Octopus Overlords

"I don't think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It's convoluted," the former Florida governor said at an event in Bedford, New Hampshire.

"For the people to say the science is decided on this is really arrogant, to be honest with you," he said, according to CNN. "It's this intellectual arrogance that now you can't have a conversation about it, even. The climate is changing. We need to adapt to that reality."

While acknowledging that climate change is happening and must be adapted to does set him apart from some of his Republican colleagues, the science is fairly clear that human activity -- namely, the burning of fossil fuels -- is the leading driver of rising temperatures in the modern era. As NASA explains, scientists are able to observe the increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, and they're able to distinguish current warming trends from historic, natural temperature shifts. Ninety-seven percent of peer-reviewed studies agree with this conclusion that human activity is causing global warming, as do the country's leading scientific bodies -- including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Geophysical Union.

Bush also criticized President Barack Obama's commencement speech to the United States Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, in which the president argued that climate change is a national security threat. Bush said climate is an issue but should not be "the highest priority."

While Bush has been branded a "moderate" by some on climate change, he has previously stated that he's "a skeptic."

Isgrimnur wrote:Jeb Bush: It's 'Intellectual Arrogance' To Agree With Scientists About Humans Driving Climate Change

"I don't think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It's convoluted," the former Florida governor said at an event in Bedford, New Hampshire.

"For the people to say the science is decided on this is really arrogant, to be honest with you," he said, according to CNN. "It's this intellectual arrogance that now you can't have a conversation about it, even. The climate is changing. We need to adapt to that reality."

While acknowledging that climate change is happening and must be adapted to does set him apart from some of his Republican colleagues, the science is fairly clear that human activity -- namely, the burning of fossil fuels -- is the leading driver of rising temperatures in the modern era. As NASA explains, scientists are able to observe the increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, and they're able to distinguish current warming trends from historic, natural temperature shifts. Ninety-seven percent of peer-reviewed studies agree with this conclusion that human activity is causing global warming, as do the country's leading scientific bodies -- including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Geophysical Union.

Bush also criticized President Barack Obama's commencement speech to the United States Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, in which the president argued that climate change is a national security threat. Bush said climate is an issue but should not be "the highest priority."

While Bush has been branded a "moderate" by some on climate change, he has previously stated that he's "a skeptic."

I guess he's just 'asking questions'.

Rip wrote:I will just put this right here.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whit ... hange-june

The Straight Dope wrote:Dear Cecil:

I recently reread Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. In his chapter on ice ages, he says geologists believe the earth has had numerous glaciation events, we're currently in an interglacial period, and we’re likely due for another round of ice. Bryson also writes that global warming could paradoxically accelerate the next glaciation, although no one really knows. I was wondering: what impact would global warming have on an impending ice age?

— Ken Chang, North Kingstown, Rhode Island

Cecil replies:

This one’s easy. As a result of global warming, the next ice age in all likelihood has been postponed until further notice. Bask in that thought for a moment. OK, time’s up. What we may get instead could be worse — not just droughts and hurricanes, but winters from hell.

Max Peck wrote:What effect will global warming have on the next ice age?

CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller says the study looks intriguing, but it has not been peer reviewed, or subjected to the scrutiny of the larger scientific community.

"This isn't published research yet," he said. "Our ability to forecast the specifics of a solar cycle is incredibly poor. It's worse than forecasting in a hurricane season."

RunningMn9 wrote:Bad Astronomy has an article explaining why this is nonsense.

This new claim comes from a presentation at conference by Valentina Zharkova, a mathematician and scientist at Northumbria University. To be clear, she’s not predicting a 60 percent drop in the light and heat emitted by the Sun, but a drop in magnetic activity in the Sun. This has only a marginal effect on the Sun’s light/heat output. Also, if you listen to an interview with her on Radio New Zealand, you’ll hear some unusual claims, like the climates on other planets are changing due to the Sun—a red herring when it comes to climate change on Earth. She also admits at the end she doesn’t do atmospheric research, so the claim that lowered magnetic activity of the Sun can cause an ice age here on Earth is in my opinion shaky at best.

A new mod­el of so­lar ac­ti­vity cy­cles pre­dicts that the Sun’s sur­face will be un­usu­ally calm in the 2030s—con­di­tions that last oc­curred four cen­turies ago and co­in­cid­ed with a “mini ice age.”

The sci­en­tists be­hind the mod­el in­deed pre­dict a si­m­i­lar cold spell, but only if they’re right about some­thing else too: that so­lar, and not hu­man, ac­ti­vity is caus­ing glob­al warm­ing to­day. Most cli­ma­tol­o­gists be­lieve the op­po­site.

The reduced so­lar ac­ti­vity would oc­cur ei­ther way, but it would­n’t out­weigh the ef­fects of a strictly hu­man-caused glob­al warm­ing, re­search­er Val­en­ti­na Zhar­ko­va of North­um­bria Uni­vers­ity in the U.K. wrote in an e­mail. In that case a mini ice age would­n’t oc­cur.

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

Kraken wrote:

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

Optimistically, the solar cycle might shave a few tenths of a degree off the expected warming over that timespan. Pessimistically, it might prolong denial for a few more years. But sure, go nuts if we see a major cooling trend. I'm always willing to change my preconceptions when new data come in.

How about you? 2015 is shaping up as the hottest year on record.

Rip wrote:Yea, if 2030 is hotter than crap I may have to abandon my position and move back north.

Isgrimnur wrote:The multinationals are waiting for the sanctions to drop so they can go run the Iranian industry more effectively.

But the real prize for European companies is of course Iran’s oil sector. Years of mismanagement and sanctions have wreaked havoc on the country’s once-robust energy complex. Iran possesses 10% of the world’s old supply yet it only pumps a measly 2.8 million barrels a day, which is around 3% of global oil demand. After the sanctions are lifted, Iran hopes to boost production by at least 1 million barrels a day to between 3.6 to 4.0 million daily. If it had European help, Iran could boost production even higher.
...
But when Western companies were last allowed in Iran, the government insisted on working with so-called buy-back contracts, where oil companies weren’t allowed to have an ownership stake. This wasn’t an attractive structure, so many oil firms chose not to work with Iran.

Things may be different now. Given how low oil prices are at the moment, Iran can’t dictate such harsh terms. It needs to relinquish ownership to entice Big Oil to Iran. U.S. oil companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips are unlikely to be allowed to participate given the secondary sanctions that won’t be going away anytime soon.

Iran is said to have held meeting with European energy firms, including BP, Shell, Total, Eni, and Statoil. Each of these large oil companies bring with them a particular expertise in the oil patch, which could help turn Iran’s broken oil industry around.

Smoove_B wrote:

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

No because God might been punishing us for allowing homosexuals to marry one another.

em2nought wrote:

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

No, but we should throw out the idea that humans can do something about it in a fiscally responsible manner. Unless they plan to go Johnny Appleseed, then I'm all for it. I like trees, just not million dollar trees.

geezer wrote:

em2nought wrote:

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

No, but we should throw out the idea that humans can do something about it in a fiscally responsible manner. Unless they plan to go Johnny Appleseed, then I'm all for it. I like trees, just not million dollar trees.

It would be too expensive to save the planet from environmental cataclysm, so eh.. screw it. Is that your contention? Really?

em2nought wrote:

geezer wrote:

em2nought wrote:

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

No, but we should throw out the idea that humans can do something about it in a fiscally responsible manner. Unless they plan to go Johnny Appleseed, then I'm all for it. I like trees, just not million dollar trees.

It would be too expensive to save the planet from environmental cataclysm, so eh.. screw it. Is that your contention? Really?

No my contention is that the vast sums of money thrown at it would magically disappear never to be seen again, Like aid to Haiti or Defense contractor budgets. So we would spend all that money and the planet would still be doomed. If we're serious, the best thing we could do would be to vaporize half the world's population. Who's gonna do that?

Enough wrote:Ars visits a climate skeptics’ conference, see what your Heartland Institute dollars are going for here.

em2nought wrote:

geezer wrote:

em2nought wrote:

Rip wrote:Well in 15 years we will know. If we have a historic cold spell then can we throw out the hu­man-caused global warming theories?

No, but we should throw out the idea that humans can do something about it in a fiscally responsible manner. Unless they plan to go Johnny Appleseed, then I'm all for it. I like trees, just not million dollar trees.

It would be too expensive to save the planet from environmental cataclysm, so eh.. screw it. Is that your contention? Really?

No my contention is that the vast sums of money thrown at it would magically disappear never to be seen again, Like aid to Haiti or Defense contractor budgets. So we would spend all that money and the planet would still be doomed. If we're serious, the best thing we could do would be to vaporize half the world's population. Who's gonna do that?

Isgrimnur wrote:We don't know that chemo will definitely cure your cancer, and since your hair is going to fall out, we're not going to try.

RunningMn9 wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:We don't know that chemo will definitely cure your cancer, and since your hair is going to fall out, we're not going to try.

To play Devil's Advocate, would the math change if you weren't sure whether the chemo would accelerate the cancer?

Enough wrote:Ars visits a climate skeptics’ conference, see what your Heartland Institute dollars are going for here.

The conference speakers did refer to science in passing—usually through sardonic quips about “alarmist” or "falsified" science—but their references gave me the feeling of being stuck in a time warp. There was an obsession with Al Gore and his 2007 film, An Inconvenient Truth, particularly the imagery of desperate polar bears. (“There is a problem with polar bears right now,” said Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe while receiving an award for political leadership. “It’s overpopulation.”)

Polar bears are unable to adapt their behaviour to cope with the food losses associated with warmer summers in the Arctic. Scientists had believed that the animals would enter a type of 'walking hibernation' when deprived of prey. But new research says that that bears simply starve in hotter conditions when food is scarce. The authors say that the implications for the survival of the species in a warmer world are grim.

In the NOAA climate report published this week, scientists say the June 2015’s average temperature across Earth’s land and ocean surfaces was 1.58°F or 0.88°C — and it was the highest for the June month in the 1880 to 2015 record. Not surprisingly, the June temperature has surpassed the previous record holder, 2014, by 0.22°F or 0.12°C.

In addition, the first two quarters of 2015 (January to March & April to June) were the also the globe’s hottest quarters ever, according to NOAA. The planet’s average temperate from January to June was 1.53°F or 0.85°C above the 20th century average.

Meanwhile in the NASA report for the June temperature, the June month of 2015 is tied with the year 1998 in having the warmest sixth month of the year temperature “ever recorded.”

A separate report from the Japan Meteorological Agency has also confirmed that “for the world as a whole, the month of June this year was the hottest since record keeping began in 1891.”

There is a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, and around an 80% chance it will last into early spring 2016.
...
Across the contiguous United States, temperature and precipitation impacts associated with El Niño are expected to remain minimal during the Northern Hemisphere summer and increase into the late fall and winter. El Niño will likely contribute to a below normal Atlantic hurricane season, and to above-normal hurricane seasons in both the central and eastern Pacific hurricane basins.