Walter S

I hope you enjoy fantasies. Imagine away!

McBTC

What could be worse than believing it's better for the environment to drive a Prius to campus instead of riding a bike, based on the global warming hoax and scare tactics of the Western political-educational establishment?

cooker

EDIT: She's not Russian she's a Ukrainian mathematician and astrophysicist working is in England. She is predicting 10 years of dim sunlight starting in 2020. You'd have to plug that data into larger predictive models to fully understand what the impact will be. Of course it might lead to years of hardship and global famine, aggravated by an energy shortage due to the way we are literally "burning through" all the coal and oil now - resources we'll be sorry we don't have then. And solar power yields will be down as well, of course.

One of the claims the pro carbon crowd has is that the excess CO2 in the atmosphere will be a stimulant to plant growth that will improve crop yields AND recapture a lot of carbon through forest and marine plant growth, but that might be hindered by inadequate sunlight during those years so carbon levels might continue to rise during that decade as we burn everything we can to stay warm, setting the stage for an even more extreme rebound once the sun cranks up the heat again.

This is all speculative of course - I'm waiting to see how this new information will be integrated into the overall picture.

wphamilton

Everything you described is simply decomposing an apparent periodical function from the sunspot data into three periodicals. They only had data enough for three cycles. The only thing new about it is adding a third periodical which produced a slightly better fit to the observed data.

The key point to realize is that this kind of mathematical "fit" has no predictive value. It may lend support to some existing hypothesis, but for prediction it's almost meaningless.

To illustrate, you could do the exact same thing with the stock market and find a composition of several periodicals that match stock prices precisely for a few cycles. It is well known that projecting the future prices from this basis is no better than random guessing. It all depends on the nature of the underlying processes - the fit itself, while interesting, is not descriptive.

McBTC

It should help bring into clearer perspective the erroneous assumption underlying all of the models of global warming alarmists that do not include changes in solar activity as a significant factor in global warming, preferring instead to look at human-produced CO2 as the sole cause of global warming over the last half of the 20th century.

Roody

Stupid?

Walter S

Sorry if I've been confused by the stream of messages. Who claims that it is better overall for the environment to drive a Prius after considering manufacturing, energy production impacts, battery waste, etc?

Walter S

I think we should set out to reduce co2 emissions whether it causes global warming or not. We share this air with the rest of the world. It's not ours to mess with in our usual arrogant all-knowing style.

McBTC

We and others can afford to look at it like Al Gore but the Third and developing world countries do not have that luxury. China already has surpassed the US in the production of CO2 and they're not going to stop and nor are India, Brazil or Russia or even Norway, the greenest of green countries that sells its North Sea oil to pay for its green beliefs. Energy fuels modernity--e.g., clean water, sewage treatment, fuel for Al Gore's private jet...

See--e.g., Freeman Dyson: https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...l#post18025614

Walter S

I can't control the world. I'm going to conduct my personal business according to my system of beliefs and sometimes share those beliefs with others whether I'm in the minority or not.

Walter S

We should lead by example and develop technology and share it with the developing countries. The usa used to lead. Now we enter a standoff with the rest of the world and say "you first".

cooker

I have no problem with "global warming skeptics" or whatever - I'm a skeptic by nature myself. So people can and should challenge the prevailing wisdom. But at least try to understand your own arguments.

Valentina Zharkova, the Ukrainian-British (not Russian) mathematician and astrophysicist, is predicting a dip in solar output for ten years starting in 2030, similar to what happened in 1645 but not as prolonged. That tells us nothing about whether CO2 is warming the planet now, or whether current models predicting things like a massive rise in sea levels or other climate related changes are invalid. So its not like suddenly "har har" the global warming crowd have been wrong all along. It's just more information that can be plugged into the model to hopefully predict more accurately.

If she's right, the worst case scenario is that we have a decade or a few decades of reduced agricultural productivity and energy shortage due to both fossil fuel depletion due to our bizarre guzzling of it for the last 100 years, and reduced solar energy. That could lead to disease, starvation, war and other disasters. The best case scenario might be that the dip is mild enough not to cause those terrible consequences, and perhaps even helps stall things like massive sea level increases that are also likely to create huge global strain.

So instead of taking sides and claiming some kind of bragging points for winning some imaginary contest ("Global warming is for losers - we're going to have an ice age, YAY!!), how about we take this new information and try to reassess what the risks facing society actually are and what we might do about it.

McBTC

The last global cooling period dubbed the "Little Ice Age" is described by wiki as, extending from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries,[SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP][SUP][5][/SUP] or alternatively, from about 1300[SUP][6][/SUP] to about 1850.[SUP][7][/SUP][SUP][8][/SUP][SUP][9][/SUP]

With a lessening of solar activity, harsher winters and undependable summers can be expected. Wiki goes on to describe various well-known facts --e.g., The Norse colonies in Greenland starved and vanished by the early fifteenth century [or earlier]... In Lisbon, Portugal, snowstorms were much more frequent than today. One winter in the 17th century experienced eight snowstorms.[SUP][24][/SUP]

What happened in 1645 was particular harsh: a period known as the Maunder Minimum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

McBTC

An explanation from Astronomy Now about the workings and findings of researchers' new solar model that predicts global cooling in our immediate future -- as many other studies have done -- and, not global warming which is the hypothesis that Western scientists and politicians have focused their attention and our resources on over the last 20 years and more to the tune of 100s of billions of dollars. More specifically, however, this latest solar model predicts the return of a mini ice age beginning in 2030:

I-Like-To-Bike

This thread gets my vote as the wackiest thread discussion ever on LCF and maybe anywhere on BF; the number of posts is indicative of how wrapped up LCFers can get when discussing weighty subjects like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

cooker

Since we're using wikipedia as a source, did you notice that same article also covers the theory that changes in CO2 related to falling human populations may also have contributed to the cold spell?

"Several causes have been proposed: cyclical lows in solar radiation, heightened volcanic activity, changes in the ocean circulation, an inherent variability in global climate, or decreases in the human population.'

According to that theory, anthropogenic global warming had already started, but was temporarily reversed by massive population declines due to factors like the black death in Europe and the western diseases that wiped out much of the indigenous population of the Americas, with rapid reforestation of previous agricultural land. That temporarily sucked up so much CO2 it cooled the earth. So the medieval warm period and little ice age may actually provide evidence of human-induced impact on climate already starting in the medieval period.

cooker

I'd say a discussion of predicted massive climactic changes is a pretty relevant to car-free living - wouldn't you?

I-Like-To-Bike

No; Foo or P&R. Double No, double Foo or P&R, double wacky for the pages and pages of discussion about the theoretical energy use/Green House Gas generation/carbon use comparisons of cycling with driving.

Roody

A number of what the climate scientists call "forcings" cause changes in climate. the amount of CO2 is certainly one of these forcings. So is the amount of solar radiation, as you are describing. These are both accounted for by the climate models that the scientists use to understand the climate. They are independently caused. CO2 fluctuations are influenced (at least partially) by human activity, Solar radiation emission is influenced by solar processes that I frankly don't know much about.

You, Mr or Ms. McBTC, are making the common mistake of thinking that because one thing is true, something else cannot also be true. It's like if some Ukrainian scientist discovered that French fries can make you fat, you then concluded that hot fudge sundaes do not make you fat. In logicland, both foods can make you fat, and both forcings can change the climate.

As the climate models get more sophisticated and the computers that run them become more powerful, our predictive abilities will improve. At this time, the models do a pretty good job of "postdicting" global temperatures. They are the "best educated guess" that we have. Climate prediction won't be a an exact science for a while, but it is showing some validity at this time. It's similar to a doctor tell you that she's 85 % certain that an operation will cure you. Do you go ahead and have the operation, or wait a few years until she's 100 % certain?

cooker

As previously explained ad nauseum, some people (not you) opt to live car-free or car-light partly to reduce their carbon footprint, and would be very interested in how much impact they actually are having or on how to maximize the effect.

Where else to get that information, if not in the LIVING CAR FREE FORUM?

McBTC

The ability to 'hindcast' is a part of the verification process and all of the climate models fail that test, which is why they can never be verified. the belief that humanity caused global warming over the last half of the 20th century pretty much is something you must simply take on faith. Anyone who believes in the scientific method cannot accept global warming alarmism based on reductionism or any other methodology we know about (statistically, whatever minor contribution humanity has on global warming is indistinguishable from natural variation). Moreover, natural causes explain all of the global warming we have seen --e.g., changes in solar activity and albedo.

Dr. Hans von Storch:

Roody

I have found the thread interesting and relevant. I've also learned a lot from it, even if I was pretty exasperated for a while there. I have changed my viewpoint somewhat, or at least opened my mind a bit--thanks to cooker's persistence and well-argued points.

I now feel it's possible that low emission cars MIGHT emit less GWGs than bikes. But I don't think the model totally accounts for everything. I will need more data to be totally convinced.

And I don't think that this means people should drive hybrids and electrics instead of ride bikes. I think we should continue to ride, but work on making our diets and food selections less impactful. I think we can do this mainly by eating more locally grown foods, seeking out foods that are grown without synthetic fertilizers, and eating less meat. It might be good to also communicate to Kroger, Walmart, and other food stores that we want more point-of-sale information on the source of the food items that they stock.

Roody

Your conclusions are based on faulty information. For example, the validity of climate models has been supported by means of postdiction and other tests. Unfortunately, you read only cherry picked sources, so it really isn't your fault that you make such errors.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/cli...termediate.htm

McBTC

Maybe aliens caused global warming. Here's a really smart scientist who is skeptical of Western climatologists:

I-Like-To-Bike

The Carbon Footprint Forum.