E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Richard B. Aronson
Ian Macintyre, left, of the Smithsonian Institution and Steven Vollmer of Northeastern University pull out a core sample for the coral study they were co-authors on.
Coral reefs along Panama's Pacific coast completely collapsed for 2,500 years due to natural climate cycles, researchers reported in a study Thursday, adding that there's a lesson in the data for man-made climate change: ease up on greenhouse gasses and reefs will restore themselves.
"We can prevent coral reefs from shutting down again or recover them if they do shut down by reducing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the ocean," study co-author Richard Aronson, a biology professor at Florida Institute of Technology, told msnbc.com.
The researchers reconstructed 6,000 years of coral reef history by driving pipes into reefs to pull out core samples.
"We were shocked to find that 2,500 years of reef growth were missing," Lauren Toth, the lead author and a doctoral student, said in a statement announcing the study in the journal Science.
The team found the same gap in earlier studies by other researchers as far away as Australia and Japan, and tied the collapse to an intensification of the natural climate cycle that produces El Nino and La Nina weather events.
Aronson emphasized that the fact that coral reefs returned does not mean mankind can expect them to survive a climate made warmer by industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.
"It is quite the opposite," he said. "Environmental pressure caused the reef ecosystems to collapse, and relieving that pressure allowed recovery."
"The same message," he added, "applies to human-caused climate change: by changing the climate we are stressing corals and coral-reef ecosystems, and we will have to stop doing that if we are going to save the reefs."
John Bruno, a marine biology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the study is valuable for showing that the biggest threat facing coral reefs is climate change.
Lauren T. Toth
This coral on Panama's Pacific coast was bleached by a 2010 warming event triggered by El Nino.
"Our modern coral reefs are supremely sensitive to subtle changes in climate even in the absence of local impacts like fishing and pollution," he wrote in a commentary for msnbc.com.
"In other words, in contrast to what has been argued in a number of high profile essays, reefs do not have to be overfished and polluted to be harmed by climatic fluctuations," wrote Bruno, who was not involved in the study.
"Everyone agrees that overfishing, particularly the depletion of predators from coral reef ecosystems, is an enormous, global problem," he added. "But the current science indicates that this problem is largely unrelated to the climate change problem. We urgently need to tackle both problems -- simultaneously and with equal vigor and commitment. Unfortunately, solving one will not negate the other."
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Iran: We can destroy US bases 'minutes after an attack'
- Israel PM faces showdown over ultra-Orthodox in army
- First NATO trucks cross Pakistan border after 7-month closure
- UK police arrest 6 on terror charges amid heightened security fears
- Mexico's president-elect shrugs off claims of vast vote-buying, coercion in election
- Europe's new tallest building: An 'iceberg' in heart of London or titanic $2.35B folly?
- Syrian groups come to blows while seeking peace
- 'Catastrophe': Journalist behind the lines in Syria sees no end to war
Leave a Comment:
So who did they blame for climate change then? Oh right, no one. There were no politicians around to lie about everything. If you took politics out of the pollution problem it would get solved. Maybe we need to reduce political pollution to actually get things done.
Sounds right on to me; they can't blame it on human activity 2500 years ago, but they want us to stop our life on the earth NOW? Dream on, bozos!
Expected to find ignoramuses on here making these kinds of idiotic claims; but the first two posts? You guys are on top of this one! Bet you're Fox Noos viewers too; am I right? hunh?
Can't read the article, can you? It doesn't say 2,500 years ago, it said that there was 2,500 years missing from the growth record. It did not say when this was. even if it was 2.500 years ago, there are vastly more people alive today then there was then and if you don't think our activity changes the environment, which includes climate, then nothing can help you.
You obviously didn't read the article. But that didn't stop you from pontificating on something you know absolutely nothing about. Nothing. You and your buddy Coomojoe should get together at your local skid row bar and compare notes on things you know nothing about. That should take you the rest of your lives.
Apparently there was a natural global warming period that lasted 2500 years, causing coral decline. 1. there is no proof that the current global warming trend (last 40 years) is man made. 2. Cutting back on energy use is definitely worth supporting but taxing energy use so that governments can piss away even more of our money on garbage projects is not an answer.
That's right. Humans didn't cause that uptick in El Nino/La Nina activity. Instead, that uptick was caused when the El Nino/La Nina cycle (the ENSO) became intertwined with the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
That kind of entanglement can force rapid cycling between El Nino and La Nina conditions - just as human-caused climate change can. So the whole point here is that we have an historical record that shows how much damage can be caused when the ENSO cycles rapidly between El Nino and La Nina.
And, of course, the other point is that it was caused 'naturally' 4,000 years ago. But this current one is driven by humans.
This one didn't have to happen.
There was no 'natural global warming' between 2,000 B.C. and 500 A.D. (the period being discussed here). Quite the opposite, in fact. Look at the temperature record.
You're right, career politicians have ulterior motives that prevent them from doing the right thing. I think we may be at a place where if we don't change how an who we choose who lead us we will pass a point of no return and pay a terrible price.
you're right. In nature, cycles accelerate themselves all the time and rivers naturally start on fire. Sometimes 2 or 3 or 9 times. Cuyahoga...totally natural.
I see the morons on both sides of the debate are out in force today. Nothing in this article helped either side of the debate. All it said was there was a period where coral reefs died for 2500 years. None of it proves what is causing our current warming period but the mouth breatehrs on both sides of the debate are out in force calling each other names and saying it proves their point. Where has anything proved an acceleration orthosophy. NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING we have discovered so far can be used to track lifetime trends of a planetary body millions of years old, NOTHING! Mathematic miodels are no better than their factors and the factors beign used aren't proven. Physicist, back to research methods 101 for you, you have to have representative data to make a deduction and we don't have it. There are perfectly good reasons to cut our use of carbon releasing energy sources but for the most part the fools arguing about it today are doing it to further their own self interests. The oil/coal companies want to sell oil and coal. The man made climate change crowd want their grants and alternative energy investments to pay off. Al Gore wants to sell more dubious carbon credit schemes. You all fall for it.....
We seem to be in a natural cycle of ignorance right now, where people who claim to be educated cannot wrap their heads around facts without adding drastic assumptions on top of them.
Fact 1) There was a period of 2500 years of no growth on sample reefs.
Fact 2) Global warming is causing a similar lack in growth on our reefs.
Assumption by the inept) Fact 1 was caused by warming.
Reality) There are more forces at play in this world, and while there are similar outcomes, each is driven by different forces. Until the ignorant people stop making assumptions, and actually care enough to learn, then you will continue to be ignorant. What is wrong with accepting the fact that you do not have enough information to make a good judgement on the situation as one of these guys who has spent more time studying the reality of our ecosystem than you have?
@Physicist-retired -
Nice Answer and/or comment! Unfortunately many people with closed minds who are somewhat to totally brainwashed by these political pundits such as Rush or Beck or Hannity, etc., etc., who cannot even make a rational statement about politics let alone about science and climate change. People cannot recognize the very simple fact that any greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere will cause more severe weather and climate change and ultimately an increase in Earth's surface temperatures.
The fact that Earth has many different natural reasons in which the Earth's climate has changed (some examples are: 1)the one discussed in this article, the natural climate cycle that produces El Nino and La Nina weather events; 2)volcanic eruptions that have caused the Earth's solid materials, i.e., rocks and minerals, to degass thus transferring lots of CO2 and other greenhouse gases formerly locked up and sending them into Earth's atmosphere causing a heating up period; 3)On the converse, volcanoes spewing lots of ash and debris into our atmosphere thus blocking the sun's rays and deflecting heat and thus causing global cooling and potentially an ice age; 4)Natural Milankovitch cycles; 5)Natural solar flare activity increases and decreases; 6)Changes in ocean locations and sizes [varying due to plate tectonics], as well as changing ocean currents, wind currents, Earth's orbit, etc.,. Nobody is denying that there are many natural reasons for Earth's climate to change.
However, in addition to natural climate change, we currently are experiencing a huge man-made transfer of carbon from formerly locked-up oil and gas, into Earth's atmosphere via the burning of fossil fuels. It is extremely simple to acknowledge the fact that humans are burning fossil fuels to power cars and trucks, to make electricity, and to basically do about 80% or more of everything needed for todays economy to flourish in ALL countries. Doing so moves the previously locked-up carbon from the Earth's crust into Earth's atmosphere. Doing this increases the heat-retaining properties of Earth's atmosphere and thus causes an increase in Earth surface temperatures.
In sum: Earth is currently undergoing a shift in global surface temperatures which in turn causes global climate change and more severe weather. Part of this global climate change is attributed to natural causes as previously mentioned. And part is attributed to human activity via the burning of fossil fuels. Based on data and knowledge from studying ice cores, as well as from other sources, it is readily apparent that the current climate change is changing drastically quicker then anything previously seen in nature. Therefore, it is apparent that the human activity aspect of the current Earth climate change is the main factor driving this change, and if it could be slowed down while scientists find a way to stabilize the atmospheric greenhouse gas effect, it (the increase in Earth surface temperatures and increase in severe weather) might be able to be stabilized to the point where all of Earth's ice is not melted and sea-level rise is only moderate instead of severe. And all of the other consequences may be mitigated so that species extinctions are kept to a minimum rather then wiping out numerous species like an erasure wiping out letters on a chalkboard!!!
No, Chris, all you said was "So who did they blame for climate change then? Oh right, no one. " Isn't it astounding how we are one of the briefest lived species on this rock and coincidentally changes are happening faster than we can observe by any measurable standard?
And if you want to talk research standards 101, statistical models cant prove causal chains, which is what big tobacco hid behind until 10 years ago. Go ahead and tell me we're too short lived to connect the dots on that one.
All you apologists have one thing right though. We won't destroy this planet through climate change...we will simply destroy our way of life and the terrestrial ecosystem. The planet will keep spinning, and the next species that pops up can argue about whether we died off naturally.
For every wingnut tree hugging jackhole who refuses to accept that we are an apogee predator, there is a wingnut drill-baby-drill jackhole who knows deep down inside we're effing up a world that we've only borrowed and is hedging bets that they will be dead before it really impacts them.
Why is it so hard for us to admit that we change things, that some change is inevitable and we need to accept that, but that we can and should clean up after ourselves? 4 year-olds learn it.
And that's really the main issue here, RockJock.
The last Great Extinction Event (the PETM, 55 million years ago) saw a rise in global temperatures of about 5C, spread out over 20,000 years. It created mass die-offs.
We're currently on track to accomplish that in just 250 years of human emissions (1850 - 2100) - nearly 100 times faster.
Anyone who thinks we'll figure out how to 'adapt' to that kind of rapid change is forgetting that humans need to eat.
Great post, BTW.
There is ZERO proof that adding more CO2 to an existing greenhouse raises temperature inside a greenhouse. Growers do it all the time (increase CO2 content inside their greenhouses to stimulate growth) and there is no effect on the temperature. Adding more glass to the greenhouse does not raise the temperature either. If we are indeed raising the temperature of the Earth, it happens by urbanization - more roofs, more paved roads and less forests causes an immediate raise of temperatures in any given location. Governments should tax these activities, not fossil fuel use.
And there is 100 years of proof that carbon dioxide molecules absorb at infrared wavelengths (i.e., 'heat'), making it a greenhouse gas.
Show me a perfectly sealed greenhouse, add 100 ppm to it, and I guarantee you that it will warm. Or you can just try this simple experiment.
And it's no coincidence that some of the organizations currently peddling climate change denial got their start decades ago generating reasons why smoking isn't harmful.
Physicist - you have no clue, old dude! LOL... Typical greenhouse boosts CO2 concentration to 1000 ppm with zero effect on temperature. Educate yourself here: http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
Growers would love to have a cheap way to increase temperature in their greenhouses during colder months. But CO2 at 1000 ppm does NOTHING to increase temperature.
Personal attacks don't change the facts, Max. I gave you a good link. Look at it - don't be afraid to learn something new.
Your own link has a whole section on natural air exchange. Greenhouses are far from 'sealed'. I quote it:
Max, I understand how you can be confused by the misleading term "greenhouse effect," but the atmosphere actually operates nothing like a greenhouse, so such analogies are useless.
News to you, physicist: Earth is not sealed either. The heat escapes earth all the time as well, so the issue is not a perfect seal but a NET GAIN. My cousin has operated greenhouses all his life and he knows just like all other greenhouse operators know: CO2 concentration has no effect on the temperature.
Jock - yes, atmosphere is not quite like a greenhouse, but there still is no proof that a small increase in CO2 concentration leads to GW. Water vapor is far more potent and abundant 'greenhouse gas', yet changes in it's concentration do not translate into changes in temperature.
Max,
Greenhouse gases are the only thing that keeps this planet from being a permanent iceball. That's Atmospheric Science 101.
H2O is a greenhouse gas. So is CO2. Changing the levels of either will change the amount of heat Earth retains from the sun.
You're arguing against several hundred years of basic physics and chemistry here. But you don't have to take my word for it. See what NASA has to say on the subject (but I doubt you'll actually read it).
Carbon Dioxide Controls Earth's Temperature
If you have actually read what I wrote earlier, you would not be so simplistic - I do not deny the greenhouse effect of the earth's atmosphere. What I'm saying is that there is a point beyond which adding more atmospheric 'greenhouse gases' produces no increase in temperature (just like adding more glass to the greenhouse has no effect on temperature). I am a chemist who works in a lab (done so for 3 decades) and has a tremendous respect for FACTS, not conjectures.
Not true - otherwise, how could you explain extremely warm periods in the distant past?
Every doubling of CO2 increases global temperatures by about 5C.
You don't have to take my word for it. Read what NOAA has to say.
Oh, that is very easy - sun's output changes, as well as the earth's orbit wobble (Milankowitch cycles). It is very possible that the past increases of CO2 concentrations are the EFFECT rather than the cause of the climatic warming trend.
C'mon Physicist...you're only schooled in science and presented verifiable evidence of your contentions. Max has a cousin who runs a GREENHOUSE!
As to the 'verifiable evidence'... From the link quoted by the Physicist above: "While it might seem simple to determine cause and effect between carbon dioxide and climate from which change occurs first, or from some other means, the determination of cause and effect remains exceedingly difficult."
Translation for the logically challenged: 1. It is possible that there is no cause and effect between CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and temperature (it may be a mere coincidence).
2. It is possible that higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is an EFFECT of the higher temperature, not the other way around. Higher temps invariably lead to an increase in CO2 concentrations as CO2 is released from various sources such as faster decomposition of organic matter in land and aquatic storage sinks.
The earth is heating up as a result of the sun so are the other planets. The failure of this report is how did the coral die off when the world had no large population and no industry. There is a temperature problem for reefs as they need a certain temperature range which tends to be cool water. By the way the increase in atmospheric CO2 has caused more plant growth. PLANTS EAT IT UP! If you want to do something about temperature and wheather build atmosphere processing towers and introduce moister or take it away and do the same with CO2.
Not all plants respond the same way to elevated CO2 levels, so there will be effects of changing species composition in various plant communities. And the fun thing is, no one knows exactly what that will do, especially because it's likely to happen quickly. Ya gotta learn some science, friend, it helps with explaining physical reality.
Funny how being a conservative blowhard somehow qualifies you to know more about climate change than the combined brightest minds of humanity.
It's a growth industry, Mike. Imagine how many jobs are being created by Conservative denial of science?
This is a sad time for the Enlightenment-provoked world our forefathers created. The Founders must be spinning in their graves.
This is a biology lesson for those of you who attended the Rush Limbaugh academy of science. Corals are not plants, they are part of the Animal kingdom specifically the family Animalia, phylem Cnidaria. It is well know that corals and coral reefs are very sensitive to changes in their environment natural or man made so understanding what effects them or in this case what effected them is important.
That would be great if we were plants. What might make the world comfortable for a fern might just make it very UN-comfortable for us. We have had an extremely warm/dry winter followed by an extremely hot summer with no real relief in sight. Think about that kind of weather year after year. Not such a rosy future ...
You might be interested in the actual research on that topic, Ross. From PhysOrg:
Climate change helps then quickly stunts growth, decade-long study shows
More at the link. Living systems are more complicated than you think. It's not as simple as just saying that 'plants like CO2'.
There is nothing wrong with the suggestion by the scientists in this story that we modify our attitude and watch what we put into the air. We could create many 1000s of jobs for people to create an industry that sequesters CO2 and other gasses we put into the air, or we could do any number of 1000 other things to be more mindful of what we are doing on this planet.
It is not a political game. It is a fact that the planet has been both much warmer and much cooler in the past. The fact that it might be natural for the planet to be heating up ( and it is ) dose not say that we should just sit back and call it totally natural. The planet will warm no matter what we do, because it has before and it will again but it still makes a lot of sense to watch what we are doing to the plant and not chalk it up to lies from politicians or scientists.
We live on a dynamic planet. It will go through it's cycles and we will live if we can roll with the changes. Life thrived millions of years ago on this planet when it was much warmer. Life will adapt and change again, our roll is to make sure that we do not contribute to the climate changing to quickly. We must be mindful of any impact we could have and not make excuses why its not real.
Brilliant... missing from the story is how many MAN MADE reefs that have grown in life and population despite Human caused "global warming"
//www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/recreational/saltwater/artificial-reefs
Not as effective as "natural" but because of "ease" of implementation, it has had resounding, positive effects... I'm for being a good steward of the earth, Clean up our "spills" and extraction of energy in the cleanest way possible.. minimize waste but this Human caused climate change is a bunch of Hogwash... especially the article:... the scientist took NATURAL climate data and says "we can learn a lesson... " good grief.... That forest fire in Colorado put more "pollutants" in the sky than a 100 years of "human caused" anything... not to mention Volcanic activity.
And Don't get me started on the environmental disasters caused by environmentalist (I wont bother posting "proof" it is too numerous to name.... please The proponents of HCGW are more of a danger to economy and the planet than "evil" industry.
QE
This planet is due for a cooling period. Ice cores show that the temperature cycles in about 13,500 to 15,000 years. It warms to some peak and then drops in several decades into an ice age. No one knows what causes it.
I agree, we should reasonably limit any materials we put into our atmosphere to avoid upsetting the cycles any more than necessary. However, when we are only providing 3 - 4% of the equation of accelerating pollutants, we are not necessarily the real problem.
We are adding pollutants, while at the same time destroying natures air scrubbers, rain forests.
Get used to the severe storms and weather, as they are going to get much worse. "Adapt" by dying.
The world will go on...there's just nothing that says a huge population of humans have to be part of that future. If we want to be part of the future we have to act as though that's important to us.
Actually, the climate 'peak' of this glacial/interglacial cycle (the Holocene) happened 8,000 years ago. We should be cooling now. And we were - until the middle of the 20th century. But we all know that the planet isn't cooling now.
Glacial/interglacial cycles happen on the order of about 100,000 years. And we do know what causes them - changes in Earth's orbit, called Milankovitch Cycles.
That forest fire in Colorado put more "pollutants" in the sky than a 100 years of "human caused" anything
Flame, I don't concede your facts on the amount of CO2 released by the recent fires but burning wood (assuming that the affected forests are eventually regrown) does not create a net increase in CO2. The same CO2 released by the fire is eventually recaptured by the new trees as they grow. It is when we burn fossil fuels which have locked away carbon for millions of years that we increase the net concentration of CO2.
The problem I have with the "we should be cooling" argument is that we have not been around long enough to know if this is part of a natural cycle that takes place on vary long time frames. I was aware that by shorter time frames we probably would have started to cool down, but there is something a bit more happening here then water vapor and CO2 being added to the atmosphere.
Current data suggests that ALL planets in the system are warming. having said that, the last time I checked, the suns output has not increased by much, so that leads me to think that there is something we are missing and it is something on a much larger scale then just this planet.
I have no doubt at all that human activity has contributed to extra heating on this planet but at this time it dose not appear as if our activity is the only cause of this heating.
QE137
Gotta link for that please.
Yeah - ease up on the greenhouse gases, stop driving, shut down the chemical plants, refineries, steel mills, power plants, and give up your jobs so that we can save the ever-loving reefs. The planet is too hot and we can fix it!
Uh, what's that Mom? Oh, time to get up. Man what a nightmare I just had! I dreamt that people actually think we caused the climate to warm and that we can reverse it if we try really hard, click our heels and wish we were in Kansas!
You are an idiot, one of many millions of idiots so you're not alone. But I wanted you to know for certain that you are among them.
Back in the old days, there was a political party referred to as the "Know Nothings". You'd fit right in.
Reading posts from foolish people who think they know more than scientists who spend their lives studying and researching this issue. The amazing arrogance of the the right wing deniers. Warm enough for ya?
Or even better, enjoy sudden changes in precipitation patterns which could have really devastating effects whether too much or too little. Just ask the Mittster, yes?
Bluecat 55
Reading posts from foolish people who think they know more than scientists who spend their lives studying and researching this issue. The amazing arrogance of the the right wing deniers. Warm enough for ya?
Thats not the CASE BLUE CAT,,,the exact opposite is true. Most scientists, are by nature academics. They go straight from BS. to MS. to PHD,,,then start collecting data. They are not part of the real world. ALL,,and I do mean ALL institutes of higher learning are filled to the brim with very smart people, teaching in the absence of reality. The old adage has never been disproven, "Those that can DO,,,those that can't teach. With that in mind, Why don't the collection team offer a valid reason for the coral die off for 2500 years...? Because if they said " This is the natural evolution cycle of the earth",,,the whole man caused problem arguement becomes MOOT.
"THEY", meaning the researchers are humans like us, they get HUGE grants to produce data, that in turn, gets more grants,,and on and on. If this team had said, we expected that, nothing new here, POOF goes their grant money and they have to find new work. The scam is not global warming, its the researchers making evidence FIT their arguement, so they can continue to get money. THATS ALL. OF COURSE THE EARTH IS WARMING, BUT IT'S SUPPOSED TO FOR GODS SAKE!!!!!!!!!
If they were to burst into flames from the heat, they would still be in denial. This is the monumental level of ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity that pervades their ranks. These are the same people who are hard core subscribers to the National Enquirer and the New York Post. Their tinfoil headwear shall protect them, or so they believe.
Anti-intellectual fervor is running rampant among the Conservative Movement today, as it has in various places and times throughout history. If you look at that history that rejection of things intellectual is always a precursor to some very ugly times. Acceptance of the concept that "my stupidity is of more value than your knowledge" will only lead us to disaster.
@John B and Mymomdid.....
Anti Intellectual?.... Denial while bursting into flames:.... Please, put down the pills. First: It is not a slam on intellectuals, but their motivation can (and should) be called into questions. The article CLEARLY states they are talking about natural events and the scientist juxtapose HCGW data and drew a slope?... give me a break... Even the "intellectuals'" posts (those that agree with you guys) are missing the point, One poster said glacial cycles every 100,000 years. (got it)... another gave a 13,000 "Ice Core"cooling off cycle ... (K.. got it). The article give a 2,500 year period CONSISTENT all over the world and they give "greenhouse" gasses as the culprit and starts a "Pitch" for "lessons to be drawn" in the 3rd line of the article before any "facts".
Hey call me a climate denier.. and I am a Christian, Conservative, Creationist... I don't know how many times the "evolution" discussion has been waged on the vine and (guys like me) get slammed by our "lack of Hard evidence" to support creation while being bombarded by "definitive" results supporting evolution... and then Intellectuals post this garbage and use it to support HCGW... please... give me a break....
(Ok Flame.... Woooosaaaaahhhh... Wooooosaaahhh...) ... I'm embarrassed by my rant... you got any of those pills left.. prozac preferably.
Or in some cases anti-intellectualism is expressed as "all you have is hundreds of years of science. I can trump that because I have...the Bible."
I'm a Christian as well. I'm also a child of the Enlightenment. While belief in the spiritual is important to me, belief in science made a much bigger improvement in the daily life of those living than did the Dark Ages.
When you read this it is important you know that during the Eocene it was about nine degrees warmer than it is now--coral survived that, and will survive any climate change we may see in the coming years.--I am always amazed what the scientists choose to leave out. The Earth we have "Historically" known has been cooler than the Earth normally is--no surprise if it getting warmer. At the start of the Middle Ages we find Vikings farming in Greenland. When it got colder about 1400 they all died. It still is too cold to farm in Greenland. Another thing scientists don't like to talk about is the fact that water vapor is ten times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide--but, because there is so much more of it, it actually exerts 900 times the affect on climate as carbon dioxide. It is astonishing the amount of deliberate deception that is being handed out. Final fact--man himself produces less than 3% of the total carbon dioxide that occurs each year--the Earth, herself, is a huge producer of CO2. But were we to go back to the Old Stone Age, when man had no fire at all, we could only reduce the annual production by "Less than 3%"---any reductions we actually do make will not be measurable. Oh, and by the way, why is it nobody blames humans for causing the Ice Ages in the first place?
Stan
Mostly because the recent series of Ice Ages were largely triggered by changes in oceanic circulation caused by the formation of the Panamanian Isthmus. This blocked previous flow of warm tropical water from the eastern Pacific to the Atlantic, setting up oscillating warmer and cooler periods along with changes in polar precession (the exact pattern of the earth's tilt toward the sun). Yup, no people involved, nice easy geomorphology effects.
Hey Stan, a fine compendium of half truths, distortions and out right falsehoods. Congrats. Where did you receive your PhD in Climatology? Also, please provide the google reference for your doctoral thesis. I could use a good laugh.
Yeah, Stan, DON'T LIE TO PEOPLE!
It is astonishing the amount of deliberate deception that is being handed out.
Like by Stan?
What's not astonishing is the degree of shamelessness by them.
The ones who are being fooled, deceived and sold down the river are the ones who buy all the lies, half truths and "research" bought and paid for by the most profitable industry in the world and the one that has the most to lose by reduction of pollutants - BIG OIL ! ! ! Come on folks - face the facts, big oil is perpetrating the same garbage science, obfuscation and deliberate confusion that the tobacco industry did a generation ago. So it is no surprise that big oil supports the pro-business political right. Koch Bro's, Exxon-Mobil, OPEC, frackers, etc. are all buying your minds and your political agenda. Please think outside the box just this once and realize that you don't have to march in lock step to this madness just because you're a conservative.
I respect your right to be a conservative and I respect and even understand your concepts, but I have no respect for mindless automatons who have no idea what they are talking about, but insist on regurgitating the anti-scientific politico-babble that they are fed by the ones with the big pockets.
Hey bluecat, provide the link to your doctoral thesis in climatology. I won't hold my breath.
Must have been all those vehicles running around several millennium ago.
Said another Know Nothing lemming.
To mymom...seems she didn't raise a fool, more like an idiot.
As amusing as all the name calling, it's important to note that no one claimed the earlier die off of coral was caused by the same mechanism. The claim is that there are lessons to be learned.
Well, at least when we all die there is hope that corals may come back.
Every thing there can be checked, and found multiple times by Googling--truth hurts, doesn't it--go ahead, refute as much as one single letter
Stan
Everything that anyone has ever said about climate change is wrong. He's wrong, she's wrong, I'm wrong, they're wrong, but most of all, if you're reading this, YOU'RE wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Now hop in your Jeep Wrongler and drive the wrong way down the wrong street to the wrong side of town. Wrong!
So,coral disappeared for 2500 years and man had nothing to do with it. So, we do not have any thing to do with the climate now. Yet, idiots want to bankrupt us, force us to "GREEN" lifestyles for no reason. Environmentalists are Communist Progressive traitors. That's the truth. They are out to destroy capitalism and enslave us all. Wake up people.
and all those gore followers are now claiming that the ancient romans should have used cleaner coal when making steel for their swords.
So you can mumble all you want. this cycle has been going on for a while.
Then otoh, you can keep complaining about all the pollutants the US is putting into the atmosphere, but china is causing a brown cloud from Israel to Japan. Course the chinese finally admitted that the fog was not fog but pollution, and then told the press to quit talking about it.
Love sheep, they will run over a cliff if gore sends em.
Hey maybe the sun is getting hotter and getting ready to supernova. Maybe thats why things are happening. course after what 21st of December it wont matter anyway.
President Romney will thank the Democrats for his election victory thanks to the liberals continuing to fear monger the voter's children with CO2 death threats. Vote Liberal or Die? An election promise of making the weather nicer? Are you kidding? Who is the neocon again?
It is the rate of climate change which is just as dangerous as the amount of climate change. The present rate of change is almost unprecedented in the history of our planet. Species need time to adapt, and if that opportunity does not present itself, then species are invaribly forced into extinction. Mankind is at the pinnacle of a pyramid of life which is slowly crumbling, and it is only a matter of time before mankind's civilization crumbles along with it, too. In fact, that pinnacle (i.e., mankind's population) is rapidly growing so massive that this supporting ecological pyramid is literally being crushed under the weight of it. We are never going to be able to cooperate as a world in stabilizing our population and our planet until we create a new system of international government to serve as the means of cooperation. I have long proposed that we create a new democratic United Nations world government institution, complete with World Constitution and elected world legislature and elected world executive body, so we can finally jointly legislate our common futures in this world. In lieu of doing that, we are eventually doomed to default to these competing totalitarian New World Orders which are being promoted by these ET installed terminal religious belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions, which are all vying for future messianic dictatorial control and dominance over our emerging human world. It is absolutely vital that we DO NOT wait until the end of World War III to finally do this, the way that we waited until the end of World War II to finally replace the out of date League of Nations. If we do, it will certainly be too late for mankind on this precious planet, as I have already explained many times before. - Rick Carter
If the coral reefs collapsed ages ago, what caused it? Was it man-made? Doubtful. And yet it is still insisted that the current decline is man-made. Why is that? Who is behind this push that insists that climate change is driven solely by man? What is their ultimate goal? What is the hidden agenda? Have we become so prideful that we must insist that even nature bend to our every demand? The earth is going through a normal, cyclical, change. It has been doing this since the formation of the solar system. No amount of "scientific" studies will change that fact. I'm sure that our ancestors were told that they were to blame when the climate started to change around them. All the dancing around the fire could not and did not stop that change. Today, we are simply repeating the same dance.
Once again, the shaman will be exposed for the fraud that he is and the people will return to logical, sound reasoning.
Apparently there are some posters who have poor reading or comprehension skills. Contrary to what posters assert, neither the article nor the headline say that corals vanished 2,500 years ago. It says that the coral vanished for a period of 2,500 years in a 6000-year core sample. The failure of the author of the article is to clarify WHEN, within that 6,000-year range, the 2,500-year absence occurred. The author of this article, and his editor, are also therefore somewhat responsible for having faiied to supply a crucial piece of information which, no doubt, was, included in the initial investigation report by Toth and Aronson.
I remember seeing "contact",,,and the actor saying "science is the search for TRUTH". This entire article is typical MSNBC LEFT WING HORSE CRAP. The researchers themselves,,,the damn headline,,,even proclaims it....2500 years agon....long before industrial MAN,,there was GLOBAL warming...there was CORAL die off,,there was Green house gases. Then MSNBC leaves out the remainder of the arguement,,,if you had a die off,, if you had global warming who caused it? ALIENs? NOOOOOO,,,it is a part of the cycle of life, the planet goes through the cycles, regardless of man, cow flatulence, or lawn fertilizer. The end problem here? Is that liberals and the shallow, know it all, left wing, refuse to accept they CANNOT CONTROL mother nature. They pass laws taht says it's yummy and warm to have men/men, women/women, which goes agaianst nature (not GOD). They pass laws to prevent you fom commuting. They try to control every aspect of your life, by FIAT. But they can't control nature,,,and it "CHAPS their ASS." (Also from CONTACT...LOL)
Science is not and never has been the search for truth. Science is the search for validation. Just like religion. Science and religion both have presupposed ideas. The seekers (scientist or theologian) begin with an idea and then they see the world around them in terms that try to validate that idea. If the reality of their surroundings fail to validate the idea then instead of easily shedding the idea they simply reinterpret the surroundings to make it fit. Remember it was Science that brought the world the Eugenics movement because there was an idea that some races were inferior and so science looked at the races and saw things like Blacks or Jews or Indians, etc having higher rates of diabetes or cancer or poor eyesight, or stunted growth, etc and determined that this was proof that they were inferior. Just like scientific data once confirmed that cotton mill workers were lower on the gene pool because they lived shorter lives when in fact it was the cotton dust they were breathing. Or the coal miners. I could go on...
This is not to say that Science is all bad. Science is only a tool. The real threat to science are those who believe anything they are told because it is claimed to be "scientific".
Remember the same commitment to "Science" led to both treatments for Polio and Medical torture in concentration camps.
Science doubled your life expectancy in just the last 100 years, my friend.
Your welcome.
Maybe the coral vanished because it got to cold? All the right wing idiots who probably just finished watching dancing with the stars think they know better than scientists who devote their lives to studying climate. It's just a big hoax to fleece the public and destroy capitalism. Paul from NM is a good example of the bitterness that these right wingers have towards science. They are all getting rich off the big grants and are cooking the books so they can get more money and destroy capitalism. I dont think it is climate change that is going to kill of man I think it is stupidity. I havent noticed the temp getting warmer in my lifetime but I sure have seen an increase in stupid people.
"Coral reefs along Panama's Pacific coast completely collapsed for 2,500 years due to natural climate cycles,"
So they went away because of mother nature, and came back due to mother nature. Man played no role in either. This is not a call to cut back on anything, but narcissistic liberals like to think everything revolves around them.
Why should we protect the reefs? There's no money in it. But if you foul up the atmosphere with huge amounts of greenhouse gases you can make a fortune.
It's a no-brainer.
The authors state that natural climate cycles caused the reefs to disappear and then regenerate then they make the claim that man made global warming is to blame. All this article does is refute itself.
How is that a contradiction? Natural conditions cause the change THEN, and we are duplicating those conditions NOW.
Is this really so difficult?
Why is it so difficult to accept that we are changing the climate? It is fine to question science, but it would seem to be supported by common sense in the instance of what we are now experiencing. There are seven billion of us and we have been burning fossil fuels for a century at increasing levels. Am I to understand that this is coincidence? It's going to be 105 here today, record after record after record. It is one thing to question the climate models we've been shown, but they have been borne out over the past 30 years--we were told this would happen and why and now it is happening. What is the explanation for what we are experiencing other than human activity? Vague speculation. It's not alright to continue making the world less livable for our descendants so that we can live as we wish. I suppose I have to accept that there is nothing I can do but try to change the way I live. I'm worried for my kids. Everything is not just fine and we are not going to be alright if this continues.
Once again for all the assorted warblers of "Wish Physics", let's go over the action of CO2 and the source of its potency as a green house gas when compared to other more common species like H2O.
The effectiveness of the various green house gases to trap heat even in small concentrations arises from the fact that they selectively intercept disjoint regions of the solar spectrum.
Because the Sun is hotter than the Earth, the incoming (black body) radiation energy is strongly concentrated in visible light. Visible light is visible because if you are a successful organism evolving photo-receptors for this planet, then you will win if you can see where the illumination is strongest. Now because the Earth is far cooler than the Sun, when the Earth cools its (black body} radiation energy is strongly concentrated in infra-red light. "Green house gas" molecules have a great affinity for the capture of infra-red light, so large chunks of the outgoing radiative energy are now stopped in the green house gas. If this heat was only kept in the green house gas, there would not be much of an effect on our heat balance.
However the heat captured by the green house gas molecule, is then shared by collisions with all the other gases in the air. That process is not reversible directly, and the loss of heat back into space depends on the quasi black body radiative transfer from the atmosphere as a whole. Since CO2 is such a strong absorber in spectral regions different from H2O and since the H2O concentration is largely fixed by the general thermal equilibrium of air and water on the planet, the CO2 (and also CH4) species are the sensitive drivers of net heat balance.
So, if you imagine that the heat capacity of only the green house gas stored the captured heat, then for sure that wouldn't amount to squat, but that picture is completely false.
The common Wish Physics arguments, pushed by Oil Shills like the Koch crowd, just fail, nobody in the professional climate science community is lying to you. The situation is very similar to the actions of those unscrupulous folks who took (and likely still take) the tobacco companies money to lie to us about lung cancer.
The common pride of ignorance among climate science deniers is the real lie here, it only serves to perpetuate the problem and to dilute everyone's courage to examine the proper extent to which we should try and mitigate the AGW problem.
For those with an Oil Shill agenda, the science is "hard to accept" because the solutions will diminish fossil fuel profit margins, at least in the short term, which is all they care about. Even James Mountain ("of ignorance?") Inhofe, the vocal denier fool of the Senate, recently admitted that he was "on your side of this issue" until he learned the cost of remediation. As if the validity of the science depended on that!
It is remarkable the conservative (Republican) rejection of knowledge. It is a doctrinaire ignorance. Not a single Republican senator believes in climate change. Many believe in the creation theory and reject evolution as unproven. And their economic theories are based on the disproven supply side of Reagan and even Reagan abondoned it.
To think that human pollution has ‘ZERO’ effect on the planet is beyond ignorant and beyond common sense. You don’t need a scientist to tell you this. But then again, this disbelief and burying your head in the sand is the same belief that many of the same people have that:
1) The earth was created instantaneously in 7-days
2) Nothing lived beyond 4 thousand years ago
3) Dinosaurs are fake
4) Man never stepped foot on the moon
5) There could never possibly be other life in an ever expanding universe
6) Oil is an unending resource
7) Evolution is just science fiction
It is so funny how the naysayers only pick out single bits of information from these articles rather than the entire article as one piece. The point these scientists are making is that coral reefs are sensitive to subtle changes in climate, even with the absence of human intervention, but that human intervention in the form of over fishing, pollution, etc. accelerates this process and we have a chance to fix it. Who really cares who is right or wrong in the climate change debate and think smaller, like your lungs. If you are a smoker, do you not believe that if you quite you will be in better health, be more active, be able to breathe better and increase your life expectancy? Think of your lungs like the earth, a cleaner earth is a longer lasting earth.
The Earth will continue to thrive with or without use. The question is what kind of fish bowl do we want to live in? One filled with oxygen and other vital elements or do we want to breath in carbon gases?