Via Insty.
UPDATE: No one caught my using “anthropomorphic” for “anthropogenic” in the headline before I did. I must have been half-asleep. I do think an anthropomorphic theory of Global Warming / Climate Change would be much more fun than the anthropogenic one. Then we could bargain with climate change, or maybe pacify it as primitive religions once did with their gods.
A lot of this would be easier on people in the developing world who are being asked to give up the possibility of future prosperity, creature comforts, basic hygiene, safe housing, good nutrition, and decent life expectancy for the sake of decreasing carbon in the atmosphere so that people in the richer nations can feel better about themselves in keeping with the precepts of their own primitive religion.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What a load of horseshit Ambler peddles in this piece. He sets up one straw man after another.
The fact that there are natural variations and cycles in climate does not preclude anthropogenic warming. Duh.
His central point: “Meanwhile, the theory that carbon dioxide “drives” climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong and, again, evidence of a “flat-Earth” mentality. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. That is why plotted on a graph, C02’s ability to capture heat follows a logarithmic curve. We are already very near the maximum absorption level.”
Nonsense. He’s making an argument for CO2 in a test tube that has been shown to utterly fail in a layered atmosphere. Get the best scientific evaluation to date from the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, a nonpartisan organization:
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/climate_change_2008_final.pdf
It clearly and convincing refutes all of Ambler’s assertions.
Oh, fine. Rain on my parade–right when I was starting to really make up my mind. And now you want me to READ SOMETHING. It never ends with you liberals, does it? 😉
You might want to explain how the “greenhouse effect” works in an open system like the Earth’s atmosphere. Good luck. You are correct in saying that CO2 has shot its load. This strongly suggests that measurable global mean temperature increment from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has almost run its course.
Do what the ancient people did and celebrate the good weather while you can. Cold kills at least one order of magnitude more people than heat. Be a human and adapt. If it’s 0.6 degrees warmer, open the window or put on a lighter weight shirt. Turn the fan on. Excuse me. The temperature just dropped 20 degrees in the last hour here in Chicago. I’ll try and give your angst over the 0.6 degrees the consideration that it deserves while I put on a Hoodie.
The one thing I am reasonably sure of is that twiddling about with emissions of carbon dioxide will have no discernable effect on global mean temperature. Find another dimension and a parallel Earth and try your multi-$Trillion bullshit schemes there. We’ll use my Earth as a control.
Some one explain to me, using order of magnitude analysis, how we could possibly do anything to our planet that even COMPARES to what our planet has already done to itself. Or that the sun has done to it, for that matter.
Snowball Earth, baby—dig it.
There are certain things Man could do to wack the global climate, such as nuclear war and ocean pollution (very long explanation involving the killing of plankton which leads to much higher temps, then a mass cold period), but, the little bit Man is doing nowadays is slight, mostly revolving around methane output from landfills and agriculture.
But, AGW has never been about actually “doing something” to save the planet, but to control people and economies. Very few of the climahysterics ever do much more themselves then change a lightbulb. When Gore gives his speeches, which generate quite a bit of $$$ for himself, there are always tons of vehicles there that get terrible mileage.
You can’t argue with them. They do not want actual evidence. They want to feel good about “bringing awareness,” and then they jot off to take their 2.5 kids off to soccer practice in the Suburban, hit the grocery store, drive around town, etc and so on.
I think what bugs me, a non-scientist, but still a pretty smart old broad, the most about the whole Global Warming issue (or is it Climate Change now that things are not so warm?), is that the Scientific Method is not being used to prove or disprove it. Good God: Scientific theory is not determined by consensus, as in the Dark Ages.
The last thing the world needs is a bunch of scientists determining political policy.