smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL

Greta Thumberg told World Economic Form that we have to do something. Ignoring the discussion of the source and mechanism of the warming; its clear that the world is clearly warming. Even if you sitting in the middle of blizzard due to some of the paradoxical effects of the warming.

The earth has warmed many times. The mechanism for that warming isn't completely proved although we know that high CO2 in the atmosphere is a definite indicator of it. Just like today.

Every time the earth has gotten very hot that period is followed by an ice age. Every time. The mechanism for that isn't conclusive proven but it goes like this. Earth heats up via some method, a critical temperature is met and surpassed (+4 F from today). The glaciers all melt the icepacks surrounding Antarctica melt and are going. And underneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps water is building at some point effectively floating the caps - at some point possibly helped by a seismological event - they'll start sliding into the ocean. All at once.

So, all the ice that has previously melted and gone into ocean will raise the freezing temperature significantly. The fresh ice will become a vast ocean of slush. So water freezes more easily and now there is a vast expanse of white reflecting light back out of the atmosphere. Light that would have otherwise struck something dark and became heat. Easier to freeze water mixed with a lot less heat production - more and more of the ocean will re-freeze speeding up the process, not very thick but it just has to cover the dark water to start reflecting. The models I've seen are pretty primitive but they indicate that the net result of this is a runaway process that starts an ice age.

Our civilization can probably withstand a planet 4F temp. increase - I'm not so sure about the ice age that sure to follow.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Been warming for the past how many thousands of years?
Weather patterns are also cyclic.
Problem is, we haven't been accurately recording the information for long.

halraiser

OK, I may stir up a hornet's nest with this, but we should pay little attention to children in terms of science. The brain does not fully develop until about age 25 and those young people are students. By definition, students are still learning, they have wide areas of ignorance. Listen to real scientists, who are not nearly as unanimous about man-made global warming as the media and leftists would have us believe. I had a friend who spent a couple of years in Antarctica and he found that not one of the scientists there believed in man-made global warming.

retap

The other problem is that homo sapiens hasn't been around for all of these events save the current one. We (and most of us are not investigators or climate scientists) can debate until the polar caps melt or Mara Lago is under water and still not be in agreement. Governmental action in the next few years will determine if we can preserve the viability of our coasts, cities and agriculture. As far as photography, I guess we can take images of the natural and man made disasters. As far as Greta, the dinosaurs in DC forget that these kids vote and they are more politically aware than any previous generation.

smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL

There are actually two separate questions that I think get conflated. 1. Is the earth warming? 2. Are activities of man causing warming?

1A. All of the peer review literature I've seen indicates yes.

1B Equally so, proof of the mechanism hasn't been made. CO2 is an indicator but is it leading, a cause, or trailing, a result. The heat trapping mechanism of CO2 is weak at best - it reflects thermal radiation. The best leading indicators are the levels NO2 (nitrous oxide), CFA's, and CH4 (methane). These gases are extremely effective greenhouse gases with an understood mechanisms - they convert visible light to thermal radiation very efficiently. Two of them can be show to have existed in the warm climate prior to the ice age - qualitatively only. No high grade quantitative data exists. The major sources of the gases in our atmosphere today - ruminants ( cattle, bison, deer), termites, ants, peat bogs - the actual agent is the bacteria that digest cellulose - can be shown to exist in the previous warm periods.

2. Indirectly yes - man's activities are releasing these gases at a high rate, methane from deforestation, CH4 and NO2 from pasture animals, CH4 leaks from hydrocarbon recovery, CFA's from dumped/leaked from cooling systems. The burning of hydrocarbons isn't the main problem - its unburnt hydrocarbons the NO2 from cattle getting into the atmosphere that's the problem.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

(but Greta says.... )

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

This is who the socialists direct everyone to follow because she is a child and repeats what her parents tell her to say. Legit scientists do not believe in global warming, HOWEVER, the socialist democrat media does, and they will continue to push it.

Los-Angeles-Shooter Loc: Los Angeles

Has anyone measured the effect of the endless "hot air" idiocy spewing from Greta Thumberg's piehole?

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

She is the darling of the democrats, saying what others tell her to say. You have to be nutty to follow this deluded girl being used by those around her, and the dems keep heaping awards on her.

smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL

Pay attention to what she's saying - yes it's important. She's not deluded although I think she is being used by those around her (that sailboat stunt to NYC coming to mind).

We don't have to have the exact mechanism down to realize that the planet is warming. I'm the first to admit that the CO2 models have problems. That is irrelevant. The planet is warming and human civilization will be stressed by it. What to do about it then?

Forget about all the democrats solutions; forget about renewable energy (Wind in particular). The options that we have that will work right now the democrats howl about - nuclear, hydroelectric (in the ocean and dams on land). Use the meltdown proof reactor designs (yes there is such a thing and there are more than one design) and go for it. Use the Yucca mountain site to store nuclear waste. Can also drop the waste into the Marianas's trench right by the subduction zone boundary trench wall and have nature haul it away via plate tectonics (cheaper containers too, won't have to last as long before their buried under a billion tons of rock and hauled away). Give the complainers on the route to it the simple choice of wether or not they want electricity. Use gas instead of coal/heavy oil; use light oil if appropriate. Fracking to eliminate dependance on the Middle East or elsewhere - enough so that we can support our allies with gas/light oil so we get all that money. Import heavy oil and use American technology and will to make it into light oil products and export them at a large profit. Make rational capitalistic economic choices as to what to do with the waste water - either haul it away or do the capitalistic thing and buy all the water rights for that area. Electric vehicles - trains, cars etc. Add the mountainous battery farm that solar needs for the night (or perhaps a convenient hydro project, let it accumulate during the day, use the water at night) and solar starts to make sense. Kill global warming the the deficit all in one sweep.

This turned out to be a rant - don't refuse to look at something just because the source of it turns your stomach. Ignore the source, find the facts for yourself.

FRENCHY Loc: Stone Mountain , Ga

The left needs "useful Imbeciles" because smart one don't need the left BS

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

I saw her enough to know she is put there by democrats and TOLD what to say. The dems will continue to praise here and eventually she will fail in front of everyone.

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

You must ask yourself why you believe the things you believe. Not on the subject, but your entire belief system. What are the qualifications for you to believe something is true...really true not Trump true?

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

Sir, I would suggest you examine YOUR beliefs. What are you going to say in 2020 when your guy loses?

halraiser

smf85, I agree with most of what you say, but how in the name of reason can you claim that problems with CO2 models are irrelevant? The whole global warming industry is built on those models. Yes, those models have problems, they have routinely overstated the effects of global warming, and not by a little bit.

As a scientist, I will tell you that when the model does not reflect reality, it is time to reject or modify that model. Unfortunately, global warming proponents tend to regard their models as essentially religious dogma, not to be questioned.