Debunking Another Misleading Site
by Eric Richard
A few days ago, one of the mailing lists I am on sent out the following URL and asked if people had seen it or had comments on it:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html
If you go to it, you can see that it challenges you to “test your knowledge and common sense” with a 10 question “Global Warming Test”. And, from the get go, they warn you that this is a “No Spin Zone” with the following note: “This section contains sound science, not media hype, and may therefore contain material not suitable for young people trying to get a good grade in political correctness.”
The quiz then walks the user through a set of 10 questions about global warming and lets them know whether they got each answer right or wrong with a detailed explanation of each including numerous citations to support their argument.
I have to admit that the author of the quiz knew what they were doing. I don’t think they ever outright lied. They certainly mislead and obscured and misrepresented. But never did they outright lie. It is what Al Franken would call “weasel-words”.
Anyway, one of the other readers on the mailing list went through the quiz question by question to debunk each of the questions and explain how they are misleading. I figured it would be useful to get this analysis up in case anyone was interested in understanding the tactics used by the opposition or in case you are ever forced to explain why this site is hooey.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the website is hosted by Monte Heib, Chief Engineer, West Virginia Office of Miners Health, Safety and Training. He is not a climate scientist, but a mining engineer in ‘coal country’. Big coal rears its ugly head again.
Anyway, feel free to take the quiz and follow along with the question-by-question debunking below. Special thanks to Lisa Alexander, chair of the Watertown Environment and Energy Efficiency Committee, for this great analysis.
I took the test. I will say it is very carefully worded and quite subtly deceptive and well designed to mislead the naive minded. I answered all the questions correctly except one (which, actually, I could have answered “the skeptic” way, but when got “wrong” answer, got lot of charts and graphs and explanations about why I was “wrong”)… The “scientists” quoted include Richard Lindzen (known skeptic) and Pat Michaels (twice - so probably this was produced by American Coal - I think he’s their guy - can easily find out on www.heatisonline.org.)Here’s my comments on the questions:
#1 about the “increasing” temps since 18000 years ago, conveniently leaves out last ice age (ended 12000 years ago) and the “mini” ice age (which it later notes) which started around 1300 AD when the St. Lawrence ice dam broke and a lot of water rushed into upper Atlantic (think about Gore movie) and Gulf Stream slowed down. It has NOT warmed continuously since 18000 years ago. And yes, sea level is higher now that all the ice is melted, but there was a mile or two of ice on top of northern US in the ice age. All very deceptive with the use of strategically selected facts.
#2 GH effect (atmosphere) makes earth liveable, else would be too cold (like Mars), yes, that is true, but too much of a good thing (CO2) is still too much. 30,000 people plus died in Europe a couple summers ago due to all that heat, and more in India. I’m sure it was only “a few degrees” above normal - esp. if you calculate in centigrade.
#3 this was the one I got wrong - but they talk about natural cycles and variations… about sunspots, etc., but we have sunspots about every 11 years (solar cycle as I recall from astronomy classes), and they again left out ice age 12000 years ago and mini-ice-age etc.
#4 water vapor as most abundant greenhouse gas - yes, true, but warmer atmosphere makes it possible to hold more humidity thank you very much Dr. Michaels (who they quote here). He then goes onto say that “wetlands” produce more global warming gases - well, yes, they do - but it’s because of METHANE in wetlands, not WATER vapor - and methane being stronger warming potential.
#5 They talk about the less than 1 degree centigrade rise…well yes, but 1 degree F is even smaller and all it takes is ONE to go from ice to water if you’re already at 32 degrees F. That’s another deceptive argument, trying to minimize reality. I thought it was interesting that he said we’re at the same temps as in the 1930s - great - does that mean we can expect another dust bowl and decimation of crop lands?
#6 El Nino - yes, that not “caused” by global warming, but it is certainly EXACERBATED by global warming as it is caused by variations in ocean temps. And the warmer it is, worse it is, worse the hurricanes are.
#7 No, CO2 from anything, coal, etc., does not “damage” plants in forests - but acid rain certainly does, and mercury fallout makes fish unsuitable to eat hundreds of miles from the source of the coal burning… additionally, while more CO2 does make a “bigger” plant, the nutritional value of that plant is so poor that bugs living right on them and eating them have been shown to STARVE to death. Bigger is not always better.
#8 Chart question here is interesting (graph of middle age warming and mini ice age) because the multiple choice answers only leave you one that can be answered right - but that answer misses the fact that, again, that “cooling” c. 1300 AD was totally disruptive, was result of melting of ice dam from Great Lakes through St. Lawrence seaway that “shut down” Gulf Stream… lot of people died during those years and there was lot of disruption to society caused by famine for many years.
#9 Ah yes, the usual suspects getting quoted again - Lindzen, Michaels, Van Doren, Wallop and Santer - all getting nice payments of $10,000 per paper probably from Exxon/Mobil for their “research”… well, even Rupert Murdoch is finally conceding that we need to do something now so I wonder how much longer these clowns will have much say. Again, www.heatisonline.org is great source to find out more about them.
#10 Another quote by Pat Michaels. I forget the question now, but two quotes from him, and a few questions about coal - pretty likely that this was produced by some American Coal Lobby or whatever.
on May 16th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Although the originial site may be bogus, Anderson’s rebuttal contains errors. It states– twice– that the Little ice age beginning around 1300 AD was caused by the breakup of the Great Lakes ice dam and the slowing down of the gulf stream. This is false. That ice dam broke up well before 1300 AD. A quick google search finds a date of 8200 BP. (It did cause a period of cooling of several centuries when it broke.) Also, the precise begining of the little ice age is disputed. Finally, there is no consensus on the causes of the little ice age: wikipedia mentions volcanism and solar activity as possibilities. (The trough of the little ice age coincides with a near absence of sunspots.)
Anderson makes the following unsupported statement that I find highly questionable:
“while more CO2 does make a “bigger†plant, the nutritional value of that plant is so poor that bugs living right on them and eating them have been shown to STARVE to death” Really? References?
I may be wrong, but I don’t think CO2 concentration has any influence whatsoever on nutritional value of plants.
CO2 will stimulate the growth of plants. This is why the IPCC predicts crop yields will INCREASE during the next few decades in many places– a rare example of a beneficial effect of global warming.
However, it is also true that plants we regard as weeds (like poison ivy) will benefit the most from CO2 increases.
Anderson quotes: “thought it was interesting that he said we’re at the same temps as in the 1930s - great - does that mean we can expect another dust bowl and decimation of crop lands?”
Duh. This is exactly what we can expect. In fact, one of the major predicitions of the IPCC Impact for N. America is a return to dustbowl conditions.
on May 16th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Well, first of all, you got my NAME wrong, it’s not “Anderson”, so how’s that for YOUR careful reading…
That being said, I was doing quick response off the top of my head, in part using the Al Gore movie as my “reference” for the “little ice age” as well as a vague recollection of a program by, I believe James Lovelock, the author of the “Gaia” hypothesis that was on many many years ago when I lived in L.A. when they discussed that “medieval” cooling period (by the way, he thinks we’re well past the point of no return and makes quite dire predictions in an article now on Ross Gelbspan’s Heat is Online website). Perhaps you are thinking of the other giant ice dam burst in that area of the northwest US which was much more dramatic somewhere around Idaho or whatever. I don’t recall exactly, and since I’m at work and don’t have time to search references, I’m afraid you’ll have to do your own research if you care to find out more. My own recollection of “medieval period” is that it was a bit before the 1300 AD, more like maybe 900 thru 1200 and 1300 AD but that’s from studying art history and music. Not weather.
As for the plant/food thing, it was either another program on PBS or one of the hundreds of articles I get monthly from ENS, E Magazine and other sources. It was a controlled experiment, inside a greenhouse I believe, where they added increasing amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. Oh yes, the plants did grow MUCH bigger, but nutritionally - a disaster. Furthermore, you need to taste more food. Wild strawberries, for ex., which are tiny, have FAR more flavor than those white, hard, bloated things you typically get in the supermarkets. Ditto for oranges when they are actually picked ripe as opposed to that mass marketed stuff they pick half ripe and ship to supermarkets all over the country. Big agribusiness has done a tremendous disservice to food, but that’s a tangent we don’t need to go on. Again, more/bigger isn’t always better. I’m sure however, that there are some of those industries that are looking forward to more CO2 in the air as it pertains to their products.
And finally, yes, that 1930s reference was intended to be a “duh”. Surprised you didn’t get it!
on May 16th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I apologize for misspelling your name.
Look, I have no problems with you’re doing a quick response off the top of your head and sending out an email. Heaven knows my email is not carefully fact-checked and often contains errors. What I DO have a problem with (and this might have had nothing whatsoever to do with you) is when an error-ridden email is posted online as a “debunking.”
Posting something debunking a Denier site can be valuable– but NOT if the debunking itself contains easily-refuted errors! In that case, it is counterproductive.
Responding to your points.
-Neither Al Gore nor Lovelock said that any ice dam burst in 1300 AD. (I know this because, if they had, the Deniers would have jumped all over them for this elementary mistake.) You are confusing that with something else, probably an earlier ice dam burst. The St. Lawrence Ice Dam burst many thousands of years before the little ice age: source: http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=9779&tid=282&cid=2078&ct=162 (Other ice dams have burst at other times. But no known major N. American ice dam burst within a thousand years of the Little Ice Age.)
-The Little Ice Age is difficult to date, in part because it appears to have had different effects in different parts of the world. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age) “Climatologists and historians find it difficult to agree on either the start or end dates of this period. Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th to the mid-19th centuries while others suggest a span from the 13th to 17th centuries. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals.”
I am certainly not arguing that adding CO2 in the air is a good thing or that big fruit is always better. After poking around a bit, I found (to my surprise) there was some talk five years ago that rising CO2 could damage the nutritional value of a small fraction of crops. But there has been little talk since, so its a minor issue at most. In fact, AFAIK, the IPCC study does not mention this issue at all. Citing this as fact on the basis of a 5 year old study or “either another program on PBS or one of the hundreds of articles I get monthly from ENS, E Magazine and other sources” is not exactly responsible reporting of the current consensus.
As it happens, I agree with your comments on big agribusiness.
You wrote: “I thought it was interesting that he said we’re at the same temps as in the 1930s - great - does that mean we can expect another dust bowl and decimation of crop lands?” Actually, here is the story:
-much of the West is experiencing a long-term drought today, but it is not near dustbowl conditions.
-In a few decades, when the west is warmer than today, it will in fact experience dustbowl conditions, and worse. This will devestate agricultural yields.
If your question did in fact convey this information than I apologize for not getting it.
on May 16th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I see you have posted again… well in the meantime, I couldn’t stand not knowing and did a quick search on the mini ice age to see if it had what I thought I remembered from Gore’s movie. I did not! I did find some other interesting links that talk about it, plus a number of right wing talking point sites that use the “unknown cause” of that climate episode to further dispute all the points of the IPCC work… but anyway, here were some interesting links and I graciously concede that I mis-remembered something and answered too quickly with that mis-rememberance. Nevertheless, one of the points I was trying to make (that the time was devastating for human populations) was spelled out and I added a bit of that text here.
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/980217DD.html
http://www.aeenewengland.org/2%2007%20How%20Earth%20Warms.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
The Little Ice Age (Basic Books, 2000), by anthropology professor Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara, tells of the plight of European peasants during the 1300 to 1850 chill: famines, hypothermia, bread riots, and the rise of despotic leaders brutalizing an increasingly dispirited peasantry. In the late 17th century, writes Fagan, agriculture had dropped off so dramatically that “Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with barley and oat flour.†Finland lost perhaps a third of its population to starvation and disease
….
Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Ruddiman has speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, with the resulting decrease in agricultural output and reforestation taking up more carbon from the atmosphere, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age [23].
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455
This last link takes you to a whole bunch of Woods Hole articles which all sound interesting.
Meanwhile, the idea that the food thing hasn’t been studied much may largely be because we in the west figure we can bulk up the nutrition with vitamins, etc., but as one article said - what about wildlife, birds, etc. that need all the nutrition they can get? And now that big pharma and others seem to be releasing all these studies on the dangers of vitamins suddenly (probably in support of an attempt to make it mandatory for doctors to prescribe them and bring them under the umbrella of the “health” care industry…), there may be even more to worry about.
I agree, that easily disputed points are not always helpful, however, I wasn’t intending to dispute every point for a scientific debate, just point out some of the abuse of information by the coal industry’s web site to make global warming look benign. CO2, climate change or not, the mountaintop removal mining and the mercury emissions alone are enough reason in my mind to argue for cleaner energy sources, and get off our dependence on coal.
Thanks for making this an even more interesting discussion.
Lisa
on May 17th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Speaking of debunking, my wife sent me the following URL.
Looks like a very nice summary of a lot of different issues out there:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
on May 17th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Models are GIGO. For instance, sequester enough CO2 and you starve plant life, cut down on oxygen and CO2, and freeze the planet. We will then need to burn the furniture to keep warm which could tip over into burning the remaining oxygen while we all choke in the cold. Sound incredible? It is.
The planet has evolved mechanisms over geological time (4.5 billion years of trial and error) to protect itself. Earth’s climate varies for a lot of extraterrestrial reasons. The shortest periodicity has to do with the interplay of solar activity and cosmic radiation from the Milky Way. During quiet periods of solar activity, like now, cosmic radiation penetrates the atmosphere and creates clouds where conditions permit. Over long periods this cools the earth. Most of the time however, sun’s magnetic activity induces earth’s geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic shields are up during most of the 11 year sun spot cycle. Earth’s cooling (1940-1965) and earth’s heating (balance of the 20th century) is 95% correlated to sunspot peak frequency. Short cycles induce cooling and long cycles induce warming. This is a magnificently balanced system because the total solar irradiance varies very little. The subtlety is the correlation with sunspot peak frequency. During the Maunder Minimum there were no sunspots and the world suffered through the Little Ice Age.
CO2 has come out of the planet during 4.5 billion years of volcanic activity. Plants use CO2 to produce carbohydrates, oxygen and water vapour. Free oxygen is not produced by volcanoes. CO2 has the property of inverse solubility. Global warming from the sun forces CO2 out of the ocean in increasing quantities like warming beer. CO2 is the effect, not the cause of the warming. Moreover, the absorption wavelength for CO2 in the spectrum is filled. CO2 will not contribute any more heating. The analogy is adding a second Venetian blind to your window may not make the room any darker.
Sea level is said to be rising (ICPP) at 2 – 3 mm a year. Since the Pleistocene it has risen 125 metres (6 mm a year) and most of the coastal tribes of the earth have a Noah. The coral reefs of the oceans have kept pace because of a symbiotic relationship with algae that keep them thriving in the sunlit surface of the sea no matter how fast sea level rises. Barrier bars like the Atlantic longshore bar are dynamic features that are fed sand by Piedmont rivers and maintain themselves in the surf zone. A summer beach is wide and fine and a winter beach is coarse and steep. Common sense needs to be applied.
By the way modern coal-fired power plants produce electricity, water vapour and CO2; plant food not pollution. The US has enough coal and oil shale to support itself for 1,000 years. This AGW piece is political, not scientific, and is coming out on party lines.
on May 17th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
This is a very exciting day! After almost six months at this, I think we finally have ourselves our first legit skeptic posting! Wahoo! Very exciting.
I love the tactic of citing the IPCC where it suits ones needs.
Anyway, I have to say, I agree one of his largest points here: “The planet has evolved mechanisms over geological time (4.5 billion years of trial and error) to protect itself.”
This is undeniably true.
As much as I am an environmentalist and worried about what is happening with global warming, I will agree w/ Dr. Mann on this. I have never once thought to myself that the planet was somehow going to not survive this.
Now, we, as humans — the virus that is causing the disease — that’s a whole different matter. We’ve only been on this planet for a brief fraction of thost 4.5 billion years, and the Earth will be more than happy to return back to a time when we don’t exist again.
So Dr. Mann is correct. Mother Earth will survive this. She will self correct.
If anyone’s ultimate concern is for the safety of the rock we call Earth, you can rest assured that no matter how badly we screw up, the only think that is going to take out the Earth would be if the Sun went supernova and turned into a black hole. And even there, you probably don’t have to worry; my vague recollection from astrophysics class is that our Sun isn’t even large enough to do that.
So, even after the Sun flames out, the planet itself will be a mighty cold place, but it will still exist.
So, don’t shed a tear for Mother Earth.
However, if your concern is for humanity, well, that’s a whole different ball of wax.
BTW, for any who are interested, you can google Dr. Mann and see that he has posted pretty much the same comments multiple other places. I particularly liked this thread on a different blog:
http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/002576.html
I have to say I am a little bit jealous that that blog says that Dr. Mann was the “third such PR hack to try this same kind of stupid stunt here in a month” whereas he is my first. Well there’s always got to be a first for everything.
One final note to all my readers: Please keep the discourse civil. We know this guy is a skeptic, but there is no need to get rude. If you have any intent in debating him please keep it just to the facts. But, it is probably just better to ignore him altogether since there really is no point in debating someone who has no intent of actually engaging in a real scientific dialog. Ultimately, he’s got 2,000 scientists disagreeing with his point, so what’s the point in debating him?
on May 17th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Dr. Mann said:
“By the way modern coal-fired power plants produce electricity, water vapour and CO2; plant food not pollution. The US has enough coal and oil shale to support itself for 1,000 years. This AGW piece is political, not scientific, and is coming out on party lines.”
Up till there, I more or less could appreciate your arguments/comments. I don’t see what “party lines” has to do with it, I for one, have voted R and D depending on the issues, and you can hardly call Ah-nold a bleeding heart “liberal Democrat” so let’s drop that crap. Even Rupert Murdoch now announced he wants to go carbon neutral, and Shell and BP have been working on solar projects for quite a while now. The change is coming.
I think it could be said that more CO2 in the atmosphere is BOTH a result and cause of global warming. As far as doubling venetian blinds - well, it depends on how dark your original ones are - if you have the pale white mini blinds (lets in a lot of light) or the old fashioned metal wide ones (lets less light in, but not ‘none’ by a longshot!) adding more will definitely make your room/house darker, no doubt about that. I know, we have both in our house. They aren’t that dark.
HOWEVER… don’t tell ME burning coal doesn’t produce pollution. I work in an environmental agency and we know jolly well what those plants produce, including mercury and sulfur emissions that contribute to acid rain and mercury fallout that reaches fish in “pristine” areas (e.g., trout in Maine streams) that are no longer safe to eat regularly, and not safe for pregnant women to eat at all. Give that a break! Coal has definitely helped us modernize the world, but anyone who’s ever been to China (and yes, I have) has only to look up in the sky to see how bad the air is there. Any time you try to get coal plants to “clean up their act” they whine and cry about “expenses”. And that’s not even counting the heat from the cooling water that has destroyed quite a number of aquatic habitats (14 mile “dead” zone in southeastern Mass for ex.).
Additionally, manufactured coal gas wastes are some of the dirtiest, nastiest hardest to clean up wastes around. Please, do yourself a favor, and don’t lie about how benign coal is. Furthermore, getting to the stuff is ALSO a problem. Mountaintop removal mining is a ecological disaster. I don’t have the reference handy, but a couple months back there was an author on NPR who had written a book about what it’s done in the Appalachian Mt., and how fully two-thirds of 2300 song bird species that spend some part of their life there are now threatened or endangered b/c of habitat loss and the contamination of the environment there. Not to mention the polluting of streams and other water bodies. Let’s get real, coal and oil are both dirty and polluting.
I don’t have a problem with creating energy, I just think we need to find a way to do it that is CLEAN and doesn’t destroy miles and miles of land in the process of accessing the “fuel”. On the other hand, good, thought-provoking movie on Sundance recently (A Crude Awakening) said, the end of cheap oil is going to be the end of society as we know it now, and the estimate was… on a sustainable planet, the earth is NOT going to support 6 (much less 9, or 12) billion people… it MIGHT support 1 to 1.5 billion tops. I for one, who would like to live more in harmony with nature, don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.
on May 17th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
one last thing on “benign” coal?
melamine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_crisis
Melamine production in China has also been reported as using coal as raw material.[10] This production has been described as also producing “melamine scrap” which is not “pure melamine but impure melamine scrap that is sold more cheaply as the waste product after melamine is produced by chemical and fertilizer factories here.”[70] Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group, the company reported by the New York Times as producing melamine from coal, produces and sells both urea and melamine but does not list melamine resin as a product.[82] Melamine production in China has increased greatly in recent years and was described as in “serious surplus” in 2006.[83] In the United States Geological Survey 2004 Minerals Survey Yearbook, in a report on worldwide nitrogen production, the author stated that “China continued to plan and construct new ammonia and urea plants using coal gasification technology.”[84]
on May 18th, 2007 at 7:33 am
New Scientist has a handy-dandy reference for responding to people such as Dr. Manns, if one feels such a need. It is available at:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
on May 20th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Oh, Dr. Manns, there are some of your fellow AGW skeptics who might not take kindly to your talk of sunspots, because they don’t even believe in heliocentrism. This would seem a worse ignorance of science than those of us here who have actually read IPCC reports, keep abreast of the issue, and, you know, believe in science.
on May 20th, 2007 at 4:45 am
link didn’t work. It’s here:
http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/is-there-anything-less-scientific-than-science/
on June 4th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I wrote this to a number of rightests who my brother emails.
You’ll have to look at the charts in Wikipedia’s “Ice Ages” doc.
I recently received an email message from one of my brothers It contained a reference to a document that poses as a test of ones understanding of “Global Warming”.
I tend to get drawn into expositions of this “Global Warming” matter which, while in the forefront of popular interest, has become badly politicized in the US and has been infected with the same “junk science” that has infected so many other issues here. There is a lot of serious well-informed research, much off the cuff commentary, and a great deal of disinformation on the subject floating about, and I tend to view all of it with varying degrees of interest and caution.
I connected to the Geocraft site of the “test” and took a look at the first statement/question. I didn’t go beyond number 1. I decided after reading the answer, that what would follow would be more cleverly phrased questions followed by more misleading answers. But I thought that the subject was so well cloaked in the guises of a “test” that I felt compelled to annotate the first question and answer with the observations that effected my decision not to proceed to the next ones and to pass those observations I made on to you. If you’re interested, open the site in your browser, try the first question, check your answer against the answer page, and then follow through my comments below. If you’re in any way gratified by having answered the first question “correctly”, feel free to continue. Again, look at the first “question” at WVFossils/GlobWarmTest.
The first “Question/Statement”
The “Geocraft” site from which the test comes was new to me and a Google search didn’t provide a great deal of information about it. The presentation looks reasonably serious, and I walked through the first statement, ” ‘Global warming’ is a real phenomenon: Earth’s temperature is increasing”. Actually there are two statements in what is presented as a question that is to be answered with “True” of “False”.
The first statement is true only if the expression is described as a political phenomenon. If the expression is to be interpreted within a scientific context, then it represents an aggregate of hypotheses and experimentally demonstrated facts encompassing geology, paleoclimatology, paleontology, planetary physics, chemistry, archeology, etc, and all of these represent a multitude of natural phenomena and not just a single phenomenon. The second statement, “Earth’s temperature is increasing”, says both much and very little. It could also be stated, “Earth’s temperature is decreasing”, or “at various times the temperature of the earth is increasing and decreasing in different parts”. Those statements are beyond facts - they are simply common sense. The temperature of the earth varies at any one point in time throughout the solid mass of the planet itself, throughout the liquid and gaseous masses that the planets gravity holds on to it, and throughout the electro-magnetic fields surrounding and interacting with all of those. In fact, there is no “True” or “False” that can be associated with this set of two statements.
The first “Answer”
I wondered at the moment of submitting the choice and being presented with the answer whether the note “I aced it” that my brother included in his email indicated that he got all of the answers “correct”. Whatever the case, he seemed quite satisfied with his overall performance. I wondered also what the author(s) of the “test” intended with this combination of a politically charged phrase and a tenuously related, oversimplified truism. Assuming that my brother got the first answer correct, they had cleaverly set him up to move contentedly into their contrived “answer” to a deceptively contrived “question”.
My response to the eight point item list in the answer to question # 1 draws on some reading into human history and prehistory and into more general areas of the evolution of the earth and of the primates from which human beings evolved. I highlighted the comment on each answer item with my opinion of it. The source of the included charts and a solid reference to most everything I discuss here can be found in this Wikipedia document on “Ice Ages”, and I recommend the document to anyone interested in reading up on the subject.
* The first item on the list states, “the temperature of the earth has been increasing more or less continuously since the time of the cave man”.
The statement is false. Members of the species homo sapiens, if they are to be differentiated from their ancestor, Homo erectus, have lived and died on earth for 200,000 years or more. Neanderthals, close relatives from the same line, first appeared at least 400,000 years ago, if not more. Up until about 50,000 years ago and even more recently, humans and near humans, when seeking out protected environments in which to dwell, usually selected caves. If Neanderthals can be considered cave men along with humans, the time of cave men goes back at least 400,000 years. Temperatures have been both increasing more or less (averaged out over periods of tens of thousands of years) and falling more or less during four glacial cycles over the last 400,000 years.
Temperature variations during those glacial cycles are graphically presented in the chart below of data that were derived from the examination of ice core samples drilled at the Vostok Polar Station on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Temperature readings are the only ones of interest to this discussion, although the chart’s CO2 and particle readings also contain a great deal of information. The mean line of 0º C is a relative level of reference. These ice core data have been correlated with ice core data and geological sedimentation data from other parts of the world. The chart represents the most recent 450K year segment of a major glaciation period that started about 3 million years ago. The second chart further down describes the entire period major glaciation. Each cycle of the most recent four is delimited by a temperature differential of from 11-12º C between the lowest and highest temperature.
The temperature of the earth has gone through generally increasing and decreasing periods, ice age cycles, during the last 400K years of cave peoples existence.
Chart 1
Chart 1
120K Year cycles over 450K Years
* The second statement is “Approximately 18,000 years ago the earth began a gradual process of warming up after more than 100,000 years of Ice Ages. Much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice”.
This statement is partially true. The core sample data appear in close agreement with the statement as are data derived from geological indicators. It could be argued, however, that the temperature increase during the last 18K years, or 1/6 of the complete cycle, was a lot less gradual than the first 100K years of cooling during the cooling part of the glacial cycle. It should also be pointed out that the glaciers started advancing again after the last high temperature spike. Is “spike” a valid descriptor? The warming interval certainly looks like a spike to me in comparison to the more gradual and longer cooling interval of 100K years. Northern Europe, Asia, and America were only covered with sheets of ice during the latter part of the cooling period of each cycle.
* The statements 3, 4, and 5 refer to recent human and climate history and of the settlement period of North America.
These statements are all true. Humans started having an impact on the environment about 6-8K years ago with population expansion and the beginning of large scale deforestation, primarily in Eastern Asia with the clearing of rain forests for rice cultivation. I would recommend reading Jared Diamond’s book Collapse to really understand the significance of deforestation.
* Statement 6 reads: “From a geological perspective, global warming is the normal state of our accustomed natural world. Technically, we are in an “interglacial phase,” or between ice ages. The question is not really if an ice age will return, but when.”
This statement is not only false, it’s nonsense. Notice that, except for one offhanded mention of a 100K year time interval, the answers list of statements has set the frame of reference to 20K years. In addition to the meaningless timeframe, the expression “Global Warming” has been deceptively convoluted with “Ice Age” in these first statements.
There is no normal state of the natural world; there are only stable and unstable states. The state of the natural world, this natural world, our planet, is at any time determined by many interacting forces. Some forces, like plate movement, act gradually. Others occur sporadically, and at times are cataclysmic, as for example the eruption of super volcanoes or a strike by a large comet or meteor. Sporadic volcanic events are individual phenomena; continental drift is ongoing and for the most part gradual. The “Ice Ages” of the last 3 million years consist of a gradual progression of many recurring cycles of cooling and warming of the earth’s surface caused by a number planetary and extra-planetary forces, including plate movement and Milankovitch cycles . They started with fluctuations of 2-4º C and have increased to a spread of about 12º C. Before this major glaciation began, the fluctuation was a fairly constant 2º C. The chart below developed from geological (sedimentary) data provides a graph of this cyclical progression of the current major glaciations.
Chart 2
Chart 2
What is happening at this time, today, appears to be the beginning of a potential disruption of the glacial cycles on geological time scale. Look at the first chart of the 400K Year ice core samples. Notice the high temperature spike on the four of previous glacial cycles at about 1-2º C above reference. There is no spike in our current warming cycle. There’s that squiggly string up in the left corner. It appears that the question really is “if”. It could be that, if the temperature stays constant now, we will be where the world was over 3 million years ago, with a general oscillation of 2º in geological time.
That in itself may not be too bad, but the temperature could also continue to rise and that could be very bad.
* The seventh statement, “Don’t Panic”.
This sounds like crap from Exxon. This test sponsor, “Geocraft”, has the fingerprint of a Big Oil on it. Call it “Global Warming” or call it “the end to the Major Ice Age”. Whatever you call it, I would be a little worried about its consequences. Look at a contour map of Florida, or Long Island for that matter. You probably won’t see too many areas that are 300 feet above sea level, but I bet you’ll see quite a few under 10 feet above sea level.
* The eighth statement, “another Ice Age”.
More crap piled on. While it is not likely that temperatures will start a long term falling trend any time soon if at all, even if the temperature begins to fall as in all the previous recent glacial cycles, it will take 10’s of thousands of years before you’ll need to start putting your parkers on more regularly. I think that the only ones who still think there is no problem with the continuing temperature rise within the earth’s atmosphere are Big Oil, Senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn (what voters elect these troglodytes), 20 people living in a cave in northern Minnesota, the staff of the new Creation Museum in Petersburg Kentucky, and the Kansas State Board of Education.
What do you think?