Best Arguments on Climate?

Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct. But what about the gems in the rubble pile? By what ground-rules might we bring extraordinary new possibilities to light?

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Lloyd
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Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Lloyd » Fri Jul 08, 2016 12:54 pm

What are the best arguments on AGW pro or con?

I initially opposed AGW because I understood that it was based on comparing Earth with Venus and supposing that Venus' heat was due to its high CO2 atmosphere, which is highly improbable. The history of AGW that I know of goes back to about 1962 when space probes to Venus found that the temperature on the surface is extremely hot, hot enough to melt lead, i.e. over 800 F, I think. Most scientists expected that the surface would be cold because of the thick clouds shielding it from solar radiation. So after that finding the leading scientists, like Carl Sagan, hurriedly jumped to the conclusion that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps solar radiation like a greenhouse, thus warming it up. Sagan was also a loud opponent of Velikovsky, who had predicted since 1950 that Venus' surface would be found to be very hot, since it was incandescant a few thousand years ago, when it appeared as a large comet in a close encounter with Earth. In 1974 the AAAS had a kangaroo court to try Velikovsky for heresy and Sagan was a major player. Margaret Mead was president of the AAAS and was linked to a couple of scientists who had come out in favor of anthropogenic global warming at that time, when nearly all other scientists had been predicting global cooling, due to Earth slowly losing heat. Britain's Margaret Thatcher promoted AGW just a few years later in 1979.

The EU team, which includes Saturn Theorists, has long abandoned Velikovsky's claims that Venus and Mars approached Earth 2700 to 3500 years ago. They seem to conclude that both planets came near to Earth about 4500 years ago or a little later. Velikovsky was a Saturn Theorist too, which is what gave the later Saturn Theorists their original idea that Earth was a moon of Saturn. The EU team seems to consider it possible that Venus erupted from Saturn, rather than Jupiter as proposed by Velikovsky, but they haven't made any conclusions. The high heat of Venus is the only clue that it may be a new planet. Saturn's moon, Titan, has a rather thick atmosphere, somewhat like Venus, but it lost its heat. So, if planetoids lose heat with age, then Titan might be older. Something heated up Venus, but atmospheres surely don't produce that much heat alone. They can preserve heat, but not generate it. Perhaps Venus was close enough to Saturn initially to receive its heat from Saturn.

I read today that Earth's temperature rose only .36 degrees Celsius from 1979 to 1998 and since then it's been decreasing. It seems that most of the climate change headlines that are often in the news these days are pure hype generated by political pressure. I believe Earth was warmer one thousand years ago, that it then suffered the Little Ice Age and is now recovering from that unusual cooling, when solar radiation was reduced along with sunspots.

What are your views on AGW? And what links can you give for the best arguments either way?

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Electro
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Electro » Fri Jul 08, 2016 4:59 pm

I see absolutely no good reason to deny GW. Although I think there's nothing to discuss, for the sake of argument, let's assume humans have nothing to do with global warming. Our activities are undoubtedly destroying this planet, climate change or not. Fossil fuels are making the air unbreathable, our forests are disappearing all over the world, and I could go on... True or not, there's a lot more to gain from admitting we are responsible for global warming.

Lloyd
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Lloyd » Fri Jul 08, 2016 5:37 pm

Electro, do you think Venus got its heat from its CO2?

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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by LunarSabbathTruth » Fri Jul 08, 2016 5:42 pm

If it is true that interplanetary forces carved canyons, raised mountains, and created desserts, as well as triggering massive earthquakes and polluting the air with volcanic ash, comet dust, etc, then there is no reason to think that man is the cause of climate change, especially when the Sun is a relatively close active star which throws off massive arcs much larger than the Earth itself.

- joe

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Electro
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Electro » Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:26 pm

Lloyd wrote:Electro, do you think Venus got its heat from its CO2?
This has always been a very sensitive subject for me, so I apologize for the way my first post may have sounded. I'll try to keep it more objective and scientific. :)

I'm no expert but yes, I do believe the heat on Venus got trapped by the large concentration of atmospheric CO2.

Lloyd
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Lloyd » Sat Jul 09, 2016 10:55 am

Electro, do you contend then that the surface of Venus being largely low hills that are rather molten with lots of vulcanism between them is due to the surface heating up from the greenhouse effect, rather than these features being signs of a young planet? If so, what evidence is there that solar heat penetrates the thick clouds? A catastrophist article from the 90s or so said the solar radiation at the surface measures about 2 watts per square meter. Is it possible to heat an oven with such low power with the best insulation? The 2 watts is from memory, so I'd have to look that up before have great confidence in it. I have about 60% confidence or more. I also think the heat coming from the ground was measured to be a few hundred watts per square meter.

Feel free to post links to the best article/s you know of in favor of AGW. It would also help if you could then copy brief versions of the arguments here. Here are some articles that can be used against AGW for reference:
The Paradoxical Origin of Climate Alarmism
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles ... rmism.html

Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming: Where We Stand on the Issue
http://www.co2science.org/about/positio ... arming.php

Global Warming: The Theory that Predicts Nothing and Explains Everything
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/08/glo ... everything

What It Would Take to Prove Global Warming
http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/17/wha ... al-warming
1) A clear understanding of the temperature record.
2) A full understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms.
3) The ability to make forecasting models with a track record of accurate predictions over the very long term.
... I should also point out that the “catastrophic” part of “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming” is a much larger question that is even harder to forecast.

I welcome LST and others to submit brief arguments too.

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Electro
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Electro » Sat Jul 09, 2016 7:07 pm

Venus has no intrinsic magnetic field, so, just like Mars, I believe it's a very old planet. There is a lot of science behind CO2 and the greenhouse effect.

http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci10 ... /venus.htm

But where does all that carbon dioxide come from? Perhaps from CO2 oceans covering the surface of Venus in the past? And that same CO2 might have carved the valleys, not lava?

http://www.iflscience.com/space/venus-m ... n-dioxide/

You're right, AGW is political. I'm not American, but the debate is primarly "right wing" against "left wing". I live in Canada, so it's very similar.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_56438 ... bf3ded5ca5

http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/why-sm ... ate-change

Lloyd
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Lloyd » Sat Jul 09, 2016 9:47 pm

Electro, what is your favorite argument for AGW specifically?

How much of EU theory do you accept and reject? Do you reject catastrophism, esp. catastrophism that resurfaced the Earth about 4,500 years ago? Do you reject that asteroids impacted at that time? Do you reject that Venus was seen by the ancients as the great comet? Do you reject that Earth was a moon of Saturn, as the ancients appear to have implied? Do you know that EU theory derived largely from Velikovsky's finding that the ancients described and pictured electric-like effects between planetoids?

I'll think some more about where Venus could have gotten its CO2. Vulcanism is one source. The article, Meteors May Inject Methane Into Alien Planet Atmospheres, at http://www.space.com/17657-alien-planet ... phere.html, suggests that Venus could have gotten methane from meteors. I think the lower 50 km of its atmosphere has a lot of sulfur, according to John Ackerman, and above that it's almost pure CO2. Sulfur may transmute into oxygen and if methane combusts in the presence of oxygen, it yields CO2. An online site says CH4 + 2 O2 yields CO2 + 2 H2O. So that presents a problem of where the water went. It could be in Venus' surface rocks.

Electro, if you think there were liquid CO2 rivers on Venus, how would Venus have been so cold and then gotten so hot? Also, where would the CO2 have come from?

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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by D_Archer » Sun Jul 10, 2016 4:38 am

Con >

1) Humans think too much of themself, ie hubris.

2) AGW is a deflection, warming is not really a problem is it? Problems are: pollution and descruction of natural environments etc, the list goes on with real problems.

3) CO2 is a natural gas that we really need in our atmosphere, in fact the Earth has gotten greener* ! And CO2 is proven to not be able to heat up continually, there is NO runaway effect. (see EU vid > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ55koi7vaA )

Regards,
Daniel

*http://www.iflscience.com/environment/d ... g-greener/
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Lloyd
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Lloyd » Sun Jul 10, 2016 9:12 am

Too Little CO2 Worse Than Too Much
Thanks, Daniel. It's a good point that, if people are going to be concerned about too much CO2 in the atmosphere, they'd also better be even more concerned about having too little of it. The less CO2 there is, the less plant life there can be. Also animal life needs CO2 in order to be able to use oxygen. If there's not enough CO2 in the lungs or in the blood, the oxygen cannot enter the hemoglobin molecule in red blood cells. I've read studies that claim that there is more plant life when there is more CO2 in the air.

Desertification
So far, I don't think the extra CO2 has helped reverse desertification. What works best for that seems to be Savory's holistic management methods that involve concentrating grazing animals on small areas of land for hours to days, so they can smash standing dead weeds and grass down into the soil and they can add urine and manure to the soil as well. The animals then need to be kept off of that ground until long enough after at least one good rain gets the seeds sprouting and growing. See http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hccq6JVp5jc/U ... mbabwe.jpg. And here's an article defending Savory's methods: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable ... lan-savory.

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Electro
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Electro » Sun Jul 10, 2016 11:53 am

Lloyd, I'm not a scientist so my arguments are a combination of overwhelming evidence presented by the experts, and my own observations of the past 45 years or so. Like I said, I live in Canada, more precisely near Montreal. I've witnessed first hand a steady increase in temperatures and a decrease in precipitation. Man, feels like we're living in a "tropical paradise" at times! I hate heat! Winters are now way too mild, and the absence of snow makes it depressing to say the least. And of course, we all know what's happening in the Arctic... Idiots cutting down our precious boreal forests, forest fires (80% caused by man), and those dirty oil sands in Alberta, which will be even worst when they'll finally go ahead with the Keystone pipeline project...

Global warming is only part of the problem. Denying GW is one thing, but it's impossible to deny the negative impact our way of life has on the environment and our very existence.

So, by desperately holding on to our "way of life" and personal comfort, through our individualism, we are condemning our future.

In my opinion, too much carbon is worst than not enough. But, when did we really not have enough CO2? We don't know what caused the ice ages, if they really did happen.

I like many ideas from the EU theory, but I believe we could do without mythology and catastrophism. It would give us a lot more credibility. Mythology is just that, myth. I reject anything related to interpretation of human made myths, and spiritually. Furthermore, EU does not provide any detailed mechanism on planet formation and ejection.

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Electro
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Electro » Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:03 pm

Lloyd wrote: Electro, if you think there were liquid CO2 rivers on Venus, how would Venus have been so cold and then gotten so hot? Also, where would the CO2 have come from?
Forgot to answer this question, sorry.

If you read my link, http://www.iflscience.com/space/venus-m ... n-dioxide/ , it's CO2 as a supercritical fluid (very high temperature and pressure), midway between gas and liquid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercrit ... on_dioxide

Image

Where did the CO2 come from? Do we really ever know? It's like on Earth. They think water came from comets. Man, we must have been bombarded by trillions of comets in the past! Or maybe the few water molecules from comets made babies? :roll: Why water was not formed on Earth? If the water came from comets, how did water form on them in the first place? When a star is born inside a molecular cloud, all sorts of elements and chemical compounds can be present. Marklund convection, which is the sorting of plasma inside of a star based on ionization potentials of the material it is comprised of, and phase transitions, as the star evolves and cools down (GTSM), are responsible for what we find on rocky planets. The possibilities are endless.

Image

Image

And by the way, why would we be concerned about not having enough CO2? You really think it's likely to happen?

And from D_Archer - warming is not really a problem is it? - Are you serious? What about the Arctic and the Antarctic? What about the rise in sea levels? Waters are getting warmer. What about places who used to have snow and relied on it for winter sports? What about all the animal species affected by warming? How many species must now go further and further up north? Migrations are also affected. It's a real catastrophe!

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Electro
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by Electro » Sun Jul 10, 2016 7:18 pm

Since we really don't have much time to edit our posts on this forum, I must add something in a new post...

Climate change according to NASA:

How do we know?

Image

What are the consequences?

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Just watched the following video. I must say I was very disappointed. By the applauds that guy received in his presentation in the 2014 EU conference, it looks like EU's position on climate change is clear... I do not think I'll be able to continue debating on this subject any longer. It sickens me to see how people can deliberately not care about our environment and future generations. I see no reason to deny global warming and its devastating consequences other than for pure selfishness, profit, capitalism, individualism, supporting the oil and gas industry, and, under the false pretenses of wanting to oppose depriving Earth's flora of their green plant food... What a joke! Typical right wing ideology... Trump surely has a lot of supporters here... I will stick with astronomy from now on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ55koi7vaA

LunarSabbathTruth
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by LunarSabbathTruth » Sun Jul 10, 2016 9:31 pm

Electro wrote:Since we really don't have much time to edit our posts on this forum, I must add something in a new post...
....
I see no reason to deny global warming and its devastating consequences other than for pure selfishness, profit, capitalism, individualism, ....
No one is denying the huge influence the Sun has on the climate of Earth. In fact, the EU community is on the leading edge of research into the electrical influence of the Sun upon the weather patterns.

Now, on the other hand, to attribute the effect of that massive star to the actions of mankind is a different subject altogether.

- joe

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D_Archer
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Re: Best Arguments on Climate?

Unread post by D_Archer » Mon Jul 11, 2016 2:00 am

Electro wrote:And from D_Archer - warming is not really a problem is it? - Are you serious? What about the Arctic and the Antarctic? What about the rise in sea levels? Waters are getting warmer. What about places who used to have snow and relied on it for winter sports? What about all the animal species affected by warming? How many species must now go further and further up north? Migrations are also affected. It's a real catastrophe!
It was phrased as a question was it not? It could be a problem but it could also be an opportunity, it is not ALL bad. And my point stands, it is used as a deflection from actual pollution etc. Industry is happy to dump waste, because doing it responsible hurts the bottom line. You can dabble in CO2 policies endlessly, you can tax it, but it would not solve anything, it is politics, not science.

I think you are getting too emotional, stick to science and a cool head. Pun intended.

Regards,
Daniel
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