Global Warming Controversy

We’ve had snow for the past 5 consecutive days in Southern California.
This webcam is in Los Angeles County:

http://www.mthigh.com/site/mountain/photos-and-videos/livecams/chisolmcam/@@stream_11.html

Here’s an L.A. Times article:

Doug prefers reasoning from fringe events rather than the preponderance of global warming data.

It would be just as unscientific to argue only from the many headlines like this one-

Overall, global data confirms a strong warming trend, with outlier events on both sides.

No sense of humor, as usual.
The fact remains, it’s well-understood that we’re long-overdue for the next glacial cycle. Sorry, but I used to be sent to special classes studying ice ages as a kid, since the entire area where I grew up is normally under a mile of ice, it was really the only outdoor topic to study, since every natural feature, such as The Great Lakes, The Finger Lakes, every hill (drumlins), etc., was a glacial artifact of some sort, so… Yes last year was hot. This year is not. Five consecutive snow days in late May is unprecedented, according to Fritz Coleman, our local on-air weather personality. Did you see the article with the guy shoveling snow? I was at a ski-tuning party last weekend, near the base of our local mountains. Getting excited - only a few more months til ski season! Hopefully they will open in October again like they did a few years ago! Gotta love Southern California - the beaches, the palm trees, the movie stars, rock stars, and the summer snow! :)))

Windy Skies broke Doug’s topic. Here is a reply blocked by the closing-

“Its no “immortal wit” you are sharing, but cranky takes on climate data. Let the inane humor and factual rebuttal stand together.”

How asleep must someone be to call mentioning the impending next glacial cycle in the current ice-age “climate change denialism”? It’s more like climate-change confirmation. Ism. Incorporated. Amen. And stuff. Real science. Look it up. Please be sure to dress warm! :)))

Doug denies anthropogenic climate change is scientifically or morally concerning. That’s the specific denialism context here. No one has denied any other known climate change factor.

Well if you read everything I’ve said carefully, I don’t think I’ve denied anything at all. You’re just putting words in my mouth. I just enjoy asking people tantalizing questions, that’s all You want answers? Learn how to ask the right questions.
I think I mentioned that CO2 is one of many factors, that’s all. If you don’t think so, you’re in denial, right? Climate denial. You would be denying actual climate because it is in fact driven by a myriad of interrelated factors.
Last I remember though, nobody was quite 100% sure about any of this stuff. Remember that little detail? Remember all “the models”? That they were “97% sure of”? (3% in doubt) How they all magically agreed? How reality diverged severely from those “models” that all agreed? You DO know about that, right? Now, as the father of airborne wind energy, I’m doing as much as anyone to usher in clean energy. You can put up a SuperTurbine™ using no computer, go have lunch, come back, and it’s still making power. Takes one person to deploy. One person to build. One person to patent it. One person to design every product. One person who introduced the most effective method known to increase the output of a wind turbine of a given diameter. The same person who was studying ice ages before most of you were born. Why do I like clean energy? Because I’m a cheapskate and like the idea of “no fuel required”, and I like breathing clean air. But if keeping the planet “green” were my main concern, I’d be advocating coal, since it favors plants the most. More CO2. I think it was NASA or some space survey that recently confirmed the planet is greening a lot in the last couple decades, due to anthropogenic planetary-greening. But I imagine coal must smell like crap when it is burned. Not sure if I’ve ever smelled it. I hate fumes like that though, unless it’s from a minibike or something fun. Diesel - Gawd make me PUKE! Same with Jet fuel. Anyway daveS, I think you’re on a diversion from your stated interest and “expertise”, which is supposedly airborne wind energy. More posturing seems like more of your shell-game of diversion, hoping people won’t notice you never have anything running. So after 12 years of posturing as some sort of wind energy researcher, you can’t come up with anything workable? Really? Nothing? What about the “power-kites”? You just can’t think of a WAY to get them to spin a generator? Not even on a small scale? Well why do you keep talkng about them then? Maybe you’re in the wrong field. What about “Meta-materials”? What about the Bose-Einstein condensates, the flapping phonons, the vast arrays of flipwings or flopwings or whatever? I mean, most everyone else generates at least SOME power. And you said you’re the top researcher. So why can’t you come up with a way to make any juice? You said you’re an expert, right? Well?

“I dont think that you @dougselsam are entitled to choosing the facts of the world on this one.”
*** OK tell me what fact I got wrong?
“Take a broader look instead of listening to some grumpy old men unable to accept change in the world (I find it strange that climate change deniers seem to so often fall into that category).”
*** I don’t think you are even capable of running a forum. Look at you, the first thing you do is pick on a person’s supposed “protected status” (age), the second is you inaccurately mischaracterize peoples’ positions “unable to accept change”, (more types of wind turbine patented than anyone in the world) the third thing is you start calling names: “grumpy old men”, “climate change deniers”, OMG!. You find it “strange” that people with several times your experience in life are not as gullible as you? Do the math. Ever feel sorry for those young religious converts going door-to-door, wearing white shirts, ties, and little name-tags, maybe riding black bicycles, trying to push their newfound “religion” on people who’ve heard it all a thousand times before? That’s how more experienced people see kids like you. I could just as easily “call you” a “naive kid” and be far more accurate. Weather is the closest thing you’ve got to a religion, and questions about your religion throw your entire consciousness out of whack - you can’t handle a question, you’ve got to call names in response, as you’ve been taught by your “pastors”. You are as helpless as a Jehova’s Witness kid if someone pointed out that the letter J has only existed for 500 years.
“Im not having this discussion.”
*** Ah but you are. You think you need to “sort it all out for the rest of us” and pretend to have the final, authoritative last word, and then shut down the discussion. Chicken-shit moderator behavior. “New boss same as old boss”. That’s where we see your urge to have an “open forum” stops when someone even questions what you have been led to believe. Even in good humor and in a joking manner. Even if they mostly agree with you but are just trying to make a point. Sure, you’re “not having the discussion”. Uh-huh.
" But please note: by spreading unscientific falsehoods, you are probably causing damage to some parts of nature, which in my book constitutes to evil, if you were in a position to know that your actions would lead to that."
*** See? There’s the “religion”: “your book”, “evil”, see how you are? For mere questioning, you respond by accusing me of “spreading scientific falsehoods”. Blasphemy! He questioned what “pastor” said! He actually asked questions!!! Did you ever take a science class? Remember the part where science is “never settled”, and instead thrives on continually being questioned? How it’s the obligation of science to always keep trying to disprove any theory? That without constant attempts to disprove theories, science is not science anymore? Remember that?
“I guess if you are an American you are in a poor position to get an impartial view on the subject, with Trump as president and oil companies expanding into shale oil reserves.”
*** OK so now we go from religion to politics. Now you’re attacking a person for their “national origin” - another “protected class” that a politically-correct church-going wet-behind-the-ears newbie-to-life is not supposed to attack. See how you are? This is supposed to be an impartial, scientific or engineering forum, and you want to go on the attack over national origin? The silly thing is you apparently think the media here promotes Trump. They hate him. He asks too many questions. They don’t like questions any more than you. But now that you’ve brought up shale oil, it’s a great example of how “official facts” almost always turn out to be wrong, just like most scientific theories are almost inevitably superseded by new theories. (In other words, proven wrong) “Peak Oil” has been a “scientific fact” almost since drilling began over a century ago. Why? We’ve always had “only a very few years” of oil left. And like a religion, people keep believing it. Year after year. For over 100 years. We were supposed to have “run out” way back in the 1970’s. according to “scientists”. There was “no disagreement”. Peak Oil in the 1970’s was a “scientific fact”. If someone disagreed, you’d be calling them 'evil" for knowing REAL facts you didn’t want to hear. Even now, when we see the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are drowning in seas of hydrocarbons, where it rains gasoline in an atmosphere of natgas, and we keep finding more and more oil, no matter how much drilling is restricted, people still buy the story. For one thing, the oil companies thrive on the idea of “scarcity”. If there is no actual scarcity, they will create it, or create the illusion of it. If we have a huge recession, they will have a major oil spill so some president can ban new drilling for the duration of the recession, keeping prices from collapsing. If there is too much oil, they will pick certain countries for political revolution, shutting down production. Think “Venezuela”, “Iran” etc. Who funds the environmental movement? - it’s called controlled opposition. It makes sure to restrict drilling to prevent a glut. YOU follow the money. YOU pay attention to who funds all this crap. The same names that own the oil companies, that’s who. Pay attention. And meanwhile, naive kids wearing bowties and name-tags go door-to-door trying to tell people how life works, based on some very limited “information” provided to them. Oh well, some things never change. Here’s what I think: These 'forums" are like a tail-wagging-a-dog. The idea is the “forum” is reality, while the real world is just something for “the forum” to characterize or mischaracterize, in some convenient way that pretends the forum is the real reality. Companies show no promise, or quit entirely, while the “forums” pretend they are viable businesses: “the emperor has clothes”, so they will have something to talk about. People who can’t truly master wind energy nonetheless wanting to conquer something wind-energy-related instead start “forums”. The people running them want to have the last word on something, anything, but don’t actually have the solutions to the topic at hand. So they try to push their religion and politics instead. But they don’t have a clue there either. It seems to “come with the territory” that anyone pretending to have an “open forum” is incapable of allowing one. So I guess, let the tail try to wag the dog. Let internet pundits try to control AWE without having an economical energy solution. Hope you are having fun. I think Pierre is right: These forums are like a drug. The illusion is the easy-to-win slam-dunk arguments against know-nothings. The reason it’s an illusion is know-nothings can’t understand anything beyond a slogan anyway, and have no interest in any back-and-forth or give-and-take in a conversation. They can’t admit to defeat, ever. That’s why they must “run” the forum, because they can’t run a wind energy system. They don’t play fair. Not to mention, no sense of humor. They are intolerant and can’t be convinced of anything beyond their adopted “religion”, so the whole thing is a waste of time.
Here’s a teeny bit of actual “science” for you, explaining the cold weather:


Read it. That’s current science. The most accurate and recent info.
As during the “mini-ice-age” of the Maunder Minimum, it’s snowing in the summer, and crops cannot be planted in the U.S. this year, due to incessant rain. This was how Europe experienced a halving of its population hundreds of years ago. Get ready to be a “grumpy old man” who “cannot accept change” when carbon taxes are reversed, and the world demands more CO2 be generated, lest we all die from cold. I say that only half-jokingly – you never know. One thing that never changes, is that things never stop changing. :slight_smile:
Here’s the forecast for tomorrow, here in Southern California:

Active Weather Alerts Winter Weather Advisory

Issued: 2:43 AM May. 25, 2019 – National Weather Service

…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON SUNDAY TO MIDNIGHT PDT SUNDAY NIGHT ABOVE 6500 FEET… * WHAT…Snow expected. Total snow accumulations of up to 2 inches are expected, with localized amounts up to 6 inches above 7500 feet. There will be areas of southwest to west winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 55 mph with blowing snow on higher peaks.

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I dont run the forum, and I have said all I am going to about the subject, so I did not read your post (after the initial paragraph). My reference to grumpy old men was not adressing anyone in particular, rather my general observation that climate deniers are very often in that group. Very unscientific I know…

Many scientific paradigms rely on outdated information and knowledge. For example, it’s said that Newton would couch his theories in religious regalia. For most of the oil era, the story has always been “We’re about to run out of oil”. The stated scarcity of oil was traditionally used as a reason to find alternative energy sources. The idea was always “We’re about to run out”, from the earliest days of oil drilling. You may be familair with the term “peak oil”.
The other main reason to find alternatives was, of course, given our early dirty use of oil, the desire for cleaner air.
However, the solar-powered carbon cycle of life has been well-entrenched on Earth from the early years of the development of life. If you asked for a vote from green plants what type of energy they most prefer humans to use, they might easily vote “coal” since it provides the most carbon (CO2) for their benefit. Coal - the greenest energy we have? Well that might actually be true, if we really mean “green” when we saay “green”. Recent studies from space indicate a recent greening of the planet from our CO2 emissions. But we animals might vote back “no, coal is too dirty and nasty for us”, but with today’s new knowledge, maybe there is a compromise. We now know that the CO2 produced by our breathing, and our burning fossil fuels, ends up as methane clathrates at the bottom of the sea before it is subducted under the continental plates to slowly be turned into oil and gas deposits. That process takes millions of years, but with our new knowledge of the methane clathrate stage, we may have a possible opportunity to greatly shorten the carbon cycle, by directly using the methane in clathrates as fuel. Since little-to-no carbon ever leaves the planet, the carbon cycle could then be endlessly sustainable. In fact, it could even be envisioned that the oil companies and coal burning have inadvertently been bringing life back to a dying planet, where the thicker atmosphere that allowed Pterodactyls to fly, and the carbon essential for life of the surface of the Earth have slowly been subducted underground, leading to the present 2-million-year-old ice age, the existence of which is coincident with our own evolution, possibly in response to the need to survive it. Today we know there is a lot more oil out there, but areas with the most reserves are often saddled with drilling restrictions or, if that doesn’t work, placed into social upheaval to prevent a working drilling industry. Turns out the environmental movement has been in large part promoted by the money from big oil (Rockefellers, Al Gore, etc.) and has served to prevent excessive drilling which would cause a glut of oil as a cheap commodity, rendering existing drilling operations unprofitable. If the weather cycles change to a cooler state, they will have no problem finding other ways to maintain a certain amount of scarcity.
But meanwhile, from a scientific perspective, the relatively new information of the existence of methane clathrates, said to hold several times more hydrocarbons than all the admitted conventional underground fossil-fuel deposits, opens the possibility of maintaining hydrocarbon fuel use on a long-term sustainable basis. Don’t mean to shatter any fragile brain cells out there, but this is all pure science. Things are always changing as our knowledge base grows. The main reason I originally became interested in wind energy was because of familiarity with sailing and building kites, because it was new, exciting, fast, action-packed, and offered the concept of energy without paying for fuel. These basic drivers for wind energy will remain even if clathrates become a renewable fuel source.

Doug’s energy and climate reasoning is not “all pure science”, nor has any scientist ever met that standard. Clathrates are properly classed as non-renewable, they cannot “become a renewable fuel source” as Doug imagines possible-

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dschwartz/documents/Nonrewable_En_Res_Pt2.pdf

It is an interesting perspective about making methane. I think this comment would be suitable on:

You have a long track record of

  1. trying to argue with every simple fact I post;
  2. always being wrong;
  3. being unable to admit it.
    Like playing a game of cards with someone who loses every hand, yet never pays up.
    I knew you would feel compelled to “correct” my simple statements of fact.
    As usual.
    Look through the topics on this forum - the big red K seems to haunt every topic, always pretending to have the last word. Does he really know more than the rest of us?
    And he’s such a strategic ass-kisser that this “new forum” falls for it.
    BTW tallak, there is no such thing as a “climate denier” or a “climate change denier”. Those are very silly, nonsensical terms, spoon-fed to the gullible, to help them avoid the issues, while pretending to be responsive to them, but instead degenerating to typical name-calling. And you fell for it. Again. You should know better. I suggest you put on your little bow-tie and name-tag, get on your little black bicycle, and go door-to-door, preaching to the gullible or bored…
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@dougselsam Doug, you started this topic called…
Climate Change Denialism
Who would practice that?
You don’t have to call anyone any “names” to say it.
If you’ve got some well researched data. great. link it

Replying to the 6th-grade hall monitors - er um I mean “moderators”:
Interesting: Catastrophism is “on-topic”, but replying to it with good info is not. Sure guys…
How is the above post “on topic” for producing methane from wind power?
Is it because it fits your religion?
Do you really need a lesson in 25-year-old science from kitefreak?
Have we considered that the clathrates apparently survived the lower ambient water-pressure-at-depth of 400-foot-lower sea levels in the last several thousand years?
Could that mean clathrates are more stable than we might imagine?
Well, it is true that very few people have heard of methane clathrates, though it is actually very old news by this point, and probably fewer still have heard they contain more hydrocarbon fuel than all the combined coal, oil, and natural gas deposits on earth, whether that is actually true or not. Either way, it is a LOT of hydrocarbons. Take note: The largest source of hydrocarbons on Earth was previously UNKNOWN to science, in the present “modern” era, and we don’t even need to dig to get at it! So if you think whatever is presented to you as “science” is the pinnacle of knowledge, no, science is always learning new facts that render last year’s “facts” nonfactual.
The modern, yet seldom-discussed, fact is, the existence of clathrates interrupts and disrupts the previous reasoning around hydrocarbons on planet Earth. They could potentially shorten the carbon cycle by many orders of magnitude.

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@kitefreak’s post highlights a potential drawback of making methane, and gives a link to more info. That adds to the discussion.

Oh FFS This topic is unlisted… no point
So is Dougs 404 web link to the pinacle of scientific rigour The F-ing Express. co. uk
Good night

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Roddy: I believe you are in error.
I did not start such a topic.
I do not think there even IS such a topic.
I do not believe you could find a single rational person who believes the climate does not change. Temps have been dropping for millions of years, since the dinosaurs!
We’ve been in an ice age for two million years+! Sea levels have been up and down 400 feet more than once during that time. The Sahara was abundant and green with rivers and huge lakes just 6000 years ago! Check into it! They have the bones - too young to be fossils, as a start.
Similar to this part of the SouthWest United States. Desert now, green with lakes just a few thousand years ago. The remnant is the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

And I don’t have a dog in the fight either way, but if you are interested in an honest discourse, stop using dishonest terminology designed to mislead people.
What I notice is a typical one-sided presentation of issues where opinions might legitimately vary. I don’t think you’ll find too many people doing more to usher in clean energy than me, but I also don’t think you have to be a fanatic about the weather, nor believe everything you are told, to be for real. If YOU are for real, why not use the term “warming” rather than the watered-down “cover-all-bases” weasel-word “change”? I guess it indicates you do not have the courage of your (implanted) convictions.

Here, this explains that we’re now in a brief warming cycle of an ice age, right now.
https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/ice-ages-what-are-they-and-what-causes-them/
Check out the chart and you’ll see there is farther to go down than up in temps.
Here’s their conclusion, discussing reality: HUGE changes in climate over VERY short time-frames:
“On a shorter time scale, global temperatures fluctuate often and rapidly. Various records reveal numerous large, widespread, abrupt climate changes over the past 100,000 years. One of the more recent intriguing findings is the remarkable speed of these changes. Within the incredibly short time span (by geologic standards) of only a few decades or even a few years, global temperatures have fluctuated by as much as 15°F (8°C) or more. For example, as Earth was emerging out of the last glacial cycle, the warming trend was interrupted 12,800 years ago when temperatures dropped dramatically in only several decades. A mere 1,300 years later, temperatures locally spiked as much as 20°F (11°C) within just several years. Sudden changes like this occurred at least 24 times during the past 100,000 years. In a relative sense, we are in a time of unusually stable temperatures today—how long will it last?

Here’s a chart I just found using google, showing “the models” versus subsequent measurements:


That is quite a bit of data. What does it say to you? Models diverged from measurements.
I’ve been extremely excited about wind energy, especially airborne, since before we were instructed to panic over “global cooling”, which preceded the current hype cycle of both warming and AWE, so, sorry, but I’ve seen it all. I’d like to see what you are going to do if the current “unsually stable tempertures” we’ve enjoyed all our lives should suddenly falter. Now, I’d like you to apologize for associating me with a nonsensical term. As usual, these people try to accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of. Who is in denial that climate changes? I’d say maybe it includes you. Certainly not me.

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