This is almost hypnotic. One of the leaders at a Tea Party event with the Citizens of Liberty holds forth on the science of global warming. [Note: there will be no academic credit awarded for this Internet learning exercise].
The site for this organization makes clear that this is about a world socialist agenda:
No, nothing will ever be enough for these extremists. Because it really isn’t about saving the planet in the first place. It’s about pushing a socialist agenda to cripple the capitalist nations of the west. It’s about wealth redistribution and socialist schemes under the guise of environmentalism.
While nothing will ever be enough to straighten out the socialists and other Koolaid drinkers, we have more than enough for the American people to force our government to stop treating us worse than foreign dictators and stop this cap and trade global warming tax nonsense in the Senate.
I had to add this to our library of hard-right science, here.
S.B.
Please do not say I am against cap and trade as I never claimed this. I’m for anything that will work. I flat out said I would bribe the oil companies and I mean it. Bribes for them to go alternative is money well spent. I don’t enjoy bribing greedy blood suckers but I would do it in a heart beat to stop climate change and I have no idea why all the Congress people and the President who took their money, don’t pay them back by giving them all the tax incentives in the world to go with alternative choices. As long as they send all the bribe money for them to stay as oil/coal companies, they will. That same money should be put to better use.
Jim B,
Kudos for quoting Poincare – he’s always been a hero of mine, the man was freaking brilliant.
IS,
Unfortunately, you’re missing the point (although, as a scientist I applaud the experimental approach being taken here as well as CEJ and lottakatz’s explanations). Wether a melting ice cube raises or lowers the level of salt water (and I would guess that between bouyancy issues and the difference in density it wouldn’t be a large effect in any case) is not the main reason that the melting ice caps raise the sea level – a glacier is formed by snow accumulating on an ice shelf over long periods of time – its not floating. When a glacier breaks off of the ice cap, the sea level is raised because of the volume that was not in the water. When the glaciers in question are 30 mile long pieces of Antarctica, this effect is significant. Additionally, we are clearly capable of doing something about global warming – you mentioned how particulate emissions from volcanoes can lower temperatures – it is certainly within our power to ignite a few volcanoes (a nuke in Yellowstone would likely set off the supervolcano there and probably trigger an ice age) therefore it becomes a question of a cost/benefit analysis of our options. One attitude that you share with Jill is that because cap and trade can’t possibly effect global warming, its not worth doing – this ignores the fact that policies evolve, too. As global warming (or, more accurately, climate change) becomes more apparent, it will become politically possible to tighten pollution controls and having a system already in place will expedite this. It may not allow us to fix the problem before it is too late, but the way I see it, it’s the only game in town except for burying your head in the sand…
Gyges:
if the theory is right do what you have to do. I don’t think the theory is right, as far as man made goes. How high is the mean temperature going to get and how much can we lower it? How much will it cost and how much do we save. If we have to spend 100 trillion dollars to save 500 billion dollars worth of property and other assets it is not worth the cost.
most people already have flood insurance and some people are going to get ocean front property so I say that is a wash.
What is your point about the heart problem? If the doctor is right then you have to take action but I would get at least 2 more opinions from competent doctors before I underwent surgery or other deleterious procedures or medicines. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
IS,
I’m not sure what you’re point is, other than you don’t like what we’d have to do if the theory is right, so it must be wrong.
I go to the doctor and he says “You have a congenital heart defect, if you don’t make certain changes to your lifestyle it will very likely kill you.” Is that a way to get me to change my habits through fear and intimidation? My behavior can only have so much of an effect, and eventually I’m going to die anyway.
Oh and figure out some way to throw in space travel into my metaphor.
Space colonization is a pipe dream right now for a myriad of reasons. Transplantation would also likely just result in more species of human ancestry, which is not the same as avoiding extinction.
Mike Spindell:
All that you said about new technology is true but the automobile was not developed by government it was developed by a free people.
Eventually when market forces are right we will have the green technology. How do you know that the government intervention in our economy over the past 90 years hasn’t strangled this very innovation? I personally believe that we would be living in a more highly developed society had we been truly from government intervention.
With that said how do you know that the government isn’t the reason for global warming in the sense that innovation has been strangled by government regulations?
Gyges:
Do you honestly think mankind can stop global warming or that we contribute enough by products to significantly change our climate? We may change it a little bit and I am certainly not going to argue that point but one good volcanic eruption spews hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere. In fact the recent large eruption, what was it Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, caused earth to cool slightly because of the shading effect of the particulate matter.
Global warming is a way to get people to change their habits through fear and intimidation, nothing else. If it wasn’t global warming it would be global cooling or evaporation of ocean water, or loss of fresh water lakes or something that would scare people into reducing consumption and production.
Heck most of the people on this site don’t even seem to understand that when ice melts the volume decreases so how can the average person sift through all the BS about global warming.
If the earth wants to get rid of humans it will do it whether we want it to or not. Our species is already set for extinction at some point in the distant future, so I say we need to figure out how to keep the sun from dying.
Global warming research is taking valuable resources from a real problem. We should be spending money to learn how to travel to hospitable distant planets so our species can populate the universe when the time comes. Global warming is taking valuable time and money from this necessary research. If we don’t learn how to travel to distant planets now we are going to become extinct as a species (and that is a certainty). So we need to start now, this research is vital and truly imperative to our survival as a species.
The Mars mission should take top priority as this will be the first small steps for populating the universe. We should also fund a permanent Lunar settlement. If we don’t do all this our species will cease to exist.
I call on President Obama to set a program in place that will put humans on mars in the year 2025 and for travel to the edge of our Solar System by the end of this century. If we don’t we will become extinct.
“What we do know, is that we have an obligation to humanity to try. The alternative is to sit back and do nothing.”
Jim,
I agree. When you ponder the fact that some athletes were debating whether to attend the Olympics because of the air pollution in Beijing, I think you’re led to the inescapable conclusion that humanity must change over to the production of non-polluting energy sources. The benefits alone to the US if we gave money and tax credits to develop these sources and revitalize our industrial base are untold. Even without government aid major businesses should understand this is not about politics, but about farsighted management, that will have the added benefit of a better world for our progeny.
While I do feel that humans have a big responsibility in creating global warming, to me that is almost irrelevant. Polluting our atmosphere can’t be a good thing in any manner, especially where the technology exists, or will shortly exist to end it. The industry’s that oppose it are shortsighted in their opposition and will go the way of the buggy whip industry when the automobile was introduced unless they keep up with the times technologically.
I place a lot of blame also on the Christian Fundamentalists who believe Armageddon is near because with that attitude why bother to do anything to help the planet? Sadly, they do not know history or they would understand how many times in the past that Armageddon was supposed to occur, 1,000CE, 1666CE or 2,000CE anyone, and of course didn’t. They spread a what do we care attitude, along with the proposition that the chosen few will be better off in Heaven and so don’t care what we do to ourselves and/or our children.
Leaders in Iran are going up against a brutal ruling regime. This opposition could get them imprisoned and/or killed. There are leaders who will risk everything when everything is on the line. I’m not willing to accept my political class as a group of cowards. If they can’t act with courage in an emergency then they shouldn’t be in office. Here’s the story from Iran:
“Iranian reformists, among them Mohammad Khatami, the former president, have called for a referendum to resolve the crisis that has gripped the country since last month’s disputed presidential election.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/07/2009720112418612488.html
Global Warming: Scientists’ Best Predictions May Be Wrong
When it comes right down to it, the truth is WE DON’T KNOW if man is the cause of global warming. As such, we don’t know if we can do anything to stop it.
What we do know, is that we have an obligation to humanity to try. The alternative is to sit back and do nothing.
IS,
A few points: In the last 8 or so years, the Executive branch (Which the NSF is part of), was known to put pressure on scientists and other government bodies to suppress data on climate change. http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1653
The scientific concern over the melting ice packs is only minimally about rising sea levels. Since that is the most sensational part, it gets the most press. The polar ice packs help restrain methane, insulate the water against heat loss, and the winter convection of the Odden ice tongue helps drive thermohaline circulation (the system of deep and surface currents).
I’m not going to try and convince you that we’re causing climate change, hopefully at some point you will go through all the research with a less biased eye. I just want to point out that this isn’t the first time that the climate has been changed because of life. Look up the Oxygen Catastrophe of the Paleoproterozoic era. This sort of thing has happened before, and life went on, however I think we’d all prefer if mankind was included in the list of life that goes on.
rafflaw,
I must disagree. If you look at Obama’s energy policy you will see that it does not move very far and very fast, both of which are absolutely necessary to avert catastrophe at this time. I agree that industry leaders have no intention of moving away from squeezing the last nickle out of a source of energy that cannot be sustained. I don’t believe the govt. has to go along with them. Through the use of tax incentives, the withdrawl of other tax incentives and by the use of govt. investment in a time of economic crisis, you can get even the oil industry to move off the dime. All they care about is money, so give it to them. As long as they make it from building alternative energy infrastructure, and don’t make it from oil subsidies, it will happen. A president is not a victim of his donors. He could understand this is an emergency and use a basic system of bribes to turn the energy compaies around. Better still he could put aside his desire for oil/industry money and do the right thing because it is necessary, because it is an emergency.
I also object to the painting of right wing christians as the only ones who will ignore evidence and ignore science. It should be clear that ignoring science is a team sport in this nation. Putting it off on those stupid right wing christians is itself ignoring clear evidence that many people don’t know, or worse, many do know and don’t care (others of whom whooliebacon pointed out).
Josh,
You’re absolutely correct. Displacement is displacement.
And just so you know, LottaKatz was right about the water level, assuming the ice was floating, the water level wouldn’t change in you experiment.
IS I’m not certain why these guys aren’t pointing the obvious out to you. Your experiment is wrong. The ice at the poles isn’t in the ocean. So the more accurate experiment is to take a glass of water mark it’s level then melt an ice cube into it and see if the water rises.
Not for nothing, but water expands when frozen; which is why ice floats.
Also, it’s nice to know that capitalism intends to thrive in the melting ice caps
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,579265,00.html
CEJ and Lottakatz:
Yes I understand about the ice on the Antarctic and Greenland. How much sea ice is there? 9/10 of an iceberg is submerged and displacing a certain volume of water.
I have found from net search that Greenland’s Ice sheet is about 3×10^6 ckm and the Antarctic ice sheet is about 33,000,000 ckm.
The arctic ice is mostly pack ice, so what is the volume differential when it melts? It should lower sea levels. So the question is what is the differential sea level when all of the ice on earth melts, the land ice will cause it to rise and the sea or pack ice will cause it to fall. I could find nothing on this differential change in sea level.
Most of the rise in sea levels are based on both the Antarctic and Greenland ice packs melting and these are significant, but there is no mention of resulting levels should all of the ice on earth melt. That is the real question.
IS, yes there will be a difference in level. If you take an ice cube, put it in a glass and fill the glass up (the ice cube will bob above the water level) and let the ice melt the level will remain constant. Water expands so while it looks like you have more ice, and its melting will overfill the glass, it will not. If on the other hand you fill the glass and drop in an ice cube the glass will overfill because you are adding more water (form is not material for the experiment) in some amount to your glass.
So what? Your analogy only works for ice already in the ocean, not ice over ground as it is on Greenland and Antarctica and various glaciers. Antarctica is a mountainous land mass under all that ice. The seas will rise.
Yes, well said Mike A. and Rafflaw.
Please correct/help me if I am wrong.
My understanding is that the greatest factor in rising sea levels is whether the ice melting is over land or water. If the ice melts, and it is currently all above water (floating) it won’t make any difference to sea levels as the volume of ice has already displaced the water.
The problem is when the ice melting is over a land mass. Then the ice has not displaced its’ own weight; so as it melts sea levels rise.
As large amounts of ice are lost the rate of global warming will be accelerated as ice reflects large amounts of light which would now be absorbed and converted to heat.
Rafflaw:
just out of curiosity what happens when the sun goes away?
The sun has the biggest effect on earth temperatures. It is the engine of our world, it makes the clouds, the currents, the wind, it warms the ocean, it cools the ocean.
The idea that man has a significant effect on global temperatures is postulated by university professors that want grant money from the federal government or the UN.
You think science doesn’t have a political agenda as well? If I wanted grant money and the giver of the grants thought that the moon was made of green cheese, I would sure try real hard to make my case.
Isn’t that what lawyers do, make there case to put their client in the best possible light? The facts don’t matter if they can get their client off. Same with scientists, they need the money for research and their livelihood.
I have looked at both sides and I think yes the earth is warming but I don’t believe it is from human activity.
Mike A:
Fresh water has a density of 1.0 while salt water has a density of 1.025. From this, you can see that salt water is slightly heavier than fresh water.
An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off from a snow-formed glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water
I dont think it makes much difference. An iceberg is fresh water so it expands as an ice cube would. The same thing is going to happen.
So pour some salt in bowl of water measure the level and then throw some ice cubes in and measure the level and measure it again after the ice cubes melt. Then get back to me.
In fact all the fresh water would float on top of the salt water and then we can pump it into storage wells and have all the fresh water we want for farming. Since the weather will be warmer we will have a longer growing season and will be able to feed more people so the population of the earth will get bigger and that will cause more pollution and garbage. So I think I have really hit on the reason for wanting to lower global temperatures-reduction in population.