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+--- Thread: John Oliver on the climate change "debate" (/showthread.php?tid=104)
John Oliver on the climate change "debate" - Island Chris - 05-14-2014
The link is pretty funny and also excellent. (I had seen a clip of one of the Bill Nye "debates" and thought Bill Nye did poorly.)
http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/john-oliver-bill-nye-climate-debate
There were news stories about (a) recent paper(s) on collapse of marine-based parts of the West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets. I have long been skeptical of rapid (100 year) large scale collapse, but now that I'm understanding it better, I'm less skeptical.
Chris
RE: John Oliver on the climate change "debate" - Skywise - 05-14-2014
(05-14-2014, 10:49 AM)Island Chris Wrote: The link is pretty funny and also excellent. (I had seen a clip of one of the Bill Nye "debates" and thought Bill Nye did poorly.)
http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/john-oliver-bill-nye-climate-debate
There were news stories about (a) recent paper(s) on collapse of marine-based parts of the West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets. I have long been skeptical of rapid (100 year) large scale collapse, but now that I'm understanding it better, I'm less skeptical.
Chris
That was hilarious.
And it's a correct assessment. Why is there even a debate? It's happening. Even in my own anecdotal observation of having lived in the Los Angeles are for decades, the weather has changed from when I was a kid. It's hotter. It's drier.
I suppose there might be some debate as to whether the change is caused by Man or not, that it might just be a natural cycle. But I'd say there's other reasons why this isn't even a necessary debate.
Whether climate change/global warming is happening or not, whether it's caused by Man or not, it's still not a good idea to poop in your own nest. Duh. From that view alone I say the whole debate is a waste of time. Let's just clean up the poop, m'kay?
Brian
RE: John Oliver on the climate change "debate" - Island Chris - 05-15-2014
Chemistry was my worst science subject (I did badly in other words), but its simply scientific fact that CO2 warms the earth. And, CO2 is measured and we know exactly what the levels are and what they have been for a few decades. And, we know the levels pretty directly before then from bubbles in ice. And, burning fossil fuel give off CO2. It's just chemistry!
I could go on and insult people, but John Oliver made the point very elegantly, and I would not.
On the other hand, there is a lot to legitimately debate: what will be the effect on severe weather; which ice sheets will melt, and how fast, how much will global sea level rise by 2100. There is a nice article in the last EOS transactions AGU on severe weather/droughts etc. I'll see if it is freely available online. But, cutting CO2 production to near zero quickly is not an easy problem. The world was pretty successful at mostly eliminating the products that were destroying the Ozone layer, but in comparison that was easy.
Chris
The link below is to the recent EOS article: "Severe weather in the United States under a changing climate". There is no increase in tornadoes. Hopefully this is corrected for likely under-reporting of tornadoes in the 1950 and 1960s before(?) Doppler Radar. If not corrected, there has likely been a decrease in tornadoes. So, one can be a skeptic on these things if you have any actual scientific information. For example, the big increase in Major hurricanes in the first decade of 20th century could be mostly a natural cycle (as has been proposed by those working on hurricanes. There is no real trend on the Fig. 1 graph. But, there certainly is a trend on the graph since the 60s for temperatures:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO180001/pdf
This was freely available when I just grabbed it.
Chris
RE: John Oliver on the climate change "debate" - Skywise - 05-16-2014
(05-15-2014, 12:04 PM)Island Chris Wrote: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO180001/pdf
Thanks. Very informative, in a nice compact read.
Brian