Politically liberal science is bad science.

@maxdancona,

Who has argued science is useless?

0 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Yes, the seas will rise as polar ice melts. I don't know this to be a fact but I assume this has happened in the past...more than once.

The question is how high?

Melting permafrost adds water to the oceans, but warmer temperature also mean larger total quantity of water held as humidity in the atmosphere. I don't know exactly how much more water the atmosphere can hold as permafrost melts, but I'm sure it could be estimated.

As the atmosphere becomes warmer and wetter, the water cycles that weather and erode land into the ocean should get stronger and accelerate the rinsing of sediments into the oceans, which should also add to sea-level rise, in addition to the melting permafrost.

But then there is all the mining that leaves holes in the land that fill up with water, so you might say that as the carbon is pumped out of the ground, water takes its place, which slows the sea-level rise from other factors.

Quote:

The weather has "changed" quite a lot just since I was born. Sometimes for the good of humans and sometimes not. I'm not worried about it.

Why worry? You either do something about it or you don't. Either way the effects on future generations will be the same. After all, everything that our ancestors did, for better and for worse, all combined to culminate in the world we have to deal with today, both the problems and opportunities; our ability to progress beyond our own shortcomings as well as the habits that are so ingrained, we don't think it's possible to reform or get beyond them.

0 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

The question is how high?

Current estimates circle around 3 or 4 feet by the end of this century. It won't stop there, though. The estimated maximum sea level rise, assuming all ice on land melts into the sea, is over 200 ft. Might take us a few centuries to get there.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
The question is how high?

Current estimates circle around 3 or 4 feet by the end of this century. It won't stop there, though. The estimated maximum sea level rise, assuming all ice on land melts into the sea, is over 200 ft. Might take us a few centuries to get there.

Also consider that as sea-level rises, the shallow coastal waters are the warmest part of the ocean, so water evaporates there the fastest.

The geological processes that keep the oceans deep and the land steep are incredibly slow. If weathering and erosion processes outpace them, the build up of sediments mean more shallow water, which means more/faster evaporation.

A fast-churning water-cycle at a global scale will accelerate the weathering and erosion of mountains and land, which will intensify the feedback loop of sea-level rise; although the actual rise of liquid water measurable as sea-level will be tempered by atmospheric water-volume rise because more water will go up and not come down.

With overall more H2O and CO2 cycling between the surface and atmosphere, we can expect faster weathering/erosion along with the other effects of greater heat-blanketing.

It helps to look at the whole process in terms of the final state of eventual total submersion of all land underwater. This final 'water world' state the Earth is progressing toward can take more or less time depending on what kinds of stable energy-patterns are established and sustained.

It is conceivable that energy-patterns could be established and sustained that would allow the energy-patterns that drive the tectonic shifts and mountain-range growth to outpace the weathering/erosion that raise sea-levels.

It is also conceivable that we will continue to convert potential energy stored within the planetary system into kinetic energy at a pace faster than it can be re-potentiated as new stored energy. In that case, weathering/erosion will continue to forge a path ahead of the slow geological processes that build up new land and deepen oceans, which keep the oceans colder, mountains higher, and permafrost colder and thus more reflective of sunlight.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Quote:

The estimated maximum sea level rise, assuming all ice on land melts into the sea, is over 200 ft.

This would put Rome, Paris, London, New York, Berlin and a huge number of other cities deep under water. Some of these were established thousands of years ago, yet in 3 or 4 centuries they could all be gone.

Low lying coastal cities such as Venice or Amsterdam will be the first to go. Our children may see them die.

3 Replies

@Olivier5,

A whole lot can happen in 3 or 4 centuries to destroy all of those cities.

The global economy will collapse if something like the Green New Deal was put in place worldwide, but of course, even if we elected AOC to the presidency, her absurd plan would never be implemented by any other nation on earth...except perhaps one or two Island nations.

There is zero reason for the US to destroy its economy to "set an example" that no major or minor carbon emitter will follow. The major ones like China, Russia, and India weren't even prepared to do their part with the Paris Agreement.

AOC will never be elected POTUS and anyone who is that actually tries to implement the GND will fail, and if by some insane mass ideological brain fart Congress went along there would be coup or revolution. People are not going to placidly agree to being returned to an agrarian society for fear of what might happen in 3 or 4 centuries. You and your fellows know this and so it's inconsequential for you to propose absurd radical plans.

If Climate Change is actually anything like the problem you believe it to be you and others should be spending your time urging your governments to invest in mitigation. Money being spent on further "research" and propaganda is money flushed down the drain. You may consider yourself a citizen of the World, but the majority of your countrymen don't and especially not when the wolf is at the door.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
The estimated maximum sea level rise, assuming all ice on land melts into the sea, is over 200 ft.

This would put Rome, Paris, London, New York, Berlin and a huge number of other cities deep under water. Some of these were established thousands of years ago, yet in 3 or 4 centuries they could all be gone.

Low lying coastal cities such as Venice or Amsterdam will be the first to go. Our children may see them die.

They may just keep re-building in a way that maintains the cities despite the sea-level rise. It all depends on whether they are able to continue to control and utilize resources in a way that allows them to consistently waste resources on rebuilding in vulnerable areas or whether some form of sanity/prudence prevails that seeks to reduce waste and unsustainability more broadly.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Rome suffered many ups and downs but in about 3000 years, it was never destroyed. It could always bounce back in the past, but it won't bounce back from the depth of the sea. This is a far more serious threat than anything we ever faced in historical times.

I agree that it's almost impossible to reverse the trend now. You can blame 30 years of American lies and denial for this.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

This is a far more serious threat than anything we ever faced in historical times.

I agree that it's almost impossible to reverse the trend now. You can blame 30 years of American lies and denial for this.

So is an invasion by a technologically superior alien race.

Oh, the French were willing to give up their cars and any and all reliance on fossil fuels? No blame for China, India, and Russia? Interesting. And you claim not to be anti-American. Wink

If it's almost impossible, it's impossible. Assuming the world woke up to the threat you believe it to be because coastal cities were swallowed by the ocean, it would almost certainly be too late. At least that's what most of your preferred scientists are telling us.

However, since you agree it's virtually unstoppable, I'm sure you devote all of your energy to urging mitigation instead of engaging in arguments about whether or not the threat exists. Right?

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Mankind has always been much better at reactive responses than proactive efforts and especially if there is any doubt about the threat and the proposed response might be as devastating in the short term as the threat is in the long term.

We work better under pressure.

Given what was going on in the world in the 1930's a very good argument could have been made that the incredible military buildup that followed the start of war should have, at least in part, begun before Pearl Harbor. Undoubtedly prophets like Olivier were recommending just such action, but no one really listened.

It's a dicey way to exist but it's natural. Evolution doesn't proactively affect changes in species because of what might change in their environment.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

I didn't think of this before but wouldn't virtually all of Italy have to be swallowed by seas before Rome was destroyed?

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

It's a dicey way to exist but it's natural. Evolution doesn't proactively affect changes in species because of what might change in their environment.

Sure it does. Everytime a gene is copied, there is potential for mutation; and cells are constantly being tested in various ways to determine their fitness to reproduce. DNA is not a rigid script for one set of phenotype expression that resists adaptation to environmental changes. Various flexibilities are built into DNA so that organisms will be able to adapt through sequences of changes in conditions.

Some reptiles, for example, develop as females at lower temperatures. So not only is sexual differentiation built into DNA, cues to develop different MF ratios under different climatological conditions are also built in. This means that the species has the ability to reproduce and survive differently depending on climate.

Such genetic propensities have to develop prior to being tested by harsh conditions. Otherwise the species would fail to adapt and die off, or only certain individuals would survive and then they would die off when conditions shifted back or changed further in ways that didn't favor them.

Flexibility and adaptability have to evolve so that species are prepared to adapt to changes before they occur, or else they would die out completely after a few subsequent environmental changes 'cornered them' in terms of adaptability,

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

The average French emits about 5 tons of CO2 per year, the average American about 15, if memory serves. This is because of our heavy reliance on nuclear power, high taxes on fuel, incentives for house thermuc isolation and other policies.

China never funded disinformation campaigns about CC. The whole warming denialist thing is headquartered in the US. That is a crime against humanity, and you country did it, just by greed.

2 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Rome is almost on the coast. The sea is some 30 km away.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

The average French emits about 5 tons of CO2 per year, the average American about 15, if memory serves. This is because of our heavy reliance on nuclear power, high taxes on fuel, incentives for house thermuc isolation and other policies.

This is faulty logic. If a French investment bank invests in shipping goods from China to the US to make money to pay taxes, it causes CO2 emissions that may not be attributed to it if the ships and factories used aren't under a French flag.

Likewise, if US oil market activities drive down global oil prices and otherwise stimulate more fuel consumption in China in order to stimulate more car-sales, the emissions will be attributed entirely to Chinese citizens and not at all to the US corporations/investors that helped stimulate them and/or benefited from them.

Quote:

China never funded disinformation campaigns about CC. The whole warming denialist thing is headquartered in the US. That is a crime against humanity, and you country did it, just by greed.

You can't directly attribute increased CO2 emissions with climate denial. Denial may cause some people to emit more while stimulating others to do more to reduce emissions in an effort to stand up to denialism.

In places where there is little if any climate denial, people may simply not realize that money they invest and/or spend goes toward funding greenhouse gas emissions around the world. They may want to reform the climate but yet fail to do so because they can't control the global economy that they rely on to fund their economic standards of living.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Duly noted...we await the French Foreign Legion to take us away in chains.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

You're right in that the mutations do not occur in response to changes in the environment, but the ones that successfully meet the change become the norm, but there is even less reason to suggest that they occur in response to a specifically predicted change.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

We could just nuke you... :-/

1 Reply

Quote:

No blame for China, India, and Russia? Interesting.

You'll always hear this line from the very same people who think the USA is the best nation on earth, the big guy on the block, the shining city on the hill that everyone gazes at with envy and admiration. Yet it never occurs to these people what a difference it would have made if this "leader of the free world" had actually assumed leadership in response to the emerging climate crisis thirty or forty years ago when the first scientists began sounding the alarm.

The USA could have shouldered the burden, developed alternative energy sources, demonstrated that reducing carbon emissions was actually possible, and sold this technology (and the political determination behind it) to China, India, and Russia.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

You can't directly attribute increased CO2 emissions with climate denial.

Actually you can. The disinformation was used (by petrochemical lobbyists and the right-wing media) to effectively block any carbon mitigation legislation in the USA and to water down any global climate accords.

1 Reply

Politically liberal science is bad science.

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know