Cowed

I have read about this before and in some detail. Methane is a much more serious greenhouse gas than CO2 and reducing methane production would have a much larger effect on atmospheric warming. It’s no surprise that the Japanese would figure out how, they have the best beef in the world and are not about to switch to chicken. :}

Wow how we have steeped so low to outright blame farmers cow’s for a large portion of “global warming” (20 years ago it was “global cooling”) now they want farmers to pay extra to fight “global warming”. its like saying people without hair are a disgrace to society and they should pay for spray on hair to fix it. want to help the environment, lets ban smoking, which has a much more harmful affect what co2 or methane has produced.

this is awesome but it sure costs a lot of money. How long are they going to keep this? Oh buy the way go japan

Adam: It’s just simple biology. Cows and pigs produce methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas. It’s not the farmers’ fault that people like beef and pork – they’re just raising the critters. And I seriously doubt that the farmers would bear the costs. It would be the meat-eating public that would have to pony up the extra cash.

cturple
Have you ever checked the price of Kobi beef?

Yeah I ask my brother what are you going to do with that Hummer sell it keep or let it set or trade it? As Americans wouldn’t be wise to all drive Hybirds and stop emmision now what are we waiting for another Katrina and dome day and see if FEMA will put us up in a tent on day or a football stadium where is the leadership here??

Great on Japan

I just check out the EPA site again it’s been 5 years since I last checked out that site. Now I know why I was so sick living near a landfill and factory and behind a wetland area, after I moved three months later I thought I was going to die if I didn’t move from that area. Methane is toxic and silent killer

Ed: I know Kobi beef costs more than I would pay for a car. ;-)

How did the Methane get beneath the water did someone dump it there?

Have there been any actual studies confirming that cows and other livestock really produce more, um, “emissions” that cause pollution, or is this anecdotal based on common wisdom? It would seem to me that we’d be in a better position to know how serious this problem really is if we had some data on which to rely before we propose solutions which could be costly, or worse yet, ineffectual.

Gloria; Science and history may have been your favorite subjects, but did you ever give any thought to learning how to spell and use punctuation?
Reducing the methane emmissions from cows sounds like a good idea, but have they studied what effect these additives will have on the cows over the long term?

There’s also the issue of all the methane trapped on the ocean floor in certain places, and that trapped in permafrost. Global warming will then turn into a runaway as all that methane is released into the atmosphere. I would expect (tongue inserted firmly in cheek) that someone will have to put up a big sign that prohibits smoking in these areas.

Lawrence – Yes, water vapor is always in the atmosphere, and my point was that the level stays about the same because of the water cycle – any excess rains out within weeks. CO2 doesn’t “rain out” so it stays up there for centuries. It is a good point that the natural greenhouse effect is about 33 degrees C, at least two-thirds of which is from water vapor. The concern is with the INCREASE in the greenhouse effect from industrial CO2 and methane emissions. And the scientific evidence is that the current increase is due mostly to human activities. (Yes, there are natural cycles, but this ain’t one of them.)

jock59801
Water vapor is a variable, not a constant. Methane is also a variable. CO2 is a smaller variable than either one but played up by a “consensus of OPINION”, the reason that many climate scientists are skeptical about “global warming” is because not all the data has been included in climate models so the models can not be trusted. Science is not about consensus, it is about facts and these are still lacking. That is why it is called “climate change” in the reports and NOT “global warming”.

Studies conducted at the research station “Vostok” revealed that for the last 100 thousand years an increase in temperature always preceded the growth of greenhouse gases concentration, but not inversely. When temperature began to decrease, the concentration of gases continued to grow for a period of 2-3 thousand years.-ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2004) AND THEN IT GETS COLD AGAIN – in the 70s they were predicting another ice age based upon climate cycles. They may still be correct in this assumption.

Ed, I think they both scare them. What would really be funny is if the planet is found to just stay as it is for the next 100,000 years. Then they’d be out of a job. That would be funny.

That is neat. I’ll have to go check that out, I usually visit Livescience.com. You know another factor that I’ve actually never seen taken into account for the climate is Solar Output. If anyone remembers from history and science, between 1600 and 1700(dates are not 100% accurate), the climate was much colder. Snows in July in some places. This was due to what is now known; science class memory willing, as the Maunder Minimum, or Little Ice Age. Energy striking Earth from Sol, was low, low enough to cause many problems, and subsequent cooling of the planet. This also corisponds to a dip in sunspot count during the peak of the sunspot cycle, which is around 11 years. I wonder if this is taken into consideration as well as the points considered earlier.

Well Jock, we all know the same thing is happening, much media hype. I have never said that the global mean temperature hasn’t risen. I am stating that the research I’ve done, doesn’t support the consensus that humans are only to blame. I think it is more a natural occurance than man-made. And as I’ve said, we still need to lessen our imprint on the planet.

Well if I find it than I’ll direct it. I haven’t found any yet, it is just my thinking, and my analysis of the evidence I’ve seen. I’m starting to think the two of us aren’t going to agree that global warming is man-made. So how about a truce, we agree to disagree?

Cturple, I’m not ignoring, just basing my opinion on the data I’ve come across. And yes, I agree, my research is as good as T.C.’s research on Brain surgury. I’d fear that more than global warming.

jock59801 & cturple
maybe you didn’t see the last sentence:
{says Petsch.} “Climate scientists haven’t focused on the role that geologic sources of methane play in global warming.”
Lawrence:
check out
“Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate” – Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue 50, 2007
or the short version: “Climate change by Jupiter” Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post (National Post 2007) Saturday, November 10, 2007
(The late Rhodes Fairbridge specialized in climate cycles.)

cturple
Science is about facts, not consensus. You know better than to make an algore statement like that. :}

cturple
Well the problem I have is with the IPCC and algore. I have read the latest report and it does not jive completely with their summary. The trouble is they are relying on a computer model with the data they think is pertinant but leave out data they “think” is of no consequence. The list of scientists that are in protest to the IPCC results is quite large and growing as more data is becoming available. Have you read any of the papers that have been done by “skeptics”?

“While the world’s climate is on a warming trend, there is zero evidence that the rise in CO2 levels has anthropogenic origins. For daring to say this I have been treated as if I have committed intellectual blasphemy.” – Alexander Cockburn

Ed, I never would have taken you for someone that would be taken by the denial machine. The “400 scientists” on Inhofe’s report are tv weathermen, economists, agriculturists, and proof-readers.
“Global warming is happening now, bringing changes to our climate and our world. Yet the climate is changing at an accelerated pace in the Arctic region. In the past few decades, temperatures in the Arctic have risen at nearly twice the rate as in the rest of the world, disrupting the region and its people in many ways. A new overview report of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Impacts of a Warming Arctic, explores these impacts in depth.”
“Over the last two decades the climate dynamics community has come to realize that climate change is often abrupt relative to climate forcing. A recently completed National Academy of Sciences study (Jonathan Overpeck was a participant/co-author) makes the case that abrupt climate change also poses a serious future threat to society, both in developed and developing countries.”

Alexander Cockburn is a journalist, not a scientist. What he says is irrelevant.

cturple
Re: “Alexander Cockburn is a journalist, not a scientist. What he says is irrelevant.” The relevance is not in what he said but in the way he was treated for saying it. That is denial, plain and simple. Skepticism is good for science, no progress could ever be made if we accepted a consensus of opinion as facts and closed our minds to those who question our “wisdom”.
The late Rhodes Fairbridge was a climatologist and one of the best. His hypothesis was and is ignored even though Mars and Jupiter’s warming indicates that he was correct. These are not coincidental any more than 2+2=3.
The point is simply that although warming is happening, our contribution is not as significant as the IPCC claims. And the IPCC reports are written AFTER the summary (what does that tell you?).
As I had mentioned in the other threads, major extinction cycles are roughly 62 million years, the last one we named was the KT event, roughly 65 million years ago and that puts us right at a natural extinction event right now. No one knows what actually causes these extinctions but most believe that it is climate change. Whether we are aiding it or fighting it is an unknown. Dr. Fairbridge said we could expect the next cooling cycle to begin around 2012. If he is correct we could be doing the wrong thing by attempting anything drastic.
And as far as your statement that the skeptics are not climatologists, they say the exact same thing about the IPCC. The boats not in yet, it needs much more study.

Ed: If Cockburn can’t take criticism for his comments, perhaps he should consider writing about an issue he knows something about.
I attended a lecture Sunday given by the program director of the National Science Foundation’s Anarctic Polar Program. He is a volcanologist. I’ll take his word over that of a journalist and a biochemist any day.
I suspect you look for data to support your position on this issue, rather than basing your opinion on the data you find. Many people do. that’s why some believe that the bible is talking about dinosaurs. They want it to.
I think it’s ridiculous for non-professionals to be “debating” the cause of global warming. to presume that someone can understand the most complicated scientific issue in history by reading a few articles on the internet is a joke. sorry, but I disagree with you in the strongest possible way. The experts know what they’re doing and I will rely on their expert opinions.

Mars Warming Due to Dust Storms, Study Finds
Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News
April 4, 2007
Temperatures on Mars have increased slightly over a 20-year period due to the action of Martian winds, scientists have found

cturple
By “Need for further study” – I am in 100% agreement. It’s the IPCC who is saying “mission accoplished”.
I am NOT a global warming denier, but I like to read both sides of every issue.
As you know already, my full-time hobby is Paleontology. Into this subject enters quite a few hypothesis and more than one deal with climate change so I read everything I can find on the subject. No, I don’t need to do a search to fins papers, abstracts and articles on anything paleontological or climate change as I have them stored on my hard drive and databased for easy access. And you may also remember that I worked as an Emission Controls Engineer before I retired so I have a decent understanding of atmospheric components. I simply disagree with the use of models in this circumstance because there are too many unknowns and misconceptions – It DOES indeed need further study.

PS Re: Marcus – excellent article, thanks. :)

Ed: I’ve also read both sides of the issue. One argument against anthropogenic warming goes like this: “Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed.”
This site is supposedly organized by scientists. None of whom appear to have the faintest idea what climate change actually entails.

“updated 1:30 p.m. ET, Wed., Jan. 30, 2008
Ice fields on an Arctic island have shrunk 50 percent in the past 50 years and will be gone in 50 more, scientists said this week.
Located just west of Greenland, Baffin Island is the fifth largest island in the world, with an area of 196,000 square miles. That’s larger than California.”
We discussed this island in my North American Archaeology class yesterday. It was where the Norse stopped when they were looking for new regions in North America to colonize. It was too cold then, so they moved on. If it had been as warm then as it is now, we would probably be celebrating Erik the Red Day instead of Columbus Day.

cturple
Re: “This site is supposedly organized by scientists. None of whom appear to have the faintest idea what climate change actually entails.”
Not totally accurate. They are quoting Adler, the author of “The Double Helix” that I read in high school and it was accepted as gospel at the time.
Speaking in general, most of Adler’s ideas have proven correct. The current issue is simply whether the mechanisms that he explained are being overwhelmed or if there are additional factors involved that we are not looking at.
This is where the controversy comes in, different studies have yeilded conflicting results.
If you read the IPCC reports going back a few years and compare the reports to the IPCC summary statements you will see the discrepancies. The reports are penned by scientists, the summaries by IPCC clerical staff under political supervision. It is politically correct to accept human induced warming at the worst possible projection and anyone that disagrees is shouted down.

Lawrence & cturple
The articles I have listed below are neutral (purely scientific) articles that are pertinant to this issue:
“American Geophysical Union Revises Position On Climate Change” ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2008)
“Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities.”
“A sustained research effort, involving many AGU members and summarized in the 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to improve our scientific understanding of the climate.”
“Natural Gas Formation By Bacteria Linked To Climate Change And Renewable Energy” ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2008)
“Microbes As Climate Engineers” ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2008)
“Arrogant organisms that we are, it is easy to view this as something entirely novel in Earth’s history,” says Dr Dave Reay from the University of Edinburgh. “In truth of course, micro-organisms have been at it for billions of years.”
“Microbial Activity Key Component Of Global Environmental Change” ScienceDaily (Feb. 14, 2001)
“The report, “Global Environmental Change: Microbial Contributions, Microbial Solutions,” points out that the basic chemistry of Earth’s surface is determined by biological activity, especially that of the many trillions of microbes in soil and water. Microbes make up the majority of the living biomass on Earth and, as such, have major roles in the recycling of elements vital to life. “

cturple
They do, in fact, support my position. Read carefully. I think that you misunderstand both my position and the authors of those articles.
My objections to the IPCC and algore is their fearmongering tactics* and untold facts.
My position is simple.
Yes it is warming.
No it is not global.
Yes it can be bad.
No it’s not the only possible future.
Yes it needs much more study before any decision can be made.
No action shoud be taken based on a rash decision.
*they pick out the worst possible scenarios regardless of the fact that the odds are against those senarios.

P.S. I am not saying that I am being shouted down. I am pointing out that the scientists that disagree with the IPCC are being shouted down.

cturple
The book was a popular paperback, a laymans explanation of the double helix and it’s implications which included an introductory chapter on the carbon cycle. This subject was not taught when I was in high school, being a new discovery at the time.

Also – we need to come to an agreement on the term global. In my use of the word it means uniform (again this is old terminology but still viable in all engineering fields). So my position could be restated as we do not have uniform warming, but many instances of local warming which raises the mean.

Re: “topic extraneous to climate change.” – They are in the climate section for good reason. The support of anthropogenic warming is not really there even though the author may attribute it to anthropogenic. These authors are careful about their wording to avoid being labelled as deniers, they are all neutral politically.

Re: engineer:
Actually an Automotive Emission Control Engineer. As such I also wrote software and understand modeling. I wrote the manual calculations that were used by the MFG that I worked for.
In modeling ALL factors, regardless of how small, MUST be included in order to get accurate results. The climate model I could not possibly write because I am not in that field but judging on the large variation in the results when compared to reality, I can tell you, without a doubt, that something has been left out (possibly overlooked, probably underestimated). That is why I pointed out those recent articles.

Planetary warming I can agree to. Partial anthropogenic warming I can also agree to and I will explain why.
Now if we add in the Fairbridge cycle, increased vulcanism (which was dismissed by the IPCC before they knew about under-ice activity) and microbial action, to anthropogenic warming we begin to see a clearer picture.
Please keep in mind that anthropogenic includes most importantly, increases in methane production (increased populations of humans and their domesticated animals, sewage plants, etc.).
Then their is also a factor that is NEVER mentioned – actual heat production from overpopulation of endotherms (we all give off heat) and our heat producing transportation, industry and living quarters. It is a well known fact that cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside but it is not just solar reflectivity, they artifically produce the heat. But just because rural areas are cooler, does not mean that they do not produce heat as well. A lay field produces methane, NOx, CO and CO2 but is required to keep the soil rich.
My suggestion is to intensify the study but not take drastic action for at least another 5 years. For now, concentrate on common sense options like recycling and more efficiency, alternative fuels, better insulation, etc. This Japanese idea is excellent and I applaud them for their work. :)

cturple
Yes I agree that due to the complexity that not every possible factor can be included. But I know that you understand the scientific method so you must realize as well as I that if the result from the model does not match the actual measurements that the model is flawed. In the case for CO2 it is off by 50% so there is a problem. Add in all KNOWN factors, regardless of how insignificant we THINK they might be and run it again to see if it is closer to reality. When it tests out with at least 10% accuracy then it can be used for prediction but not before.
In my field we worked to +/- 2% of scale so I tend to be somewhat critical about accuracy. Unfortunately, we did not take any measurements of CO2 from automobiles so I have no idea of their contribution. We worked to EPA specs and measured CO, NOx and HC in ppm in the standard LA4 and 75EPA dyno tests and measured O2, CO and HC is static tests. We used models to determine what caused failures and to improve efficiency.
Why did you ask me if it was automobiles?

Ed: because if it hadn’t been automobiles, you would have told me immediately so as to eliminate any thought of fossil-fuel bias.

But you already knew that from the Darwin vs all threads last week!

cturple
Yeah, I have a lot of those, more if my sugar is too high.

Ed: Why are you assuming that these climate professionals don’t know how to do their job properly?

cturple
A little history of the media coverage and reports going back to 1991 may better explain my skepticism about the IPCC reports and algore’s movie:
“Ancient clues to ocean currents”
By Jonathan Amos BBC News science reporter, San Francisco
“Andreas Schmittner, of Oregon State University, came to the AGU to present the results of the very latest work in this field – a broad analysis that combined nine different computer models of future climate change. These suggested there would not be a shutdown in the next 100 years, but rather a slowdown of about 25%. This produced a fair amount of muttering among journalists in the hall who just this past fortnight had reported on actual measurements collected in the North Atlantic which showed there had already been a 30% weakening in strength in the past 50 years. “This is an apparent contradiction between the models and the observations,” conceded Dr Schmittner. “We have to reconcile these differences, obviously. We have to get more observational data and improve our models.”
“Climate Alarmists Lose Another Piece of Evidence” By Guest Dennis Avery (06/08/07) – /article/19142 Copyright © 2007 AmericanDaily
“Magma may be melting Greenland ice” By Andrea Thompson , LiveScience Staff Writer, Thurs., Dec. 13, 2007
“Extra Sunshine Blamed for Part of Arctic Meltdown” By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer, 12 December 2007
“Climate change by Jupiter” Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post – Saturday, November 10, 2007 – “The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth.”
“Global Warming or Just Hot Air? A Dozen Different Views”
By Sara Goudarzi – LiveScience Staff Writer, 13 July 2006
“Conflicting Claims on Global Warming and Why It’s All Moot” By Robert Roy Britt – LiveScience Managing Editor, 01 February 2006
“Sun’s Changes to Blame for Part of Global Warming” By Robert Roy Britt – LiveScience Managing Editor, 30 September 2005
“Dangerously Dry Conditions in Southwest May Be the Norm”
Oct. 20, 2004 —ABC News
“Abrupt Climate Changes Revisited: How Serious and How Likely?” USGCRP Seminar, 23 February 1998
“Statement on Global Change” (Presented to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology) Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 8, 1991
There are many more in my database but I think that these may be the best representitives of uncertainty amongst the scientists themselves. The scientists and engineers involved in these studies freely admit if and when they have errors. The IPCC just fails to mention them because of their political mindset.

Ed: There are different degrees of professionalism. There are professional burger flippers at McDonald’s, and there are professional, PhD-holding climate scientists working on this issue. I don’t know of any legitimate scientific organization that would farm out climatology research to burger flippers.
And the Baffin Island Article is the same thing I posted a day or two ago. both came from the university of colorado. “It clearly says we’re now warmer than we were in Medieval times.”
I’m sorry, I don’t have time to review all the articles you posted. I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Ed: my reference to burger flippers also referred to attitudes and actions. I think we’re in the same chapter, if not on the same page.
;-)