Tom Toles for September 29, 2009

i get the intention 11th hour analogy, but the metaphor may be wrong. On a sundial the last hour of the day is when the sun sets not high noon. Smoke (from a smokestack) but no alarm only confuses the issue because I could see that as end of industrial power, which is another cause for worry.

Let’s see some evidence to back up your claim, harley

Evidence? He don’t need no stinkin evidence! Rush said so!

harleyquinn said

Funny after the last ten years that the sun has been in a down cycle, The Earth has been colder then predicted.

In fact, the Sun is on a many-thousand-year down cycle, and several of the last ten years have been the hottest on record.

The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps are melting at a record rate (those are the ones that will cause the seas to rse), the Arctic ice pack has been at its smallest extent ever, and the brder of Switzerland has been moved fifty meters because of glacier melt.

You want to provide reputable statistics to back up your claim?

Nice work, agents of reason. The climate change deniers need to either provide credible evidence or stop with the distortions and falsehoods.

Meanwhile, Down Under….Sydney’s been blanketed by a huge dust-storm, brought on by an epic drought.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092300667.html

harleyspin -

your man michael andrews can’t read. the newsarticle he wrote completely misunderstands the sciencedaily.com report that he references which says:

“For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change,” said Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

…

“The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts Earth’s global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum,” said Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012.”

…

Over the past century, Earth’s average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit). Solar heating accounts for about 0.15 C, or 25 percent, of this change, according to computer modeling results published by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies researcher David Rind in 2004.

…

“Greenhouse gases block about 40 percent of outgoing thermal radiation that emanates from Earth,” Woods said. The resulting imbalance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing thermal radiation will likely cause Earth to heat up over the next century, accelerating the melting polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise and increasing the probability of more violent global weather patterns.

Harley, no one is arguing that the solar cycles do not play any part. However, you state that the idea of manmade climate change is hokus, and neither article supports that.

Sure, the sun’s energy is a factor, and a major one. That doesn’t mean that WE aren’t.

I really think that in general we will do better to ignore the anthropogenic global warming deniers like harleyquinn, James Inhofe, and others. Explaining it to them slowly does no good, and the preponderance of agreement within the scientific community does nothing for them, either.

So let’s just agree to let the deniers post their silliness to their hearts’ content, and we can get along with the rest of our lives.

tpenna,

ignoring disinformation does not make it go away. there have been, for many years, people and organizations that repeat propaganda to help the corporate powers. if these claims are not vociferously argued against, they gain a kind of “on the other hand” legitimacy. if you don’t believe me, i offer the “debate” that the USA has been engaged in for the last 20 years regarding health care.

harleyspin -

the NASA research says that the sunspot effects are much smaller than the greenhouse gas effects. look closely at the math.

harleyspin -

should CO2 emissions be something we try to understand, care about, and control? here in boston we did a great job cleaning up the charles river. lake erie is an amazing success, also. did free market competition do these things? no. an unregulated market naturally tends toward monopoly, exploitation, and oligarchy. All pollution must be controlled by government. whether CO2 is a pollutant, most scientists have agreed upon. but “cripple the USA”? come on, that’s funny, because isn’t your main argument that we are being chicken little?

I reiterate (since I’ve never gotten a response):

Do you deniers really think we can take trillions of tons of coal and trillions of gallons of oil, both of which are carbon from hundreds of millions of years ago, and thrust them into the system without a consequence? Really.

Go gather a huge pile of firewood, bring it into your house and burn it all (not so much as to engulf the house) but burn it consistently and unceasingly and maybe you’ll get the point.

“4uk you did not even read the title let alone the work. It says in the title “sun, not man!””

I also read PAST the title, Harley. It went on about how a recent study has concluded that, I quote. “solar variation has made a significant impact.” It did not state that Man has not. That part the authors of the article added on their own.

It gets even better, though. The link to the survey they talk about to leads here : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512120523.htm . That article states that solar radiation is a significant factor, so far so good, no one denies that. It also states, however, that in the last several decades, man-made factors have been predominant in the temperature change. That part your article did not mention, and actually contradicted in its title.

Yep, an article with a title “NASA Study Acknowledges Solar Cycle, Not Man, Responsible for Past Warming” uses a source that states that solar cycles affect global climate as well, though not as much as human contribution. Does anyone notice the logical leap there?

By the way, even the second article, which I take more seriously, says he thinks “global warming will resume.”

I don’t even understand why anyone who believes that all lifeforms evolved through adaptations to changes in their local environment is the least bit concerned about the changes to the environment that man is doing. Seems the accredited scientists want it both ways. If evolution is really so spectacularly successful as to explain the great diversity of life on our little orb, what’s the concern? If anything, climate change will just further push the envelope for newer and more exciting lifeforms. What difference does it make?

HabaneroDuck – evolution doesn’t occur in 100 years, it is a much more gradual process. The speed with which the global climate is changing will not allow species such as polar bears to change their habitat, their food, their body temp parameters etc… Seriously are you 12? Or are you one that believes that Jesus just plunked everything down here as-is 6,000 years ago?

The fact that your view of science is so utterly childish and simplistic indicates that you could never understand the ramifications of your actions.

Dr C – I wouldn’t go that far… of all species on Earth WE are by far the most adaptable. The expense would be a large number of OTHER life forms.

some more info on causes and the effects of global warming:

http://www.macgregoss.eq.edu.au/qldwebchall/gwi/effects.html

Hey, lalas, aren’t cockroaches the most “adaptable”?