Climate Change Gets Real For Americans

[Trakar]

Climate Change Gets Real For Americans

Climate Change Gets Real For Americans : NPR

by Adam Frank


December 26, 2012 3:00 PM

December 26, 2012
javascript:NPR.Player.openPlayer(16....Action.PLAY_NOW, NPR.Player.Type.STORY, '0')
Listen to the Story

All Things Considered
3 min 9 sec

• Playlist
• Download

Something remarkable happened in 2012.


ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now to a scientist looking back at the year that's about to end. Commentator Adam Frank is an astrophysicist. And in the category of science, he is confident about the headline for 2012.

ADAM FRANK: Something remarkable has happened that may etch this year into history for centuries to come. 2012's importance comes not through elections, economic shifts or the new movements in art. No, 2012 may well be remembered for something far more elemental.
This was the year that climate change got real for Americans.
The scientific debate over climate change was settled years ago. The basic conclusion that the planet is warming, through fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide release, is not in doubt. But that conclusion relied on technical arguments about things like greenhouse gas molecules and the interactions between the Earth's ocean, air and glacial systems.
Opponents of climate change used that technical complexity in the court of public opinion, to throw doubt on climate science via faux debates about hockey-stick diagrams, the influence of the sun or worse, false claims of manipulated data.
But after 2012 debates over technical abstractions lost their edge. That's because this year it finally became possible to see firsthand what climate change really means. The long summer of 2012 brought us heat waves that toppled records. Large sections of the U.S. remained trapped in extreme or even extraordinary drought for months. The summer's corn crop withered and cattle failed to find adequate grassland. It's now December and that drought has yet to abate.
Then, of course, came Hurricane Sandy. The storm surge pushed parts of New York underwater and cost tens of billions of dollars in damage. In its wake, government officials stated publicly what scientists had been saying in private for years. Climate change is happening now and from now on it must be built into all our plans for subways, for roads, sewers, and for electrical power distribution.
Even the question of attribution changed, as scientists developed methods providing quantitative links between any individual extreme weather event and the supercharged climate that comes from global warming.
In the end, 2012 brought a sea change in our understanding of climate change. The discussion shifted from the abstractions of scientific research to the concrete domain of visceral experience. The new normal has arrived.
SIEGEL: Commentator and astrophysicist Adam Frank reflecting on the year in science.

 

[SSDD]

Tell me, what happened in 2012 that falls into the purview of the unprecedented. Not temperatures, they have certainly been hotter. Not drought as there have been at least 6 years since the 1930's that have had worse droughts and five of those were prior to 1960. Not extreme weather in the form of tropical cyclones as the US is experiencing fewer than ever. Not tornadoes as they are at a near all time low. Not wildfire as fewer acres burned in 2012 than have burned in many years.

So what happened this year that made climate change real beyond some imaginitave and quite dishonest reporting by the main stream media?

As to the science being settled and the discussion over, only an idiot and propagandist would make such a claim.

 

[Mr. H.]

The scientific debate over climate change was settled years ago. The basic conclusion that the planet is warming, through fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide release, is not in doubt.

 

[SSDD]

The scientific debate over climate change was settled years ago. The basic conclusion that the planet is warming, through fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide release, is not in doubt.

Not in doubt and yet, not a single bit of empirical evidence exists to support that belief. What sort of science is that?

 

[PredFan]

The scientific debate over climate change was settled years ago. The basic conclusion that the planet is warming, through fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide release, is not in doubt.

Not in doubt and yet, not a single bit of empirical evidence exists to support that belief. What sort of science is that?

Junk science. A scam. Fact.

 

[Old Rocks]

The scientific debate over climate change was settled years ago. The basic conclusion that the planet is warming, through fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide release, is not in doubt.

Not in doubt and yet, not a single bit of empirical evidence exists to support that belief. What sort of science is that?

And you are spouting nonsense. Yap-yap totally against all known science.

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

Information from the largest scientific society in the world, the American Insitute of Physics.

 

[Old Rocks]

The scientific debate over climate change was settled years ago. The basic conclusion that the planet is warming, through fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide release, is not in doubt.

Not in doubt and yet, not a single bit of empirical evidence exists to support that belief. What sort of science is that?

Junk science. A scam. Fact.

Idiocy from idiots.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Obama lowered the seas in 2012

 

[CrusaderFrank]

AGW Tourettes, you just keep blabbing about AGW and hope someone will take you seriously

 

[tjvh]

NPR "all things considered"... Nope... No liberal bias there.

 

[Toronado3800]

I have seen the proof CO2 in enclosed environemnts raises heat retention. To deny it is pretty silly.

Now I suppose we can liberally interpret things and find a way to say the earth works under a different set of rules as it is round or whatever. But at least that is a thought. Also it is fair to question how much a difference out ppm have made.

To blame a heatwave on global warming is bad science though. Instead of being 105 degrees it would be 103. No difference if taken in a small sample. Gotta look at the bigger picture.

Anyways, I see the debate as being
1 we are competing with China for the future of humanity and will have time to get conservative with the environment later

Or
2 being such a conservative stick in the mud as I am I don't wanna screw things up for my kid. It isnt like I'm giving up my Markviii anyways.

 

[whitehall]

To paraphrase left wing icon Rahm Emanuel, "never let a crisis or a tragedy or a disaster go to waste if you can use it for political advantage". If we lived in a time of calm weather where it only rained early Tuesday mornings and the seasons were as moderate as the politicians we might have cause for concern when a weather disaster happens but we know that the world wide climate has always been volatile and North East flood areas covered by Sandy were once covered by a mile deep glacier. I watched a documentary about four volcanoes in Iceland the other day. They are all overdue to erupt and any one of them could cause a catastrophic global cooling from the dust. Catastrophic global cooling is a historical geological event that humanity has always had to contend with and there is no defense for it but all we hear is doomsday prophecies based on fake warming data based on a global extortion scheme designed to reduce the United States to a 3rd world country.

 

[SSDD]

And you are spouting nonsense. Yap-yap totally against all known science.

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

Information from the largest scientific society in the world, the American Insitute of Physics.

You keep posting that link whenever someone points out that there is not a scrap of hard evidence proving that CO2 causes the atmosphere to warm. Every time I have seen it, I ask you to point out where in that link is anything that might resemble proof of anything. I have asked you at least 3 and maybe 4 times to point out where the proof that you believe is there might be.

You don't answer the question. I have read it all and been to all the links it provides although I haven't been to all the links the links provide. Where is the proof that CO2 causes climate change. If you believe it is there, then point it out. If you don't, believe it is there, or don't understand much of what is there but believe that proof must be there somewhere, why not simply admit that you don't know rather than repeatedly posting it as if it were an answer to a question rather than just a cheap dodge on your part?

 

[SSDD]

I have seen the proof CO2 in enclosed environemnts raises heat retention. To deny it is pretty silly.

What you have seen in a closed environment is a demonstration of the heat of compression. In a closed bottle, the gasses can't expand when exposed to the heat and as a result, warm more than would be expected from the heat source alone due to the compression. CO2 being a heavier gas than standard air warms more because more compression is taking place in that jar than in the air jar. The heavier the gas is, the more heat is generated via compression. If you do the same experiment with a valve to keep the pressure equalized with the outside, then a jar filled with CO2 won't warm anymore than a jar filled with air.

What is silly is to be fooled by a scam. When you go to a magic show, do you really believe you see hankerchiefs being turned into doves and tigers disappering from one place and appearing in another?

Take a few minutes and look up and read about heat of compression and stop being a dupe. You might also familiarize yourself with the ideal gas laws. If you had any sort of grasp of them, then you wouldn't be fooled by the greenhouse in a jar type experiments.

Now I suppose we can liberally interpret things and find a way to say the earth works under a different set of rules as it is round or whatever. But at least that is a thought. Also it is fair to question how much a difference out ppm have made.

No difference at all. As I said, if you had a pressure release valve in the jar, a jar of CO2 would be the same temperature as a jar of air no matter what the PPM of CO2 was in the jar. CO2 can't cause warming in an open atmosphere.

 

[Old Rocks]

I have seen the proof CO2 in enclosed environemnts raises heat retention. To deny it is pretty silly.

What you have seen in a closed environment is a demonstration of the heat of compression. In a closed bottle, the gasses can't expand when exposed to the heat and as a result, warm more than would be expected from the heat source alone due to the compression. CO2 being a heavier gas than standard air warms more because more compression is taking place in that jar than in the air jar. The heavier the gas is, the more heat is generated via compression. If you do the same experiment with a valve to keep the pressure equalized with the outside, then a jar filled with CO2 won't warm anymore than a jar filled with air.

What is silly is to be fooled by a scam. When you go to a magic show, do you really believe you see hankerchiefs being turned into doves and tigers disappering from one place and appearing in another?

Take a few minutes and look up and read about heat of compression and stop being a dupe. You might also familiarize yourself with the ideal gas laws. If you had any sort of grasp of them, then you wouldn't be fooled by the greenhouse in a jar type experiments.

Now I suppose we can liberally interpret things and find a way to say the earth works under a different set of rules as it is round or whatever. But at least that is a thought. Also it is fair to question how much a difference out ppm have made.

No difference at all. As I said, if you had a pressure release valve in the jar, a jar of CO2 would be the same temperature as a jar of air no matter what the PPM of CO2 was in the jar. CO2 can't cause warming in an open atmosphere.

SSDD, you constantly make statements without anything at all to back them up. Others on this board offer the statements and work of real scientists to show what backs up their statements. You offer nothing, and that is the value of your statements.

 

[Skull Pilot]

If the earth is a couple of degrees warmer nothing is going to happen.

 

[FireFly]

But...but...but...if we just increase taxes, global warming will go away!

 

[Old Rocks]

If the earth is a couple of degrees warmer nothing is going to happen.

The basis for that statement is?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Because the earth is warmer than it was and guess what nothing has happened.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I have seen the proof CO2 in enclosed environemnts raises heat retention. To deny it is pretty silly.

What you have seen in a closed environment is a demonstration of the heat of compression. In a closed bottle, the gasses can't expand when exposed to the heat and as a result, warm more than would be expected from the heat source alone due to the compression. CO2 being a heavier gas than standard air warms more because more compression is taking place in that jar than in the air jar. The heavier the gas is, the more heat is generated via compression. If you do the same experiment with a valve to keep the pressure equalized with the outside, then a jar filled with CO2 won't warm anymore than a jar filled with air.

What is silly is to be fooled by a scam. When you go to a magic show, do you really believe you see hankerchiefs being turned into doves and tigers disappering from one place and appearing in another?

Take a few minutes and look up and read about heat of compression and stop being a dupe. You might also familiarize yourself with the ideal gas laws. If you had any sort of grasp of them, then you wouldn't be fooled by the greenhouse in a jar type experiments.

Now I suppose we can liberally interpret things and find a way to say the earth works under a different set of rules as it is round or whatever. But at least that is a thought. Also it is fair to question how much a difference out ppm have made.

No difference at all. As I said, if you had a pressure release valve in the jar, a jar of CO2 would be the same temperature as a jar of air no matter what the PPM of CO2 was in the jar. CO2 can't cause warming in an open atmosphere.

SSDD, you constantly make statements without anything at all to back them up. Others on this board offer the statements and work of real scientists to show what backs up their statements. You offer nothing, and that is the value of your statements.

And you still haven't posted a single repeatable experiment that shows how your failed theory works. All the Youtube videos the Warmers post all show massive increase in pressure from adding a whole additional atmosphere of CO2 and they try to pawn it off as CO2 doing the warming instead of the pressure

Fail.