Topic: Global Warming
Global Warming Is Highly Beneficial According to a scientific report given at the International Conference on Climate Change last month, anthropogenic global warming is not only not bad for the earth, it's actually extremely beneficial, and more is needed!by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
It didn't get any attention in the media, but there was a highly significant presentation made last month. According to the ICCC, David Archibald, the presenter, is a scientist (and entrepreneur) operating in the field of cancer research, climate science and oil exploration. His presentation made some startling points about the truth regarding global warming.
First and foremost, the greens refuse to understand that global warming is directly caused by the sun. That should be patently obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't obvious to the greens. This isn't just sad; it turns out it's the basis for a potential global calamity (but not the one the greens want us to believe in). According to Archibald, green global warming fanatics are 100% diametrically wrong. The data shows that the Earth is actually getting colder, and that this trend is likely to accelerate. It also shows that carbon dioxide's warming effect is minimal at best. Most startling of all is his point that global warming increases agricultural production, and this is where things get interesting , because if Archibald is correct, we're in for some really bad times starting in about 20 years or so.
It turns out that as the earth cools, agricultural production declines. It's almost a perfect correlation. Archibald says that the peak in warming was reached in 1998, and that since then there has been a 0.06 degrees per year in temperature. Further, this will likely accelerate to about 0.2 degrees per year by 2009. Says Archibald:
"The carbon dioxide that Mankind will put into the atmosphere over the next few hundred years will offset a couple of millenia of post-Holocene Optimum cooling before we plunge into the next ice age. There are no deleterious consequences of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are wholly beneficial."
Among other things, he is urging that we increase our burn rate of coal here in the United States to help continue the warming, because we apparently need all the warming we can get. He also gives a backhanded compliment to the greenies:
We have to be thankful to the anthropogenic global warming proponents for one thing. If it weren’t for them and their voodoo science, climate science wouldn’t have attracted the attention of non-climate scientists, and we would be sleepwalking into the rather disruptive cooling that is coming next decade. We have a few years to prepare for that in terms of agricultural production.
It remains to be seen what the final verdict on global warming will be, but I'm glad to see that there's a little bit of sanity being introduced into the subject.
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This is an hilarious article Walt. The whole thing could probably be reduced to this "David Archibald, ...a scientist (and entrepreneur) is urging that we increase our burn rate of coal." Sounds like he might like to vote for Hillary. She and Bill have a huge interest in the coal industry. He would certainly find a sympathetic ear with them.
But you've hit the nail right on the head. Energy and how we get it and how we make money on it is the driving force behind the whole 'hate' the environmental movement. We "think" we have a lot of coal. The world needs it so ....environment be damned we're going to sell it and burn it.
People can see this in two ways. The so called greens (I like to call them the people who like to breath) are inventing global warming to keep the coal industry from polluting the air, strip mining the world and poisoning the water or the grow or die capitalists are denying the potential of extinction because they see big profits in coal.
Did you see the news from Arch Coal yesterday? I'm sure you must have read the news about the price of coke (made form coal).
Also have you ever read Charles Dickens?
Look coal is also a finite natural resource. So it's a band aide solution to our energy needs and it's filthy. Sequestration is not a proven solution and it's super expensive. We're going to run through the coal in no time flat. And with or withou any kind of "climate" change our over all quality of life will only be lessened by mining and burning coal. I have know doubt that coal will win out. But we're going to lose.
However, the desperation signaled by a rush 'backward' to coal fired energy is further evidence that peak oil is here.
But peak coal 'may' be right behind it.
There is almost no doubt that coal production will rise in the future and the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that coal consumption will greatly increase in the next two decades.4 Most would agree that this will not be a problem because in the U.S. we have hundreds of years of reserves remaining. Years of reserves remaining is easy enough to calculate: one only need determine how many tons of coal remain in the ground (available from the EIA) and divide by the production for that year. If we look at the year 2000, we can see that we have 255 years of coal remaining. However, if we look at other years, we see something strange: there were 300 years of coal reserves in 1988, 1000 years reserves in 1904, and 10,000 years reserves in 1868! As each year goes by, we use our coal more quickly and we see that the standard formulation of 'years remaining' is nearly meaningless.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-04-08 08:01:52
It's interesting how you managed to avoid the main point of the article, Jim, which is that the evidence shows even more clearly now that influence of human carbon production on global warming is minimal compared to the solar influence. Yes, Archibald does say that we should burn coal, and while I'm not a great fan of coal, I also see the wisdom of what he's saying. He's saying that even if we dramatically increase the amount of coal burned, it still won't hardly budge the impact on global warming. Perhaps you missed that key point in your perusal of his article.
I do not doubt that there are limits to how much coal we can burn, but that's really not the point at all. The point is that the greenies are looking at the wrong issue. Coal burning as it contributes to generation of carbon dioxide is not a problem, and it never was a problem. Yes, there are also other effects not related to global warming from burning coal, and those should not be ignored. The bit about carbon dioxide as it relates to global warming is specifically what he mentions, and he's right about that.
We should be looking at the more serious issue, which is that global cooling is actually here, and that it has serious potential (though not certain) repercussions where food growing is concerned over the next few decades, instead of wasting our time and money chasing a problem (anthropogenic global warming) that isn't really a problem at all!
Stating unequivocally that anthropogenic global warming isn't a problem is premature at best. Same goes for the conclusion the excessive levels of C02 are good....or ....bad.
In fact I would be so bold as to say any prediction of future weather patterns is faulty. Serious damage or benefits will only be something we will see in hindgsight.
There are respected scientists who disagree with the solar implications. One piece of evidence they site is the temperature of the stratosphere. If solar aberations were the cause the evidence would be in the 'warming' of the stratosphere. However, the so called greenhouse gas proponents say that if indeed c02 is the cause then the stratosphere will 'cool'. Scientific evidence shows that the stratosphere has .......cooled.
Both sides can march out their scientists from now until doomsday. What is actually polluted is the debate.
If we had strong credible leadership in this country we could solve 50% or our energy needs almost over night with "conservation" and "efficiency" measures. We could probably do just fine with 6-8 million barrels of oil we still pump here if we remove ourselves from the global market. There wouldn't be a need for new coal fired electric plants. We could start to mitigate our future needs with clean renewable's like wind, solar, ocean tides that have the very real potential of lasting us till the end of the earth and would pay for themselves much, much earlier than that. The clean electricity could power a future fleet of electric cars and trains.
But it won't happen because "we the people" have been successfully divided and conquered. The whole anti environment movement is perfect evidence of this. Deep in peoples being they know they want clean air and water for themselves and their offspring but they have been led to believe that you can't have that and a strong vibrant economy too.
This is what the future holds for all of us and it's a direct result of unchecked growth.
The World Bank in Washington says 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face ``social unrest'' after food and energy costs increased for six consecutive years.
I posted a story from Florida yesterday on another article about the benefits of high levels of C02. Apparently water is a problem for them. Too many houses built. Too big an increase in local population. Too few resources. This is the fact of this planet.
Sure our lifestyle is great. I love it. But....can we sustain it and bring the rest of the world along with us? I'm doubtful. I think we need to rethink our ideas of just how fast we can grow. In fact it may be necessary for us to shrink.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-04-08 09:33:08
Saying that current increases in food prices are due to "unchecked growth" is absurd. Food stocks (and nearly all other commodity prices) are rising dramatically, it's true, but it's happening primarily because of various forms of government interventions around the world led by monetary manipulations by central banks, especially the Federal Reserve, not by global warming or "unchecked growth," which is really nothing more than a liberal code term for "we don't like economic liberty."
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-04-08 11:53:55
I always love it when people trot out a singular "scientist" who produces work that seemingly promotes their point of view, and then throw names around at the "opposition" who have a different viewpoint. Those damn greenies, always trying to "preserve" the natural world from ruination!! My god! Have they all lost their minds?
I mean, don't they know that the bible gives man the right to have dominion over everything? It's in the bible so it must be true!
If you are really intersted in the scientific wranglings with this problem and not on making cheap points to promote your political bias, try catching up with this scence blog. Spend a few days reading and learning what science is really grappling with. Ignore the politicians. Ignore the propagandist. Talk to the scientist who are trying to do science.
I'm not sure if "economic liberty" has a singular definition. But if it's an anything goes, no holds barred, cage fight then, you're right, I'm not in favor of that. Business, government, labor they all need to come together in an atmosphere of cooperation and shared interests. No one constituency should trump the other. Then the arguments would all revolve around the definition of fairness as it applies to each group. Maybe then an equitable arrangement could be arrived at.
Commodities are rising for a variety of reasons. One I rarely hear mentioned for gold are the electricity outages the mining industry in South Africa has experienced of late.
Currently there is a virus rapidly spreading through the wheat crops. It's called stem rust. It started in Egypt and has gotten as far as Pakistan. India is the second largest wheat producer in the world, China is first. It hits India and there will be dire consequences.Stem Rust
Water is a huge resource issue. We are in Iraq as much to control the Tigres and Euphrates as much as the oil. Alabama, Florida and Georgia have been fighting for like 17 years over water. A drought (I'm not sure if it's a liberal or conservative drought) is at the heart of it. Not to mention the population in Atlanta has doubled in the last 20 years and they simply need more water and it's not raining. Heres link
Some problems "nature" gives us. That's kind of the missing link in the health care debate as well. Health isn't predictable. Shit happens. Sometimes it's beyond your best efforts to avoid it and the law of unintended consequences is always there.
I want to be free as I possibly can be. But man oh man, reality keeps intruding. I loved the freedom of bachelorhood but after awhile I needed the regular benefits of a wife. Know what I mean. Kids are cool too.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-04-09 06:24:29
Jim wrote: "We are in Iraq as much to control the Tigres and Euphrates as much as the oil."
That argument is so far off the rails that I don't even know where to begin to answer it, so I won't.
As for other "causes" you mentioned...that's a typical liberal explanation that doesn't really investigate or understand facts. Look deeper and you'll find that droughts and disease don't cause prices to quadruple, because many areas of the Earth experience droughts and diseases with much milder price increases. Invariably, government interference leads to policies that make it difficult and sometimes impossible for private producers to survive droughts or disease.
Scott wrote: "Those damn greenies, always trying to "preserve" the natural world from ruination!! My god! Have they all lost their minds?"
Talk about twisting the facts to suit your own purposes! I never suggested for a second that greenies have lost their minds for wanting to preserve the natural world from ruination, and what's more you know I didn't. What I have said (and what Archibald said), is that greenies have completely misinterpreted the facts about the root causes of global warming, and that is true.
Oh, and one other thing: I don't believe that the Bible gives man dominion over everything. I don't even believe in the Bible as the Word of God. You have me completely pegged wrong with that wild potshot.
I'm glad to hear that you believe in science. Now perhaps you might consider examining all scientific viewpoints that actually contribute to the debate, not just the ones you agree with.
Walt - I appreciate your presentation of the other side of the coin that rarely sees the light of day in the mainstream media.
The conclusion of the scientist you quote seems off to me. If the earth is headed back towards an "ice age" i doubt any amount of CO2 we produce will stop that - I also remember ice ages being described on the order of tens of thousands of years - im fairly sure i wont experience one in my lifetime, or that of my children. Increasing coal production to stem off a future ice age (if CO2 does influence the global temperature) would just use up our coal reserves that much faster.
Widespread energy use has only been around for about 100 years - a tiny fraction of our civilization. Yet we already face a looming oil shortage and natural gas and coal will probably be only 20-50 years down the road. Disregarding the climate issue, industrial energy production from fossil fuels damages the environment and is non-sustainable in the long term. Instead of spending billions attempting to send astronauts to mars or subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, would it not make more sense to promote a sustainable energy infrastructure through solar and wind as well as water and geothermal energy production where applicable. These are considered not "cost efficient" currently, but with intensive research into improved collection, storage, production of existing technologies performed on a national scale, that could likely be overcome. Best of all, they are for the most part, clean and sustainable. Is that not the future you would like to pass on to future generations? If you are against government influence in the markets, which im sure is a belief many share with me, why dont we just remove the tax writeoffs that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys and at least level the playing field.
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-04-09 10:11:07
Ummmm.... You titled your article "Global Warming Is Highly Beneficial" (and you are the one who requested that writers not use false headlines to attract readers, yes?)
Suggesting that your title is "truth". And then you produce one scientist's views to support your "truth" claim. And then you ask ME to consider all views? The link I provided is a great forum and blog that deals with the issue. I would suggest you delve in if you are truly interested in the scientific ideas being debated. All you've done with this article is demonstrate which side you are on, which isn't "truth" and does nothing to further the science that is needed in this area.
And why chose the derogatory term "greenies". Why not use "conservationists" or "environmentalists"?
Once you dropped into the language of disrespect, why should anyone respect your opinion? As soon as you start lumping caring individuals into one derogatory and contemptable category, you are availing yourself to be lumped as well.
You are hereby labeled a crackpot "fundie" who believes that global warming is a "good thing", for whatever reason...
Whaaaaaat? C'mon Walt. Supply and demand right? Whatever causes supplies to decrease (drought, fire, pestilence, theft, hoarding, embargoes) while demand remains the same or goes even higher is going to effect the price of said supply to the upside. How much the price is effected is is a matter of multiple factors. Doubling, tripling, quadrupling becomes irrelevant when you could barely afford it at the price it was before supplies were interrupted. Look at oil again today. The weekly reserves report came in and supplies are a lot lower than what had been predicted. Prices are up instantly >3%. I'm not saying it's liberal or conservative it's just the way it currently works.
Water Walt, Water....nations have been fighting over control of it since the beginning of nations. Range wars out west were fought over it. C'mon man. Let go of your ideology for a brief second and try and see it for what it is. We can only make it a few days without water. It's the worlds most important fluid.
"...global warming is directly caused by the sun...."
While historically such a statement is true, changes in solar activity cannot account for modern day warming trends, especially in the latter half of this century. Solar activity has not increased notably in the last 30 years, and we are presently at a solar minimum. Yet temperatures are continuing to rise. The NASA GISS noted 2007 as the second warmest year on record, and it achieved that mark during a solar minimum and without the assistance of the "El Nino of the century" which drove 1998 temperatures to record levels.
The shortcomings the solar irradiance theory alone are why those arguments are often coupled with a complimentary argument concerning galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), which proposes that GCRs create low-level cloud cover which result in cooling. As solar activity increases, fewer GCRs reach the surface, resulting in fewer clouds and increased temperatures. However, a recent peer-reviewed published study found little to no correlation between GCRs and cloud cover.
As for Archibald's conclusions that the Earth is actually getting cooler, he couldn't be further from the truth. There is a reason Archibald references 1998 as his starting point for cooling. 1998 was an aberration. As mentioned above, the "El Nino of the century" present during that year pushed global temperatures to record heights, heights from which the planet retreated after the El Nino dissipated. However, take a look at the four graphs below, which are derived from the exact same sattelite data set used by Archibald from the University of Alabama at Huntsville.
In the 80s, the big scare was nuclear winter. That would be caused by all the dust kicked up from the explosions, much like Krakatoa in 1883. That eruption was the equilavent ot 200 Megatons of TNT. That cooled the planet fast. We have that technology, by a factor of 10.
If the ideal temperature was in 1900, when the population was only 1.5 billion people, and the problems are caused by people, we have the technology to reduce the number of people. It just take the push of a button.
Given our range of rememdies and consequences, I'm willing to let the earth warm up a couple degrees over the next 100 years. Canada is not going to become the Carribean. But it might increase its wheat yields with a longer growing season.
I'm assuming we don't destroy ourselves in the next 100 years.
Posted By: Geno Canto del Halcon
Date: 2008-06-03 20:20:47
The Benefits of Global Warming:
1. Rising Sea Level, potentially inundating millions of square miles of populated areas on every continent. Oh, yeah, that sounds really good (NOT). Too bad, Florida and Louisiana (back to 48 states by 2100).
2. Rising carbon dioxide - good for plants, at least most of them - not so good for animals. The higher the CO2 level, the less your mental function. I suspect it is affecting US voters already, judging from whom they seem to be picking in this quadrenium's presidential race (OK, this is a little bit of whimsy).
3. Changing patterns of rainfall (some places wetter, some drier). Hmm. Draught throuout America's bread baskets - oh, yeah, that sounds beneficial - like complete economic dislocation of America's midwest and California's central valley (the part that won't be under salt water).
4. Less snow, more rain = less water storage, more rapid runoff. This, coupled with environmental fanatics who want to tear down the dams (not build more of them) in order to save the salmon, sounds really beneficial to places that currently depend on winter snow pack for hydroelectric power, irrigation, and domestic water supply during the summer, like America's northwest. Yeah, that will be real beneficial to Washginton and Oregon. Especially with all the refugees fleeing the draught-stricken southwest (yes - this is only a scenario - but it may very well be correct).
The Physics of Global Warming:
When I studied physics in high school, college, and grad school, carbon dioxide had this property that it tends to be opaque to long wavelengths of light (infrared). Apparently, however, we have somehow through the magic of denialism discovered that it really doesn't have this property. Please explain how the laws of physics have changed?
Atmospheric CO2 has, according to various sources, increased from approximately 280 ppm in 1900 to 387 ppm in 2007. This has NO effect on global warming? Wow, that's amazing (in fact, completely unbelievable). We are to believe it is all due to the sun's variability (on the order of +/- 0.1% since 1900), instead? I don't get that one, either. Apparently I just have not been following developments in basic physics since I left grad school... or maybe the anthropogenic contribution to global warming is real.
This is a situation that begs for a good market-based policy to help - like recogizing that overuse of our atmosphere is a "tragedy of the commons". It also begs for a sensible nuclear power development policy instead of the insane nuclear "waste" policy we have now. Such "wastes" are a valuable resource that can be used to generate power (almost greenhouse gas free) for thousands of years - if we get the politicians out of the way and let the engineers do their jobs.
"First and foremost, the greens refuse to understand that global warming is directly caused by the sun. That should be patently obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't obvious to the greens."
Thats not obvious, because it is incorrect. Warming due to solar influences can be measured easily. We have satellites that do it. They show top-of-atmosphere solar energy has been steady or decreasing since the 1940s. Increases in solar energy also show a particular signal of warming - both the troposphere and the lower stratosphere will show warming. This has not been the case. There has been warming in the troposphere and cooling in the statosphere (where the greenhouse gases accumulate), both of which are in line with predictions.
This is one of the worst critiques of the man-made global warming theory I've ever seen.
According to the ICCC, David Archibald, the presenter, is a scientist (and entrepreneur) operating in the field of cancer research, climate science and oil exploration.
If Archibald is operating within the oil industry, then anything he says to defend it represents a conflict of interest. He shouldn't even be involved in the debate.
First and foremost, the greens refuse to understand that global warming is directly caused by the sun. That should be patently obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't obvious to the greens.
Strawman. Environmentalists, including Al Gore, have never disputed the Sun's role in global warming. Without the Sun, we wouldn't even have any warming at all, because Earth would just be a frozen and dark wasteland. Are you kidding us?!
According to Archibald, green global warming fanatics are 100% diametrically wrong.The data shows that the Earth is actually getting colder, and that this trend is likely to accelerate. It also shows that carbon dioxide's warming effect is minimal at best. Most startling of all is his point that global warming increases agricultural production, and this is where things get interesting , because if Archibald is correct, we're in for some really bad times starting in about 20 years or so.
Archibald says that the peak in warming was reached in 1998, and that since then there has been a 0.06 degrees per year in temperature.
Earth is not getting cooler. The 1998 peak was the result of an unsually strong El Nino that year, and the global tempertures of 2005 and 2007 are estimated to have reached that record level, WITHOUT an El Nino being involved. That temperatures seem to be leveling off can be attributed to the very efforts to combat global warming that Al Gore and others have been calling for. To say that the success of those efforts indicated that they were not necessary is LUDICROUS!
Also, the vital role in carbon dioxide as a powerful greenhouse gas has been understood since the 1900s. It's strongest proponent at that time was Svante Arrhenius. Look him up.
It turns out that as the earth cools, agricultural production declines. It's almost a perfect correlation.
So? Global warming can also cause droughts in some areas, as well as flooding in others, which can disrupt agriculture in many areas. It's not nearly as simple as Archibald makes it look.
Among other things, he is urging that we increase our burn rate of coal here in the United States to help continue the warming, because we apparently need all the warming we can get.
Insanity! Sure, there may be beneficial effects of global warming in a few places, but overall there will be disaster in most places.
It remains to be seen what the final verdict on global warming will be, but I'm glad to see that there's a little bit of sanity being introduced into the subject. Not from you and Archibald, I'm afraid.
The assumptions about the Medeival Warm Period being as warm or warmer than today are not supported by any direct measurement in temperature. It and the Little Ice Age that came later were affecting the Northern Hemisphere, but not the Southern Hemisphere, because one is far more sensitive to temperature fluctuations than the other. Factor them together and they average out to minimal temperature changes, globally speaking, compared to what's been happening since the 1960s.
Direct measurement of solar activity has not depicted an increase enough to cause the increases in global temperature of the late 20th Century to this day. But increases of carbon dioxide levels do match the global temperature rises.
Archibald says in his report:
Recently, a Dr Hansen of NASA made a statement that the maximum safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 ppm, about 10% below its current level. To illustrate just how idiotic that statement is, this graph shows Dr Hansen’s danger level of 350 ppm relative to levels that the Earth has experienced from the recent to the distant past. The Earth has happily survived levels more than ten times the level that Dr Hansen considers to be the threshold of disaster.
It is Archibald that is being idiotic. The reason the Earth survived in the past with more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere was because the Sun was cooler back then, due to its core being less dense as hydrogen fused into helium over time. Indeed, when the Sun first formed, it was far cooler than today and so was Earth, even though its atmosphere must have been full of carbon dioxide, as the atmospheres of Venus and Mars are today. Most of the CO2 of Earth was removed from the atmosphere by plants and it ended up in coal deposits. If we were to allow all the CO2 from 400 or 500 million years ago back into the Earth's atmosphere while we also have the Sun as it is NOW, the Earth will be even HOTTER than it was back then! THAT'S why the CO2 "safe" level is lower now than back then.
Archibald's claim that "Carbon dioxide is not even a little bit bad. It is wholly beneficial," is an outright lie. If that were true at all, then Venus should be a balmy paradise, but in fact it is the HOTTEST planet in the Solar System, even hotter on both its day and night sides than Mercury, which is closer to the Sun. The CO2 is thought to be responsible for that.
It burns me up (pun intended) to see such fake experts put out their fake data to mislead people like yourself to promote a specific industry, regardless of the possible consequences.
That's a terrific way to mispresent information, but if you'll invest in ice cubes now, before burning coal melts them, you will be positioned for a bull market in ice cubes, later!
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