Moderated Global Warming Discussion

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metzomagic said:
Malcolm, I'd say that it's not so much an intolerance for criticism, though it might come across that way to someone like yourself, as much as frustration with the professional dissemblers who are arguing for inaction in the face of a mountain of scientific evidence that shows we are making disastrous changes to our fragile little ecosphere.
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We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
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You have any references to any studies that suggest that this is even remotely possible or is it simply wishful thinking?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
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Rather easily, you say? Why, gosh! I'm surprised this isn't all over the news. I mean, you've solved one of the world's major problems!
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
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So the ocean CO2 sequestration is now discarded and we have the new improved idea - da, da - Land management.

There are quite a few problems you haven't considered.

1) Countries whose economy depend to a large extent on forest clearing are as reluctant to stop it as developed countries are to stop burning fossil fuels.

2) So, not only has that to be stopped but they have to be replanted. Who pays for this?

3) There is no evidence that all the carbon dioxide produced can be absorbed and indeed it is unlikely rather than likely.

4) The land that is most suitable for growing sequestering plants are already in use. Perhaps you have a suggestion for where we go for food?

5) We are running out of freshwater for irrigation, it is another worldwide problem.

5) Ignoring the massive problems you seem to have neglected and assuming, purely for the sake of argument, it worked, it still only works for a generation of plants, then the CO2 gets mainly returned to the atmosphere.

So no, it probably won't work in the first place, it is not as easy as you try to make out and it would be useless anyway.

But on the bright side, it is nice to note that you now accept that atmospheric CO2 generated by mankind is a real problem.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
More than 70% of all species went extinct in the Permian/Triassic mass extinction. And...here.
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A really great way to shoot yourself in the foot, Malcolm Kirkpatrick, by implying that the Permian/Triassic mass extinction was caused by climate change that happened over decades (the current situation) :jaw-dropp!

And your inability to understand what was written continues,
Coral Reefs an Ocial Acidification (PDF)
Approximately 40% of Bentham foraminifera species went extinct at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (55 million years ago), which included a strong ocean acidification event (Zachos et al., 2005; Kump et al., 2009), ...
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(my emphasis added in red so that you might read it :eye-poppi)

You did not answer the question, Malcolm Kirkpatrick:
Reality Check said:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick: Species of Foraminifera could not adapt to CO2 changes that took millions of years to happen.
What do you think will happen to Foraminifera when CO2 changes over decades?
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First asked 10 September 2012
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
If you follow that link you will read... ...so is it any wonder that calcium carbonate depositing plankton went extinct?
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Can you understand the inanity of ignoring the most relevent event in that citation:
Approximately 40% of Bentham foraminifera species went extinct at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (55 million years ago), which included a strong ocean acidification event (Zachos et al., 2005; Kump et al., 2009).
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Can you understand that the topic is ocean acidifcation and its effects on foraminifera? The effect is that species go extinct.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
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It is not so easy - as others have stated, much of the arable land is currently used for agriculture, and the conversion of forest to farmland continues at a rapid pace in much of the less developed parts of the world. The socio-economic conditions in the third world are such that stopping the deforestation would be difficult and expensive.

In many other areas, natural fire regimes cycle the carbon back into the atmosphere, preventing significant buildups of vegetative biomass.

In the drier areas of North America, there are significant, on-going reductions in fixed biomass as invasive, non-native annual grasses convert 50-500 year fire cycles into 1-5 year fire cycles. Essentially, the desert areas once dominated by blackbrush, Joshua tree, and other native woody brush species are being replaced by non-native annual grass; areas had no documented wildfire prior to 1990 have had four or five wildfires since then, as the grass comes into dominance. The lower treeline for Pinyon-Juniper forest is creeping up, as the lower elevations also fall victim to the brome grass induced changes in fire cycles. So, no biomass carbon sequestration there.

Recent publications are also describing the effects that short-term climate induced droughts have on forest types in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. They are documenting significant forest dieback, with associated fires like the ones that Colorado experienced earlier this summer.

In a nutshell - the climate is changing. Forest systems may eventually adapt as the various species shift their distributions to match the new climate. However, it is a slow process and an unfortunate first step in that process tends to be stand replacement wildfires. In much of North America, the conversion may not complete as invasive species interrupt the process and induce rapid cycling of wildfire, resulting in a net loss of biomass.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
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I was scanning the recent developments in this thread (I'll come back later with many of your funny posts), but this one caught my attention as you have no idea on how to calculate any of the potential figures in your just-words tale, but that doesn't prevent you from telling the tale. What a surprise!

Can you put any valid figure to your dream scenario? Not after a dozen verbal posts. Not as a link to some unspecific long winded fantasy of other fellow. Cut and paste if you need to, but give an answer.
 
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aleCcowaN said:
OK, I got it. Ruperto is a megalomaniac and he will die exclaiming "rosebud!" but, isn't insisting about his megalomania another way to avoid thinking about the cultural factors in the Anglo-Saxon archipelago that make it the promised lands for negationism?
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I can think about loads of things at once; Rupert's just one of them. You must admit he is a phaenomenon. If things go really wrong with the world he could be the model of some mythic monsters in a couple of thousand years. But enough of him, indeed.

Being on the inside of the Anglo-Saxon world I've long recognised that people tend to believe what they're comfortable with and seek a rationale for the belief. Someone who doesn't intend to give up smoking might choose not to believe they're putting their health at risk so as not to feel stupid. Or someone might choose to believe that charities are a waste so as not to feel selfish. I've naturally put it down to human nature rather than Anglo-Saxon but perhaps you're right. As I say, I'm in no position to judge.

Comment #37. It's OK, but the "dehumanization" is the same natural mechanism that allows to hunt a prey and doesn't need an explanation.
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Dehumanisation brings that mechanism into play when normally different ones apply to other humans. You cast them as animals to get around inhibitions.

Personally, I lump humans in with animals in the first place, which simplifies matters. I have no special regard for my species and I don't see it earning one anytime soon. It's a phaenomenon, certainly, but so's an oil spill.

How people indulge themselves in the ways of hooliganism, including those stylish and demure, that's a good question.
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I like to think I do it with a certain style. In my peer-group it's termed "intellectual bullying", of course, rather than hooliganism (just as we use irony and they use sarcasm. Or the poor man's a loonie but the Duke is eccentric).

There was no American cardinal until 1850 and this was in the 1600s.
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The leading colonial families still had a presence in metropolitan Spain, and the Spanish had a healthy presence in the Curia.

Beef was simply the only food the poor could afford.
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And beef was cheap because that was the treasure of Argentina, and was only going to get more so. The prairies were its silver-mines. It was already a major supplier to the other colonies in the Americas by the 17thCE.

But that doesn't make me calm!
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What calms me is the thought that the Atlantic gets wider by a few centimetres every year, so we are gradually edging away from the United States (trying not to catch its eye as we do so).
 
Malcolm,

We can compute the "natural" temperature of the earth if there were no atmosphere, and it would be around -18 C.

The earth is warmer than -18 C. In fact the mean temperature is around 15 C. Why is that?

-Ben
 
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Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We can control the CO2 rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.
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Almost the entire history of warfare has been about land management (who gets to manage what land, how, and for whose benefit) so "rather easily" seems to be far from the case. Very, very far.

Land is currently being managed the way the managers like it to be. It's working for them and they have no motivation for change. So the real problem in this "rather easy" plan is to provide that motivation towards the desired outcome, and the question arises as to how that will be done and by whom.

Do you have a rather easy answer to that? Or even a rather more difficult one, I'm not going to split hairs.

I'll provide a sample answer : the nations of the world surrender some of their sovereigny to a trans-national body which imposes a global land-management plan, by force if necessary.
 
BenBurch said:
Malcolm,

We can compute the "natural" temperature of the earth if there were no atmosphere, and it would be around -18 C.

The earth is warmer than -18 C. In fact the mean temperature is around 15 C. Why is that?

-Ben
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That was the killer question of thermodynamics deniers back in the day :).
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We have been over this. It's not in dispute. The point applies just as much to the proponents of AGW theory.
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My post did not make "a point", it was some observations. It was certainly not about your point, which I take to be expressed thusly

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
We agree. That argument (mirror image) applies to AGW theorists and statists. "(W)when a person’s worldview is threatened by scientific evidence, they interpret the science in a biased manner."
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with which I emphatically do not agree.

I've been aware since childhood that evidence which appears to support your hopes and expectations should be treated with extra caution, not less. I was well aware of confirmation bias before I knew its name. It's something you learn if you care about being proven right and hate being proven wrong.

It may be an instinctive reaction but we can rise above instincts and many of us do. You're setting up an excuse of "my worldview made me do it" so you don't have to recognise that you let it.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
And Dyson,
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Why do you keep bringing up Dyson? It's already been proved he doesn't even assert what you claimed he did and he has never published paper on climate science.

Furthermore, you now say you keep dropping his name to show a sensitivity to criticism, but you are hypersensitive to us telling you he's of no relevance in this field, he may as well be random internet blogger 172391. As for sensitivity to criticism, when the criticism isn't based on facts of logical arguments it MUST be rejects, that's how skepticism works. (This is the same treatments the "critics" of the accepted version of 9/11, the moon landings and Kennedy assassination are all treated as well)

Overall you giving the distinct impression of someone grasping for sources that can help prop up their belief system rather than someone looking for facts.
 
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