Initial Post, Thought I would come over and check this out...

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by woot

That's not science's problem. I do think science should be more vocal about such things, but on the whole, it's not. Researchers don't often make for great PR people. Feel free to make fun of Al Gore at every opportunity if it makes you feel better, but don't pretend that doing so has any affect on the facts.

Then researchers are their own worst enemies if they don't care for a guy like Al Gore being the public face of a movement. I may not be that bright, but I am not so ignorant as to think that anything I say about Al Gore "has any affect on the facts." You expressed frustration that Al Gore is constantly brought up as the representative of the pro-anthropogenic global warming crowd. I'm just telling you why.

[woot]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

Then researchers are their own worst enemies if they don't care for a guy like Al Gore being the public face of a movement. I may not be that bright, but I am not so ignorant as to think that anything I say about Al Gore "has any affect on the facts." You expressed frustration that Al Gore is constantly brought up as the representative of the pro-anthropogenic global warming crowd. I'm just telling you why.

Yea sorry if I overreacted. It's just quite frustrating. Even one of my favorite blogs written by a biochemist gave Gore a free pass after the Nobel debacle despite his acknowledged misrepresentations. Science is certainly not immune to political stupidity.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by woot

Yes, I'm aware of all that. It would be happening faster if we emphasized it.

A favorite researcher clarion call: Throw billions more money at it. All researchers ever demand is money, even if they rarely produce it.

[woot]

Originally Posted by Archaea

A favorite researcher clarion call: Throw billions more money at it. All researchers ever demand is money, even if they rarely produce it.

Yea you're right. Spending more money every month killing Arabs than we've spent on cancer research in the last 30 years makes tons of sense.

I have to go to class.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by woot

Yea you're right. Spending more money every month killing Arabs than we've spent on cancer research in the last 30 years makes tons of sense.

I have to go to class.

Where have I advocated for the war? Your shot is misfired.

We've spent now more on AIDS than cancer, so there's politics for you.

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by woot

Yea sorry if I overreacted. It's just quite frustrating. Even one of my favorite blogs written by a biochemist gave Gore a free pass after the Nobel debacle despite his acknowledged misrepresentations. Science is certainly not immune to political stupidity.

Frustrating for me and others as well. I am pretty much ignorant on the science of all this. The issue has become so political and so alarmist that it is hard to determine the most reasonable course. I had a work colleague predicting a full Greenland thaw in 10 years that will flood New York City based on an article he read in the mainstream media. I'm supposed to believe this stuff?

[DJRoss]

Originally Posted by woot

Don't get me started on the concept of "proof" as it pertains to science. Still, one does not have to know the cause of something in order to determine what isn't the cause of something. The other planets that are supposedly heating up are either expected to do so for unrelated reasons, or they aren't actually warming. Keep in mind that if the sun were the cause, all of the planets would need to be warming, not just a couple. The sun's output has not increased recently, and the earth is actually slightly farther away from the sun, not closer. Mars is warming due to a fairly well understood and predicted phenomenon known as the Milankovitch cycle.

I'm actually very chill about the whole global warming thing, and think that the alarmists on the left and the denialists on the right are both hurting the cause. Those propagating any ridiculous theory they can find in order to help themselves believe that humans have nothing to do with it are obviously not helping either.

In my own field, the extreme amounts of co2 in the atmosphere, particularly the heavily carbon-depleted molecules produced by fossil fuels, are beginning to become a problem. Still, the effects are subtle, so it's not the end of the world if we take another few decades to get off of oil, but we really do need to get off of oil.

Whether all this co2 is the only cause of global warming or only a small factor doesn't particularly concern me. We're in an interglacial period of an ice age at the moment and I assume things will get worked out eventually, with or without us.

So if the atmosphere currently contains approx .038% co2, how much becomes too much?

I honestly believe that the earth is resilient enough to handle the fossil fuel issue, but that is not a reason to ignore the opportunities to truly develop alternatives. I am afraid however that in spite of the mantra out there and even the so called push by the seven sisters (big oil) to invest in alternative research that the huge reserves in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado will be too enticing to for oil companies to ignore. What really surprises me is why no noise on the clean burn front regarding maintaining the status quo of using fossil fuels, but research technology to clean the burn so to speak. I could get excited about new techniques in distilling or in processing or new motor technology that can convert the burn off into water vapor instead of carbon monoxide.

I don't deny the world is getting warmer, I am not sure how much an impact industry really has on creating this situation. I mean if you give everyone on earth a square yard to stand in, the entire earths population could fit in the state of Delaware. I mean if co2 levels get over .04% of the entire atmosphere will that be disastrous? I mean the alarmist mantra really scares people. My friends daughter came home crying because her teacher told her that we are killing the earth and that if we don't act now global warming would destroy the planet. I mean come on, that is just crazy talk.

I really like this article in the Boston Globe written by Bjørn Lomborg a Danish scientist who is part of the committee that share the peace prize with Gore. He is a professor adjunct at the Copenhagen School of Business:

An Inconvenient Peace Prize

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by DJRoss

I mean if co2 levels get over .04% of the entire atmosphere will that be disastrous? I mean the alarmist mantra really scares people. My friends daughter came home crying because her teacher told her that we are killing the earth and that if we don't act now global warming would destroy the planet. I mean come on, that is just crazy talk.

Exactly. Kids go to school and receive a full barage of the scare tactic propoganda machine. It is now a fargone conclusion that we are in a global warming crisis. Doom and gloom is around the corner.

The only saving grace is that as much as kids may mouth the rhetoric of the global warming alarmists, they still enjoy their modern conveniences. The same goes for good ole carbon credit Al Gore.

[woot]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Where have I advocated for the war? Your shot is misfired.

We've spent now more on AIDS than cancer, so there's politics for you.

I agree with you about AIDS vs cancer. That's pure politics. As for the war, my point was that the amount of money it would take to create a robust government-funded research push would be miniscule compared to what we're already throwing away willy-nilly on worthless causes.

Another reason to throw more money into science is the lack of jobs available for science PhDs. We can lament losing the science battle and losing our best and brightest to other fields all we want, but the fact is that it's extremely hard to get into a good program, and it's extremely hard finding a job after graduation. It's still better here than just about anywhere else in the world, but this would be yet another great use of government funds that are currently being thrown on the bonfire.

Speaking of cancer, we're actually on the precipice of understanding the process of aging well enough to be able to begin drug development that could postpone it. This would single-handedly do more for the fight against cancer, heart disease, alzheimer's, and all the other age-related diseases than anything we've ever done. It's very exciting stuff.

[woot]

Originally Posted by DJRoss

So if the atmosphere currently contains approx .038% co2, how much becomes too much?

I honestly believe that the earth is resilient enough to handle the fossil fuel issue, but that is not a reason to ignore the opportunities to truly develop alternatives. I am afraid however that in spite of the mantra out there and even the so called push by the seven sisters (big oil) to invest in alternative research that the huge reserves in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado will be too enticing to for oil companies to ignore. What really surprises me is why no noise on the clean burn front regarding maintaining the status quo of using fossil fuels, but research technology to clean the burn so to speak. I could get excited about new techniques in distilling or in processing or new motor technology that can convert the burn off into water vapor instead of carbon monoxide.

I don't deny the world is getting warmer, I am not sure how much an impact industry really has on creating this situation. I mean if you give everyone on earth a square yard to stand in, the entire earths population could fit in the state of Delaware. I mean if co2 levels get over .04% of the entire atmosphere will that be disastrous? I mean the alarmist mantra really scares people. My friends daughter came home crying because her teacher told her that we are killing the earth and that if we don't act now global warming would destroy the planet. I mean come on, that is just crazy talk.

I really like this article in the Boston Globe written by Bjørn Lomborg a Danish scientist who is part of the committee that share the peace prize with Gore. He is a professor adjunct at the Copenhagen School of Business:

An Inconvenient Peace Prize

I may have been too loose in my assessment of co2 levels. They are growing at a rapid pace, and are beginning to make changes to our environment. However, these changes are unlikely to be catastrophic, and would not rival the sweeping changes that have occurred in our environment over the last 1-2 million years.

The main reason I don't care as much as I probably should about global warming is the fact that almost all of the species that have ever lived on the planet have gone extinct (somewhere between 98 and 99.9 percent. I lean toward the latter figure from what I've seen) and the earth will continue to be inhabited for another 5 billion years or so. Small groups of humans have gone extinct because of their destruction of their environment (chopping down all the trees on their island, for instance) and if we end up destroying our environment, then we'll go extinct too. In the grand scheme of things, no big deal.

Still, I don't see that happening, as even Al Gore's version of events has a few large cities being destroyed as the worst that will happen, which would be a very minor inconvenience, again in the grand scheme.

Edit: That article that DJ posted is great, and closely mirrors my thoughts.