Guest Post: Three Paths To Near-Term Human Extinction
Submitted by Guy McPherson of Nature Bats Last
Three Paths To Near-Term Human Extinction
About a decade ago I realized we were putting the finishing touches on our own extinction party, with the party probably over by 2030. During the intervening period I’ve seen nothing to sway this belief, and much evidence to reinforce it. Yet the protests, ridicule, and hate mail reach a fervent pitch when I speak or write about the potential for near-term extinction of Homo sapiens.
“We’re different.”
“We’re special.”
“We’re too intelligent.”
“We’ll find a way out. We always do.”
We’re humans, and therefore animals. Like all life, we’re special. Like all organisms, we’re susceptible to overshoot. Like all organisms, we will experience population decline after overshoot.
Let’s take stock of our current predicaments, beginning with one of several ongoing processes likely to cause our extinction. Then I’ll point out the good not quite so bad news.
We’re headed for extinction via global climate change
It’s hotter than it used to be, but not as hot as it’s going to be. The political response to this now-obvious information is to suspend the scientist bearing the bad news. Which, of course, is no surprise at all: As Australian climate scientist Gideon Polya points out, the United States must cease production of greenhouse gases within 3.1 years if we are to avoid catastrophic runaway greenhouse. I think Polya is optimistic, and I don’t think Obama’s on-board with the attendant collapse of the U.S. industrial economy.
Apparently — too little, too late — a couple people have noticed a few facts about Obama. This “awakening” might explain why his political support is headed south at a rapid clip.
But back to climate change, one of three likely extinction events. Well, three I know about: I’m certain there are others, and any number can play. With four months remaining in the year, the U.S. has already tied its yearly record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters. Russia is headed directly for loss of 30% of its permafrost by 2050. Tundra fires could accelerate planetary warming. This year, the Northeast Passage was open as of 27 July. This is a massively dire situation for the Arctic. In fact, we have passed a de facto tipping point with respect to Arctic ice. This latter outcome is stunning, but only to those who follow the horrifically conservative and increasingly irrelevant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Nature is responding with hybrid bears, suggesting the near-term loss of all polar bears. Indeed, all Earth’s systems are rapidly declining. Many organisms can’t keep up as they try to stay ahead of an overheating planet.
As the living planet decays, we keep piling on. Examples abound. Here’s one tiny example among thousands, from that pesky BP well at Deepwater Horizon. It’s out of the news cycle, but it’s not done destroying life in the Gulf of Mexico. But perhaps this tidbit belongs beneath the heading of …
We’re headed for extinction via environmental collapse
Nature is bankrupt, just like Wall Street and the USA. Thanks for playing, but you lose. The banksters on Wall Street “win.” But only in the short term. In the long run, we’re all dead (as first stated by John Maynard Keynes).
Among the consequences of taking down more than 200 species each day: at some point, the species we take into the abyss is Homo sapiens (the wise ape). The vanishing point draws nearer every day. Our response, in the industrialized world: Bring on the toys. Burn all fossil fuels. Harvest the rain forests and strip-mine the soil. Pollute the water, eat the seed bank.
And, most importantly, figure out how we can make a few bucks as the world burns.
We have our hand in a monkey trap, and we can’t let go.
We’re headed for extinction via nuclear meltdown
Safely shuttering a nuclear power plant requires a decade or two of careful planning. Far sooner, we’ll complete the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy. This is a source of my nuclear nightmares.
When the world’s 442 nuclear power plants melt down catastrophically, we’ve entered an extinction event. Think clusterfukushima, times 400. Ionizing radiation could, and probably will, destroy every terrestrial organism and, therefore, every marine and freshwater organism. That, by the way, includes the most unique, special, intelligent animal on Earth.
Ready for some good news?
Meanwhile, back on Wall Street
The Securities and Exchange Commission is busily covering up Wall Street crimes, just as they did during the last presidential administration. And, as it turns out, they’ve been performing this trick for two decades. Finally, though, the S&P is taking the U.S. to the woodshed.
The S&P knows what the media and politicians know: U.S. national debt isn’t really $14 trillion and change, as we’ve been led to believe. In fact, it exceeds $200 trillion. And, back when it was a mere $10.5 trillion, it exceeded the value of all circulating currencies as well as all the gold ever mined. It cannot be paid off, ever. The response will be default. With luck, it’ll happen quickly and completely, thus sending us directly to the new dark age (with the post-industrial Stone Age soon to follow).
The ongoing crash of the stock markets differs from prior events because, for one thing, the Fed is about out of ammunition. At this juncture, there are no easy solutions. In fact, there are no solutions at all. We have just about used up all our “rabbits in the hat” as far as fiscal and monetary policy are concerned. Economics pundit Graham Summers agrees: The Fed is about to find itself completely powerless as 2008 redux appears.
Think of 2008 as an economic teddy bear, and 2011 as a grizzly. And I think I mentioned this one already: The hunters are out of bullets.
The all-too-expected political response from the final remaining superpower: ratchet up covert wars. Maybe, while we’re at it, launch another World War.
The bottom line
You’ve been warned repeatedly in this space, and the Guardian finally joins the party: The industrial economic system is about to blow. This burst of hope, our remaining chance at salvation, will undoubtedly be greeted with the usual assortment of protests, ridicule, and hate mail I’ve come to expect from planetary consumers who want to keep consuming the planet.
The underlying predicament — reduction in available energy — is described graphically by Gail Tverberg in this essay. She then tacks on fine analysis in this subsequent essay. Jared Diamond adds a dose of complexity, as described by Erik Curren at Transition Voice.
But these warning shots are only the most recent in a rich history dating back to Marcus Aurelius (and probably further). For materials only slightly older than me that focus on our energy predicament, take a peek at M. King Hubbert’s 1956 paper and the text of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover’s 1957 speech.
And then, let go.
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We are going to have Global Cooling for at least a decade because of weak solar activity. The weakest since the Dalton Minimum 200 years ago.
"global climate change"
He must be one of Al Gore's interns.
Yeah, with world government, superbureaucrats and global taxation to fight it
my (far less cartoonish) take on self-anointed self-destruction...
http://azizonomics.com/2011/08/19/the-great-crunch/
but really tyler, this environmental apocalypticism is pretty counter-factual... not everything that comes bundled in sixteen shades of doom and gloom is true.
Totally counterfactual. Although those may or may not be problems, with the exception of thermonuclear war or pandemic, we are here for awhile. The oddest part of all is that "we're made of meat"...
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml
http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-trace-heat-wave-to-massive-s...
Global warming is HOGWASH! Is the planet warming, YES, is it the fault of man, NO! Please explain why Mars and Venus are heating too. I'm sure they have real bad traffic congestion with alot of cars and trucks spewing all those terrible emissions. Mankind's contributions to grenhouse gasses are lesss than 1%. Please give me a break on AGW.
Industry. is it imploding? Yes, due to Wall Street greed (as well as all of those politicians they own, lock, stock, and barrel). Put a few big ones in jail, and it'll end. Business will thrive once again as long as we do away with a heck of alot of regulations and reform the tax policy so they don't get a deduction for shipping jobs to China.
Nuclear meltdown? Unfortunately, we have no way to make up the necessary power for consumption without them. Like them or not, Nuke plants are here to stay. The only way they will all go into meltdown at the same time is if the Nibiru swings close enough to this planet that it causes massive worldwide earthquakes all at the same time. I'm not having toomuch worry about that one happening. Is it possible? Ya, but highly unlikely.
The writer of this article seems to me to be a bit paranoid. I think he should just kick back and have a couple of Mai Tais. He'll sleep better and hopefully stop wasting our time with this rubbish. We kow how to fix the troubles in the world, we just need the "paid for" politicians to get on board. Have a nice day everyone.
Nukes would warm things up for awhile, then cool things down (nuclear winter?). Since over population and a big wave of senior citizens owed money and healthcare, I am thinking global man made pandemic aimed at 60+ population. Thin the herd with pandemic or WW3 (maybe a few strategic nukes).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRjyLLUdhw&feature=fvst
We will nuke ourselves long before global warming becomes a world-ending issue IMHO. In fact, implausible concerns (e.g., Planet X, pole shifts, etc.) may be mass psychological diversions from what should be the obvious fact that Russia is planning to unleash an all-out nuclear war against the U.S. and Western powers, possibly in short order:
Russia's Secret War PlansYOU HAD ME AT "HUMAN EXTINCTION"...
YOU LOST ME AT GLOBAL WARMING
good try though, "i am for his doom and gloom policy", but "i am against his belief in pseudo-science quakery policy"
hmmmm.....
For you belief in baseless eco-facist propaganda with no real scientific evidence you win:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OEjNnLpejs&t=1m42s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-rpcb9iSJY
The billionaire Koch brothers, who are buying the US election through the Citizens United decisions held another one of their get togethers.
Attending were two supreme court judges - the same judges who allowed corporations to give unlimited donations to any political candidate of their choice - Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Also attending were Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck, as well as reliables like Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal (no surprise there).
Interview of Matt Taibbi by Keith Olbermann.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amd14Rznrc8
The Koch Brother are super-rich global warming sceptcis. Which would all be fine, except for the names and fronts they seem to hide behind. The Koch's are a case study in faking it on a massive scale.
The Koch's are pro-free market, except when they benefit. Every year they take $123.6 million US dollars in subsidies from Hugo Chavez's socialist government.
Three weeks ago the Koch's were caught employing PR firm, New Media Strategies, to santise their Wikipedia entries and distance themselves from the Tea Party.
WAKE! UP!!
Who bought the Obama election?
Daily Kos: Global Warming is real say the Koch Brothers
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In a century where there are EMPs, who needs nuclear warhead.
One well placed EMP and everything from Ontario to Miami goes dark, including the control systems of nuclear power plants. If power can be brought back up, no problem. But in an EMP attack, the power stays off and the nuke plants all melt down. End of game.
dp
dude: two words: gauss shield.
You don't get out much, do ya?
- Ned
That'd be one big ass Faraday cage and there'd be some part of it visible in the reactor buildings, don'tcha think?
Sagan all but repudiated nuke winter before his death.. There was no science behind it just a really, really firm view on how things should be just like MMGW scientists. TD, please no more of this persons greeniac, luddite, malthusian gibberish.
Oh bust the Fed +.
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We will not be here "for awhile". Fukushima alone will kill hundreds of millions of people within a few years. Who will be left to keep the cooling pumps running at the other nuke plants in Japan when everyone there dies and the whole country is declared a 'hot zone'? Fukushima was only Act I.
The rain from the radioactive oceans will slowly kill off the rest, through increased infant mortality rates. In Iraq alone, the DU dust we left has created an infant mortality rate around 80%. Israel is now experiencing similar results from their use of DU munitions against the Palestinians and Lebanese. The old folks die, no new kids to replace them. Three generations, max.
Start your bucket list. Everything else is irrelevant.
There is a reason we find the remains of formerly great civilizations. They were all "immune to history", just like us.
But they didn't necessarily died; they moved on. That's a far cry from extinction.
Ah ha, they moved on; so we will? Because we are special?
IMHO, all three paths will converge, plus something else(anyone care to make predictions?), and this path is the "Y" where no return is "allowed".
Help, we are getting, returns from our future (yea, future ---and them, no more)...
No, we are not special. And the path we are on, not "allowed" !!!
Thanks for sharing.
- First of all, interesting to see Guy McPherson on ZH, I guess Jeremy Grantham has made doomers a cultish fav
- Don't cry little children over your lost cars, they won't be missed after they are gone.
Fukushima alone will kill hundreds of millions of people within a few years.
That's quite a claim. Hyperbole? And all within "a few years?" Just how many years? Three?
I'll agree the north eastern quadrant of Japan has a serious problem and that problem can/probably is spreading toward Tokyo. But compare your claims with those made during Chernobyl and TMI.
Here's one of the international experts who made these claims:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITrXVJMKeQ. Chernobyl and TMI are well covered.
Dr. Caldicott's CV:
http://www.helencaldicott.com/about/cv/
Anything by Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Chris Busby. That would get one started.
Helen Caldicott is a globalist-socialist. One of the original "better Red than Dead" crowd.
CF, I understand your concern, but that doesnt change the scientific facts she relates concerning the internal damage caused by metabolized radioactive material.
Experts? Everytime I hear "expert" I prepare myself to hear a bunch of malarky. This time IS different. We have no exprets anymore (if we ever did, I would be surprised)
You sound like a troll sponsored by a dumb monkey.
Darn you, I hate blowing soda out my nose...
I agree with SPADO. Fukishima will be brought under control. This is really bad in Japan, but they will eventually get it under control. Is it a disaster? Yes, but they are throwing all the money they have to at it to make it better. give the physicists and engineers time to do what they must. As for the gloom and doomers here...stay out of the sun and far back from your TV and computer screens...they give off radiation as well.
Money doesn't matter. The technology to clean this up does not exist, and will not exist before we're all gone. How do you clean up the plutonium that's already circled the Northern Hemisphere? How do you pull out all the radionuclides in the water from emergency cooling operations, out of the world's oceans, before it turns to rain and destroys the world's crops?
I hope I'm wrong, I really do, but 30+ years of studying these things tells me we're fucked as a species.
Your last sentence gives you away. It's a qualifier that inferior people use when they aren't able to prove their point with evidence, facts, or knowledge. The amount of time that you have spent studying a subject is not relevant. If we had a time machine I could summon someone that spent 50 years studying the Earth and concluded it was flat. If you have a point to make, make it. If you know what you’re talking about you should be able to convince the rest of us without leaning on qualifiers.
Well, I was a nuke in the Navy, but then again, I could be lying, so who's to say?
Again, I hope all the international radiation contamination experts are wrong on this. I've got kids that I don't want to see die from cancer. But the only people that say this is going to be ok are people from the nuke industry. It's like trusting gang bangers to tell me that they aren't guilty of drive by shootings. You do the math.
Fukushima probably will kill quite a few people. But the radiation and radionucliides it has and will release are considerably less than what was released by literally THOUSANDS of nukes detonated between 1945 and 1980.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA
If there's a massive increase in birth deformities/defects/etc in 9+ months from the disaster, it will be hard for authorities to deny that the radiation levels aren't a problem.
1) Quite a few of those tests were conducted underground
2) The amount of radioactive material in a nuclear warhead is measured in pounds. There are many many tons of uncontrolled radioactive material at Fukushima.
Hey there, Mr. Navy Nuke. I was qualified EWS, SRO, RADCON QA Inspector, EDPO and I was an instructor for 4 years, and I can say unequivically that what you learned in the Navy in no way qualifies you as any kind of authority on the Fukashima disaster's long term effects to Mankind, period.
If things are as bad as you say why don't you just kill yourself and spare the rest of us from listening to your crying.
I love radiation.
SOMETHING mutated me from a grumpy old man with soon to be worthless stocks,
into to a grumpy old man with a lot of gold and silver.
Radiation = Yum, Yum
"In Iraq alone, the DU dust we left has created an infant mortality rate around 80%."
That's a remarkable statement. Can you cite a source?
The Onion
Shame on you. The Onion is much more realistic than that.
He's a fucking moron...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium :
A medical survey, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009" published in July 2010, states that the “Increase in cancer and birth defects…are alarmingly high” and that infant mortality 2009/2010 has reached 13.6%.
Source is in the wikipedia article.
We did a shit load of openair nuclear testing up until the early 70's. I don't have three eyes, nor do my adult kids. My sisters multiple grandchildren seem funtional also.
While radiation is a concern, and many do die of inoridantely high levels, I don't think that is our immediate problem.
So you are saying we will be extinct or you are saying there will be a big die off? If it's the latter, I have no problem with your thesis. If the former, that is where I disagree. The global population might go below a billion. I doubt it goes below 1.
this is just the dumbest hysterical shit ever
Interestingly, that's exactly what a lot of mainstream economists and financial journalists think about ZH.
[dup]
ya ok
There's quite a significant difference in "infant mortality rate around 80%" and "infant mortality rate inscreased 80%"
1*1.8=1.8
7*1.8=12.6
Notice how none of these is 80?
Continued exposure to radiation didn't slowly poison the population of Hiroshima. Nobody knows why the survivors became healthier than most people, they just did. I am not saying that Fukushima won't kill millions. All I am saying is it doesn't spell death to eveyone through a slow poisoning effect. There are other processes at work that we don't understand. That's why Global Warming Theory is a fail. It points out some facts and ignores the inconvienent ones (like solar activity). Facts are, you can't separate out all the different influences on the weather and test for the one controlling influence.
The people who pretend to know are liars and thieves, or both.
Somehow in a room with three lights and three switches I can still manage to figure out which switches control which lights. While climate science is definitely more tricky than this oversimplification, the same methodology is certainly applicable. And they don't "pretend to know" they propose a theory and test the hypothesis.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-a...
What was the climate like in the era of Piltdown Man and how does that reflect on the subject of "global warming?"
What was the climate in England ~100 years ago? Is that what you are asking?
Scientists told you that "Piltdown Man" lived in England in prehistoric times. You're not saying that "Piltdown Man" was a hoax which convinced mainstream scholars for decades are you? You're not suggesting that British intellectuals began this hoax by planting false evidence are you?
And worse of all, you're not admitting that the "Piltdown Man" deniers were right all along, are you?
Are you suggesting that Dawson was receiving funding from the British government that would have been yanked for lack of the discovery of a "missing link"?
Are you suggesting that fluorine absorption tests aren't a valid methodology for dating bone fragments?
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Apr 4, 2011 – Global Warming is real say the Koch Brothers. The Climate Change Denier Scientist the Koch Brothers paid to debunk Global Warming has come ...
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Feb 4, 2011 – The Koch brothers are outraged—outraged!—that people were tricked into believing they care about global warming. ...
Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine ...
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Charles and David Koch have quietly funneled over $55 million to ... that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming. ... The Koch brothers, their family members, and their employees direct a web of ...
Koch Industries multibillionaire Koch brothers bankroll attacks on ...
www.climatesciencewatch.org/.../koch-industries-multibillionaire-ko... - CachedSimilar You +1'd this publicly. Undo
Mar 18, 2010 – The Koch brothers have stepped forward with deep pockets to bankroll ... Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and ...
New Yorker exposes Koch brothers along with their greenwashing and ...
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Billionaire Koch brothers back suspension of California climate ...
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Dig the avatar. You play? If so, do you play...like Mr. DeathCubeK?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEDB4xJsXVo
"Hey, Buckethead, what's in the bucket man?"
Ya, but I'm kinda' New. ;-)
- Ned
Is that Ned of Colorado and a brother of mine or another Ned?
'nother, unless I miss my guess.
Might b 'nother by another mother, I've been cross adopted in certain circumstances.
- Ned
UChicago's take, for meatheads:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA75A0DDB89ACCD7
Watch it, bitchezz!
We are either a cancer on the face of the biosphere, or about to be harvested.
eaten or be eaten...hummmmmm!
Debbie Downer missed one big thing:
ADAPTATION
You may not like it but you get a chance to change it, if you take it.
I find it amusing that most (if not all here) have NO problem with the idea that the global financial system is controlled by a small number of individuals. But when it comes to environmental issues (the effects on the environment of human activity, not the act of governmental/wall street profiting off of it), there seems to be some who have trouble with it. Why is it so hard to believe that if I dump oil (or any other chemical/compound/etc.) into the ocean/land/atmosphere/etc that it will be problematic?
If you piss in your living room, whenever you feel like it, eventually it will smell.
The system is controlled by people who want to take more of your money by frightening you into believing that Muslims, gay marriage and CO2 are going to end life as we know it.
Well! He is indeed "confused"
Nix on 1,3....#2 looks promising.
There are many degrees of "problematic". I find it amusing that those who haven't studied the environment (I have) seem to consider that all shades of problematic are an apocalyptic collapse. The Earth and the Universe are far older, far bigger and far more self-stabilising (Lovelock was right, just not in the way he imagined) than our tiny human minds can possibly grasp.
Essentially, the models we have (that make these kinds of predictions) are based on massive oversimplifications and ignore huge factors like the nuances of solar and galactic-core activity (global warming on Mars, you say?), and long-term (post Ice Age) trends. We do not know enough about climate during the Earth's history, because most of our data is inferred from things like tree rings and ice cores. Essentially, we do not know what the cumulative effects of raising the CO2 level to 384ppm will be. We do know it is a good insurance policy to reduce the level to the pre-Industrial baseline — which is perfectly possible while still burning fossil fuels through the use of carbon-scrubbing. Read this:
http://azizonomics.com/2011/08/17/job-creation-101/
Ultimately I think all the apocalypticism just polarises debate and makes people throw up their hands claim "we're screwed" and ignore some of the easier and viable solutions and partial solutions.
yeah, these idiots with their radiation phobia. Wildlife in Chernobyl Zone is flourishing due to lack of humans
maybe chernobyl ain't no fuk_u, trav...
...some of the recent "rumors" sound pretty hairy to moi...
Chernobyl was worse. Chernobyl blew the guts of the reactor all over the plant site, while the core was still critical. There were fuel rods, molten/burned graphite moderator, various components of the core structure and cooling system littering the site. That is quite a bit different from blowing the containment building's outer structure all over the plant site, when the reactor was shut down for at least several hours before.
Apart from the maritime contamination and the one-time burst of I, Cs, and Xe we saw from Fukushima, there's little else widespread contamination that will come of it. Sure, parts of Fukushima Prefecture and several other surrounding areas in Japan will be hot for longer than any of us will be alive for, but it will not be the end of "hundreds of millions" as some morons above have commented. If we all somehow managed to survive Chernobyl, TMI, and the dozens of naval and space nuclear accidents, I think we got a pretty good shot at surviving this Fukushima thing.
I don't think man made global warming "deniers" reject out of hand the possibility of environmental damage. But in this specific case, they haven't been convinced. I find it funny that most people who believe in the global warming apocalypse theory, are completely unable to explain the science behind the theory. Once you get past the most superficial, overly repeated factoids, you generally discover that they, themselves, have made no substantial effort to understand the science. So they are just relying on "experts" without exercising their own critical faculties.
The potential is not questioned, it's the specifics we have a problem with. This is the key point.
It's all faith, isn't it? People just choose different religions, churches, and priests.
They can't explain the science behind AGW because there IS no science, only fraudulent computer models that spew out predetermined garbage. Anyone who understands serious computer modelling knows that even if you could accurately model all the variables that affect climate, the computing power simply does not exist. Even if the capabilities existed to process the data, the so called models used by the climate ecofascists prove nothing since they are based on flawed assumptions, using doctored data. Climategate demonstrated this, beyond any reasonable doubt.
Two points to illustrate this, from "An Inconvenient Truth"
1. Global warming will stop ocean currents: Gore explains that at the end of the last ice age, a huge intercontinental lake of fresh water formed in Canada. One day the natural dam burst and billions of gallons of water flooded into the North Atlantic. This, scientists say, caused the ocean currents to stop circulating normally. Ocean currents stopped carrying heat from the tropics north causing a mini Ice Age in Europe. He then says, that since the Greenland ice sheets are melting, and they hold billions of gallons of fresh water, they could have a similar effect. Scared yet? Problem is there is an ENORMOUS difference between a one time rush of fresh water - a massive lake emptying all at once, and the progressive melting of ice sheets. Huge difference. Bad reasoning.
2. Global warming will flood cities creating millions of refugees: He shows maps of cities being flooded by water. Think of the millions of refugees! Look what happened with Katrina - imagine if the same thing happened simultaneously to all the more populated coastal cities around the world. He fails to consider that the "flooding" would be a gradual event. The most wildly pessimistic scenarios of rising water levels do not call for more than a couple inches a year. Therefore, there will be PLENTY of time for the cities to take precautions (retaining walls) or for the inhabitants to relocate. We are talking decades of time here. He makes it seem like everyone's going to be rushing out of the city in a massive panic. Ridiculous, and irresponsible journalism.
These are pretty obvious holes in the argument.
This is the bullshit about these people. When you ask "What about this? What about that? How do you refute this point? (etc)" they simply DO NOT WANT TO ADDRESS YOUR ARGUMENTS. "Ok. Then shut up."
AlGore used his AGW meme to sell several hundred million $$$ of "carbon offsets" to his rich, credulous liberal friends. Case closed.
You do realize the guy that wrote all that crap also claimed to have invented the internet. Anything with Al Gores name on it should be immediately filed in the shit can.
Minor correction here - Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. He was responsible for establishing the DoD funding for DARPA in the area of building robust networks in the event of a war or similar event, and he did work with people such as Vint Cerf who were pretty much instrumental in building the Internet. The "Al Gore invented the Internet" meme was a MSM creation intended to show not only that Gore was arrogant but also "ivory tower".
This is no reflection on what he's done in the global climate change front. Personally, while there is plenty of empirical evidence of global warming (albeit with localized cooling and inversions, primarily in Western Europe and the North American East Coast), I question carbon dioxide buildup due to human activity as being the sole cause of that. The evidence is increasingly pointing to solar and Jovian cycles being a bigger factor than originally estimated, as well as the introduction of soot particulates into the atmosphere melting snow caps and consequently increasing the albedo of the planet.
However, and this is the key point, I suspect that his science is more solid than yours. We're spewing hydrocarbons into the air and the global system cannot adapt fast enough to get rid of them. Like an automobile, when the filter gets clogged, everything begins to break down, introducing a positive feedback loop that will most likely end up causing the planetary system to sputter, cough and die. It'll eventually clear the filters on its on, but I rather doubt we'll be around to appreciate it.
OMG, a rational agnostic.... I can accept that.
The science has been understood for 150 years. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it is impossible to understand. Not that financial fraud will help or anything, but the science is pretty solidly established.
The sky is hotter now than it was 20 years ago. Measurably hotter, and the rate of change is currently exceeding the most pessimistic climate scientists' forecasts. Turns out most of us are going to live long enough to see it get much worse. With positive feedback effects such as the clathrate bomb, the climate shift may be quite dramatic.
Could be like that little hickey in the fossil record between the Permian and Triassic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDw-w6ZoJs&feature=player_profilepage#t=11s
Crockett sites NASA, and you site YouTube. LOL
No, Crockett cites an article in Forbes written by an author funded by the Heartland Institute (Coal money) that spins an interpretation of the NASA data with a purposely chosen incorrect interpretation.
BTW notice the spelling of cite
check this for more details
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/07/29/282656/climate-scientists-blow-gaping-hole-in-nasa-data-paper-by-ideologue-roy-spencer/
or
http://www.livescience.com/15293-climate-change-cloud-cover.html
Nice virtual slap. LOL!