What if climate change is real and human caused--what should Christians do about it?

[Derf]

I've seen them, but without the elevation database on which to do them, not easy to replicate. The data are open for anyone who wants to put in the time.
...
It does consider the additional capacity of flooded coastlines, but since they'd be so shallow, it doesn't do very much.

Good answer. I don't have the time, personally, but I would hope that is what they did.

There is always water in the atmosphere. Clouds are, of course, the most visible manifestation of atmospheric water, but even clear air contains water—water in particles that are too small to be seen. One estimate of the volume of water in the atmosphere at any one time is about 3,100 cubic miles (mi3) or 12,900 cubic kilometers (km3). That may sound like a lot, but it is only about 0.001 percent of the total Earth's water volume of about 332,500,000 mi3 (1,385,000,000 km3), as shown in the table below. If all of the water in the atmosphere rained down at once, it would only cover the globe to a depth of 2.5 centimeters, about 1 inch.

So even a doubling of the present humidity would be a drop in the bucket, so to speak, if the continental glaciers continue to melt.

Moisture in the atmosphere, just like the coastline question, is one that is not as simple as a doubling of the humidity. Greater heat would extend our atmosphere higher, as the greater energy of the molecules will compensate against gravity to some greater extent than now. Thus, the atmosphere will be able to accomodate more moisture. I'm sure there are additional factors I haven't thought about, both positive and negative.

But I was also using the atmospheric moisture as a for-instance, suggesting there are many factors that will play into how much sea levels rise as the glaciers melt. To only consider one or a couple is short sighted. I'm not saying you are doing that, but nobody knows all of the factors. And even if we did, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to model them all correctly. That said, models can be improved and have been as we have learned more.

(Barbarian notes sea levels haven't changed much in our history)



Yep. Last big change was the end of the ice age, about 8-10 thousand years ago. Long before historical times.

https://www.livescience.com/1759-stone-age-settlement-english-channel.html

Ah, this is where we see divergence. I have historical documents that describe the beginning of the world, as well as events that followed, including a probable ice age less than 5000 years ago. You say the Ice Age occurred prior to that beginning of the world--a decided disconnect.

Since the ice sheets then covered a lot more land than they do now, I don't think it would be hundreds of feet difference.

Since you agree that the Ice Age was worse, then you would also agree that the world will survive this next change? Like it might flood many settlements like those in the article (though our settlements today might be more pricey to rebuild). And like the article says, more land would be freed up elsewhere (like Canada and Greenland and mountainous areas). It was no doubt uncomfortable for the people that had to relocate. It will be in our case, too, no doubt. But wasn't the end result a better one than the beginning? Isn't what we have today better than the Ice Age?

Is it not at least possible that the end result of our climate change period will be better than the current conditions? I know that's not what scientists are predicting, but sometimes scientists get it wrong, as in this article excerpt:

Forests in the northern hemisphere could be growing faster now than they were 200 years ago as a result of climate change, according to a study of trees in eastern America. The trees appear to have accelerated growth rates due to longer growing seasons and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Scientists have documented the changes to the growth of 55 plots of mixed hardwood forest over a period of 22 years, and have concluded that they are probably growing faster now than they have done at any time in the past 225 years – the age of the oldest trees in the study. Geoffrey Parker, a forest ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre in Edgewater, Maryland, said that the increase in the rate of growth was unexpected and might be matched to the higher temperatures and longer growing seasons documented in the region. The growth may also be influenced by the significant increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, he said.

Barbarian notes that putting up dikes and pumping out water is not the same thing as changing sea level.



No. That land is still below sea level. They have to maintain dikes and pump out water to keep it from flooding.

??? I'm just saying that if the Dutch can reclaim land area from the sea by putting up dikes and pumping out seawater, then we could more easily put up dikes before the sea water gets there. Then pumps are merely for maintenance rather than for establishing the area in the first place.

 

[The Barbarian]

We can surely adapt. We adapted to many disasters before. How much pain that would entail is unclear, but major climate changes have often led to mass migrations, war, and in at least one case, collapse of several civilizations in a regional catastrophe.

And it isn't like a tidal wave; it seems to have involved a little less water, and on large populations depending on a relatively few people actually producing food. Like today.

 

[Jerry Shugart]

IF? Not a chance! If the data indicates such a thing then why have so many so-called experts been caught fudging the numbers?

 

[jgarden]

What if climate change is real and human caused--what should Christians do about it?

The Trump Administration has made a concerted effort to purge all dissenting climate scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency for the express purpose of preventing the gathering of data that would contradict their ideologically driven agenda!

 

[patrick jane]

[h=1]Proof of Weather Modification | NASA, HAARP & Chemtrail Technology[/h]
https://youtu.be/wJBBlntDtEU 19 minutes

 

[patrick jane]

[h=1]Top Scientist Tells CBS News: HAARP Responsible For Recent Hurricanes - What is Cloud Seeding?[/h]
https://youtu.be/viMH3K2xmpI

 

[The Barbarian]

One problem for you:
Kaku never said that HARP caused hurricanes. In fact, he never said that anyone caused hurricanes.

Not that it's about reality for those guys.

 

[way 2 go]

IF? Not a chance! If the data indicates such a thing then why have so many so-called experts been caught fudging the numbers?

example:


The problem with the NOAA graph is that it is fake data. NOAA creates the warming trend by altering the data. The NOAA raw data shows no warming over the past century

 

[gcthomas]

[MENTION=2801]way 2 go[/MENTION]

Tony Heller, whose blog that graph came from, had no experience or training to competently process climate data. He was so bad he even got himself banned from other dernier sites like WattsUpWithThat.

If you want to find evidence that there had been fraudulent correction applied, you might want to compare the surface temperature data with the satellite data. Although you will find the same warming there.

Heller is an uneducated and conspiracy believing pillock. You should try to find actual climate scientists that take your side. But you'll have to look hard as they are hard to find. It turns out that the more you study the problem the more you appreciate how expert the real scientists are.

 

[The Barbarian]

He was so bad he even got himself banned from other dernier sites like WattsUpWithThat.

Seriously? I didn't think that any denier propaganda wouldn't be welcome on WattsUpWithThat.

 

[way 2 go]

1999 vs revision
-

1999 https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif


revision https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif

 

[Derf]

[h=1]Proof of Weather Modification | NASA, HAARP & Chemtrail Technology[/h]
https://youtu.be/wJBBlntDtEU 19 minutes

Gotta watch what you post, PJ. At 16:46 the ODD TV guy admits he's a flat earther and that there's no such thing as outer space. Do you think the conspiracy theorists require that you commit to believing EVERY conspiracy?

 

[gcthomas]

Duplicated

 

[gcthomas]

[MENTION=2801]way 2 go[/MENTION], it is interesting that you don't present the global temperatures graph, but the US graph only, in a thread about global warming. Here is the unedited image for the uncorrected data:

Not that you have made any attempt to show that the 'corrections' were a conspiracy rather than actual corrections. Why is that? Don't your think that actually understanding the instruments and the nuances of the days is important?

 

[patrick jane]

Gotta watch what you post, PJ. At 16:46 the ODD TV guy admits he's a flat earther and that there's no such thing as outer spaDo you think the conspiracy theorists require that you commit to believing EVERY conspiracy?

Don't taze me, bro. :chuckle:

I didn't really pay attention to the voice guy but to Maku.

 

[The Barbarian]

it is interesting that you don't present the global temperatures graph, but the US graph only, in a thread about global warming. Here is the unedited image for the uncorrected data:

It's a common ploy deniers use, switching back and forth from US and world temperature data. The "discrepancy" is largely due to the "Dust Bowl" disaster of the 1930, which raised average US temps well above that of the world.

Ironically, that climate change was also man-made.
The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.[1] With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

 

[Derf]

Don't taze me, bro. :chuckle:

I didn't really pay attention to the voice guy but to Maku.

Sorry. I was pretty sure that wasn't your focus. It's been interesting viewing the conspiracy videos, starting with posts on [MENTION=4980]DFT_Dave[/MENTION]'s flat earth thread. I came to the conclusion on that one that the primary instigators were well aware they were sowing deception. Your ODD TV video is much the same, I think. The guy is well aware that not all of the things he is saying are true--or at least are related to his topic. That actually makes the conspiracy theory authors guilty of the very thing they accuse the government of. That's not to say all of those that believe are trying to deceive. [This all hits home a bit, as my daughter's father-in-law is a big conspiracy nut--he believes them all, supposedly (I haven't talked to him too much about them).]

The same thing with climate change--even if it is a conspiracy of some sort, that doesn't mean everybody the touts it is part of the conspiracy.

Personally I doubt the larger part of the conspiracy aspect of the climate change hype. I think, in general, there are good scientists that are reviewing the data and coming to some flawed conclusions and some good conclusions. But I'm not sure which are the flawed conclusions. As I've stated before, I'm not sure global warming, which appears to be real to some degree, is a bad thing, just as it wasn't a bad thing at the end of the ice age. But it did have some bad consequences (like flooding settlements on the coasts).

What causes flawed conclusions when looking at real data (I'm making the assumption that the data aren't flawed)? Flawed interpretation, flawed premises or flawed logic. And I think all could be at play.

But Christians aren't exempt from either the flawed logic or flawed premises (as we see here daily on TOL), either, including on this particular issue. We need to be careful to allow truth to be spoken, even if we don't like it, and to discern error, even if it's from friends. The prophets in the old testament were rarely accepted, by either the establishment or the people--and they were often predicting climate gloom and doom.

 

[Derf]

It's a common ploy deniers use, switching back and forth from US and world temperature data. The "discrepancy" is largely due to the "Dust Bowl" disaster of the 1930, which raised average US temps well above that of the world.

Ironically, that climate change was also man-made.
The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.[1] With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

Good reference, Barb.

Here's another article about the Dust Bowl: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/05/25/great-plow-up.aspx

In it, the author lists both the drought and monoculture (replanting the same crops year after year) as primary causes. But he goes on to say a few very interesting things.

First, he talks about "plagues of biblical proportions", including "dust pneumonia" (aka the "brown plague"), grasshoppers (locusts?), jack rabbits (like frogs, maybe?), and oddly enough static electricity: 'Static electricity also became a major problem in the region, such that "blue flames leapt from barbed wire fences and well-wishers shaking hands could generate a spark so powerful it could knock them to the ground." People driving through the region had to resort to dragging chains from their cars so the static electricity wouldn't short out their engines.'

The author, Dr. Joseph Mercola, suggests that the Dust Bowl conditions might return, despite some good farming practices that have been introduced. There are two intriguing conclusions he makes at the end that fit well with our thread.
1. "Allowing the land to rest". This is a biblical suggestion. It comes straight from the practice Moses tried to introduce into the Israelites' farming practices: Exo 23:11, Lev 25:4
2. More grazing livestock. This was touched on by you some posts back, suggesting that we have too many domestic grazing animals. Mercola cites this TED talk by Allan Savory (which I haven't listened to, yet):

Desertification has long been thought to be caused by livestock, such as sheep and cattle overgrazing and giving off methane. Savory suggests the opposite is true, if done correctly (not feedlots). He even says the end result might be less carbon.

I can vouch for the idea that grazing is helpful and the feedlot mentality is harmful to the land. I own a small herd of cattle, and I don't trust that they can survive the winter on my land without some help--so I provide water and feed at a single location, but they are free to roam within my fences. My feeding/watering area is all trampled down with no grass. It's terrible. But everywhere else is beautiful and the prairie grasses are thriving--except that my herd may be growing too large for my land for the amount of rain we've had (fences might be bad in this case).

Full disclosure: Mercola is selling healthy living stuff. I'm not a follower of his, but just caught his article in a search. I'm sure he has some good ideas, but he's also trying to make a buck.

Joel Salatin, who Mercola mentions, is a slightly different matter. I've followed him off and on for a few years. He seems to be offering some helpful things to do. But I'm a little too lazy to put them into practice so far.

You can make your own mind up about Savory.

 

[Stripe]

Christians aren't exempt from either the flawed logic or flawed premises... The prophets in the old testament were rarely accepted, by either the establishment or the people--and they were often predicting climate gloom and doom.

What is "accepted by the establishment, or the people" about God's declaration that the seasons would not cease and that the world will be destroyed by fire?

 

[Derf]

What is "accepted by the establishment, or the people" about God's declaration that the seasons would not cease and that the world will be destroyed by fire?

Who is saying the seasons are ceasing? And are you saying that climate change/global warming is just the lead-up to the world being destroyed by fire? How do you know that?

Are you also suggesting that God will never again bring about changes in the climate (like drought or locusts, severe heat, polluted water, frogs, flies) for the purpose of trying to bring people to His will in an area (even if that area is the whole world)? Is that not what some of the plagues and calamities in Revelation are about--repentance? Rev 9:20-21, Rev 16:9, 11.