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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 28, 2009 - 04:00pm PT
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I read a funny quote: We're treating Mother Earth like Keith Moon treated a hotel room.
Just wondering, are there any more climate change skeptics out there? Or did they all die off from gagging on all the right-wing spin on the subject?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:03pm PT
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Hopefully they're as extinct as the Dodo, but with the amount of Christian traffic here lately, there might be a few left.
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dirtbag
climber
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:24pm PT
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Sorry, but I think the "It's happening but you go first" response is a cop out.
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dirtbag
climber
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:45pm PT
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Okay Dingus, you say you're not sure that anyone really knows how to stop it.
What do you mean by that? We know several ways to do reduce CO2 emissions. Preferably we will act in coordination with the rest of the world, but I also think we have a responsibility to lead and do the right thing if some other countries aren't interested.
Otherwise yeah, I think waiting for someone else to make the first move is a copout. It's a great way to do nothing.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:49pm PT
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DMT hits it right the first time. The issue is not about whether human activity is the cause of any changes in climates or if the changes are entirely natural. The question is "do any of the unaffordable targeted projects reduce the temperature of the globe, one fraction of a degree?" If reduce is what you want. Now they change the campaign from Global Warming to Global Climate Change, to include ice storms, heavy snows, huge rain events, etc. Or are they just more taxes, extracted in the name of fear, but this time on a global scale. Think of the great revenues involved in collecting a methane fee from every constituant on the plantet, in the name of the planet. So, I'm a skeptic too. I'm skeptical the governments have plans in place, that if only funded, will cool the planet; or change the planet, whatever is desired. Do I think our species is in trouble because of resource depletion and spoiling? You bet.
Arne
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rmsusa
Trad climber
Boulder
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:52pm PT
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I'm with Dingus & fattrad, but don't even care if it's human produced. We'll deal with it when it happens.
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dirtbag
climber
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:57pm PT
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I think the answers would be a lot more honest if you guys simply said "I just don't give a sh#t."
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 28, 2009 - 04:57pm PT
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I crossed the line towards accepting the science about a decade ago. I am also an earth scientest who approaches things with a fair degree of skepticism. That said, it should not change your mind. Arguments from authority, in a strict logical sense, are moot.
The subject is very difficult to wade through in the popular media. There are a lot of incoherent or downright untruthful methods out there to describe this. Within the industry I work in, acceptance of climate change conclusions is tantamount to painting yourself with a scarlet letter. Or the red badge of courage depending on how you want to look at it.
It IS something that would be tremendously difficult to address. Very expensive. So, I doubt many will admit that the emperor has no clothes as long as it is hitting them in the pocketbooks(see DMT and ionlyski posts above). Expense has nothing to do with science. I remember being taught geosynclinal theory (wiki that thing up) in college by an old fart who hadn't accepted plate tectonics. Humans can't stop volcanoes and earthquakes yet, so the pocketbook issue is moot. The science is what matters.
I find it very disturbing that politics and emotion has intruded and manipulated science .That is not the way to get good answers. Of course, either side of the issue claims the high ground here. In the past there is the great example of locking Galileo up in a room for the rest of his life, but it didn't change much looking back.
Things amost certainly WILL keep changing. It isn't like an asteroid hitting the earth that will end all life, but one of my meteorologist friends suggested that Saskatchewan would be a good place to invest in property.
For the grand kids.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:13pm PT
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I DO care though Dirtbag. Most of my life, I'd probably side with the tree hugging, salmon saving, don't dirt bike in the wilderness types, whilst growing up in a predominant timber town.
I just don't believe our government is here to help. If it's conservation you want from me, I'll pitch in.
Arne
Edited above-Dirtbag, not Dingus
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dirtbag
climber
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:15pm PT
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There are alternative energy sources available and in development, there are fuel efficient vehicles available, conservation improvements, etc, etc. etc. There are alternatives to burning carbon, maybe not complete alternatives, but they are there and would allow us to still have very comfortable lives.
What we have is a lack of will to make the necessary changes. Or maybe not...we might learn soon enough.
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dirtbag
climber
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:16pm PT
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There is going to have to be government involvement, but I'm not a government hater like many here. Individual conservation is important, but there is going to have to be a larger scale coordination to make the kind of infractructure changes required.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:27pm PT
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So, you want money from me, the little guy, for a plan the government you love so much, says is going to cool the planet (or prevent the climate from changing). Give me one good reason they should be trusted with my money to effect this change. What trillion dollar program do they have that will make things better?
Arne
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:27pm PT
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Whoa! 17 posts and it's getting scary. Is this the forum for the flat earth society?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:36pm PT
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Jim d,
There are 17 (now 18) posts because there are multiple issues here. Anyone skeptical of a change in overall temperatures on earth should contact Chiloe, who referred me to excellent and, in my opinion, irrefuatable, sources showing its existence.
The more difficult question is what to do about it. As ionlyski correctly points out, it is rather difficult to determine any rational cost/benefit of proposed actions. I've done some work on trying to estimate marginal costs and benefits, but am rather far from meaningful conclusions. The State of California has done some good work collecting sources from the academic community, but the conclusion from those sources was, essentially, "this is really hard, and there's no good answer yet."
When we decide on, for example, carbon emission goals, we are making economic decisions (i.e., how to use scarce resources). The problem is we lack the economic data (i.e. marginal costs) to make those choices with any rational basis. That dilemma is the real reason for the skepticism. It's less about the warming (although the need for statistical sampling to answer even that questionscauses some people pause) and more an aversion to making economic decisions with ad hoc, non-economic data.
John
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2009 - 05:38pm PT
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It is a cynical con game.
Dingus, talk about sounding cynical...
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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Laguna Beach, CA
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:45pm PT
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My take on our response is this. Reducing carbon emissions is going to be expensive. However, reducing carbon will not come without benefits to our society beside slowing global warming.
Using less foreign oil means improving our balance of trade, supporting domestic industry, and improving security by reducing political leverage of foreign powers.
There are smart measures and there are dumb ones. Ethanol subsidies are an example of a dumb measure. Tax breaks for solar and wind power projects are smart. Government research dollars in support of lower cost solar panels is smart.
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nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:48pm PT
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Dingus, more data needed on your terlit reading... if ocean is at it's highest level in 125M years, that does not say anything about how fast or slow the process has been; it may be that all that change happened in the last 150 years or it may have been a gradual process.
It would be interesting to see consolidated real science that shows that present CO2 levels are outside of historical levels when accounting for hundreds of millions of years worth of cycles. Even looking back 10,000 years can be pretty misleading to understand the scale and natural cycles of geochemistry.
It would also be interesting to see a study that estimates the global CO2 emissions of human-related activity, and then use this volume of gas in simulations of the present Earth atmosphere (gas and volume compositions) and estimate the increase of trapping re-radiated heat.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sep 28, 2009 - 05:49pm PT
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I am particularly of the 'we have 10 years to act crowd - lying motherf*#kers.
Dingus, I know a fair number of pretty serious climate scientists who believe the
time to act is fast running out, if it hasn't already. The phrase, "the sting is in the tail"
(meaning the consequences from greenhouse gas buildup will become much worse
later this century, when it's too late to stop them) keeps coming up.
So I wonder, how you came to "know" that these scientists are lying motherf*#kers?
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