Quiz on climate science

[Argonavis]

For those who like quizzes:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

[TrevorW]

I passed

[space oddity]

Thank you for the link.Perhaps this link should be sent to Mr Rudd and (bit late:P) to Copenwanken. Being the realist and nerd that i am, i scored top marks:D.

[el_draco]

Somewhat basic, but okay. The question is, since we can't rely on the KRUDDS or "whats his face jesus loving liberal tosser" to do anything about it.... what are each and every one of US gonna do about it? :question:

Here are a few of my actions to date:
- Not flying anywhere anymore.
- Restoring a 5 acre block of rainforest.
- Building energy efficient house.
- Sponsoring a child in a third world country.
- Cut red meat out of my diet almost completely.
- Buying locally and growing our own where possible.
- Relocating work so I dont have to travel so much.
- Going seriously paperless.
- Teaching our children about ecology.
- Becoming active in protecting the environment.

Major "Vice"

I wanna bigger scope ;)

[supernova1965]

Sorry but what a Load of Rubbish put out by Climate Naysayers:D
DISCLAIMER
I mean that in the nicest possible way and I am not having a go at anyone personally

[space oddity]

I would urge you to check the info from this quiz, you could be surprised:eyepop:. Just dismissing it out of hand is extremely unscientific - a kneejerk reaction. Given the potentially serious ramifications of global warming vs "it is a natural cycle, humans can do nothing" full investigation is essential. An interesting website is climate debate daily . It gives both sides of the arguement, with "calls to action " getting first billing. Wish I had more time to go through all the articles they put on their site - spend too much time on astro sites:P

[supernova1965]

Sorry if I jumped the gun but as I went into the quiz the questions and expected answers were starting to look decidedly climate change denial city with no room for thinking that it was showing both sides of the argument. I will look at the web page you mention I like stuff that is equal to both sides of an argument:thumbsup:

[Lumen Miner]

I would have to agree on that one.
I couldn't force myself past the first question.

Question 1:

"Global warming" is a real phenomenon: Earth's temperature is increasing.

By making you select "true" or "false", I can see where the whole test is leading.
Not real interested in taking it, if that is the theme / note of the whole test.
How could you possibly answer even the first question, no one can.

[Esseth]

It was defiantly one sided, for me this whole issue has become to political not that it matters because it’s a null argument. We have to reduce/cease our reliance on fossil fuels someday...

[KenGee]

Whaaaat how can you have trouble with this question, can you cite a....
oh why bother to go down this route again. You can led a horse to water, but can't make it drink and all that.:shrug::shrug:

[FredSnerd]

What garbage. These are exactly the same kind of cheap tricks the cigarette lobby used for two decades trying to convince people that cigarettes didnt cause cancer (when they knew it did) and lots of people died unnecessarily as a consequence. Did someone really say that this quiz is a balanced and intellegent treatment of the subject. You got to ask. Is that person being honest or just plain gullible?

[el_draco]

This quiz is interesting for a number of reasons... yep, its political with a motive, but the reality is we are subject to the whims of a planet that is in dynamic equilibrium and if we, as a species, don't take that into account... we will be added to the fossil record pretty quick.

Whether the climate science is right or wrong I don't care, I am not prepared to risk the future of the ONE rock I know I can live on!

I refer back to my original post here and say to you all,

"We can debate the issue as much as we want but it will inevitably come down to individuals doing something about it."

I listed a few things my family is doing and, not suprisingly, we are finding our lives are becoming richer for the changes... :)

For example:
Action:
- Sponsoring a child in a third world country.

Result:
We, as a family, (including young children), decided to outlaw christmas to do this.
- It costs us $600 p.a. and a little girl gets a life... That meets or exceeds all the "traditional" ideals of christmas we supposedly hold dear I think? :D
- Our children learn something important about priorities and giving. :thumbsup:
- Zero stress for us. We don't even try to "keep up with the commercial crud" and we're amazed at the insanity going on around us as the "stupid season" progresses. :thumbsup:How many died on the roads this year?
- Christmas day, we went bush walking as a family... had a ball. Cost $20 :D
- Better for the environment, less landfill etc. :thumbsup:
- Tax deductible (for the mercinaries out there) ;)

The hardest part was actually making the change and resisting the "herd mentality" to conform. Two years later... nobody hassles us and our children have thanked us for making christmas so much more fun.

So folks I ask the question again, "What are YOU doing?"

[freespace]

The Quiz is at best outdated, at worst a deliberate attempt to mislead using obsolete and wrong research.

The quiz cites Lassen's work from 91 to argue global warming is due to astronomical causes, not any work of men. However that works has been shown to be false. In fact when Lassen and Thejll updated Lassen's 91 research, they found the correlation stops at around 1980.

This quiz has all the hall marks one comes to expect from detractors of science: using outdated research to cloud the issue. They exploit the fact science is a field which moves quickly and publishes prolifically - for just about any particular belief, if you go back in time far enough, cast your net wide enough, you will find a paper to support your claims. All you need to do is ignore the fact the paper is outdated and more often than not, shown to be wrong.

[Lumen Miner]

:rofl: Your one of those people.... Yep everything is all good, it's just a cycle, no need to investigate at all. Job well done.

[supernova1965]

Yes you can lead a horse to water but if it is my horse I will test the water for danger before I will let it drink or drink it my self

[space oddity]

Bottom line - politics and science do not mix.Come to think of it, politics and religion do not mix either. My dad is a senior science academic, he confirms that those who do not tow the official global warming line lose their funding. This amounts to career suicide for an academic- the pollies (those that hand out the grants that are the lifeblood of academia) are pulling the strings. The "science" is biased and therefore not truly scientific. There has to be something fishy when the climatolagists that are beating the AGW drum refuse to share their models and data with other scientists. True science does not just come to a conclusion and then make the data support the hypothesis, it is supposed to be open to scrutiny of the methodology/data to see if the hypothesis holds water. The other thing I find even fishier is that airing the plus side of higher CO2 and warming temperatures are suppressed - branded heresy. This blatant censorship is leading to a one sided arguement. If the AGW brigade were fair dinkum, they would allow freedom of speech to prevail over their current vile censorship ................or do they have something to hide:eyepop:
The cocktail of politics being able to meddle in science is decidedly fishy in taste. I prefer my prawn cocktails to be with cooked prawns-sick of being given the raw prawn.

[freespace]

Ah, the classic formula of:

+ anecdote from a "senior academic"
+ a government/political/commerical conspiracy
+ silencing "the truth"

You know, that's almost exactly the same formula used by 911, moon landing, JFK assassination, etc. conspiracy theorists.

You would think that in the days of the Internet, any censorship on the benefits of increased CO2 and global warming would be difficult. It is not like one can not anonymously publish information on the internet.

You would think that there would be more evidence than simply claims of conspiracies and blatant censorships, which are incidentally so ineffective as to silence the poster.

You would think that given the number of people involved, some of them would have a conscience and speak up. But apparently not - all climate scientists are greedy people with cold hearts and not a shred of dignity or integrity. If only my girl friends can be so good with a secret.

[Peter Ward]

Agreed.

Very much in a similar vein to the claptrap the radio 2UE in Sydney continues to espouse.....

Sadly, the media are poor judges of empirical truth. (never let the truth get in the way of a good story)

[tlgerdes]

I can see a a Holy War coming, let's go get the Infidels, let's have a Crusade.

With terms like naysayers, sceptics and conspiracy theorists, any discussion on this topic is always going to turn into a lynching. This then defeats the purpose of discussion, as people of different views will just switch off and rant in the own fashion.

[supernova1965]

Ok lets be scientific there has been a great experiment that shows what happens in a runaway greenhouse effect it's called VENUS a planet the same size as EARTH roughly anyone want to go live there.:confused2: As to whether the anti climate change lobby is being censored I find that very hard to believe as you cant even turn on the TV or read a newspaper without hearing from them. In fact I think that they tend to drown out the Science.

[Barrykgerdes]

These are good questions the simple answer to each is

1. Yes we are adding a small amount of CO2 but the reason is more to do with the rise in average temperatures than what we create from burning fossil fuels.

2. CO2 is non poisonous CO is. It was once used as a revival gas in cases of lost conciousness to stimulate breathing.

3. Yes forests are being reduced which is a bad thing but if they are replaced with quick growing agriculture the conversion of CO2 back into C and O2 will actually be faster. (This is the carbon cycle which is completely ignored by the climate change lobby)

4. Yes forests remove CO2 and give off O2 but faster growing vegetation does it quicker.

5. CO2 is heavier than air so it will always tend to come down to the ground where it is absorbed mainly by sea water. However the sea water will give up much of the absorbed CO2 if its average temperature rises.

6. That is a good question There is not enough CO2 to do this even if all the carbon on earth was burnt to form CO2 it would still be insignificant compared to other gases.

The climate change lobby uses statistics to try to prove its point. They say that CO2 is causing the rise in temperature but the same statistics can be used to show the rise in temperature creates the increase in CO2.

The one thing that is sure is that CO2 is absolutely insignificant as a greenhouse gas in our atmosphere when compared to other gases, mainly water vapour.

Barry

[mithrandir]

Venus is not like earth. It is closer to the sun, so higher solar input, so its gasses are more energetic. It is smaller, so less gravity, so less able to retain hydrogen. The sun swept up more of the hydrogen in the inner solar system than in the outer. What do you need to have to make water to react with the carbon and sulphur dioxides?

As was said before. It's really easy to censor anyone whose research you don't happen to like. You just stop them getting any funding. You don't invite them to conferences. You don't quote them in the mass media.

This applies equally to any science. Not just climate. Has anyone considered how stem cell research was being blocked to satisfy some churches?

I'm not defending the quiz. I want real science. Not the media circus we get.

[Barrykgerdes]

Well said!

Barry

[Barrykgerdes]

I would like to say one thing about climate change.

Climate change has been going on for millions of years without the assistance of man. Our position in the solar system keeps our average temperature within quite close limits of only a couple of degrees.

Man does influence the climate in some ways by changing the landscape (called progress) by buildings, agriculture etc. that change the air currents which are the principal regulators of our climate.

Barry

[tlgerdes]

Can we just start seperate threads, one for man induced climate change, one against man induced climate change and one for no climate change. Then have each thread limited to the Pro's of their argument. :question:

I dont think that we will ever solve the problem here, but if we post the reasons and information in there own particular thread, then we may just slightly be able to educate one another, without flaming one another. :screwy:

[supernova1965]

I was pointing out VENUS as a result if we are leading EARTH to a runaway greenhouse effect I fail to see the argument if we are wrong about the danger to earth then we will have some financial difficulties because of the measures taken to combat it but if we are right and we don't take steps to counter the effects we will still have financial difficulties as well as having to cope with climate change. But if we are right and do take steps to counter the effects we will still have the financial difficulties sure but we may actually survive to me it seems an easy choice Survival of civilization with financial difficulties if Global Warming is real human caused or otherwise or the end of our civilization as we know it with the financial difficulties as well. BTW I don't see that anyone is being censored noone has censored any of the things being said in this forum as long as it is civil towards each other.

[supernova1965]

It really doesn't matter what is causing it it is a problem that needs to be dealt with whatever the cause I think we should agree to disagree about the cause and all get together to deal with the results.

[multiweb]

Yep - let's start at home - stop littering, plant more trees and control our water better. That we can control and it's easily fixed. Then the pollies can go back on about feeling good about themselves and think they can lead the world and fix everybody else in the climate crusade.

[Omaroo]

Richard - I guess that it's all a case of concentration. Even oxygen is toxic to humans - look up references to the "Paul Bert" effect in relation to scuba diving.

[Barrykgerdes]

It is classed as non poisonous. It can asphixiate you from oxygen starvation but is not strictly a poison. However CO (carbon monoxide) is classed as poisonous because it reacts with our biology to cause death.

Barry

PS
I am not a scientist as such my only science was in school where I considered science, Physics and Chemistry to be free periods because I never needed to study it or even attend the classes to get top marks.

[Barrykgerdes]

Is it?

That is what the pollies would like us to believe.

CO2 is not a problem with the concentrations we are likely to achieve in the near future. While our temperature is rising the concentration of CO2 will rise but when the temperatures start to fall again the excess will dissolve back into the oceans. Nor is methane from animals. Methane breaks down into other less harmfull products quite quickly.

What is a problem however is our way of living and over population for that way of living that is causing pollution of our eccosystem with non biodegradible materials which destroy our food generation/regeneration system.

Don't forget the fossil fuels were once forests etc. But that is another story.

Barry

[supernova1965]

I think this video explains what I meant in my earlier post this was linked to late last year in another thread about this subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&NR=1&feature=fvwp

[Vartigy]

The silly thing is. Knowledge is dangerous.
The fact is that over the last 100 years human evolution has reached a stage where our technology and learning capacities are at a point where they are increasing at an exponential rate.

The fact that we are self-aware as to the Causality principle (Simply Newton's Reaction law) may ultimately bring about our own destruction. The probability of this occurring remains yet unknown.
*please explain*
In the 1600 - 1800's, while the human race was happily passing through the 'Enlightenment Period' we were blissfully unaware of the sciences of Environment alteration.

But now, we are at a point where we 'think' we know how the climate works, in the space of a few decades, and we are doing everything humanly possible to 'correct an apparent climate change'.

The earth has been around for millions of years, possibly billions.
What makes us think that suddenly we've become experts on our home planet after merely a few hundred years of 'playing with technology'.
How do we know that we are having an impact on the equilibrium point of the earths climate?:question:

I'm a scientist/engineer myself. So I'm all for trials and experiments that apparently prove certain conditions and causes.
But it still doesn't sit well with me.

But I'm a firm believer that there are greater forces at play on this planet than us. No none of that religious mumbo-jumbo. In fact, religion is the cause of 80% or more of the worlds problems today.
No, I'm talking about what we all cast our eyes up to of a dark night.
We are but a speck, an almost insignificant proportion of a much larger creation that has it's own path through time.

And I'm sorry to say that whether we as a race, or earth as a planet is meant to be a long standing part of that, is not up to us.

I think what it comes down to is this. We need to respect the time that is allowed to us.

/passes-the-peacepipe-on.

[supernova1965]

A flea or a tick can kill it's host insignificant things can have a huge effect on their environment. We can't know until the outcome has arrived but like in the video which column do we want to place our bets on.

[el_draco]

Ahmen to that brother. Everyone seems to have a wheel barrow to push but a bit of common sense makes it clear. The planet can't support the population we have... a basic, (grade 8), understanding of population dynamics demonstrates that rather emphatically, and the planet CERTAINLY can't sustain our lifestyle.

You all ought to take a look at this web site: http://gpso.wordpress.com/

and you might like to do a search on a Labour MP called Kelvin Thomson who is about the only Polly in this country who is talking sense.

Of course, he's shouted down by the vested interest lobbies, but he is on the money ecologically speaking.

[bojan]

Yes..
Whenever I think of far (and not so far away) future, I imagine Earth became something like Trantor or Steel Caves (from Isaac Asimov novels) as the best scenario/outcome.
It may happen.... or it won't (because there will be no-one to build Trantor).
Or, another extreme: "Mote in the God's eye" by Niven/Pournelle.. Are we really heading towards such a fate? Very likely so...

[Omaroo]

Don't think so Richard. At the moment, CO2 is a trace gas consisting only 0.038% of the current atmosphere - that's 380 parts per million. For CO2 to be toxic we need around 1% (or 10,000 parts per million) for some humans to even start to be drowsy. There needs to be over 7% in the atmosphere by volume for dizzyness to occur - at which point it really is poisonous. That's 70,000 ppm, or 184 times the current levels.

I don't think so - not in ours or our childrens lifetimes. This is not to say that at these levels, the greenhouse effect would likely be greatly exacerbated.

When are we all going to stop discussing the politics of climate on this astronomy forum?

[Dennis79]

Well I don't know if the climate change stuff is real or not. The scientific data etc doesn't seem to be very scientific to me. Trying to determine what impact humans have had and will have to not going to have with the limited understanding we have about climate mechanics is a waste of time.

Having said that, I do believe that pollution is not good for the environment and that we should look after the world we live in. I DO NOT agree with the idea of carbon tax, I fail to see why the government should benefit from this but that is a whole other discussion point.

Environmentally products should be made because it is the right thing to do, the decision to make/not to make or use/not to use environmentally friendly products should not be made solely based on money and profit.

[el_draco]

[QUOTE=Omaroo;551179]Don't think so Richard. At the moment, CO2 is a trace gas consisting only 0.038% of the current atmosphere - that's 380 parts per million. For CO2 to be toxic we need around 1% (or 10,000 parts per million) for some humans to even start to be drowsy. There needs to be over 7% in the atmosphere by volume for dizzyness to occur - at which point it really is poisonous. That's 70,000 ppm, or 184 times the current levels.

I don't think so - not in ours or our childrens lifetimes. This is not to say that at these levels, the greenhouse effect would likely be greatly exacerbated.
QUOTE]

You might like to read up a bit about the permafrost regions in the northern hemisphere. The number of frozen days per year has plummeted and scientists are now contemplating the realease of enormous volumes of Methane as the region deteriorates.

If Carbon Dioxide is an issue now, it'll fade into insignificance compared to the Methane problem.

Anyhow... I suspect that the biosphere will self correct in the not so distant future. Shut down the mid Atlantic Conveyor and kiss much of the Northern Hemsiphere good night. The planet is warning us... time to stop talking and take notice I suspect.

[Omaroo]

It started out as a thread referring to a quiz. Now it's inevitably turned into a climate debate again, which is against the TOS - for a very good reason.

I'm out - there's no right or wrong answer, whatever your own thoughts are.

[FredSnerd]

Sorry Chris but this post is a very good example of how a little knowledge is dangerous

[Omaroo]

Whatever Claude...you're being fairly presumptuous and sorry, but plainly ditto.

I said I'm out because there's no discussion with you blokes.

Imminent locking I'm sure....

[avandonk]

When you all completely understand partial differential equations and their integrals and not to mention Greens Theorem and further triple integrals and their conversion to double integrals you can then comment on climate models. Let alone decry their validity!


We are dealing with science not politics.

First denier to show me he understands something as simple as triple integrals and their conversion to double integrals gets a prize.

Bert

[Omaroo]

I agree wholeheartedly with you Bert. It's most probably useless discussing any of this because none (let me say "few" - underlined and cross-hatched) of us have a snowflakes chance of finding a source of relevant, untainted information - let alone being able to knowingly analyse or understand it for the purpose of the debate at hand.

I am one of those that can and will admit to not having said assets. Therefore I gracefully bow out and let those who reckon they know all about it carry on.

[FredSnerd]

Exactly!!!! Thats why we rely on the experts and 99.9% of them are saying we have a problem and that humans are causing it. So why people continually insist on quoting their hazily remembered high school science to emphatically assert the opposite is beyond me.

And BTW alot of us believe that this is an important issue. Perhaps the most important we will all face in our lifetime. Why would you want to discourage people from discussing it as long as it takes. I can understand that you may not feel like discussing it anymore. Thats fine. Don't. But remember your always welcome to come back if and when you change your mind. But please, if you're tempted to argue again that the topic is not astronomy related, could you first do a count of the number of threads you have started that are not astronomy related. I think you'll be surprised.

[space oddity]

Although this thread is not astronomy as such, it is good to see a lively debate on this scientific type topic. I would assume that the majority of us astro types are interested in more than one science type field than the average person on the street. I suspect that I am not alone in the IIS community of being a bit of a science buff.

[CometGuy]

OK what are they? :)

[Omaroo]

Groan... this is a ridiculous statement Claude. Golly, do you actually believe this "statistic"? Wow..

[supernova1965]

Let's be friends :D

[avandonk]

A clip under the ears for being a smart*** .

Bert

[bojan]

Kindergarten..:rofl:

[avandonk]

Integrals are of many forms. A simple line integral will give you information about the function of choice.

Surface integrals are a bit more tricky and when the surface is in three dimensions even more so.

This leads to triple integrals where one can play with all of space in three dimensions.

I urge you to look up Maxwells equations for radiation.

Div Grad and Curl are just operators to quantify in three dimensions the values of various derivatives of any complex function.

It gets even trickier when asymtotes are a part of the function.

I have forgotten more than I know now!

Bert

[richardda1st]

I have deleted my self from this post.

[astronut]

Please lock this thread.

[iceman]

We haven't had a climate change thread in a few weeks. I'm so glad we've now got the same people rehashing the same arguments that ultimately turn nasty.



No doubt. But unfortunately threads like this always turn nasty, because of facts, what people believe are facts, politics, beliefs, the weather!

No one person can convince another person to change their thoughts when it comes to this topic. But threads like this have people continuing to try.

And then it gets nasty or personal.

And then it gets locked.