Attempt to formalize global warming debate, step 1

i was in highschool in the 80s and i can remember a time magazine that stated
"The Coming ICE AGE".

NT

Take into account all aspects of human activity not just the few you don't like, ditto with the natural aspects. Don't forget the earth has been naturally warming up for hundreds of thousands of years.

I don't believe there's enough evidence to say one way or the other.

[added: but I'm leaning toward the 'no' side]

We need to quantify "how much?" and "can we stop it?" and "is the cure worse than the disease?".

That's why the debate is so important.

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=207065&messageID=2147870

This would be just like trying to discuss a reduction in social programs with a guy who claims anarchy would result.

Count me out until you agree to consider the premise -- something on which we apparently disagree.

no

The but lies in the where is the starting point of "contribute significantly".

As there was more or less a balance between global warming and - cooling of the earth for billion and billion of years, that could be a starting point or is it the absolute contribution of humanity to either warming issues or cooling issues.

In my opinion the starting point should be the balance point(range).

Further more is there a point of no-return, either-way, warming or cooling.

Rob

I Agree

How do we go about organising a reasonable protocol to deal with any environmental issues that is fair to all, so we can replace the faulty Kyoto protocol.

BTW Don't forget that some people believe global warming only started in the industrial era, some think it only started around WW2, and some don't think it exists at all.

The Kyoto protocol is a load of bovine fertiliser as it takes a baseline that is only a few years old. A baseline where the majority of its supporters have already fully developed their country and their industries and says - no one can increase above this baseline except under these circumstances, and everyone has to drop at this rate. yeah I know it's a simplified summary, but that is the essentials.

Now those countries are in the middle of upgrading their industries and are going to be making a lot of improvements anyway. But the countries that are still expanding their populations, developing their industries and have industries that still have a few decades to go before it's economical to do major upgrades, are all at a major disadvantage. The three most developed countries adversely affected by this Australia, USA, Canada, are also the three most developed countries with the lowest population density, thus the need to ship things around more.

I doubt anyone disagrees that the global temperature is changing. The problem is how much and why, the scientists disagree on the causes. Add into this mix the fact we have records to show the current average temperature is not as warm as what it was 300 years ago, so that's a kick in the face for the Industrial Revolution cause argument. the more it's researched the more questions are raised without any answers being given.

Want to see the European environmental lobby go absolutely crazy. Try suggesting an environmental baseline calculated as if the country had no development what so ever, is in pristine wilderness with natural wildlife, then compare that with the current situation and calculate what they should be paying to fix it. Sheet Europe has wiped out most of its forests and has more people per square foot than other developed country. base calculations on a per foot not a per person basis - then watch the fur fly.

edit typo

has swung from whole world frozen solid to whole world tropical jungle all by itself before man was even around, whatever we do short of a nuclear holocaust is minor temp variation in comparison.

(Subject to change until Wednesday)

names of 'no' team
Naw-yi
Deadly Ernest
TonytheTiger
maxwell edison
paadams
sleepin'dawg
(christy623 - if existing team members agree)

names of 'yes' team
Absolutely
deepsand
neilb
Tony Hopkinson
rob mekel ('yes, but...') :)
Stryker08
caniberichnowplease
saigman
AmericanVoter
DelbertPGH
Benevolence

You're the one wandering off into La-La Land to try and make your meaningless argument stand up. I don't really see what point you're trying to make.

If you want to go back to 1200BC then all of you white Aussies can f*ck off back where you came from and leave Australia to the Abos.

Me? I just want to start from what is REAL and HERE and NOW and try not to make it worse.

is personal and immediate. If a 4C temperature rise and a 3ft sealevel rise means your capital city is flooded then it doesn't matter one iota that there has been a sealevel rise of 300ft since 1,000,000BCE.

I'm finding your arguments rather strange - desperate, even. I think I'll stop answering you as you seem to be getting worse.

I want to post the first message on the "no" side of the debate. Send me an email with at least 8 hours notice, and I'll have a message ready for when you start the discussion. (And I reserve the right to use all or part of previous comments I've made in previous discussions.)

.....to soundly criticize you (or anyone else) and your efforts if, for example, you or some other "global warming" advocate calls the debate in your favor just because you feel so inclined.

In the absence of an impartial moderator (fat chance in finding one), I'd give a snowball a better chance of surviving in hell than anything being accomplished by such a "debate".

the accelerated change, outside the normal bounds of previous global experience.

Whether that's warming resulting in cooling, or cooling resulting in warming, is irrelevant.

"Does mankind contribute to fluctuating weather / climate conditions, and does the size / speed of that contribution potentially endanger life as it is right now?"

Yes and Yes. I'm in.

Well done Absolutely.

of the pro human cause people choose to ignore. This old earth has been heating and cooling at a variable rate since it was first created (using which ever creation process you care to fancy). And those changes have gone from world wide frozen landscape at below zero temps to world wide tropical jungle, and back again, and back again, and etc.

A very significant portion of the current changes is due to this natural cause.

talking about the way to make people pay to correct any perceived climate change. The currently promoted ideal, by some, is the Kyoto Protocol that is supported by countries with large populations who have removed most of the forest in their lands, and are fully developed. They wish to apply economic restrictions and costs on those countries that have lower population density and not so developed, restrictions that stop them clearing as much of their land as the bulk of the KP supporters have.

Now if you assume that man adds to the environmental change, then any such discussions and penalties should be decided in a way that those with more people pay more, not less. By adding up the total, note total, amount of greenhouse gas transmissions from a country and calculating from that, not a fully developed country baseline, you get a fairer apportion of the situation. Working out the rate of emissions based on sq land instead of people gives a more accurate read.

The comments re forest was pointing out that they have no right to tell people not to cut forests down, when they've already cleared most of theirs.

We have no moderator, referee or judge, and I don't know anybody qualified. Also, I don't want to assign one, because I don't believe anybody is impartial. Everybody on Earth has a vested interest in this issue, so I ask all participants to present your best arguments, and your best rebuttals to the opponent, and refrain from opining on which side is doing a "better job" advancing their argument, which is winning, etc.

Please reply with "agree" if you consider this reasonable.

Just in case

If you think you can wear down, or bore away the opponent, have at it, but I want you around, on my side, when the real debate starts.

Just kidding, have a blast!

Please remind me about the Kyoto Protocol question when the debate I originally planned starts to wind down, OK?

If that happens, I'll declare victory for both sides of this and every debate; victory for the human species, over our own tendency to subordinate our minds to our emotions.

... in what you say was a 'formal' debate, the judge "judged" (oops) the quality of the debating style and process, not the argument or outcome per se.

Hence why such questions as "Is the Sun Cooler than the Moon?" were favourites.

Okay I had a 'nerd' phase.

...me :-) for most part. I might satisfy many of the criteria. :-)

Nobody knows for sure either way, so it is just a matter of personal opinion that really proves nothing.

What I DO KNOW is that weather patterns in Australia have become extremely erratic, and increasingly so, over the past two or three years, as they have also done around the world.

The wide assortment of people I talk to are of the opinion that global warming is causing this erratic weather. Most of these people consider it is human caused, or human aggravated.

As I have no interest in debating as an exercise in itself, and there is no proof one way or the other, I will stand aside and observe the debate.

If the flaming session generates enough heat to melt the polar icecaps, then we will know that it is human caused. :)

As nobody has a clue or any scientific evidence to prove yeah or nay, then this projected debate can ONLY be regarded as a formal debate of the kind you refer to.

As for appointing a judge, why not put it to the people? A show of hands if you like.

Why not let non participants give their vote, with at least some comment as to why they have chosen the winning team?

I think that he would be pretty close. I don't know that I would be. I very definitively have both a political position (as I believe you are aware) and an ideology. And know the difference.

Perhaps a team structure would satisfy the requirement? I think that Ab is trying to accomplish something positive here. I know that I will be interested in reading both sides of the debate and this seems to me a good opportunity to become more aware on the subject.

If non-participants want to non-participate as judges, it might be helpful to both the 'yes' and 'no' teams to hear feedback from people who consider themselves not vested in the issue. We could see whether we are effective at convincing the audience of our view, useless/neutral, or, worst-case scenario, so repellant that people who previously had never cared are turned against us.

I don't see your name on a 'yes' or a 'no' but you say you have both a political position and an ideology, [i]and[/i] know the difference. If 1/3 of that is true, I'd like to see you state either of your political position, your ideology, or your analysis of the difference, which would be extremely applicable in the preparation phase. If not, I'm leaning very much toward creating another thread in which non-participants will be asked to describe what arguments they find most persuasive, whether any have in any way persuaded them to re-evaluate their views or to re-evaluate their indifference, etc.

It's unclear whether we've done enough to influence the environment yet. Maybe we have. Maybe not. According to the science, we can, and I see no reason to deny the generally accepted articles of the relevant science. I certainly feel no need to disbelieve climate science, just because a lot of windy talk show commentators make unscientific denunciations of it.

This much said, it is new science, and will see a lot of contradictory arguments (all with good scientific reasoning), and will see significant development of its theoretical basis. There will be lots of change in climate theory over the next 100 years, enough to make today's ideas look immature and undeveloped, I'm sure. I'm convinced enough to believe we should be cutting back on carbon dioxide emissions, now. I don't have enough confidence in the integrity of the science at this date to turn our entire economies upside down in a decade, just because some wooly-haired pizza-eating PhD thinks it's indicated.

Here in Australia we have

NSW - New South Wales = TR abbreviate to NS
Vic - Victoria = TR abbreviate to Vi or VI
Qld - Queensland = TR abbreviate to QL
SA - South Australia = no change
WA - Western Australia = no change
NT - Northern Territory = no change
ACT - Australian Capital Territory = TR abbreviate to AC
Tas - Tasmania = TR abbreviate to TA

I've run into that NS thinking it's Nova Scotia before, one of the reasons I tend to sprinkle the odd Aussie word or comment in every now and then.

may I suggest the following agreed starting points.

1. Man has had, and still does have, a beneficial effect on the environment in many ways.

2. Man has had, and still does have, an adverse effect on the environment in many ways.

3. The average global temperature is changing.

4. The average global temperature has always changed, as part of the natural rhythm of earth.

5. The subject under discussion is:

"Has the overall effect of man on the environment been both detrimental, and is it SIGNIFICANT?"

-----------

This way we can immediately get over a lot of the emotive sub arguments and concentrate on trying to prove if the level of significance of man's effect.

records that go back to the mid 1800s, and some earlier. They were kept as part of diaries by their ancestors, and the details on the big drought about 120 years back is very much the same as the big drought we're in now, and the odd weather is much the same.

we know from records Rome, Greece, Egypt etc that some weather cycles exceed 100 years and some are measured in hundreds of years.

I was born in Sydney in 1954 and lived there until 1986, and then again for a few years some years later. And I can remember some winters in my youth when we had heat waves, and some Christmas holidays when it was damn cold. We just don't have enough detailed information over a long enough period.

the best information on long term CO2 figures is the GRIP Ice Core project in Greenland. That shows many incidents of higher levels of CO2 well in the past some during the past 2,000 years, the highest being hundreds of thousands of years ago. Humans aren't the only cause of CO2, and natural causes have been on the increase in recent decades too.

There are many causes of CO2, and many things that add to temperature changes.

http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=3842

Has data on the sea water temperatures at the Sargasso sea, this shows rising temperatures 300 plus years, and also shows many similar rises in the past. the current temp is 23.75 deg C, the highest was just over 25 deg C 2,500 and 3,000 years ago. In fact, from about 2,700 years ago, the temp rose 2.75 deg c on just under 200 years - that certainly wasn't the industrial age doing that.

Looking at the graph, the current temp appears to be just below the overall average for the last 3,000 years.

In summary the web site is clear that there is a natural temperature rise occurring that has been going on at an almost steady rate for 300 years, when it was at the lowest it has been for 3,000 years. They do say that

"These results are exciting for a few reasons. First, events as young and as brief as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period have never before been resolved in deep sea sediments from the open ocean. Because the Sargasso Sea has a rather uniform temperature and salinity distribution near the surface, it seems that these events must have had widespread climatic significance. The Sargasso Sea data indicate that the Medieval Warm Period may have actually been two events separated by 500 years, perhaps explaining why its timing and extent have been so controversial. Second, it is evident that the climate system has been warming for a few hundred years, and that it warmed even more from 1,700 years ago to 1,000 years ago. There is considerable discussion in the scientific literature and the popular press about the cause of warming during the present century. Warming of about half a degree this century has been attributed to the human-induced "greenhouse effect." Although this is not universally accepted, it is widely accepted that eventually changes to Earth's atmosphere will cause climate warming. The message from the Bermuda Rise is that human-induced warming may be occurring at the same time as natural warming?not an ideal situation. Finally, building on the studies of physical oceanographers and climatologists, marine geologists and paleoclimatologists may use the North Atlantic Oscillation as a model for understanding North Atlantic climate change on longer, century and millennial time scales."

Yet the graph does NOT show a sharp rise in the last 50 years - the line is more in line with a steady gradual rise since the Little Ice Age.

e.g. "I remember when I was a kid it snowed a lot every winter"

[i]However the erratic weather that I am referring to is SO UNUSUAL that even young people aged 20 or younger comment on it.[/i]

Actually they're the [b]most likely[/b] to comment on it, since they've had less experience.

the snow as well as shovel it. Thankfully, that's one thing I've never had to do.

The world is currently going through a warming cycle as it has done before and will do so again. Man's presence on the globe in ever increasing numbers does not/will not affect the outcome in any way other than to either exacerbate or accellerate the cycle ever so slightly.

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

Yes we contribute

'yes'
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=208150&messageID=2149666

'no'
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=208151&messageID=2149667

or similar requests, please discuss among your own team, then let's open the 'debate' thread with a group agreement on any more specific ground rules than what I have already outlined.

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=207755&messageID=2148289

If you don't "win," you'll just declare the outcome to have been rigged.

And you speak of intellectual dishonesty!

I say let him ignore whom he pleases. Nobody on either team is accepting or rejecting anything, only asserting and rebutting. The more of my teammates he ignores the fewer replies he'll post. If my opponent wishes to hamstring [i]himself[/i], not me, I have no objection to such foolishness.

I second deepsand's proposed rule above and propose one of my own: nobody is to claim victory, either on a specific point or the general yes/no question. It is known at the outset which answer to the question you espouse, and it is assumed that you espouse it based on evidence. This competition is to [i]present[/i] evidence supportive of your belief, to the best of your ability to present it, and to attempt to rebut the opponents' evidence. Nothing else.

you heard me!

From the evidence, that is the most honest position (though there really is still not enough evidence).