Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Climate Change - An Australian view.

Professor Ian Plimer.

Are you sitting down?
Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.
Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.

I know, it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cents light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud any one time - EVERY DAY.

I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in its entire YEARS on earth. Yes folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year - think about it.

Of course I shouldn't spoil this touchy-feely tree-hugging moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keep happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.

And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you on the basis of the bogus “human-caused” climate change scenario.

Hey, isn’t it interesting how they don’t mention “Global Warming” any more, but just “Climate Change” - you know why? It’s because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.
And just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme - that whopping new tax - imposed on you, that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer. It won’t stop any volcanoes from erupting, that’s for sure.

But hey, relax, give the world a hug and have a nice day!

It's been a while since we had a good rant on the whole issue of Climate Change. Thanks for the update.

I need to fire up the old lawn mower. I wonder when they are going to put catalytic converters on them?

I am just a schumck who's been saying it for years now.

Come to New England in the winter. I'll show you "global warming" HA!

Mother Nature is once again letting us know whose in charge and it ain't us.

We've had one of the coldest and wettest winter and spring on record and I live in the desert. We didn't have our first 90 degree day until July and that's unheard of. Global warming, my arse!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/04/us-climate-sulphur-idUSTRE7634IQ20110704

But, the science is indisputable!, there is a consensus on the science!, human caused "Global Warming" , er, I mean "Climate Change" is settled science!

According to the article, China's gross pollution caused by burning coal has temporarily halted "Climate Change". Can anyone make sense of this, me neither. Sounds like an excuse.

The mendacity of these cranks.

Al Dork and his "Inconvenient Lies" was, is and always will be, a joke... and a bad one at that. Rant over... I just wanted to say "Al Dork!"

I am now organizing a "green" project to plug those nasty volcanoes

Well, all I really know here is that during my wife's recent encounter with "The Change", "the climate" in THIS household sure took a dramatic shift for a while!!!!

My wife's climate-change: Polar ice caps and volcanoes all in one day.

Hmmmm, some o' your posts kinda reminded me of this little number by Tom Waits.

Emotional Weather Report

Well I guess its settled then. Man made climate change is busted to put it in myth busters fashion. Does that mean the cookoos have to invent a new crisis to head off.
Why do they keep on with that stuff when they are wrong time after time.

There is something out there left to be afraid of. Oh I got it. ...... Mining and construction is going cause the rotation of the earth to become out of balance, and send us off through outer space. That's mine I called it.

How will we know when we're in outer space?

All I'll say is it is July in Oklahoma and we still have August to go..... but there is a cold front on its way we hear....should be here sometime in October.

Climate change may have been proved wrong but us Australians are still gonna pay this dumb carbon tax. Just another excuse to squeese us.

Oddly enough, there seems to be evidence that global warming was stalled for a while because China was burning a lot of coal. link I have long been saying that global warming is nothing more than EPA summer. (re- nuclear winter)

"Let's hope there is intelligent life somewhere in space, it's buggar all down here."
(Monte Python)

Oh, I do love a good "climate change" debate! Ok, my background: B.S. in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Penn State. I've studied climate change under some of the best names in the country: Dr. Eric Barron (Director NCAR, testified to congress on climate concerns and is presently FSUs president), Dr. Richard Alley (Nobel Prize recipient with Al Gore for his contributions with the UNIPCC) and Dr. Wally Broecker (miss-coined the phrase "global warming" in the 1970s). So, here's the bottom line (and why I don't recycle).

The earth does things to keep itself in check. It goes through cycles, sometimes those cycles transition quickly (10-15 years) other times they happen slowly (exiting the last ice age. Ok, technically we're still in an "ice age" because we have ice caps, but that's for another debate.). What humans have done is "forced" the system to do things it naturally wouldn’t do (eruptions are natural). But, the earth will recover. One small example is the melting of the ice caps. When they melt, they freshen the water at the poles, which decreases downwelling of the ocean water as it cools near the poles. This effectively cuts off the earth’s heat transport from the equator and freezes out the poles…back into a more sever ice age. There are thousands of examples like this so understand…do what you want to feel better about “saving” the earth…but it doesn’t matter. The earth’s climate will change no matter what we do/don’t do. The climate researchers today are simply trying to figure out what it’s doing and what we’re doing that may affect it.

Oh, and why don’t I recycle….who cares if it takes 65,000 years for a plastic container to biodegrade?...have you seen the age of the earth?…that’s a drop in the bucket. Again, say you recycle because you don’t want the next generation to look at your trash, but don’t do it to “save” the earth. The earth is just fine, with or without us!

Muander Minimum?

I always chuckle at the conceit of people who say we're destroying the planet. As if.

"We're going away. Pack your [crap], folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance." -- George Carlin

I always remember the quote as, "shake us off like a bad case of eczema."

Couple the Maunder Minimum with Milankovitch Cycles and a low Albedo and you can see how quickly the research becomes complicated…man, this is fun stuff!

Carlin had it right! That’s why I always use “plastic” in my biodegradable rants.

"The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic...plastic came out of the earth, the earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children...could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn't know how to make it, needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question...why are we here?: plastic, …"
-George Carlin

I'm surprised erectile dysfunction and male pattern baldness haven't been blamed on global warming...

I have often wondered over the years if todays oil deposits are nothing more than fermented, ancient rubbish dumps

Not really interested in the debate, but I'd like to point out that the information regarding how much CO2 is put out by volcanoes is incorrect. The idea that Pinatubo put out more CO2 than all man made CO2 in all of human history is just not true.

According the the USGS

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

The combined global CO2 released by volcanoes is 200,000,000 tons per annum. A not insignificant amount, but in 2003 alone , use of fossil fuels accounted for 26,800,000,000 tons of CO2, or, a lot more.


The vast majority of scientists and scientific organizations support the theory that humans are contributing to global climate change. I also think the Earth will be fine, the question is what will it be like for the people living (or not living) on it. Just sayin

Seems like it wasn't that long ago that "climate change" was being debated on this site and had more of a following... Just saying.

Quote:

---

I'm surprised erectile dysfunction and male pattern baldness haven't been blamed on global warming...

---

OK, I'm calling my lawyers (Dewey, Cheatham & Howe) and see if I can sue somebody! Maybe I could settle out of court for a Caribbean island, something from the Hair Club for Men and a lifetime supply of little blue pills?