Just so everyone understands. Not everyone is a trained geologist. Devonian time is knwn as the age of fish. No plants on land until the Mississipian and Pennsylvanian. (Carboniferous) Plants evolved during this time. So it makes complete sense that CO2 levels were higher before land plants. Now when land plants evolved look what happens to CO2 levels. So for the last 380 MILLION years C02 levels no where approach to where we are at today. Just by that, you should be at least a litle concerned. Should warrant a smidgen of your attention.

(01-30-2012 07:20 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Just so everyone understands. Not everyone is a trained geologist.

Some of us are.

Quote:Devonian time is knwn as the age of fish. No plants on land until the Mississipian and Pennsylvanian. (Carboniferous)

Nope. Silurian. But what's 100 million years or so among friends? [ETA: Could even argue the earlier Ordovician w/non vascular plants and fungi.]

Quote: Plants evolved during this time.

To be fair, plants have evolved ever since they began (w/apologies to the anti-Darwins). I'm splitting hairs, though, because I assume you are referring to the fact that plant life exploded during the Carboniferous (the name is certainly a hint).

Quote: So it makes complete sense that CO2 levels were higher before land plants. Now when land plants evolved look what happens to CO2 levels. So for the last 380 MILLION years C02 levels no where approach to where we are at today. Just by that, you should be at least a litle concerned. Should warrant a smidgen of your attention.

But you need to review the late Ordovician (see Torch's chart). Ice age with CO2 at 10x (or more) what we have today.

Am I the only one who thinks a mere .5 degree increase in the earth's temperature over the past century is really...stable? It DOES seem that about every 25 years to Chicken Little media preaches either an unavoidable Ice Age that will entomb all of us in miles of ice OR a drastic Global Warming that'll burn us to a crisp.

That left wing moonbat site Forbes.com rips the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board for publishing a letter from 16 climate deniers while rejecting a letter from 255 scientists at the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/...t-journal/

I just went back and did a little refresher. There were nonvascular plants even in the Cambrian. Just follow Torch's chart and it probably coincides very well with plants exploding on land. I just always put in my mind Carboniferous plant explosion. Early plants go all the way back to Cambrian, but nonetheless. C02 levels not this high since PLANTS have colonized land.

(01-30-2012 09:19 PM)Max Power Wrote:  That left wing moonbat site Forbes.com rips the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board for publishing a letter from 16 climate deniers while rejecting a letter from 255 scientists at the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/...t-journal/

It's an opinion piece, not a debate. Airing one side of an issue it the left's MO, so why the surprise when it's done with a subject you disagree with?

(01-30-2012 11:28 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I have a tiny request. Can we please stop the silly semantics when someone offers a counterpoint. It devalues the debate and topics that could potentially raise everyone's awareness spiral quickly out of control.

There is a 12-13 year solar cycle where the sun will ramp up and down. The sun is in the second year of the ramping up stage. I do think this has some noticeable effect. Have you guy's ever heard of the chaos theory. Butterfly effect? Sometimes small changes in one area have disatrous effects in another area that seemed unrelated. No one can question or shouldn't question that CO2 has the ability to trap heat. Leaving your car door closed in the summer without cracking the windows has the same effect. CO2 traps long wave radiation. We are currently putting more CO2 in the atmosphere than any other time in our earth's history. We can measure this. There really is no debate on that. Where the debate begins is how much will this tip the scale. What's the cost of trying to fix it? Can any one country fix it?

I'm convinced you can't attack the problem this way. You have to tie it in with other problems. Kill 3 birds with one stone approach. Tie it to national security and economic recovery. But reality there is even a cold temptress. It's not good.

Do you deny that the left has presented the "problem" with significantly less calm than you have here? You ask for calm discussion from the right, when the left s free to predict untold calamity if we don't spend trillions.

The problem with (I believe) mach's regiment is that he says never, and then when showed its not never, we're supposed to pretend that that doesn't change things. The population has never been higher either.... And I'm pretty sure never is true there...

The BIGgEsT problem is that we can take extrordinay steps, and an earthquake or a volcano or china can more than erase all of our efforts.

Volcanoes would actually help. China is China but their political class is much more in tune wi gw than our political class. We have to lead here or the world won't follow. Read Max's Forbes article.It's telling.

(01-30-2012 08:50 PM)boss man Wrote:  Am I the only one who thinks a mere .5 degree increase in the earth's temperature over the past century is really...stable? It DOES seem that about every 25 years to Chicken Little media preaches either an unavoidable Ice Age that will entomb all of us in miles of ice OR a drastic Global Warming that'll burn us to a crisp.

No, you're not. I don't think the observed temperature changes come close to beating random variation.

(01-30-2012 10:25 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Volcanoes would actually help. China is China but their political class is much more in tune wi gw than our political class. We have to lead here or the world won't follow. Read Max's Forbes article.It's telling.

Is that why China is not part of the global warming treaties?

(01-30-2012 10:25 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  China is China but their political class is much more in tune wi gw than our political class.

In the sense that they ignore all the nonsense.

Quote:Read Max's Forbes article.It's telling.

Yes it is: Not a shred of evidence to support their claims.

Hyperbole in their attempts to avoid scrutiny and accountability. They same people who want gov't money, don't want to be held accountable for what they do with it. I couldn't have scripted such a pathetic attempt to hide from the limelight of responsibility.

This is an emotional plea, it's not scientific at all. That's a big issue with government science, eventually it stops being about the technical and starts being about the political.

(01-30-2012 09:19 PM)Max Power Wrote:  That left wing moonbat site Forbes.com rips the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board for publishing a letter from 16 climate deniers while rejecting a letter from 255 scientists at the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/...t-journal/

Gleick makes money from global warming. Thought you progressives didn't like that. Oh wait, you like taking money (SPLC), but you don't like being productive.

Regardless, Gleick is an embarassment.

I see China and the USA like this. They are both on the plane with parachutes. If they jump they both jump with the condition they have each others rip cords. Neither guy trusts the other guy to jump, but the plane is going down.

(01-31-2012 08:22 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  but the plane is going down.

Once again, you leap to a conclusion (someone say dire prediction?) with no supporting evidence. That's not science, although I'm sure the geocentric universe and the spontaneous generation supporters from history would be pleased.

(01-30-2012 10:25 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Volcanoes would actually help. China is China but their political class is much more in tune wi gw than our political class. We have to lead here or the world won't follow. Read Max's Forbes article.It's telling.

Yes... Outside of the death and destruction, they might help our co2 levels. I hope you see how twisted this sort of thought is. The mere fact that a volcano, which we can't predict, could have a meaningful impact proves how futile the effort is. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be as clean as possible, but to act as if there is a solution in light of the myriad of possibilities seems silly to me

(01-30-2012 10:43 PM)Claw Wrote:  

(01-30-2012 08:50 PM)boss man Wrote:  Am I the only one who thinks a mere .5 degree increase in the earth's temperature over the past century is really...stable? It DOES seem that about every 25 years to Chicken Little media preaches either an unavoidable Ice Age that will entomb all of us in miles of ice OR a drastic Global Warming that'll burn us to a crisp.

No, you're not. I don't think the observed temperature changes come close to beating random variation.

It does to me as well, though I believe we should be good stewards of the planet

(01-31-2012 08:22 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I see China and the USA like this. They are both on the plane with parachutes. If they jump they both jump with the condition they have each others rip cords. Neither guy trusts the other guy to jump, but the plane is going down.

Not if a volcano erupts...

As to us leading... That is the sort of thought that has made us the worlds target. China is going to do what is best for China. Why don't we unilaterally disarm first.

It's not always about trust. It's more often about getting ahead. If we adopt draconian emission standards, china can be cleaner than today and STILL steal manufacturing jobs... And trust me that there are countries who won't care a lick about 1/2 degree over 100 years


What is funny (and you aren't doing this Mach) is that many liberals trust foriegn governments more than they trust us citizens to care about the environment. If we can't trust a company to keep clean the river where the factory is, that provides water to the town where the people who work there live, how can we expect Chinese companies to care about the polar ice caps or glaciers in Canada and Russia