of the useable line will bring improvements to a vast area of land.

It's not all bad. That's the point. It could easily be more good than bad.
All this doom and gloom is sheer invention. There's no scientific study behind it.
They just paint everything as bad. When a lot of it is clearly good.

To me, the biggest advantage of global warming is it might keep the next ice-age glaciation at bay.
It's due any day, and it would be an absolute disaster far worse than the tiny bit of warming that we've had.

[Svartalf]

The National Report is a satirical site.

Thanks for saying so, it's hard to tell satire from real stupidity.

[Hermit]

The National Report is a satirical site.

Thanks for saying so, it's hard to tell satire from real stupidity.

That's what poes are about.

Mind you, even if the National Report was not a satirical site I would still have concluded that the article was meant to be a joke. Recently I came across a letter to the editor of The Border Mail. The editor gave it the Letter of the Week award. He or she obviously had a sense of humour, as had the writer of the letter.

More worrying is the number of people who read that stuff and think it makes sense.

[Seth]

Some scientists think will go like Venus in 1.1 billion or so years due to a runaway greenhouse effect as the Sun gets bigger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth

I've never heard anyone seriously say this'll happen any time soon.

I heard lots of people say it very seriously in about 1972, referring to about 1998. That's why I don't believe them anymore. They are all alarmist liars who have some other agenda, like Ludditism or a yen for power and control.

Nothing to do with science really.

[macdoc]

time to move on from the denier position boyos....t

This what counts...

[Seth]

time to move on from the denier position boyos....t

This what counts...

Meh. Bandwagon fallacy.

[Animavore]

I don't get why accepting the science from multiple fields converging on the same conclusion and not being an "alarmist" about it can't go hand in hand.
I find the vehement opposition to making the world we live in a cleaner place and less of a dumping ground baffling.
Living more green saves me money on things like electricity. I have three bins. One for organic matter. One for recyclables. And one for everything else. The first two get collected for free because the people collecting make money off it. The last one costs me a fiver a pop, but thankfully doesn't fill up that often. Using a car as little as possible saves money on petrol and helps people get some exercise. And so forth.
Living a more 'green' life just makes sense to me both aesthetically and economically. Senseless spending and trashing don't at all.

EDIT: For balance I'll add I don't agree with alarmism either. I find it to be counter-productive. It also shows a lack of confidence in the resourcefulness and survivability of humans. I also think that there is an inevitable trend toward clean energy as supply and demand continues with the younger generation being more compliant with the paradigm shift in science. Recently scientists for the first time created a nuclear fusion reactor which produced more energy than it consumed. It was just a little bit more, but it was a step toward abundant clean energy for the future.
In short, I'm not overly worried.

[macdoc]

Alarm depends on perspective and time frame.

Shorts in a knot over sealevel rise in near term is counterproductive for all except say

Venice, lower Manhattan , Holland and to a degree those justifying the Thames barrier.

Alarm about over wintering pine beetles is certainly a near term and catastrophic side effect given how massive the boreal forest is.

Framed in survival of humanity....climate change is low risk.

Frame in ITS FUCKING COSTING A LOT.....yup time to be alarmed and pull funding from coal companies before they get their asses sued off.
And THAT is near term.

The insurance companies deal in risk ....and beleive me they see reason for alarm.

Let's see what one of the world's largest has to say on climate change.

Responding to the climate sceptics

Swiss Re argues that the climate is warming at a rate which cannot be explained with natural factors alone.

We have for sometime been vocal that global warming is happening and is mainly caused by man-made activity. So how should we consider the arguments of the climate sceptics?

Although there is plenty of evidence for man-made climate change, there is room for scientific discussions about climate issues because we still do not have sufficient knowledge about all climate processes to be 100% certain about the future development of global warming. While some sceptics can be compared to “flat earthers”, people holding onto outdated and disproved theories, it can be argued that others are healthy challengers to the current state of knowledge in climate change science, even if their views serve specific political and commercial ends as well.

In a field of such complexity, however, the devil is in the detail. The sceptics make a series of claims, often on a general level, which have to be put under scrutiny by the scientific community. Urs Neu at ProClim, in collaboration with our own Natural Catastrophe and Sustainability and Emerging Risk colleagues, Mark Wüest and Martin Weymann, has reviewed scientific evidence on some of the key sceptic arguments in detail – here are the highlights:

According to present knowledge of physical processes in the climate system there is no known factor other than rising greenhouse gas concentrations which quantitatively explains the observed warming of recent decades.
All known natural factors influencing climate either act on longer time-scales (eg orbital parameters which cause ice age cycles on tens of thousands of years) or have not changed significantly over the last few decades (solar irradiance, cosmic ray flux, volcanic activity). There is no known natural factor whose recent evolution could explain the recent warming.
Current climate models are able to reproduce the climate of the past, but can only simulate the recent warming if the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gases is taken into account. Natural factors alone would lead to a slight global cooling over the last decades.
In short then, the climate is warming at a rate and with specific effects which cannot be explained by purely natural means. Add the effects of man-made emissions based on solid physical knowledge and the explanation is powerful and convincing for the majority of climate scientists as represented by the IPCC.

http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/climate_sceptics.html

and on risk

What does Economics of Climate Adaptation mean for insurance?

Interview with David Bresch, Head of Sustainability & Emerging Risk Management

For whom is the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) written?

Our focus has been on giving country and local level decision-makers the facts and framework to design an adaptation strategy and to demonstrate the role of insurance risk transfer measures. We took a bottom-up, problem-solving approach, moving away from global estimates of what adaptation funding may be required. It was therefore important to use local, case studies to test out the methodology and understand how expected losses would develop under different climate change scenarios. We chose 8 locations, US-Florida, UK-City of Hull, India, Guyana, Tanzania, Mali, China and Samoa to cover a range of climate risks, levels of economic development and potential adaptation measures.

What is total climate risk?

Interestingly, we found that countries and regions are not organised to develop an overview of the total climate risk (TCR) faced by their communities. By TCR we mean the combination of climate risks today, the value and concentration of future economic development and the effects of on-going climate change. Of course, TCR is nothing new for reinsurance because it is important for modeling and pricing risks, but it emerged as one of the key findings of the report that societies need to understand TCR to prioritise the risks they face and to plan how to either avoid or adapt to them. This is why we also support the development of a Country Risk Officer role that would be able to supply this risk perspective moving forward

are they alarmist or pragmatists.....I think the latter.

Moving into an unstable climate regime is regrettable but we built our first world wealth on it fossil fuels....so now we pay the piper.

Refusing to acknowledge that reality and failing to mitigate future impacts is the height of stupidity and irresponsibility.

[Seth]

I don't get why accepting the science from multiple fields converging on the same conclusion and not being an "alarmist" about it can't go hand in hand.
I find the vehement opposition to making the world we live in a cleaner place and less of a dumping ground baffling.

You're baffled because you don't understand the actual issue and opposition. What I'm opposing is the clear, obvious political agenda behind the Warmist scam that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with making the world a "cleaner place."

I'm all for that, but not at the expense of civilization and entire national economies.

The United States is miles ahead of almost everyone else on the planet when it comes to cutting CO2 emissions and has been for years, but that's not enough for the nations and peoples who want to bring down the US and humble us on the world stage, which happens to include our traitorous president, Barack Obama.

I'm not interested in doing any more CO2 cutting until the rest of the world catches up to us, starting with China.

Living more green saves me money on things like electricity. I have three bins. One for organic matter. One for recyclables. And one for everything else. The first two get collected for free because the people collecting make money off it. The last one costs me a fiver a pop, but thankfully doesn't fill up that often. Using a car as little as possible saves money on petrol and helps people get some exercise. And so forth.
Living a more 'green' life just makes sense to me both aesthetically and economically. Senseless spending and trashing don't at all.

Nobody's asking you not to live "green." Using resources wisely is a fine thing when it's done for environmental purposes, but when it's mandated for political gain and when the measures don't actually do anything to improve the overall global situation but instead serve only to crush our national economy it's not even rational, much less a good idea.

EDIT: For balance I'll add I don't agree with alarmism either. I find it to be counter-productive. It also shows a lack of confidence in the resourcefulness and survivability of humans. I also think that there is an inevitable trend toward clean energy as supply and demand continues with the younger generation being more compliant with the paradigm shift in science. Recently scientists for the first time created a nuclear fusion reactor which produced more energy than it consumed. It was just a little bit more, but it was a step toward abundant clean energy for the future.
In short, I'm not overly worried.

Nothing wrong with doing the right thing. That's why I strongly support nuclear energy, which is the ONLY technology currently available that will meet out energy needs with much less environmental damage. Unfortunately, the fuckwits who oppose things like burying spent fuel rods and would rather have those same rods sitting in crumbling water-filled pits at the reactor sites, along with corroding barrels full of radioactive waste, are the ones who make it impossible to build new nuclear power plants in the US, even though the technology has matured a lot since Three Mile Island.

I do NOT want every windswept prairie and ridge in the US planted with 400 foot tall wind turbines for mile after mile after mile. They are ugly, noisy and they kill birds. I'm fine with solar concentrator power plants in the desert southwest in moderation and restricted to one specific area, even though they fry birds.

But I'm NOT willing to give up coal and/or natural gas power plants, or internal combustion engines until the workable, cost-effective replacements are available to take over the load. I'm not satisfied with Obama's proclamation he made during his first campaign when he said "Under my plan, energy prices would necessarily skyrocket."

It's coming to pass right now, the problem being that nothing he's doing is going to have any measurable effect on what he's complaining about. His plan is about power and control and diminishing the power and influence of the United States in the world's economy, and nothing more.

Not interested, sorry.

When you come up with something rational, reasonable, workable, affordable and effective, let me know.

[Animavore]

I'm not interested in doing any more CO2 cutting until the rest of the world catches up to us, starting with China.

You're not even in the top ten most green countries. Cuba and Columbia, of all places (I was surprised by that one too) are even ahead of you.
http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lif ... the-world/


As it happens China, along with Russia and yourselves and 32 other nations, are pumping money into nuclear fusion.
http://www.scpr.org/events/2014/06/30/1 ... ar-fusion/

China seriously need to clean up their act though. If even just for the sake of their nation's health and future health problems along with the associated cost. Look at any of their cities from a distance and all you see is a mushroom cloud of smog. Their rivers have turned into open sewers and people are living in their own filth. They've no concept of health and safety at all.

Nothing wrong with doing the right thing. That's why I strongly support nuclear energy, which is the ONLY technology currently available that will meet out energy needs with much less environmental damage. Unfortunately, the fuckwits who oppose things like burying spent fuel rods and would rather have those same rods sitting in crumbling water-filled pits at the reactor sites, along with corroding barrels full of radioactive waste, are the ones who make it impossible to build new nuclear power plants in the US, even though the technology has matured a lot since Three Mile Island.

Nuclear fusion, if it can be made viable, is even better still than current nuclear fission in that it doesn't leave any of the dangerous nuclear waste and is far cheaper (no more mining of uranium for instance). The only worry I see is that the fuckwits will just hear "nuclear" in the title and protest against it anyway without understanding the science behind it.
That said, I've nothing against modern nuclear fission reactors either.

[macdoc]

burying spent fuel rods

You've got about as much understanding of spent fuel and low level nuclear waste as you do of climate change and its risks....approaching zero and driven by ideology instead of cogent information.

Why would you support burying a fuel source that is barely 5% used?

Learn something
http://bravenewclimate.com/integral-fas ... ear-power/

[mistermack]

time to move on from the denier position boyos....t

This what counts...

Another dumb post from the master.

This is what counts? It's a totally meaningless statistic, since there is no quantity of warming, you can include me in the big chunk.
I would personally agree that of course there has been man-caused global warming. A tiny amount.
I can't imagine what the one guy was thinking of.

Happy?

On a different note, it's hardly fair to blame China for the CO2 it emits, when it's the West that is buying all the stuff that they produce.
We are, in effect, exporting our own CO2 emissions to them.
No customers means no CO2 emissions.

[Tero]

But it's all Warmist Scam to Seth, science or not. This is because it will eventually lead to some bureaucrat telling Seth what to do, and that of course is unacceptable.

[Seth]

I'm not interested in doing any more CO2 cutting until the rest of the world catches up to us, starting with China.

You're not even in the top ten most green countries. Cuba and Columbia, of all places (I was surprised by that one too) are even ahead of you.
http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lif ... the-world/

Third world shitholes with no industry don't count.

As it happens China, along with Russia and yourselves and 32 other nations, are pumping money into nuclear fusion.
http://www.scpr.org/events/2014/06/30/1 ... ar-fusion/

A fine idea.

China seriously need to clean up their act though. If even just for the sake of their nation's health and future health problems along with the associated cost. Look at any of their cities from a distance and all you see is a mushroom cloud of smog. Their rivers have turned into open sewers and people are living in their own filth. They've no concept of health and safety at all.

Oh, they have an idea, the Communists in charge just don't give a shit. They want more power and control and they want global domination and they don't care who has to die to produce it.

Nothing wrong with doing the right thing. That's why I strongly support nuclear energy, which is the ONLY technology currently available that will meet out energy needs with much less environmental damage. Unfortunately, the fuckwits who oppose things like burying spent fuel rods and would rather have those same rods sitting in crumbling water-filled pits at the reactor sites, along with corroding barrels full of radioactive waste, are the ones who make it impossible to build new nuclear power plants in the US, even though the technology has matured a lot since Three Mile Island.

Nuclear fusion, if it can be made viable, is even better still than current nuclear fission in that it doesn't leave any of the dangerous nuclear waste and is far cheaper (no more mining of uranium for instance). The only worry I see is that the fuckwits will just hear "nuclear" in the title and protest against it anyway without understanding the science behind it.
That said, I've nothing against modern nuclear fission reactors either.

Yup. It's like the thousands of people who die from preventable food-borne pathogens because a tiny group called "Food and Water" agitates against food irradiation which kills all such pathogens. They die because fuckwits hear "irradiation" and think it makes the food radioactive, which it doesn't.

[Tero]

Well it breaks down DNA. What if I want to eat my DNA naturally broken, not irradiated?