Comments 1 to 6:

1. nigelj at 06:26 AM on 22 July, 2018

   Something else thats totally depressing yet not surprising. How the Trump administration wants to limit the Endangered Species Act

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2. dinahlynns at 11:29 AM on 22 July, 2018

   I’m a.m. new to this site and new to the age of global warming. I have read many many comments and I have done much research on my own. I am not a scientis, yet.  As a matter of fact my education is in criminal justice and accounting. Why am I looking for a switch?  For the very reason this site exist. There are many unanswered questions.  Now please forgive my lack of scientific numbers, charts and graphs. But let me explain it in layman terms, or at least try. From the very second earth was created climate change began. But not until the 1700’s has humans became a variant. Again this is from the point of view of someone who wants to become a volcanologis/climatologist. We need to understand as much about what affects the earth in hopes to replicate it on, let’s say Mars.  Between the degree earth is tilted on its axis, volcanic activity and external forces our climate has warmed and cooled. We can hopefully all agree on this. And creatures of all sorts, to include plants, has survived it. CO2 is needed to grow plants. Yes 7th grade earth science stuff. And if my reasearch is accurate please tell me when I’m off and direct me to a more accurate site, the earth’s tilt goes in cycles about roughly every 40,000 years. Right now we are at a 23.5 degree tilt going to a 24.5 degree tilt in about 10,000 years. Again HS science stuff. And the other major factor is volcanIc activity. Then comes into play are ocean currents, jet stream, solar output, external forces such as comets. So right now we are in a warming trend naturally.  Ok now we factor in humans and the industrial revolution. now our wonderful planet has survived despite everything that’s been thrown it’s way. So wouldn’t a more accurate assessment be that humans are destroying the environment and not so much climate change?  The climate is always changing and the environment has always found a way to thrive. With that in mind, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say what humans are doing in fact is destroying the very thing we need to survive?  Climate will change whether or not humans survive. World population is set to double in the next 20 years. We are fighting to protect the environment now. What will doubling the world population do to our now taxed environment.  The earth will continue long after humans. And the environment will always survive climate change. Question is what do we do to ensure there’s a viable environment for years to come?  I am sorry I am not up to all of the scientific verbiage. I hope to one day be well versed. And yes I have actually done years worth of researching. It’s kind of like performing an audit, except instead of numbers I’m auditing the earth. 

   Now with that said, the reason I want to be hopefully a volcan climatologist.  If we do not properly understand earth, we can not carry it forward as we explore the habitation on another planet. I can give many scenarios how volcanoes have shaped the earth. How the sun has shaped the earth. But I want to learn more. And that is my objective here today. 

   I was stationed at Andersen AFB, Guam when Mt Pinatubo erupted. So I can and do have appreciation the power of our earth. 

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   Moderator Response:

   [PS] This comment posits a number of myths covered by the arguments page. Please use the search function (top left) or the "arguments" on menu bar. (By taxomony is good)Read the articles and if you have further comment, make that in the appropriate thread please.

   In particular, you might like to look at "Climate has changed before", "its a natural cycle", "its volcanoes", and "humans survived past climate change". It might help if your "research" included a read of the at the SPM of the IPPC to get a summary of the published science.

3. Philippe Chantreau at 14:11 PM on 22 July, 2018

   Dinahlynns, your post amounts to little more than a Gish gallop and includes some erroneous information. We are "naturally" in a cooling period, but that has been cancelled by human activity. Since you claim a focus on volcanoes, you should be aware of the fact that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are about 100 times that coming of volcanoes; that alone makes our activity a truly geological event. It seems you have a lot more to research and learn before you can form an imformed opinion. There is plenty of references available on the relevant threads on this site and others.

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4. nigelj at 15:58 PM on 22 July, 2018

   dinahlynns imaginative rhetoric and gish gallop of fallacies merits further examination. She states how she doesn't have any scientific numbers, then qotes numerous so called numbers, thus creating a superficial impression of brilliance. Thoughtful people will not be fooled by this.

   Then we have the list of factors related to past climate change and the bold and incorrect assertion that "right now we are in a warming trend naturally". This is an association of sciency stuff to make the conclusion look like it has validity, when in doesn't. This is the  "fool them with technical babble" fallacy (John Cook, you need to add this to your list).

   Then we have the classic bait and switch / red herring with discussion about "population". And a bold and incorrect, wildly wrong statement that population will double in 20 years, said with no shame by someone who claims to have "researched many things" . Ha ha ha ha ha (takes deep breath) ha ha ha ha ha.

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5. nigelj at 16:19 PM on 22 July, 2018

   Projections of population growth on wikipedia reviews the issue and the consensus of expert research is population will increase from 7 billion currently to 11 billion by 2100, then fall. However more encouragement of slower growth could lead to better outcomes,  but none will be a solution for climate change.

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6. MA Rodger at 20:18 PM on 22 July, 2018

   dianahlynns @2,

   Do you have a reason for stating "So right now we are in a warming trend naturally."? As pointed out by Philippe Chantreau @3, the conventional wisdom is that globally there has been a cooling trend since the Holocene Climatic Optimum some millenia ago.

   As a point of correction, the tilt of the Earth's axis is in a decreasing part of the cycle, not an increasing one but note that this wobble in Earth's tilt does not trigger the ice age cycle. Over the period 2.6My bp & 1.0My bp, ice ages were occurring in 40,000 year 'cycles' but since that time the 'cycle' lasts 100,000 years, coincidental to the eccentricity wobble in the Earth's orbit.

   The idea that "creatures of all sorts, to include plants, has survived it," with "it" meaning "our climate has warmed and cooled" - this is surely not correct. What is correct is that, while climate change will have been lethal for many individual creatures and driven some species to extinction, the remaining species adapt to climate change and thus life goes on. And while it would take a great deal of climate change to make mankind extinct, the adaptation required of mankind to cope with unmitigated climate change (which is of our own making) will be very difficult and also lethal for many individual humans. Then, perhaps that would make us the lucky ones. Other species who are already suffering the impact of a burgeoning humanity are already going extinct and man-made climate change will add greatly to that suffering.

   You do ask what would be required to ensure "a viable environment for years to come". One route would be for AGW to collapse human civilisation and bring about a dramatic shrinkage of human populations. That is entirely possible if we do not strongly mitigate AGW. If we do restrict the impact of AGW, it becomes a more mundane matter of nature conservation measures.

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