Secrets Of The Deep May Hold Clue To Ancient Global Warming
With fanatics who want us Western infidels dead, Bush & neocons with their apocalyptic and fascistic obsessions, a looming bird flu pandemic and death by global warming, I’m feeling a tad less optimistic about the future.
Global warming events 420 million years ago, comparable to those currently beginning to affect our planet, may have caused catastrophic environmental changes in an ancient ocean, threatening the life that existed in it.
Jointly supervised by the University of Leicester Department of Geology and the British Geological Survey (BGS), a postgraduate researcher based at Leicester and the BGS is to investigate exquisitely preserved fossil zooplankton known as graptolites, which may hold some clues to global warming events 420 million years ago.
“The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.”
Just thought I’d add that happy thought.
Doomed?
Let’s hope so. Humans are in need of a serious culling.
When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
Looks like we’re all going to die. Might as well enjoy what time we have left. Not worth wrrying about it.
everyone knows that the earth didn’t exist 420 million years ago, and that there is no global warming, simply up the dosage in the kool-aid and take a big gulp!!!!
“global warming events 420 million years ago.”
Huh? Was George Bush President then? Where the Republicans in charge then? Did man even walk the earth then? I think not. Maybe global warming is just a natural cycle the earth goes through and we have no control over it.
We missed you, Paul.
So, which is it? The science isn’t worth investigating? The geological record is apparent, the process is measurable. Should we reject scientific conclusions as unreliable because they affront something as ineffable as politics?
I just find it confounding when folks bright enough to be good at one demanding specialty — absolutely feel required to condemn the work of the majority of experts in a completely different specialty.
This stuff isn’t as vague as economics. There probably is room there for the ravings of those dedicated to voodoo economics. But, continuing investigation of physical processes will either confirm or deny — and survive scientific examination. Would you rather leave it in the so-capable hands of the guys who stage-managed the Iraq Invasion or Katrina relief? They’re not a hell of a lot different from the numb-nuts who fought off vaccination — or bet peoples’ lives on the Earth being flat.
Why oppose investigation and research?
Well Cristians dont like science cause scientists throw too many big words around for there limited childlike brains to understand and that frustrates them and so they will consider the scientists arrogant. Maybe science needs a new public awareness program that uses coloring books to cover topics like global warming and cult deprograming.
Investigate away, I’m all for it. The point is to not let it affect daily life.
For a very serious (and sadly depressing) study of how past society handled (or not) Ecological and/or Resource crisis, read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”
Turn off the propaganda on network news. Read a book, don’t rely on 10 second sound bites from so-called experts for anything, especially anyone in the government. We have been in a constant state of one crises after another my entire 50 year life. Since folks are starting to get bored with global warming, they’re firing up the scare machines for bird flu pandemics to keep us in fear.
We need to drink more whiskey, eat more red meat, and smoke more cigarettes and die at 65 like god intended.
Geez, I had no idea the dinosaurs were creating such a build-up of carbon dioxide! They were obviously living beyond their envirionmental footprints… feetprint? feetprints?
They deserve what they got. Those arrogant US SUV drivers will reap the same rewards. CATASTROPHE!
Greg makes a very good point with his quote. It got me to thinking that those who don’t believe the earth is warming are very similar to those pushing Unintellegent Design. Reputable scientists are all convinced in the principle, unreputable scientists are flogging a dead horse called denial.
For the apologists. Yes, there have been several episodes where the earth has experienced catastrophic climate changes. Science recognizes the evidence that probably caused these events. This time, nature is not causing the change. Man is. We might not be able to stop another Krakatoa, but we can stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Mr. Fusion: “We might not be able to stop another Krakatoa, but we can stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
How??
The Kyoto Accord calls for a reduction in greenhouse gases 10% below 1990 levels. The USA is currently emitting ghg’s 11% above the 1990 level. That means we need more than a 20% reduction in our consumption of energy to meet that goal — with absolutely no proof that this reduction will have any impact at all upon global warming.
Katrina showed us what happens when we take 20% of our oil/gas capacity offline. Now throw in the rolling blackouts California had a few years back, only double its severity and apply it across the nation. Now make these energy restrictions permanent.
A significant portion of our industry is based upon the manufacture and consumption of luxury goods. Cell phones, HDTVs, computers … these are luxuries purchased by our economic surplus. These would be the first things cut from the budget by people trying to pay for food, clothing, lights, heat, and a ride to work.
Want to take a guess what the unemployment rate would be under these restrictions? 15%? 25%? We already complain about wage erosion caused by cheap labor in India and China. What do you think would happen to wages if for every high-tech job there were half-a-dozen qualified locals begging for it?
How do you suppose the government welfare system would hold up with tax revenue reduced from the shutdown of one-fifth our production capacity? France claims to have lost thousands from a heat wave. (No air conditioning?) How many tens-of-thousands do you think would freeze to death during a cold winter?
And the environmentalists think the answer to this problem is to ban SUVs. What a joke.
Oh and those sanctimonious EU countries that agreed to Kyoto and like to blame the US for global warming — how many are actually meeting the Kyoto goal? Britain isn’t. Neither is France, Belgium, or Germany. They hoped to buy credits from Russia, but I guess Russia decided energy was too important to its own growth. Duh!
China’s growth is bursting at the seams and it is trying to purchase every drop of oil it can and is struggling to meet its electric needs with new coal-fired power plants. Why? Because growth requires energy!
And no one has a clue if all of the pain and sacrifice Kyoto demands would have ANY impact upon global warming.
I find myself in the boat of accepting that anthropomorphic climate change is a reality but am unconvinced as to the severity or solution to the problem. Simply cutting emissions by 20% in ten or twenty years would cause a massive world-wide recession and does nothing to address emerging countries.
“What you do see in the data again and again and again is this almost lockstep increase between the levels of CO2 and the rise of temperature in the atmosphere. And the climate models that predicted these things happening 15 years ago have proven to be accurate.”
Shennanigans. The span from 1940-1970 shows a tremendous drop in greenhouse gasses, yet the rate of climate change continued anabated. “Lockstep”? Thirty years – when the actual recorded temperate records only go back to the mid-1800s – is a sizable chunk.
Computer models? Computer models are only as good as the number of inputs and the algorithms it uses. Sadly, science really knows jack-crap about global climate change which is why no two simulators can jibe. Sim1 will have us burn up in 10 years, while Sim2 will have us freeze in 30. Simulations are crap. We can run simulations to predict the temperature in two weeks, and we’ve been studying “micro” concepts a lot longer than we’ve been studying the “macro” concepts of global climatology.
In short, the globe’s climates (PLURAL!) are changing. We have no _proof_ whatsoever that this is happening any faster or slower than the climates has ever been changing. Change is constant. The effect of humanity is indeed a cause for study – the human population has exploded exponentially since 1850 . More than likely, we are having an effect, but instead of clouding the issue with so much crap, we need to give real science some breathing room.
… and stop using so much AquaNet.
Enzian & Smith make statements that shouldn’t be construed as fact. All they are is less than propaganda. Although Smith throws in a few straw men and lies.
If you’re serious about climate knowledge, start with Max Planck Institute or just Google paleoclimatology. Don’t waste too much time with obscurantist claptrap. It’s just good old dittohead snake oil.
“What’s happening is that it has never warmed up at the rate it is now (at least not in the last 650,000 years anyway) and scientists can’t explain that without including man’s effects.”
How does anyone know this. What I’m saying is that man has only been on this planet a short time, as opposed to the life of this planet. Recorded scientific data only dates a few hundred years of so. How can one say that this hasent happened before. The earth goes through many cycles, to say that we can make such a change is arogant.
gquaglia — you must be younger and less sophisticated than I thought. You seriously have no understanding of how research in paleoclimatology works, do you?
Start with NOAA: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/primer.html
gquaglia: How does anyone know this?? There’s a reason that line of text was a link. I provided you an article, read it.
Smith: As moss says, straw men. It doesn’t have to be Kyoto, banning SUVs, or drastic, all at once solutions that will shock the economy dramatically. The fact is, we’re not even seriously trying. When was the last time the CAFE (fuel efficiency) standards were raised? I think they did a token 1mpg raise not to long ago, but nothing significant in a long time even though we have the technology. Bush talked about our addiction to oil in the State of the Union, which has national security implications in addition to environmental ones, and the next day his energy secretary says he “didn’t mean it literally.”
A lot of progress has been made with renewable energy plants. I don’t know if it’s enough, but it’s definitely a feasible source of energy now. If it’s not enough, even though I consider myself an environmentalist, I would be happy if we moved to nuclear power as a near term solution while we finish working on things like hydrogen. (Don’t tell me hydrogen cars aren’t a net gain because the hydrogen still has to be generated somewhere. I have a whole spiel on that I can give you if you want it.)
As for computer models and proof, I tend to trust the experts before I trust the talking heads on TV. The fact that you can make an argument that sounds good to already skeptical people with no expertise doesn’t prove anything. Creationists already do that with things like “evolution happing naturally would be like a tornado in a junkyard creating a functional car.” Sounds good if you’re already predisposed against evolution, but it doesn’t have any scientific validity plus it ignores all the scientific evidence that’s already out there. I’m sure the real scientists have heard all these arguments. The fact that they’re still in near agreement that global warming is real is telling.
Of course there was global warming before. Ever heard of the ice age? How do you think that ended? I’m guessing it wasn’t industry that caused that global warming, or the buildup of CO2 that happened then. So why are you blaming industry now? Greg, you say it doesn’t have to be anything drastic. Well, all of the proposals out there are drastic. Kyoto itself doesn’t solve the problem very much, so something less than that will do even less, under the scientists’ models.
All of your fixes, it seems so convenient how global warming solutions fit in with environmentalists’ agenda. They just believe the science and cry panic because they like the results. Perhaps if the proposed solution were for Halliburton to build a sea wall and aerial CO2 scrubber, people would pay closer attention to the science.
By the way, CAFEs literally kill people because of the smaller, lighter cars required. Even if there is substantial boost of technology, it’s still a tradeoff of lighter vs less mileage. But of course enviros love the drastic solutions of higher cafe, no suvs, use totes for shopping, walking to stores/ bicycling, less industry, etc.
AB CD: Once again, rates. Of course the earth has warmed up before, it’s the rate that’s out of whack, and as I quoted in my original post, “what you do see in the data again and again and again is this almost lockstep increase between the levels of CO2 and the rise of temperature in the atmosphere.” I trust scientists first.
As for how drastic it would be, I would be happy if there was a serious effort making serious progress, even if it falls below Kyoto. As someone else pointed out, the countries that signed on to it aren’t exactly meeting it either. But when you’re in a hole, rule one is stop digging. The thing is I don’t see a serious effort.
You assume an awful lot about our motives. You don’t consider nuclear power a concession? Some people would tear my head off for that. Here’s another one: I would grit my teeth and allow drilling in ANWR if it were tightly controlled and part of a comprehensive package designed to get us off foreign oil. But I don’t see that. They’re willing to stand up to the environmentalists because they don’t like them anyway, but they’re not willing to stand up to the auto industry because they’re a constituent. Ergo, they’re not serious, they’re just doing what’s politically convenient. Ergo, I can’t support it.
“CAFE kills people.” Prove it. Show me an article on it that references a study and provides statistics.
A study in Science declared, “A large increase was seen in the number and proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5.”
But the researchers simply cut off their data at 1970, though public statistics go back to 1850. Using the full data set would have reversed the conclusion.
Time for some logic here:
1. Heat Rises
2. Global Warming Kills
3. Liberals appear to be brain dead
Conclusion: their braind were cooked from Global Warming.
Yup, time to panic. It’s obviously true and we’re all going to DIE!!!!
Logic?
Dude, you’re about as competent at logic as Bush is as bicycle riding — or Cheney at shooting birds that aren’t being driven at him by suicidal beaters.
Such angry liberals.
Best post was the one pointing out that most of the Earth’s population will be dead in 20 to 30 years. Hopefully for your own sakes a number of you are in this group. I doubt the stress you put yourselves under is good for you.
Such angry reactionaries.
Best post was the one pointing out that most of the Earth’s population will be dead in 20 to 30 years. Hopefully for your own sakes a number of you are in this group. I doubt the stress you put yourselves under is good for you.
And, then, the Earth will be a kinder, gentler place.
Greg & moss
Some very intelligent, thoughtful posts. I am glad that you, and some others, have actually taken the time to research this.
Greg, I’ll let Pat and his 1Mbps broadband connection find the study for you. You might start by searching for CAFE kills people.
Straw men, Greg? Why are only the arguments posed by the global warming crowd legit and any argument counter to their position is considered propaganda?
By the way, who the hell is it that defines a scientist? And where are the polls that back up the claim “all scientists agree?”
And isn’t Jim Hansen the NASA dude that published the paper showing the dramatic increase in temperatures over the last thirty years or so? Of course his paper was based upon California monitoring stations. Someone refuted that paper by showing a near perfect correlation between increases in county population and the increases in measured temperatures. It seems the addition of nearby buildings and parking lots were increasing the temperature measurements at the monitoring stations. But I guess the “scientist” that refuted the great Jim Hansen was just a propagandist.
What about the Ozone Hole scare of the eighties and nineties? I distinctly remember all of these “scientists” proclaiming that even if we stopped emitting all CFCs immediately, the ozone hole will continue to grow until 2050. Well guess what, a little blurb in a science journal said that the ozone hole peaked in 1998 and is now getting smaller.
Golly, that was quick considering the ODC ban did not kick in until 1995. I guess the computer models were a little off, eh? Or maybe it isn’t such a great idea to infer too much about global weather behavior based upon only 30 years worth of data.
Smith, you deserve some sort of award for cramming the greatest quantity of lies, misconceptions, crude misunderstanding and just plain fear of truth into the space of a “comment”. Or at least a rude noise.
Rock on, dude!