From: steve (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 11:20:52 MST
No, I don't think that is what Mike is saying, he is arguing that things are
much less certain than much of the reporting we get supposes. A lot of this
is being pumped up because it suits a particular political agenda (the same
is also true in the opposite direction). One problem is the lack of
historical perspective in much of this discussion. The historical evidence
(of the kind Mike Lorrey mentions) suggests that global temperatures are
back to where they were in the 11th/12th centuries. The Earth (outside
Antarctica) probably is getting warmer but not in a way that's without
historical precedent - which suggests it isn't anthropogenic. Steve Davies
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Kenny" <seankenny@blueyonder.co.uk>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: CLIMATE: Cooling, not warming...
> On Saturday 02 February 2002 12:00 am, you wrote:
>
> Oh right , now I see. Global warming theory is a conspiracy against
> Libertarians. I think the jury's still out, and despite your protestations
> most climatologists do believe the earths avaerage temperature is rising
and
> weather change is accelerating, yours is a minority view; but it must be
> lovely to be so certain about almost everything.
>
> > Sean Kenny wrote:
> > > This isn't necessarily evidence that global warming isn't happening.
> > > Climatic scientists are pretty much agreed that we are undergoing
massive
> > > climate change all over the planet. The arguement seems to me to be
> > > about whether this is down to human activity or whether this is the
> > > natural pattern of activity of the worlds climatic systems. In other
> > > words - the world is getting warmer, but this is normal and we better
get
> > > used to it.
> >
> > Uh, most emphatically NO, most scientists are not agreed, at least in
> > the way you mean. In fact, the majority do not agree that there is a
> > significant anthropogenic warming trend. ALL scientists do agree that
> > "we are undergoing climate change", but that is a semantically neutral
> > statement which only recognises that the world climate is not a stasis,
> > it is a dynamic system with a myriad of inputs and outputs that change
> > over time. Saying that "we are undergoing climate change" is true even
> > if that climate change is that we are going into an ice age. Even if
> > part of the world is getting cooler and part getting warmer, to sum out
> > to zero, this still means that "we are undergoing climate change".
> >
> > The reason why there is so much doubt about warming, and anthropogenic
> > warming in particular, is that the period of data collection is so very
> > short for those claiming that there is catastrophic change happening,
> > generally only a 30-100 year period. Longer range studies, based on
> > things like tree rings and ice cores, show that climatic change does
> > not, in fact, happen, to the degree claimed by proponents of big
> > government taxes on energy and everything else, nor do ice ages start in
> > as little as a decade (or stop).
> >
> > For example, the oceans rose approximately 400 feet over 1000 years
> > during the end of the last ice age, around 9000 BC, but it wasn't until
> > 5600 BC that sea levels got high enough to breach the Bosporus and
> > Dardanelles to flood the Black Sea basin, whose freshwater surface was
> > some 135 feet below sea level.
> >
> > The antarctic ice cap, for instance, has been completely stable, and
> > growing slowly over the long term, for the past 15 million years or so,
> > ever since Antarctica broke away from South America and the circum polar
> > ocean current became permanently established. This is a known fact that
> > the cataclysmists have had to recently concede in the scientific world,
> > but the media has refused to acknowledge this major setback for the
> > big-government/tax-everything-to-pay-for-climate-control agenda. The
> > human race will never be flooded with 90 meters of seawater worldwide
> > from an antarctic collapse. At worst, we may see a 3-9 meter change in
> > sea level IF the Greenland Ice Cap collapses, however doing things like
> > flooding the Caspian basin will mitigate this to a large degree, as will
> > the growth of the Antarctic Ice Cap created by increases in evaportion
> > at the equator.
> >
> > The melting of the arctic ice sheet will not change ocean levels even
> > while the climate changes, since the ice is already floating. What will
> > happen is the increase in open ocean in the arctic will increase
> > evaporation and thus increase precipitation in Greenland, thus helping
> > to mitigate any increase in melting that occurs in the margins.
> >
> > > On Friday 01 February 2002 11:53 am, you wrote:
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Spike Jones" <spike66@attglobal.net>
> > > > To: <extropians@extropy.org>
> > > > Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 4:50 AM
> > > > Subject: Re: CLIMATE: Cooling, not warming...
> > > >
> > > > > > From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey@datamann.com>
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Subject: CLIMATE: Cooling, not warming...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > It seems that the West Antarctice Ice Sheet is getting
thicker,
> > > > > > > not thinner, and temperatures are dropping now, not rising....
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62336-2002Jan17.ht
> > > > > > >ml
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > So much for the cataclysmists....
> > > > > >
> > > > > > steve wrote: Maybe we'll now see a return to the predictions
that
> > > > > > were
> > > >
> > > > rife
> > > >
> > > > > > in the early
> > > > > > 70's, of a new Ice Age! Steve Davies
> > > > >
> > > > > What I want to see is if the media hype engine will rev up as high
> > > > > for global cooling as it did for global warming. Will it be
> > > > > symmetrical?
> > > >
> > > > Will
> > > >
> > > > > there be political movements urging us to hurl more greenhouse
gases
> > > > > into the atmosphere to save our planet from the advancing ice?
Will
> > > > > there be international treaties to pressure nations into cutting
down
> > > > > some of their CO2 hogging lifeforms?
> > > > >
> > > > > Imagine the horrors: Oceans could recede, vast stretches of frozen
> > > > > tundra could be covered in ice, beach resort towns could be left
> > > > > hundreds of meters inland, causing the tourist industry to suffer.
> > > > > Cataclysmic
> > > >
> > > > change
> > > >
> > > > > in climate could burst forth over a mere few centuries! How will
we
> > > > > ever cope? spike
> > > >
> > > > Excellent! I can see a wonderful spoof TV documentary right now.
> > > > Seriously, even when there was a mini-panic about global cooling in
the
> > > > early 1970s (remember "The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice" ?)
it
> > > > never got the coverage of global warming. I think it's obvious why -
> > > > global warming can be used to argue for lots of government controls
and
> > > > getting rid of technology but you can't do that with cooling, quite
the
> > > > opposite in fact. In fact as people like Matt Ridley have pointed
out
> > > > global cooling is a much more credible threat than global warming,
> > > > given that the default setting for the planet's climate right now is
an
> > > > ice age. Also, all the evidence suggests that the end of an
> > > > interglacial and the onset of an ice age happens *very* quickly -
less
> > > > than ten years is the figure usually given. Steve Davies
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