< 350ppm CO2 : Where we need to aim
350.org
On Saturday, there was a worldwide rally to promote James Hansen's theory of 350ppm atmospheric CO2 as a "safe" level for sustainable life on Earth. About 5200 different organized rallies occurred all over the world. I just wanted to give a heads up to everyone here on Ecomodder. Even if it makes you think for a second, or if it adds to your ecomodding edge, i think its information everyone should know. Here is James Hansen's original paper published on the topic suggestion 350ppm as a safe point. Earth used to be about 260-270ppm before civilized human life thrived. That number is considered the natural atmospheric CO2 levels for earth. We are currently at levels of 387ppm CO2. If we reach levels any higher (and we WILL given current trends), we will face complete loss of ice caps on the planet and we will see species pass. http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf THIS IS WHY WE ECOMOD! :turtle: |
I found out about just before Saturday: The Big Ask. (Oh, how I love crosslinking:) )
Here in Warsaw they were supposed to be collecting signitures between 10am-1pm. I called up a friend and showed up at 12:30 and there wasn't any one there! Just the usual groups of tourists. No banners, no balloons, no tables where we could sign the petition. My wife says that they probably quickly got the number of signitures they needed and didn't want to sit in the cold and rain. Not nice of the organisation that was responible for it :( |
Quote:
First, 90% of the past 400,000 years have been characterized by ice age. Ice ages are, to put it mildly, going to be detrimental to food production for humans and other species. Let's say that we bring down CO2 to Hansen's 260-270ppm level. Well, during the "Little Ice Age" (approx. 1550-1850AD), CO2 levels hovered around the 280ppm level. The twelve thousand year Holocene era, which we live in, has also been warmer - between 2-5ºC warmer! That warm time period, about 7000 - 5000BC, was associated with the rapid transition from nomadism to the development of agriculture and sustainable human culture. Humanity also thrived during the Medieval Warm Period, ~800 - 1300AD, where temperatures were ~1ºC warmer than today. I have two points here: a) It is not the hottest it's ever been and b) Warmer temperatures are not historically linked to humanity fairing poorer. |
Quote:
You might consider the megafauna that ranged North America during the last Ice Age: everything from wooly mammoths to the sabertooths & dire wolves that preyed on them. Fast-forward to immediate pre-Columbian times, and only a few moderately large herbivores remained - buffalo, moose, & elk. Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
Setting arbitrary Co2 benchmarks is pure bull****. Especially if such figures don't really reflect a correlation to global quality of life and food production.
The climate always has and always will change. We're not evenly remotely close to global temperatures being "too high". Besides the above: Co2 levels are not the cause of temperature averages, they are an outcome. |
Arbitrary?
How do you think the atmosphere keeps in the heat from the sun? Changes have always been happening sure -- but how FAST were the changes in the past? Going up or down a degree C in 100,000 years is easy, but having that change in ~100 years is another thing altogether. We will probably lose all the ice in the Arctic in the summer within the next 10 years. This will accelerate the warming, because of the low albedo of open water vs the higher albedo of snow and ice. Additional warming will then melt the permafrost more quickly -- which will release lots of methane -- which is ~20X stronger greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide. And so the very quick warming will become even quicker. |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
Please do not misunderstand or misrepresent my opinions here. I do believe that we must work on being better stewards of the Earth and our resources. I do believe that we should develop cleaner and more efficient energy sources. I also believe that cheap, clean and efficient energy sources has the potential to raise billions of people out of poverty - meaning that developing this clean energy is imperative from a humanitarian perspective. While I do believe in anthropogenic climate changing forces, I do not believe that anthropogenic warming is, as of yet, the dominant force in our global climate. I believe this to be the case because of the past. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Pa...0-400k_yrs.gif Climate changes in the past have been sudden and dramatic. Did humans, 130,000 years ago, cause the temperature peak shown in this graph? Unless our great(5x 10^3)grand-daddy Ugg the Clumsy accidently started the largest forest fire ever, obviously not. No, other forces, Milankovitch cycles for example, are a bigger player than we could ever pretend to be. |
Quote:
From an earlier post: Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
I Have no use for this Hansen dude. He cooks his data.
I thought we were supposed to stick to the cars. |
Big Dave - You're right. On both counts. Sorry for starting the debate.
|
Hi,
How is it that a couple of guys on an Internet forum are better scientists than a head of NASA? James Hansen is one of the most visible people on the global climate change, but he is certainly not the only one. Get ready for some Fact Bombs: ApteraForum.com - Aptera Car Forum - View Single Post - End of Global Warming ApteraForum.com - Aptera Car Forum - View Single Post - End of Global Warming ApteraForum.com - Aptera Car Forum - View Single Post - End of Global Warming ApteraForum.com - Aptera Car Forum - View Single Post - End of Global Warming |
NeilBlanchard and jamesqf,
Because, as Big Dave pointed out, ecomodder is focused on cars, I've replied to you with a PM. |
Hi,
This thread probably should be moved to The Lounge? But I think it is perfectly legit to discuss this topic in "public". |
Quote:
When we get to dominance, it's those armies again. The top of the urban pyramid has those soldiers keeping the helots in check, so they might as well use them - and all the other arts - to go out and dominate some nomads. Besides, the helots tend to wear out rather quickly, so it helps to acquire a fresh supply every now & then. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
1. Worked an average of 2 hours per day 2. Took an afternoon nap when climate allowed (we are designed to nap) 3. Lived as long as we do, oddly hunter folks always outlived the agricultural folks, they lived long enough into old age to get advanced arthritis. (assuming natural disaster, starvation or some form of blunt force death didn't occur) 4. Hunters rarely had heart disease, diabetes. cancer and most of the common modern ailments, whereas most agricultural societies had huge increases in heart disease, especially grain based societies. Look at Egypt, they had huge problems with obesity, heart disease and only lived to about 21 and they ate almost solely grain. The above ONLY apply to those who were strictly hunter gatherer, not the hybreds like native americans who tended to also farm on the side. Usually they were restricted to favorable climate as well thus eliminating many of the weather related hardships. You can find the facts I list above from more than one source and aren't speculation. So although we have cool stuff we are paying for it in more than one way. |
I seriously question assertions 1 and 3. I don't have any reason to doubt 2. I'd put a huge asterisk on 4.
1) Typically about 80% of the paleolithic diet came from gathering. Gathering sufficient food to provide about 900 digestible calories per day, with enough variation to provide all the required nutrients probably took more than 2 hours, especially during winter. Hunting with primitive weapons is a dubious thing (anybody here ever tried to hunt with a spear? a bow and arrow made from sticks, a stone, and plant-fiber twine?) and probably involved much more than 2 hours a day and had a low success rate. 3) The sources I've found put paleolithic life expectancies between 33 and 54 (if you made it past 15 years old, you had a good chance of making it to 39-54). In the neolithic, life expectancy was about 20. Could you point me to your source? Quote:
FYI, both the American Dietic Association and the National Health Service of England have designated the "Paleolithic diet" (aka caveman diet) as a fad diet. |
Actually 3 is still true assuming that they don't die from some sort of brute force or starvation. The longest lived peoples on the planet also live the most simplistically. And that tends to be regardless of whether its meat or vegetable. There are many examples of 60/70+ year old individuals from tropical basin hunter gathers.
1. is also true when you limit it to our origins in the tropical basin, people generally didn't survive into the cold blue yonder as hunter gathers. 4. Is almost always true when comparing a traditional diet to a grain based diet. The diet of wheat that has been pushed down our throats was historically proven to be the worst as exemplified by the Egyptian culture. The low sucess rate now can be attributed to us having a vastly different world than of many years past, with very few people and lots of animals, especially in the the tropical basin, hunting would not be difficult and would not occupy all of your day since a little cooperation can net one larger animal feeding the group. Our ancestors DID NOT start in the cold barren wasteland but in regions where they could live near naked. The lifespan averages again typically involve a lot of speculation and a lot of deaths due to being killed by something or falling or whatever. Historically men were killed by something other than old age. Quote:
|
The following is a PM I sent to NeilBlanchard in response to his post.
Regarding the first Apteraforum post: I fully acknowledge that temperatures from ca. 1880 have increased. However, it should be noted that earth was just coming out of the "Little Ice Age." One should hope that temperatures since then have increased! Lookup the following: the Maunder minimum, the Irish famine of 1740-41, the year without a summer (1816 BTW, when the already below average temps were further impacted by a massive volcanic eruption). WRT the Little Ice Age, global warming was a GOOD thing. It's not that I'm better educated than Hansen... I'm not. I do not pretend to be a climatologist. I do not think I've put on airs like I am one... but I am not utterly unable to read a scientific paper or read a graph of the data. In that regard, can you find fault with the facts I've presented? I know you disagree with my conclusions, but are the facts I've presented erroneous? For example, is it a fact that, in the past 400,000 years, it has been warmer on several occasions? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...emperature.png Is it a fact that temperatures during the Holocene Climatic Optimum was warmer than present? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Variations.png Is it a fact that the Medieval Warm Period had temperatures comparable to the present 10 year averages? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Comparison.png Was I incorrect regarding the 8.2k event, mentioned in one of my posts? Was I in error regarding the relative impacts of the various greenhouse gases? I think Hansen is disingenuous in representing 260-270ppm as "normal," considering that CO2 concentrations have, in earth's history have been much higher. What's normal? The Devonian period had mean CO2 levels of 2200ppm. The Carboniferous period had mean CO2 levels of 800ppm. The Permian: 900ppm. The Triassic: 1750ppm. The Jurassic: 1950ppm. The Cretaceous: 1700ppm. The Paleogene seems to have ranged from 1000-1500ppm. Only in the pre-modern human Neogene and Quaternary periods do we see CO2 drop into the 280ppm range. Interestingly, some of the Neogene and much of the Quaternary is also dominated by glaciation. Thus, what Hansen is defining as "normal" is glaciation. The current temperatures and global ice volumes, however, are not much different than other interglacial periods (see ~125,000, ~300,000, and ~400,000 years ago and, to a lesser extent 200,000 years ago). |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
You need to keep in mind that things like hunting become much easier when you practice the skills continuously, rather than for a couple of weeks in hunting season. |
The effective range of the atlatl was about 20-30 yards (accuracy and penetration) for thin-skinned mammals. Perhaps 40 yards with a very well made one (dowel-like straight pieces of wood simply don't fall off trees, so these were probably exceptionally rare).
Again, my point is simply that I seriously doubt that 2 hours of hunting could consistently provide meat. If it were that easy, why would neolithic man tie up valuable time and resources by working to domesticate cattle and protect them from predation? FYI, pastoralism (nomadism + herding) is a typical intermediate state between agrarianism and nomadism. |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
Where DOES this 2 hour figure come from anyway? If it is from Sahlins' Notes on the Original Affluent Society, you ought to know that the studies he relied on weren't exactly exhaustive, limited in both scope and duration. So, anyway, I still think Hansen's figure of 350ppm is not well grounded in scientific fact. I also think his citing 280ppm as "normal" is lacking in context. Don't get me wrong, though; I do believe that we have a moral responsibility to develop and implement clean, efficient and cheap energy sources. But I think that the climate alarmism that Hansen is promoting is ultimately destructive to the cause. |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
If you do not agree that Global Cimate Change is real...
What other parts of science do you not believe are true?
Do you believe that the Theory of Gravity is correct? Or, do you believe in Intelligent Falling? Do you believe in evolution? Or, do you believe in Intelligent Design? Do you believe in the theory of atomic structure? Or, something else is responsible for how physics and chemistry work? Do you believe in DNA? Or, do you believe that God chooses what characteristics to give your child? What about the theory of how the Universe works, and the life cycles of stars and galaxies? Or, do you believe that God created it all in 6 days? Do you believe that the Earth and the other SEVEN planets are orbiting the Sun? Or, does everything revolve around the Earth? Is the Earth (approximately) a sphere -- or is it flat? Do you believe that drugs are developed using scientific methods? Or, are they just lucky guesses? You see, you can't believe in just parts of science -- it all works the same: we explore the unknown, and as we find out more and more, we theorize about how it works. Then, based on the evidence and peer review, the accepted theory emerges; and is continuously tested and debated. Things settle more, as scientist come into closer and closer agreement. This is how it is for all scientific endeavors -- they are not just making this up! Global Climate Change is real and it is the predominant scientific conclusion that humans have affected an abrupt change in the climate, by burning old carbon fuels; releasing millions of years worth of old carbon in about 150 years. A few naysayers here and there may be right -- but on the other hand, maybe the large majority of the scientists who study this are right? Which is the bigger risk: that the naysayers are right and we conserve too much fuel and move to renewable energy anyway -- or, we keep on keepin' on and the ocean rises 40 feet in the next 100 years or so, and parts of the world go into an ice age, other parts go into drought, etc. etc. etc. -- who knows what the risks are?? Are you willing to take that risk? |
Quote:
As to the rest, I wish people would stop believing things, and start thinking instead. |
Quote:
If you remember, in my first response to this thread, I said, "While I do not doubt that global warming is real and it is, to some extent, anthropogenic, I have doubts about how bad moderate warming is." Regardless of what you or I may believe is the cause, the DATA says the earth has been warming over the past 150 years. Look through my posts... have I said otherwise? Do I think humans have contributed to this warming? Yes, though I do not think that anthropogenic CO2 is the dominant source of warming. Again, let's go to the data. During the Jurassic period, the CO2 level was at 1950ppm. Agreed or not? The earth was 3ºC warmer than present. Agreed or not? But did you catch that? The Jurassic period had CO2 levels 5 times present levels and was only 3ºC warmer! It wasn't 10ºC warmer or even 5ºC warmer, but 3ºC. (Also, life seems to have flourished during the Jurassic period, despite this relative warmth.) The IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios predicts that CO2 levels could be 541 - 970ppm by 2100. IOW, the worst case is that CO2 will be 1/2 of what it was in the Jurassic. Agreed or not? Based on those facts, what conclusions could I reasonably reach re: what temps will be like in 2100? Just because I question the religious fervor surrounding global warming alarmism doesn't mean I am anti-science. Find me one statement that I've made on this thread that demonstrates an anti-science bias. I have gone out of my way to find and reason from a broad base of data, rather than throwing out so-called "fact bombs." You're not-so-veiled attempts above to set science against religion are misplaced. I am a Christian, yes, but I did not remove my brain at the altar. So again, challenge me on facts. I welcome it. Quote:
Quote:
|
Hi,
The huge majority of all climate scientists think that global climate change is a bad thing, and many of them now know that it is worse than we originally thought. In fact, all the data show that it is accelerating much faster than was thought just a few years ago. We need to let the scientists who study the facts, make their judgments. If we want to dismiss their conclusions, or reinterpret the data, then we are being arrogant. James Hansen, Lonnie G. Thompson, et al are not making it up. http://livinggreenbarrie.com/LvGnGlblWarmgIPCCRpt.pdf As far as the number of planets in the solar system -- this is the decision also made by scientists based on the facts. Pluto is smaller than other objects that we have never called a planet, and it's orbit is pretty strange -- out of the plane and some of the time it is inside Uranus, IIRC. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
Pluto's orbit only intersects the orbit of Neptune. Pluto has never been inside Uranus. ;) Had to say it. :D |
Okay, jamesqf wants me to stop believing things and start thinking instead. NeilBlanchard want me to stop thinking and let the experts do that, saying it is "arrogant" for anybody else to question their conclusions. What to do?
Neil, I assume you are accusing me of being arrogant by disagreeing with these scientists. If it is arrogant to "reinterpret the data," then can you tell me how is that different than a dogmatic and authoritarian religion? BTW, in reading that report, I happened to notice a GLARING error. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Again, challenge me with facts. Until I see you present facts, my response to you will be like the French soldier in Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail: Quote:
|
Quote:
EDIT: As of 11/6, I still have only skimmed two of the linked papers. I've been pretty busy... I should have a little time this weekend. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:37 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Content Relevant URLs by vBSEO 3.5.2
All content copyright EcoModder.com