here comes the next ice age

[rightleft22]

Everything is happening normally, regardless of human activity, which actually is just background noise in the overall climate.

I'm not sure that's a fact. I did a climate project in grade school way back when no one talked about climate change and I very easily, and without controversy, showed how man impacts the environment - including climate.  But that's neither here nor there.

The argument that we should find cleaner and better ways to user our resources shouldn't depend on proving or disproving clement change and man's influence on it. It just good economics.
Any nation that fails to embrace new energy technology is gong to be left in the dark in more ways then one. 

[DonaldD]

But, China has 4.3 times as many people, and that matters from an overall emissions perspective. China's lower per capita carbon dioxide emissions are more than offset by its greater population,

This is, of course, a silly argument.  It effectively rationalizes every jurisdiction's  actions, because every jurisdiction can be broken down artificially into something smaller than another artificial jurisdiction.  Beijing need not do anything, because Beijing has much less emissions than the United States does. California needs to do nothing because it's emissions are less than Canada's Toronto needs do nothing because it's emissions are less than those of New York. 

You should really think before parroting.

[Seriati]

Seriati, I think you will see that going back in any thread, not using per capita information is simply dishonest. There, see how easy that was?

I have no idea what you even mean by that.  It's pretty clear though, that if you are serious about the environment you should favor that the factories that can produce a product with the least amount of pollution are the factories that receive the contract.  There's nothing about "per capita" that relates at all to efficiency, it only comes up in the context of a pro-redistribution advocate.

Honestly, explain in any rational way why it helps the environment to produce more aggregate pollution creating products if you do it in a country that has less pollution per capita?  That's just nonsensical.

Again, the only dishonesty is citing to "per capita" and claiming it's about the environment.

[TheDrake]

The argument that we should find cleaner and better ways to user our resources shouldn't depend on proving or disproving clement change and man's influence on it. It just good economics.
Any nation that fails to embrace new energy technology is gong to be left in the dark in more ways then one.

Hear, hear. Focusing exclusively on climate change ignores the benefit of lowering emissions locally. Respiratory issues alone make it a darn good idea. Much of this impact is felt from vehicle emissions in the most widespread way. Even if the carbon output stayed level, you'd benefit from moving the fossil fuel to a centralized power plant that can better sequester carbon than a tailpipe. Vehicle emissions not only impact health, but also buildings and other infrastructure.

[DonaldD]

The "dishonesty" is framing the discussion absent context. China is industrializing. This is happening, and will continue to happen, regardless of any treaty on the environment.  Now, with environmental treaties in place, at least this industrialization will occur with more stringent controls than otherwise would be the case.

Your seeming position is completely disingenuous: unless China commits to keeping the majority of its population in a preindustrialized condition, the USA and other western countries, societies that are already fully industrialized, should not commit to reducing their emissions whatsoever.  It's very convenient.

[cherrypoptart]

I think the point is that the Earth doesn't care who is killing her. The climate doesn't either. If America stabbed her a hundred times over the last century then it's only fair that China and India each get to stab her a hundred times now? That's just going to kill her all the more quickly.

[DonaldD]

Again, try to come back to reality. It is no more reasonable to expect the average Chinese or Indian resident to settle for a standard of living significantly lower than that enjoyed by westerners, than it is to expect all residents of Western countries to lower their standard of living down to that of the average, say Congolese.

Forget about pretending that you care about "right" and "wrong" - this about effective action in the face of reality.  And the reality is westerners are not about to drop their standard of living to preindustrial levels, any more than is the developing world about to limit itself to relative penury. Given that reality, we work on solutions and compromises from there.

[Crunch]

But, China has 4.3 times as many people, and that matters from an overall emissions perspective. China's lower per capita carbon dioxide emissions are more than offset by its greater population,

This is, of course, a silly argument.  It effectively rationalizes every jurisdiction's  actions, because every jurisdiction can be broken down artificially into something smaller than another artificial jurisdiction.  Beijing need not do anything, because Beijing has much less emissions than the United States does. California needs to do nothing because it's emissions are less than Canada's Toronto needs do nothing because it's emissions are less than those of New York. 

You should really think before parroting.

Thus proving that what you really want to do is punish America only, except for California (free pass for your state). That’s really what this is about, Greg demonstrates it well.  The real goal is “economic justice”, that’s why California is excluded.

[yossarian22c]

But, China has 4.3 times as many people, and that matters from an overall emissions perspective. China's lower per capita carbon dioxide emissions are more than offset by its greater population,

This is, of course, a silly argument.  It effectively rationalizes every jurisdiction's  actions, because every jurisdiction can be broken down artificially into something smaller than another artificial jurisdiction.  Beijing need not do anything, because Beijing has much less emissions than the United States does. California needs to do nothing because it's emissions are less than Canada's Toronto needs do nothing because it's emissions are less than those of New York. 

You should really think before parroting.

Thus proving that what you really want to do is punish America only, except for California (free pass for your state). That’s really what this is about, Greg demonstrates it well.  The real goal is “economic justice”, that’s why California is excluded.

Could you be any more obtuse to the actual point being made?

[DonaldD]

Ummm... what Yossarian said... or did you sincerely believe you accurately characterized my argument? In which case... 

[Seriati]

Again, try to come back to reality. It is no more reasonable to expect the average Chinese or Indian resident to settle for a standard of living significantly lower than that enjoyed by westerners, than it is to expect all residents of Western countries to lower their standard of living down to that of the average, say Congolese.

This isn't about 'expecting' the Chinese to do anything.  The policies you favor require shutting down less polluting factories in the first world, so that more polluting factories can be built in China and other places to produce the same products less efficiently.

Western civilization is under no obligation to make itself worse off and hurt the Earth at the same time to arguably make the Chinese better off (and even that argument is based on a misunderstanding of how economies work).  Having the most efficient factories be the most active means that we get the most amount of consumer product for the least environmental burden, ergo there is more to go around - including to the Chinese - for the same amount of pollution.

If we have 1000 pollution to "burn" (forgive the pun), having the US do the production gives us 10,000 products to share, while having the Chinese do it gives us 4,000.  Other than the "benefit" of letting China be the owner of those products, you've made the world 60% poorer with that decision.  What really happens though is that China plans to produce the 10,000 products and dump 2,400 units of pollution out there.  Which is why it's a total lie to claim that your argument makes sense either economically or environmentally.

If you're concerned the Chinese are going to do it anyway, that's still a poor excuse to advocate reducing the cleaner factories.  Instead you should stop buying Chinese products made with excessive pollution and take away their incentive to produce them.

[Seriati]

Could you be any more obtuse to the actual point being made?

In what way is he obtuse?  DonaldD seems to believe that we should have a guilt about past conduct, and to satisfy that guilt we have to let others do the same bad conduct even if it's "clear" that the conduct will kill us all.  That's just poorly thought out logic, two wrongs don't make a right, and when the two wrongs aggregated are even worse it's just a bad plan.

[yossarian22c]

Western civilization is under no obligation to make itself worse off and hurt the Earth at the same time to arguably make the Chinese better off (and even that argument is based on a misunderstanding of how economies work).  Having the most efficient factories be the most active means that we get the most amount of consumer product for the least environmental burden, ergo there is more to go around - including to the Chinese - for the same amount of pollution.

No one supports those policies. Generally newer factories are built to be more energy efficient (b/c they can produce products cheaper), even in counties with poor environmental laws (China). One of the reasons that American steel producers have suffered is because they never upgraded their facilities to the more efficient production methods were installed in Europe and elsewhere. So when you talk about American steel mills or other factories being closed they are generally the 50-70 year old factories that aren't as efficient as their newer counterparts, even those in the third world.

Secondly industry is only about 1/5 of total emissions (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions). So focusing your argument solely on the fact that to reduce emissions we have to shut down every factory in America is a strawman. Electricity and transportation both have greater emissions than industry. And if you look at the policies pursued most aggressively they address fuel efficiency and energy production.

[Seriati]

yoss, I disagree.  Those policies are exactly what's being proffered and exactly what DonaldD's position requires.  Here's an older link on environmental efficiency.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_GDP_to_carbon_dioxide_emissions

Not as helpful as a new link, but China is pretty much bottom of the barrel.  This comparison is not the most helpful as it ignores the types of production that occur in certain countries, where some are far less polluting than others.  Even if China is seeking to be more efficient in their flagship factories and programs, they haven't had strong laws (like the US and Europe do) to ensure that those standards are applied to all of their factories.

The pace of US consumer green energy is still accelerating.  We've made a conscious decision to increase our use of renewables, so has the EU.  That's not primarily because of the stick of punishment for pollution.  Nothing about encouraging China to produce dirty factories is going to change that direction. 

Honestly, if your complaint is that modern living is doing most of the damage, that should cause you to resist even more the idea of moving the rest of the world to this standard instead of an environmentally friendlier one.

You are no more going to convince Westerners to live worse than you are going to convince everyone else they don't deserve the same standard of living.  Your best bet is develop high tech green methods of living.

[TheDeamon]

is the debate about the question of global warming or the question as to if human activity is a factor in warming?

The debate is how much to punish America.

The climate is changing, as it always has. Global warmists push this idea that it’s always been roughly the temperature of the late 1800’s but the fact is it’s almost always been warmer (we are currently in an ice age). That the planet warms coming out of an ice age should surprise nobody and, in fact, should be hoped for since we don’t want this interglacial period to go back into a glacial period.

CO2 level historically average several times the current level, rising above 4,400 ppm at times in the past. It should surprise nobody that we would trend from historically record low CO2 levels back to the normal averages.

Everything is happening normally, regardless of human activity, which actually is just background noise in the overall climate.

Generally agreed, except with regards to CO2, where there is very clearly a man-made  "signal" present in the increasing CO2 levels, now as to how much impact that increase in CO2 is going to have overall, and if the impact is linear, exponential, or at a diminishing returns portion of the curve regarding CO2, that's an entirely different debate that few seem to be honestly open to discussing.

The funnier one to see go ignored is the matter of water vapor, it is widely acknowledged as the biggest GHG present in the proverbial room, but it gets magically ignored because "it doesn't stay in atmosphere for long" even if it does rather directly contribute to most severe weather events.

[Seriati]

TheDeamon, that's not why it gets ignored.  It gets ignored because if you include it nothing else can be separated from the noise of water vapor.

[LetterRip]

Water vapor isn't "noise".  It is a feedback and is entirely reliant upon CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases (forcings).  It can't stay in the atmosphere on its own and it is directly dependent on forcings to determine how much water vapor is in the atmosphere.

https://enviroliteracy.org/air-climate-weather/climate/climate-forcing-feedback/

https://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/

[TheDeamon]

Water vapor isn't "noise".  It is a feedback and is entirely reliant upon CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases (forcings).  It can't stay in the atmosphere on its own and it is directly dependent on forcings to determine how much water vapor is in the atmosphere.

Except for when we introduce large amounts water to previously arid regions of the world in order to grow crops which happen to release a lot of water vapor as part of the photosynthesis process.

Or how we happen to release enormous quantities of artificially created water vapor into the atmosphere as a waste product in many commercial, industrial, and power generation processes?

My favorite has to be the Hydrogen fuel cells that were allegedly going to save the planet by emitting water vapor as its only waste byproduct.

Even better if that happens to be a hydrogen fuel cell operating in the upper atmosphere. 

[Crunch]

Ummm... what Yossarian said... or did you sincerely believe you accurately characterized my argument? In which case... 

I merely point out that, as you demonstrated, the point of AGW is “economic justice “. Make all the faces you want, won’t change the truth.

[DonaldD]

Right...  So you completely misunderstood what I wrote; the only question is whether you misrepresented my point on purpose, or are simply as dumb as a box of hammers. I specifically pointed out that positions based on some kind of misplaced idea of right or wrong, what you mischaracterize as "economic justice" are irrelevant to addressing the problem or effective policy.

You really should read the words that people write, as opposed to the words you imagine them writing.

[DonaldD]

Not the water vapor argument again... people, just read the literature - you don't need to guess.  Extra water added to the atmosphere will be precipitated out over a period of one to two weeks - not long enough to cause any significant warming. 

Why? Because the amount of water vapor the atmosphere can hold is a function of the heat in the atmosphere.  If you don't first warm the atmosphere, adding water vapor just creates rain and snow.

Now, if you do increase the heat in the atmosphere (say, by increasing the levels of CO2) then the atmosphere will maintain higher levels of water vapor, and that increased amount of water vapor will stay around long enough to itself increase the heat trapped in the atmosphere.

[LetterRip]

Except for when we introduce large amounts water [...]

Total atmospheric humidity is essentially constant for a given temperature - if the temperature doesn't increase due to a forcing, the water vapor from the sources mentioned simply increases the precipitation rate not the total atmospheric humidity.

There is potentially an impact on local humidity due to changes in point sources - contrails actually decrease daytime temp and increase night time temp (and since H2 produces about 3x the water vapor for the same amount of jet fuel or gasoline - so it could have some impact - that said jets are unlikely to switch to H2 - more likely is synthetic or biogenic jet fuel); cars replacing gasoline with H2 would perhaps increase city humidity and cause some local warming, especially perception of warming (wet bulb temp) but H2 seems to have lost to batteries for ground transport so not likely to ever matter; vegetative respiration causes a local cooling.

[Pete at Home]

Ummm... what Yossarian said... or did you sincerely believe you accurately characterized my argument? In which case... 

I merely point out that, as you demonstrated, the point of AGW is “economic justice “. Make all the faces you want, won’t change the truth.

Talking about "the point of AGW" is like someone talking about "the point of Christmas."  Different people see different points.

Yes, Kyoto and several other sets of laws that pretend to address AGW, really aim more for addressing "economic justice."  Although the result is just as dismal, as you can see from the Ethanol boondoggle, which has more effect of redistributing money from poor people in America to corporations in foreign 3rd world countries.

That doesn't change the fact that human-driven climate change is real.  Just like the fact that the patriot act and other features of our current Rein of Counteterror involve fewer measures to actually fight terrorism, than to turn America into an open air prison where everyone in the 99% eats sleep poops and dies under the all-seeing eye of the almighty Sauron-state, doesn't change the fact that the Pentagon and Twin Towers were hit on 9-11 by an actual enemy.

[TheDeamon]

Except for when we introduce large amounts water [...]

Total atmospheric humidity is essentially constant for a given temperature - if the temperature doesn't increase due to a forcing, the water vapor from the sources mentioned simply increases the precipitation rate not the total atmospheric humidity.

Ah but you're ignoring another "feeedback" in the system.

Higher relative Humidty means more "latent heat energy" in the air, which means it cools more slowly than less humid air. Which means a high humidity environment in place of a low humidity one will see a warmer low temperature than it would experience otherwise. (Of course, conversely, it also tends to add resistance to higher temperatures as well)

Of course there even more fun things to contend with, not just humidity, but land use and albedo changes:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/forests-emerge-as-a-major-overlooked-climate-factor-20181009/

By the mid-2000s, models had improved enough that scientists could more precisely study the role plants might play in the climate system. Fung suggested that Swann try foresting the Arctic in a climate model. Trees are colonizing higher latitudes as the globe warms, so it seemed reasonable to ask what impact they would have on the region’s climate. Other researchers had previously looked into the potential effects of an expansion of northern spruce forests; unsurprisingly, they found that the Arctic would likely get warmer because those trees’ leaves are dark and would absorb more sunlight than virtually any of the tundra, ice and shrubs they might replace. Swann decided to look into what would happen if the encroaching forests were deciduous trees with lighter colored leaves, such as birch or aspen.

In her model, the Arctic did still warm — by about 1 degree Celsius, which was more than she expected. Swann determined that her simulated forests emitted a lot of water vapor, which, like carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas that absorbs infrared radiation from Earth and redirects some of it downward. The vapor then caused ice to melt on land and at sea, exposing darker surfaces that absorbed yet more sunlight and grew even warmer. The new forests had set off a feedback loop, amplifying the impact of climate change. The finding hinted at the power that plants could exert over a region’s climate.

In a separate study, Swann turned all vegetated areas of temperate North America, Europe and Asia into forest. Again, this exercise exaggerated something already happening in the real world: Satellite data have shown that these continents are greening as former farmland returns to forest, perhaps aided by enhanced atmospheric carbon dioxide and longer growing seasons.

As in the Arctic study, the new trees absorbed sunlight and warmed, adding energy to the climate system. Atmospheric currents then redistributed this energy around the planet. Droughts descended on the southern Amazon and rain fell in the Sahara. These effects were caused by a repositioning of the Hadley cell — the massive conveyor belt of air that rises from the equator, dumps its rain over the tropics, and descends again as dry air at around 30 degrees north and south latitudes, where most of the world’s deserts are. Through the influence of plants alone, the Hadley cell had shifted to the north.

edit to add:

The historical view that climate science is mainly about physical phenomena still has influence. For more than a decade, climatologists have seen clouds as the biggest source of uncertainty in models. Clouds cool the planet by reflecting incoming sunlight, but they also warm the planet because they are made of water vapor, a greenhouse gas. Models differ wildly on how much clouds will contribute to cooling and warming in the future, and thus whether a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide will be problematic but manageable, or catastrophic.

But how much rain will fall in a given region, and when, and how much it will vary season to season and year to year, will make all the difference in determining which places will remain livable and which places won’t. And Swann and Fung’s results open up at least the possibility that plants could have as much effect as cloud physics on nailing down the answers to such questions.

Wasn't expecting to see that get mentioned in the article, or that it would be placed side by side with this item.

[cherrypoptart]

It just seems like if China, India, and pretty much the whole second and third world are to be given a pollution pass then the situation must not be quite as dire as advertised. I understand it's only fair for them to be allowed to pollute as much as we used to but the way global warmists and climate changers seem to be okay with that indicates the world isn't about to end in a great cataclysm as is often portended. It's just hard to reconcile that the world is ending if we don't significantly reduce our standard of living along with massively raising taxes on the one hand with everyone else getting a free pass to pollute on the other. That's a real head scratcher right there. 

Now I appreciate that we shouldn't pollute more than necessary and our efforts to improve our technology to reduce pollution are great and hopefully can be given or sold at a reasonable cost to poorer countries so they can leapfrog over our learning curve mistakes but we should probably try to avoid ending up like France with their sudden overreach.

[DonaldD]

Ignoring? No.  What you have referenced has nothing to do with what was being discussed, with the exception that another forcing, in this case, changing the albedo of large areas by increasing vegetative cover and thereby increasing atmospheric temperature.

As discussed - long term increases in atmospheric temperature would lead to higher humidity.

[TheDrake]

There's no reason why we can't do MORE than some other countries. You know, like how the EU does with us. They didn't decide to scrap Paris just because we decided to be jerks about it.

It seems like this whole line of argument is to generate a policy of economic isolationism so that we can have all kinds of awesome new manufacturing plants.

[Seriati]

There's no reason why we can't do MORE than some other countries. You know, like how the EU does with us. They didn't decide to scrap Paris just because we decided to be jerks about it.

We actually already do more.  We have for decades been a leader in national level laws and improvements.  We didn't need the Paris treaty to continue that process.

They needed us in the Paris treaty as accounting matter.  Our net decrease lets the "total" increase appear to lower and a real progress.  But that's all it ever was, an accounting trick.  The globe can't be fixed with an accounting trick.  And many of the commitments to that treaty were actually bad for the environment.

It seems like this whole line of argument is to generate a policy of economic isolationism so that we can have all kinds of awesome new manufacturing plants.

Nothing in what you said follows as a necessity from the line of argument.

The line of argument is that if the environment is critical - and therefore the most important consideration - we should always favor the factories that can produce the most for the least environmental impact.  That's true whereever those factories sit.  What we should not be doing is closing clean factories to open dirty ones, that makes it a lie that the environmental impact was the most important consideration.

[DonaldD]

The line of argument is that if the environment is critical - and therefore the most important consideration

This is a non sequitur.  I expect this is a strawman that you have internalized so deeply that you are not even aware of it.

[Seriati]

In what way is it a strawman that an environmental treaty should be beneficial to the environment? 

Not what sure you're reading or thinking that you feel comfortable advocating for treaties that hurt the environment based on a need to help the environment?  There's just illogic there, that's not a strawman of my making.

[Wayward Son]

It just seems like if China, India, and pretty much the whole second and third world are to be given a pollution pass then the situation must not be quite as dire as advertised. I understand it's only fair for them to be allowed to pollute as much as we used to but the way global warmists and climate changers seem to be okay with that indicates the world isn't about to end in a great cataclysm as is often portended. It's just hard to reconcile that the world is ending if we don't significantly reduce our standard of living along with massively raising taxes on the one hand with everyone else getting a free pass to pollute on the other. That's a real head scratcher right there.

You're assuming here, cherry, that the response to global warming is monolithic and that this is the ideal response.  Both assumptions are wrong.

While just about everyone agrees that global warming is real, there is still no consensus on how to address it.  Ideally, everyone would significantly reduce CO2 output simultaneously.  If we could do this, the problem would be stopped right away.

But as you point out, that would cause a significant reduction is the world's standard of living (not just ours).  And in countries that are barely supporting their populations as it is (both economically and physically), a significant reduction could be catastrophic.

So how do we balance reducing greenhouse gases while not disrupting the economic infrastructure that we all depend on?

That's where we get into these compromise situations.  One point of view is that developed countries, which have put the vast majority of the excess CO2 into the atmosphere over the past one or two centuries, have the obligation to reduce their emissions faster than less-developed countries, since they have already created their "share" and made their money from it.  Another would be for developed countries, that have already made their money from using fossil fuels, to help pay for (or just pay for) cleaner energy plants in less-developed countries.  Both these plans are favored by the less-developed countries, while the more developed countries find them less than ideal.

If you don't like either of these plans, please come up with a better plan and then sell it to the less-developed nations.  Because they are not going to sacrifice themselves because of our past mistakes.  If you think there is push-back against ruining the U.S. economy because it may cause higher unemployment and less prosperity, just imagine of what you'd see if it caused massive unemployment and starvation. 

There is no head-scratcher here.  No one wants to be the one to hang on a cross for the rest of the world.  But if we don't do something now, we will a hang together in the future.

[TheDrake]

Of course we could just destroy all dirty power plants with smart bombs, I guess that would dramatically lower CO2 emissions and do wonders for ATK and Raytheon in the process. Some cyber warfare could knock out power grids, that would be sure to help out. An embargo on countries could keep them from rebuilding anything.

Meanwhile, we can keep grandfathering in our dirty old plants since we already built em. While we're at it we can talk about expanding "clean coal" like that's a real thing.

Let's not kid ourselves, most of our gains came because natural gas got cheaper than coal, not because we tried to avoid coal out of earth-love. Which is why I think the only possible solution is to make clean energy tech that is cheaper than any CO2 emitting fuel. Nobody is going to do anything to make their standard of living worse in a material way, or to reduce the rate of growth in standard of living.

Which is why it is infuriating to see a 72% cut to renewable programs, like we saw in draft budget documents for 2019 coming out of the white house.

[Pete at Home]

It just seems like if China, India, and pretty much the whole second and third world are to be given a pollution pass then the situation must not be quite as dire as advertised.

That's like saying, "Well the Bush admin gave the highest priority on 9-11 to getting all members of the Bin laden family safely out of the US," so the damage to the Twin Towers must not be quite as dire as advertised."

or

"The officials who orchestrated putting Japanese-Americans into concentration camps on the west coast also bought up all their property for ten cents on the dollar and are clearly doing it for personal profit, so Pearl Harbor's bombing must not be quite as dire as advertised."

Just because Kyoto was rewritten by a pack of greedy corrupt whores does not mean that human-driven climate change is not quite as dire as advertised.

[DonaldD]

In what way is it a strawman that an environmental treaty should be beneficial to the environment? 

And these words have nothing to do with the post you are responding to, either. Seriously, read the actual words.  Nowhere did I state or suggest anything concerning whether "an environmental treaty should be beneficial". I simply pointed out that you can't get from "critical" to "most important", and you especially can't get to your implied "exclusively important", so the rest of your argument is without support.

[Seriati]

Unless I'm mistaken which post was being referred to, there's nothing that's a strawman about what I said.  you were responding to me responding to TheDrake.  Where TheDrake seemed to think that advocating for clean factories to get more production, not less, was equivalent to economic isolationalism.

Or are you referring to your post about dividing and redividing populations with respect to a claim that some don't have to do anything (a claim no one made)?  That's a complete nonsequitor that misunderstands the different environmental impact of different activities, but also the interconnectivity of various life styles.  Is someone truly green if they fill their house with green products produced in plants that produce excessive amounts of toxic waste?  No one on here has stood for a proposition that America and the west should do nothing, which seems to be the point of your comment about sub-divisions, which itself was a distraction in the argument. 

What exactly do you think your own point was?

[Crunch]

It’s trending to ice age:

The Sun is now in what appears to be the longest stretch ever recorded, since the 11-year solar sunspot cycle reactivated in the 1700s after the last grand minimum, of sunspot inactivity. This record-setting dearth of practically no sunspots has now stretched to six months in a row.

Furthermore, the few sunspots we have been seeing have been very weak and short-lived. Though a number have had a polarity assigning them to the next solar maximum, there is solid evidence that many of them would not have been detected during the grand minimum of the 1600s, dubbed the Maunder Minimum. During that grand minimum, which lasted almost a century, there was no recorded 11-year sunspot cycle, and astronomers observed almost no sunspots, using the technology available at the time. Many of the sunspots that have occurred in the last six months have been so weak that it is quite possible they would not have been detected by those 17th century astronomers.

Are we therefore entering a new grand minimum? No one yet knows, and we probably will not know until this upcoming solar maximum unfolds in the next four years. If it is merely weak, it means a grand minimum has not yet begun. If it is so weak however that we only see a scattering of very short-lived feeble sunspots that a 17th century astronomer would have not seen, then a new grand minimum will be upon us.

And as I have noted repeatedly in the past decade in these monthly sunspot updates, the arrival of a new grand minimum, the first since the 1600s, could have important consequences for our climate. Past grand minimums have been accompanied by a cooling climate. In the 1600s they called it the Little Ice Age, with failed crops and some years with no summers at all.

Theres still some real science to do on this but we could very easily be looking at a long stretch of planetary cooling and a second little ice age.

If we find that a lack of sunspot activity does cool the climate, then every climate model predicting a coming age of global warming will turn out to be very wrong. And those models have not been very right so far.

So stay tuned. We could be in for some very cold times, during which it will become difficult to grow crops, resulting in some famines. If so, we might all be wishing fervently for some global warming.

The next few years will be interesting.

[TheDrake]

If anybody wants to respond to this, note that Crunch's source is Robert Zimmerman's crackpot website

[TheDrake]

Here's a description of how this claim has spread from one website to the next, and why it is wrong:

False claims of a coming ice age spread through ecosystem of unreliable news sites, blogs, and social media accounts

[D.W.]

But it's winter time.  We got months of it getting colder and we'll all have forgotten about this until NEXT winter when this thread gets necroed again. 

[Seriati]

Here's a description of how this claim has spread from one website to the next, and why it is wrong:

False claims of a coming ice age spread through ecosystem of unreliable news sites, blogs, and social media accounts

I found that interesting, though I think the techniques used to generate their criticism apply to all science reporting not just the claims they want to debunk.  Specifically, all media accounts of science "Misrepresent Sources" by taking quotes out of context, and on the climate debate this certainly occurs on both sides.

"Use of imprecise language" again true about all reporting on science.  Journalists and others sharing the information translate it into their own words that are understandable by the readers.  When the translators are not subject matter experts (as they never are) those words as often change the meaning as explain it.

Couple that with wanting to grab snippets that feed confirmation bias and agenda and it's almost never the case that a study supports the articles on it.

I also found the tracking of the story through who published and shared it to be mostly a poisoning the well fallacy covered up with a fancy graphic.  What's the real point there, other than to identify team?

Simply put, if they were going to refute it, they didn't actually put a lot of the on point refutation in the write up.  If you follow the links, it looks like they are refocusing on what the known effects of current low activity would be.  I didn't see, and maybe I missed, where they discussed what seemed to be the main point, that a sustained minimum might have broader effects with the "example" of the 1600s thrown in.  Now don't get me wrong, the example wasn't proven either, and certainly not in a cause and effect manner.  So basically, we have a speculation, being debunked as if it made a scientific claim, and that debunking effectively focusing on low hanging fruit and engaging in logical fallacies.

Lovely.  Easy to see why these kinds of back and forths don't lead to greater trust and understanding.

[TheDeamon]

There have been scientists predicting a solar minimum event happening in either this upcoming solar cycle(25), or the one following it(26) since 2004. Of course, there are a few others who predicted it would start as early as the currently concluding solar cycle(24). So we'll have to see.

We do know the trend for the past couple cycles has been diminishing intensity, and the current transition certainly doesn't indicate a likely increase. In fact, just about every forecast I'm aware of expects SC25 to be less active than SC24, what is in dispute is the intensity of the decline. Which isn't to mention that for the ones predicting minimums, there is a split on it being a Dalton or Maunder Minimum type event.

As per wiki, there also is significant dispute as whether or not Solar Cycles even impact the Earth's climate in any significant way, because past solar minimums have also happened to coincide with large volcanic eruption events, so the tendency is to attribute any cooling from those periods to volcanism  instead. (And also consequently suggests there is a possible link between solar cycles and volcanic activity that is yet to be understood)

Of course, how the wiki editors managed to double-think their way through that one I don't know. As they basically went:
1) There is little evidence to support solar minimums impact climate.
2) There is evidence to support that solar minimums impact volcanic activity.
3) This is evidence to support Volcanic activity significantly increases during a solar minimum, and that increase in activity is sufficient enough to impact the climates. 

This also ignores the observed behavior regarding Earth's atmosphere during solar cycles. High sunspot activity correlates to thicker atmosphere(more drag on satellites, shorter operational life for low orbiting satellites), while low sunspot activity correlates to the atmosphere "thinning" in that it contracts until it is closer to earth's surface than it would be during a period of high sunspot activity. And atmospheric height is understood to play an influential role in behavior of the jet stream.

"Short"(thin) atmospheric columns cause the jet streams to wander more, while "tall"(thick) atmospheric columns cause the jet stream to become more stable. And of course, an unstable jet stream would mean more occasions for things like a polar vortex to happen.

Which would account for how Solar Cycle 24(December 2008 to present) saw some events which hadn't been very common since solar cycle 20 (October 1964 to March 1976) which appears to have been stronger than SC24, but (SC20) is otherwise the 2nd weakest solar cycle experienced since World War 2. Of course, the media just note that such weather events are "more extreme" than past weather events through the 80's, 90's and 00's, so it must be AGW causing more extreme weather.

[DonaldD]

Solar activity is low, and has been low, for years...
There is no significant El Nino effect this year.
This year is trending toward being the second warmest (or third warmest, depending on data set) in the instrumental and satellite history.

Clearly, that equals an upcoming ice age...

[TheDeamon]

Solar activity is low, and has been low, for years...
There is no significant El Nino effect this year.
This year is trending toward being the second warmest (or third warmest, depending on data set) in the instrumental and satellite history.

Clearly, that equals an upcoming ice age...

And most of that warm bias is over the Oceans(and the arctic specifically). And the oceans are where most the planets heat capacity exists and will take time to release as water retains a LOT more thermal energy than the air does. That transfer doesn't happen quickly.

You are also conflating Solar Irradiance with a broader spectrum of other solar factors(solar wind, magnetic field, cosmic rays, etc). Yes the sunspot cycle has some minor impact on irradiance, but it also impacts a number of other things as well. It is those other things which will warrant watching over the next couple of solar cycles.

[DonaldD]

TheDaemon,

a,) your first paragraph is a non sequitur and
B) You wrote this: "You are also conflating Solar Irradiance with a broader spectrum of other solar factors".  Clearly you are missing the point that I was responding to the silliness posted above  about the 11-year solar cycle - strange that you only made that distinction when it was brought up on a post with which you disagreed...

[Crunch]

If anybody wants to respond to this, note that Crunch's source is Robert Zimmerman's crackpot website

No it wasn’t. That’s a weird thing to just make up. You can go to any reputable web site that tracks solar activity and find the current activity.  You guys just got to stop fabricated so much stuff.

[Crunch]

Solar activity is low, and has been low, for years...
There is no significant El Nino effect this year.
This year is trending toward being the second warmest (or third warmest, depending on data set) in the instrumental and satellite history.

Clearly, that equals an upcoming ice age...

Well, it’s certainly not what the computer models have predicted, is it? Of course, no matter what way the temperatures trend, it’ll always be reported as the hottest ever. Glaciation could creep across the planet and it would still be reported as the hottest ever years. Kind of goes without saying.

It’s not just low activity now, it’s Maunder Minimum low. The kind of low that created years without a summer. To say that the sun is not the majority driver of warming or cooling of the planet is one of the most absurd claims of the warming movement. But, we’ll soon see for ourselves if the solar cycle continues to stay along this path. Hopefully we continue warming, as we’ve done in the decades since the little ice age.

[Crunch]

If anybody wants to respond to this, note that Crunch's source is Robert Zimmerman's crackpot website

No it wasn’t. That’s a weird thing to just make up. You can go to any reputable web site that tracks solar activity and find the current activity.  You guys just got to stop fabricated so much stuff.

Wait, sorry. I misunderstood this a bit. Posting at 5 am when I wasn’t able to sleep. I read it as George Zimmerman.  It happens. But still, you can go to any other website tracking solar activity and see this so the logical fallacy you’re pushing is just not gonna fly.

[DonaldD]

Well, it’s certainly not what the computer models have predicted, is it?

Well, yes, it actually is, although "prediction" is not the right word.

[TheDrake]

If anybody wants to respond to this, note that Crunch's source is Robert Zimmerman's crackpot website

No it wasn’t. That’s a weird thing to just make up. You can go to any reputable web site that tracks solar activity and find the current activity.  You guys just got to stop fabricated so much stuff.

I searched the precise language you quoted, and wound up there. You might be ignorant of the original source. You also might find the original science on sunspots that I helped point out, but I fear you won't because it can't help you with your confirmation bias.

Websites will confirm the solar cycle, just not the freakish conclusion that we're having another ice age.

[Seriati]

Websites will confirm the solar cycle, just not the freakish conclusion that we're having another ice age.

Whether or not the "conclusion" that were heading into another or having another ice age is supportable, what do you think makes it freakish?  There have been ice ages before and they have ended before, without the intervention of any human beings.  Therefore there have to be natural mechanics that cause those results.

Are you asserting that we understand why the prior ice ages started, continued, and receded well enough to be absolutely sure about which solar and/or Earth based mechanics were involved?  I'm really asking on that, I haven't dug deep (and usually when I do I find we don't really know as much as the articles seem to believe).