650,000 Years of Carbon Dioxide Can't Be Wrong

LessBread · 2005-12-03T13:30:58

New research published today shows that levels of greenhouse gases are higher today than they have been in the last 650,000 years, adding more evidence to support the idea that human economic activity is producing global warming. Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change Quote: An ice core about two miles long — the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica — shows that at no time in the last 650,000 years have levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane been as high as they are today. The research, published in today's issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the last 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European team that wrote two papers based on the core. The work provides more evidence that human activity since the Industrial Revolution has significantly altered the planet's climate system, scientists said. "This is saying, 'Yeah, we had it right.' We can pound on the table harder and say, 'This is real,' " said Richard Alley, a Penn State University geophysicist and expert on ice cores who was not involved with the analysis. ... Here are a few other sources for the story. Bern researchers drill deep into climate history Old bubbles back global warming theory Sea level rise doubles in 150 years Do you think this additional information will convice skeptics? What more information do you think will convince them? Do you think this information will prompt any policy changes in the USA or other countries? What questions does this new information raise for you?

Eelco

301

November 29, 2005 02:41 AM

Quote:Original post by Nathan Baum
Quote:Original post by LessBread
Quote:Original post by Eelco
even if such runaway effects will happen, its still only a fraction of all fossile reserves were talking about. 'more like venus' seems like a gross exxageration. 'like old-earth' is the worst that could happen, and 'slightly more like old-earth' seems to be the most likely imo.

The Venus comparison is perfectly applicable to the runaway greenhouse scenario. Consider the description of that scenario given here: A Runaway Greenhouse Effect?

How can "more like Venus" be a gross exageration anyway? Sure, "exactly like Venus" would be an exageration. Old-Earth was more like Venus than modern-Earth, so if Earth becomes "more like old-Earth", it must also become "more like Venus".

'more like venus' means nothing. that could be anything. in order for it to be a meaningfull statement at all, you also have to read the implication in it: 'more like venus than earth'. which is nowhere even close to the truth.

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:Original post by Eelco
dinosaurs were pretty complex. i know im not a dinosaur, but i am fairly sure wed be able to manage in their world. warmer and wetter: seems like you could grow some crops there.

Kidding aside, sure it's possible to grow crops in the tropics, but that doesn't address the disruptive nature of the transition.

It's also rather naïve. Dinosaurs couldn't survive in our climate, yet you appear happy to assume you could survive in theirs. Transition aside, a mesozoic climate is not like our climate.

it is widely believed dinosaurs didnt die out because of a change to our current climate.

Quote:
Changes in temperature and humidity won't just affect what crops we can grow: it'll affect animal populations, what plants will grow (crops are of obvious important, but consider also trees), what diseases we'll need to be defending ourself against, how our machinery operates.

i know.

LessBread

1,415

Author

November 29, 2005 02:51 AM

Quote:Original post by cyric74
I'm going to skip commenting on the whole "Earth is ending in 42 years" business because, well, I'd be ranting more than actually making a point. Calling it "blind stupidity" doesn't even begin to approach my actual thoughts on the matter--but I like to keep my posts here at least halfway constructive.

Thanks for sharing your bias with us.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
The concept of TANSTAAFL was actually introduced to me in a population-wide suffering argument which stated: In an environment of scarcity (such as the Earth), when one individual of a population expires an irreplaceable resource, all members of the population lose access to that resource--even the individual who expired it, no matter what gains were made from the exploitation.

I think the notion that the earth is an environment of scarcity is an assumption that doesn't always hold. There is an abundance of carbon dioxide. There is an abundance of insects. There is an abundance of water in the oceans.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
It also holds that when one individual of the population is damaged or expired, all members of the population lose access to the productive resources that individual would have otherwise created.

And you're saying that notion informs economics? I think the countless historical examples of inhumanity say otherwise.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
The "one suffers, we all suffer" concept is most easily demonstrated in how it relates to trade and specialization.

Take this simple example: Say that you and I both need a sandwich, and a pair of shoes to survive. I'm really good at making sandwiches, but not nearly as good at making shoes. I can spend 1 hour making 1 sandwich, or 4 hours making 1 pair of shoes.

Now assume that you're a master shoe smith, and take only 1 hour to make 1 pair of shoes, but you're terrible with a butter knife and need 5 hours to make 1 sandwich.

We could both move to respective islands and spend all day making shoes and sandwiches for just ourselves, or we could each focus for 2 hour per day in what we do best, then just trade shoes for sandwiches--we'd both have what we need to survive, plus countless hours to spend aimlessly eating and walking around.

Now imagine that I trip one some faulty shoe laces that made their way to your final product because of cutbacks in the QA department, break my neck and die. You have not personally suffered, but will now suffer the burden of having to produce your own sandwiches because someone else suffered.

I know you put the analogy forward to illustrate the concept, but a shoemaker that can't make himself a sandwhich probably isn't very good at making shoes.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
When corporate greed and politics suck the life from a city, they may make a quick buck, but on a more universal scale, the producers and consumers who once thrived in that area no longer exist to make and buy from the corporation, nor from ANY other business. Their suffering causes the suffering of all other individuals in the population, because each of us depends on the other.

That page must be missing from the Walmart playbook.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
Then the variable of survival becomes economic wealth and social power, and the catalyst is global catastrophe. Natural selection is still applied here, and the argument still stands. This may go against how we want to think about the fairness of the world, but ethical concepts of fairness are a human creation born of luxury of sentience.

You're talking about artificial selection, the same as with the selective breeding of domestic animals. Those with economic wealth and social power decide who lives and who dies and that's social darwinism. It's not natural selection if the environment is artificial. On that level it's not about fairness at all.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
Your earlier statement:
Quote:Original post by LessBread
That's not natural selection, that's winners and losers in a rigged game.

Is, unfortunately, incorrect. The "game" can be broken down to a simple race for genetic survival, and the super-rich are just playing it better than most--much like the alpha male in a gorilla pack.

The super rich are playing the game better because they write the rules to make it easier for them to win the game - that's artificial selection and social darwinism.

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." - the Laughing Man

LessBread

1,415

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November 29, 2005 03:20 AM

Quote:Original post by Eelco
what is this 'balance' you speak of, and why didnt it cease to exist in the much more extreme climate than anything that is expected to happen from our human activity?

The environmental equilibrium within which we evolved as a species.

Quote:Original post by Eelco
'and the oceans will boil..' uhm... the oceans didnt boil when first life appeared, or when the dinosaurs roamed, did they? infact i believe they never even came close to anything like it. i dont see why reintroducing some decomposed dinosaur back into the ecosystem will suddenly make that happen. (note: limestone is organic in origin aswell)

From what I understand, the current thinking is that life did evolve in boiling oceans. That's why biologists find sulfer eating volcanic vent bacteria so fascinating. Scientists also say that the first animals didn't appear for another 3 billion years. Here's a nice graphic of the geologic timescale to help put all this into perspective. How far back to you want to push the clock?

Quote:Original post by Eelco
a few actual arguments to back up the wild claims every other sentence makes certainly wouldnt hurt their credibility...

Did you bother to read what they wrote?

Quote:
Now suppose we increased the effectiveness of greenhouse heating of the Earth's atmosphere, for example by increasing the amount of solar radiation falling on it, or by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (for example, by burning fossil fuels, which produce water vapor and carbon dioxide as byproducts of burning). We would then expect the temperature to rise in the atmosphere (assuming no other effects intervened---a big "if" in the realistic case since the atmosphere is complicated). This would be a greenhouse effect.

That looks like an argument to me, even with the hedge.

Quote:Original post by Eelco
the disruptive nature is precisely why i think it would suck. but mostly so for you and me, as we have a lot of vested interests that will be uprooted. someone who has nothing but a shack and some land to farm will only need to find a crop better suited to the new envirnoment: but changes wont be that fast either, hell manage.

It's not at all clear that people could survive the suddenness of the disruption.

Quote:Original post by Eelco
dunno. it wasnt too long ago there was no sahara. im not saying a lot of people couldnt stand to lose from it: id be the first one with almost my entire country beneath sealevel. but for the people for whom its a choice between that or not having dinner for their family tonight, id take the gamble if i were them.

I think it depends on the suddeness of the change. I agree that there is a "free rider" angle to the problem.

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." - the Laughing Man

LessBread

1,415

Author

November 29, 2005 03:35 AM

Quote:Original post by cyric74
LessBread was using the same approach that you are in pointing out specific cases of "ultra-rich versus the rest of us"--but when talking of something with such a massive scope as global warming, we're looking at species-wide and planet-wide changes. We need to suspend our divisions such as rich versus poor, Dem vs Republican etc. These dastardly rich people didn't design, build and drive every environment-harming car on the road. This was done by millions and millions of average Joes, some of who may have also made economic profit from the design, construction and operation of the vehicles, but will reap and sew the same damaged world as everyone else.

Average Joes didn't lobby Congress in order to kill mileage standards. Average Joes didn't lobby Congress to give businesses a tax break for purchasing Hummers. Average Joes didn't lobby Congress to give big oil unnecessary tax breaks either.

Quote:Original post by cyric74
Still a trait of biological evolution: Get as much as you can, as fast as you can. The more you have, the higher a guarantee of genetic survival. Even if they don't actually intend to pass on genetic material, we're just wired that way.

It's the same reason fat people keep eating when there is no chance in hell they're going to starve. We have a desire to gain and acquire, because that was a trait which provided good protection for genetic survival (compared to peoples without such a trait that didn't last too long).

Cooperation is as much at work in biological evolution as is competition. In fact, I would put forward that cooperation is much more important to human evolution than competition given the length of time it takes for us to reach adulthood. There are many different reasons why fat people keep eating. It's not just a question of gluttony. And don't forget that desires can be manufactured as well. In fact, billions of dollars are spent each year in the manufacture of desire.

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." - the Laughing Man

Eelco

301

November 29, 2005 07:32 AM

Quote:Original post by LessBread
Quote:Original post by Eelco
what is this 'balance' you speak of, and why didnt it cease to exist in the much more extreme climate than anything that is expected to happen from our human activity?

The environmental equilibrium within which we evolved as a species.

the envirnoment we evolved in ranged from the african savannah to living with the world covered half in glaciers. im not sure the word equilibrium is in order.

Quote:
Quote:Original post by Eelco
'and the oceans will boil..' uhm... the oceans didnt boil when first life appeared, or when the dinosaurs roamed, did they? infact i believe they never even came close to anything like it. i dont see why reintroducing some decomposed dinosaur back into the ecosystem will suddenly make that happen. (note: limestone is organic in origin aswell)

From what I understand, the current thinking is that life did evolve in boiling oceans. That's why biologists find sulfer eating volcanic vent bacteria so fascinating. Scientists also say that the first animals didn't appear for another 3 billion years. Here's a nice graphic of the geologic timescale to help put all this into perspective. How far back to you want to push the clock?

first of all, id rather not push back the clock at all.

but that thing about boiling oceans is interesting, i never heard of that. ill look it up, do you have any links worth checking out?

Quote:Original post by Eelco
a few actual arguments to back up the wild claims every other sentence makes certainly wouldnt hurt their credibility...

Quote:
Did you bother to read what they wrote?

Quote:
Now suppose we increased the effectiveness of greenhouse heating of the Earth's atmosphere, for example by increasing the amount of solar radiation falling on it, or by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (for example, by burning fossil fuels, which produce water vapor and carbon dioxide as byproducts of burning). We would then expect the temperature to rise in the atmosphere (assuming no other effects intervened---a big "if" in the realistic case since the atmosphere is complicated). This would be a greenhouse effect.

That looks like an argument to me, even with the hedge.

an argument seemingly aimed at introducing elementary school children to the subject. we know a lot of other effects DO intervene, such as the greenhouse potential of gasses saturating when virtually no light of that wavelength leaves earth any longer anyway, more evaporation meaning more clouds meaning much less light reaching earth, radiative emission being strongly superlinear with temperature, i could go on for a while.

extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. i suppose brushing aside anything that might contradict your theory is extraordinary proof in some way, but not a positive one.

Quote:
Quote:Original post by Eelco
the disruptive nature is precisely why i think it would suck. but mostly so for you and me, as we have a lot of vested interests that will be uprooted. someone who has nothing but a shack and some land to farm will only need to find a crop better suited to the new envirnoment: but changes wont be that fast either, hell manage.

It's not at all clear that people could survive the suddenness of the disruption.

boiling oceans, no, but any realistic scenario seems managable for us as a species.

polly

532

November 29, 2005 07:56 AM

It's strange how people employ arguments of the form: "Just because X is correlated with Y does not mean that X is caused by Y."

Well, yeah, but thats not really how scientists do things, is it? What this form of argument ignores is that the chemical properties of carbon dioxide and methane make them greenhouse gasses. So the (curtailed) reasoning is more like, "The chemical properties of X make it a greenhouse gas, there is a higher concentration of X in the atmosphere due to human activity, the climate is warming. Therefore it follows that human activity is causing warming". There, that wasn't so hard to grasp was it? Alternatively, I could employ the first form of argument to show how daft it is:

Imagine a man walks up to you and kicks you in the balls. You double over in pain, and as you lie gasping for air he says, "You may be experiencing pain, and you may think that this pain may be correlated with the kick in the balls I just gave you. However I can assure you that just because X is correlated with Y, does not mean that X is caused by Y. The pain you may now be experiencing (if that is the case) is merely a naturally occuring process. Any conclusion that you draw about my kick in the balls causing your pain, is obviously logically flawed, as you cannot definately prove this to be the case."

Diodor

517

November 29, 2005 08:27 AM

Quote:Original post by Eelco
but that thing about boiling oceans is interesting, i never heard of that. ill look it up, do you have any links worth checking out?

Google for methane hydrates, methane catastrophe, permafrost melting.

diogames.com

Eelco

301

November 29, 2005 08:34 AM

Quote:Original post by Diodor
Quote:Original post by Eelco
but that thing about boiling oceans is interesting, i never heard of that. ill look it up, do you have any links worth checking out?

Google for methane hydrates, methane catastrophe, permafrost melting.

im aware of all that. im not aware as how this is related to boiling oceans.

BerwynIrish

337

November 29, 2005 08:44 AM

Quote:Original post by polly
It's strange how people employ arguments of the form: "Just because X is correlated with Y does not mean that X is caused by Y."

Well, yeah, but thats not really how scientists do things, is it? What this form of argument ignores is that the chemical properties of carbon dioxide and methane make them greenhouse gasses. So the (curtailed) reasoning is more like, "The chemical properties of X make it a greenhouse gas, there is a higher concentration of X in the atmosphere due to human activity, the climate is warming. Therefore it follows that human activity is causing warming". There, that wasn't so hard to grasp was it? Alternatively, I could employ the first form of argument to show how daft it is:

Imagine a man walks up to you and kicks you in the balls. You double over in pain, and as you lie gasping for air he says, "You may be experiencing pain, and you may think that this pain may be correlated with the kick in the balls I just gave you. However I can assure you that just because X is correlated with Y, does not mean that X is caused by Y. The pain you may now be experiencing (if that is the case) is merely a naturally occuring process. Any conclusion that you draw about my kick in the balls causing your pain, is obviously logically flawed, as you cannot definately prove this to be the case."

I was going to post the exact same thing, but the tactic you describe is just so ignorant that I assumed somebody else must have debunked it earlier and I missed it (there was really too much mind-numbing nonsense in this thread for me to have the patience to scour it for an instance of said debunking). I hope that the use of this ridiculous tactic, along with the glaring omission of the basic fact that I have bolded in your post, will further help people wake up to the fact that they need to be very wary of these "let's keep a cool head and not upset the status quo" types. They appearantly are good at presenting an air of objective level-headedness (not to me, but I see others constantly buying into the pretense), but there is an agenda at work and they will misrepresent reality to further it.

Vasant56

190

November 29, 2005 08:53 AM

It's been a while since I took my course on arguments, but I'll try to explain things the best I can..

Quote:Original post by polly
It's strange how people employ arguments of the form: "Just because X is correlated with Y does not mean that X is caused by Y."

But it doesn't. It's an obvious fallacy. The argument needs to deductively entail a conclusion, meaning that if A implies B, and B implies C, only then can you say that A implies C.

Think of the 80's and the myths about homosexuality and HIV. There was a strong correlation between HIV and Homosexuals, but did being homosexual have anything to do with having HIV? It didn't.

Quote:Original post by polly
Well, yeah, but thats not really how scientists do things, is it? What this form of argument ignores is that the chemical properties of carbon dioxide and methane make them greenhouse gasses. So the (curtailed) reasoning is more like, "The chemical properties of X make it a greenhouse gas, there is a higher concentration of X in the atmosphere due to human activity, the climate is warming. Therefore it follows that human activity is causing warming". There, that wasn't so hard to grasp was it? Alternatively, I could employ the first form of argument to show how daft it is:

Your argument is valid. EDIT: The argument in the article is valid, upon further inspection. But please read my other points.

Quote:Original post by polly
Imagine a man walks up to you and kicks you in the balls. You double over in pain, and as you lie gasping for air he says, "You may be experiencing pain, and you may think that this pain may be correlated with the kick in the balls I just gave you. However I can assure you that just because X is correlated with Y, does not mean that X is caused by Y. The pain you may now be experiencing (if that is the case) is merely a naturally occuring process. Any conclusion that you draw about my kick in the balls causing your pain, is obviously logically flawed, as you cannot definately prove this to be the case."

So..
Bob got kicked in the balls. (A)
Bob's balls started to hurt. (B)

A implied B.
Which is sound.

However:
Bob got kicked. (A)
Bobs balls hurt. (B)

A doesn't nessesarily imply B.

It doesn't prove that bob got kicked in the balls.

I hope you understand.

[Edited by - Vasant56 on November 29, 2005 10:53:44 AM]

650,000 Years of Carbon Dioxide Can't Be Wrong

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