Let It Snow..

[Karlsweldt]

Weather conditions around the world are influenced by several factors. The La Niña and El Niño events, plus the "ocean conveyor belt" being primary causes. Disruption of "normal" events can cause drastic weather anomalies.
But should we also look at skyscrapers that top out over 2,000 feet? Could they possibly distort the Jet Stream currents? It is known that Sun Spots do have a great influence on weather conditions.
"Global Warming"? That is a cycle that has happened for eons.. alternating with an "Ice Age" which cold last for decades or more each. Yes, mankind has exacerbated the effects of 'warming'. But is not the root cause.
Guess we just "grin and bear it".

[bdub]

we may have accelerated global warming (a bunch)... ummmm, with the deforestation of the earth, as well as some of the pollutants we created unnaturally, but I'm guessing more by deforestation.
It is highly suspect, to me, that this crazy weather and the industrial revolution being timed like it is any kind of coincidence.

people want to stretch that sunspot factor. I give that about a .0000001% chance of being a factor.

wait till the peat bogs melt, just wait!

[Roach412]

i hate to say it, but us humans are a spec of dust on the planet, no matter how big and important we think we are. natural events over the last millenia have much larger impacts around the globe than us. i'm not implying(or denying) impacts, but in the grand scheme of things - we're giving ourselves way too much credit.

only a few thousand years ago (well before there were enough humans to even care much about) global temperatures were much warmer, and there was much more CO2, amongst other greenhouse gases, in the atmosphere. we've been in a warming period for a considerable length of time. if you look at the long-term studies spanning 10s of thousands of years, you'll see very obvious long-term trends, which we're in the middle/end of an upswing. there are many things happening in our world/solar system/galaxy that we don't understand in their connections to our planet and climate. just recently i read an interesting piece about tectonic movement and it's direct relationships to rhythmic temperature changes.

can we improve our planet's climate? sure. should we? of course. must we? probably not. will it make a dramatic change in the long run of planet earth? not in the slightest.

tough and interesting topic to work through though.

-Roach

[Karlsweldt]

Tectonic movement is indeed another critical feature in our climate. The "plates" of land masses float about on a semi-molten core, and can collide with other land masses.. pushing up mountains, or receding into the oceans and sinking deeply. Where some land masses do not have great depth, volcanoes form, which are 'vents' that allow some of that semi-molten core to escape to the surface. A known fact that eruptions from some great volcanoes has caused climate changes world-wide for several weeks or months. The historic eruption of KRAKATOA affected world climate changes for about five years!
Deforestation is also a critical factor in climate changes. Trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide, and expel oxygen plus water vapor. They also absorb sunlight in the process, which helps keep land masses cooler.

[bdub]

"but us humans are a spec of dust on the planet"... so the hole in the ozone years ago had NOTHING to do with manmade aerosols? none of the thousands of relatively recent species extinctions have ANYTHING to do with man???

it is disappointing to me that people can't see reason, but so it goes....
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/22/t ... -have-won/

on species extinction... "Nevertheless, the sixth mass extinction is oncoming. That will be the first extinction which did not happed due to natural reasons but as a result of activity of one biological species, whose quantity increases annually by 100 million individuals."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 001443.htm

here's another read....somewhat depressing, but then we all need a shot of reality.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/85541 ... ood-for-us
"the benefits of technology are outweighed by how much the gains reinforce the existing, over-burdened system — making collapse even more likely."

[Roach412]

you do understand that multiple natural extinction events over the millenia dwarf what we've done...? not to mention massive extinctions that occurred not caused by cataclysmic precursors...they just literally happened au naturel.

i didn't deny human interference in the natural way of things(that's kind of what humans do).

impact? sure. it's there.

can you measure the changes over time? sure, to a point (there's a possibly lengthy debate about accuracy and "projections" as to where we "should" be...but that's another topic entirely)

can you provide actual numbers 1-to-1 as to how much impact the human species has imparted on the planet vs. any number of naturally occurring phenomenon? no. we don't even KNOW what phenomenon can(and does) impact climate. we're, as a species, literally THAT pretentious that we surmise we caused all that we see happening.

when the planet decides we're annoying enough it'll do what it does, and we'll be gone. it'll carry on it's happy little path through space for a few hundred thousands of years and cycle all over again like we never existed. hence, a spec of dust. "modern" humans have been around mearly for ~200k years..."modern" civilizations for roughly 5k. 200k years being merely seconds in a day if you scale out the timeframe of planetary existance.

i've read multiple articles talk about how humans modified approximately 1% of the total gas relational content in the atmosphere in our 200k years...and the vast majority, we can surmise, of that would have been within the last 300 years. algea millions of years ago had more impact than us..and it wasn't driven by wars, or greed or machinery of any kind. they were just hungry and had a bad gas problem.

all i'm saying is we're confined to viewing our world from our own perspective...and that limits so many things. that, and as i mentioned before, our inherent pretentiousness as to our superiority/understanding/impact on anything and everything.

barring a nearly-immediate complete overhaul to energy creation(i.e. full 100% adoption of breeder nuclear fission reactors, or the long-shot of fusion energy) it honestly just doesn't matter. where the planet is going in terms of climate is well beyond our control with current technology. if we had nearly-unlimited and completely non-polluting energy reserves we could do something, but that's unrealistic. i'd love to be completely wrong on that.

i do my part to "save the environment"...but, it's all just to make you feel better in the long run. it has an infinitesimally small real impact to anything.

-Roach

[bdub]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-scie ... art-2014-3

"I understand as well as anyone else that consensus does not imply truth but I find it odd how there aren’t even a handful of scientists who deny global warming presumably because the global warming mafia threatens to throttle them if they do. It’s not like we are seeing a 70-30% split, or even a 90-10% split. No, the split is more like 99.99-0.01%.

Isn’t it remarkable that among the legions of scientists working around the world, many with tenured positions, secure reputations and largely nothing to lose, not even a hundred out of ten thousand come forward to deny the phenomenon in the scientific literature? Should it be that hard for them to publish papers if the evidence is really good enough? Even detractors of the peer review system would disagree that the system is that broken; after all, studies challenging consensus are quite common in other disciplines. So are contrarian climate scientists around the world so utterly terrified of their colleagues and world opinion that they would not dare to hazard a contrarian explanation at all, especially if it were based on sound science? The belief stretches your imagination to new lengths."

[bdub]

you do understand that multiple natural extinction events over the millenia dwarf what we've done...? not to mention massive extinctions that occurred not caused by cataclysmic precursors...they just literally happened au naturel.

and this is the fastest to occur... besides the cataclysmic ones like asteroid impact. man is accelerating environmental changes, and idoes have effect.

http://sixthmassextinction.blogspot.com ... ction.html

where the planet is going in terms of climate is well beyond our control with current technology. if we had nearly-unlimited and completely non-polluting energy reserves we could do something, but that's unrealistic.

so... "@#$! it, game over man. it has always been on the road to ruin, and why try to stop it. we are beyond the tipping point".... that's what many sound like to me.... "let me get mine, it's going to hell anyhow".
NO, we accelerated this environment change very measurably since the industrial revolution. since the deforestation of most everywhere. that's what I think. and we can still do something about it, and other smarter countries are, cause they know this is the only rock we have, and the almighty dollar is not goal A,B, and C to them.

I'm not claiming to have the absolute knowledge of anything... but I can see a trend, and I put my faith in science. there's far too many people putting their faith in fantasy out there.
even if there is no solution we can come up with, that doesn't mean the thing to do is not to even TRY! ...not to even agree that there is a problem in the first place! not to say that scientist are colluding to say this so they can get grant money! it's ridiculous what reasons we have for not believing the science. "LONG LIVE THE KOCH BROTHERS!!!! HEIL!"

[evasive]

Are you sure the line goes like that? How many species went into extinction unnoticed because there was no record of their existence in the first place?

We can only see very common animals go into extinction from fossils because the rare ones (like today) simply have not been found because the chance of finding a fossil is so much smaller.

I'm not going to say the climate changes are natural or we do not have any influence. But I do want to say that this graph looks like yet another "hockeystick hype" to me...

[Roach412]

because there was no record of their existence in the first place?

We can only see very common animals go into extinction from fossils because the rare ones (like today) simply have not been found because the chance of finding a fossil is so much smaller.

that's more-or-less along the line of thought/perception i'm trying to draw attention to. just because we think we know something doesn't mean we understand or actually DO know it. we're still finding exotic species that are currently on the planet and thriving. we've identified "extinct" species that are in actuality not extinct.

if you want to group realistic thought with "quitters" and "well, i don't give a $%&*" types, fine. that's your own viewpoint, but i think it's incorrect.

what i stated is merely the realistic outcome. does that stop me from not just dumping my motor oil in my back yard(or someone elses), or not recycling the INSANELY small amount of recycling i can contribute to the "effort"...or purchase a more costly fuel-efficient vehicle although i can easily afford to just pay the offset fuel costs associated to a cheaper, less-efficient one? no. i still do exactly what i'm supposed to as a consciencous environmentally aware consumer.

you say you put your faith in science...my realistic outlook on where we are and where we're going is purely based on science. you aren't going to change the world's behavior. it's NOT going to happen. sorry. not without a massive game-changer that is better, easier, and cheaper. even if you convince the entire US to be a non-contributor to the negative effects of climate change, you now have a crusade to do the same to nearly 4-5 billion others, most of which are in much less position to take any steps at remediation.

was wondering when the koch's would be mentioned. just mentioning them in a post severely depreciates the value of any argument - it automatically creates known bias. just saying.

man is accelerating environmental changes, and idoes have effect

not arguing this "effect". but, how much? do you know? does anyone? no. so...basing fear and conjecture off any inaccurate data(and it is inaccurate) is just bad science. you cannot possibly have accurate data when you do not know the input variables involved, and make assumptions on a variable output. how can you solve for Z on X+Y=Z if you don't know what makes up X, Y or realistically what you assume Z should even be?
-Roach