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Post by steve on Aug 23, 2009 12:51:00 GMT
Wylie,
I have not challenged the point that increasing CO2 improves plant growth. But studies similar to the ones you site suggest significant ozone damage in key agricultural areas near to high population areas if temperatures rise over the next 50 years.
Once again we are discussing what is a reasonable and plausible scenario versus what we would like to believe. I would say the future fantasy in the thread title that is believed by some is one where we get all the benefits of a warmer world and none of the downsides.
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Post by hunter on Aug 23, 2009 15:34:52 GMT
Hunter, I can never see the point with getting to grips with what you say because you have a simple view of the subject. There is nothing controversial in the physics of AGW science. I have not said that AGW is = to greenhouse effect - I've referred enough to the *increase* in CO2. Your stuff about "the faithful" applies to you as you have come to your opinion without showing any sort of understanding of what your opponent is saying. I've said the last sentence a few times in response to you, but I've for the most part given up saying it.[/quote]
Steve, AGW is a series of models supported by complex computer programs. The models have not shown any meaningful predictive ability, and are admitted to not account for very significant variables and forcings. They are models constructed by people who wanted a certain outcome. Not surprisingly, they got what they were looking for. It is not a physics issue. It is an engineering issue. The physics of air flight is well understood. It is not unusual for the computer models the aerospace engineers rely on to fail. That is not a failure of the physics. It is a failure of the engineering. The same is true for AGW. The computer programs are map, not territory. AGW claims are projections of the programs, not the physics. AGW faithful rely on the projections, and often reject conflicting data. That AGW promoters have been caught cooking the books is well established. Not one claim of AGW about 'AGW happening faster than predicted', or some claim of proof has withstood either the test of time or critical analysis. I sum up the problem and fallacy of AGW by the equation of AGW is not = to greenhouse. It saves a lot of typing.
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jtom
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Posts: 248
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Post by jtom on Aug 23, 2009 16:29:20 GMT
Wylie, I have not challenged the point that increasing CO2 improves plant growth. But studies similar to the ones you site suggest significant ozone damage in key agricultural areas near to high population areas if temperatures rise over the next 50 years. Once again we are discussing what is a reasonable and plausible scenario versus what we would like to believe. I would say the future fantasy in the thread title that is believed by some is one where we get all the benefits of a warmer world and none of the downsides. And to quote an earlier stevism: "It is warming, and a cost-benefit analysis has been done. Though I'm not sure how you calculate the financial cost of mass starvation and forced mass emigration that 2C of warming will cause. " And who's living in an all-bad, nothing-good fantasy? LOL! Thanks, for making my day, Steve. You're a real card!
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Post by sigurdur on Aug 23, 2009 19:56:53 GMT
Wylie, I have not challenged the point that increasing CO2 improves plant growth. But studies similar to the ones you site suggest significant ozone damage in key agricultural areas near to high population areas if temperatures rise over the next 50 years. Once again we are discussing what is a reasonable and plausible scenario versus what we would like to believe. I would say the future fantasy in the thread title that is believed by some is one where we get all the benefits of a warmer world and none of the downsides. Steve: The miinute amount of land that might be affected by increased levels of low level ozone will not have a statistical effect on the increae in yeilds, plant health etc that an increaes of co2 causes to happen. This is just plain fact, and not fiction at all. I don't know what cost benifit ratio you have read, but everyone that I have read indicates that a 2C rise in temps is a true boon for mankind. I have yet to read a study that indicates any type of reduction in ag output. Every study that I have read indicates a large increase in ag output as the arriable land increases, and the yields increase. There are two basic things that man requires to live. Water and food. Both appear to be quit abundant with a 2C increase in temps.
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Post by poitsplace on Aug 23, 2009 20:41:48 GMT
So although I would very much welcome higher temperatures and higher CO2 because of the benefits for mankind (very significant for ALL crop plants and forests), I don't believe that we are going to get them. I don't believe that we are going to get that much higher CO2 because economically recoverable fossil fuel reserves (especially oil and coal) are running low and there is just not enough of them (ECONOMICALLY RECOVERABLE) to raise the atmospheric concentration to 550 ppm. I don't think we are going to get the higher temperatures because the purported effect of CO2 seems to be exaggerated (at best). I very much welcome your contrary views and I hope you will allow me to dissent from your statements as honest disagreement. There's also a secondary issue with this. If you look at CO2 output v/s atmospheric levels, it appears that it's taking ever larger amounts of CO2 just to maintain a linear increase.
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Post by steve on Aug 23, 2009 21:33:43 GMT
Wylie, I have not challenged the point that increasing CO2 improves plant growth. But studies similar to the ones you site suggest significant ozone damage in key agricultural areas near to high population areas if temperatures rise over the next 50 years. Once again we are discussing what is a reasonable and plausible scenario versus what we would like to believe. I would say the future fantasy in the thread title that is believed by some is one where we get all the benefits of a warmer world and none of the downsides. And to quote an earlier stevism: "It is warming, and a cost-benefit analysis has been done. Though I'm not sure how you calculate the financial cost of mass starvation and forced mass emigration that 2C of warming will cause. " And who's living in an all-bad, nothing-good fantasy? LOL! Thanks, for making my day, Steve. You're a real card! Hmmm...I think I should avoid irony in future as it seems to have gone over your head.
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Post by steve on Aug 23, 2009 21:36:01 GMT
Wylie, I have not challenged the point that increasing CO2 improves plant growth. But studies similar to the ones you site suggest significant ozone damage in key agricultural areas near to high population areas if temperatures rise over the next 50 years. Once again we are discussing what is a reasonable and plausible scenario versus what we would like to believe. I would say the future fantasy in the thread title that is believed by some is one where we get all the benefits of a warmer world and none of the downsides. Steve: The miinute amount of land that might be affected by increased levels of low level ozone will not have a statistical effect on the increae in yeilds, plant health etc that an increaes of co2 causes to happen. This is just plain fact, and not fiction at all. I don't know what cost benifit ratio you have read, but everyone that I have read indicates that a 2C rise in temps is a true boon for mankind. I have yet to read a study Sigurdur, this is about the 15th time you have started a point with "I have yet to read a study that...[disagrees with me]". Just because you haven't read the study doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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Post by sigurdur on Aug 23, 2009 21:56:06 GMT
Steve: The miinute amount of land that might be affected by increased levels of low level ozone will not have a statistical effect on the increae in yeilds, plant health etc that an increaes of co2 causes to happen. This is just plain fact, and not fiction at all. I don't know what cost benifit ratio you have read, but everyone that I have read indicates that a 2C rise in temps is a true boon for mankind. I have yet to read a study Sigurdur, this is about the 15th time you have started a point with "I have yet to read a study that...[disagrees with me]". Just because you haven't read the study doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Steve: True, and I would like to read said study. Do you have reference to one?
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jtom
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Post by jtom on Aug 23, 2009 23:19:25 GMT
And to quote an earlier stevism: "It is warming, and a cost-benefit analysis has been done. Though I'm not sure how you calculate the financial cost of mass starvation and forced mass emigration that 2C of warming will cause. " And who's living in an all-bad, nothing-good fantasy? LOL! Thanks, for making my day, Steve. You're a real card! Hmmm...I think I should avoid irony in future as it seems to have gone over your head. No irony there, Steve. That's far beyond your capability. You just can't see how far out on a limb you've put yourself.
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Post by steve on Aug 24, 2009 10:26:49 GMT
Sigurdur, this is about the 15th time you have started a point with "I have yet to read a study that...[disagrees with me]". Just because you haven't read the study doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Steve: True, and I would like to read said study. Do you have reference to one? One place to start would be the Working Group 2 part of the IPCC assessment report. www.ipcc-wg2.org/
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Post by steve on Aug 24, 2009 10:37:25 GMT
Hmmm...I think I should avoid irony in future as it seems to have gone over your head. No irony there, Steve. That's far beyond your capability. You just can't see how far out on a limb you've put yourself. I'll have to explain it. If you look at the financial cost of a warming world, you can actually come up with some quite small numbers. But these numbers include some positives in the Western world (ie. sigurdur's soya growing more effectively), meaning that the negatives to some parts of the world are bigger than the overall cost. A financial cost, however, does not fully take into account the significant personal hardships that affected people go through. ie. ten billion or so added to a western economy is insignificant. The same amount of money taken from a developing economy is a disaster. Getting rude with people when things start to go over your head is what the original poster of this thread asked people not to do
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Post by hunter on Aug 24, 2009 12:54:57 GMT
"A financial cost, however, does not fully take into account the significant personal hardships that affected people go through. ie. ten billion or so added to a western economy is insignificant. The same amount of money taken from a developing economy is a disaster." Steve, like all things to do with AGW promotion, you simply have nothing except models to support anything you are claiming here at all. Of course the latest thing that AGW is going to cause, The Earth Spinning Off Its Axis, should be a warning to true believers everywhere that you are being made fools of. But you, like all true believers, will miss the hilarious irony of this completely. www.newscientist.com/article/dn17657-global-warming-could-change-earths-tilt.htmlChicken Little is now the mascot for AGW.
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Post by poitsplace on Aug 24, 2009 15:05:28 GMT
No irony there, Steve. That's far beyond your capability. You just can't see how far out on a limb you've put yourself. I'll have to explain it. If you look at the financial cost of a warming world, you can actually come up with some quite small numbers. But these numbers include some positives in the Western world (ie. sigurdur's soya growing more effectively), meaning that the negatives to some parts of the world are bigger than the overall cost. A financial cost, however, does not fully take into account the significant personal hardships that affected people go through. ie. ten billion or so added to a western economy is insignificant. The same amount of money taken from a developing economy is a disaster. The current mindset spells out doom for the developing world...its ad perfect storm of crap for them. It suppresses their natural development while complaining that this must be done in order to "save them" from a threat that has never materialized. If that threat ever did materialize it would be a trivial matter for them to adapt...if only they'd developed. Attention is drawn to their birth rate...but this would be reduced if only they developed. We hear about how they'll be devistated by floods and droughts, but they'd be able to fix most of these problems with reservoirs if only they were developed. We hear about an increase of disease but these rumors are EASILY shown to be false with the only REAL solution being for them to develop. Rising sea levels? Yep, development would help with that too. Basically, if there's going to be any AGW, the developing world is going to see it no matter what. We WILL NOT level off CO2 any time soon...and with life expectancies of 35-45, many in those developing nations would WELCOME the extra heat if it meant they'd have even a fraction of the life-giving infrastructure we have in the west. We're really talking about a worst case scenario in which MAYBE tens of millions die out of billions, while both currently and in the future the lack of infrastructure essentially leads to a 100% early death rate. What they need help with is lower pollution...not some moronic, genocidal, anti-CO2 policies. If ANYONE should be tried for crimes against humanity (and I'm not saying you did...but you know it's been said) it would be the people proposing such stupid energy policies for the developing world...especially since the current warming rate (either for CO2 levels or the overall trend) puts us at only about 1C total anomaly by 2100.
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Post by steve on Aug 24, 2009 15:45:54 GMT
"A financial cost, however, does not fully take into account the significant personal hardships that affected people go through. ie. ten billion or so added to a western economy is insignificant. The same amount of money taken from a developing economy is a disaster." Steve, like all things to do with AGW promotion, you simply have nothing except models to support anything you are claiming here at all. Of course the latest thing that AGW is going to cause, The Earth Spinning Off Its Axis, should be a warning to true believers everywhere that you are being made fools of. But you, like all true believers, will miss the hilarious irony of this completely. www.newscientist.com/article/dn17657-global-warming-could-change-earths-tilt.htmlChicken Little is now the mascot for AGW. I was going to ignore your boring stuck record repetition (blah blah AGW promotion blah blah all based on models blah blah chicken little) but the link is interesting. More interesting is your representation of this article as some sort of alarmist "spinning off axis" claim. It highlights your lack of intellectual curiosity, and possibly an antiscience bias. As it happens, they go out of their way to state the obvious, presumably in the vain hope that foolk like you manage to read beyond the headline:
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wylie
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 129
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Post by wylie on Aug 24, 2009 21:16:19 GMT
Steve, Not to belabor the point, because you are quite correct that ozone can reduce crop yields. However, very solid and repeated open air CO2 fertilization work by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne (UIUC) shows that the positive benefits of CO2 fertilization on common American crop plants (Soybean and Corn) very much out-weighed any negative consequences from ozone. This is intuitive but it is also proven by the excellent crop yields in areas downwind of cities with ground level ozone problems. CO2 also had significant advantages for nutrient use efficiency (including water). An very solid and repeated over several years open air study of the effect of increasing CO2 concentrations (CO2 pipes into a corn field, heavily monitored and corrected for winds, etc.) from ambient 380 ppm to 550 ppm (to simulate the expected CO2 level in 2100), showed that soybean yields increased on average 19% and used 5% less water and were much more resistant to drought conditions. This was not too unexpected given previous studies on soybean. However the results for Corn fertilization were even more dramatic. They showed a 40% !! increase in yield and about a 10% reduction in water usage. It seems that CO2, in addition to increasing yields, also allows the plant to use nutrients more efficiently. So although I would very much welcome higher temperatures and higher CO2 because of the benefits for mankind (very significant for ALL crop plants and forests), I don't believe that we are going to get them. I don't believe that we are going to get that much higher CO2 because economically recoverable fossil fuel reserves (especially oil and coal) are running low and there is just not enough of them (ECONOMICALLY RECOVERABLE) to raise the atmospheric concentration to 550 ppm. I don't think we are going to get the higher temperatures because the purported effect of CO2 seems to be exaggerated (at best). I very much welcome your contrary views and I hope you will allow me to dissent from your statements as honest disagreement. Ian Don't worry, there is plenty of coal. Oil shale and oil tar sands are very plentiful as well. Hunter, I would very much love it if you are correct. I fear that you are not. If what you say is true then the graph that I saw on the Oil Drum.com (WWW.TOD.com) of the BTUs of coal being mined in the US peaking in 1998 would have to have been incorrect or misleading. I don't believe that it is either. Most people, when they think about coal at all in the US, say something like "WE have 200 years of coal left at the current rate of consumption". Not only is that statement probably incorrect on the face of it, but even if it were not, it would not be relevant. We are attempting to increase our rate of energy usage in the US (and elsewhere) to increase our standard of living (the easiest way to do it). Using more coal is one way to do that and that has been the case for 200 years. That is until 1998. That is right, until 1998, with the exception of a few blips for statistical variation, every year, the amount of BTUs being derived from coal has increased. Of course, you might like to measure your coal in terms of tonnage. Most people do. It is misleading, because very few people want to burn coal to generate more ash or more water vapor, but tonnage is a traditional measure (easier to measure). If you measure the production of coal in the US by tonnage, you would be correct to say that every year since 1998 the tonnage of coal being dug out of the ground in the US has indeed increased. HOWEVER, that fact would obscure the incredible decline in quality. The lower grades of coal (those that produce less energy per unit of mass, e.g. fewer BTUs per ton), ie. sub-bituminous and even the horrible lignite are rapidly increasing their percentage of coal production at the expense of the higher grades (e.g. anthracite and bituminous). Anthracite coal (which is very low in ash, dry, very high in energy content and relatively low in sulphur) is now something like only 1% of the total coal produced in the US. That number in 1900 was more like 80%. All the good anthracite coal in the Appalachians is basically GONE. They are mining anthracite coal seams that are only a few feet (at most) thick. That means a huge amount of rock has to be excavated and a lot of oil used up to get at the remaining anthracite coal. Most people don't think about the energy cost of producing energy. However, ALL forms of energy cost energy to produce in some form. The energy cost (or energy return) for most fossil fuels has been dropping rapidly (especially oil, but also coal). So even if it is possible to mine a seam of coal that is miles deep and a few inches across, it would be a foolish person indeed who assumed that this would be of net energy benefit. So even if there are "200 years of coal left" in the US, that does NOT mean that there are 200 years of coal that would be ECONOMICALLY WORTHWHILE to mine. Besides, "Peak Coal" is NOT the end of coal mining, but rather the "turning point" at which the cost of mining coal increases signficiantly year over year and the total production per year starts to drop. In terms of the US, the important metric is the amount of coal ENERGY (BTUs) that is being derived from the mining (or even more accurately the amount of energy being delivered to an end usage). That peak for coal in the US is certainly behind us (in 1998). Unfortunately, the peak for oil in the US was in 1971. Current US production (despite incredible advances in technology) is about half of what it was in 1971. That has very little to do with areas being off-limits to drilling and a LOT more to do with the basics of geology. All resources, including Fossil Fuels, are exploited and depleted using a bell curve. Most human beings assume that resources are depleted like a gas tank in a car (i.e. a square wave function). So it is more a fact that every resource has a bell curve (and a peak of the curve) than a fantasy that "we have 200 years of coal left". Fortunately, there is still a far bit of natural gas (especially shale oil) left in the US and we have not yet reached "peak gas". Hopefully, that date will yet be several decades in the future. Even more forutnately, most internal combustion engines can run on natural gas with little modification. After all gasoline, is mostly C4 and C5 hydrocarbons. Burning C1 and C2 hydrocarbons is not very different! Sorry for the incredibly long-winded answer to your good-natured response. I have spent a long time thinking about these issues and I read TOD a lot. They also mean that AGW is not a problem. There are just not enough Economically Recoverable hydrocarbons to raise the atmospheric CO2 level high enough to hurt us (or help us!) Ian
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