Texas floods: I just had *that* conversation *again*:

[patrice]

That is IF you can call it a "conversation". It always ends with something like "The environment is not changing. These things (extreme weather) are just cycles."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01457851.htm

Please give it your best; tell me HOW someone can think that these cycles they keep refering to can be outside of the environmental system that is under-going change? I just don't get it.

[ewagner]

1. The logic goes something like this...

it's a cycle in terms of GEOLOGICAL TIME....in other words, we don't have enough historical data to prove that every...say...3 or 4 EONS this warming cycle occurs so you can't say that it isn't cyclical because you don't have ALL the data from the beginning of time..... (ignoring of course that the fundamentalists think that world is only 6,000 years old, give or take a decade)

[patrice]

3. If there isn't enough data, then neither can they say that it is a cycle.

Okay, So they're talking about cycles inside a geological frame rather than an environmental frame?

[ewagner]

11. Cyclical logic

for cycles in geological time......

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[cynatnite]

30. Yeah, and the bible doesn't say a word about global warming either...

:rofl:

It's always funny when a fundie attempts science talk.

[LibDemAlways]

2. The Statue of Liberty should be replaced with one

of a freeper with his fingers in his ears, and the national motto should be "LA LA LA LA...I can't hear you."

The idea of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, violent weather and all of the negative effects on life on earth is just too much for many people to handle. Easier to ignore or deny it and hope it goes away. And, by the way, What time does American Idol come on?

[patrice]

5. If it is a cycle . . .

Would we expect cycles to be perfectly regular, "up" only just so much, "down" only just so much?

There would be variations wouldn't there? "Up" so much, plus or minus. "Down" so much, plus or minus. What causes the variations?

Even if it is just cycles, there could still be an "up" or a "down" (apogee? perigee? - or whatever the high and low points in a cycle are called) that is so destructive that we need to do what we can about it.

But then I guess there are people who are doing what they can about it, such as: buying certain kinds of real estate in certain places, like S.D., or buying Hummers and filling their basements with MREs and bottled water.

[adarling]

4. I am just getting really scared by all of this

how much longer till all hell breaks loose and the "day after tomorrow" effect happens. Seriously, it is a popcorn movie, but there are elements of truth to it.

[lectrobyte]

6. a flood is an example of weather, and you really want to focus in

on climate. Things like the highest CO2 levels in 100,000 years, average temperature of the planet increasing, ice pack shrinkage. Yeah, there are cycles of weather, and perhaps to some extent climate as well, but nothing like what we're heading into.

[patrice]

7. Thanks for that distinction.

I hadn't thought about it that way.

[ewagner]

12. The Co2 level

is an undeniable fact.....cannot be disputed by anybody....taken from data in ice cores I believe.

[lectrobyte]

15. Yes, I may be misremembering the number, but it was from the

recent Discovery Channel special. I haven't been paying as much attention to science as I should be, nor have I seen Al Gore's movie yet.

[DLnyc]

17. Here are some numbers.

One of many, many articles.

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1124-climate.html

a graph:


(snip)
nalysis of carbon dioxide in the ancient Antarctic ice showed that at no point in the past 650,000 years did levels approach today's carbon dioxide concentrations of around 380 parts per million (ppm). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could reach 450-550 ppm by 2050, possibly resulting in higher temperatures and rising sea levels (see "Ocean levels rising twice as fast"). There is fear that climate change could create a class of environmental refugees displaced from their homes by rising oceans, increasingly catastrophic weather, and expanding deserts.
(snip)

--------------
As I understand it, historic CO2 levels and temperatures are calculated from antactic ice cores (Greenland ice hasn't been around long enough?). Current CO2 concentrations are measured directly by instruments on balloons and at various places around the globe, as well as from (shallow) ice cores.

[lectrobyte]

19. I'd google the same article. It freaked me a bit and I almost didn't

finish my post below.

[lectrobyte]

18. I was wrong. The real number is 650,000 years, according to this

article:

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1124-climate.html

excerpting a bit:

Carbon dioxide levels are now 27 percent higher than at any point in the last 650,000 years, according to research into Antarctic ice cores published on Thursday in Science.

Analysis of carbon dioxide in the ancient Antarctic ice showed that at no point in the past 650,000 years did levels approach today's carbon dioxide concentrations of around 380 parts per million (ppm). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could reach 450-550 ppm by 2050, possibly resulting in higher temperatures and rising sea levels (see "Ocean levels rising twice as fast"). There is fear that climate change could create a class of environmental refugees displaced from their homes by rising oceans, increasingly catastrophic weather, and expanding deserts.

[patrice]

22. Okay, so when I say to my friend, "Carbon dioxide levels are now

27% higher than they've been at any point in the last 650,000 years," she, because she reads The Readers' Digest exclusively, says back to me something like, "This high point could simply be the opposite of a low point 650,000 years from now in a natural cycle." I say . . . ? ? ?

. . . Something about if there is such a cycle, it is an extremely rare one (given the time frame), so in terms of the probability implied by your statement "This high point COULD be the opposite of a low point . . . " in a 650,000 year cycle, since such a cycle would be so rare, it is more likely/probable that this isn't such a cycle . . . ?

Just brainstorming here, trying to figure out how to have this conversation. I'm working off of the idea that there are all kinds of cycles with more-or-less similar durations. This hypothetical carbon dioxide cycle is different, unique, in it's duration. Anything that rare is less, rather than more, probable.

[lectrobyte]

24. There's only so much you can do. I'm still trying to get my head

around 650,000 years. The climate certainly seems to be changing, and weather patterns seem to reflect this. Not sure what you can do for someone who doesn't want to find out more. I'm almost wishing I knew less myself.

[patrice]

25. I know what you mean about wishing I knew less.

But I'm not going down without a fight!

[DLnyc]

28. It's not as complicated as you think.

The point is (see my other post, #9, below) that very solid straight forward science and observation shows:
. Increased CO2 warms the atmosphere
. Human activity puts out (and causes not to be absorbed) a certain amount of CO2
. Simple measurements show current CO2 levels have risen by that amount
. Computer models predict a certain rise in temperature, higher near the poles, from this amount of CO2
. Observation shows this amount of temperature rise

Thus, for the explanation to be 'natural cycles' your friend has to explain:
--Why is straight-forward science wrong in this case?
and
--Isn't it an awfully big coincidence that the thousands of scientists are wrong (for some reason maybe your friend can give), and some unnamed global cycle came along and caused EXACTLY the increase the scientists were predicting just when, amazingly, their predictions ALL were wrong?

To give an analogy, science and experiment predict that dropping a cannon ball onto a sports car from 20 feet up will smash the hood and engine of the car. Suppose you do drop a cannon ball from 20 feet up onto a sports car and, indeed, the hood and engine are smashed. What would your friend say if you then argued that science was wrong in this case, the hood and engine weren't actually smashed by the cannon ball, but it just happened that, by amazing coincidence, while the cannon ball was falling a truck came along, smashed the hood and engine of the sports car--not from the front the way trucks usually smash hoods and engines but from the top--and then disappeared AND the cannon ball ended up on top of the smashed engine without actually having smashed it?

The point is, the only REASONABLE explanation, in both cases, is the straight-forward one supported by scientific study and observation; if your friend has some other explanation, he/she has a long way to go to explain away a long series of conicidences and occurences contrary to scientific theory and observation (and to the most ordinary common sense).

(edited for typo)

[On the Road]

8. Just Ask Them "How Do You Know?"

and then wait for an answer.

If that doesn't faze them, point out that the same people making this claim now (eg Rush Limbaugh) are on record for years as saying the trend didn't even exist. Now that they've finally admitted the trend, how are they now the best source on whether it's cyclical?

[DLnyc]

9. The logic, as I understand it, goes like this-

1. Carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light, but relatively opaque to infrared. This is easily established by physical experiment and does not vary over time.
2. Sunlight arrives at the earth mostly as visible light, is absorbed by land and water and is reradiated as infrared. This process is well-known, documented and callibrated.
3. If the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere goes up, the earth will become warmer. This theory is straightforward and correlates precisely with the fossil record comparing carbon dioxide concentration and temperature. Also, the principle is used, with glass substituted for carbon dioxide, in greenhouses all over the globe.
4. Human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests, can be expected to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
5. Precise measurements show, in fact, a large and steady increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. This increase agrees with the amount put out by burning fossil fuels together with the amount no longer absorbed by cleared forests.
6. Computer models predict that such an increase will cause a warming of the surface and atmosphere, with the most extreme warming taking place near the poles.
7. Such warming is now, in fact, taking place at a rate that matches the predictions of the models.

Therefore, It is clear that some magical, unknown force has mysteriously caused the predicted effect NOT to occur but, by an amazing coincidence, a one million year cycle that nobody ever noticed before has suddenly kicked in and caused the earth to warm by exactly the amount that it WOULD have warmed if the aforementioned magical, unknown force had not mysteriously prevented physics from working normally, thereby fooling the entire scientific community into thinking that the rapidly increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing global warming.

Bottom line: keep driving those SUV's and turn the AC up to the max. Whatever you do, do NOT look into decreased consumption, alternative energy sources, mass transportation or any other reality-based solutions.

[ewagner]

13. Well done....

enjoyed that very much.....informative and snarky in the same post! :applause:

[DLnyc]

14. Thanks.

I do my best to make sense of these things.

[patrice]

23. Ooooo that's so very well written. Thank you so much!!!

I'm going to have to second that :applause: and will share this widely.

[bigbrother05]

10. The thing that kills me about the deniers

is that they would be the first ones to toot the horns if someone came up with a weather control machine like you see in the old Bond movies (come to think of it, that was usually some super rich maniac out to become richer).

They seem to miss the notion that all the scientists are trying to do is influence our climate by reducing the negative impacts that mankind and our processes have on the natural operations that have existed since time began. It's not flashy/sexy, but they are really attempting to have a positive (or at least less harmful) influence on the global climate pattern.

Just like his Mars initiative or the Star Wars missile defense, does anyone think that Dimson wouldn't try to throw billions at some military/industrial multinational corp to work on a system that claimed to "control" the weather? The only reason that isn't happening already is that the current science shows that changing our behavior has the best chance to minimize the destructive swings that are being predicted.

Heaven forbid that 100 years from now they look back and see that after spending wads of cash, all we got was clean water, blue skies, and four distinct seasons.

[lectrobyte]

16. another thread on glacier loss acceleration in Alaska

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1799096

[Rex]

20. Sounds like my conversations.

Most of my relatives live in Texas, as do I. Most of them are very ignorant, but watch a lot of TV. Some never got past the 9th grade.

Like most Republicans, they are half-right in some way or another. It is a cycle, the Earth has billions of cycles and this one is extreme weather patterns, because our biosphere is undergoing change. A cycle for the oceans and winds and regional weather. Cycle is correct, but the assumption that it automatically discounts global warming is the problem. It's like saying what the stomach does has nothing to do the body.

[patrice]

21. Or, to extend your body analogy a little futher, Iand I hope you don't

mind the comparison, it's like saying a woman's monthly cycle, or any other biological cycle, is not affected by the general health of one's body.

[autorank]

26. Tell them they're completely whacked out..no more bull shit w/these people

Just get a copy of Gore's book: An Inconvenient Truth or a copy of this one The Weather Makers.

But be sure to get this: Global Warming: Passing the 'Tipping Point'Feb.11, 2006 This is from "The Independent", London but it's reprinted in whole in Common Dreams.

Once you've read Gore's book and the article above, you'll know that Climate Change is in full bloom and that we humans are responsible.

You'll be able to say with confidence;

A sample of 1,000 of the 10,000 scientific articles in professional journals on climate change were studied to see if there were really "two sides" to the global warming issue. THERE ARE NOT TWO SIDES. Every single article supported global warming caused by MAN, us, the things we pollute with.

Scientific articles in in professional journals are 'refereed' meaning they have to pass muster to meet the required scientific quality of the journal. Maybe nobody tried to submit an alternative explanation and none were rejected. That's a problem right there. They lack evidence. Maybe a bunch were submitted and bounced. In either case, these scientists don't have a political agenda, they have standards. THERE ARE NOT TWO SIDES TO THE ARGUMENT. Global warming is a reality.

The news media, to their eternal shame (and I hope they're sued for this), has about a 50-50% reporting on YES - NO on man caused global warming. They either don't know about the scientific journals or they don't care. The spokes people for the NO it's just a "cycle" are tightly associated with energy concerns, period. They bark for master as told. They cannot publish real theory or findings because THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR THEIR ARGUMENT AGAINST MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING.

The article from "The Independent" is great journalism. The science editors there were sitting around talking and they realized that the global warming tipping point, point of no return, had actually been passed in the previous month or two. Different people collect data and they don't share in real time but the British journalists had it all and they did the math. They ran over to a conference in London and presented this to the scientists who happened to be there. The scientists had a big gasp and now the consensus is WE ARE PAST THE TIPPING. We can only mitigate, diminish to a degree the impact.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN FOR SURE

For sure, the ice on the two poles, North and South WILL ALL MELT

For sure, Greenland's glaciers will melt into the sea.

For sure, this will cause a 20 (TWENTY) foot rise in sea level. NO QUESTION AT ALL ABOUT THIS.

THE VERY LAST DROP OF ICE WILL MELT AROUND 2095 BUT THERE WILL BE PROBLEMS ALL ALONG THE WAY.

20 FOOT RISE IN SEA LEVEL MEANS:

- No more Florida Cities of any account: Tampa, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, etc etc. all gone, period, underwater by mid to late century. All gone, bye, no more.

- New Orleans, under lots of water, not there.

- No more Netherlands. They can't build big enough dikes to stop the 20 foot rise.

- No more Bangladesh, 140,000,000 people. A 3 foot rise in sea level coming soon will make 10% of the country uninhabitable. Millions will be on the march soon, but to where? Oh, that's right, India, Calcutta is closest and it's 9 feet below sea level.

- No Shanghai

That's a partial list

What to say to people like this? Get loaded up on your facts, particularly the scientific journal example. There is no alternative science here. Get loaded up on the loss of cities and other population areas. Get loaded up on the causes of this. They're all there in Gore's book and only the paid flacks are attacking it. It's heavily source checked and endorsed by the top scientists as accurate.

THEN let it rip. I like diplomacy and persuasion but these people are deliberately ignorant. Their ignorance is perpetuating a stall on doing anything which is going to kill millions and cause the economies of most countries to crash. Imagine the USA as Florida cities disappear. Don't take any shit, make them defend their position. Tell them it's not funny or amusing and that we only have 2-3 years to really mount a holy crusade against the worst outcomes. Do not take any shit. These people are the reason this is happening.

[patrice]

27. You're right. My frustration has to do with the fact that I DIDN'T have

anything to say to her.

It doesn't have to be a big fight (especially at work) but I can simply state a substantial fact and leave it there (for the time being).

[autorank]

29. Hey, I know how you feel...or "I can feel your pain" in the ass!

Just get the Gore book, see the film. It's all there. You wil be doing her a favor.

Good luck.

On edit: My previous message are the talking points. Go for it, but get the book:)