another kick at the climate change cat ... 34

[rb1957]

i think the problems with burning fossil fuels are that we're returning carbon to the atmosphere at an unnatural rate, and that there was a very long interval between when the carbon was deposited from the atmosphere and when it's getting returned to it.

the second problem is meant to say that bio-fuels, which take from and return to the atmosphere over a short timescale, probably won't have the same effect on the global climate as compared to fossil fuels. Though, of course, once we start doing this on a global scale and derive meaningfull amounts of energy this way then there'll be unforeseen side effects.

i think it's reasonable to say that the global climate is changing; and that this would be happening even without mankind's contributions.

i think it's reasonable to say that atmospheric CO2 levels change with climate. i think the record shows that previously (say before the 20th century) that CO2 increased sometime after the global temperature increased.

i think it's reasonable to say that the amount of carbon we putting into the atmosphere has the potential to affect global climate. this is i think too wishy-washy "for the masses" so we're being told carbon is changing the climate ... maybe a simple message but one that has divided those wanting more explanation.

once you say that then i think it's reasonable to ask is this a bad thing, ie do we want to change ? We have to acknowledge that energy is the means to developing our economies. adding hydro, geo-thermal, wind and solar power aren't bad things ... there's a cost and a benefit associated. clearly there are some places that can really benefit for these (because of sustained sunlight or wind or water resources or etc). becoming more efficient in our energy consumption is clearly a good thing, though i suspect that won't gain us significant relief. i worry that developing economies are progressing along the same energy path that the developed countries have used, and that maybe there are "better" choices today.

we can't (won't) stop burning fossil fuels, we need the cheap energy. we can be a little smarter and make power stations more efficient but essentially we're dependent on fossil fuels. we're reluctant to persue the nuclear option, though i wish more research money was being directed at fusion power which i see as the only truly long term option.

it is IMHO nonsense to talk about reducing CO2 production to 1990 (or 2000 or whatever) levels principally because developing economies (China in particular, and probably India as well) are going to be burning more and more fossil fuels. carbon sequestration is also IMHO a nonsense technology unless you're talking about growing trees (and biomass). it is also IMHO nonsense to talk about sustainability ... truly sustainable energy would mean using energy resources at the same rate as they're being created (ie no fossil fuels or nukes) or available (solar, wind, hydro, geo-thermal). but then maybe that's one answer to the question, and we'll make truly huge investments in these "green" energies so that we'll increase the fraction of energy we derive from these sources, maybe enough to significantly reduce the carbon output.

if we're going to pay taxes on carbon (through whichever scheme you choose) ... where's the money going ? what's it doing to fix the "problem" ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[beej67]

Most of the runaway climate models consider water vapor to have an exacerbating effect on the warmth of the globe, because they count the chemical effects while ignoring the albedo effects. The fact that Earth isn't Venus should have led them to the opposite conclusion, but hey, there's no money in the conclusion that the globe is somewhat self correcting.

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[metengr]

You people have way too much free time and should be working.

 

[rconnor]

All that I will say about the article is that it’s an unscientific opinion on a scientific issue which Moore is far too uninformed to comment on.

I did find it humorous that GregLocock was calling for an in-depth critique of the article (he presented) in the same thread as these gems:

Sorry you spent so much time typing the rest, I didn't actually read it

Straw man. Didn't bother reading the rest.

Correlation/Causation – the anthropogenic climate change theory predicts the following:
[ul]
[li]Less heat exiting the atmosphere along wavelengths associated with CO2 – correct – solar activity would have no effect on this[/li]
[li]Increased downward infrared radiation along wavelengths associated with CO2 – correct – solar activity cannot explain why it would increase under specific wavelengths[/li]
[li]Nights warming faster than the day – correct – if it was solar activity, the opposite would be true[/li]
[li]Cooling stratosphere, Warming surface – correct – if it was solar activity, both would be warming[/li]
[li]Rising tropopause – correct – solar activity would not affect this[/li]
[li]Cooling and contracting ionosphere – correct – solar activity would have the opposite effect[/li]
[li]Many others but these are the main predictions that are contrary to other theories, all of which are proved by empirical evidence[/li]
[/ul]

So ya, I agree correlation/causation is important. So remind we again, what is the argument for a correlation between “it’s changed before” or “it’s the sun” and the empirical observations noted above? Or are we chalking it up to MAGIC!?

The fundamental issue is that nobody has come up with a falsifiable theory as to why CO2's effect on global temperature should be a high multiple of what is measurable in a laboratory

Feedbacks. Read up.

Until a testable theory is tested

What test are you talking about? Build two copies of Earth, pump a bunch of extra CO2 into one and then, magically, speed up time to watch the response? That might be a tad physically impossible. But what if there was some way we could replicate the scenario in a simulation, say on a computer! That would be much less expensive and we could have much more control over monitoring the inputs/outputs. Hmmmmm……

The fact that Earth isn't Venus should have led them to the opposite conclusion

Again….

He says that because the Earth hasn’t snowballed into a runaway state (in the cold or hot direction) that there is a balancing act that regulates temperatures. Without any real evidence, he says this is “obviously” due to clouds! No need to worry – clouds will save us! This absurdly silly argument gets a silly (but appropriate) retort – ask the Dinosaurs why you don’t need a runaway effect to seriously threaten the survival of a species (or the 99.9% of species that are now extinct on a planet that is still “alive”). Why do I have to explain this to educated people? And don’t reply saying “those are natural cycles, so it proves that earth’s climate changes naturally” – yes it changes naturally but his point is that there is a balancing force that prevents earth’s climate from snowballing. Sure, but that doesn’t mean that the fluctuations in temperature over short GEOLOGICAL TIMES (let alone in 2 centuries) can’t royally screw over a species.

Furthermore, climate scientists know that we are likely not to have a runaway temperature rise like Venus because of anthropogenic CO2. If Chet did a bit of research, he would know this – “runaway greenhouse effect – analogous to Venus – appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic activities” (IPCC) or “A runaway greenhouse could in theory be triggered by increased greenhouse forcing, but anthropogenic emissions are probably insufficient” (Goldblatt et al, 2012). But that doesn’t mean it won’t adversely affect humans.

 

[GregLocock]

As I explained, if you are presenting a logical argument step by step and one step breaks, I don't need to read the rest. If your arguments aren't logical I suppose that doesn't apply. Your call.

Testable means testable. Who would have thought that from one insignificant location in the universe we could test so many theories about stars and the formation of the universe? Instead of computer boys playing with toys the whole field of climate prediction needs a lot of thought and actual careful experiment. There is no /proof/ that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is greater than the lab figure, merely conjecture based on the computer models and trend following. Hence any untested explanation of that conjecture is just an idle fancy.















Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

So the assumption is that CO2 is bad, so coal is bad. While CH4 is being released at an alarming rate due to oil drilling, and natural gas is clean.

Wind farms kill birds, but power lines are bad.

Solar panels convert light to heat, and they are good, while white sand reflecting light back into space is unimportant.

And the only solution for climate change is more taxes.

This still looks like a political agenda, and not a science.

 

[beej67]

So wait, let's recap.

CO2 has a laboratory tested greenhouse effect, provable by hard science.

The climate models show warming is tracking a lot more severely than CO2's laboratory tested greenhouse effect should be.

And the climate scientist response is to claim the laboratory tests aren't applicable, while simultaneously devaluing and disregarding all the other effects mankind may be having on our environment as unimportant, in order to hang 100% of the blame on carbon.

Hrmm.



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[rb1957]

last time i checked, the world wasn't a test tube.

the way i see it, CO2 is something we can control and so if we're to control the climate we control the things we can (though possibly not the things having the most impact).

climate forecasts are like Nostradamas' predictions ... once they've happened to can align an event to a prediction.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

Yes we can control CO2 to an extent. We can also control the earth's albedo to an extent, however we aren't talking about that. So why is that so unimportant?

We can also control food production, but there are people starving. We can control bus route, and bus fares, but people still don't seems to like them anyway.

We can also contol public school education, but that never seems to improve.

So why do we think we can do a good job of controling carbon as a way of controlling the enviroment?

Don't get me wrong we can reduce the carbon foot print in this country today, just decide which third of the country should go into the dark.
My point is wishing, and demanding things that are not realistic will only get you run over by the people who have to do without. Only rich people can afford the tax levels you are proposing.

 

[GregLocock]

We won't control carbon dioxide. We might transfer some wealth from first world countries to others. In fact that was the explicit aim of the IPCC's chairman.


Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rb1957]

yes greg, i see that's how it will work in the real world. my point was if we stop burning FFs we stop introducing CO2 into the atmosphere so we can "control" how much CO2 we add. i'm not saying it's real, only what i thought they were/are thinking.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[rconnor]

beej67 – Let’s go through this line by line:

CO2 has a laboratory tested greenhouse effect, provable by hard science.

So far, so good

The climate models show warming is tracking a lot more severely than CO2's laboratory tested greenhouse effect should be.

Models and temperature trends will show more warming in response to CO2 in the real world because of feedback effects that aren’t part of the straight CO2 greenhouse tests in the lab which don’t include other factors in our climate system. Outgoing solar radiation is reduced by amounts similar to the lab tests.

And the climate scientist response is to claim the laboratory tests aren't applicable

What are you talking about? No they don’t. People that have a basic understanding of the science know that the actual climate system is much more complex than the basic CO2 absorptivity/emissivity lab tests. They take the absorptivity/emissivity lab test results, compare it to satellite data and use those values in the climate models. The test results are not thrown out in place of models, they are used in models.

while simultaneously devaluing and disregarding all the other effects mankind may be having on our environment as unimportant, in order to hang 100% of the blame on carbon.

Again, what are you talking about? Have you ever glanced over anything that the IPCC puts out? Land use change, deforestation, aerosols, other pollutants, etc. are ALL studied and their effects are included in the reports. That statement is just so blatantly wrong.

GregLocock, if you want to design a lab experiment which captures ocean/atmosphere dynamics, prevailing wind patterns, changes in prevailing wind patterns, ocean currents, changes in ocean currents, cloud formation, changes in albedo, etc… and find a way to speed up the rate of reaction, then be my guest. Even if you could design an experiment conceptually, good luck getting the billion dollars to build it. Even if you get the billion dollars to build it, it still will be considered “not robust enough to prove anything” by “skeptics”.

This is part of this silly game by “skeptics” to push the standards of evidence far beyond whatever we currently have. It’s nonsense. We have so much empirical and model driven data that supports the theory, yet this is ignored or considered “not good enough”. A great example of this is how all the subsequent posters have ignored the 6 lines of empirical evidence that are in agreement with the predictions of the anthropogenic CO2 theory while, at the sometime, disproving counter-theories such as solar activity or orbital cycles. But now they’ve moved on to CO2 taxes…

metengr, I understand your post was an attempt to inject a bit of humour into the discussion but it is the utter disregard for one of, if not the, most important issues facing us that bugs me. I’ll have you know that I write these posts on my free time between work and the ~15-20 hours per week of coaching I do for various youth soccer programs in my city. So, no, I don’t have too much free time but the small amounts that I do have, I spend trying to learn about and/or educate people on an important issue. The fact that you would waste your time commenting on a thread you have, seemingly, no interest in indicates that you may be the one with too much free time. If you don’t care about the topic, then don’t read the thread (the same goes for whomever gave you a star).

 

[beej67]

What are you talking about? No they don’t. People that have a basic understanding of the science know that the actual climate system is much more complex than the basic CO2 absorptivity/emissivity lab tests. They take the absorptivity/emissivity lab test results, compare it to satellite data and use those values in the climate models. The test results are not thrown out in place of models, they are used in models.

They stick it into the model and calibrate the model to match the data. Yeah, I get that. That's the whole problem. Here, let me spell it out for you very simply. If CO2 is one third of mankind's warming effect, but CO2 scales linearly with all other effects mankind has on warming, then your models still look great if you ignore the other effects and triple the CO2 effect.

And that exact thing, I'd contend, is what's been done. You can tell it's been done because the R^2 values of their modeling predictions are no better than plotting global mean temperature vs human population on an Excel scatter diagram and telling it to best-fit the curve.

Again, what are you talking about? Have you ever glanced over anything that the IPCC puts out? Land use change, deforestation, aerosols, other pollutants, etc. are ALL studied and their effects are included in the reports. That statement is just so blatantly wrong.

I have, in fact, in some detail.

The IPCC's treatment of the issue of global albedo change is a scientific travesty, from what I've read. Their published papers indicate that a soy bean field is cooler than a deciduous forest, and that the changes mankind has wrought on our planets surface, including urban heat islands and the like, should have had a net cooling effect if it weren't for the oh-so-horrible carbon we're emitting. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. Every paper I read was a near-intentional whitewash of everything mankind might be doing to our environment outside of CO2, and the papers were written by atmospheric chemists trying to protect their honey pot.

Don't talk to me about bad science. The IPCC has already determined the answer they're looking for, and any new work exposing that answer as questionable would be simply disastrous to their funding and credibility. They epitomize lack of impartiality. Now I will completely agree there is some seriously bad science on the 'skeptic' side of this argument. Maybe more bad science, in fact, than on the CO2 side. But that doesn't make this correlation-causality leap that the atmo chemists have made any more defensible.



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[rconnor]

Let me start off by saying that I am in agreement with you that humans are doing damage to the planet outside of CO2 emissions. Land use changes affect the environment greatly, such as with loss of habitat, but when it comes to long-term climate changes, the effect is minor in comparison to CO2. These are two different issues and the IPCC focus is on the latter.

Got any references to back up anything you just said?

Any comments on the 6 lines of empirical evidence that demonstrate the correlation-causality leap? Explain to me how albedo changes could cause those.

Also, you mentioned urban heat islands, so I will (again) mention the story of a true skeptic, Dr. Richard Muller:

Temperature Data Sets - One Skeptics Search for the Truth
While on the support of temperature data sets, let me tell you a story about one of the most vocal voices against temperature data sets - Dr. Richard Muller. Muller was very critical of the whole anthropogenic climate change theory. In particular, he was critical of the temperature data sets and was likely a supporter of (or even quoted in) many of the blog posts that convinced you that they were all rubbish. So what did Muller do? Well, he developed his own data set at Berkley to eliminate all the forms of bias or "corruption" in the data.

And what did his own data do to his opinion? Completely inverted it. From Muller himself, is a piece in the New York Times on his conversion. From the article,

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

Some more great snippets from the article,
"These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming"
A skeptic validating the results of the evil IPCC, blasphemy!

"...it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."
That's not very "skeptical" of him to say. How dare he let data influence his opinion!

" We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions."
Oh boy...kinda looks like when you're skeptical of the science but then actually review the science, you see it's pretty solid. Solid enough to completely and publicly change one of the most prominent skeptic's mind.

Let's compare this to another vocal "skeptic", blogger Anthony Watts. When discussing the upcoming BEST results in 2011, Watts said the following:

I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong....the method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU....That lack of strings attached to funding, plus the broad mix of people involved especially those who have previous experience in handling large data sets gives me greater confidence in the result being closer to a bona fide ground truth than anything we’ve seen yet. Dr. Fred Singer also gives a tentative endorsement of the methods....Climate related website owners, I give you carte blanche to repost this.

Oh, so did Anthony Watts convert with Muller? Did he accept the results as he said he would? Nope, just lots of back tracking and "explanations" about this stance.

 

[TGS4]

If you think that Richard Mueller is a "skeptic" in the true sense of the word, then I have some ocean-front property in Alberta to sell you. Perhaps you need to read a little bit more about it from something other than a Kool-Aid dispenser. (BTW, exactly what publication is that article from, again - you seem to have only credited yourself...)

In your list of six, you forgot the tropical tropospheric hotspot. Why? Because it doesn't exist as predicted by "the models". How do we know it doesn't exist? It has been measured:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06...ations-for-tropical-tropospheric-temperature/

Besides, your list has nothing to do with Anthropogenic Climate Change of Global Warming or whatever the flavour of the week is to call it (I recall seeing Global Weather Weirding...). They are some potential aspects of higher greenhouse gases (of which we can't differentiate between water, CO2, methane, or whatever. Have temps gone up? Yup. Why? Good question - we don't know. Have greenhouse gases gone up? At Mauna Loa we have been measuring it and using it as a proxy for a uniformly-distributed gas. So, possibly. So, from all of this, how do we make the leap in logic to catastrophe? For that, I actually will defer to Dr. Moore, One of the Founders of Greenpeace, who had THE inside track on the green movement as it was assimilated by the wanna-be communists from the fall of Eastern European communism. I think that you would be hard-pressed to find a more committed environmentalist than Patrick Moore. And yet all he merits from the Kool-Aid crowd is a predicable avalanche of ad hominems.

Daily there are new papers that keep revising the equilibrium constant relating CO2 concentration and temperature. And we keep slowly walking away from even a potential catastrophe. And that's pretty much the point here, right? If there's no catastrophe, then there's no need for any intervention (taxes, restrictions on emissions, etc). And really, that there is going to be no catastrophe should be reason to rejoice. Instead, the warmists double down and imagine some other catastrophe. After seeing this repeat ad nauseum for more than a decade, I am left with the conclusion that these people just really want the intervention, and keep looking for and catastrophe (real or imagined) that brings about their "solution".

 

[rconnor]

Muller's Conversion
The "Kool-Aid dispenser" you speak of was a crazy environmental extremist paper called the New York Times; it was in the quote, look again. The link to the actual article, who Muller authored himself, didn't transfer from the fist time I posted it but here it is again. I'm sorry it wasn't from WUWT, the paragon of truth and reason.

So what's your definition of skeptic, anyone who doesn't agree with the anthropogenic climate change theory? Well, Muller was just that and was supported by true "skeptics" like Anthony Watts and co. But he, unlike true "skeptics", actually engaged in independent and unbiased research. The results of his own research changed his mind. And as for Watts, well he remained a true "skeptic".

Tropospheric Hotspots
Drat! You caught me trying to sweep the lack of tropospheric hotspots under the rug! Alas, I shall come clean.

If solar activity increased, you'd expect to see tropospheric hotspots as well, unlike a cooling stratosphere. Tropospheric hotspots is not a great argument for CO2 being the driver in climate change, so I'm not sure why you're talking like the anthropogenic climate change theory hinges on tropospheric hotspots. Well I do know the reason why, "skeptics" like Monckton, not understanding the science, incorrectly assumed that a tropospheric hotspot was crucial to the theory. The spread there misunderstanding far and wide to places like WUWT, the paragon of truth and reason. Monckton, like on so many other things, was wrong. See the image below which illustrates the predicted changes by +2% in solar activity vs. 2x CO2. The tropospheric hotspot is pretty well the same but the stratospheric temperature is where the difference is.
[image

http://i51.tinypic.com/wva44n.png

]

Furthermore, there is the question of the data sets used in the comparison by Spencer. "Skeptics" love to be skeptical about temperature data sets - except when they can be used to their advantage, like the "pause". However, like the "pause", their "advantage" really disappears as soon as you start to examine the issue in more depth - as seen above.

Radiosonde measurements, used to calculate the temperature of the troposphere, have a well documented history of problems with uncertainty. Some of this comes from a cooling bias caused by interference of the cooling stratosphere (ironically) in the measurements. When this is accounted for, as in the three papers linked before, the data shows an increased in tropospheric temperatures.

So not only is the lack of tropospheric hotspots not an argument against the anthropogenic theory, it's also unclear whether it even exists.

Water Vapour
How do you get long term increases in water vapour content in the atmosphere? Increased atmospheric temperatures. How do you get increased atmospheric temperatures? Some say MAGIC! and I say CO2. Either way, water vapour is a feedback not a driver. So when we see an decrease in outgoing longwave radiation and an increase in downward infrared radiation, both with significant changes along the wavelengths associated with CO2, then it does point to CO2 being the driver. If you know of any other theory that does a better job of explaining those observed changes, I'm very open to hearing it - but it ain't solar activity or orbital cycles.

CO2 Sensitivity
I'm in full agreement with the sentiment that CO2 sensitivity is still being studied rigorously and we our continuing to improve our understanding. An example of this is the new paper Sherwood et al 2014. A nice summary from the author can be viewed here.

 

[TGS4]

The "Kool-Aid dispenser" you speak of was a crazy environmental extremist paper called the New York Times

Truer words have not been written - although I know that you meant it fascitiously.

Perhaps if you wish to slag Watts, maybe you should read about his thoughts from him directly. I know that reading WUWT is anathema to you - although I don't know why. Mueller double-crossed Watts in a couple of key points, which, if I were in his position, I would be furious, too. But, I guess that ethics is not something that goes too well with noble-cause corruption (cough, Gleick!).

I didn't actually link to anything w.r.t. the tropical tropospheric hotspot from WUWT - I didn't see an actual rebuttal to Dr. Spencer's post - I take it that you agree? It's not the existence of it that's the problem, it's the magnitude. Actually, it's the same problem with surface temperatures - they models are extra-hot compared to reality.

Let's shelve this discussion for about 60 years, and then when a "winner" is declared, we can look at policy decisions. Until then, any clamouring for policy is for policy-sake and not actual observational science. This whole exercise would be mildly amusing from a science history perspective, if not for the policy implications.

 

[rb1957]

@rconnor ... tropospheric hotspots ... your two pic don't IMHO show the issue. you're comparing 2x CO2 with +2% solar input, but i'd've thought the valid comparison was between 2x CO2 and 1x CO2. as i understand it, greenhouse theory and the models biult from it predict increased warming specifically in the troposphere ... a hard prediction as far as i know it not borne out in fact. that's a problem for the theory, no?

i find the statement "How do you get increased atmospheric temperatures? Some say MAGIC! and I say CO2. ... but it ain't solar activity or orbital cycles." quite simplistic. I've read journal articles investigating the impact of solar contributions, and their conclusion was that it was significant. In support of that conclusion I also offer what caused climate change before we started burning FFs like they were going out of style ?

i don't think there's any proof for either side with "the pause". it's just a short term trend. the most you can say about it is that it shows the difference between (certainly the earlier) climate models showing monotonic increasing temperatures and the real world ... but then models can't mimic the real world.

for me models are still in their infantancy. we still don't know all the climate factors and processes and interactions. so we add influences into the models so that they can produce the historical data, something meant to collect a bunch of interactions we don't model. surely that's just playing with numbers. I can appreciate scientists doing this in their labs, trying to develop a model, but that's where they belong. they're not ready to be the basis of policy and taxation.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[beej67]

Let me start off by saying that I am in agreement with you that humans are doing damage to the planet outside of CO2 emissions. Land use changes affect the environment greatly, such as with loss of habitat, but when it comes to long-term climate changes, the effect is minor in comparison to CO2. These are two different issues and the IPCC focus is on the latter.

Got any references to back up anything you just said?

Yeah, sure do. Everywhere that has had continuous human civilization on the planet for the last 2000 years is now a desert. Go check a map.

Got any references to what you just said, that it's "minor" compared to CO2? People keep saying this, but as I say, the IPCC studies are full of really, really bad science when it comes to analysis of albedo and the changes man makes to the global hydrologic cycle, which is the exact mechanic that the earth uses to bleed excess energy. When you interrupt that cycle, you're turning off the Earth's Air Conditioner, and that's exactly what urbanization does. Not studied at all by the IPCC, and when it is studied, it's clearly a whitewash. Go read some of the papers. They're ridiculous.

As far as your quote goes, it's not applicable to my case at all. Most of the 'disbelievers' contend that urban heat islands have tainted the data set and there isn't any actual warming. I don't care a lick one way or another about the data set. I think there's definitely warming, and all you have to do to prove it is look at mean ocean level and glacial recession. I think the effect that global agriculture and urban heat islands have on the macro-climate is being ignored, or worse, intentionally downplayed by the IPCC, in their attempt to paint CO2 as the *only* problem.

Check this little image out from one of my favorite comics last week:

Are you seriously going to tell me that the only effect mankind has on our environment is CO2?

Come on. Get real. The only reason a scientist would seek to paint CO2 as the *only* problem was if the scientist already decided what sort of "solution" he was pushing. And that's what we have with the IPCC.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[TGS4]

Yeah, sure do. Everywhere that has had continuous human civilization on the planet for the last 2000 years is now a desert. Go check a map.

Yup - totally agree. That wasteland that is Rome is atrocious. Same
for Paris. And Beijing.

I agree with you that there are lots of other environmental effects other than CO2. What even better than your cartoon is if you superimpose that on top of the mass of the world's insects. The mammals would be dwarfed.

 

[beej67]

I'm reasonably sure if you pull a thermal satellite image of Rome it's going to look something like the one above for Atlanta.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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