Climate Change 101 With Bill Nye The Science Guy

[Mitch Cronin]

[Mizar]

The greens are getting desperate. All the usual reasons are stated in the video for global warming which must be man made, yet once again they conveniently ignore the Medeival warm period when it was even warmer. Explain that one Bill. I suppose we would have to hand him a big fat paycheque to figure it out though. I like his ridiculous green economy benefits. Tell that to the people of Ontario with their rapidly climbing energy costs just like in Germany.

Looking back at earlier threads on the subject in this forum, I think the best quote I found was calling this the Scam of the Century.

[Mitch Cronin]

they conveniently ignore the Medeival warm period when it was even warmer. Explain that one Bill. I suppose we would have to hand him a big fat paycheque to figure it out though.

Interesting comments. Can you tell me what the significance of the "Medeival warm period" is, in this context? Also, who is this "they" who "conveniently ignore" it?

[Mizar]

Interesting comments. Can you tell me what the significance of the "Medeival warm period" is, in this context? Also, who is this "they" who "conveniently ignore" it?

"A flurry of recent scientific papers has tried to measure the warmth of the "Medieval Warm Period" (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago. Scientists have long debated whether it was cooler or warmer than today, and whether the warmth was global or regional. The point for nonscientists: If recent warming has precedents, some might find it less alarming.

Until the late 1990s, researchers generally agreed that the MWP was warmer than today and that the "Little Ice Age" of 1500-1800 was colder. Then in 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopted the "hockey stick" graph devised by Michael Mann at the University of Virginia and colleagues.

Using temperature indicators such as tree rings and lake sediments, the graph rewrote history by showing little warmth in the 11th century and little cold in the 17th, but a sharp spike in late-20th-century temperatures. That graph helped to persuade many people (such as me) that recent temperature rises were unprecedented in scale and speed in at least 1,400 years.

But critics of the graph pointed out that it used a statistical technique that overemphasized hockey-stick shaped data from unreliable indicators, such as tree rings in bristlecone pine trees and Scandinavian lake sediments influenced by 20th-century land-use changes. Four recent studies have now rehabilitated the MWP as a period of unusual warmth, though they disagree on whether it was as warm or warmer than today.

Jan Esper of the University of Mainz and his colleagues looked at pine wood densities from Sweden and Finland and found "evidence for substantial warmth during Roman and medieval times, larger in extent and longer in duration than 20th-century warmth." Bo Christiansen of the Danish Meteorological Institute and Fredrik Ljungqvist of Stockholm University looked at 32 indicators across the Northern Hemisphere and found the level of warmth during the peak of the MWP "in the second half of the 10th century equaling or slightly exceeding the mid-20th century warming."

Thomas Melvin of the University of East Anglia and colleagues reanalyzed one of the tree samples from Sweden used in the "hockey stick" and concluded: "We can infer the existence of generally warm summers in the 10th and 11th centuries, similar to the level of those in the 20th century."

A fourth study of creatures called diatoms in Chinese lake sediments found that the period "between ca. A.D. 1150 and 1200 was the warmest interval of the past 1,000 years."

Taken together, these studies cast doubt on the IPCC's conclusion in 2007 that "the evidence is not sufficient to support a conclusion that [Northern] hemispheric mean temperatures were as warm, or the extent of warm regions as expansive, as those in the 20th century as a whole, during any period in medieval times."

But was the medieval warm period confined to the Northern Hemisphere?

I consulted a database of papers collated by the climate-skeptic website CO2Science.org, run by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a nonprofit research center in Tempe, Ariz. The database contains numerous published studies of isotopes and other indicators in caves, lake sediments and other samples from Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and Antarctica that find the MWP warmer than today. Two Antarctic studies, for instance, concluded that current warming "is not yet as extreme in nature as the MWP" and that "the present state of reduced ice on the western Antarctic Peninsula is not unprecedented." A far smaller number of studies, such as one from Lake Tanganyika, found the MWP cooler than today.

It remains possible that today's warming is different from that of the Middle Ages. For example, while summers might have been warmer then, winters might be warmer today (if today's warming is caused by carbon dioxide, that should be true). And of course, it is the future, not the past, that scientists expect to be dangerous. Nonetheless, the evidence increasingly vindicates the scientists who first discovered the Medieval Warm Period."

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204349404578100862654023702

[IFG]

.... Also, who is this "they" who "conveniently ignore" it?

That's people like you, Mitch (likely me now as well). As Mizar's WSJ story says, scientists have been studying this for years. I don't know why he thinks that piece is compelling one way or the other, it's actually quite balanced, and scientists (as opposed to uninformed partisans) do talk in terms of probabilities, indications etc. Perhaps Mizar is so ""desperate" that he'll take any evidence that casts the slightest doubt about something as absolute proof-positive for an opposite conclusion. Quite common, actually.

Cheers, IFG

[deicer]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/white-house-global-warming-caused-the-polar-vortexand-heres

[Mizar]

Perhaps Mizar is so ""desperate" that he'll take any evidence that casts the slightest doubt about something as absolute proof-positive for an opposite conclusion. Quite common, actually.

As usual for the two of us, good solid info posted by myself......and well....only myself.

Don't worry, I'm used to it.

In an effort to update people about green policies in other countries, here is some info below,

"With the worst snow conditions in the country since 1981, it’s worrying, to say the least, that gas supplies are running low. A month ago, The Sunday Telegraph warned in this column of the problems of an energy policy that puts expensive, inefficient green power before coal-fired and nuclear power. There have been a few signs that the Coalition is at last turning its attentions to the issue but, still, not nearly enough has been done. Now we are reaping the consequences. Because of a misguided faith in green energy, we have left ourselves far too dependent on foreign gas supplies, largely provided by Russian and Middle Eastern producers. Only 45 per cent of our gas consumption comes from domestic sources. All it takes is a spell of bad weather, and the closure of a gas pipeline from Belgium, to leave us dangerously exposed, and to send gas prices soaring. Talk of rationing may be exaggerated, but our energy policy is failing to deal with Britain’s fundamental incapacity to produce our own power.

Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary, may have granted planning permission this week to a new nuclear power station, Hinkley Point in Somerset. But one nuclear power station, with two new reactors, isn’t nearly enough. Moreover, it will take a decade to build and, even then, will only provide seven per cent of the country’s energy needs.

It is time for the Coalition to tear up its energy policy before the lights really do go out. The first priority must be to repeal the Climate Change Act of 2008, with its brutal, punishing targets: reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and 26 per cent by 2020. These targets have already had a disastrous effect, forcing the closure of coal-fired power stations, and increasing tax-funded subsidies on wind power. Next month, electricity bills will soar even higher, thanks to a new tax on carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired and gas-fired power stations.

There are good intentions behind a green energy policy, and no one would wilfully want to damage the environment. But green technology – in its current incarnation, anyway – is just too inefficient and expensive to meet our energy needs. In some of the worst weather for more than 30 years, green power still only provides a tiny fraction of our energy needs. Solar power is of limited use in our cold, dark, northern climate. And wind power isn’t much better – cold weather doesn’t necessarily mean windy weather.

At last, the Coalition – or the Conservative part of it, anyway – is beginning to recognise these painfully obvious truths. In this week’s Budget, the Chancellor backed the policy of domestic fracking – the extraction of shale gas – with the promise of tax breaks for companies involved in the industry. He will know that American gas prices have plummeted, thanks to the US embracing the shale gas revolution. Britain must do the same. George Osborne also announced in the Budget that ceramics businesses would be exempt from the Climate Change Levy on energy costs. By making that exemption, he is acknowledging that green taxes are a significant drag on industry. He should make the exemption universal.

Our energy problems have been deepened by the greener-than-green Liberal Democrats, with their seeming stranglehold on the Cabinet post of Energy Secretary. When Chris Huhne took on the job in 2010, he swore Britain would become more independent of energy imports. Yet the country remains just as dependent, and Huhne’s Liberal Democrat colleague, Ed Davey, is still wedded to green power. Last year, he publicly slapped down his junior Tory energy minister, John Hayes, for calling for an end to more wind farms.

There is some good news, however. As we report today, government sources have said that wind power subsidies are to be cut again. This is a move in the right direction and we very much welcome it. It is to be hoped that there will be more such announcements, and concrete actions, from a government that has neglected a fundamental duty – to keep the lights on, energy affordable and our houses warm."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9949595/Too-much-green-energy-is-bad-for-Britain.html

[Mizar]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/white-house-global-warming-caused-the-polar-vortexand-heres

So now Obama's science advisor is saying that man made global warming means more polar vortexes(or is it vortices).

Funny how they never mentioned that until it started happening. Let me guess, if we get a new ice age, it will be part of man-made global warming as well.

Use common sense folks. In reality this is just another cold snap but it seems every time a weather event seems to fall in line with the predictions of the man made global warming camp, they say it proves them right. When the opposite happens, they say that it is somehow part of their prediction.

[boestar]

Arctic Sea Ice is up 3000 cubic Km in October 2013 from 6000 cubic Km in October 2012. It is increasing from a record low. So its getting warmer up there?

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/piomas/

[Mizar]

When the ice decreases, the greens say it is proof of man made global warming. No doubt they will say that when it increases, it will be further proof.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that we have had a natural warming period and that is fantastic because we know that the climate has changed for eons and a cooling cycle would have been miserable. But the silly arguments made by many that now we can expect more extreme cold events due to this is quite incredible. Why don't they just be realistic and say that the science was never settled, and that they really don't know what is going on. And of course, stop wasting billions.

Too many vested interests for that to happen.

Of course, this was all predicted quite accurately by former significant posters on this forum a few years back. Where are they now?

[mrlupin]

Isn't this just a game of semantics and branding?

More pollution bad, less pollution good.

Who cares if it causes climate to change? Pollution in the amounts we spew it out, cannot be a good thing. Reducing it seems sensible.

[boestar]

Pollution = Bad however we have been "polluting" our planet since the dawn of time. Fire creates CO, CO2 etc. however in nature, without man being present, a balance is always struck which returns the levels to normal. That rebalancing causes fluctuations in global average temperatures or what we call today Climate Change. Sometimes a positive sometimes a negative.

When we introduce man into the equation we create more pollution and then stymie the mechanism to correct the imbalance namely cutting down millions of hectares of forrest that help convert those gasses back into something less detrimental.

That being said I think the total human impact is overstated in the climate change debate. Yes we are a large contributor but a single Volcano eruption can have a greater effect in a single day that Man himsef can in the same time frame. We need to strike a balance. That means pollute less and plant more.

[Mizar]

As a very strong environmentalist, I am all for paying my tax dollars to reduce pollution. Smog, sewage, toxic waste. What I am not for is this idea of carbon pollution and the billions spent on it. Imagine if all those billions had been spent on reducing real pollution. How many lives would have been saved?

[mrlupin]

Mizar, if there was a proper system to redirect the collected funds to universities (research), mass transit, and other projects (urban or other) would you support a system where he who polutes pays? Corporations being legally viewed as people could easily be included in the system.

What say thou?

[IFG]

Oh Boy ... listening to the confident pronouncements on here about climate and weather ... I suspect a real, honest-to-goodness scientist, of any discipline, would not know whether to laugh or cry. Kind of like one of us pilots listening to a couple of passengers in the lounge pronouncing upon our operational problems, guided not by any expertise or understanding, only the resulting effects upon their own little world - and of course, an unshakable belief that we are only in it for ourselves and are out to rip them off. Seem familiar?

I guess that the notion of listening to experts, with careful skepticism (& not cynicism or paranoia) falls by the wayside as we all delude ourselves with our own web-gleaned wisdom. Hell, I was hunting around for some statistical information about record high and low temperatures (I have heard that until this past month the highs vastly exceeded the lows, and that us northern hemispherites were ignoring heat waves below the equator), when it dawned on me that we were yet again blindly thrashing around data we do not really grasp. While a climate scientist can usefully research MWP temperatures, they're pretty meaningless to us without the knowledge of context for the data. While that is sorted out, CO2 levels are continuing to rise (already well beyond anything in human history). The outcome, if we find that MWP temps were as warm as now (back when CO2 levels were lower), does not disprove anything about current conjectures. It weakens (perhaps temporarily) one of the many derivative explanations being developed about our climate, and that's not the same thing. It has been repeatedly explained that many factors affect climate, and that this does not disprove anthropomorphic ones.

If we are to make an honest laymen's attempt to actually comprehend and discuss all this, I'd like to suggest banishing references to "scams", "hysterical", “alarmism” (or consequences thereof), “deniers”, etc.' i.e. both sides. This stuff is rampant in the mainstream/political press (which, unlike for any other topic, the anti-AGW crowd here credulously refers to for its substantiating material). I find nothing hysterical, OWOTO, in the scientific stuff I've come across, or even in the popular scientific media.

I do not have much use for mindless throwing of url's back and forth, but I'll offer up a few reputable organizations' statements, just as a bit of an antidote for the breathless invocations of scammers etc.

• G8+5 Academies’ joint statement: Climate change and the transformation of energy technologies for a low carbon future [ http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8+5energy-climate09.pdf ]

and a compilation of some other reputable US scientific organizations:

• NASA: Consensus: 97% of climate scientists agree [ http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus ]

Of course, anybody is perfectly free to quarrel with those conclusions, but if it is to mean anything, let's hope their game is upped from glib nonsense about scams and conspiracies, or taking tiny parcels of study out of any context, and dressing up an appeal to ignorance as one to “common sense” (remember – common sense not always good, good sense not all that common )

Cheers, IFG

[Mizar]

Mizar, if there was a proper system to redirect the collected funds to universities (research), mass transit, and other projects (urban or other) would you support a system where he who polutes pays? Corporations being legally viewed as people could easily be included in the system.

What say thou?

I might be willing to consider detailed proposals for real pollution such as chemicals, sewage, etc but not carbon. I am all for reduction in pollution. Who wants to get cancer or pollute waterways?

So make a nice detailed proposal of your idea and perhaps it would be great.

[DEFCON]

Generally speaking, I think I'd have to agree with the notion that elemental carbon isn't a pollutant. On the other hand, too much of a good thing, like current atmospheric CO2 levels, does support its re-classification as a pollutant.

[IFG]

Generally speaking, I think I'd have to agree with the notion that elemental carbon isn't a pollutant. On the other hand, too much of a good thing, like current atmospheric CO2 levels, does support its re-classification as a pollutant.

Exactly. There is absolutely no way to construct an honest argument based on the fact that CO2, in another context, is a benign gas and necessary for life. Classic lying half-truth. Unfortunate that such nonsense "pollutes" the discussion.

Cheers, IFG

[Mizar]

Exactly. There is absolutely no way to construct an honest argument based on the fact that CO2, in another context, is a benign gas and necessary for life. Classic lying half-truth. Unfortunate that such nonsense "pollutes" the discussion.

Cheers, IFG

I'll agree that the CO2 importance for life is another context. After all, we are interested in truth and facts. I'll be willing to agree that too much of a good thing can become bad. But the "Science is Settled" groups keep on changing as things change.

We are led to believe that the warming we experienced was man made global warming but the bad cold snaps that have been experienced for the past several years in Europe and North America are now suddenly a part of global warming. I say, perhaps the warm periods we have had are part of an overall global cooling for the next several hundred years. Anyone can make silly statements.

The same climatologists who want us to spend billions on alternative energy(and for their well-paid science studies as well) are once again sadly mistaken about their 6 month forecast for hurricanes in the Atlantic for 2013 yet we are supposed to cripple our economy for their 100 year forecasts. Yet they still can't explain the significant warming and cooling periods of the past prior to the industrial age.

I suggest someone start a website to follow the predictions that have been made by the man-made global warming crowd. When was the northwest passage supposed to be free of ice? Pretty soon I think. Time is also counting down for the end of glaciers in the Himalayas as predicted by the UN. No doubt there are many other predictions that are mentioned less and less. I believe someone posted a link on this very forum a while back to Gwynne Dyers high likelyhood of eventual nuclear war between superpowers due to mass migration. I will be following that one closely. There is still time yet for these predictions to come true.

[boestar]

By that thinking then Vapour of H2O is also a pollutant right along side CO2. Since an increase of atmospehereic Water vapour is an even better green house gas than Carbon Dioxide. Unfortunately the increase in CO2 stimulates an increase in H2O vapour in the atmosphere.

[Fido]

By that thinking then Vapour of H2O is also a pollutant right along side CO2. .

When it falls as snow it definitely pollutes my driveway.

[chockalicious]

Against my better judgement I am weighing in to the discussion. I am not a big fan of discussions that turn into a contest of who can post the most links but I found this reasonably compelling.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/14/climate_change_another_study_shows_they_don_t_publish_actual_papers.html

[Mizar]

"Fracking ban forces Europe back to Dirty Fuels"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/try-it-now/try-it-now-rob-insight/?contentRedirect=true&articleId=16298136&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2F

The green solution at work.

[Mitch Cronin]

For anyone who might be interested, there are oodles of documentaries available showing some very sad and shocking results from some of the "fracking" going on in the USA.... In some areas, many people are very sick, and their tap water can be lit on fire. No. I'm not kidding. Like a burner at your lab station at school... turn the tap and ignite....

[13820]

Really? As a result of fracking?

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/video-man-claiming-to-be-in-north-dakota-lights-tap-water-on-fire/