"Just stop oil"

[ODuffer]

How on earth can they possibly know that to be true? How long has the earth existed, how long have we had accurate reliable records for the temperature of various locations on Earth?

Proxy data -


Ice Cores

Trapped air bubbles: These contain samples of the atmosphere at the time the snow fell, allowing scientists to measure the concentration of greenhouse gases.
Oxygen isotopes: The ratio of different oxygen isotopes in the ice can indicate the temperature at the time of snowfall.

Tree Rings
Width and density: The thickness and density of tree rings can correlate with temperature and precipitation conditions.

Ocean Sediments
Plankton fossils: Different types of plankton thrive in different temperature conditions, so their remains in sediment layers can indicate past temperatures.
Oxygen isotopes: Similar to ice cores, oxygen isotopes in shells of marine organisms can reveal temperature information.

Coral Reefs
Oxygen isotopes: Coral skeletons incorporate oxygen from seawater, allowing scientists to determine past ocean temperatures.

Pollen Analysis
Plant species: Different plant species thrive in different climates, so pollen found in sediment layers can indicate past vegetation and temperature conditions.

Cave Formations
Stalagmites and stalactites: The growth rate of these formations can be influenced by climate conditions.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Great, so now you know how much CO2 was at the ice caps. What about on the rest of Earth?

not sure why i am responding as you clearly have your mind made up, however fossils i believe can help

for the record..... we dont need to save the planet... the planet will be fine.

Also life of some description will also be fine.... even if we wipe out 1000s of species by ruining their habitat something will rise up to replace them, even if it is a return to insects.

but personally i want the planet to carry on being a nice place to live for my kid, and for his kids etc.... and that i am not so confident about

the planet changes but over many 1000s of years. we have changed it in around a century.

 

[Mason-]

How on earth can they possibly know that to be true? How long has the earth existed, how long have we had accurate reliable records for the temperature of various locations on Earth?

Proxy data -


Ice Cores

Trapped air bubbles: These contain samples of the atmosphere at the time the snow fell, allowing scientists to measure the concentration of greenhouse gases.
Oxygen isotopes: The ratio of different oxygen isotopes in the ice can indicate the temperature at the time of snowfall.

Tree Rings
Width and density: The thickness and density of tree rings can correlate with temperature and precipitation conditions.

Ocean Sediments
Plankton fossils: Different types of plankton thrive in different temperature conditions, so their remains in sediment layers can indicate past temperatures.
Oxygen isotopes: Similar to ice cores, oxygen isotopes in shells of marine organisms can reveal temperature information.

Coral Reefs
Oxygen isotopes: Coral skeletons incorporate oxygen from seawater, allowing scientists to determine past ocean temperatures.

Pollen Analysis
Plant species: Different plant species thrive in different climates, so pollen found in sediment layers can indicate past vegetation and temperature conditions.

Cave Formations
Stalagmites and stalactites: The growth rate of these formations can be influenced by climate conditions.

Thanks, all of those are interesting. But considering the earth is 4 billion years old. It doesn't give us much of a picture. To say the cycle we are in is 'normal' or 'typical' (or the opposite) you would need to see a larger part of the history.

From a quick google the oldest tree is estimated to be 14,000 years old. 14000 is a tiny fraction of 4 billion, so tree rings might be able to tell us a lot about the last 10,000 years but maybe not about much before it. Considering a lot of the really old trees are now coal

Similar with the ice, has there always been a solid lump of ice that has grown consistently over 4 billion years so the layers are built up on top of each other? Or has throughout the earth's life the ice melted down, losing the layers, and the refroze with layers on top, and melted again etc etc. The point is every time a layer has melted away the data is lost.

I can go on, the point is we are extrapolating and estimating based on a tiny window of the earth's lifetime. And then saying what we are going through now is not 'typical' or 'normal'. Maybe it's not compared to the tiny window of evidence we have, but in the greater scheme of the earth's life it might be quite typical!

 

[Mason-]

not sure why i am responding as you clearly have your mind made up, however fossils i believe can help

for the record..... we dont need to save the planet... the planet will be fine.

Also life of some description will also be fine.... even if we wipe out 1000s of species by ruining their habitat something will rise up to replace them, even if it is a return to insects.

but personally i want the planet to carry on being a nice place to live for my kid, and for his kids etc.... and that i am not so confident about

the planet changes but over many 1000s of years. we have changed it in around a century.

I don't really have my mind made up. I am just very skeptical of a lot of what is out there because of vested interests and people making a lot of money out of it. We've seen it throughout human history that governments, politicians, big corporations, academics and scientists have lied/distorted/twisted the truth to make money. And I have no reason to believe this time it is any different.

We should cut down on waste, your point about solar on new builds earlier I completely agree with, insulate homes. All of those things I completely agree with. What I don't agree with is the doom-mongering.

 

[bigmike20vt]

We should cut down on waste, your point about solar on new builds earlier I completely agree with, insulate homes. All of those things I completely agree with. What I don't agree with is the doom-mongering.

I genuinely hope you are correct and its all a storm in a teacup.... because if you are correct then all it means is some people make some money by creating some hysteria.

however IF the climate scientists are correct, then the reality of that would be pretty bleak indeed. So i truly do hope you are correct. and either way, stuff like solar, insulation and what not has no downsides so that is just a win for the home owner anyway.

oh and for the record i am not wearing a halo either...... whilst i do my bit in some areas, i definitely do not do as much as i probably should be.

I eat meat, I dont just eat locally sourced seasonal foods, and i am going to Spain on holiday in a months time.

maybe an asteroid will hit us anyway at which point it will all be moot!.

 

[Mason-]

I genuinely hope you are correct and its all a storm in a teacup.... because if you are correct then all it means is some people make some money by creating some hysteria.

however IF the climate scientists are correct, then the reality of that would be pretty bleak indeed. So i truly do hope you are correct. and either way, stuff like solar, insulation and what not has no downsides so that is just a win for the home owner anyway.

oh and for the record i am not wearing a halo either...... whilst i do my bit in some areas, i definitely do not do as much as i probably should be.

I eat meat, I dont eat locally sourced seasonal foods, and i am going to spain on holiday in a months time.

Eventually the sun is going to supernova and earth will get coalesced into a bigger hotter mass.

Also I'm being misunderstood I don't doubt that before the supernova another event on earth will wipe us out, ice age, supervolcano, asteroid etc etc. We'll carry on overemphasizing our importance. My point is there is probably very little you can do about it.

Just live your life, do your bit to not be wasteful. Most people who sell doom also sell you a product they say will stop it.

 

[Tombstone]

not my area of expertise but I trust those who are experts.

Generally a good idea but even "experts" can be wildly wrong (the "experts" who created many of the Covid models, to use just one recent example). I'm not saying categorically that the experts are wrong, I'm simply pointing out that there have been many instances throughout history where the "experts" got things wrong.

 

[Tombstone]

for the record..... we dont need to save the planet... the planet will be fine.

Also life of some description will also be fine.... even if we wipe out 1000s of species by ruining their habitat something will rise up to replace them, even if it is a return to insects.

You're spot on here. Climate change wont be the end of the world, throughout the 1000s of millenia one sort of species has risen to dominance, only to then be replaced by another and repeat. As you rightly say even if 1000s of species are obliterated something will take their place, just as a fortuitous event millions of years ago enabled the path for humans to take a place. Ultimately we've no more of a right to be the dominant species here than reptiles were and I for one have no big issue with something else taking our place eventually. Unless its spiders...spiders dont deserve any sort of dominance

 

[bigmike20vt]

Generally a good idea but even "experts" can be wildly wrong (the "experts" who created many of the Covid models, to use just one recent example). I'm not saying categorically that the experts are wrong, I'm simply pointing out that there have been many instances throughout history where the "experts" got things wrong.

true enough generally (am not going down the covid rabbit hole here specifically).

but like i said to mason, the way i see it, if climate change is just some myth perpetuated by people trying to make money off climate fear, well then that does suck somewhat, but the good news is many of the changes which are being championed to help benefit us directly anyway (purely selfishly our energybill has massively tumbled since getting solar and storage.... if you want to look at it that way then the carbon footprint reduction could just been seen as a side effect.

however if the climate scientists are correct then its pretty grim.

 

[Tombstone]

true enough generally (am not going down the covid rabbit hole here specifically).

but like i said to mason, the way i see it, if climate change is just some myth perpetuated by people trying to make money off climate fear, well then that does suck somewhat, but the good news is many of the changes which are being championed to help benefit us directly anyway (purely selfishly our energybill has massively tumbled since getting solar and storage.... if you want to look at it that way then the carbon footprint reduction could just been seen as a side effect.

however if the climate scientists are correct then its pretty grim.

Thats why I am in the 3rd category, climate change is most definitely NOT a myth, its real. Thats not something up for debate imo, whats more of a debate question is how much of an effect we are having and/or will continue to have. I think thats something thats more open to debate and something that we need a lot more data and time to fully come to understand. Hence me being in the 3rd category, truth be told I will likely be the 3rd category until I die because I think I will be long dead before we have that sufficient data and time to answer that second question. If somehow I am still alive and things have indeed got grim, then they've gotten grim, I can live with that (though I'll almost certainly be dead before that point anyway )

 

[b0rn2sk8]

someone mentioned vested interests but it seemed like about of a one sided points.

Out of everyone with vested interests in this ‘debate’ its the fossil fuel industry who have the biggest vested interest. There is a reason why oil is called ‘liquid gold’ and really they are the only vested interest who has enough money to actually move the needle on public opinion and is why you see so much FUD in relation to the impact of fossil fuels on climate change.

I’m all honesty, the best part about ‘green tech’ isn’t the CO2 reduction, it’s the massive improvement in air quality it brings. We should be doing it anyway regardless of climate change.

 

[Maple Leaf]

Thanks, all of those are interesting. But considering the earth is 4 billion years old. It doesn't give us much of a picture. To say the cycle we are in is 'normal' or 'typical' (or the opposite) you would need to see a larger part of the history.

We don't need all, or even most, of the global average temperature history of the Earth to be able to compare natural temperature increases to man-made ones.

Similar with the ice, has there always been a solid lump of ice that has grown consistently over 4 billion years so the layers are built up on top of each other? Or has throughout the earth's life the ice melted down, losing the layers, and the refroze with layers on top, and melted again etc etc. The point is every time a layer has melted away the data is lost.

Tell that to the British Antarctic Survey. They have continuous ice core records going back 800,000 years and they prove that the increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations caused by human activity since 1880 is unprecedented.

I can go on, the point is we are extrapolating and estimating based on a tiny window of the earth's lifetime. And then saying what we are going through now is not 'typical' or 'normal'. Maybe it's not compared to the tiny window of evidence we have, but in the greater scheme of the earth's life it might be quite typical!

The cause of the increasing CO2 and CH4 concentrations is clearly human activity. Natural global average temperature change takes far longer than the global warming we are currently experiencing. The average global temperature has increased by around 1.25 degrees centigrade (based on comparing the averages over 10 year periods) since 1880. Two-thirds of that warming has occurred since 1975!

In the period of 1880 to 2100, just 220 years, we are looking at a 3 - 5 degrees centigrade average global temperature increase. Contrastingly, it previously took about 15,000 years to get a 5 degrees centigrade global average temperature increase (since the end of the last Ice Age).

I don't really have my mind made up. I am just very skeptical of a lot of what is out there because of vested interests and people making a lot of money out of it. We've seen it throughout human history that governments, politicians, big corporations, academics and scientists have lied/distorted/twisted the truth to make money. And I have no reason to believe this time it is any different.

Vested interests? It's the fossil fuel companies that "have lied/distorted/twisted the truth" so they can continue to make record profits. You don't seriously think there is a global conspiracy of middle-aged academic climatologist boffins to invent man-made global warming just to get more research grants?

Fossil fuel companies made approximately $4 trillion profit in 2022 and have tens of trillions invested in the infrastructure of oil, gas and coal. They have also received trillions of dollars of subsidies from governments around the world over the last century. They're never going to give all that up without a big fight. They have dozens of PR agencies, lawyers and tame politicians on speed-dial to stem any attempt to slow or stop them. They can whistle up a small army of influential lobbyists with a few phone calls.

In the 1970s the big oil companies did their own research which showed the consequences of man-made climate change, but they covered it up and actively spread disinformation to protect their expanding businesses.

 

[arknor]

The cause of the increasing CO2

plannts eat c02.. when they grow food in green houses etc they pump in c02..... because plants grow faster that way..

might suggests plants need and once had more c02 than they had now

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

The way I look at it,
If we are wrong, climate change suddenly seems to peter out and goes back to say the 70s, well we greened our economy, we see better air quality, we have better cars (more sustainable energy used by them), we have lower bills for energy etc, oh well never mind
or, we are right on climate change, we see more in volume and more severe climate issues, more flooding, more low rain areas etc, would we have time by then to avoid massive global issues. If we see truly world changing issues, the wave of humans is going to be massive. people worry about a few boats now, what you gonna do if tens of thousands are trying to relocate every single day, having already overrun other countries.
Sounds completely doom mongering and its not exactly likely, but also its not exactly impossible.

I am glad more people seem to be transitioning to the 3rd option on the list well above.
There are plenty I see who still deny it completely however.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

plannts eat c02.. when they grow food in green houses etc they pump in c02..... because plants grow faster that way..

When force grown in a greenhouse to increase yield/profit where CO2 is the limiting factor.

might suggests plants need and once had more c02 than they had now

Actually no.

CO2 is not normally a limiting factor for plant grow in a natural setting, cuz you know, the wind mixes up the air outside quite a lot. You also get natural convection from its residual heat.

 

[jpaul]

This months revelation of oxygen generation through sea-water electrolysis from metallic nodules on sea-bed (that we want to mine for ev's) seemed a bit damning about scientific understanding of ecosysystem.

 

[a1ex2001]

plannts eat c02.. when they grow food in green houses etc they pump in c02..... because plants grow faster that way..

might suggests plants need and once had more c02 than they had now

And this is why we still have people denying man made climate change, if you put this sort of ridiculous nonsense on twitter it will get thousands of like and shares from knuckle draggers and suddenly it will be ‘the truth’….. there is no hope for humanity while we pander to the stupid and the gullible.

 

[Joxeon]

And this is why we still have people denying man made climate change, if you put this sort of ridiculous nonsense on twitter it will get thousands of like and shares from knuckle draggers and suddenly it will be ‘the truth’….. there is no hope for humanity while we pander to the stupid and the gullible.

65m years ago the earth got hit by a huge asteroid that devastated the planet yet it still recovered fast enough for much of the flora and fauna to bounce back, if history has taught us anything it’s that the earth is resilient.

 

[d_brennen]

This months revelation of oxygen generation through sea-water electrolysis from metallic nodules on sea-bed (that we want to mine for ev's) seemed a bit damning about scientific understanding of ecosysystem.

Not really, that's how science works

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

65m years ago the earth got hit by a huge asteroid that devastated the planet yet it still recovered fast enough for much of the flora and fauna to bounce back, if history has taught us anything it’s that the earth is resilient.

Indeed, no one thinks the planet wont survive, but it needs (assuming we want to carry on as a species) to be able to support human life
Around 80% of life was extinguished by that event you mention