Author Topic: New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning  (Read 18606 times)

Offline eeergo


Don't tell Spain about MIT's study. The loss of productivity due to their increasing utility rates and government subsidies of alternative energy have been well documented. Yet this nation with 20% unemployment was recently cited as a model by the Obama administration in the same sentence as job creation. Frightening.

I don't know what "well-documented" means to you, but I can tell you alt-energy subsidies were not the cause of our catastrophic economic situation, or at least played a very secondary role. Look at Germany, or the Netherlands, for example.

Actually, a much more important cause that made the crisis attack us even more ferociously than other countries was just what you're defending: an unsustainable model that relied on constant growth, as Mr Columbus has put it (sometimes, even on constant growth of the growth, if you know what I mean ;) ), to put on top of Spain's decades-long problems. Also bear in mind that 20% unemployment rate doesn't mean the same here as in, say, the US. Many analysts believe a rate of as much as 8% is structural to the economic system.

That unsustainable model was based on wild, unrestrained competition in residential construction. There were subsidies, but it was largely a so-called "self-regulated" business. We should now what "self-regulated" means in capitalist terms by now, however...  ::) When the market saturated, that is, when the growth could not be sustained in the closed environment of the country (the demand was long gone, but speculation and "self-regulation" still kept the wheel going), collapse was swift.

In the village I spend my holidays in, more than half of the commercial space was taken by real-estate agencies, which in the course of a few months, all but disappeared. And surprise!  :o We ended up with millions of immigrant labor, who were first exploited and introduced innecessarily to the system, and then were left jobless. Furthermore, this "industry" was largely dependent on non-qualified workers, so even if a crisis wasn't going on, it would be very difficult to relocate them.

Another pillar of this model was (and still is) agricultural and fishing subsidies. Surprisingly again, an environmentally unsustainable system dragging down the rest of the economy. Half of Spain is covered in inefficient farmland, wasting water with obsolete techniques, and while the manufacturing industry languishes or emmigrates, Spain's representatives fight lost battles over in the European Commission to sustain this stubborn model.

Meanwhile, innovation and non-tertiary industries that struggle to grow with little support get drowned under every one the (frequent) crisis that big, old-fashioned development model suffers. Most of them are predictable, which makes the situation even more ridiculous.

Many of the reports I read point to the subsidies for alt-energies being one of the very few positive areas in our economy. They stimulate R&D, basic science, engineering and heavy industry, set the basis for an important exporting industry, and puts the country in one of the scarce world-leading roles it can boast about. There was some concern about over-inflated subsidies, and the Ministry of Industry talked about cancelling them at one point. We're known by the lack of any form of scientific attitude (even in economics) in our political leaders, so a more rational approach was approved recently.

Just as the outcome of the environmental crisis is, if we stubbornly refuse to look for alternatives and stop wasting resources (and not just worry about CO2 emissions, note I'm talking about a wider issue than GW, but very related to it)

As a sidenote, funny you argue about 3rd world development as an excuse for not changing our ways. Many of these countries are worse than they were 50 years ago because of this economic model, and those which aren't see their growth hampered by it.
-DaviD-

Offline mikegi

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I am glad too, but the funny thing is that if they had thought this way and if we all would be living the same way as we did back then, you probably wouldn't be any less content with your life.
So, ignorance is bliss? I am not content with today's level of technology. I think we've barely scratched the surface. Medicine is primitive -- there are too many chronic diseases (arthritis, etc.) that cause suffering. Computer technology is primitive.

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Again, I am by no means against technological growth and development, just the idea that we need it at any cost and that we cannot possibly function without this absurdly large amount of it.
You are for ending growth and development. You can call it "sustainability" but it will rapidly become "subsistence". There is no middle ground.


Offline madscientist197

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Interesting debate. What I find the most frightening is that if you dare disagree that GW is "a problem that needs to be wrestled with" (as Griffin tried to argue), you are immediatelly cast aside as some kind of right wing extremist. It's impossible to even discuss this topic without getting this type of response. The debate isn't scientific at all.

Yes, I agree, it's completely polarised now. I think a part of it is that intellegent people don't like to be bullied into thinking a certain way (even if it is correct) and why a lot of this 'debate' is counterproductive (because few people are actually listening to the other side, just metaphorically bashing each other over the head). I suspect over the long run, a lot of the change in opinion will be driven by generational change.

One unfortunate aspect of the GW debate is that much of it is driven by the Green lobby. This means that they idealise an agrarian culture and aren't willing to use nuclear power, which is probably the best option to maintain our standard of living. If the Green lobby told everyone what that would do to our standard of living, I don't think many people would be willing to accept it. (I actually like Greens, it's just that it's not a lifestyle that suits everyone!)
« Last Edit: 07/09/2009 02:17 am by madscientist197 »
John

Offline hop

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One unfortunate aspect of the GW debate is that much of it is driven by the Green lobby.
Ah yes, those notorious geenie lobbyists like the AAAS, the worlds national academies, NASA, the British Royal Society and the thousands of scientists who do the actual work that ends up in the IPCC reports. Oh and now the G8 leaders.
« Last Edit: 07/09/2009 03:27 am by hop »

Offline Antares

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I always wonder what the motivation of people is who think that man-made global warming is a large conspiracy of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people while no-one can provide a shred of hard evidence for that conspiracy.

My jury is still out, but it's interesting that a lot of graybeard scientists whose careers have been established and who don't need to worry about putting food on the table are skeptics.  It doesn't take a large conspiracy if you have a few rich individuals, foundations and corporations with a stake as the ones providing the research money.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see which researchers they will support and which ones they won't, nor to see what results said researchers will reach.

Who paid for the MIT/Pew studies?
« Last Edit: 07/09/2009 04:22 am by Antares »
If I like something on NSF, it's probably because I know it to be accurate.  Every once in a while, it's just something I agree with.  Facts generally receive the former.

Offline madscientist197

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One unfortunate aspect of the GW debate is that much of it is driven by the Green lobby.
Ah yes, those notorious geenie lobbyists like the AAAS, the worlds national academies, NASA, the British Royal Society and the thousands of scientists who do the actual work that ends up in the IPCC reports. Oh and now the G8 leaders.


Hey don't distort what I'm saying. I NEVER implied that. I have the utmost respect for those groups. The problem is the less scientifically literate groups. Thank you for proving my point about partisanship. :p

An example, then -- here in New Zealand the Green party is the biggest force for CO2 reduction etc. I support that. But I don't support their anti-nuclear stance or the idea that everyone wants to live in some sort of communal agrarian living. There is an intermediate position which some people don't seem to want to grasp, which doesn't have to involve the destruction of our modern technological society or the destruction of the environment due to climate change.
« Last Edit: 07/09/2009 04:14 am by madscientist197 »
John

Offline Antares

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I'm not at all denying the globe is warming. But look at something from a climatologist that doesn't have a hand in the money bucket either way: http://bit.ly/SBKrF

Since I don't trust anything coming out of Huntsville ;) here's another one.  Forget the URL, this TEENAGER with no preconceptions was profiled on NPR.
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.6

One of her central theories in the purported global temperature rise is the placement of measurement sites in urban islands of heat.
If I like something on NSF, it's probably because I know it to be accurate.  Every once in a while, it's just something I agree with.  Facts generally receive the former.

Offline hop

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My jury is still out, but it's interesting that a lot of graybeard scientists whose careers have been established and who don't need to worry about putting food on the table are skeptics.
There are far more similar "greybeards" on the other side. Those making up the organizations listed in my previous post, for example.
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It doesn't take a large conspiracy if you have a few rich individuals, foundations and corporations with a stake as the ones providing the research money.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see which researchers they will support and which ones they won't, nor to see what results said researchers will reach.
This is a bizarre theory. Most corporations and governments would have a very strong interesting in proving AGW false. Proving that you didn't need to make reductions in CO2 would essentially be saving many billions or trillions of dollars. If there were promising avenues to do this, you'd think that this would have flourished under the Bush administration at least. Instead, they were dragged, kicking and screaming, to the eventual admission that AGW was in fact real.

Nor is it credible for a small group to do this. How do they get the AAAS and national academies on board ?

Forget the URL, this TEENAGER with no preconceptions was profiled on NPR.
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.6

One of her central theories in the purported global temperature rise is the placement of measurement sites in urban islands of heat.
I suppose this doesn't matter if you give more credence to the online postings of a 15 year old than statements from the AAAS and Royal Society, but this effect is accounted for in published research.

madscientist197
I guess I jumped to the conclusion that you were saying the AGW issue was simply a product of "green" campaigners. I apologize for directing the sarcasm at you, although I think the point still stands ;)

Offline vt_hokie

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Interesting debate. What I find the most frightening is that if you dare disagree that GW is "a problem that needs to be wrestled with" (as Griffin tried to argue), you are immediatelly cast aside as some kind of right wing extremist.

Likewise, if you believe that it is a problem that needs to be addressed, you are cast aside as some sort of extremist liberal.  Frankly, I'm tired of the name calling from both sides.

Offline mr.columbus

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One unfortunate aspect of the GW debate is that much of it is driven by the Green lobby.
Ah yes, those notorious geenie lobbyists like the AAAS, the worlds national academies, NASA, the British Royal Society and the thousands of scientists who do the actual work that ends up in the IPCC reports. Oh and now the G8 leaders.


Hey don't distort what I'm saying. I NEVER implied that. I have the utmost respect for those groups. The problem is the less scientifically literate groups. Thank you for proving my point about partisanship. :p

An example, then -- here in New Zealand the Green party is the biggest force for CO2 reduction etc. I support that. But I don't support their anti-nuclear stance or the idea that everyone wants to live in some sort of communal agrarian living. There is an intermediate position which some people don't seem to want to grasp, which doesn't have to involve the destruction of our modern technological society or the destruction of the environment due to climate change.

Just to response to the nuclear power point you are making. As an engineer, I am very much pro-nuclear power because I know that modern power plants are safe and that the issue of long-term storage of nuclear waste can be tackled and is tackled right now.

But personally I'd say the nuclear power debate is beside the issue. First we need to have ordinary people look at the actual temperature data, greenhouse gas emissions data, studies that show that the sun's activity has actually gone down in the last 30 years and not up etc. and then not just tell them "look, so we got human made global warming", but ask them what explanation they can come up with for the change. I think this way they will realize that we ARE facing a problem here and that it is a big problem costing hundreds of billions each year already and costing lives as well, not just in 3rd world countries or developing countries like China etc., but in first world countries too. And even more so, it makes many million people's live miserable due to drying up farm land in one area and floods in another area, more severe winds and storms in the next area etc.

P.S. I also always wondered why people were attacking campaigns like "Save the Polar Bears". Year, they are an officially endangered species. Will the world change if they are gone? Probably not. Is it good that they face extinction? I'd say hell no.

Offline mr.columbus

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Interesting debate. What I find the most frightening is that if you dare disagree that GW is "a problem that needs to be wrestled with" (as Griffin tried to argue), you are immediatelly cast aside as some kind of right wing extremist.

Likewise, if you believe that it is a problem that needs to be addressed, you are cast aside as some sort of extremist liberal.  Frankly, I'm tired of the name calling from both sides.

Very well said. I rather much prefer a fact based discussion. Like the DIRECT proposal compared to Ares I and Ares V or Not-Shuttle-C or EELVs would be discussed. We would talk about payloads, TLI numbers, structural loads issues or lunar lander mass and LOC numbers. We won't be accusing each other of conspiracies on both sides (hopefully) or coming up with things like "the reason Ares I is such a mess is because it's painted orange" instead of making reasonable arguments about TO issues etc.

Offline spacecase

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I am starting to agree that there is a rise in global temperatures overall. I don't agree that it is mostly attributed to humans.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned that Jupiter and Mars are also experiencing global warming too. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

We may need to take actions based on data. The problem with weather and climate is that it is so complex that you can only say what has happened, not what is happening.

By the way, did anyone else notice in that chart with temperatures and CO2 levels that the CO2 levels were actually lagging the temperature changes?

Offline vt_hokie

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We may need to take actions based on data. The problem with weather and climate is that it is so complex that you can only say what has happened, not what is happening.

Well, I guess you could say my brother is trying to say what is happening!  He's doing climate research - just moved to Hawaii in fact for a post-doc position after completing his Ph.D. in Meteorology at Penn State. 

Offline hop

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I am surprised that no one has mentioned that Jupiter and Mars are also experiencing global warming too. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
I suggest you look a bit deeper than a superficial piece in national geographic. Solar forcing has been looked at in depth, and it doesn't cut it (as pointed out by the other scientists in that article). Moreover, at least in Mars case, more likely causes have been identified.
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We may need to take actions based on data. The problem with weather and climate is that it is so complex that you can only say what has happened, not what is happening.
You don't need to model things perfectly to have a high confidence AGW will happen:
1) The increase in CO2 due to human activity is indisputable.
2) The physics underlying the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 is also extremely well established.
If you accept those two facts, AGW must be real to some degree, unless there is a negative feedback that counteracts it. Unfortunately, the positive feedback appears to dominate.

That leaves room for debate over the magnitude, but you can get reasonable estimates of the overall heat balance with much simpler calculations. Imagine you are heating a pan of water on a stove: Modeling the chaotic flow of convection cells is fiendishly difficult, but you don't have to do that to predict the temperature will increase, and make a decent estimate of how quickly it will happen.
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By the way, did anyone else notice in that chart with temperatures and CO2 levels that the CO2 levels were actually lagging the temperature changes?
Which chart are you referring to ? This is likely true of past warming episodes (and is expected because there's feedback involved, and those episodes were not triggered by overdeveloped apes burning trillions of tons of hydrocarbons!) but AFAIK is not supported for the current trend.

Offline mikegi

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My jury is still out, but it's interesting that a lot of graybeard scientists whose careers have been established and who don't need to worry about putting food on the table are skeptics.
There are far more similar "greybeards" on the other side. Those making up the organizations listed in my previous post, for example.
When did the number of scientists, for or against, become one of the tests of the validity of a theory?

Offline hop

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When did the number of scientists, for or against, become one of the tests of the validity of a theory?
For people who are not experts in a particular scientific field, a strong consensus among experts is a useful (but not perfect) indicator of which theories are credible or represent the best interpretation of the available data. This is a direct result of the fact that the scientific method and peer review actually work a large percentage of the time. History strongly supports the value of this indicator.

FWIW, those who aren't convinced that such a consensus exists regarding AGW might want to look at http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550
« Last Edit: 07/10/2009 05:32 am by hop »

Offline zapkitty

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What the consensus argument overlooks is two factors.

One is that corporations... which wield many of the political privileges of human citizens while being vastly powerful, completely unintelligent and utterly amoral... many of the most powerful of these have a vested interest in the status quo especially where oil and to a somewhat lesser extent coal are concerned. 

Bad enough... but add to that...

Second is that right-wing conservatives... (here comes the autoresponse rejoinders screaming in at mach 5 before I even finish :) )... have built up a specialty line in debunking solid scientific theory and promoting false equivalences in psuedoscientific "theories" that happened to match their political and/or religious beliefs.

And so it's no surprise that the corporations adopted the conservative techniques and that the conservatives made opposing the very existence of solid climate change theories a part of the core conservative platform.

Imagine "creation science" with major corporate pr and research backing to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and, unlike the creationist dreck, warming skeptics have some scientific merit to back it up.

And that's why scientists who've never taken a penny of  the corporate efforts are often tarred with the same brush as the actual corporate shills... they're both saying similar things and the corporations have been caught lying through their teeth on this matter so many times...

It's not the fault of the actual skeptics, but they're being identified with a corporate hard-sell campaign that uses many of the right wing's most egregious anti-science tactics.

Again... a lot of the global warming doubt in the public minds is the result of pure BS that has been and is being furiously generated by a combined corporate-conservative tag team matchup for years.

If you're a true warming skeptic you'll need to shout to be heard above the roar of nonsense noise being generated by the corps and the wingnuts... and you'll also need to be careful your words are not incorporated into the pr campaign as supporting all the wingnut concepts you'd never say or subscribe to.
« Last Edit: 07/10/2009 06:41 am by zapkitty »

Offline butters

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In my view, the case for anthropogenic climate change (even if not accurately or comprehensively described as "warming") primarily due to the sudden rapid combustion of prehistoric biomass deposits is fairly compelling.

However, it strikes me as odd that the environmentalist movement has focused on climate change when the case for anthropogenic ecological decline of wildlife stocks and biodiversity due to pollution from industrial and agricultural waste is so much stronger and virtually irrefutable.

Carbon may not be an adequate proxy for all the other ways in which petroleum man inflicts long-term damage on the biosphere.  Over 75% of the world's wild fisheries are exhausted or nearly so, but it isn't because of climate change.

Half of the world's tropical forests have disappeared since 1850, and that's not an effect of climate change either, although it could be a cause.  Many of the world's great rivers no longer reach their mouths, a fact that also cannot be attributed to climate change.

The changes in human civilization that are primarily responsible for Earth's rapid ecological decline were, by and large, empowered by the unsustainable depletion of prehistoric biomass that may very well be warming or otherwise changing the climate. 

But this is like saying that if we don't slow down our compulsive depletion and contamination of the ecosystems upon which we depend for healthy food and water supplies, then certain low-lying coastal areas may be under water some day.

Offline GI-Thruster

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I've been watching this debate for fifteen years and it never ceases to amaze me that those with the most passion and most caustic words are those who lack anything resembling facts--both sides guilty here.

Just IMHO, it almost does not matter who's right.  Whether the planet is warming or cooling, whether it's caused by human industry, it just doesn't matter.

If the worst is true, caps and trades, scrubbing the air, none of it is anything but a Band-Aid.  And this is probably the very worst part of the problem: the alarmists have convinced people both that there's this terrible problem and that it is fixable.  It is NOT fixable with wind turbines and shutting off your lights.  They know this though they won't admit this except in those rare circumstances when they start talking about population control and did you know how many acres of wheat it takes to grow a cow?  We must all become vegetarians too.  Cows fart too much, they're heating the planet.

If there really is a problem the only thing that approaches a real solution is to remove fossil fuels entirely.  As it happens, this is a great idea even if the planet is not warming as it leaves more room for cow farts.

So, if you want to presume like the politically motivated masses and their attendant drones that AGW is real, the thing to do is work on energy storage and generation that does not rely upon fossil fuels.  Batteries, caps, fission and fusion.  Certainly, burning oil and coal and then scrubbing the air won't work in China because they won't care.  You have to give the Chinese and everyone else on the planet a fiscally acceptable alternative.  Wind turbines are not an alternative and neither is tofu-burgers.

Offline GI-Thruster

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When did the number of scientists, for or against, become one of the tests of the validity of a theory?
For people who are not experts in a particular scientific field, a strong consensus among experts is a useful (but not perfect) indicator of which theories are credible or represent the best interpretation of the available data. This is a direct result of the fact that the scientific method and peer review actually work a large percentage of the time. History strongly supports the value of this indicator.

FWIW, those who aren't convinced that such a consensus exists regarding AGW might want to look at http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550

I understand the argument from scientific consensus but you need to recognize this is nothing like the peer review process.  All of this debate is ruled by preconceptions and politics.  There are almost no open minds.  There is very little legitimate scientific investigation.  Almost all the investigators have made up their minds in advance.  If you look at the wretched data manipulation and the fact this is acceptable when on this topic, you realize the system is broken.  Politics interjected itself into the process and now the entire system is broken. . .broken. . .broken!

I'm not saying there's a conspiracy there'd need to be some guidance for a conspiracy.  What we have instead is everyone pretending their opinion matters despite the issue is so complex that only a few of the best scientists in the world could hope to understand it and none of them are climatiologists.

Consensus doesn't mean anything here.

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