"Global Warming Quiz"

Caution: This section contains sound science, not media hype, and may therefore contain material not suitable for young people trying to get a good grade in political correctness.

Love this. I should have known better after reading the first page but I continued on. That quiz is terrible. Are they really trying to make out that coal fired power plants are not that bad after all? I love the bit about warmer temps in the arctic circle not being a bad thing.

There is something about reading propaganda that makes me feel dirty.
 
Well, It's not saying coal-fired power plants are a good thing necessarily.

It was commenting on the CO2 they produce and its affect on primary production.

It is just trying to help people understand the carbon cycle a little better. Excesses CO2 has been shown to increase photosynthesis in several different forest stands and so in this respect may be seen as beneficial (all things considered equal).

Probably a common misconception is that plants don't like CO2, since it's a poisonous gas to humans (in certain concentrations).

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I went through and read it. I don't think it is a garbage quiz. Though, I would change some of their wording.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9856805#post9856805 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rosseau
Well, It's not saying coal-fired power plants are a good thing necessarily.

It was commenting on the CO2 they produce and its affect on primary production.

It is just trying to help people understand the carbon cycle a little better. Excesses CO2 has been shown to increase photosynthesis in several different forest stands and so in this respect may be seen as beneficial (all things considered equal).

Probably a common misconception is that plants don't like CO2, since it's a poisonous gas to humans (in certain concentrations).

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I went through and read it. I don't think it is a garbage quiz. Though, I would change some of their wording.

It is a nice bit of missinformation that excess CO2 is good for plants. They will increase production, but the nutrients contained in their leaves and fruit are reduced. This has flow on effects to the species they support and feed.

Also I would not say that CO2 is the principal gas that trees need to survive. O2 is the principal gas that plants need to survive, CO2 is the pricipal gas that plants use during photosynthesis.

And describing CO as the deadly evil cousin of CO2 is hardly the factual quize it promised at the start.

I think a lot of that quize is carefully worded to only show one side of the argument.

The bit about the arctic circle is part of Question 9.

Similarly, it is the driest and coldest regions of the earth that would notice the biggest change-- places like Siberia and Canada. Are warmer winter nights in the Arctic Circle really a problem?

Shame the Eskimos or the animals that rely on the arctic staying as it was cannot answer that question.

Its also a shame they dont ask questions regarding sea levels rising. But there is far more left out than just that.
 
It always baffles me how people can somehow believe that pumping enormous reseves of carbon (in various forms) into the atmosphere will do nothing at all. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, now i know this has nothing to do with global warming as such, but it seems to be a universal truth.
Something is going to happen, that much is for sure. As for exactly what and how much, those are the only questions.

I'm a uni student doing marine bio and geology, and it seems that trying to tell people who disregard everything that has been published in support of the theory is rather useless.
At some time in the near future the effects will become too much to ignore, and it will just bite (and bite hard) all those people who will not open their eyes and simply take a look around.
Arguing against the basic principles is a lot like arguing that an elephant is pink, you may, in some way, create a very convincing argument by playing around with and warping the facts available, but at the end of the day the elephant is still grey.

Don't take someone else's opinion on this, do a little research in proper scientific journals and make up your own mind. Arguing about it it pointless.

But don't, whatever you do, pay any attention to that quiz. Using basic scientific principles vastly out of context and without basis to tow your own line is almost a sin.

Oh, and the whole geological scale argument is pretty useless too. In the geological scale, a worst case scenario with global warming now will result in a small hiccup over the last 4.6 billion years (with another 4 or so billion to (hopefully) come). The human race doesn't even rate a footnote.
It would just be nice to enjoy the earth instead of ruinining it for our short stay.

Sorry for the rant, this just annoys me. It's why i try to stay away from all the global warming arguments.
 
Hey no problem, what would a forum be without a rant every now and then. It may be interesting for you to look back on the tobacco denial. Oil companies are well into the same tactics that tobacco companies were in 10-30 years ago. Its all about doubt.
 
Ok…

I’m typing out yet another response as to my opinion on this little quiz and the ideas raised in general.

I’m finding it hard to bring my points across because I absolutely agree that our actions have implications for the earth’s systems, I agree that the earth has warmed in the last ~200 years, I believe that a large portion of this observed warming is due to changes in anthropogenic GHG’s and land-use change, I agree that we must take action of some sort or else a major shift or shifts in our climate system will occur and have a multitude of implications for nearly everything.

Yet, I agree with many of the “facts” and questions presented here in this quiz. I think that “both sides” of this issue neglect to present all of the facts. I think both scottras and edr42 would agree that the climate change skeptics neglect to mention some information for fear of hurting their own argument. Unfortunately the other side is equally as guilty.

Take Mr. Superstar Al Gore as an example. His film neglected to mention many important parts of the earth’s climate system and used clever imagery such as showing water flowing from beneath glaciers to indicate that they are “melting”. Anyone who has taken glaciology 101 knows that water flowing from glaciers does not necessarily mean that they are retreating.

Is it so harmful to say, water vapour is currently the largest agent of radiative forcing not CO2? This is a fact and presenting it can be spun in many ways. It’s equally as deceptive to mention it in an attempt to belittle the contribution of gasses like CO2 and CH4 as it is to neglect to mention it for fear that it will somehow skew people’s perception of the importance of CO2.

I guess what I did like about this quiz is that it presented some facts which Al Gore and the like were afraid to mention because they thought it would decrease the weight of their argument â€"œ yet, mentioning them does not actually decrease the weight of their argument at all. Sure, water vapour is the largest agent of radiative forcing, yet increases in other GHG’s are still increases regardless of their total overall contribution to the greenhouse effect (not to mention feedbacks… i.e. as the earth warms, evaporation increases and thus water vapour increases.. so do clouds.. etc.)

Yes the earth’s orbit around the sun is a larger driver of our climate than the atmosphere, yet the atmosphere has incredible influences on the climate as well.

I’ll try and wrap this up. I was hoping to be concise, but that has surely fallen apart.

Al Gore and the like are as guilty as “skeptics” for neglecting to mention all of the information available. Though this quiz may be trying to sway us to believe that current warming is “no big deal”, it does present some information which is often left out of the discussion all together.

Perhaps, the general public doesn’t need to know that the earth’s eccentric orbit influences our climate or that increased global temperature likely means an increase in cloud cover and thus a decrease in local incident radiation (clouds reflect a large portion of incoming short wave solar energy) etc etc.

Maybe it just complicates the discussion further, yet it must be discussed somewhere or else we’re all missing the point.
 
I'm agreeing with you guys. I was furious a few weeks ago when somebody posted a video which absolutely spun the words of scientists to create an argument against modern climate change.

I was so upset that I sent a PM to the person who posted the video and well.... RC didn't like that so much, understandably.


After a more careful review I would agree that this quiz is not impartial. In fact it’s much more obvious to me now that the creator may have an agenda. Yet it does present many real and often un-discussed portions of the climate system.

Ultimately I think it depends on who is reading the quiz. The reader’s understanding of the climate system will dictate how they interpret what it presents - for example the fact that CO2 isn’t the most significant agent of radiative forcing (etc).

A climatologist knows this is true yet still understands the importance of CO2 in the system. The average person may take it to mean that CO2 is not important..

Blah blah.. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say.

Cheers.
 
I see nothing wrong with this page... do you?

untitled.jpg
 
Ok.. using the word "slight" is a little work of propaganda....

It's slight because it's a small number compared to say, the seasonal fluctuation or daily fluctuation of temperatures. Yet it is not slight when considered on a larger time scale, i.e. geologic.

and.. this is a figure which has to be interpreted on a larger time scale... so alright... their wording is BS. I mentioned that at the top.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9866684#post9866684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by edr42
Sorry for the rant,

Not to worry, rants are quite alright so long as you leave out politics, religions and personal insults ;)
 
Granted this isn't from a scientific publication, but did any of you see this report claiming the artic sea ice might be mostly gone or all gone by 2020?
 
I understand what you are trying to say. And I agree on many points. But I just feel that the quiz does more harm than good. I seriously doubt that the quiz was done by a scientist. It skews many questions to irresponsible answers.

Having a go at young people at the start is just strange for a factual document. They should know there are many young people who are AGW skeptics.

Question 5 that you refered to is a great example of a skewed question. The answer does not matter because the quize is about global warming, not USA warming.


Question 7:
Carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants damages forests.

This is a strange question too. Why are they even asking it? And the answer is poorly explained, and wrong in some instances. Why they refer to CO as the deadly eveil cousin of CO2 is beyond me. A large enough concetration of either gas will kill you. Another issue I have with the answer is the grossly wrong part about coal fired power plants only emitting water vapour and CO2. They also release massive amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and mecury. Not to mention particle emmisions.

Another little known fact about coal fired power plants is radioactivity. There are uranium isotopes in coal that are released in the burning process. You will find greater radioactivity around coal fired power plants than you will around nuclear power plants. Unless of course there has been an accident.

There are many more things wrong with the quiz, but I think I have bored you enough.
 
scottras,
No, no boredom. I enjoy this garbage :)

I agree with you as well.

Originally I gave the quiz too much credit, it is a lot of crap and its intentions are now clear to me.

Bill, I have not seen that article before. The estimates seem to vary all over the place.

When the IPCC or another agency or scientist comes out with "predictions" they are really running scenarios into various climate models.

These scenarios may include things like a doubled CO2 by year 20XX, or a population increase of a certain number of people or expected land use changes.

As a result the predictive ability of these models is limited to our ability to forecast social, economic, political and technolgical trends.

For this reason (and some uncertainty inherent in the models themselves) our ability to predict things like sea-ice melting or total warming is limited.

Thus, the most efficient application of climate science requires input from a variety of social sciences.

It does scare me to think that the ice could be gone that quickly.... I'll be living in the High Arctic this summer, partially to help better the understanding of the arctic's importance with respect to climate change - it certainly has been very important on a global scale in the last 100,000 years.
 
Your quite right about the variability in those estimates. Just changing one small factor in those climate models can change things. The scary thing is that even using the conservative models, I'll live to see dramatic changes in sea level. If that recent estimate proves true, I'll living on my boat anchored in my yard :eek1:
 
Okay, my turn for a rant.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9866684#post9866684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by edr42
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, now i know this has nothing to do with global warming as such, but it seems to be a universal truth.

You are right, that has nothing to do with global warming and it is not a universal truth. That is a theory applied to kinetic energy.


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9866684#post9866684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by edr42

Something is going to happen, that much is for sure. As for exactly what and how much, those are the only questions.

:lol: How right you are, those ARE the questions that plague this discussion.


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9871833#post9871833 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rosseau
I agree that the earth has warmed in the last ~200 years.

Just how much has it warmed in the past 200 years?
Is that the most the climate has ever changed?
What is the perfect temp. that the climate should be?


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9871833#post9871833 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rosseau
I think that “both sides” of this issue neglect to present all of the facts.

Here is a point that you and I can finally agree on for the very reasons you have pointed out.
There are to many people that have a non Altruistic vested interest in this. When the people who are pushing this the hardest are lawyers in the form of politicians, the united nations (which is nothing but a bunch of dictators, human rights abusers and down right thugs), the media in all of its forms who love nothing but sensationalism,
anti-globalists, anti-capitalist etc. etc. I get a little leery of the fatalistic predictions of fire and brimstone.
On the flip side you have the evil oil companies. Their only responsibility is to give consumers what they ask for at a price we will pay. If people demanded en-mas for electric cars or solar powered this or hydrogen powered that we would have had it a long time ago. But they haven't so they don't.
Let's face some facts; *oil is relatively cheap, *extraordinary advances in society are due to our cheap forms of energy, *human beings have an insatiable hunger for energy that will NEVER go away or diminish, *human population will keep increasing over time including events of disease, plague and natural disasters, *human life span will continue to rise. No matter how much you try... human beings will NEVER go back to a life style of the past, you can not turn back the hands of time, *carbon base forms of energy will be our main sources of energy until they are either exhausted or are not economically viable. *very much like the united nations, the vatican once had a consensus of scientists. *science is not infallible and has been proven wrong on many occasions. *science is very much like political polls, it can be made to "prove" any outcome you wish. *science is not a good substitute for common sense. *science with an agenda is more dangerous than religion or government.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9871833#post9871833 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rosseau
Perhaps, the general public doesn’t need to know that the earth’s eccentric orbit influences our climate or that increased global temperature likely means an increase in cloud cover and thus a decrease in local incident radiation (clouds reflect a large portion of incoming short wave solar energy) etc etc.

Maybe it just complicates the discussion further, yet it must be discussed somewhere or else we’re all missing the point.

I think you make a mistake when you underestimate peoples willingness to understand an issue when they do not feel they are being lied to for an ulterior motive.
More and more people are starting to notice the inconsistencies in this debate. You add to that the utter hypocrisy of the people who warn of our eventual demise and this whole issue is a loser. The very people who push this have made no change in their own lives whatsoever. Mansions, personal jets, CARBON CREDITS :eek1: . Does Mother Nature actually like the pollution that we pay for?


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9871904#post9871904 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rosseau
After a more careful review I would agree that this quiz is not impartial. In fact it’s much more obvious to me now that the creator may have an agenda. Yet it does present many real and often un-discussed portions of the climate system.

You make a good point here. So what if it is biased or not impartial? The facts remain. You insinuated yourself earlier that the proponents of this issue themselves have bias but still have a valid position.



<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9872790#post9872790 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Not to worry, rants are quite alright so long as you leave out politics, religions and personal insults ;)

This is were it gets touchy. Do to the fact that the united nations and politicians are the major players in this it is nearly impossible for it to not to become a discussion of politics. It is political at it's very core. It is a real shame that the u.n. is involved in this because any real efforts in this matter are doomed to fail from the beginning. I challenge anybody to name two positive outcomes on something that the united nations has been heavily involved in.
It is also a shame on a smaller scale because it has made reasoned discussion impossible. I have been told by some regulars in these discussions that my very low environmental impact is not good enough because my moral motivation was not correct. Add that to good old fashioned control via fear and superstition and that is where we slip into the pseudo religious aspect of this issue. Let's leave the fear mongering to the clergy and keep our science reasoned and clear thinking.
 
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I, in no way mean my last statement to be inflammatory in any way. I am just stating the facts as I see them. I would like to see if we can keep this one in the realm of discussion. I have become used to hearing warnings of gloom and the end times and that I need to "be saved" in one manner or another. Maybe it is because I have grown so wary of the inevitable hypocrisy that always tends to come along with these prescriptions on how I should live my life.
 
Al Gore and the like are as guilty as “skeptics” for neglecting to mention all of the information available. Though this quiz may be trying to sway us to believe that current warming is “no big deal”, it does present some information which is often left out of the discussion all together.
The information isn't "neglected." It just isn't presented because it has litte or no impact on the final outcome and it confuses the issue. It's not necessary for the average Joe to understand the relative importance of each of the forcings used in models in order to understand the conclusion that natural forcings alone don't account for the observed trends. Saying that things like orbital variation are more important than CO2 concentrations is clearly intended to imply that the models' conclusions are invalid, despite the fact that the information is already included in the models.

Likewise, information about localized temperatures over short periods is intended to imply that longer-term, geographically broad measurements are wrong, when the data being presented is part of the dataset being used to reach the conclusion. Rather than showing people the full story in the form of short-term, regional data, it's a lot more useful to just show them the overall trend shown by that data.

*very much like the united nations, the vatican once had a consensus of scientists. *science is not infallible and has been proven wrong on many occasions. *science is very much like political polls, it can be made to "prove" any outcome you wish.
Science never "proves" anything. You should certainly be skeptical of any scientist who claims they've proved anything. Also, it can never even support anything but the facts. How those facts are interpreted is somewhat subjective, but one of the main goals of peer review is to make sure the facts support the conclusion and there is little subjectivity. Science is completely useless if we assume that it's wrong just because it has been in the past.

Do to the fact that the united nations and politicians are the major players in this it is nearly impossible for it to not to become a discussion of politics.
The members of the IPCC are not politicians. They were all independent, published experts on their subjects before they were asked by the UN to consolidate their work. If their association with the IPCC makes you uneasy, their prior "untainted" work stands on its own merit.
 
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