Patricia, strongest hurricane ever recorded, menaces Mexico

[MoValley John]

Climate is always changing, but people have a definite effect. Assuming you live in Kansas, you are living in one of single best examples of man-made climate change. Both positive and negative. While the preceding drought was all-natural, the Dust Bowl would not have happened without human intervention. New mechanized farming techniques led to overproduction of wheat, which along with the Great Depression kept prices so low that farmer's had to massively expand their acreage to turn a profit. Wheat was far more susceptible to drought than the native grasses, and plowing the fields ended up removing the topsoil. All it took was a drought to kill the wheat, leaving the top soil unanchored. 100 million acres were effected by the "black blizzards" and while few died the event created hundreds of thousands of poor migrants, just like in Syria today. 1 out of 4 people in the affected region left, the impact of which is still felt today.

But we managed to come back from that man-made environmental disaster. Not by waiting around for it to solve itself, but by making positive change. Better farm techniques prevented further erosion, after scientists studied wind erosion for a decade. We planted tens of millions of trees around farms, not to absorb CO2 but to act as windbreaks. You can still see these trees in almost every Kansas county, around farms that still exist to this day because we made positive change to tackle a problem.

So yes, climate changes by itself and will continue to change without us. But we are not powerless. Our actions have an impact that is clearly visible, for better or worse.

So man changed the climate which caused the dust bowl? Interesting.

I always thought man changed growing techniques which destroyed the soil.

If man caused climate change which created the dust bowl, shouldn't the climate change been a global crisis, causing changes in precipitation worldwide and dust bowls everywhere?

[rayc]

Climate is always changing, but people have a definite effect. Assuming you live in Kansas, you are living in one of single best examples of man-made climate change. Both positive and negative. While the preceding drought was all-natural, the Dust Bowl would not have happened without human intervention. New mechanized farming techniques led to overproduction of wheat, which along with the Great Depression kept prices so low that farmer's had to massively expand their acreage to turn a profit. Wheat was far more susceptible to drought than the native grasses, and plowing the fields ended up removing the topsoil. All it took was a drought to kill the wheat, leaving the top soil unanchored. 100 million acres were effected by the "black blizzards" and while few died the event created hundreds of thousands of poor migrants, just like in Syria today. 1 out of 4 people in the affected region left, the impact of which is still felt today.

But we managed to come back from that man-made environmental disaster. Not by waiting around for it to solve itself, but by making positive change. Better farm techniques prevented further erosion, after scientists studied wind erosion for a decade. We planted tens of millions of trees around farms, not to absorb CO2 but to act as windbreaks. You can still see these trees in almost every Kansas county, around farms that still exist to this day because we made positive change to tackle a problem.

So yes, climate changes by itself and will continue to change without us. But we are not powerless. Our actions have an impact that is clearly visible, for better or worse.

And this 100 million acres losing it's topsoil effected the Earth's climate? How?

edit: MoValley John beat me to it.

[SB Shock]

https://realitydrop.org/myths/34

You might want to step away from your bong for a few minutes.

[CBB_Fan]

So man changed the climate which caused the dust bowl? Interesting.

I always thought man changed growing techniques which destroyed the soil.

If man caused climate change which created the dust bowl, shouldn't the climate change been a global crisis, causing changes in precipitation worldwide and dust bowls everywhere?

"While the preceding drought was all-natural, the Dust Bowl would not have happened without human intervention. ... Our actions have an impact that is clearly visible, for better or worse."

If you don't want to read and just want to find strawmen, there is no point in discussing anything. I never stated we caused the drought. I never linked it to a global precipitation crisis. To put those words in my mouth is to call me a liar.

What I said, was simple: Our actions impact our environment. This very simple point is something that many climate skeptics completely deny. They deny that we have any power over our environment, yielding blame to nature, to the Sun, to anything but our own actions. Such denial is what I was directly addressing. If we ignored our own power to change the environment we would not have been able to prevent further Dust Bowls.

And to answer the other question:

And this 100 million acres losing it's topsoil effected the Earth's climate? How?

100 million acres losing topsoil was the change, not the cause. The dust storms were a climatic event, climate being the weather patterns of an area over a long period of time. A decade of aberrant weather is a definite example of climate change.

[rayc]

CBB_Fan: "What I said, was simple: Our actions impact our environment. This very simple point is something that many climate skeptics completely deny. They deny that we have any power over our environment, yielding blame to nature, to the Sun, to anything but our own actions."

Talk about a strawman!

But in any case I'm confused on what you are talking about. How are dust storms a climatic event?

[MoValley John]

"While the preceding drought was all-natural, the Dust Bowl would not have happened without human intervention. ... Our actions have an impact that is clearly visible, for better or worse."

If you don't want to read and just want to find strawmen, there is no point in discussing anything. I never stated we caused the drought. I never linked it to a global precipitation crisis. To put those words in my mouth is to call me a liar.

What I said, was simple: Our actions impact our environment. This very simple point is something that many climate skeptics completely deny. They deny that we have any power over our environment, yielding blame to nature, to the Sun, to anything but our own actions. Such denial is what I was directly addressing. If we ignored our own power to change the environment we would not have been able to prevent further Dust Bowls.

And to answer the other question:



100 million acres losing topsoil was the change, not the cause. The dust storms were a climatic event, climate being the weather patterns of an area over a long period of time. A decade of aberrant weather is a definite example of climate change.

Soil change, land destruction, loss of topsoil is not climate change. I wasnt picking a fight, I'm in South Dakota pheasant hunting, so I can't really debate, anyway. Go back to your op, you married the dust bowl to climate change.

[CBB_Fan]

CBB_Fan: "What I said, was simple: Our actions impact our environment. This very simple point is something that many climate skeptics completely deny. They deny that we have any power over our environment, yielding blame to nature, to the Sun, to anything but our own actions."

Talk about a strawman!

But in any case I'm confused on what you are talking about. How are dust storms a climatic event?

I wasn't creating a fake argument. I directly addressed SB Shock's argument. " ... but do you recognize that climate is not, and has never been static and is changing regardless of the effects of man?" As far as your other question:

cli·mate
ˈklīmit/

noun
the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

Dust Bowl
noun
the region in the S central U.S. that suffered from dust storms in the 1930s.

dust storm or duststorm
noun
a storm of strong winds and dust-filled air over an extensive area during a period of drought over normally arable land (distinguished from sandstorm ).

A dust storm is not a climatic event. Dust storms over a decade long period are.

[tropicalshox]

This website makes all of these claims yet I can't see that they provide any sources or data for these claims. It does not appear to be a very good scientific source. I have to assume it is based more on the opinions of the authors and their agenda.

Yes, I sourced a 2004 article, but I'm sure that it hold true today as far as the sun still burning hotter. I'm at work and don't have time to research it much now, but I am sure just in the past week or two I read a recent NASA article stating that the sun is burning hotter.

Don't make assumptions on my position by my question in my earlier post. I am truly trying to search for the answer to the cause. Claims made on both sides seem outlandish to me. So my question was purely based on curiosity.

Shocka Khan already gave information on the praise of Skiptical Science from the scientific community. I salute you for wanting to dig deeper.

Edit. Here is a more detailed article.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/effect-of-sun-on-climate-faq.html#.Vi6d7xDD_qA

[Shocker-maniac]

Shocka Khan already gave information on the praise of Skiptical Science from the scientific community. I salute you for wanting to dig deeper.

I read the post by Shocka and I remain a skeptic about Skeptical Science. To me a credible source would provide references to their assertions. Anyways, I think I will bow out of this discussion and watch from the sidelines. My intent was not to join the argument but to just ask a question about something I had been pondering. My best guess at this point is that both sides are probably right in some areas and wrong in others. I have to think that there are both natural and man-made causes to this current episode of global warming. To what extent each one is contributing to the issue, I have no idea. Too bad this issue has become politicized and driven by greed on both sides so that I have no idea what data and claims are biased by these agendas.

[ShockTalk]

This is a very good discussion, but I'd like all fellow SNrs to avoid making personal comments at any poster. Doing so makes a person's point look weaker whether their point is good or not.

Personally, I believe that man has only a very small impact on changing "The Climate", but can have an impact on changing a defined area's climate. It is also possible that those area changes, even small, could have effects on the weather and then, how the weather affects that area.

[Kung Wu]

Wow, talk about straw man. One side of the argument makes up statements like "Our actions impact our environment. This very simple point is something that many climate skeptics completely deny." Thats a double straw man! First, nobody here is arguing about the environment -- they are arguing about the climate. Second, climate skeptics don't completely deny that our actions impact our environment (or climate for that matter).

[SB Shock]

This is a very good discussion, but I'd like all fellow SNrs to avoid making personal comments at any poster. Doing so makes a person's point look weaker whether their point is good or not.

Actually it not. The left has an agenda and they are not going to accept anything that goes against their narrative. Case in point when asking Trop about whether he would agree that the worlds climate has never been static and has been changing. Would he - hell no, he gives a meaningless link to his religion that says only man is to blame. That is the narrative - there is climate change and it is man made.

I ask you this - if the world climate has not be changing then please somebody explain me this?

1. Antarctica had trees
2. Greenland was green
3. Sahara desert had a period where it was once green and had plenty of water
4. During the Eamin period the earth was 7-9 degree warmer than it is today
5. Kansas was Ocean
6. Kansas had glaciers

The evidence is clearly out there that it has been warmer and it has been colder and the changes to the climate in the past has been much more abrupt. So I can only conclude the following:

1. They are liars and they know it.
2. They sheeple
3. They lack any discernment for the truth
4. They are on drugs
5. All the above.

[CBB_Fan]

Wow, talk about straw man. One side of the argument makes up statements like "Our actions impact our environment. This very simple point is something that many climate skeptics completely deny." Thats a double straw man! First, nobody here is arguing about the environment -- they are arguing about the climate. Second, climate skeptics don't completely deny that our actions impact our environment (or climate for that matter).

Your first part is logically flawed. It assumes environmental change is separate from climate change, but climate change is a subset of environmental change. I addressed an idea that applies to both, that nature moves without regard to human action. And before you call that a strawman, look at the post I was quoting: "but do you recognize that climate is not, and has never been static and is changing regardless of the effects of man?" Neither climate, nor the environment as a whole changes without regard to our actions.

This is the second time I've been accused of strawmaning when I was directly addressing another poster's argument. I can only assume people are forgetting the definition of a strawman argument: "A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument which was not advanced by that opponent." The argument I was addressing was brought up nearly directly by SB Shock. The central idea behind that entire argument against acting against climate change is that we do not have much power, and extending that to a broader environmental impact does not change the idea behind the argument. If anything, it strengthens it.

I won't participate in this any more, because I had hoped that the physical evidence would be convincing enough to break through the shell of climate skeptics intellectual distrust. Instead, I've seen posters double-down and try to nit-pick or accuse me of strawmanning instead of simply admitting the simply provable truth that our actions can have a massive impact on the environment as a whole and on climate in specific. It appears to me that people are so invested in their beliefs that instead of altering their opinions to new facts they would rather double-down despite contradictory evidence, and at that point there is little reason to civilly debate.

[Kung Wu]

Your first part is logically flawed.

No it isn't.

[1979Shocker]

As with every political issue, you can find the truth by following the money. Climate scientists have their jobs on the line, and are willing to fudge results or dramatize possible outcomes to keep funding coming in. But on the other side, you have a multi-trillion dollar industry on the line. There is a LOT more money in protecting the status quo.

To me, the only trustworthy proof for/against climate change is that the military considers it a primary threat multiplier. The problem isn't the impact to the USA from escalating weather strength and increasing sea levels, but instead the issue is that climate change can be devastating to poorer countries. As food and water supplies grow limited and coastal cities lose ground we'll see further increases in refugees and more regional violence. We already see this in Syria, which had a major drought before the conflict started in 2011.

The issue with climate change isn't warmer weather, but its power to push unstable regions over the edge. Hungry, thirsty people are more willing to commit violence. Refugees spread these problems to neighboring countries.

The military is probably looking for ways to use weather to their advantage.