Would you say there's no consensus on the earth being approximately an oblate spheroid because of flat-earthers? No consensus on evolution because of young-earth creationists?

Perhaps you are using the word "consensus" differently than most people understand it.

What is your opinion on the source of the excess CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?

This question you pose in response to my statement have nothing to do with each other.

Try again.

E] To be fair, I'll help you out.

I was going to say the same thing then I realized if you consider "theory" to be the key word there, he's not that incorrect, assuming he's using a definition of "a theory" that's closer to what you and I would call "a hypothesis".

If we rephrase his statement - hopefully we can all agree that there is extremely often consensus on many things in science (i.e. all the established, proven science), while pretty much by definition, there's not going to be consensus yet on a mere hypothesis.

"Human activity is what caused the meteoric rise in CO2 levels over the past few decades", you agree or disagree with this one as written?

The scientists who study the climate are in almost total agreement that humans ARE the cause of it. You may not think humans are the cause of it, but climate scientists DO agree that we are the cause of it.

I get that. We had a good rapport though like I said(before the class). That's actually why after only about 10 minutes of questions(the class is 1.5 hours long) in a class that was dedicated 100% to us asking questions I felt bad for him and wanted to get the conversation going.

Climate change is starting to...change climates. Today it's big effects in the arctic for example, and smaller effects in most of the world. As the effects grow, entire cultures will find themselves moving...the Floridas of the second and third worlds in particular.

This is not new.

This is how people got to Australia and Indonesian islands and the entire Western Hemisphere.

E] Sundaland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland

That I can agree with. ;)

There is very little reason to doubt that the earth is spherical base don evidence provided. (although people do)

Statements that human caused climate change are "consensus" are not accurate. Many scientists think that humans are the cause of increased carbon dioxide. But some think that humans are not the primary cause only a contributory cause, some dont think humans have an impact at all.

And that's just what is causing increased greenhouse gas emissions, the easiest of the questions. The far more complicated and important stuff comes with what that actually will do do the climate, if anything at all, if we can or even should do something to stop it. If greenhouse gasses will ultimately lead to our worst case extrapolations and inferences or not.

People throw out the consensus on humans creating more CO2 (and other gasses) and use that shut down any debate on what can or should be done.

For example, Sun Belt can come in here throwing out his claims about climate change and what its effects will be, and it has been quickly countered with "Scientists all agree its happening" That isn't a point nor an argument its an appeal to authority, an inaccurate statement and an attempt to shut down debate without addressing what he is arguing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_the_Holocene

If only we had carbon taxes on the continent, 13,000 years ago, we would still have all these wonderful animals --maybe with Quantitative Easing and negative interest rates too, because that's going to literally stop today's Climate Change cold in it's tracks from here on out.

Were early humans migrating to Oceania and the Americas because of the climate change or were they simply migrating to explore/ establish new territory?

Probably both. Perhaps they left a drought stricken area that existed back then because of the glaciation of the northern hemisphere -- perhaps Green Sahara was beginning to dry out.

The fact remains that the Earth has gone through massive changes to the climate in a relatively short period of geological time. The Earth will continue to experience changes in the climate. This is not new.

And taxes aren't going to stop Climate Change, why? Because of the wild swings in climate [a few thousand years ago] before we had nonphysical stuff like digits in bank accounts to move around.

I would suspect most people in pre history migrated to follow animals, or in search of better places to live.

So, im sure changing climates over thousands of years did make people move, but you are talking about migration patterns that took thousands of years. If an unsettled tribe of people even spent several centuries (blink of an eye) in a valley, island, or coastal area before changes to rain patterns or animal migrations spurned them to move, it wouldn't feel like they were "fleeing" or what have you, it would have been a generations long continuum with things like war, illness and natural disasters causing populations to up and move rapidly.

8th grade Earth science:

We know that Earth's atmosphere regulates energy flows to create a delicate energy balance which maintains Earth surface temperatures and allows current planetary life to exist.

We know that within this energy regulation process the "greenhouse effect" is characterized by naturally-occurring atmospheric gases (like CO2, CH4, NO2, H2O vapor) which absorb longwave energy (i.e., infrared/heat) that is re-radiated from the Earth's surface and trap it in the lower atmosphere, thereby allowing less energy (heat) to escape back to space.

This energy equation warms our planet and allows us to live, much in the same way glass traps re-radiated infrared radiation (heat) inside a greenhouse and allows plants to live inside of it in the winter; or why your car gets so damn hot when it's sitting in the sun with the windows closed. Shorter wave radiation (visible, UV) can pass thru the glass and warm interior surfaces... longer wave radiation (infrared, aka heat) radiates off the warmed surfaces and cannot pass back through the glass... thus warming the interior of the greenhouse or car two-fold, to the point where it is much warmer than the exterior. Think of the greenhouse or car interior as the Earth's surface and the glass as the Earth's atmosphere.

We know that the left side of an equation must equal the right side of the equation.
Increasing a value on the left results in a corresponding increase on the right. An input into a system results in an increase in output.

Highly simplified for purpose of demonstration... there are definitely other factors at play which also influence atmosphere temp. Let's just use CO2 and H2O vapor for example as two contributing GHGs (you could put any of them for x and y and add many many more variable, the output z would still have to reflect the inputs):

x+y = z

x = tons of atmospheric CO2
y = tons of atmospheric H2O vapor
z = atmospheric temperature

Increase x and/or y... you increase z.


We know that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have been rising as global population has rapidly increased and resulting human emissions of greenhouse gases have rapidly increased.

We have increased x, we have increased y... therefore we have increased z.

We have added CO2, H20 vapor, CH4, NO2, etc. to the atmospheric system therefore we have increased the atmospheric temperature.

Wow I didn't realize an entire group of science disciplines can be summed up as 8th grade earth science.

Thank you for clearing that up

Never claimed anything was summed up.

But the above is basic 8th grade Earth science. You can choose to understand/learn/question or not. That's up to you.

The one thing on which you and I disagree is that this "relatively short" of yours is only going to remain true for a limited amount of time now; those same changes will sooner or later be considered incredibly slow in comparison to the ones that will be following the recent, utterly meteoric rise in greenhouse gas levels.

There are lots of advanced things that can be soundly summed up to 8th graders (in a simplified manner, of course, but which still conserves the basic science and is still perfectly accurate).

You do realize that human activity was mostly the cause of that extinction event as well, right?

Typical, the denialists are saying to keep pumping billions into oil subsidies because clean energy would cost too much.

Climate change may cause some economic damage, and some coastal cities will have to invest in new infrastructure (dams, levies, pumps, etc.), but human species won't be going extinct because of 5-10 degree temperature rise, that's just silly. Even if all of the ice melts everywhere, the total habitable global land area will probably stay roughly the same, since right now we have a huge chunk of our surface either completely too cold for human habitation or locked in ice. Nowadays the global average temperature is around 58F, which is entirely too cold regardless, causing most of the humans to live in a narrow habitable band between ~55 degree north and ~55 degree south latitudes.

Of course no human extinction. Just famines, mass migration on a level we've never seen before, resulting wars and instability...

Most countries aren't the US where we have a variety of climates to choose from and can probably grow enough food for ourselves regardless.

It's weird that this is a debate. In much of the world people are fighting this and starting to get ready for the effects. Here, the industry stooges are keeping us arguing about whether a threat exists.

How about those pesky darn emerging tropical diseases which come with a warmer, wetter climate?

Small tribes of Indians didn't wipe out North American megafauna 12,700 years ago.

It was a global extinction event.

Vaccines.
United States, even under Trump, is reducing our CO2 emissions at a faster rate than any other country in the world outside of Europe. Canadians are actually polluting more than us now on a per capita basis. Japanese are pretty much doing nothing. And I am not even talking about the biggest polluters like India and China. We are at the point where we are not even the main contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions anymore. Even if magically the whole United States were to produce 0 greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, that would only cause a reduction of around 15% from the global levels.

What does this even mean?

And the solution? Is there a solution? Or is this just a giant whine fest/blame game?

Oh yeah, no prob, we'll just figure all that out. :haha:

We got that whole insect-borne and water-borne disease thing figured out so well as it is!

don't forget about the fucking alligators too.

ahhhhhhhh.......it's already happening!!!!!!!!


Chicago's alligator-on-the-loose, "Chance the Snapper," is finally caught

An alligator was pulled from a pond behind a Michigan junior high school

Uh, yes, they did. Did you even read the Wikipedia entry that you linked to? The entire point of the Holocene as a distinct ecological period is to mark the expansion of human populations into the Americas, and the resulting mass extinction triggered by it.

Umm yes, it is pretty much figured out.

Shit, Chicago too?! We're done for!

We Don’t Need Alligators in Pittsburgh’: Spate of Reptile Escapes Confounds Police
https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-dont...ce-11560952634

Pittsburgh marks its fourth alligator sighting since May
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/0...since-may.html

https://www.wickedhorror.com/wp-cont...e-1024x576.jpg

Its the combined global average temperature. The average temperature you would experience if you were to randomly get teleported to any point on our planet. All the hot desert, moderate climate, and cold tundra areas average out to around 58F degrees.

Oh, damn. I'm out of a job then. Well, it's been a good 21-year run for me studying tropical medicine and environmental health.


Actually, no. You're fucking wrong.

One of the most important aspects of climate change throughout known history of the planet is the rate of change. The climate changing very slowly gives life a chance to adapt and change with it. In geological time frame the rate of change right now is horrifying and far outpacing known past climate change events. Far slower large climate change periods resulted in a major loss of biodiversity at best. Widespread extinction being a major aspect of the fastest changes.

The thought that hey even if things do increase a few degrees no big deal we just relocate of few people and life for people just moves on is insane. Just a few degree change is the difference certain species of plants surviving or not. That happening fast enough those plants don't adapt or have a chance to slowly move where the climate does work for that species. The whole interdependence of those plants and other life in its ecosystem they share the same fate. Note that includes humans. Wait to see enough die offs to fully get everyone's attention and it is already past the point of no return. Also it is not just sea level rise that will cause people to need to move. The world is already loosing its mind over refugees. Now increase that one to two magnitudes and see how things work out.

But it could be said that humans have technology that can save us. Sure but how much is that going to cost and how many does that support. Yeah we can put a person on such a hostile environment as the moon but at what cost and how much population can you support doing as such.

The reason why some tropical diseases do not get figured out is because there is no money in it. If any diseases start affecting first world countries in any big numbers, they will get figured out.

In large parts of the world, death rates are higher in cool and cold weather.

https://marlin-prod.literatumonline....403498/gr2.jpg

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...114-0/fulltext

According to Rau (2007), the death peaks in the winter are linked to three main causes of death which are cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory diseases. The latter group has the strongest seasonal pattern among all major groups of causes of death (Rau 2007). Cold temperatures have a physiological impact on the human body, and cold temperatures combined with low relative humidity rates are ideal for influenza virus transmission (Lowen et al. 2007). Furthermore, winter brings about behavioural changes that exacerbate respiratory ailments. People are more likely to congregate in heated houses, which increases the risk of droplet transmission of infectious agents (Evans 1991; Glezen and Couch 1997).

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...Figure_4_E.gif

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/.../54957-eng.htm

Yeah, and that does not correlate with what most humans feel comfortable living in, within the certain latitudes you suggest. It's not like "oohh, it's a little chilly for me. We need to get that global average temp up to at least 65".

That's not how it works.

Non sequitur

Theoretical deaths caused by warming environment will be offset by theoretical lives saved by warming environment.

Just look where the most humans live. The majority of humans live within the band I mentioned. What is even more interesting is that half of all human population actually lives in a narrow band 24 degrees from the Equator.
As the global temperature rises, much more areas will be opened up for *comfortable* human habitation.

Oh great! Vaccine development is so easy (and quick) when there's enough money involved! Look at how wonderful we do with the flu every year! :haha:

You do realize that 30 degrees from the equator encompasses half of the solid angle of a sphere?

We don't know if that's how it would work with an overall warming planet. Based on what's already occurring, it's not proportional increase across the globe. It's more likely significant increases at the poles and equator.

This statement shows a fundamental lack of understanding regarding basic biology. There are a huge number of different strains of the Influenza virus and RNA viruses like influenza mutate rapidly. This means it's not possible to have a single vaccine the way it is for DNA viruses like say small pox.

Doesn't have to be quick. If it takes decades, that's quick enough.

Exactly my point.

And there's tons of money for R&D of flu viruses every single year.

Social Darwinism then! Let the weak(er) perish! :cheers: