Comment 20765

By Superman (registered) | Posted April 04, 2008 at 09:45:05

Ryan, the data stops at 2005 and an 8 year mini-cooling phase is quite a while (just over 5% of the 150 year period).

I have an account and I'm posting from it but it still won't let me do links. I'm probably not doing it right.

Your statement about the warming during the industrial period partially being due to human activities is what I've been saying but I believe the PARTIALLY should be defined. I haven't seen a breakdown of what "human activities" actually constitutes w.r.t. CO2 emissions. The reason that Gore et al. say our actual EMISSIONS (driving a car, breathing etc) have to decrease by such a drastic amount is because they're actually only a very small piece of the equation and therefore they'd have to change by a greater amount in order to effect the overall equation. I believe that human effect lies in what seems to be a macabre twist of what our city administration can't do: multifaceted attacks. At the same time as increasing emissions, we've chopped down on trees, increased landfill size, etc. As such, I'm not a proponent of attacking SUV drivers for driving them and I don't believe in essentially forcing ppl to purchase smaller vehicles that drive using McDonald's fry oil by guilt tripping them into believing that it will greatly affect the environment. I'm also not supportive of flap-jaws who fly around on personal jets which emit massive amounts of CO2 per person on board while telling the average person they should spend more to purchase electric vehicles and so forth.

Also, global climate models have known accuracy problems specifically when it comes to taking into account the feedback responses by nature itself. This is why the Aqua satellite was launched and also why it's data is so important. You mention taking arbitrary points of reference, how is my point of reference less arbitrary than yours?

I'll reiterate my position here: I don't believe that what has been shown by Gore and company is an accurate prediction of what will happen to Earth's climate due to human emissions of CO2 nor do I agree with his rather Draconian measures to address it. I believe that Earth Hour is a bandaid to make people feel better without them actually making the choice to live a better lifestyle. I believe that although we're in what Ryan calls a mini-cooling phase, there's a possibility for the temperatures to increase OR decrease as a result of the feedback effects of nature. I don't believe that guilt-tripping individuals into purchasing "eco-friendly" items is ethical because the basis of this argument is rather shaky. I don't believe that climate models can accurately predict future climate conditions until the feedback reactions of nature itself are properly integrated into the equation and this hasn't been done yet.

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