"A Season in Dornoch" Rubenstein - Global Warming

[Willie_Dow]

With mention of Donald Steel in this book, which is a great read, concerns for "The dune world that produced the linksland of the Royal Dornoch Golf Club is always in motion."  Has Steel seen any indication of land changes caused by global warming ?

[Tim Nugent]

Global warming? hell, it snowed 7 times during an April round 2 years ago.

[Mark Pearce]

Dune system movement is something that happened well before global warming.  Global warming may affect the speed (and possibly direction, I guess) of system movement through the effect it has on weather systems but dunes move and always have done.

[Gary Slatter]

I think Global Warming is still being predicted.   It may result in more natural dunes but a bit inland from the existing ones, mostly on the east coast.

[Stan Dodd]

In the Royal Dornoch annual report there is mention of the pier at Embo being damaged and the potential affect of dune erosion on the 9th and 10th holes.  Sea wall reinforcement has taken place with the addition of boulders along the water front.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Dunes are always moving and have for centuries.  If Donald sees global warming as the cause for that, I think he was reading some of those emails where the scientists admitted they were trying to cook the books to prove the theory.

Just MHO.

[Willie_Dow]

Lorne writes: "I've rarely thought of thse matters while playing golf for years at various links.  But my season at Dornoch is sensitizing me to the fragilityof coastal ecology."

Frankly, after 81 summers at Salters Point, other than erosion from hurricanes our coastline hasn't changed very much.

[astavrides]

Dunes are always moving and have for centuries.  If Donald sees global warming as the cause for that, I think he was reading some of those emails where the scientists admitted they were trying to cook the books to prove the theory.

Just MHO.

Not sure about the specific case of Dornoch, but I think this passage from a Bill McKibben article is a good reply to what you wrote:

"...if you managed to hack 3,000 e-mails from some scientist's account, you might well find a few that showed them behaving badly, or at least talking about doing so. This is the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal from an English research center last fall. The English scientist Phil Jones has been placed on leave while his university decides if he should be punished for, among other things, not complying with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Call him the Mark Fuhrman of climate science; attack him often enough, and maybe people will ignore the inconvenient mountain of evidence about climate change that the world's scientific researchers have, in fact, compiled..."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100315/mckibben

[Gary Slatter]

I just read Superfreakeconomics  or something like that.  Really good book and superb final chapter about all of Bill Gates ex-associates working on global warming question.  Their solution is far too cheap for the Global Warming Industry to consider.   Some other very interesting chapters showing how it's safer to drive drunk than walk home etc.  It really shows that numbers can prove both sides in an argument.

[Tom Birkert]

Dunes are always moving and have for centuries.  If Donald sees global warming as the cause for that, I think he was reading some of those emails where the scientists admitted they were trying to cook the books to prove the theory.

Just MHO.

Not sure about the specific case of Dornoch, but I think this passage from a Bill McKibben article is a good reply to what you wrote:

"...if you managed to hack 3,000 e-mails from some scientist's account, you might well find a few that showed them behaving badly, or at least talking about doing so. This is the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal from an English research center last fall. The English scientist Phil Jones has been placed on leave while his university decides if he should be punished for, among other things, not complying with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Call him the Mark Fuhrman of climate science; attack him often enough, and maybe people will ignore the inconvenient mountain of evidence about climate change that the world's scientific researchers have, in fact, compiled..."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100315/mckibben

Seeing as not complying with FOI requests is a crime in the UK, he most certainly should be punished.

As for the notion that Man can control the temperature of the planet, I would find it laughable if it wasn't so arrogant.

Carbon dioxide is one of the building blocks of life. Without it, we would not exist. I was taught the respiration process, whereby every human exhales carbon dioxide with every breath. Plants take this carbon dioxide and use it to grow - hence why commercial greenhouses have a much higher concentration of it, in order to make the plants grow bigger and quicker.

That said, carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas. That would be water vapour, which is approximately 95%. But that can't be taxed.

Remember this: Carbon dioxide makes up just 0.038% of the atmosphere. The contribution of Mankind to this 0.038% is approximately 4%, or 0.0015%.

If you're happy to believe that this miniscule percentage makes all the difference then fair enough. But Man could cease to exist and it would make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things. We're totally insignificant.

We should concentrate on real pollutants, and real issues, such as deforestation.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and is not responsible for any alleged warming. The climate is changing, like it always has, and always will. The demonisation of carbon dioxide has served only to make certain people very rich (I'm looking straight at you Mr Gore) whilst attempting to tax and control the majority.

[George Pazin]

Tom, I admire your efforts, but you are wasting your time arguing facts with people who have no use for them.

-----

Lorne's book is a terrific read, I wish he still posted on here.

[David_Tepper]

Article in the current issue of The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15719298

[astavrides]

Tom, I admire your efforts, but you are wasting your time arguing facts with people who have no use for them.

-----

Lorne's book is a terrific read, I wish he still posted on here.

There are indeed a few facts in Tom's word soup.  None of which is made into a cogent argument as to whether man is causing glboal warming.  Do you really think that deniers have more use for facts than the scientists that make up the consensus?  Do you really think that I have no use for facts, or was that just a rhetorical tool to express your opinion on the subject of AGW?

[Brent Hutto]

There are ample "facts" available on the matter of human-induced climate change. Lack of "facts" is never an issue.

What is lacking is the full picture of what's actually causing what and of course anyone who makes specific claims about what will happen in the future is simply speculating. But not from lack of "facts" but lack of understanding.

Which is why these discussions are inevitably political rants and nothing more...

[astavrides]

There are ample "facts" available on the matter of human-induced climate change. Lack of "facts" is never an issue.

What is lacking is the full picture of what's actually causing what and of course anyone who makes specific claims about what will happen in the future is simply speculating. But not from lack of "facts" but lack of understanding.

Which is why these discussions are inevitably political rants and nothing more...

No one knows for sure what will happen in the future, but in many businesses and fields people have to make their best models and predictions and act upon them.  Just because we don't know for sure what will happen does not mean we should do nothing.  One's house may burn down tomorrow, so we buy insurance.  Climate change is, almost everyone agrees, far more likely than one's house burning down.  Shouldn't we try to mitigate it and plan for it in case some of the possible consequences may come to pass?

[Garland Bayley]

...
If you're happy to believe that this miniscule percentage makes all the difference then fair enough. But Man could cease to exist and it would make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things. We're totally insignificant.
...

Tell that to the carrier pigeon, the California condor, etc.
What is your explanation of the onset of the 4th great wave of species extinction that is occurring now?

[Tom Birkert]

...
If you're happy to believe that this miniscule percentage makes all the difference then fair enough. But Man could cease to exist and it would make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things. We're totally insignificant.
...

Tell that to the carrier pigeon, the California condor, etc.
What is your explanation of the onset of the 4th great wave of species extinction that is occurring now?

Destruction of habitat would be the reason for that. The obsession with carbon dioxide means real pollution issues are not dealt with.

Of course, I must ask where the SUVs and coal power plants were during the previous 3 waves of extinction? Extinctions happen all the time, for all sorts of reasons. That's why it's called natural selection.

I am, however, positive that this has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, let alone the 4% of the 0.038% that we're responsible for.

[Tom Birkert]

There are ample "facts" available on the matter of human-induced climate change. Lack of "facts" is never an issue.

What is lacking is the full picture of what's actually causing what and of course anyone who makes specific claims about what will happen in the future is simply speculating. But not from lack of "facts" but lack of understanding.

Which is why these discussions are inevitably political rants and nothing more...

No one knows for sure what will happen in the future, but in many businesses and fields people have to make their best models and predictions and act upon them.  Just because we don't know for sure what will happen does not mean we should do nothing.  One's house may burn down tomorrow, so we buy insurance.  Climate change is, almost everyone agrees, far more likely than one's house burning down.  Shouldn't we try to mitigate it and plan for it in case some of the possible consequences may come to pass?

At a cost of billions of pounds a year to make at most a tiny influence?

For instance, if the Kyoto treaty was ratified fully, it would cost hundreds of billions of pounds and delay predicted (take that with a pinch of salt) warning by a grand total of 6 years. So 2106 rather than 2100.

In other words, would you buy insurance for your house if it cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and, despite that, it is going to burn down anyway, just a tiny bit further in the future?

[George Pazin]

Do you really think that I have no use for facts, or was that just a rhetorical tool to express your opinion on the subject of AGW?

In the words of Dean Keaton, bit 'o both.

From what I've seen, it starts at the top. When the biggest influences on a topic are "losing" data and responding to peer review with dismissals and outright attacks, let's just say I have zip zero nada in respect for those "scientists". I'm not looking to rehash the issue on here - Lord knows, no one on here is open to the suggestion that his opinion may be wrong - so I'll just leave it at that.

[Mark Chaplin]

Brancaster is suffering from erosion and Rye is growing due to sand build up, it's nature!

[Jason McNamara]

No one knows for sure what will happen in the future, but in many businesses and fields people have to make their best models and predictions and act upon them.

But these are the same models that rely on data that has been massaged, or isn't released for public scrutiny, or can't be found.  How does that inspire confidence?  Are we supposed to trust the guys who generated that bullshit hockey stick model?  

Just because we don't know for sure what will happen does not mean we should do nothing.  One's house may burn down tomorrow, so we buy insurance.  Climate change is, almost everyone agrees, far more likely than one's house burning down.

Come on Alex, you know better than this.  The climate is *always* going to change.  (Even if Sheryl Crow and Laurie David think the February temps in St. Bart's and the August temps in Martha's Vineyard are just perfect as they are.)

No matter how much the US pre-emptively cripples its own industry, the Chinese are just going to build one coal-fired plant after another.  If you really care about CO2 emissions (skipping the question of whether you should), your best investment is a round of golf and a beer while you wait for the Chinese economy to implode due to its own non-performing loans.  And that is rather more likely to happen in your lifetime than the Gore-promoted disaster of the week.

[Willie_Dow]

Back to Dornoch.  Has there been evidence that the dunes say to the golfer's left on the ninth through the sixteenth have been acted upon by a global warming scenario over its lifetime, or is it just natural erosion over time ?

[Garland Bayley]

...
If you're happy to believe that this miniscule percentage makes all the difference then fair enough. But Man could cease to exist and it would make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things. We're totally insignificant.
...

Tell that to the carrier pigeon, the California condor, etc.
What is your explanation of the onset of the 4th great wave of species extinction that is occurring now?

Destruction of habitat would be the reason for that. The obsession with carbon dioxide means real pollution issues are not dealt with.

Of course, I must ask where the SUVs and coal power plants were during the previous 3 waves of extinction? Extinctions happen all the time, for all sorts of reasons. That's why it's called natural selection.

I am, however, positive that this has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, let alone the 4% of the 0.038% that we're responsible for.

And what caused the destruction of habitat? Could it be the li'le ol' insignificant we?
Sure extinctions happen all the time. But notice I wrote great wave of extinction. There have only been 3 previous in the history of the earth. One, for example, when a huge (several miles across in side) meteorite hit Mexico and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

You can be as positive as you want to, but that don't make you right.

[Michael Blake]

'The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already;  but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.'

-Leo Tolstloy, 1897 (quoted in Michael Lewis' new book The Big Short [which, like the other's I've read of his, is excellent])

[JNC Lyon]

Dunes are always moving and have for centuries.  If Donald sees global warming as the cause for that, I think he was reading some of those emails where the scientists admitted they were trying to cook the books to prove the theory.

Just MHO.

Not sure about the specific case of Dornoch, but I think this passage from a Bill McKibben article is a good reply to what you wrote:

"...if you managed to hack 3,000 e-mails from some scientist's account, you might well find a few that showed them behaving badly, or at least talking about doing so. This is the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal from an English research center last fall. The English scientist Phil Jones has been placed on leave while his university decides if he should be punished for, among other things, not complying with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Call him the Mark Fuhrman of climate science; attack him often enough, and maybe people will ignore the inconvenient mountain of evidence about climate change that the world's scientific researchers have, in fact, compiled..."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100315/mckibben

Seeing as not complying with FOI requests is a crime in the UK, he most certainly should be punished.

As for the notion that Man can control the temperature of the planet, I would find it laughable if it wasn't so arrogant.

Carbon dioxide is one of the building blocks of life. Without it, we would not exist. I was taught the respiration process, whereby every human exhales carbon dioxide with every breath. Plants take this carbon dioxide and use it to grow - hence why commercial greenhouses have a much higher concentration of it, in order to make the plants grow bigger and quicker.

That said, carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas. That would be water vapour, which is approximately 95%. But that can't be taxed.

Remember this: Carbon dioxide makes up just 0.038% of the atmosphere. The contribution of Mankind to this 0.038% is approximately 4%, or 0.0015%.

If you're happy to believe that this miniscule percentage makes all the difference then fair enough. But Man could cease to exist and it would make absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things. We're totally insignificant.

We should concentrate on real pollutants, and real issues, such as deforestation.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and is not responsible for any alleged warming. The climate is changing, like it always has, and always will. The demonisation of carbon dioxide has served only to make certain people very rich (I'm looking straight at you Mr Gore) whilst attempting to tax and control the majority.

AMEN. 

Any literature that mentions global warming or climate change (wait, are those the same things or not?) requires your response.  Bill McKibben is a hack of writer.  He argued that record snowfall in D.C. proved the existence of global warming (or do I mean climate change?).