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Plastic stuff in oceans versus "climate change"

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  • Plastic stuff in oceans versus "climate change"

    I think the growing accumulation of plastic stuff in our water, including the Pacific Ocean, is a more urgent problem than climate change. While we could do something to reverse the daily accumulation, stopping climate change is far more difficult.

    Summary: Cleaning up our water is more serious, yet more doable.

    This article is what prompted this thread: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar..._rid=883646351
    The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

    [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  • #2
    Why on Earth would anyone frame such things as alternatives? That's absurd.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
      I think the growing accumulation of plastic stuff in our water, including the Pacific Ocean, is a more urgent problem than climate change.
      It certainly is a more urgent problem considering that it's a problem that actually exists, unlike climate change which only exists in computer models using "adjusted" data ("garbage in, garbage out" as the saying goes).
      Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
      But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
      Than a fool in the eyes of God


      From "Fools Gold" by Petra

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
        It certainly is a more urgent problem considering that it's a problem that actually exists, unlike climate change which only exists in computer models using "adjusted" data ("garbage in, garbage out" as the saying goes).
        Here we go again. This is just wrong, in every way. It's way way way out of touch with the science, with the data, with the measurements, with basic statistics, with just about everything. The fact is that climate change and global warming is measured, modeled, predicted in advance, and thoroughly well attested science.

        All your link does is present graphically the hiatus -- or "faux pause" -- in which measured global temperature increase runs to the low bound of model runs over the last decade and a half. This nonsense was statistical incompetence even when written. (Yes, I know who wrote it. A real climate scientist, but in over his head as to a mismatch between his professional focus and the subject matter of that blog post; and a way out maverick on this and other areas of science.) That blog post is going to look increasing silly even to novice onlookers as time goes by

        In brief, you are looking at short term decadal scale variations, which don't have any long term trend. It's a bad failure of comprehension of models to think that they even could predict that kind of decade to decade track of when things speed up or slow down. I've felt for a while now it would be worth having a basic information thread on what climate models do -- how they work, what they can predict, and what they can't predict. They CAN and DO predict that warming will speed up and slow down when measured on small scales like Spencer does; they cannot and do not predict which decades will be the speed up and which will be the slow down.

        Recently (a year ago or so) we had someone here on TheologyWeb touting the idea of and end to warming or even coming cooling; I made a little bet that this year (which was then 2014) would actually set a new record high. It did. There was a fair bit of luck in that prediction; but I was willing to propose the bet because there were good indications that the short term downturn was begin the reverse for (the next) upturn. (Not from models, not from extrapolation of the trend, but from data and measurements of other aspects of the climate system beyond only temperature.) The present measured indications of an upturn are now only getting stronger (El Nino is here at last) and so it's looking quite likely that 2015 is going to be another new hottest year, by a good sized margin. We'll see. (There will be of course be more speed ups and slow downs in the future and it's not really predictable when they'll arrive; but the immediate indications are for another upswing.)

        We see, and expect, short term untrended decadal scale chaotic variation over the top of the strong warming going on throughout. You can make this distinction best by looking at ocean heat content over the same period, which is much less subject to short term variation, and which shows that yes indeed the planet is still heating up strongly since mid twentieth century and up to the present -- including the last twenty years.

        Most crucially, the idea that climate change is only something showing up in models is way over the top absurd.

        Cheers -- sylas

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by sylas View Post
          The fact is that climate change and global warming is measured, modeled, predicted in advance, and thoroughly well attested science.
          No, it's really not. Almost every model and prediction has been not just wrong but wildly wrong. Remember when the alarmists were telling us that snow would be something that our children and grand children would only read about in books? Remember how none of them predicted that we would see colder and snowier winters? How about predictions of more frequent and more severe hurricanes? That didn't happend, did it? And did any of those models predict the nearly 2-decade long pause in the rise of global temperatures? They didn't? And now they're at a loss to explain why it's happening? Imagine that.

          Even global warming hucksters have trouble keeping their people in line once they've left the "plantation".

          Source: Breitbart

          A former NASA scientist has described global warming as “nonsense”, dismissing the theory of man-made climate change as “an unsubstantiated hypothesis” and saying that it is “absolutely stupid” to blame the recent UK floods on human activity.

          Professor Les Woodcock, who has had a long and distinguished academic career, also said there is “no reproducible evidence” that carbon dioxide levels have increased over the past century, and blamed the green movement for inflicting economic damage on ordinary people.

          Professor Woodcock is Emeritus Professor of Chemical Thermodynamics at the University of Manchester and has authored over 70 academic papers for a wide range of scientific journals. He received his PhD from the University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a recipient of a Max Planck Society Visiting Fellowship, and a founding editor the journal Molecular Simulation. (h/t Climate Depot)

          http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014...g-is-nonsense/

          © Copyright Original Source


          Source: Washington Times

          Ex-Greenpeacer Patrick Moore questions climate change, challenges liberals

          “I describe the climate change movement as a combination of an extreme political ideology and a religious cult all rolled into one,” said Mr. Moore. “It’s a very, very dangerous social phenomenon. It causes them to think they have the right to dictate what we do.”

          http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...esti/?page=all

          © Copyright Original Source


          I don't have time right now to dig up others, but there's a long list of scientists who have changed their tune once their paycheck no longer depended on propping up the climate change agenda.

          Seriously, trying to convince someone that man caused climate change isn't happening is like trying to convince someone that the earth isn't flat, or that the moon isn't made of cheese. I just shake my head, because it's an argument I really shouldn't have to make. I'm getting to the point where I just want to laugh and move on, except that every proposed solution, like most liberal "solutions", is socially and economically devastating.

          Originally posted by sylas
          I made a little bet that this year (which was then 2014) would actually set a new record high. It did.
          Sure... but only after NASA "adjusted" the data to remove 1934 from the top spot.

          https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/...the-year-2000/
          Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
          But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
          Than a fool in the eyes of God


          From "Fools Gold" by Petra

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by sylas View Post
            thoroughly well attested science.
            Not sure what that means exactly. But only after two decades more temperature data might we have a chance to say that the science is halfway confirmed.

            I think you are more a cheerleader than a sober and honest scientist. "Way over the top absurd"--well!
            The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

            [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

            Comment


            • #7
              To add some clarity, climate change as a natural, harmless cycling of the earth's temperatures is certainly real. In the past, the earth has cycled hotter than present, and it has cycled colder than present. There's no reason to be alarmed. It's just what the earth does.

              What's not real is catastrophic, anthropogenic climate change that can only be stopped by checking off every box on a liberal's social agenda "to do" list.
              Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
              But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
              Than a fool in the eyes of God


              From "Fools Gold" by Petra

              Comment


              • #8
                1) It's not that I totally reject the hypothesis that man's activities has a role in climate change.

                2) Perhaps Sylas is not seeing the epochal shift to solar power from CO2-gushing power that is ongoing despite current low fossil-fuel prices. We are doing something to reduce man's role (though whether that will be enough is not foreseeable).
                The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

                [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

                Comment


                • #9
                  The problem with cleaning up the debris in the oceans is mainly that it can be costly, and countries have higher priorities for money spending. We also have to find other places to dump the stuff, or recycle it. Or maybe we could spray plastic eating bacteria... Well, it may be a while before we make any progress.

                  As for global warming, I think the environmentalists are probably right that humans are hurrying it along. But I don't really care. MUhahaHAhaha! I look forward to shifting climate patterns and rising ocean levels.
                  Middle-of-the-road swing voter. Feel free to sway my opinion.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    This is timely. Just posted today:

                    Source: Breitbart UK

                    Dr. Christopher Essex

                    Climate, as the scientific field we know today, is very young. It was cobbled together from pieces of a number of established fields and elevated into the limelight only very recently as science goes. It was particularly vulnerable to antirational inroads because there was no core body of scientific knowledge, like say physics or chemistry have. Before the great climate fervor, the term “climate science” was virtually unheard of. Instead, climatology was a tranquil, narrow, and descriptive area, with little funding and few practitioners. Today’s version, climate science, is driven as much by trumped up public fears as traditional scientific objectives. I have heard many times that what we scientists should work on “depends on what policymakers want.”

                    The fields and methodologies of climate science are a disjointed collection that few have anything approaching a universal command of, let alone a universal command from which to form a knowledgable consensus. Is climate research the gathering and description of data? Is it statistical time series analysis? Is it meteorology extended by supercomputers? Is it molecular spectroscopy? Is it oceanography, glaciology, geology, thermodynamics, physics, orbital mechanics, computer science, survey research, economics, biology, dynamical systems theory, solar physics, or much more? It is easy to say “all of the above,” but specialists in these subfields often wonder privately what the other specialties are actually there for. For example, “do we really need complex models when greenhouses are so simple?” Or, “We modelers can help paleontologists more than they can help us.” There are many such examples.

                    The shared vision of this collection of fields, as they stand, has simply not been academic for the most part. Its identity is inextricably bound to the climate fervor itself, which is created and fanned by politicians and media through relentless promotion, torrents of funding, and the punishing of nonconforming scientists. It is unclear what defines climate science as a whole academically, let alone what climate is in and of itself. No, we don’t even have a coherent, physically based, definition for climate, let alone climate change. That is not because we can’t recognize change, but we do not know what parts of the endless, ongoing ubiquitous change actually count. This is as deep a problem as there is in modern science. All we have are ad hoc definitions guarded from scientific criticism by ignorant followers of Eris. Those followers call this settled science.

                    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015...s-so-damn-bad/

                    © Copyright Original Source

                    Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                    But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                    Than a fool in the eyes of God


                    From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Yttrium View Post
                      The problem with cleaning up the debris in the oceans is mainly that it can be costly, and countries have higher priorities for money spending.
                      Cleaning up all the plastic is unfeasible, just as clearing all the human-generated CO2 is unfeasible. But it would seem that cutting down on irresponsible plastic disposal is more feasible than cutting down CO2 emissions to the levels recommended by the relevant bodies.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Paprika View Post
                        Cleaning up all the plastic is unfeasible, just as clearing all the human-generated CO2 is unfeasible. But it would seem that cutting down on irresponsible plastic disposal is more feasible than cutting down CO2 emissions to the levels recommended by the relevant bodies.
                        Well, that's true. But even if we manage to make progress on that, we have to convince other countries to do it too. China and India, for example, are going to be using more and more plastic in the coming years, and they have very large populations.
                        Middle-of-the-road swing voter. Feel free to sway my opinion.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Yttrium View Post
                          But even if we manage to make progress on that, we have to convince other countries to do it too. China
                          Though there have been some commendable efforts in your country, you should really sort out your own house first, and worry about others' later.

                          The Chinese government is banning production and distribution of the thinnest plastic bags in a bid to curb the white pollution that is taking over the countryside. The bags are also banned from all forms of public transportation and "scenic locations." The move may save as much as 37 million barrels of oil currently used to produce the plastic totes, according to China Trade News. Already, the nation's largest producer of such thin plastic bags, Huaqiang, has shut down its operations.

                          The effort comes amid growing environmental awareness among the Chinese people and mimics similar efforts in countries like Bangladesh and Ireland as well as the city of San Francisco, though efforts to replicate that ban in other U.S. municipalities have foundered in the face of opposition from plastic manufacturers.
                          A blanket ban has been imposed on the sale, storage and use of plastic bags in the Indian capital, Delhi. The penalty for violation of the law is a fine of up to 100,000 rupees ($1,807; £1,133) or five years in jail.

                          The government says the bags are a "grave threat to the environment if not managed properly" and has carried out awareness campaigns in the city.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Paprika View Post
                            Though there have been some commendable efforts in your country, you should really sort out your own house first, and worry about others' later.
                            Yes, of course. Um...

                            *hides today's plastic grocery bags*
                            Middle-of-the-road swing voter. Feel free to sway my opinion.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I know I'm a little late to the party, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate sylas' contribution. He is always reasonable and his posts are grounded in his own considerable expertise. Unlike me, he doesn't rise to the bait of personal provocation. I admire and respect him, and always read his posts thoroughly.

                              Comment

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