Tim Smith

The High Park fire, also in Poudre Canyon, has now burned 72 square miles with no real hope of containment in sight. Beetle killed trees on the western edge of the fire constitute 70% of the forest there and could become a serious hazard for firefighters. The fire has jumped the river at least once and concerns about silt and erosion into the river are high. http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20120613/NEWS/120619945/1077&ParentProfile=1058

There are wicked huge smallmouth in the Merced River, even up to the boundaries of Yosemite. If you get a chance, you might drop something in a deep pool to see if they're willing to dance.

Yesterday I got a call from a friend about a large mangrove wetland on the edge of a coastal Caribbean town. That friend is conducting a review of national nature reserves, providing justifications and a plan for future management. The mangrove reserve in question is under special scrutiny because the town beside it wants to expand. Most of the reserve is at or even slightly below sea level. To develop it would require significant and expensive dredging and fill, and the highest elevation that could be economically achieved would be land masses less than a meter over sea level. Given the realities of climate change, it boggles the mind that an area which will be completely underwater in less than 100 years could be considered for a long term development plan. But that's what's on the table. Some ding-dong after a quick buck (mostly selling swampland to gullible expats from the US and Canada) is trying to wipe out a large and potentially important nature reserve rather than move 2 miles down the road and set up their project on higher ground. That's the kind of thing that makes this debate so degrading. Even the most simple projections based on global warming, projections with mountains of science behind them that should make the policy decisions perfectly clear are continually being set aside. Yet, according to this discussion EVERYONE accepts that the planet is warming and will probably continue to warm into the indefinite future. EVERYONE accepts that the climate is warming. Then is it a moral or an intellectual failure that makes it necessary to explain why no one should be building housing developments in important coastal buffers at sea level? Yes, government has to lead here. Just as government led when the interstate system was created. Just as government led in the space program. Just as government led in creating the armed forces, social security, NASA, NOAA, and a thousand other things that we use everyday. No one should be building long term projects at sea level in a hurricane zone or in flood plains of major rivers in the Midwest US and it should be the government's role to be sure we're not left holding the bag when those things end up underwater. ...but I guess it was cold one day last month. So we can just ignore all that.

Well I do appreciate the specifics you have about policy above. It has been pretty hard to draw you out on those but please do continue. I could re-list the questions about your positions that are still on the floor if that will help. As for MY approach, no I don't think just anything will work, but yes if we reduce carbon emissions over the long haul it seems obvious the trend could reverse...if the methane releases and albedo effect haven't locked us into this trend already. It is clear that CO2 abatement removes the main driver for higher temperatures in the modern era. A commitment to that goal on the level of the space race or the creation of the interstate freeway system could work. Both the free market and government have a role but it seems clear government has to lead. The market doesn't see past individual profits and is a notorious despoiler of the commons.

Awful. Companies have to compete for grants and subsidies. You're so focused on one political talking point that you don't see the hundreds of other companies that have benefited from those kinds of start up initiatives and tax breaks. The state of Texas by itself put 6 million dollars into solar energy subsidies last year. http://www.window.st...ergy/subsidies/ The total 2011l Federal subsidy for renewable resources was 24 billion spread over multiple industries. http://money.cnn.com...idies/index.htm By what stretch of the imagination is that picking a single winner? Each of those companies has to compete for that money. The selection process is probably far less biased that the cliques and classes and family connections in the free market. It is well past obvious that the real objections to the human role in climate change have nothing to do with science. The denial arguments are fatuous at best. The real debate revolves around cooperation. People to who individualism and personal interest are paramount would rather just do for themselves and ignore or rationalize the rest away. They're the ones in the lifeboat elbowing their way toward the food and water without regard for the consequences of their actions. I suppose it's pretty hard to stand up and admit that. Still, I have a lot more respect for people who are honest about their selfishness that than those who cover it up with nonsense.

Who collected the data and how did this guy access it?

Worse than that, I grew the mint myself.

Wayne, scientific papers are rejected in peer review every day. If you think there's a conspiracy out there because some things don't pass scientific muster then we don't have much to talk about. What specific data are you concerned about what blanks were filled in and how do those data invalidate the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses...which you apparently do believe has enough of an effect on climate that it should influence our actions??? You still haven't outlined anything more than a talking point and you're still inconsistent. And how does a tax break or a subsidy for alternative energy suddenly make it impossible to use natural gas???

Actually, Wayne, your point was acknowledged. You were asked to show how your concerns about East Anglia (the specific objection you raised) supports your views. Given that those issues drive your position on the topic, one would think that would be a fairly simple thing to do. Instead you've made a false assertion, changed the topic and bailed out. It looks like that's going to be your final choice. If it's not you might want to answer the actual questions in the discussion including how money-driven market solutions aren't corrupting but somehow grant money is... ...that one is still hanging in the air too,.

Here's the diddly I know.... I've used the kinds of statistics these climatologists are using. I've been in the position of testing and retesting environmental hypotheses against available data. I've made predictions in complex systems and worked for years on end just to get people to do the right thing and then watched a system recover when they finally did. Yes, climate is complex. But climatologists have complex, powerful tools to tease apart the interactions in it. They've gotten a lot of things right so far. I've also done climate change adaption work. I've helped plant 20,000+ mangrove trees and helped set up mangrove reserves and spent time in schools and in community meetings explaining the impacts that are likely to come. I sat down with coastal mayors proud of their hometowns and had to tell them their homes will all be underwater before their grand kids get old. I've watched a World Heritage reef fall apart bit by bit. I've watched climate denial boneheads from the US and Russia and the UK and all over the world come to Belize and dredge up a pile of sand half a meter above sea level so they can build a million dollar house where a mangrove buffer used to be. In 50-100 years, those million dollar houses will be underwater. But you cant tell these people anything...because of arguments like there was a cold day in Missouri once last month. I watched a good fisheries conservation group abandon important projects that dealt with climate change. The leadership knew climate change was real. They were just afraid they'd be ridiculed or lose members or be perceived as too...what...liberal? Yeah. That all pisses me off. Seems to me you can know a heck of lot less than diddly and still function at a level higher than that. Sure. There's plenty we don't know. But we're not helpless. We may not be experts on the albedo effect or gastrointestinal methanogenesis but we can at least sort out the difference between climate and weather. If that's diddly, it's important diddly. ...and once you're past that and if you guys really do agree with Al's post, then you agree we know enough to focus on solutions instead of conspiracy theories and nonsense. That would represent real progress.

Well said.

I like Monty Python too...except for the nihilism. The phrase you're looking for is "pissed off", not "valiant"... ...and the drink of the evening is mojito, thanks.

Grovel. Run away from the subject. Same difference.

Yes, part of the reason the forest fires are worse is the standing fuel due to pine bark beetle. It's all part of the same climate change package. I moved to CO a little while ago and I was shocked to see how much standing dead timber there was here. People in the east would be in hysterics if that were happening to their forests. Also, only some kinds and amounts of fires are healthy. The current trend is for longer fire seasons with more intense fires with more crown fires that wipe out everything and are definitely not "healthy". You also left out periods of fire suppression that also added to the fuel. It's a perfect storm of trouble for western forests and climate change is making it worse. Roger Pielke...also from CO...is considered a climate skeptic (one of the few climatologists who are) and he says 25% of the temperature variability is due to greenhouse gasses from human sources. 25% from the most conservative sources still seems like a lot to me.

If the denial crowd is so darn accepting that the climate is changing why is so much effort aimed at undermining the validity of the data that shows warming? Why go for that argument at all if you accept the point? Why is that raised over and over again? You seem willing to speak for all deniers. Why do so many on your side of the argument attack what you say you accept? And sure. The climate has changed before. That is no consolation at all to people in coastal areas who's homes are going to be underwater in 100 years. As many times as the climate has changed it has never changed with the welfare of human economies (and therefore humans) riding on its' back. Also, this climate change is accompanied by increases in greenhouse gases we have never seen before. The planet is in territory it has never been in before. And if you think Colorado is going to be unscathed, you're kidding yourself. 2nd fire on the Poudre is already underway this year. The first one is apparently going to cause silt problems. Biggest fire in New Mexico ever this year. Biggest ever in Arizona last year. The inter-mountain west is going to take a bigger hit than most.

Your respect is up to you. As for your content... Yes, the graph isn't deterministic. Things could turn a lot of ways. We had a 10% reduction in emissions the year the economy folded and with China and India slowing down now we might be in for another big round of that. Frankly, I'm hoping that doesn't happen. It's not like policy decisions will trump everything else that happens in the world but right now we aren't even on the same page about what's fact and what's fiction. As a nation we're squandering our ability to act on one cold day in Missouri. If that's the approach we're stuck with, It may well be the best we can do is batten down the hatches and get ready for the ride.

This is your issue. It's up to you to point out where it changes the conclusions of the science. As for East Anglia being a leader in this field, I'd say NOAA and NASA collect far more data. The IPCC includes East Anglia but there are many more people involved in this than them.

I've addressed content in every post, F and F. I have seen so much nonsense posted on this topic I have given up trying to be kind...and perhaps that is my own moral failing.... but the content I post can be documented and it focuses on facts. Maybe that makes you makes you mad but frankly that up to you, not me. You're still harping on that experimental nonsense when we only have one climate. Environmental science has gotten plenty right without experiments and for you to reject it makes no sense at all. I'll call you out on that every time because it's just wrong. ...it's up to you if you want to make this personal as you did here. I'm here to talk content.

Heck of a lot easier than manning up and facing your issues.

What do you think is going to happen to the bluefin tuna once the climate warms 3 degrees? Or Ozark trout for that matter. You haven't even begun to think seriously about this topic. In the Caribbean, where I've done actual work in this field, they're expecting to spend 25% of their GDP by 2050 patching themselves back together from sea level rise, storms and drought and trying to keep their industries alive. How many problems that take up 25% of the GDP don't deserve any attention?

Wait. You want a market solution, but putting money toward the problem corrupts the solution??? Completely inconsistent. You want progress toward correcting a graph that a majority of Americans will not even look at. We haven't even started working on this problem in a serious way yet. It's not possible to respect your view on that. It's not possible to take it seriously. If you want to discuss the East Anglia issue with specifics then do it.

Avoiding content yet again. There's not much to address in what you've said that makes any difference. If you don't think climate change...and environmental science is relevant to fishing you're simply wrong. As for support, that's pretty much irrelevant. As for science and pseudo science. Yes, I've got some credentials. Some of them pertain to this topic. Apparently that makes me a liar and a thief so it's hard to know what difference that would make to you. As usual, your intent is to poison the discussion and get it banned. You've done it before. You're doing it again. Yes, OF, the threads that get axed this is how it happens. Just like clockwork.

I've talked to Phil about this several times. He'll ax it if he so chooses. Feel free to discuss what you like.. ...and as usual, once the data's on the table, someone tries to kill the conversation. That pretty much sums up the whole debate.

I don't know much about the plant/animal ratio or if that can even be addressed with historical data, but one thing that feeds into your question are the dynamics discussed here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores That is that CO2 is more of an amplifier of other warming patterns. In other words it causes about half the warming in the interglacial periods, but doesn't initiate the warming trends. The amount of CO2 cycling through the biota, for instance harnessing huge amounts of carbon that had been underground for hundreds of millions of years, would certainly affect that. Maybe the number of animals relative to plants does too, but in this case, the animals are using vastly more carbon than other animals ever did before. So this may all work as a positive feedback loop. Slightly warmer temps lead to more CO2 which raise the temperature more etc. The methane and other greenhouse gasses frozen under the Arctic permafrost are an example of this. As the Arctic warms, the gasses are released which accelerate the warming more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_release

The scale of those graphs is completely irrelevant. You measure the fit of two lines with statistics like least squared means, not graphs. That's a mathematical equation, not a visual representation. The scale of the graphs does not matter, but the mathematical strength of the fit does. If you're trying to make the point that correlation doesn't establish causation, sure. That's true. But strong inference is how this work is done. In environmental science on large scales like this correlation is all you have. You load up the relevant variables, run the numbers and see what falls out as the strongest correlates among the many that might be involved. Among the potential drivers such as sun activity, particulates, celestial drivers and the rest, during this era, the strongest correlate with temperature rise has consistently been CO2. Those forcing variables are in figure 5 here: http://www.skeptical...correlation.htm If you can find another driver you can build another hypothesis. Good luck with that.