Great post!
you are the first pro-AGW person to dismiss to acknowledge that the main proponents of the AGW movement are charlatans and that they wanted to rip us off with the whole carbon credit thing. With that out of the way, we can have a real conversation.
The questions that I see them are:
1. Is there Global Warming?
2. Is Global warming bad?
3. If there is global warming, What is the cause?
4. If man is the cause, is there anything that we can do to change that?
1. I think we can all agree that there has been some global warming in the past 150 years. It amounts to a little more than 1F. However, there is ample evidence that the pro-AGW scientists have manipulated data to support their conclusions. If the warmest decade in the past 150 years is actually in the 1930s, it suggests that there really isn't a warming trend, even if it is warmer today than it was 150 years ago.
2. So if there is some global warming, is it bad? It actually was coming off of a period of global cooling. There is absolutely no indication that the current warming is anything but normal cyclical variation. But to the real question, is it bad? That question only has meaning if you finish the sentence of "bad for humans". And we naked apes like a bit of warmth...as long as that warming doesn't cause other deleterious effects like droughts. But as you pointed out, warm air means more moisture, which means more clouds, which means more rain and snow. I don't think that we can use the fact that a few homes along the malibu coast or miami might be damaged as an indication that global warming is bad for mankind. So I'm not convinced that some global warming isn't actually a good thing.
3. Outside of the fact that the answer to question #2 is still up in the air, the case for an anthropogenic source of the warming still has not been established. Yes there is more CO2 today than there was 150 years ago. But is it the cause of the warming. Or, is the warming the cause of the increase in CO2? Or is the cause of the increase in CO2 from removal of foliage that processes CO2. Or is the warming simply a normal cyclical variation rooted in ocean currents? or solar cycles? Or is it a combination of all of the above? In spite of the insistance of the pro-AGW crowd, the cause of the nominal warming that we have had in the past 150 years has not been established.
4. Assuming that man is the cause, is there anything we can really do about it that isn't worse than just accepting it? The civilized world is doing everything it can to bring undeveloped countries into the "civilized" world. That will necessarily require more energy. China has a population the size of the USA's that is still living in agrarian conditions. And they have a detailed plan to bring them all into fold in the next 20 years. Part of this plan includes bulding 16 new coal burning power plants per year. So let's talk about coal. What would happen if the coal miners in the US stopped mining coal today? What if we shut down all of the coal power plants tomorrow? How many people would die as a result? I would suggest that the number is much bigger than what we would see from the effects of global warming.
Since you brought up Antarctica, you are aware that there isn't anymore antarctic land showing than before. Some glacial ice has broken off in antarctica, but the area is nominal when compared to the overal size of antarctica. Further, the antarctic sea ice extent (which is much larger than the artic sea ice extent, will offset any of the albedo effect. In other words, your point about antarctica not getting much snow is pretty meaningless. Especially in light of the fact that it is a desert anyway.
And back to your point about moisture in the air bring more precipitation. What is necessary for precipitation to happen? It's not a trick question.....clouds. Those big fluffy things in the sky. An increase in warmth would certainly suggest an increase in clouds, which would increase the albedo of the planet, which would have the end result of regulating how much the planet can warm.
Of course, the pro-AGW scientists' climate models don't include the effects of clouds. |
