(no subject)

[elmegil]

Yet another take on global warming:

http://www.nzcpr.com/guest76.htm

In another forum I've read reacently it's been noted that the IPCC's estimates for likely temperature change over the next hundred years have gone from the very significant 2.5 deg C to under 1 deg C. They've dropped steadily. Is there any reason to expect that these folks really know as much about what they claim as they want us to believe?

Comments

[reverendspork.livejournal.com]

Well, that settles everything. A right-wing hack from Margaret Thatcher's administration pretty much said that the whole thing is just silly, totally blown out of proportion. I wonder what Newt Gingrich thinks about global warming?

As for that tiny, insignificant one-degree centigrade bump in the planet's temperature, many scientists have an answer to that.

[elmegil.livejournal.com]

Wow Rich, I'm impressed.

You can attack one point the guy makes, slam his character, and you're done!


Get this: all the main folks oohing and ahing over how we're obviously the sole cause are LIBERAL WEENIES!

There, I showed you.

[elmegil.livejournal.com]

By the way, had you bothered to read what he wrote, his point was not only dismissing that less than 1 deg, but pointing out that an organization that can't even consistently predict a value for how much warming there will be in the next 100 years doesn't exactly have a lot of credibility. When your prediction varies as much as 300%, it doesn't mean much.

[reverendspork.livejournal.com]

The prediction variations are ultimately irrelevant. If the vast majority of scientists' predictions about global warming are exaggerated, what's the worst that can happen if we follow their predictions and take the appropriate steps to counteract global warming? Businesses and governments will need to spend some major moolah. However, if the vast majority of climatologists' predictions are correct and we do nothing, then all the money in the world won't do diddly-squat to address the environmental, political, and social chaos that would no doubt ensue before this century grows old.

I don't know about you, but I'm not one to play dice with the planet.

[elmegil.livejournal.com]

what's the worst that can happen if we follow their predictions and take the appropriate steps to counteract global warming?

We can destroy our economies and no longer be able to afford transportation much less Roomba's.

Any "major moolah" is quite likely to come out of your pocket and mine, not Joe CEO's nor John Senator's.

The argument does not boil down to Pascal's wager; it's not that simple even if you want it to be.

I'm all in favor of doing things to cut our emissions, but I don't think that the scale of change that they claim is necessary is going to happen until someone can get China, India, and the third world developing nations to sign on. So the US and europe can spend all its money trying to reduce emissions, all the while C/I/3 are all growing emissions faster than we can cut. A Recipe For Global Economic Disaster.

BTW the only real alternative to meet projected energy needs and make significant cuts in emissions is nuclear....are you ok with that?

[sterno.livejournal.com]

I decided to go straight to the horses mouth:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

That's the summary for policy makers that was released by the IPCC. I refer you to page 7 where they show a series of climate change projections based on different greenhouse gas levels.

The best case scenario in that chart has greenhouse gases remaining level at 2000 levels, which isn't going to happen. In that scenario they project .3-.9 degrees difference. Not too bad but of course that scenario is rather implausible.

In various scenarios where we do start to cut greenhouse gases in the next 20 years or so, we get a projected rise of 1-3 degrees.

In the scenarios where levels continue to rise as they have been doing we see rises in temperature of between 2.4 and 6 degrees.