Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!!

A sizeable percentage of the U.S. population. You should listen to Rush Limbaugh sometime. Companies are constantly under the radar for any polluting they do, they're subject to fines, threats of being shut down by government, and backlash from the general public who supports them by buying their products, especially since their pollution is shouted from the rooftops by the news media. The EPA has no such concerns, they have little interest in what the general public thinks of them. They can't be fined since they have no money, other than what they lap up from the public trough. They have a lot less incentive to avoid polluting and upsetting free markets than do private companies. State governors in the U.S. are not dictators. It would take several political steps to get that done, and they all have to go through the political process, including other politicians who understand that chances are slim that the technology to do that won't be much better in 2030 than it is today, and it's practically non-existent today.Other RI politicians just might also understand more of how the real world actually works. I wonder if RI's governor has any idea what today's fossil fuel burning construction equipment actually costs. Do you? Around here, and probably where you live, most construction equipment working in new subdivisions, or on road and bridge repair and new construction, is usually pretty old and beat up. There's a reason for that.About 15 years ago, I saw an unusual sight, it was a 963 Caterpillar track loader working on a job I was on, and it was unusually clean. I was wondering if it had just been cleaned up, but upon a closer look, it was easy to see it had never been dirty. Paint around the tracks and inside the bucket, places where paint is always worn off. A nice clear plastic cover over the seat. (a 963 is about as big as a full sized pickup, a little taller, with the bucket capacity of 4 or 5 tons of dirt or gravel, they are a common sight even on smaller construction jobs.) The foreman was walking by, and I asked; "is this that unit's first job?" "First job!", he proudly said. And I said "what's the price tag, 250?" As he continued to walk, he said "350". Yes, we were talking in thousands of dollars. Recently, a company in my area bought a new asphalt paver. You've seen them, paving parking lots, working behind the concrete barriers along interstate construction jobs. Again, about as big as a pickup truck, considerably wider, with two high seats in back, and a hopper in front where trucks dump hot asphalt. What would you guess, $60,000? Multiply that by 10 and you've got it, 600,000 George Washingtons. When companies make these purchases, they have to figure on being able to use them for 30 or 40 years in the future, it's the only way they can afford them. How many RI companies have been investing in this type of equipment lately? Do you think they'll be happy when RI's governor tells them, in 2030, that they can't use it anymore?First class slaves in the 1850's were going for an average of $200 in federal currency, and that was a LOT of money back then. Common sense tells us that that was a significant factor in what got the shooting started back then. Would it be any different today?

Naturalism (evolution / atheism) versus Biblical Christianity seems to be almost the exact same divide as there is between climate alarmists versus those who don't believe humans can control the weather.The scientific community claims that supernatural activity can't be scientifically studied, which is true. True science actually STOPS when it gets close to the possibility of an area where the supernatural could be involved. But those in today's scientific community don't stop, they keep right on going beyond that point, assuming that the re-arrangement processes of science can explain all of reality, which it can't. They can make some impressive claims in some of the areas they explore once they get beyond that point, but it's always limited on just how far they can go with their pure atheism.

"Revise our culture", that means that humans have been TOO FREE in their choices to use fossil fuels for the past several hundred years, that fossil fuel use needs to be policed. All we need is perfect people to do that policing. Who are the perfect people? People who believe in the U.S. founding principle of liberty. Yes, it's not current POLITICS. As I've already pointed out, the earth's population has increased 8 fold in just over 200 years. Why don't we ask the scientists if the temp is rising because of unpoliced fossil fuel use, or if it's rising by 8 billion people regularly exhaling? But nope, that question might not give the sought after political answer. Coastal flooding is a prediction, no different than past scientific predictions that never happened. But you're not aware of that, because you won't watch what happened 10 years ago. That's right, DO SOMETHING. Something to satisfy emotions, just like we call for more gun control when some nut case loses it, just like more costly, useless safety equipment gets mandated for school buses after one freak accident. It doesn't do a thing to lessen the problem, but it makes a (largely idle) significant voting bloc feel better. But there's only one thing for sure that new government fossil fuel mandates will do, and that's increase the power and money of government bureaucrats.

Scientists are paid to study climate no matter if it is warming or cooling. Companies are special interests. They are interested in profit. If they are polluting and policies meant to stop polluting are getting in the way of profit, then they attack the people pushing those policies. Why do you make this into a politically charged question?

Do you think the greenhouse effect is beyond the limits of science? What about the absorbance spectra of carbon dioxide?Figure 1 here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...ticle/pii/S2405844018324605To me, it looks like carbon dioxide has an absorbance peak within the Earth's emission spectra. Do you agree? Do you have any problem with this science?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

That principle never incorporated the right to hurt other people through pollution. The CO2 in our breath comes from the carbohydrates we ingest. Those carbohydrates were produced in plants by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. It's a closed loop. No matter how many people were exhaling, it couldn't increase CO2 levels in our atmosphere.What does increase CO2 is burning material from photosynthesis that has been locked away over many millions of years, and releasing that carbon very quickly. In fact, we know the sudden 30% increase in CO2 over the last 200 years comes from fossil fuels because fossils fuels have more 12C compred to 13C than abiotic sources.

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The relative proportion of 13C in our atmosphere is steadily decreasing over time. Before the industrial revolution, 13C of our atmosphere was approximately -6.5; now the value is around -8. Recall that plants have less 13C relative to the atmosphere (and therefore have a more negative 13C value of around -25). Most fossil fuels, like oil and coal, which are ancient plant and animal material, have the same 13C isotopic fingerprint as other plants. The annual trend—the overall decrease in atmospheric 13C—is explained by the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that must come from the terrestrial biosphere and/or fossil fuels. In fact, we know from 14C measurements, inventories, and other sources, that this decrease is from fossil fuel emissions, and is an example of the Suess Effect.
Global Monitoring Laboratory - Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases

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That drop in relative 13C is the fingerprint left from burning fossil fuels low in 13C. This is what the science tells us.

Let's do the simple math of how much carbon dioxide we put in the air through the use of fossil fuels and the rise in atmospheric CO2.

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In 2010 about 9 Giga-tons of Carbon (GtC) were emitted from burning fossil fuels as 33 Giga-tons of CO2 gas.

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How much is 9 Giga-ton? 9 billion tons or 9,000,000,000,000,000 grams, or 19,800,000,000,000 pounds.

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Can you imagine9 Giga-tons is the weight of about 132 billion people. The amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere each year is equal to 20 times the weight of the current world population.

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At CCGG, we measure CO2 at sites all around the world, to build a picture of how much CO2 is in the atmosphere. The key questions are: How much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere? What controls the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? How we can predict how carbon dioxide concentrations might change in the future? . . .

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There are about 5,100,000,000,000,000,000,000 grams of air in the atmosphere, and using unit conversions and some algebra, we know that 9 Gigatons of Carbon per year is approximately the same as 4 ppm per year. But wait, the increase every year in these graphs is currently only about 2 ppm, or 4 gigatons. That’s roughly half of the 9 gigatons of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Where did the other half go? The carbon cycle consists of 3 major reservoirs: the atmosphere, the oceans, and the terrestrial biosphere (land plants and animals).
NOAA ESRL Global Monitoring Laboratory

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We are putting way more than enough CO2 into the air to account for the increase.
It's a matter of just doing the math.

A pertinent article about a specific impact of climate change (but not addressing the causal issues) appeared in yesterday's Washington Post: Boston harbor brings ashore a new enemy: Rising seas. As a coastal city Boston is already experiencing the effects of climate change:

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A surging sea could wreak havoc in a place where half the city is built on low-lying landfill. Among the vulnerable spots are commercial piers, Logan International Airport, low-income neighborhoods, the South End, the New England Aquarium and pricey apartment buildings in the newly redeveloped Seaport area. The effects are evident already; seawater at high tide has lapped up onto some streets even on days when the sun is shining.

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--Percy

'Antarctica Melts,' NASA Says, Showing Effects Of A Record Warm Spell from NPR.I am beginning to think that this whole global warming thing is even more serious than previously thought and will lead to competition and even conflict in the world.We Americans will cooperate, but we won't bear the brunt of the cost. Everyone is in this together and China should, in fact, pay most of the bill since they have most of the people.

Your revelation is welcome, Phat, and you are not alone. More and more people the world over are awakening to the fact that we are in deep trouble already and that "conflict" is an understatement of what is to come.Now we have to vote locally, nationally, to do those things science has been discussing for the last few decades. First and foremost, we need to re-join the community of nations trying to rebate in some small way the horrors we have already set for this planet.We cannot stop it and it will be very bloody but at least we can try to save some of our great-grandchildren's lives.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Amen Brother; Preach the Gospel!

Wow. Paranoia much? New World Order?

Notice I'm cutting back on responses -- see Message 310 for one reason. Another reason is that most of your posting is not worth a response. Rush Limbaugh for instance. In my opinion anyone listening to his garbage opinions is a gullible minion. And yes that includes a lot of Americans. He's not a scientist, he's a hate filled conspiracy monger. He knows nothing about climate change. The way he discusses women is revolting. No it means using education and letting an educated population decide. Our culture has changed numerous times. In recent years it changed with cars, with tvs, with computers, with wifi, with cell phones. The liberty to die from large storms, flooding and fires, or the liberty to do something about in an educated manner? Coastal flooding is a fact. The ocean level is already higher on average than at any time in human history.

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https://www.sciencenews.org/...ng-sea-level-coastal-flooding
August 6, 2019 at 6:00 am

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August 6, 2019 at 6:00 am

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Boston dodged a disaster in 2012. After Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New Jersey and New York, the superstorm hit Boston near low tide, causing minimal damage. If Sandy had arrived four hours earlier, many Bostonians would have been ankle to hip deep in seawater.

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Across the globe, sea levels are rising, delivering bigger storm surges and higher tides to coastal cities. In Boston, the most persistent reminder comes in the form of regular nuisance flooding when seawater spills onto roads and sidewalks during high tides. Those nuisance events are harbingers of a wetter future, when extreme high tides are predicted to become a daily occurrence.

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The East Coast has been riding a post-Sandy mentality of preparing and responding before the next big one, says Robert Freudenberg, an environmental planner at the Regional Plan Association, an urban research and advocacy firm based in New York City. But a more enduring kind of threat looms. Sea level rise is the flooding that doesn’t go away, he says. Not that far in the future, some of our most developed places may be permanently inundated.

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And Boston, for one, is not waiting to get disastrously wet to act. In the seven years since Hurricane Sandy’s close call, the city-run Climate Ready Boston initiative has devised a comprehensive, science-driven master plan to protect infrastructure, property and people from the increasingly inevitable future of storm surges and rising seas. The famously feisty city intends to be ready for the next Sandy as well as the nuisance tides that promise to become the new normal, while other U.S. coastal cities are trying to keep up.

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Water always wins

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British colonists founded Boston in 1630 next to a freshwater spring on the heavily forested Shawmut Peninsula. By the 1800s, the trees had been replaced by a bustling trading port. As the population grew, industrious residents began filling in tidal flats and marshland with rocks, dirt and trash to create more buildable space. By the early 1900s, the city had tripled in geographic land area. The South End, Charlestown, East Boston, Back Bay and downtown neighborhoods, including attractions like historic Faneuil Hall and the New England Aquarium, are all built on landfill. Even Logan International Airport is built atop a filled-in tidal flat that was once five islands.

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... Boston is the fifth most vulnerable coastal city to flooding from sea level rise in the United States after Miami, New York City, New Orleans and Tampa and the eighth most vulnerable city in the world, ...

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Rising waters

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Several Boston neighborhoods and public institutions are on low-lying landfill (left). Climate Ready Boston is preparing the city for about 100 centimeters of sea level rise (right), which will flood several areas (dark blue) if no action is taken.

City of Boston, Esri, HERE, Garmin, NGA, USGS, adapted by T. Tibbitts

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Boston is ranked eighth worldwide for expected economic losses due to coastal flooding, estimated at $237 million per year in 2005 and $741 million annually by 2050, according to a 2013 study in Nature Climate Change. Those kind of numbers frame the upfront costs and the call to action pretty starkly, Ris says. If we don’t do the work now, we are going to pay even more later.

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The cost of adaptation is daunting; estimates range into the billions of dollars over the next 50 years. In April, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh pledged 10 percent of the city’s $3.49 billion capital budget in 2020 to fund resiliency projects, such as raising major roadways and replacing existing concrete structures and pavement along coastlines with floodable green spaces.

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Blue Boston

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One of the first steps toward building a more flood-resilient Boston was to map where the water will go, Douglas says.

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The first set of maps we put out [in 2011] showed what the coastline of Boston will look like by the year 2100 with sea level rise and a large storm surge. The map got a lot of attention because it was so blue.

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With 100 centimeters of sea level rise, much of Boston’s fill land will be inundated by the harbor, returning the remaining landmass to the original shape of the Shawmut Peninsula. Low-lying city landmarks such as North Station, Faneuil Hall and the aquarium would be permanently awash in blue.

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Except it is fact, and more people in government are realizing this and beginning to take action.Sorry you lose, reality wins. Let's just hope it's in time to save the human race from themselves.Enjoy

I just want to point out that coastal flooding effects everybody, not just people who live on the coast.I live at about 1800 feet but we depend on imports and exports, so the water may not be lapping on our doorsteps but it's flooding the seaports that everything we use and produce depend on. Whatever they have to do to survive the flooding, we have to help pay for.Fortunately (I guess), Canada only has a handful of major seaports, so we don't have to spread it too thin. Other nations may have to pick and choose which cities survive.

Yep, screw the world, screw the human race, and excuse us while we make as much profit as possible while the world burns. People be damned, life be damned, we’re making profit, cause that’s what’s important. The special interest of survival and sanity.Enjoy