Is Climate Change Real? The Definitive Answer, YES !!
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations and average global temperatures for the past 550 million years on Earth.
Carbon dioxide levels from Brener (2001) and temperature from Scotese (2002)
The only conclusion possible from even the most casual review of the historical record is yes.
THE CLIMATE DOES CHANGE!!
... as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
During the Mesozoic era, CO2 concentrations peaked above 2,500 PPM. Compare to 400 PPM today.
During the Mesozoic era, the temperature was at least 8C hotter, on average than today. At least 14F for my US readers.
Rather than being detrimental to life, this peak in atmospheric CO2 and temperatures coincided with the greatest eruption of life the Earth has ever experienced. This period produced almost all of the modern plant and animal forms we know today.
There is a cabal from the left, trying to convince the sheeple that the world is in dire danger if CO2 levels go up from 400 PPM to 450 PPM, and the temperature rises by 2C on average world-wide.
Take a look at the video below to understand what the terrible noxious CO2 pollution can do to plant life.
Keep in mind that the largest explosion of new life on earth occurred when CO2 concentrations exceeded 2000 PPM.
While the end of world warnings from today are referencing an increase from 400 PPM to 450 PPM.
So what is all the noise about from environmentalists and the left on "global warming" and "climate change"?
This is really an anti-capitalist cabal that is trying to impose a global carbon tax as their ultimate goal. A new global carbon tax is a new revenue source that would support new and expanding socialist programs, to further capture and enslave the sheeple that aren't smart enough to understand science.
Questions from the liberals, how you should answer, and the question you need to ask back.
1. Do you believe in global warming? YES!!
Do you understand that temperature was more than 10F hotter on average in the past?
2. Do you believe in climate change? YES !!
Do you understand that climate cycles on earth span millions of years, not just 100's of years?
3. Do you believe CO2 increases in the last 100 years are man-made? PROBABLY YES !! Certainly mankind has been a contributor to the CO2 increases that have occured in the last 100 years.
Do you understand that CO2 levels were more than 2000 PPM during the time when most new life on Earth emerged?
4. Do you believe that CO2 is a noxious pollutant that must be controlled at any cost, else life on earth could end? NO!!
Do you understand that increasing CO2 levels will be a very positive factor in increasing plant growth, that will help feed the billions of humans that are going to need to be fed in the next centuries?
The global warming and climate change shills from the left do NOT have science on their side. They are trying to scare the sheeple, stampede the sheeple, into agreeing to yet one more form of taxation that would be used by the all-wise central authorities to develop more entitlement programs.
Don't be a sheeple !!
Please upvote and resteem if the information was interesting enough that you got to this point
Thanks for your continuing support.
STEEM On!!
DaveB
Climate change is real! the ONLY debate might be exactly what is causing it.. but you can be sure that what we do as a race in terms of fossil fuel burning is obviously not going to help!
Bearing in mind that we could easily now shift to completely renewable energy within a decade or so (with the right government support) and bearing in mind that we dont have an Earth 2... it might be prudent to quit the debate and get on with the changes that need to be made.
I always respect other ideas, but in this case i have to say.. as a wise man once said"
"this sh*t's godda stop"
A MAJOR side note, around 5 MILLION deaths per year can be attributed to fossil fuel burning worldwide. I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago if you are interested to read that:
Here's Why People Who Deny Global Warming Are Missing The Whole Point!
https://steemit.com/nature/@eco-alex/here-s-why-people-who-deny-global-warming-are-missing-the-whole-problem
Why do you say we can switch to renewables in 10 years if we have government support? Why not let the market decide when the right time is for a switch? If fossil fuels become scarce then price will go up. If alternate energy sources start to be purchased in volume, then their prices will go down.
And the free market will take care of the transition, at the moment that it is economical to do so.
Most governments do not have a good track record of trying to time market transitions. And many people don't think that it is a legitimate goal of government to spend tax dollars to force market transitions.
History is ripe with scandals when government tries to intervene and force market transitions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/specialreports/solyndra-scandal/
On the topic of 5 million deaths attributed to fossils fuels; do you have a summary of which countries that is occurring in? Check it out and I think you will find India and China at top of the list, but those are the countries exempt from reducing fossil fuel emissions.
How many deaths in China and India do you think can be prevented, by further reducing fossil fuel use in Europe and North America?
My recommendation is global warming deniers should get over it. It is probably getting slowly warmer over last 40 years.
But the proper answer is not the Paris Climate Accord. The proper answer is : so what?
I'm humble enough to know that human impacts on climate change are miniscule in the bigger picture of long term climate cycles. And I am humble enough to know that you're pushing on a rope to try to fight mother nature for long term climate cycles.
STEEM On!!
Because the governments manipulate the markets in many ways, not least by subsidising coal and limiting any progress on renewables.
Also the UK and Netherlands have terrible air quality that is linked to more deaths per year than we can really comprehend. The real issue is realising that we cant rely on the free markets to dictate our future. Why? Because there are zero ethics or any moral compass in the free market. We have to intervene at some point because we have much better clean solutions. With populations increasing we must start building a smarter and cleaner world.
Free markets have the same moral compass and ethics as the collective group that participates in that free market.
The question is do you trust in the collective wisdom of the free market? or do you trust more in the wisdom of a small number of "government elites" that will make rules on centralized basis to "help" the plebes.
Neither approach is perfect or foolproof.
Personally I have very low trust in most governments to make the best, or even close to best, decisions on a regular basis.
I recently found an interesting read on how government operates in Switzerland. On Steemit of course. That seemed like a format for government operation that would be more trusted.
STEEM On!!
Climate change has been going on since the beginning of the climate. Great article.
https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/_files/UNClimateScientistsSpeakOut.pdf
I never adhered to the "global warming", now retagged "climate change" swindle. CO2 is highly beneficial to plants, it is their food! Plants can definitely use some extra CO2, given the deforestation and destruction of ecosystems by man.
Exactly. The increase in global CO2 levels is real. It is being measured. What is also being measured is the positive impacts that the small CO2 increases to date are having on plant life. It is a partial counter balance to deforestation and destruction of ecosystems.
If you want to go down a path of arguing we should be putting more money into protecting diverse ecosystems, I am on board with that.
Just not on board with any program or project that starts with the assumption that CO2 is a pollutant. Everything after that point is a waste of time and money. CO2 is NOT A POLLUTANT.
STEEM On!!
CO2 levels have been fluctuating way before humankind existed. "Climate change" has been fluctuating for the whole of Earth's existence. These are all cyclical events that are linked to solar activity, they don't worry me one bit. It's funny how they shifted from "global warming" to the notion of "climate change". WTH does that mean? Absolutely NOTHING. Climate is changing all the time! Without climate change, we wouldn't have seasons. They make it sound like a bad disease. Utter nonsense.
Agree, up to the point about climate change and seasons.
Seasons are the result of earth rotating on its axis about the sun, and taking a year to make the cycle around the sun. Seasons is weather. Climate change occurs over millenia.
STEEM On!!
What I meant is, seasons experience ups and downs too. Some years they reach temperature highs (or lows), and the next years they can reach the opposite. Call it mini-climate change.
This is exactly true. And one point I want to make is that we haven't studied for long enough to have determined whether or not we are in a trough as far as temperatures are concerned.
The other thing is, Solar activity plays a huge role in atmosphere. In fact, it is the #1 driver of our climate. There are a number of scientists declaring that the sun appears to be going into a period of hibernation, which would cause the atmosphere of earth to cool to a large degree. There was a period in fairly recent history when the River Thames was frozen. And there are a number of people who are of the opinion that the Delaware River was frozen over as depicted in the famous painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze called "Washington Crossing the Delaware".
I've heard one solar scientist stating that as the sun gets more quiet, the earth will experience more volcanoes and earthquakes. As the planet begins to cool it's going to contract, putting pressure on everything under the crust resulting in: earthquakes and lava flows like popped pimples.
Interesting study that with greater co2 greater and better increase in plant growth, I leave my upvote.
I read a study a few years ago, I can't seem to find it again sadly, but the synopsis is: When the atmospheric heat increases, the trees and plants "sweat" and release more moisture which cools the atmosphere.
The other contention I have with the theory of AGW, is the fact that nobody, not 1 person, can definitively state how many undersea thermal vents and volcanoes are active and contributing to either warming oceans, OR heat release in general, since convection would end up warming our atmosphere to some degree if I understand the principle correctly.
Do we have the same climate as the Romans? Or even the same Climate as the Victorian era? No. Of course climate change is real. The real questions are: Is it warming or cooling? Is it because of Human activity?
The answer to these seem to be: It's cooling and climate is mainly driven by the sun. The same sun which is entering a phase of hibernation according to solar scientists.
Isn't it odd that in the 60's and 70's scientists were saying by 2020, the East coast would be buried in blizzard conditions, and BOTH hemispheres had a record cold june this year? Greenland set a July 4th record with -33 degrees celcius this year. Good luck with that warming.
Remember when the scientists tried to go to Antarctica during southern Hemisphere summer and they got caught in the ice? They called an icebreaker to help, which also got stuck. Then, finally, both ships were freed by the largest icebreaker in the world.
Fun.
Weather changes every year. Boats getting stuck in ice is weather. Climate changes on a millenial scale. We cannot deduce anything about climate change, from any event that only covers the span of one or 10 or 100 or even 1,000 years.
I agree with you.
Long term solar cycles that are completely outside our ability to ever control, have a large impact on climate.
STEEM On!!
Tell me, Dave, did we have hundreds of millions of people living in areas that were flooded in the Paleozoic era when the water levels rose due to melting icecaps?
I live in New Orleans. The streets just flooded here last week. It was crazy. I'm a bit more concerned than you are.
As for a carbon tax, I think it's a brilliant idea if the revenue is given as a dividend to everyone like in Alaska, instead of into government hands. The combo of a steadily rising carbon tax with the revenue distributed as a dividend in the US would increase the incomes of the bottom two-thirds of the population.
Fossil fuels are artificially cheap because the costs are externalized. A carbon tax is not an evil tax. It's a Pigovian tax. Pigovian taxes are designed to be market correcting.
Think of it this way. What if we were neighbors and I ran a business out of my home that put chemicals into the air that made you sick. Who should pay for your medical costs? You or me?
Now imagine your other neighbor was a competitor of mine but had to charge much more for not polluting our air. A pigovian tax recognizes that my costs are unfairly cheap because I'm making other people pay them. It adds a tax to me which puts me and my competitor on equal footing. Now the prices are the same and the better product can win in the market.
One more thing. You can believe anything you want to about temperatures, but keep in mind the rate of change. It's one thing to naturally go from one measurement to another in thousands of years. It's entirely another for the same change to occur in decades.
Basically, we all know from experience that we can grow from being two feet tall to six feet tall, but that's usually over the course of about 15 years. If you were to grow 4 feet in a matter of hours, I guarantee you that you would be a bit concerned, and that there would be some issues you'd experience, including death.
Well said, @scottsantens
Actually not. The reply fell back to the old con "CO2 is a pollutant". That is the heart of your delusion.
And concluded with a strawman argument of growing from 2 feet to 6 feet in hours, which no one is saying is happening.
There are long duration natural cycles running millions of years, which dwarf an individual human lifetime. Humans can't control weather tomorrow. It is hubris to think you can have a significant impact on long duration natural cycles.
Be humble. We can predict the long duration natural cycles. We survive if we learn to adapt and live within those cycles.
Have you heard of mini ice ages? Check the history of Britain's climate? Man had nothing to do with those. Must be climate change's fault, let's blame nature for being nature and declare war on it.
Dave,
Great post. The Sun is going into remission and we're staring at a Maunder Minimum as a number of solar cycles come together at the same time. We haven't felt it at the surface yet because of 1) confirmation bias and 2) because the planet is venting heat from the mantle as solar irradient flux backs off.
It's like it's 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun peaks at 12 but the hottest part of the day is around 3pm as the ground vents the heat it absorbed earlier back into the air.
But, the sun has already started going down.
Agreed. Solar cycles are a major part of the long term natural cycles that human's are not going to have any success trying to change.
Tilting at windmills if we don't do an honest assessment of what we can impact, and what we cannot realistically impact in a meaningful way.
Solar cycles will come and go long after the human species is extinct
And the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas
-- George Carlin.
He was very perceptive for a comic. The pretenders that came after often just focused on copying the potty language and never copied the deep ideas.
Actually solar cycles also have impacts on the short term too.
Frankly I don't believe anything that is 550 million years old.
Not sure where you are going with this? Are you down the path that God created the earth as is, in 7 literal days, about 6000 years ago? And he intentionally planted the dinosaur fossils in order to ..... ??
No I don't believe in the bible, I just very much doubt scientists have the capacity to calculate these things, I think they bluff things out, see they say that star is a million light years away, there is no possible way for them to know this what can they match this against to come up with that figure? the same with temperature, there is no way they can know what was happening 550 million years ago.
Good that we are changing the oil for the electricity, with this we are not making a big damage to environment, nice post.
No idea what you are saying. What do you think the top 4 most common ways are of generating electricity?
Exactly, climate changes, no taxation necessary, well said!