Re: The sky is falling

And higher atmospheric water content (from trapped heat) increases cloud cover which increases albedo, which decreases heating due to solar radiation.

That is also a fact.

Which effect (or thousands of other similar effects) dominates?

When did global climate change become a political debate? Geez, if all you're going to do is parrot left-wing theories, keep searching only left-wing groups where you'll find all your fellow environuts. LOL

That may be your opinion but our profs were teaching us that pollution was warming the world and leading us into another ice age, when I was earning my engineering degree, in the late forties

If you believe no scientist were predicting an ice age, I would suggest you do a search of the plan to spread carbon black on the glaciers and the Russia plan to send a mirror into space over Siberia to reflect sun light on the glacier at night to speed melting and reverse the cooling trend.

Your arguments keep going around in circles but you are not convincing anybody, albeit those on the left or right or middle, that man is causing, or even capable of causing global climate change

How was warming the world leading you into an ice age?

The only place that I think is getting cold is the space between your ears.

Jeff

I see you a "picking again' to be "heard again." Since you have been following the thread you should know what I meant buy what a said, about pollution blocking the sun, previously

You have to remember that in the liberal/Lloyd mind, you're only allowed to discuss/consider things that support your argument, never allowed to consider anything that would moderate the effect you're pushing on a given day.

IOW, there's no such thing as buffers, or balance in naturally competing effects (or in your thinking for that matter). IOW, because you, as a devout liberal, have decided to believe in GW, you can only acknowledge things that push the earth's temperature - pardon me - Mother Earth's temperature - hotter. Any competing mechanism that moderates or counteracts that cannot be true - otherwise there can be no hysteria and no need for liberals and government to save us from ourselves.

Wrap several layers of duct tape around your head and learn to think like a liberal.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

No, I didn't know what you meant. If you want to be understood, start proofreading your words before pressing send.

Jeff

You just made my case.

In your mind, science is what men say at any given moment. In my mind, science is reality based on facts, laws of physics, etc. (and at this very moment you are probably still thinking they are the same thing). The two can be, and often are, very different (for many different reasons - some of them political and/or for gain). That's your whole problem - you can't admit that except when it suits your purposes.

Same is true on religion. I avoid believing what man says about God (man-made religion). I try to get to the truth of what God says about himself. Nothing to do with the discussion, but it always spins liberals up when you talk in a positive manner about God, therefore it's worth bringing up. :) But actually the problems in dealing with science and religion are the same in a given mind. Funny how that works, ain't it. Something about difficulty dealing with reality vs. what one wishes were reality.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Tell us how you figure out whether global warming is real. The science is extremely complicated, and involves information from many different fields of science, like biology, chemistry and atmospheric science and information from many different sources, like experiments, different types of observations (ground observations, satalite observations and meterological observations) and several different complicated models. How does one person arrive at the truth? There's way to much information for one person to gather and analyze. And more information is coming in. I could go and buy the fastest computers, but I would still not be able to do all the simulations myself.

How do you do this?

And what is wrong with liberals? And why do you think that liberals don' think about God in a positive manner?

Science involves testing hypotheses. Because religion is faith based, there are not hypotheses to test. Stephen Jay Gould wrote a great book on this, called _Rock_of_Ages_. I recommend it. He also talked about this in other books.

It may *not* be possible to ever tell. That's the whole point. Do we want to wreck our economy and move back to horse-and-buggy technology based on something that may never have an effect strong enough to prove its own existence?

Don't get me wrong, I think it makes sense (on many levels) to reduce the things that theoretically might raise atmospheric carbon levels, and might increase global warming. But its a question of EXTENT. And what price has to be paid. I argue that a slower less invasive approach to gradually transitioning away from fossil fuels makes sense. Mandating fuel economy standards, artificially boosting energy costs, and rushing headlong into an ethanol boondoggle DON'T make sense.

Again, a theory IS an explanation accepted by science. Consensus is implicit in that.

Gee, I didn't realize Apple IIs were chemistry and biology.

Yes, but higher water content also traps even more heat. They're called feedbacks. Neither of which makes any difference to the fact that CO2 traps heat (which you appear to concede).

When you denialists began regurgitating right-wing web sites into a scientific discussion.

I doubt that.

I suggest YOU find one scientific journal that made such a prediction then.

Who the damn cares what a fool like you believes? You refuse to read scientific sources. You're a flat-earther.

No, consensus is arrived at after many years, lots of data, many peer- reviewed published articles.

Do you really think EVERY scientific group and agency has just jumped on some fad? Are you that stupid?

Yet you apparently refuse to read any.

When CFCs were banned, that same argument was made. When asbestos was banned. When PCBs were banned. When DDT was banned. When lead in gasoline was banned.

Every time, new technologies were developed that led to even greater strides forward.

But not all theories, no matter how broadly supported by consensus, are correct in the end. Scientific method is a PROCESS that moves away from consensus toward rigorous proof or disproof as time goes by. Sometimes it takes a LOT of time, sometimes it doesn't. Consensus is the earliest least reliable step of the process.

In the first place, the statement was made about MS-DOS, not Apple IIs. In the second place, chemistry, biology, Apple IIs, Dodge Vipers, and Kia minivans are all just niche applications of physics anyway.

That is an excellent example. Millions have died needlessly from malaria since the banning of DDT, which was based on false science - based on conclusions that proved totally incorrect. Once again - thanks for proving the point of false science being dangerous - no, not just dangerous - outright deadly - to millions.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

"CO2 traps heat" is a boneheaded statement made in a vacuum. There's a fire extinguisher full of CO2 outside my office door. If "CO2 traps heat," that fire extinguisher should reach the temperature of molten lead in a few days, right? :-p

I don't doubt that variations in the content of certain gasses in the atmosphere change the amount of infrared radiation the atmosphere reflects. Oxygen affects this too. So does nitrogen. CO2 may trap more than those. Water vapor may trap more than those. Atmospheric methane traps heat too. What about cow farts? *EVERY* gas has an effect on IR absorption/reflection. The question is whether any of it can possibly de-stabilize the planetary heat balance. Give the fact that the planet has survived millions of years, through periods of far higher and lower atmospheric water and atmospheric C02, not to mention dust from everything between volcanoes and asteroid impacts, and has always remained stable... I don't buy the fact that man's puny contributions can move the equilibrium point significantly one way or the other at all.

As usual, you are overlooking the fact that "feedbacks" as you simplistically call them, can be negative or positive. A negative feedback (ie, planetary albedo increasing due to an increase in atmospheric water vapor, thus increasing solar energy reflected away to space) tends to COUNTER the intitial effect. Just like negative feedback stabilizes gain in an amplifier.

No, those were all banned after adequate replacements were already availble. And, except for DDT, they were all PHASED out of use on a reasonable and practical timetable.

By the way- Asbestos isn't banned any more than dirt is banned. It still occurs naturally, just like it always has. We just don't use it the same ways we once did.

For those interested in the damage done by Rachel Carson and her followers:

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')