# How rising sea levels could affect Seattle-area rails



## CHamilton (Apr 19, 2014)

Link and the Rising Seas



> Plausible sea level predictions do have implications for Sound Transit’s long range plan.
> 
> Sound Transit 1 and 2 rail lines will suffer little in the next hundred years or so, although the elevated Boeing Access Road section may become a causeway over water. Although Seattle is fortunate to find most of itself at elevation, Sound Transit 3 and beyond face serious constraints. Hopefully, Seattle will allow thriving, dense neighborhoods to grow around those stations; if those station areas are under immediate threat, the value of the entire alignment is doubtful....
> 
> South Sounder [and Amtrak Cascades between Seattle and Tacoma] looks to be in pretty good shape; coastal North Sounder [Cascades and Empire Builder between Seattle and Everett], not so much.


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## rickycourtney (Apr 19, 2014)

It's an interesting exercise to look at rising sea levels... but I like to think that we as a nation and world wouldn't let it get that bad.

I think the most interesting part of this study is that it shows the Port of Tacoma almost entirely under water.


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## brentrain17 (Apr 19, 2014)

I think the rails are safe for now from "raising sea levels" on the Puget Sound.


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## TinCan782 (Apr 19, 2014)

North of Seattle, falling hillsides are more of a problem now than rising sea levels in the future!


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## sechs (Apr 20, 2014)

rickycourtney said:


> It's an interesting exercise to look at rising sea levels... but I like to think that we as a nation and world wouldn't let it get that bad.


You're late to the party. An amazing chunk of sea level rise is already locked-in; we can only keep it from getting worse.

More importantly, now is the time to plan for the inevitable. It'll be far more expensive to fix this later.


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## George Harris (Apr 20, 2014)

Sorry if I am unimpressed. I have been around long enough to remember the global cooling / impending ice age panic of the 1970's. I am even less convinced that there is anything worth doing that can be done by regulation or "lifestyle" changes. One of the best cures for belief in certainties of the nature of such "scientific" fads and panics is to read those of years past, preferably going well into the past. Wait another decade or so we may be looking at panic over falling sea levels, declining average temperatures, increased rainfalls in deserts destroying their ecology, or something or other form of "the sky is falling"


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## sechs (Apr 21, 2014)

Rather than be smug in your ignorance, educate yourself.

We are overdue for an ice age, but, for some reason, it isn't happening. That should give you pause.

If you had looked at the past, you'd see that temperatures *are* rising, as are sea levels. Glaciers and polar ice *are* melting. You'd have to be blind to miss it, because it's actually happening on a human time scale.

This "fad" has been with us for over thirty years. Every decade the predicions get worse. Every year the reality is worse than predicted.

Of course there's a possibility that scientists are completely wrong about global climate change. There's also a chance that unicorns exist. I'd put my money on unicorns -- but that's just me.

However, on the reasonable chance that they are right, people should act now. If we sit back and wait to find out, it may be too late.


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## Guest (Apr 21, 2014)

George Harris said:


> Sorry if I am unimpressed. I have been around long enough to remember the global cooling / impending ice age panic of the 1970's. I am even less convinced that there is anything worth doing that can be done by regulation or "lifestyle" changes. One of the best cures for belief in certainties of the nature of such "scientific" fads and panics is to read those of years past, preferably going well into the past. Wait another decade or so we may be looking at panic over falling sea levels, declining average temperatures, increased rainfalls in deserts destroying their ecology, or something or other form of "the sky is falling"


Yep, history is full of examples:

1902 - LA Times > Glaciers are undergoing _'their final anniliation' _due warming.

1923 - ChicagoTribune front page> "_Scientist say Artic ice will wipe out Canada"_

1932 - New York Times > (May special supplement):

 Continuing end of the last ice age, not human activity cause of warming trend.

1970's - _Science_, _Science Digest_, _Newsweek_, _Time_, etc.: Global cooling - ice age.

Present - Global warming.

Journalist - magazine editor H.L. Mencken (1860-1956) may have been on to something long ago:

"_The_ [news media] _is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier_."

"_The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary._"


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## MattW (Apr 21, 2014)

sechs said:


> Rather than be smug in your ignorance, educate yourself.
> 
> We are overdue for an ice age, but, for some reason, it isn't happening. That should give you pause.
> 
> ...


At risk of taking this topic further off topic. If you read the data and read it back for millions or billions of years, you'll see that the temps are cyclical. Sure, if you look at the very short-term you'll see a rise, just as if you look at another short period, you'll see a decline. The same data that these scientists point at and say "we're warming!" also says we're just at the peak of a cycle. We've only had accurate global temperature measurements for about 150 years, and really only for the past 50 or so. You can no more draw the conclusion that the globe is warming from this data, than you can say it's cooling by watching the temp go from 80 at noon to 60 at night.


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## NW cannonball (Apr 21, 2014)

Getting back on topic more or less.

The rising sea level over the last few decades is a fact. Whether that continues - I expect it will continue - .

The Pacific Northwest, and Seattle in particular, have lots more to worry about than sea-level rise.

Like tectonic plate-colliding earthquake and such.

There's some pretty good evidence that the land-level (independent of sea-level) has lurched a hundred meters or so within the last 10,000 years.

Like - Google it - upland forest now under water -- how old? A few thousand years more or less.

See the museum at Neah Bay.

The tectonic upthrust is a ratcheting thing. When the rocks can't hold the force any more - big click up or down.

Love Seattle - when the next tectonic click happens -- who knows?


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## J (Apr 21, 2014)

RickC



> I think the most interesting part of this study is that it shows the Port of Tacoma almost entirely under water.


It was underwater at one time. I read years ago and as the map link shows, the valley where Puyallup, Auburn, Kent are and on to Seattle were a part of Puget Sound. The land running from Seattle to Tacoma where SeaTac airport is located was an island at one time. 

http://goo.gl/maps/7MX71


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## Green Maned Lion (Apr 21, 2014)

Let's call it rapid climate change, which is what it is. Whether has gotten more turbulent and extreme in both directions, and let's leave it at that.


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## neroden (Apr 22, 2014)

George Harris said:


> Sorry if I am unimpressed.


Please get a clue. I actually follow the scientific literature. You obviously don't.
The popular press is full of nonsense and always has been. The serious scientific literature is a different matter. Global cooling was never more than a speculation. Global warming is proven fact. (And yes, to forestall idiotic responses, *global* warming will make *some* places colder as climate patterns are disrupted.)

The EPA and the insurance companies are updating their flood zone maps as we speak. They're smart and informed.

Don't want to trust me? Read the literature yourself. Educate yourself enough to be able to read it.

What, you don't want to spend the time to do that? Then you have to trust the people who do read it.


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## neroden (Apr 22, 2014)

MattW said:


> At risk of taking this topic further off topic. If you read the data and read it back for millions or billions of years, you'll see that the temps are cyclical.


You need to learn more geology, because you're misreading the evidence. Yes, there are cycles... there are several different scales of cycle on a geological timescale.
The biggest one is this: there are two semi-stable states, "hothouse earth" and "icehouse earth". Within each there are smaller cycles.

What humans are doing right now -- massive belching of CO2 into the atmosphere -- looks exactly like the pattern we see during a shift from "icehouse earth" to "hothouse earth". These changes are usually associated with gigantic mass extinctions. (As are the changes from hothouse to icehouse.) We are currently experiencing a gigantic mass extinction, by the way.

The real problem is that humans, *and everything we eat*, evolved during "icehouse earth".

In a "hothouse earth" there were jungle-like conditions at the poles. Lots of creatures were just fine with this, but humans would find most of the earth uninhabitable, and we'd also starve to death.

The earth isn't at risk. Life on earth will be fine. We are not going to become Venus, which had runaway global warming which just went on forever. Some unidentified feedback effect (probably related to plant growth) seems to suppress further temperature rises after we reach "hothouse earth" levels.

It's humans who are at risk. The correct analogy is "Fouling our own nests".



> Sure, if you look at the very short-term you'll see a rise, just as if you look at another short period, you'll see a decline. The same data that these scientists point at and say "we're warming!" also says we're just at the peak of a cycle.


No, it doesn't. That's just false. We're nowhere near a peak on the "smaller cycles". With the standard "smaller cycles", we're actually supposed to be on a *trough* in temperature. But we aren't.
On the larger cycle between icehouse and hothouse, we are unfortunately also nowhere near a peak. It could get much, much worse.

By the way? We have accurate global temperature measurements for millions of years based on ice cores from the Arctic and based on various more complex geological methods of assessment.


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## Bob Dylan (Apr 22, 2014)

neroden said:


> MattW said:
> 
> 
> > By the way? We have accurate global temperature measurements for millions of years based on ice cores from the Arctic and based on various more complex geological methods of assessment.
> ...


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## Green Maned Lion (Apr 22, 2014)

I've always found fighting for the environment itself something of a lost cause. Too many people with too much misinformation in their heads, and too many mechanisms bigger than myself to perpetuate it.


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## Trogdor (Apr 23, 2014)

What if we did everything we could to clean up our emissions and it turned out we were wrong about global warming? Then all we'd be left with is a fairly clean environment. Imagine how horrible that would be.


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## George Harris (Apr 23, 2014)

Trggdor, I am all for getting the cleanest environment practical to achieve. Global warming to me is a side issue, even if real. My main concern is that by getting so tied up with global warming that if and when its impending arrival loses credibility that the push to clean up the environment will also lose urgency and maybe even its credibility. That I certainly do not want to happen. So, let's keep the emphasis on reducing consumption of resources without tying it to something else which may or may not turn out to be real. The worst thing to do is to increase energy consumption as part of reducing some form of emission. I remain totally unconvinced that CO2 emissions is a disaster. Ask any plant. CO, yes, many other things yes, they are detrimental, but CO2??.

One primary reason I have spent most of my working life involved in rail transit is because I believe in reducing consumption of fuel, all kinds, and doing so with minimum negative effect on standard of living.

One final thought: what any of us choose to believe or disbelieve on global warming or any other subject has not effect whatsoever on reality.


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## guest (Apr 23, 2014)

Sechs



> An amazing chunk of sea level rise is already locked-in; we can only keep it from getting worse.


Really?

*La Jolla 1871 at high tide*







About 140 years later at high tide. Looks like no change to me.






*JimHudson*



> And all the "conservative" talking heads....


Is Prince Gore your go-to guy?

*Neroden*



> I actually follow the scientific literature.


Are these your scientific sources?

[SIZE=14pt]2007: Chief of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late.”[/SIZE]



Jan. 19, 2009: James Hansen, climate expert [alleged] and past head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies: President Obama _has only four years to save the Earth_.



11.10.13: Mother Jones article, “_Climate deniers like to point to the so-called global warming “hiatus” _because of a slowdown in buildup of greenhouse gas. 



4.13.14: USA Today, (IPCC states), “…_global emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have accelerated to unprecedented levels_…” [They left out warming hasn’t happened for 17 years contradicting the above item!].


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## cirdan (Apr 23, 2014)

A lot of the people who argue against climate change are plucking holes in theories and evidence^.

But the absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence.

What would have happened if say, we had disregarded warnings over the AIDS epidemic by highlighting anecdotal evidence of some HIV positive people who were still doing fine, or of some HIV positive people dying of causes unrelated to AIDS. Does that in any way prove that AIDS doesn't kill?

Or how about telling people that there's no point in locking your door at night as sometimes burglars come in through the window anyway.

That is more or less what the anti global warming people are doing. I see no proof from them that there isn't global warming, but just riding about on truisms and details that when seen in isolation might sufggest something other than the bigger picture.

For me, it's better to be on the safe side. Emissions and pollution cannot be a good thing, no matter how you look at it. Reducing emissions and pollution may at worst have no effect whatsoever, but at best may make things better. Is that alone not a good reason to try and get our house in order?


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## Green Maned Lion (Apr 23, 2014)

George Harris said:


> Trggdor, I am all for getting the cleanest environment practical to achieve. Global warming to me is a side issue, even if real. My main concern is that by getting so tied up with global warming that if and when its impending arrival loses credibility that the push to clean up the environment will also lose urgency and maybe even its credibility. That I certainly do not want to happen. So, let's keep the emphasis on reducing consumption of resources without tying it to something else which may or may not turn out to be real. The worst thing to do is to increase energy consumption as part of reducing some form of emission. I remain totally unconvinced that CO2 emissions is a disaster. Ask any plant. CO, yes, many other things yes, they are detrimental, but CO2??.
> 
> One primary reason I have spent most of my working life involved in rail transit is because I believe in reducing consumption of fuel, all kinds, and doing so with minimum negative effect on standard of living.
> 
> One final thought: what any of us choose to believe or disbelieve on global warming or any other subject has not effect whatsoever on reality.


I couldn't agree more with your point, and I do believe in the danger of CO2 emissions.


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## Green Maned Lion (Apr 23, 2014)

guest said:


> Sechs
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Can't you guys register so I can reference you by name instead of quoting your whole fahrkahkta post?

Anyway, just because the world has kept existing does not mean our world is not past the point of no return. I don't know if it is or not. That's irrelevant to my point. My point is your post is full of the most irrelevant fact twisting none sense I have seen this morning.


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## Bob Dylan (Apr 23, 2014)

Since I do use my real name on AU you know who to quote and as to Al Gore, he would have been a terrible President (but not as bad as the King Maker Supreme Court installed one!) But Gores movie "An Inconvoent Truth" was first rate! (Watch the Glaciers and Poles melt!)

My problem with people quoting such "scientists" as Limbaugh and Palin and Fundamentalist Preachers is that they have no training, no experience and just make stuff up!

The real problem IMO is too many people in the world using too much hydrocarbon

based stuff! YMMV


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## Ryan (Apr 23, 2014)

Why are we wasting millions of dollars on scientific instruments and stuff when we can just look at pictures!?!?!

Clearly comparing two photographs from 140 years apart is a vastly superior method for conducting scientific research! Someone give that man a Nobel Prize for Being Awesome!

Climate change deniers are going to come off looking about as foolish as the flat earther crowd.

I'm also a big fan of the "Scientists were wrong about something in the past, therefore anything a scientist says is completely untrue" reasoning.

I read something untrue on the internet once, so clearly everything I read on the internet today is a big fat lie.

And doctors once though disease was caused by bad humors. Clearly, that means all doctors are wrong and I'm just going to avoid all medical treatment from them in the future.


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## George (Apr 23, 2014)

Reducing emissions and pollution and global warming do not need to be linked, and better if they are not.

I see no point in saying more in dealing with the convinced. Warming might happen or it might not.

And people would starve to death in a jungle like climate? Get real. That is about the same as starving to death in a restaurant. Ask any of the various groups that live in jungle climates. Why are many of them still primitive? Because they do not have to work harder to have all they need.


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## NW cannonball (Apr 24, 2014)

RyanS said:


> Why are we wasting millions of dollars on scientific instruments and stuff when we can just look at pictures!?!?!
> 
> Clearly comparing two photographs from 140 years apart is a vastly superior method for conducting scientific research! Someone give that man a Nobel Prize for Being Awesome!
> 
> ...


Wealll ya know, those pointy-head so-called "scientists" they just make stuff up, like yah know. Not like us bubbas that sit here and drink and watch expurts on the TV.

Why anybody would think that burning a lot of stuff would actutally "heat things up"? *** do they know? Sheesh!

Yup Ryan, all too obvious that too many of us are scared enough that admitting that people (scientists?), people who have spent their lives earning less than plumbers, might possibly have a clue.

Oh well.


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## NW cannonball (Apr 24, 2014)

George said:


> Reducing emissions and pollution and global warming do not need to be linked, and better if they are not.
> 
> I see no point in saying more in dealing with the convinced. Warming might happen or it might not.
> 
> And people would starve to death in a jungle like climate? Get real. That is about the same as starving to death in a restaurant. Ask any of the various groups that live in jungle climates. Why are many of them still primitive? Because they do not have to work harder to have all they need.


Actually, a jungle, or "rain-forest" -like climate- doesn't support many humans per square kilometer. Maybe with hack-and-burn can get up to 20-30 per square kilometer?


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## cirdan (Apr 25, 2014)

NW cannonball said:


> George said:
> 
> 
> > Reducing emissions and pollution and global warming do not need to be linked, and better if they are not.
> ...


Yes, and the term rain forest has nothing to do with it being hot. There are rain forests in some relatively cold places too. Parts of the UK were covered in rain forests before the trees were cut down over the centuries to make way for sheep farming. The moment they stop grazing sheep anywhere, the trees grow back in no time at all. Rain forest just means that it rains a lot, and that the rain supports a certain type of vegetation.

Climate change doesn't just mean that everything will get uniformly hotter, but that air and water currents could change and that means that some places will get less rain and others will get more rain. Some rain forests may become deserts and some new rain forests may appear in places that are today dry.


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## George Harris (Apr 25, 2014)

High rainfall supports intensive farming.


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## MattW (Apr 25, 2014)

cirdan said:


> NW cannonball said:
> 
> 
> > George said:
> ...


So in other words, no matter what it does, it's "climate change" that MUST be stopped. It's statements like this that make the global warming folks lose all credibility.


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## Ryan (Apr 25, 2014)

No, statements like that indicate a nuanced understanding of what's actually happening.

The planet is a big and complex place. While all the talk about how unusually cold this winter was, that was really only applicable to the Eastern half of the US. While we were freezing our tails off, other parts of the globe were cooking.

That's what "climate change" is the preferred terminology, not "global warming" (although, taken in aggregate global temperatures are rising).


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## NW cannonball (Apr 26, 2014)

cirdan said:


> NW cannonball said:
> 
> 
> > George said:
> ...


For sure - the Pacific Northwest of NA is a temperate rainforest - not hot, but really really wet. The good bit is that forest fires are rare. The bad bit is everything rots.

The other bad bit about the Pacific NW is the seismic problem.

There's good evidence that the sea level around Puget Sound goes up and down many meters every few centuries or so. Or the land rises and subsides about that much.

Global sea-level rise is dwarfed by the local plate tectonics


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## Bob Dylan (Apr 26, 2014)

Meanwhile our Governor and the other authorities in Texas are encouraging the shipment of nuclear waste and toxic chemicals to West Texas because burying it underground creates jobs! We even get New York City sewage and garbage shipped here just like third world countries!

Maybe we can cut a deal with China, LOTs of Toxic Waste there! The Koch Brothers will finance it! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Birds don't foul their own nest! (PG version)


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## NW cannonball (Apr 26, 2014)

jimhudson said:


> Meanwhile our Governor and the other authorities in Texas are encouraging the shipment of nuclear waste and toxic chemicals to West Texas because burying it underground creates jobs! We even get New York City sewage and garbage shipped here just like third world countries!
> 
> Maybe we can cut a deal with China, LOTs of Toxic Waste there! The Koch Brothers will finance it! Yeah, that's the ticket!
> 
> Birds don't foul their own nest! (PG version)


 Actually, I remember the dear pigeons that lived across the alley from our 3d floor apartment long ago. They built their nest from mostly their own droppings and -- the red and green swizzle sticks from a handy dumpster down below.

Red, green, white - they raised a family there. *Thats's* how we need to learn to live.


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## neroden (May 6, 2014)

neroden said:


> In a "hothouse earth" there were jungle-like conditions at the poles. Lots of creatures were just fine with this, but humans would find most of the earth uninhabitable, and we'd also starve to death.


Since someone seemed to misinterpret this (sigh), the problem with an Earth with hot jungles at the South Pole is not the pole, it's what happens in the tropics -- even hotter, they become uninhabitable.


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## Ryan (May 6, 2014)

Interesting that this thread popped back up today. Just finished reading yet another article about the reality of climate change:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/05/06/national-climate-assessment-15-arresting-images-of-climate-change-now-and-in-the-pipeline/

This isn't going to bode well for the tunnels in NY:


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## chakk (May 9, 2014)

I think a bigger concern for Seattle might be the effects of a tsunami. I've been told by local scientists in the know that there are several large storage tanks near the Sound that could break loose in a tsunami and float their way south to Renton.


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## George Harris (May 9, 2014)

Anybody building so close to the ocean that a one foot change in sea level is a disaster for them is not playing with a full deck anyway. I tend to regard this panic of global warming sea level rise etc. as virtually a religion. It is a belief system that gets all excited about all evidence that supports it and ignores all evidence to the contrary. It is like going to the fortune teller and ignoring all the predictions he missed and hanging on the those he got right.

Let's see, we take a 14 inch measured (to what level of accuracy?) sea level rise over a period of 105 years and extrapolate it to get our impending disaster. How do we know whether this straight line can be extrapolated? I recall in college when discussing extrapolating for future traffic demands from historical growth the comment on the validity of doing such made that if we take the average occupancy per vehicle of the cars on the road in 30 year about 1/3 of the cars on the road would be empty. That was obviously an impossibility. Nuff said about extrapolation.

There are errors in understanding made in fields where everything can be checked experimentally because results that do not fit the current theory are taken as an anomaly rather that as an indication that the theory needs adjustment. How can we believe that when dealing with a situation not subject experimental proof and with relatively short trend lines that we can be absolutely certain that the theory is right?


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## Green Maned Lion (May 9, 2014)

I am not going to argue whether or not the theory is right. However that does not mean we should work on reducing emissions or avoid building to a higher standard of sea resiliency, does it, Mr. Harris?


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## Bob Dylan (May 9, 2014)

I know that George is an experienced, successful engineer with much railroad experience and he often contributes helpful info to this site!

However he is not a climatologist or scientist therefore his opinions are basically political in nature!

That being said, almost all zoning and development is controlled by local politicians and private developers with funding mostly coming from governments!(local,state and federal)

Most of the Natural disasters that have occurred through the years have been a result of this system which has allowed corruption to create unsafe conditions!

Hence we have Flood Insurance being subsidized by the Government and the FEMA Agency that doles out money when disasters occur in such places as New Orleans, Florida, California etc etc

This stupidly allows people to rebuild in storm, fllod and fire zones and even where there will soon be No Water!(Lad Vegas/ Phoenix/ Austin/ Calif etc)

Climate change is a fact everywhere! Greenhouse emissions are the primary cause and all the kooky wing nut politicians and pundits that are in denial about these facts are charlatans and frauds! ( are you listening Rushbo,Sister Sarah, Glen Beck etc etc)

Decide for yourself, there's plenty of videos, climate data etc and almost All real Scientists agree that's the Problem is real and its getting worse!

The time to act is now, we must pass on a liveable world to our children, grandchildren and future generations! YMMV but if it does Why????


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## Devil's Advocate (May 9, 2014)

George Harris said:


> I tend to regard this panic of global warming sea level rise etc. as virtually a religion. It is a belief system that gets all excited about all evidence that supports it and ignores all evidence to the contrary. It is like going to the fortune teller and ignoring all the predictions he missed and hanging on the those he got right.


From my time on this forum it seems you enjoy talking about global warming as much as anyone and that the panic is limited to those who are concerned that money and regulations may be leveraged to give us a cleaner environment. For those of us who take this sort of thing seriously I can assure you that discussing global warming in a hyper cynical society like America is about as exciting as passing a kidney stone. You ignore thousands of scientists, who would seem to be the _actual_ experts, because you somehow know better than any of them. I'd take your views on the climate science about as seriously as I'd take a climatologist's views on laying and maintaining rail. You're not a fortune teller so much as a fortune naysayer. The science will never be good enough for you because it's not even about science in your view. It's about some sort of bizarre international conspiracy involving thousands of scientists and millions of other people who want to waste billions of dollars mitigating imaginary pollutants. As tedious and counterintuitive as climate modeling can be it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as confusing and convoluted as your global conspiracy model.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 9, 2014)

George is an engineer and from Missouri when it comes to this stuff. Despite what the short term feels like, these changes are 1) in the statistical noise on a Geological timescale and 2) there cause is not proven with much direct empirical evidence at all. Since what George says is eminently reasonable and logical, I respect what he says.

I disagree with his stance, but I can't attack it in any way other than my gut says he is wrong.

But more over, the pollution generated global warming is a dangerous argument to fall in to. Why? Because what it asks for is too important to rest on anything we can't scientifically prove.

We need less greenhouse gas emissions and all other kinds of emissions too. We need less pollution. And we need to prepare better for handling nature and all she throws at us.

If we rest all those needs on the legs of an argument we can't yet prove, what happens if we are proven wrong? All the people who reluctantly were doing it because of global warming stop.

It's like the peak oil argument. We need to work on controlling our fossil fuel consumption for myriad reasons, regardless of whether we have 10 years more oil or ten million. I think George actually agrees with everything I'm saying about this, too.

So instead of wasting time trying to argue for the unproven, argue for fixing things because they simply need to be fixed.


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## Ryan (May 9, 2014)

Green Maned Lion said:


> I disagree with his stance, but I can't attack it in any way other than my gut says he is wrong.


You could attack it by pointing out there is near-universal acceptance of the science behind it by people that study it extensively and make it their life's work.

If George tells me that track needs to be laid a certain way, I'm going to believe him because that's his field of expertise.

When climate change experts tell me it's real and global temps are rising along with sea levels, I'm going to believe them.

Politics makes a ****-poor substitute for science and throwing out the science because you disagree with the political stance of the people that are listening to the scientists and trying to do something about it doesn't change the underlying science.

I do agree with the "So what if climate change isn't man made and the only thing that comes from cleaning up our act is cleaner air to breathe and cleaner water to drink?". There are many good reasons to be good stewards of the environment. But climate change is undoubtedly one of them.


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## MattW (May 9, 2014)

RyanS said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > I disagree with his stance, but I can't attack it in any way other than my gut says he is wrong.
> ...


Near universal acceptance by whom? The businesses, politicians and their scientists who all have a vested interest in pushing that agenda?

What about the climate scientists that dissent? Are they to be disregarded since they don't fall in line with the hype?

Years ago, I actually did some digging into who was pushing what. Just like certain issues in this country largely fall out along political party lines, the issue of human-caused global warming or not mostly fell out along three categories: scientists employed by those with a vested interest in pushing it, scientists unconnected in any way to a vested interest either way, and scientists connected to those with a vested interest in disproving it (oil companies mostly).

The two groups on each end were saying what you'd expect. But the middle group largely said that the warming wasn't human-caused. Why would this middle group, with no vested interest either way be overwhelmingly against AGW unless there was some truth to it? Yes, numerically they were in the minority, but if the science is sound, what does that matter? Wasn't Galileo in the minority?

There was a dataset published a week or so ago that showed that there has been no average warming in 17 years, which contrasts a LOT with what the global warming cheerleaders have been saying and what their precious computer models were saying too. So what was wrong? The data or the guesses?


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## jis (May 9, 2014)

I think all those that claim that there are no man made problems in the environment should be made to spend a year in New Delhi sans air conditioning. That will change their opinion pronto. It will also raise their lifetime medical bills irrevocably.  It will give them a nice preview of what we will get if we disband or even defang the EPA in the USA.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 9, 2014)

MattW said:


> RyanS said:
> 
> 
> > Green Maned Lion said:
> ...


By your reasoning I guess we should only be asking what people on Mars think. Otherwise we might end up asking someone with a vested interest in the Earth's future.


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## jis (May 9, 2014)

So how do we know that one of the criteria unconsciously for selecting the middle group was not by chance only those that said that it was not human caused? What controls were exercised to ensure that such unintended biases did not enter the analysis?


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## Green Maned Lion (May 9, 2014)

I'm not saying global warming isn't happening or that it is not effected by humanity. I am very convinced personally that there are enormous implications of climate change.

Indeed, nature exists on earth because a perfect storm of distance, energy, and chemical make up of the earth. It was created by a near-perfect balance and is maintained by same. Taking the molecules of our world and vastly changing large quantities of them in ways that wouldn't automatically self regulate within that balance (say, o2 to co2 to o2, a cycle central to life) would HAVE to affect that balance. It would logically follow (and I can't back this up because I can't prove it without finding a world thriving with life and destroy it) that if this balance is delicate, and it is, changing it substantially would be disastrous.

But don't call that global warming. Call it environmental imapact. Because warming is a small part of that. And fight for reducing - IMMENSELY - our environmental impact. Which does involve initial further disruptions as we move towards future reductions and repairs.

Oh, Ryan: don't dispute climate change with George. Instead, bring up legitimate controlled data that accounts for and proves climate change, granting that it should take place on geological timescales and that one taking place over only a few decades is an inadequate sample size for judgement to be rendered. If you can be a fact checker combined with a ferret for real, find unbiased facts to prove wrong the main point George made: it is not adequately proven to exist.

Remember, if reasonable doubt remains, he is innocent. Sheesh.


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## jis (May 9, 2014)

I completely agree with your assessment on this matter as spelled out above GML.


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## neroden (May 10, 2014)

MattW said:


> What about the climate scientists that dissent? Are they to be disregarded since they don't fall in line with the hype?


They don't exist. There's really only the one guy, and I bet you know his name. One guy does not make "dissent". The numbers are padded by the fossil fuel industry by including people who aren't actually climate scientists and saying that they are climate scientists, which they aren't.



> Years ago, I actually did some digging into who was pushing what. Just like certain issues in this country largely fall out along political party lines, the issue of human-caused global warming or not mostly fell out along three categories: scientists employed by those with a vested interest in pushing it, scientists unconnected in any way to a vested interest either way, and scientists connected to those with a vested interest in disproving it (oil companies mostly).


All the climate scientists in the middle now agree that global warming is both real, and caused by humans. That's the problem with "years ago".
There's still some debate over whether burning fossil fuels or chopping down the forests is the larger cause of the problem.



> There was a dataset published a week or so ago that showed that there has been no average warming in 17 years,


No, there wasn't. You're misreading the dataset. Please get a copy of _How to Lie With Statistics_. I'll wait while you read it and then figure out how you've been bamboozled. Hint: 17 is a pretty weird number, and not one normally used for time series. If you cherry-pick an unusually hot start year and an unusually cold end year, you can make it look like there's been no warming trend... if you're a dishonest hack. I can also "show" that there was no inflation in the 1970s the same way.


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## Bob Dylan (May 10, 2014)

In addition to jis' year in New Delhi (not Deli! LOL),I think that the armchair scientists that are in denial about climate change being man made should have to watch a Classic Movie called "Soyent Green" followed by that Communist All Gore's "An Inconvient Truth!"

Of course Dr. Limbaugh and Professor Palin disagree!


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## MattW (May 10, 2014)

neroden said:


> MattW said:
> 
> 
> > What about the climate scientists that dissent? Are they to be disregarded since they don't fall in line with the hype?
> ...


What one guy? I don't know of just "one" guy, I know of many who dissent, they just tend not to draw much attention to themselves because they get reactions just like this one.

No, not all the climate scientists do, the ones that don't are just being out shouted by the others. Think about it logically. Where's the money in denying it? There is no new money to be made by being on the side of science here.

I'm sorry but it is you who are misinterpreting it. A trendline is not simply a line from start point to last point, it takes into account all of the data, it's part of a field known as linear regression. To be exact, the trendline from the data in question is actually -0.00012 so if you want to split hairs, it actually shows a COOLING trend. As to the time span of the dataset, why shouldn't we look at the most recent on back? Wouldn't that show future trends better than measuring another period years ago? I'm sorry if you think it's cherrypicking, but just because the data doesn't support your alarmism, doesn't mean it isn't accurate.


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## NW cannonball (May 11, 2014)

All this shouting by ignorant persons won't change anything.

Anybody with half a wit can see that by digging up anything inflammable and burning it to get the energy out -- going to make things hotter.

Whether sooner or later, whether ameliorated by the great polar ice-cubes, whatever --

Burning everything in sight might possibly make the environment warmer. Possibly? No, for sure. Obviously.

However the carbon owners spin it, the sea-level rise is small but inexorable. Nobody, paid by anybody, is denying the sea-level rise. (but they could if you paid them)

Seattle will deal with it.

Bangladesh, sorry, lots less of Bangladesh in the next 10-20 years. No denying, just fact.

Seattle, no worries. Miami, will be screaming for subsidies in 5 years. NYC - they got all the money - no clue what they'll do.

Charleston, SC. -- good chances to sell upland properties.


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## George Harris (May 11, 2014)

All of you that seem to think that Global Warming is the only thing that is real and all else is incidental or resultant therefrom: The main issue is and should be consumption of fossil fuels and covering more and more of the planet with roads, shopping center parking lots, runways and other large areas on non-permeable surfaces. To make an issue of global warming is like treating a fever instead of the disease. Further, it could well be that by going after the fever we are completely missing the disease.

If we are not going to reduce fuel consumption by driving people into poverty, then we need to provide alternatives where quality of live is achievable with lower, and preferably much lower energy consumption rates, and it be done by choice, not compulsion.

If these environmental fanatics were honest they would be doing all they could to promote rail projects as an alternatve to flights and freeways instead of simply being obstructionists to everything everywhere.

I recall back in the "oil shortage" days of the 70's there was talk about the need to go back to animal powered farming as there would not be the fuel to run mechanized farm equipment. My grandfather was sitting out there looking over his fields and said, "It is not possible. The breeding stock for the mules and draft horses is gone. It would take at least 100 years to get back to animal powered farming, and by then the US population would be half what it is now because we could not feed them.

There needs to be a lot more reality and a lot less feel good faddism on this entire subject.


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## sechs (May 11, 2014)

George Harris said:


> If we are not going to reduce fuel consumption by driving people into poverty, then we need to provide alternatives where quality of live is achievable with lower, and preferably much lower energy consumption rates, and it be done by choice, not compulsion.


Energy consumption rate is not the problem, per se. About 174 petawatts of solar energy reaches the earth. If we grabbed a couple hundred exawatts of that in a reasonable fashion to meet our needs, global climate change wouldn't be nearly the problem.

There really needs to be a lot more knowledge and lot less ignorance of reality on this entire subject. Arguing from a position of ignornace is all too common, as we've seen here.


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## CHamilton (May 12, 2014)

From Gizmodo:



> For years, scientists have feared the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet—a vast swath of ice that could unleash a slow but unstoppable 10-foot rise in sea levels if it melted. So here is today's terrible news: we now know the ice sheet is melting. And there's pretty much nothing we can do to about it....
> 
> This is no longer just speculation or the plot of a blockbuster film. "This is really happening," NASA's Thomas P. Wagner emphasized to the New York Times. "There's nothing to stop it now."
> 
> The relative good news is that the melting will take place over a few hundred years—so take a breath—but it means an inevitable 10-foot rise in sea level. That's enough to engulf large tracts of coast all over the world. Plan accordingly, humans. [Science and NASA via New York Times]


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## jis (May 12, 2014)

Energy consumption is not the problem. It is the byproduct of the methods used to store and convert energy for consumption that is the problem. Once we master energy storage and conversion which does not involve releasing enormous amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere we'd be in good shape. Also if we are able to stop destroying all the masterful CO2 to O2 converters on the planet (you know those familiar green things?) for short term gains we'd be in better shape even if some CO2 is released. The problem is that at present we are collectively indulging in a lot of activity that is trending in a direction opposite to our long term well being.

We know for sure that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing.

The correlation between CO2 concentration and capture of heat in the atmosphere is relatively well established.

What is not quite well known is the micro effects of such on everything as the macro transformation takes place over centuries. This is what most of the immediate argument is about.

There is very little uncertainty about the end result if the trend of increasing concentration of CO2 is not somehow reversed either by natural or man made processes being put in [place.. Get on a telescope and look at Venus. It's beautiful to look at, from far far away!


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## Devil's Advocate (May 13, 2014)

jis said:


> Energy consumption is not the problem.


I'm not so sure about that. The US represents around 5% of the Earth's population while being responsible for roughly 20% of global energy consumption. We have done far less than most industrialized countries to promote reduced consumption and increased efficiency among our citizens and businesses and it shows. I'd say that consumption is absolutely part of our problem. We're so far behind the curve that US spec vehicles and appliances wouldn't even be legal to sell as-is in many countries, including China of all places.



jis said:


> Once we master energy storage and conversion which does not involve releasing enormous amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere we'd be in good shape.


I would say it's important not to simply kick the problem down the road toward some unexplainable future solution. We've already done that for several decades now and should instead work to solve the problem with technologies that already exist today. Between geo-thermal, solar-thermal, photovoltaic, land based and off-shore wind turbines, hydro-electric, oceanic hydropower, conventional (non-fractured) natural gas, methane capture, and locally produced waste based bio-fuels we already have many "green" options to work with that would pollute a lot less than fossil fuels. In many cases they would create almost no measurable pollution at once they're up and running.


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## CHamilton (May 14, 2014)

If I may get back to the original topic.

UW research projects ice sheet collapse, Seattle flooding



> [T]he first to flood [would] include places like Discovery Park, the Wheel and the Aquarium [and BNSF's waterfront tracks!].
> 
> At six feet, Alki and parts of West Seattle would flood. The next levels, nine to 12 feet, would include Pike Place Market, Safeco Field and Century Link Fields.
> 
> The worst case scenario is 15 feet of sea level increase, and that would include much of downtown.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 14, 2014)

Huffington Post has a story on the national security implications today...



> A report released Tuesday from an advisory group of retired U.S. military leadership echoes the findings of other recent reports on climate change: It is real, it is already happening and it poses major threats to the U.S. and the rest of the world. The federally funded Center for Naval Analyses and its Military Advisory Board, a group of 16 retired three- and four-star generals and admirals, affirm in the report that climate events like flooding, prolonged drought and rising sea levels, and the subsequent population dislocation and food insecurity, will serve as "catalysts for instability and conflict" in vulnerable regions of the world. "We no longer have the option to wait and see," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta write in a foreword to the report, which they describe as a "bipartisan call to action." The report laments the politicization of climate change and continued inaction from Congress on the issue. "Politically charged debate has silenced sound public discourse," it reads in part.


Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/climate-change-national-security_n_5323148.html

Also saw this link recently for those who are interested: http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/


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## chakk (May 15, 2014)

As someone who spent much of my career in sponsoring research on climate change, I will state that the majority of evidence that I have seen supports the presumption that it is really happening in many place around the world. And this same body of research also shows that it will be virtually impossible to stop, or even to slow down from its currently accelerating pace. From the modeling efforts that I have seen (and some of which I supported financially through my then-employer), even to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at twice the pre-industrial level would require about a 90% reduction in global emissions -- back to the level of emissions that existed globally in the year 1927. In today's world, this means that every country that emits more than 1% of the global total (numbering several more than a dozen) would have to reduce their emissions to zero, and every country that emits less than 1% of the global total (the other 150 or so countries in the world) would have to hold their emissions constant at current levels, just to reduce annual emissions from the current 9 billion tons per year (expressed as carbon) to the 1 billion tons per year that would be needed to stabilize atmospheric concentrations at 550 part per million (twice the pre-industrial level from the 17th century). And this says nothing about the other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, and many chlorofluorocarbons.

I truly believe that neither of these emission-reduction scenarios has a ghost of a chance of being achieved -- in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren (no great-grandchildren for at least the next 20 years). So, atmospheric concentrations will not only continue to grow, but continue to accelerate in their growth. Just when the really disasterous effects of such accelerated growth of concentrations is very difficult to say, but there is certainly no evidence that increased concentrations will lead to a reduction in climate effects.


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## George Harris (May 15, 2014)

Green Maned Lion said:


> George is an engineer and from Missouri when it comes to this stuff. Despite what the short term feels like, these changes are 1) in the statistical noise on a Geological timescale and 2) there cause is not proven with much direct empirical evidence at all. Since what George says is eminently reasonable and logical, I respect what he says.
> 
> I disagree with his stance, but I can't attack it in any way other than my gut says he is wrong.
> 
> ...


I am in full agreement with you on the things where you say I am.


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## neroden (May 20, 2014)

MattW said:


> I'm sorry if you think it's cherrypicking,


It's cherrypicking. Try any other 17-year period. Try any 20-year period. Try any 50-year period. Enjoy looking at the warming trend.

Look, I studied statistics. You obviously didn't. Cherrypicking your time period is actually listed in _How to Lie With Statistics_ as one of the standard methods of lying.

You can bet the people who published that 17-year number tried every single other time period they could think of, until they got one which gave them the result they wanted.

And apparently their scam worked on you. Because you are a fool. The sort of easily-scammed fool who makes life easy for con artists.



MattW said:


> What one guy? I don't know of just "one" guy, I know of many who dissent,


No you don't. Now that I know you're a fool, I'm guessing you've been fooled by another classic scam.
There are a bunch of people who ARE NOT climate scientists who are being promoted by the fossil fuel industry, who pretends that they are climate scientists. You've presumably been fooled by this.

Or you might have been fooled by mispresentation of people's statements; there are a number of climate scientists who are quite certain that humans are causing global warming, but have been deliberately misquoted in various places.


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## MattW (May 20, 2014)

neroden said:


> It's cherrypicking. Try any other 17-year period. Try any 20-year period. Try any 50-year period. Enjoy looking at the warming trend.


It's simply the number of years from now until the last time it was warming. That just happens to be seventeen. Next year will probably be 18, then the year after will be 19 or the line might show the start of a cooling trend.



> Look, I studied statistics. You obviously didn't. Cherrypicking your time period is actually listed in _How to Lie With Statistics_ as one of the standard methods of lying.






Uh, I'm sorry, I did, and I also studied calculus, which you obviously didn't. If you had, you would have known that the slope of the line is equivalent to a straight line tangent to the data line. So on a cyclical graph such as that of a sine wave, which is the trend that Earth's global temperature has followed, there is a point where the slope levels off, then goes negative. These past 17 years just happen to be when we've reached a peak, and are leveling off and will probably go negative again as much of the global warming folks' own data shows.

If you studied statistics as you also claim, you would have an understanding of sample size and how to interpret it. It is clear by your postings that you do not. Given a cyclical dataset, you could draw a trendline across the entirety of it and claim the Earth's temperature has remained steady and never increased or decreased. Likewise if you took a tiny sample of data at one of the peaks, you would also see a steady trend. If you took a tiny sample at one 0 point (assuming a true sine function) you'd see a rapid warming trend, then if you took a sample at another 0 point, you'd see a rapid cooling trend.



> You can bet the people who published that 17-year number tried every single other time period they could think of, until they got one which gave them the result they wanted.









As I said before, they simply watched the data as it accumulated and noticed the slope getting shallower and shallower. If you actually looked at the data (which you obviously didn't), you would see that the right-hand side begins with the most recent data, and extends to the left as it goes back in time.



> And apparently their scam worked on you. Because you are a fool. The sort of easily-scammed fool who makes life easy for con artists.









When people starting flinging baseless personal attacks, that's usually a sign that they know they've lost, or at least can't bring any good information so have to resort to such tactics.



> No you don't. Now that I know you're a fool, I'm guessing you've been fooled by another classic scam.
> There are a bunch of people who ARE NOT climate scientists who are being promoted by the fossil fuel industry, who pretends that they are climate scientists. You've presumably been fooled by this.








Or you might have been fooled by mispresentation of people's statements; there are a number of climate scientists who are quite certain that humans are causing global warming, but have been deliberately misquoted in various places.

So go prove it then. Just claiming "all the scientists say this" isn't proof. Go look at a lot of the "deniers" and find out where they're coming from. Until you do, you are just as bad as what you are accusing I and other "deniers" of. Yes, I don't deny that a lot are oil company shills, but frankly, that's no worse than the shills from the solar panel companies, or wind turbine companies, or any of these other companies that will profit off global warming. But there are many scientists who have no stake in the game, that are calling out the global warming folks.

GAH! Something's wrong with the quotes, the board is interpreting the quote tags weirdly. Fortunately, things still mostly line up, just everything above is inside one giant quote tag that says "neroden."


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## Scott Orlando (May 21, 2014)

Quote from MattW

"So go prove it then. Just claiming "all the scientists say this" isn't proof. Go look at a lot of the "deniers" and find out where they're coming from. Until you do, you are just as bad as what you are accusing I and other "deniers" of. Yes, I don't deny that a lot are oil company shills, but frankly, that's no worse than the shills from the solar panel companies, or wind turbine companies, or any of these other companies that will profit off global warming. But there are many scientists who have no stake in the game, that are calling out the global warming folks"

Absolutely right MattW. Shills on both sides. Oil companies want to keep pumping oil. And climate change scientists need data to show a problem. How much money is a climate scientist going to get in grants if they say "yeah, not much of a problem"?

And lets not skip over the fact there are lawmakers ready and eager to create billions in taxes which so just might come their way.

Finally, nothing says more about someone who says "You need to educate yourself and read a book!"....coincidentally the book they agree with.


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## Ryan (May 21, 2014)

Scott Orlando said:


> Absolutely right MattW. Shills on both sides. Oil companies want to keep pumping oil. And climate change scientists need data to show a problem. How much money is a climate scientist going to get in grants if they say "yeah, not much of a problem"?


This line of attack always baffles me. We're going to study the climate, weather it's changing or not. Climate scientists don't have any skin in the game and can go where the data takes them.

If you're going to accuse them of bias in their own self-interest, you're going to have to substantiate that claim.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 21, 2014)

RyanS said:


> Scott Orlando said:
> 
> 
> > Absolutely right MattW. Shills on both sides. Oil companies want to keep pumping oil. And climate change scientists need data to show a problem. How much money is a climate scientist going to get in grants if they say "yeah, not much of a problem"?
> ...


I've never quite understood it either. In the case of the US curtailing greenhouse gases would probably start with reducing consumption. Americans use more energy per person than any other country on Earth. So unsurprisingly we have the most to gain by cutting back. Even if we cut our energy consumption in half we’d still be using twice as much per person as the global average. So how exactly does the act of cutting consumption make a climate scientist rich? Instead of increasing publically funded research we’ve actually been cutting back. Drastically so in some cases.

Who in the private market is gearing up to spend hundreds of millions on research that is in all likelyhood going to result in substantially _reduced and regulated_ consumption. It makes no sense to me how most climate scientists are supposed to get rich from this. Every time I try to “follow the money” I end up right back at the corporations who sell us energy from conventional sources such as oil, coal, and nuclear. The folks who have a massive investment in keeping the status quo. The greedy climate scientist angle seems rather perplexing.


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## MattW (May 21, 2014)

It's because a lot of the pro-warming climate scientists are attached to companies selling "green" technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, smart grid technology. In other words, if people buy into the nonsense, their companies make money. What these folks never say is what the two of you are saying, to just reduce consumption overall. Any time I've heard talk about reducing greenhouse emissions it's always been in the vein of new technologies such as solar, wind, tidal, never in simply reducing what is put out by existing sources.


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## jis (May 21, 2014)

So from all this seemingly learned discourse can we then come to the conclusion that rising sea levels will have no effect on Seattle area rail? Or perhaps we can conclude that sea level is not rising? What exactly is the bottom line relative to the title of the thread?


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## JayPea (May 21, 2014)

I firmly believe that had George W. Bush written "An Inconvenient Truth" rather than Al Gore, those who dismiss climate change as a bunch of poppycock would be worshiping at its altar instead. And, as Yogi Berra might say, vice reversa. The debate amongst laymen in mostly political. What I personally believe has absolutely no bearing on the actual facts of the matter, of course. I do wonder about those who believe climate scientists have a hidden agenda on the subject. Their job is to research and report the facts. As to the level of CO2 emissions, there appears to be some good news. While total emissions continue to reach record levels, at least it appears the rate of growth is slowing: http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/2013-emissions-edge-the-world-closer-to-2-degrees/ and http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2013-report and http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/GCP/carbonbudget/2013/  (Wanted to make sure I didn't get accused of cherrypicking nor did I want to get one of Ryan's [citation needed] notations. :lol: The US, while its emissions per capita is second highest amongst the 20 leading CO2 emitters, trailing only Australia, its emissions have decreased over the past few years. Some due to the use of cleaner energy and also, in the last 15 years or so, due to its forestry practices in that reforestation has been on the increase. China, on the other hand, continues to increase its CO2 levels.

As for climate change itself, yes, temperatures are increase. No doubt about that. And I don't see how increasing CO2 levels help the situation. However, I also don't necessarily fall in step with all the gloom and doom either. We simply don't know if sea levels will rise 1 foot in the next 100 years or 100 feet in the next year. It's all speculation and based on models. Only half facetiously, how can I trust the same guys to know what's going to happen far into the future when the weather is wildly different from what they predicted a few hours before?  We simply don't know what is going to happen in the future. And, no, that doesn't mean we sit by and do nothing. Be proactive now, as much as possible. And I also don't believe that any one storm (Sandy, as an example) or weather phenomenon that is out of the ordinary is caused by global warming. I have yet to see one scientist who doesn't say it is flatly impossible to attribute any single storm or weather event solely to global warming. It can't be done. The forces that create our weather are so complex that it is impossible to attribute anomolies to global warming. What they will say is that the aspects of a certain storm or other weather event may have been somewhat accelerated or made more intense by the influences of global warming, but to say global warming caused it, can't be done.Think of the Dust Bowl era in the Middle West in the 1930's. I'm too lazy to look up global CO2 emissions in the 1930's but have a slight hunch they might have been just a tad lower.  Don't think global warming was a problem then. And the nasty winter just past in the Midwest and East no more invalidates climate change than does the record warm spring in the same places in, I believe it was, 2012 (a spring in which Washington, alone amongst the lower 48 states, was colder than normal) proves it.

My bottom line: Global emissions are a problem and efforts need to be made to control or even decrease them, as has been done in the US and other places such as the European Union. Get China and the Middle East on board and we might see real progress there. Climate change is happening. No disputing that. But no one knows what the future will bring and every time there is a hurricane, tornado, flood, drought,. or other nasty weather event, it is simply impossible to lay it all on global warming. Nasty weather has happened since, oh, at least, the beginning of time. Storms and other such happenings may well be more severe and intense due to climate change, however.


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## JayPea (May 21, 2014)

jis said:


> So from all this seemingly learned discourse can we then come to the conclusion that rising sea levels will have no effect on Seattle area rail? Or perhaps we can conclude that sea level is not rising? What exactly is the bottom line relative to the title of the thread?



I think the bottom line is no one knows how much the sea levels will rise now or in the far future.


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## jis (May 21, 2014)

It seems to me if global warming is happening then there is a high likelihood that sea levels will rise, if the warming trend continues. If CO2 levels are rising then there is a likelihood that aggregate temperatures will rise, i.e. the warming trend will continue. Things can only be stated in terms of likelihoods and probabilities for sure. So irrespective of who or what is causing the atmospheric changes it seems to me that long term trend at the present time is for a rise in aggregate temperatures and sea levels. Something could happen to reverse such trends, but there apparently is scant evidence that anything of that sort has happened so far.

In the last 45 years I have witnessed with my own eyes glaciers that have receded miles both in the Alps and the Himalayas, both areas that I have had the great fortune of traveling to and through many times.. All that water must have gone somewhere, no? Now where could that be? Either in the atmosphere trapping more heat or in the oceans raising sea levels. Just my simple minded thinking about it.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 21, 2014)

MattW said:


> It's because a lot of the pro-warming climate scientists are attached to companies selling "green" technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, smart grid technology.


Everything I've read so far indicates that the vast majority of climate scientists are paid through government funded agencies and research grants. Funds that in many cases are being reduced rather than expanded. In order for your claim to be reasonable there would need to be green technology companies which are the financial equivalent of Exxon-Mobile and Peabody. In general green energy tech companies are tiny and finacially insignificant compared to fossile fuel conglomerates. They simply cannot afford to employ hundreds of climate scientists all over the world, let alone make them all rich.



MattW said:


> In other words, if people buy into the nonsense, their companies make money. What these folks never say is what the two of you are saying, to just reduce consumption overall. Any time I've heard talk about reducing greenhouse emissions it's always been in the vein of new technologies such as solar, wind, tidal, never in simply reducing what is put out by existing sources.


Reducing consumption is half the problem. The other half is when a power plant has met the end of it's useful life (which is a fairly regular event among hundreds of power plants) then it makes sense to replace it with one that is as clean and efficient as possible.


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## Ispolkom (May 21, 2014)

jis said:


> So from all this seemingly learned discourse can we then come to the conclusion that rising sea levels will have no effect on Seattle area rail? Or perhaps we can conclude that sea level is not rising? What exactly is the bottom line relative to the title of the thread?


Doesn't it all depend on what level Seattle area railroads are at when the sea level rises? What if there is a major earthquake, say on the Cascadia fault, with associated raising or lower of terrain. What if Mount Rainier erupts, covering the area with lahars? If BNSF requires 48 hours before passenger travel after a regular mudslide, what is their regulation when a main line is covered by 20 feet of debris?


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