"bill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
> > > http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
> > > This shows clearly a geological history of global temperature.
> > > Note the plateau at 22 degrees C. These times included ANY time when
> > > the atmospheric CO2 exceeded approximately 600 ppm, including millions
> > > of years when it ixceeded 2000 ppm with no additional corresponding
> > > warming whatsoever. What source to you use to imply that that is
> > > either innacurate or irrelovent? If we are planning to expend the
> > > herculean efforts involved in a 550 ppm stabilization (again, I am
> > > sceptical that 25% current emissions would produce that) and 600 ppm
is
> > > the response cieling, then what's the point??
>
> > That's an awfully crude diagram to be basing that much importance on.
The
> > paleoclimate
> > evidence isn't really that obliging regarding global mean surface
> > temperature.
>
> As opposed to what? Paleoclimate is I will grant you, not very
> good for accuracy or precision, but taking it to be +- 2 degrees C
> still pretty clearly indicates the plateau.
Bill, the real problem is not in error bands on the temperature but in
temporal resolution. What good is a graph that does not even show the
glacial-interglacial swings of 10oC and 120m sea level much less changes on
the multi-decadal to century scale? We are trying to establish policy that
affects us and our grandchildren, not evolutions next invention. It is
certainly interesting and informative science, but is of little value in
decisions relevant to human civilisation.
> > You may also wish to consider that events that may be too short to
capture
> > on a half-billion year time scale graph (never mind one obviously drawn
> > freehand, more of a cartoon than data) can be plenty long enough to make
> > matters very nasty for humans.
>
> Well, yes, however, if co2 concentrations in excess of 600 ppm
> produced higher temperatures, then it would show on that graph in pink
> neon. The fact that there's a plateau
See above. There is no information on "short lived" spikes of say, 10,000
years.
> > Finally, if your model of things is correct, we really ought to stop
> > emitting immediately, because a 7 C rise in mean surface temperature is
not
> > something to shrug off.
>
> correct, however, I don't see any means to prevent it, given that
> even the optimistic stabilization scenarios show 550 at 25% of current
> emissions. there's no way we can go below that emissions case, and I
> don't even see how it's possible to get down to that level without
> giving up most of the progress from the last 200 years. when
> discussing what we SHOULD do, we should first look at both what we CAN
> do.
IMHO, this is 100% wrong. Wishing it would be so certainly does not change
what is possible or not, but the only effective way to approach a ery
serious problem is to determine what needs to be done to solve it first.
You then begin the process of balancing the costs of the solutions against
the cost of the problem itself.
FWIW, I also categorically reject such absolute assertions of the
impossibility of solving this problem. It is simply the same mindset of a
lazy teenager looking woefully at a steep hill and then proceeding to make
every excuse possible for why it can not be climbed, the fact that it is the
only way out be damned.
The other failing of this mental approach is that we are not facing an
either or situation, total climate disaster or minor adaptation, there is
every degree in between. Kind of like if a bomb is about to go off near
you, you don't decide I can't get very far away so I'll just sip my latte,
you run and get *as far away as possible* (Look, its uphill. Oh well, I
guess I just can't make it...). We need to do *as much as possible* to
mitigate climate change, it is a real and urgent danger. Just becasue some
degree, maybe a very harsh degree, of change is already unavoidable is not a
reason to sit and sip our lattes, even if you really like lattes.
Coby
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