Tom Toles for November 10, 2014

They called it Man-caused climate change in the 1950’s, northern Europe was cooling because of particulates, the Mediterranean and North Africa warming due to overgrazing and deforstation. “Gloabal warming” was the NEW version, when everything started heating, and of course acidification of oceans, overgrazing, overcutting of forests, billions of people, their vehicles and industry, fossil fuel burning is only PART of what’s causing the problems, folks.

People said the same thing about the Great Lakes in the mid-1900s: they’re so big, how could a few little factories do anything to them? Yet by the 60s they were polluted to drop-dead levels. It took the EPA stopping companies from using the waterways as their personal toilets, and a lot of time, to clear the water up to where it won’t kill you if you happen to drink some. Yeah, the atmosphere is big, but there are seven billion of us!

" Man’s effect on the earth’s climate is so small that it is rather insignificant."But what do you have to back up that assertions besides sound bites from pundits and politicians with a vested interest? Where is the science to back up those claims?

You were actually doing fairly well (even if I do not agree with your basic argumants) up until your “climate nazis” and “left wingnut” comments. Why do you ultra conservative types on this site always have to resort to name calling? It totally loses any respect your comments would other wise generate!

And yes, most of we more reasonable people on this site (including some actual scientists) already have looked over the data, and along with some 99.9% of the worlds scientists (and not just climate scientists, but scientists from many different disiplines) have concluded that not only is Rapid Global Climate Change a reality, but the industrial efforts of mankind are indeed causing easily enough of it to upset the natural balance of the world’s climate. Climate change itself has indeed happened in the past in a natural way. It is NOT this that is the problem, it is the rate of change of climate change itself since the beginning of the industrial age of mankind that is the problem. That rate is in itself exponentially changing in an ever increasing manner. The only real remaining question is whether or not we will burn up the fossil fuels themselves (and thus starve our civilization of the legitimate non burning uses of those materials) before we so pollute our atmosphere as to kill off not only human life on this fragile world, but quite possibly kill off all other life as well!!

And what is even more peculiar is that it is not only economically feasible to stop this direct (and incredibly inefficient missuse for energy generation and transportation ), but doing so would actually be good for the economy not only in the long run, but even now and in the near future as we modernize our infrastructure.

I and other more reasonable psople here would totally agree with mikefive (who is not a liberal at all, but a very thinking conservative) in his very intelligent assesment of just what it is going to take to turn our civilization around.

I do have at least some hope of this as the same types of people that gave us the computer revolution in silicon valley are now working on this very same problem. They are not only people that know how to solve such technological problems, but also know how to get very rich while doing so, in a very capitalistic sort of manner as well!!

Here’s a simple test – follow the money. Big oil is funding the “anti-climate change” science. They are using a similar playbook that was used in the 1960s when big oil brought in Robert Kehoe to say is lead is not harmful and it is OK to have leaded gasoline. If it wasn’t for scientists like Clair Patterson, we would still be slowly being poisoned.

I have to thank Harley for subscribing to this site. Cartoonists have to eat too, and it’s gratifying to see people put their money where their mouth is.That said, his/her utter lack of reason or fact-based thinking is dismaying. Stop watching Fixed News and read a book. It might improve your writing too, which is terrible.Here’s a few facts in contravention to your ridiculous assertions. The numbers of extreme weather events have been increasing rapidly. That includes named storms like hurricanes (Atlantic ocean) and cyclones (Pacific ocean), tornadoes, floods, and droughts. For example, the town of Moore, OK had two “100-year events” in three years. The five hottest years on record, globally, have all been recorded since 2001. Arctic ice sheets essentially disappear during summers, opening up the NW passage that explorers have sought for centuries (you have heard of Christopher Columbus?) The Antarctic glaciers and ice sheets have melted so much already that they have passed the point of no return and will melt at an accelerating pace for at least the next 50 years. This will substantially raise sea levels world-wide. The fact that global warming is not uniform, and not constant, is irrelevant. The climate models showing warming is a fact also show that not everywhere on the globe will get hotter every year. I won’t even waste my time on your ludicrous ideological diatribes. No one with an ounce of sense is touting communism as a superior economic model to capitalism, least of all the greens. That argument has been conclusively settled.

Plus, laws to raise that cost are being passed daily,…. ".Do you have any idea of how immoral and wrong that is?

“When skeptics use this argument [that water vapor is a more important greenhouse gas than CO2], they are trying to imply that an increase in CO2 isn’t a major problem. If CO2 isn’t as powerful as water vapor, which there’s already a lot of, adding a little more CO2 couldn’t be that bad, right? What this argument misses is the fact that water vapor creates what scientists call a ‘positive feedback loop’ in the atmosphere — making any temperature changes larger than they would be otherwise.How does this work? The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature. If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. Then, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapor causes the temperature to go up even further—a positive feedback.How much does water vapor amplify CO2 warming? Studies show that water vapor feedback roughly doubles the amount of warming caused by CO2. So if there is a 1°C change caused by CO2, the water vapor will cause the temperature to go up another 1°C. When other feedback loops are included, the total warming from a potential 1°C change caused by CO2 is, in reality, as much as 3°C.The other factor to consider is that water is evaporated from the land and sea and falls as rain or snow all the time. Thus the amount held in the atmosphere as water vapour varies greatly in just hours and days as result of the prevailing weather in any location. So even though water vapour is the greatest greenhouse gas, it is relatively short-lived. On the other hand, CO2 is removed from the air by natural geological-scale processes and these take a long time to work. Consequently CO2 stays in our atmosphere for years and even centuries. A small additional amount has a much more long-term effect. So skeptics are right in saying that water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas. What they don’t mention is that the water vapor feedback loop actually makes temperature changes caused by CO2 even bigger.http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm

“It’s true that water vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. On average, it probably accounts for about 60% of the warming effect. However, water vapor does not control the Earth’s temperature, but is instead controlled by the temperature. This is because the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere limits the maximum amount of water vapor the atmosphere can contain. If a volume of air contains its maximum amount of water vapor and the temperature is decreased, some of the water vapor will condense to form liquid water. This is why clouds form as warm air containing water vapor rises and cools at higher altitudes where the water condenses to the tiny droplets that make up clouds.The greenhouse effect that has maintained the Earth’s temperature at a level warm enough for human civilization to develop over the past several millennia is controlled by non-condensable gases, mainly carbon dioxide, CO2, with smaller contributions from methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and ozone, O3. Since the middle of the 20th century, small amounts of man-made gases, mostly chlorine- and fluorine-containing solvents and refrigerants, have been added to the mix. Because these gases are not condensable at atmospheric temperatures and pressures, the atmosphere can pack in much more of these gases . Thus, CO2 (as well as CH4, N2O, and O3) has been building up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution when we began burning large amounts of fossil fuel.If there had been no increase in the amounts of non-condensable greenhouse gases, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would not have changed with all other variables remaining the same. The addition of the non-condensable gases causes the temperature to increase and this leads to an increase in water vapor that further increases the temperature. This is an example of a positive feedback effect. The warming due to increasing non-condensable gases causes more water vapor to enter the atmosphere, which adds to the effect of the non-condensables.There is also a possibility that adding more water vapor to the atmosphere could produce a negative feedback effect. This could happen if more water vapor leads to more cloud formation. Clouds reflect sunlight and reduce the amount of energy that reaches the Earth’s surface to warm it. If the amount of solar warming decreases, then the temperature of the Earth would decrease. In that case, the effect of adding more water vapor would be cooling rather than warming. But cloud cover does mean more condensed water in the atmosphere, making for a stronger greenhouse effect than non-condensed water vapor alone – it is warmer on a cloudy winter day than on a clear one. Thus the possible positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research.”http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html

It’s important to challenge the claim that the climate is changing and that human activity is partly responsible for that change. Science is only as good as its ability to withstand challenge. But so far, every challenge that I have seen posted here has been refuted.

Look on the bright side! At least we are learning how to survive on Venus, and can colonize it in the future!

1. Consume all the sugar you want, but be prepared to take insulin when you get diabetes.2. Cut down on your sugar.+There may well be an appropriate use of technology to mitigate the effects of climate change (though my understanding is that the techniques now being discussed are very cumbersome and expensive) but cutting back on emissions is the best approach.

“http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/01/dr-ryan-maue-releases-new-hurricane-frequency-data-showing-a-negative-trend-in-the-last-30-years/”-Excellent link, Harley. Global Warming claims would be more credible if alarmists did not attach blame for every adverse weather event to human-caused climate change. The cartoon, which has been drawn at a time when global temperatures have not increased for more than 17 years, is also a good example of this bad habit.

Reading last night about the hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific that went off several orders of magnitude more powerful than expected. The poisonous radiation cloud went pretty quickly all around the Northern Hemisphere, and nearly destroyed the Japanese fishiing industry because of contamination.

That was ONE bomb! Such impacts finally got recognized and at least the whole world agreed to halt all above ground nuclear tests, as the impact of MAN on the whole planet was very definitely proven.

We now face the need for more treaties, not to ban outright energy use, but with now over seven billion folks contributing to “the problem”, it needs to be addressed, and our attitudes need ajusting.

As to two sides to the argument? If you put the muzzle of a .357 maganum to your temple, and pull the trigger, catching the bullet as it comes out the other side IS “the other side” of the climate argument, it’s just not totally lethal as quickly, but smaller rounds have already been fired, obviously, by the deniers.

“Enemies of mankind”" Really? Aren’t you going a little over the top here?We have several thousand scientists in a range of fields who are all finding evidence that the Earth is warming more than normal cycles would account for, and that the logical and demonstrable cause of this warming is a range of human actions, primarily (but not limited to) CO2 production.These people have found, based on comparable changes in conditions throughout Earth’s history, that we can get substantial shifts in weather, water levels, and fertility based on this dramatic a shift, and this could have a serious impact on our civilization.As a consequence, many thoughtful people are concerned about this, and want to mitigate the effects if we can’t prevent them happening.How is this being an enemy of mankind?

George Marsh published MAN AND NATURE in 1864, just 150 years ago. He was the first to point out that nature is not a stable system, that climate and the physical environment are drastically effected by human action. Cut down a forest and you can change a wet climate to a dry one. Deserts can be created and destroyed by human action. This has been so long known and understood. Local climates have often been changed by human action. This isn’t theory, it is history. Remember what was once called the “fertile crescent”? Who would call it that now? Out ancestors adopted fossil fuels precisely because it was clear that the planet could not support a world fueled by wood. Deforestation was so obviously a threat that warnings about it were even written in the 18th century. “We are told that the burning of so called fossil fuels must be curtailed, at great expense to our economy. We are chastised into a lower standard of living approaching third world society. This is the hateful political agenda of the climate nazis and their well meaning but blind followers.” I would agree with those sentences if you just rearranged them a little, like this:

This is the hateful political agenda of the anti-science nazis and their well-meaning but blind followers: we are told that IF the burning of so-called fossil fuels were curtailed, it would be at great expense to our economy. We are chastised into condemning our descendants to a lower standard of living, approaching that of a third world society, by failing to act now to save ourselves by means of the relative easy and cheap means still available to us.

Fossil fuels are not going away. Nevertheless the continually accelerating use of them is have so many dire effects on the planet, that the sooner we adopt the most efficient use of the most renewable sources, the better for all. The anti-environmental cause ultimately comes down to people who want other people to clean up their messes for them, and pay the price. We are like folks who have been dumping our garbage over the back fence onto our neighbor’s property for so long that we think it is our right to do so, and thing we being unfairly treated when anyone tries to stop us.

The thing about facts is, that they’re true weather you believe them or not. Reality will have the last laugh.

Just a little note btw: all that cold weather coming into the midwest, east, and south, in an unseasonable event, is the result of a massive typhoon in the Pacific, fueled with lots of energy from HEAT in the ocean. It does represent “change”, and there’s more to come, and Man IS the most significant factor in the rapid change of events. WE haven’t figured out how to push up mountain ranges, or move continents yet, and we didn’t take the millennia that those “climate change” factors did.

Woody Guthrie was a great singer of the people! Thanks for that, and it had some photos that will feel familiar if they haven’t already.

Thank you O wise one you for enlightening me about the communistic tendencies of those with whom you disagree. I didn’t realize we were in such danger. I suspect you moonlight as a writer for the Daily Show

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/wobbling-on-climate-change.html?emc=edit_th_20141112&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=17756263&_r=0