Thanks for the background. As you know, I have my PhD in Astrophysics, and my focus has been primarily split between doing some Astrobiology work with trying to find habitable planets in our Galaxy, as well as trying to find proof of life outside of our planet and solar system, an Astroparticle Physics and trying to figure out the mystery that is Dark Matter. Exciting times, and when it comes to working alongside Astrobiologists, I do spend quite a bit of time working with climate data. Astrobiologists are somewhat experts at what the ideal climate is for life to pop up, and how the changing of the climate will impact what life can grow there.
Life is pretty amazing if you think about it. It can develop and grow in more places than we may think There's life that can survive the vacuum of space, and life that can grow from cold volcanic rock creating new islands, and new species. Life dumps a bunch of iguanas on an island and they adapt to learn how to swim in the ocean for food, pretty cool stuff in my opinion.
But one of the most interesting effects on what life is life can be how the atmosphere is made up. I'll touch on that a little later though.
So quick note. Peter Ferrara is a lawyer and a political commentator, not a scientist. He has no formal education on anything science, getting a 4 year degree in Economics and then going to Harvard for his Law Degree. Smart guy, I'm sure, but not a scientist. In fact, he's somewhat known as a climate change denier. The problem here is that you're:
- Not getting information from the source
- Not getting information from a source that at least understands the source material
- Getting information from someone who's extremely biased.
Now, where my worry comes is that you're dismissing all evidence to the contrary saying that sources are biased and scientists are cooking data, etc. but accepting information from people who aren't experts and are even more biased, but so in your favor.
Because when you listen to people who aren't experts, they'll tell you things that aren't true, such as the temperature hasn't been rising for almost 20 years.
17 of the 18 hottest years on record have come since 2000. Number 18 is in 1988, so it's not that far away. That is going back 136 years, and you can look at the graphs and data yourself, NASA puts it on their website.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
You can also find things, such as carbon dioxide, levels, which I will also get to later on.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
That data is real, I've worked with it, I've assisted with collecting it, I know that data is handled correctly and is real. I hope you can trust me there, because it is, even though I know it doesn't fit with your schicms at this point.
Things such as sunspot cycles and the oceans can and do have an affect on our climate, mostly surrounding rainfall and sea surface temperature (SST), however, they don't account for all the changes, they only account for a small bit. And now, with rising CO2 levels, their effect can decrease as they are competing against something much stronger. Climate is a pretty complex thing, and a lot of things can affect what it does, and how it impacts the rest of us. When you throw things out of balance, like we are, that's where things can get out of control as they are threatening to do so now. I implore you to try to look at the entire picture and not toss out the puzzle pieces you don't want to use.
For example, our planet may have natural warming and cooling phases, this is something that has happened to our planet since it was born, but that shouldn't be used to dismiss things.
Between 1940 and 1947 there was a rise in temperatures with a peak in 1945. While the temperatures did cool some afterwards, they didn't return anywhere near what they were before the rise in 1940. Not to mention that the South had some rising temperatures at this time.
By 1980 the temperatures began rising and they really haven't stopped since. There are parts of the country that have had an 8 degree swing in temperature since 1884, and that is a very bad thing.
We most certainly have had more warming since 1997. Again, 17 of the 18 hottest years on record since 2000, and since 1997, the 18 hottest years on record have happened. Those are facts that can be measured.
Yes, but there are a lot of other naturally occurring things that aren't good, especially in excess.
Oxygen for example, we need that to breath correct? Pretty good thing. What happens if there's too much oxygen in the atmosphere? Well it becomes flammable, so that's pretty freaking bad unless you like breathing fire air. All life on earth dies.
But before that even happens, if we had roughly 50% more oxygen (about 30% of our atmosphere) well life on earth would have some pretty serious changes. For one, humans wouldn't be all that comfortable with the levels, as our bodies aren't optimized for it. Additionally, we'd have giant cockroaches and dragonflies that are the size of cars/busses and birds living with us. It wouldn't be fun times on planet Earth, not for humans.
Just a simple change in the atmosphere is all it takes really. CO2 may not be as abundant, but that doesn't mean we can just throw the balance out of whack and pump it into the air like nothing is wrong.
Think of it like the fundamental forces of nature. You have electromagnetic, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity.
So say we make a baseline of the Strong nuclear force as 1. That's the strongest anyway. So then we have electromagnetic which is 10^-3, and the weak force which is 10^-16. Both quite a bit weaker than the Strong force.
But what about gravity, the thing that holds us all to this big blue ball? The thing that keeps this big blue ball around our sun. That's gotta be pretty strong to, right?
Except that it's not, it's 10^-41... That's some seriously weak sauce man. If you were to imagine the other three fundamental forces as three dogs fighting over a bone, Gravity would be a tick who's just sitting on the bone because he's too much of a weak bitch to actually have any control.
Now could we just "pump" gravity up (if it were possible of course) because it's so much less? Not at all, it would throw off the entire balance. Not to mention the balance between the 3rd and 4th dimension, it'd be catastrophic.
Which pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and throwing off that balance is as well. Just because something happens slowly, doesn't mean it's not catastrophic.
That is something that many don't actually know, that water vapor is a major player, because it helps trap the heat. The problem is that the heat doesn't originate from the water vapor, it originates from things like the CO2. The CO2 caused the heat, which created more water vapor, which then creates more heat, and it's a rather vicious circle that feeds on each other. This is something that scientists have known for a long time though, and recent experiments confirmed their hypothesis, that the water vapor adds to the problem. This has, and continues to be factored into their data collection, and it's something that has been known to climate scientists from the start. It's "unknownness" is more from the general public. Water vapor isn't the source of the problem though, and it goes away with reduced temperatures and reduced CO2 emissions (which are known to raise temperatures)
That is also true, cow farts are just as bad, in fact in many cases worse. The fact that humans breed so many cows for slaughter is another factor of climate change, something that again, climate scientists account for in their data as it's been known (crap my freshman year I wrote a paper about cow farts). The problem is that a lot of those things are naturally occuring, and therefore balance out naturally as part of the Carbon Cycle. That is okay, but when we throw things out of balance, as we have done, that's when you see the issues coming. The primary source for the changes in our climate at this point is human activity. We have raised our temperatures and quickly are approaching the point of no return. Just because Volcanos naturally throw CO2 in the air as part of the Carbon Cycle (it produces rain to naturally cool the planet) doesn't mean we should as well. Unless we're going to figure out how to stop the Volcanos (which I wouldn't suggest) so the balance isn't thrown off.
The optimal level for CO2 is 350 or below, closer to the 250-270 range that it was before. Just because plants thrive at higher levels, doesn't mean that humans do, or other animals. Again, it's all part of a balance.
And it greatly saddens me that you are intentionally trying to pump CO2 into the atmosphere because you falsely believe that we were "dangerously low" or that you think humans should live in even higher numbers (our planet has a finite amount of resources). Especially when your premise behind your actions is 100% false.
You're not understanding that correctly, the CO2 will raise SST which then in turn will slowly raise the overall climate temperature. Just because it's not proportional to the rise in CO2 levels, doesn't mean that the CO2 isn't affecting it, you have to look at longer term data, and account for all the natural changes, the carbon cycle, all of that. The climate is incredibly complex, when you try to simplify it as you have attempted, that's when you end up with incorrect information and ideas.
I was hoping to see some citations here, as that's what I was mostly interested in seeing where you're getting that information from. Because it flies in the face of everything that I have been doing with the actual people who work on this.
I'm just going to throw these in together and say.
The graph is certainly not cooked up numbers, it has been verified. While there were some questions in the beginning, and at points some data needed to be corrected, however as we continued to study and add to it, it has become much more accurate, and it keeps that same hockey stick graph. All new information has supported the broad consensus shown in the original map as he published in 1998 as well, they've just gotten more accurate numbers as a result of better tests.
Again, you're misunderstanding how the role of CO2 works and the Carbon Cycle.
Here's the problem with that petition thing. First, he admitted that only 9,000 of the signatures had a PhD and the overwhelming majority were engineering degrees. Second, there were a ton of fake signatures on there, including pop culture characters (Han Solo, for example) as well as dead scientists such as Charles Darwin. Third, the signatures can't be verified.
Additionally, it has been paired with a paper that has not been peer reviewed and was filled with inaccurate and downright deceptive information. And despite all that, he has admitted that a whopping 39 climate scientists have signed...... Out of 31,000..... Unverified. Which means pretty much nothing.
That's a pretty poor citation to point to a lack of overwhelming consensus. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is real and man is affecting it. It's so overwhelming in fact that the debate is really only happening here in the U.S. where politicians who are bought and paid for by companies who stand to profit if climate change is fake, have turned it into a political debate. Sadly it has allowed so many to fall for their ruse.
Neither of the two gentlemen have any formal education in science. I don't know why you would trust the information of two political commentators who run a foundation that literally wants to create another industrial revolution (so obviously they have money in the game) who have degrees in history and philosophy rather than scientists who understand the data and work with it every day.
I'm sorry man, I know it will just look like I'm basically saying everything that you're writing is more or less wrong, and I basically am, but I genuinely was curious to what your main sources appear to be, and they are unfortunately a bunch of extremely conservative political commentators (which is why I'm not surprised that you listen to them, as I'm sure your views reflect many of their own) with no scientific education behind their claims.
I wish you'd be more willing to listen to the scientists. To be honest, I really don't understand why people are so against it. What's going to happen, we create a futuristic looking world that is filled with beneficial technology, at a significantly reduced cost to us for no reason? Because that sounds better to me than trying to go back to the early 1900's when everything was powered by coal and looked like crap.
