Prehistoric man began global warming???

I'm not sure what part you find so funny.

Now I, personally, am not convinced of global warming. I have been a long time doubter by my opinions are starting to change a bit. But, given that global warming occurs, what is so surprising here? Once you conclude that CO2 and CH4 do affect the climate, then when you can record a distinct change in their concentration that corresponds to a change in weather patterns then you have some evidence that the change in concentration affected the change in climate. And when you can tie human activity to the change in atmospheric gasses, then you have tied human activity to climate change. All this does is show that the change has been ongoing much longer than previously thought. Science is not written in stone so accepting new data as it comes along is perfectly natural if that is what you are implying. That would be like faulting doctors every time they came up with a new treatment because they did not know about it a few years before. Now the change in atmospheric CO2 has been much more dramatic since the Industrial Revolution and the purported temperature change has also been more dramatic.

Ooooh, another place where my opinions are changing. You have the right to drive what you want but... Global warming is only a small part of the reason to NOT drive an SUV. More encommpossing is the general reason of being a good steward and not wasting resources and causing excess pollution. To be more selfish, SUVs have the highest occupancy fatality rate of any category of vehicle. ( http://www.citizen.org/documents/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Chart%20of%2099%20crash%20rates.pdf ) So you are putting yourself and your loved ones at risk by driving around in those things. Finally, you are being a danger to others you may hit because of your bulk while not achieving any benefit protecting yourself. But it is up to you if you want to drive a more expensive vehicle, buy more gas, cause more pollution, have a higher risk of dying, increase the chance that someone riding with you will be killed, and put the people around you at greater risk of death.

 

But, they haven't conclusivily proved it yet. And not long ago, these same geniuses claimed we were turning the climate cooler and were in danger of causing another ice age.

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FROM
Newsweek
April 28, 1975

The Cooling World
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

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Previous post continued.

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Middle Ages were warmer than today, say scientists
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 06/04/2003)


Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented" global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages.

From the outset of the global warming debate in the late 1980s, environmentalists have said that temperatures are rising higher and faster than ever before, leading some scientists to conclude that greenhouse gases from cars and power stations are causing these "record-breaking" global temperatures.

Last year, scientists working for the UK Climate Impacts Programme said that global temperatures were "the hottest since records began" and added: "We are pretty sure that climate change due to human activity is here and it's accelerating."

This announcement followed research published in 1998, when scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia declared that the 1990s had been hotter than any other period for 1,000 years.

Such claims have now been sharply contradicted by the most comprehensive study yet of global temperature over the past 1,000 years. A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today's temperatures are neither the warmest over the past millennium, nor are they producing the most extreme weather - in stark contrast to the claims of the environmentalists.

The review, carried out by a team from Harvard University, examined the findings of studies of so-called "temperature proxies" such as tree rings, ice cores and historical accounts which allow scientists to estimate temperatures prevailing at sites around the world.

The findings prove that the world experienced a Medieval Warm Period between the ninth and 14th centuries with global temperatures significantly higher even than today.

They also confirm claims that a Little Ice Age set in around 1300, during which the world cooled dramatically. Since 1900, the world has begun to warm up again - but has still to reach the balmy temperatures of the Middle Ages.

The timing of the end of the Little Ice Age is especially significant, as it implies that the records used by climate scientists date from a time when the Earth was relatively cold, thereby exaggerating the significance of today's temperature rise.

According to the researchers, the evidence confirms suspicions that today's "unprecedented" temperatures are simply the result of examining temperature change over too short a period of time.

The study, about to be published in the journal Energy and Environment, has been welcomed by sceptics of global warming, who say it puts the claims of environmentalists in proper context. Until now, suggestions that the Middle Ages were as warm as the 21st century had been largely anecdotal and were often challenged by believers in man-made global warming.

Dr Philip Stott, the professor emeritus of bio-geography at the University of London, told The Telegraph: "What has been forgotten in all the discussion about global warming is a proper sense of history."

According to Prof Stott, the evidence also undermines doom-laden predictions about the effect of higher global temperatures. "During the Medieval Warm Period, the world was warmer even than today, and history shows that it was a wonderful period of plenty for everyone."

In contrast, said Prof Stott, severe famines and economic collapse followed the onset of the Little Ice Age around 1300. He said: "When the temperature started to drop, harvests failed and England's vine industry died. It makes one wonder why there is so much fear of warmth."

The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the official voice of global warming research, has conceded the possibility that today's "record-breaking" temperatures may be at least partly caused by the Earth recovering from a relatively cold period in recent history. While the evidence for entirely natural changes in the Earth's temperature continues to grow, its causes still remain mysterious.

Dr Simon Brown, the climate extremes research manager at the Meteorological Office at Bracknell, said that the present consensus among scientists on the IPCC was that the Medieval Warm Period could not be used to judge the significance of existing warming.

Dr Brown said: "The conclusion that 20th century warming is not unusual relies on the assertion that the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon. This is not the conclusion of IPCC."

He added that there were also doubts about the reliability of temperature proxies such as tree rings: "They are not able to capture the recent warming of the last 50 years," he said.

From the Daily Telegraph UK

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So I won't put much stock in the global warming fanatics.

 

Here's yet another.

Global Cooling About To Kick In

IT'S COOLING.

NO, IT'S WARMING

NO, ITS COOLING

NO, ITS WARMING

WAIT, IT'S ABOUT TO COOL AGAIN

IT'S MANS FAULT.
NO IT'S NOT, YES, NO, YES, NO,YES, NO


The ever changing mind of a scientist - I can't wait to see what comes next

 

Global warming really has Blackbird "shakin' in his boots!!"

Remember the story of Jesus---broiling fish on that open fire---those coals smokin'---guess Jesus is a contributor to the warming process, huh??

Now, I ain't gonna go out and create some sort of forest fire---just for the sake of it---I ain't gonna waste gasoline just for the sake of it---but neither am I gonna get all bent out of shape just because I spill a little bit or build me a fire in the fireplace or want to burn some leaves in the yard in the fall of the year---

 

So if we accept that global warming strted arond 8000 years ago (giove or take a bit) then that roughly fits in with the fall and the flood ... so they are ecoming more scriptural in their outlook .. the earth is suffering the effects of the fall.

Regards
Bob

 

Yeah, the whole global cooling to global warming thing is one reason I have been slow accept global warming. The atmosphere is such a complex thing. I do not yet think we understand the full effects of changes in the atmosphere by human activity nor do I think that we fully understand the natural cycles of global climate. That being said, I think we know enough to make some decent predictions. And I think there is enough evidence that the climate has been changing. I just do not think that there is sufficient knowledge yet to say how much of that change is caused by man and how much would be happening anyway.

Now, why I do not understand what was so funny about the original post. We look at historical conditions. We find that the compostion of the atmosphere changed at the same time as human activities developed in such a way that could have caused the change. And we find that global climate patterns changed at the same time as the change in atmospheric compostion. I do not get what is funny about that.

Someone said "So if we accept that global warming strted arond 8000 years ago (giove or take a bit) then that roughly fits in with the fall and the flood ... so they are ecoming more scriptural in their outlook .. the earth is suffering the effects of the fall." In response, unless you are some form of old earther, I do not think you want to make this statement. By making it, you are accepting the hundreds of thousands of years of data that this is based on. To restrict it to young earth ages is to make the data meaningless for such a statement.

Now that we have had our fun, I would like to try and steer this topic to a more useful line. I do not understand why people of a conservative ilk, myself included, are so inclined to be against most forms of pollution control. Now, first from a politically conservative view, I can understand it a bit. No matter how much those on the left want to deny it, their is a cost involed in controlling pollution. Cost means higher prices and fewer jobs. To balance this, some means of pollution control may have some long term savings by encouraging a more restrained use of resources and thus more efficiency. And it must be said that there are those on the left who are opposed to any form of progress, who want us to be back as hunter / gatherers if we are to be around at all, and who will always push for the most stringent controls whether it is soundly based or not.

But what about those who are (also) religiously conservative. Why are these people generally so opposed? I would think that our religious convictions would lead us to wanting to be good stewards of what God has given us. Yet look at the posts on this thread. Contempt for the idea thet we should watch what we do to the planet and boasting about driving an SUV. Since the idea of the SUV was brought up by the original poster, I will continue to use that as my example. Recently a group had a brief advertising campaign with What Would Jesus Drive? That were quickly laughed out of existence. I personally think the campaign was in bad taste so you'll get no grief from me. But what about it? Do we really think that Jesus would be in favor of you wasting the resources He has given you by buying such an expensive vehicle, by wasting the resources of His world pushing that behemoth around, by putting yourself and your family in danger by riding around in something with such a high fatality rate, and by putting your fellow man in danger by driving such a vehicle that is far more difficult to keep out of crashes and that does so much more damage when it gets into one? And this can be extended to so many more environmental topics. Whether it be global warming, acid rain, smog, mercury, overfishing, whatever. Why are we not more concerned? And despite what you may think based on the above, I, too, have generally been just as skeptical about the need for and the science behind many of these things. I still do not see the need for many of the pushes but I also must say that I see the need for MUCH more to be done in others.

 

Bob

That is sort of the idea. No one really thought that the streets of New York would ever be knee deep in manure. But apparently if the growth rates of the time had continued and if there had not been a change in technology, that may have been a theoretical consideration. But technology, the automobile, did step in to change things.

There are a lot of things today that are not maintain able at current rates. But both sides seem to want to obstruct the things that could alleviate the problems. Technology really can help. As far as the possibility of global warming goes, we will eventually run out of fossil fuels, but at what potential cost between now and then. We keep extending the expected supply of fuel today by using ever more difficult resources, but eventually those too will run out. Of course the left shudders to think of the solution of increased reliance on nuclear power for instance. Research into more efficient and less polluting ways of using fossil fuels are labeled as corporate welfare. But the right opposes measures to increase efficiency and instead gives us the huge tax deduction on the largest SUVs if you can claim you use it as part of your business, like driving to your practice if your a doctor. There are so many things that need to be improved. One other example. Fishing stocks continue to be depleted. We need to begin limiting the catch from the seas and to change the way the fish are harvested. We also need to encourage more fish farming where appropriate. But everyone always looks at the short term and opposes such measures based on jobs or increased costs or whatever. Who ever stops to realize that at current rates, you may not be able to have a job catching fish anymore without the changes?

 

Just thought I would mention: there is no such thing as 'prehistoric man'. We have the history starting with Adam and Eve...

 

Amen Helen,

and for anyone who took my other post in this thread seriously, it was written very tongue in cheek. (and judging by the spelling in it probably my fingers were there as well!!)

Regards
Bob

 

I saw this movie once---think the title was "The Quest for Fire"---where these two prehistoric "Cave Men" stumbled across a tree that had been struck by lightning and was on fire---something like that---they were flabbergasted----uneducated minds probeing the nature of fire---"Hot!" "Hot!"---seemingly was the only script!!!

Anyway--these two cave men decide to go back to the cave with a piece of that burning tree----and along the way they got to fighting and scufflin' and wrestlin' around with each other---afraid that each other was gonna take the fire from the other---uneducated minds don't know the nature of fire and how its easily shared!!!

They're there scufflin'----and you guessed it----the lighted stick of wood falls into the river of water!!! At the end---they're starein' at each other in disbelief!!

I'm glad Adam had better sense then those cavemen!

 

Let's bump this because I am still interested to know about what people think our responsibilities are as stewards of the earth. I make the assertion that we should take reasonable steps to protect what we can of what God has given us. There has been a theme here and elsewhere of finding any sort of environmental protection to be funny at best and despicable most of the time. And I just do not understand it. Do any of those who have been so dismissive want to defend why it is unnecessary to take reasonable steps to protect the environment? Why is it bad to want less SO2 & SO3 to get less acid rain, less NOx to get less ground level ozone, less mercury in the air/water/soil, steps to slow man's influence on the climate, protection of endangered species, protection of habitat, rules against overfishing, higher fuel efficiency, etc. I'll even turn it around and give any liberals who may be here a chance. Why are you opposed to thinning the forests to historical densities to prevent devestating forest fires, opposed to nuclear energy which provides emissions free energy, opposed to clean fossil fuel research as corporate welfare, and opposed to cap-and-trade schemes to control pollution?