Beyond the Tribal Marker: The Real Arithmetic of Climate Change

sealover wrote: Oh, those "value-added" posts!

sealover wrote: Pictures depicting you as a troll, with specialized features to mock you.

sealover wrote: You may have noticed that IBdaMann and ITN don't really coordinate their arguments very well.

sealover wrote: For example, IBdaMann said, "I refuse to use the term 'entropy'. Scheisters who don't understand thermodynamics hide behind the term 'entropy' to conceal their shortcomings."

sealover wrote: After that Into the Night said, "You obviously don't understand what entropy is. Entropy can never decrease. You cannot decrease entropy... ever."

sealover wrote: I'm pretty sure that I explained how fossil fuel formation includes increasing entropy, as hydrogen and oxygen bonded to carbon break away to join together and become water molecules.

sealover wrote: I'm pretty sure I never asserted that entropy actually decreases, unless ...

sealover wrote: On the other hand, these guys will literally tell you that "there is no such thing as 'fossil fuel'."

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

References:

1. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

2. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

3. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence

4. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

5. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:

Patricio wrote:I hear ya. Trump has certainly murdered the GOP. I'm very curious to know what form it will take when he is gone, if there is anything left of the nation when he goes. I've been a lefty since my hippie days in the 60s, dabbled as a right winger in the 80s, but came home after being delusioned by Iran Contra, etc. I really became interested in climate science when Al Gore's film was released.

It would be nice of the old GOP came alive, but, the MAGA crowd has taken over, and some other demagogue wannabe is no doubt waiting in the mud ready to spring out, at some point.

If you look at all the indictments and prosecutions of members of the executive branch, I'd say some 90% of them are on the GOP side. I'll have to double check this but I think it's something like 209 indictments on the GOP side and 4 on the Democrat side.

All you had to write is that you are an uneducated, TDS-infected, intellectually dishonest troll trying desperately to pass himself off as a thienth geniuth to advance his religious Climate agenda.

Patricio wrote:

Oh, those "value-added" posts!

IBdaMann may not have a clue about chemistry or thermodynamics, but he is surprisingly talented when it comes to posting original art.

You may be in for a treat!

Pictures depicting you as a troll, with specialized features to mock you.

They are far more interesting than the convoluted word game obfuscations he will use to claim victory in the "debate" about "science".

In the past he came up with LOTS of troll pictures for people.

It may prove to be the highest quality part of any discussion you have with him.

In general, I would describe his posts as "value-subtracted" regarding how they impact the quality of discussion.

But when he posts troll art, some of it is hilarious.

I'll give him a "9" for wit, because he CAN make me LAUGH

So, overall, one to ten, he rates almost HALF.

And there are three members of the old gang still MIA.

You might never get the "Define your terms!" hazing ritual.

It doesn't really work if ITN is the only back up for it.

But you might get to see some impressive artwork depicting you as a troll.

Belated edit: You may have noticed that IBdaMann and ITN don't really coordinate their arguments very well.

For example, IBdaMann said, "I refuse to use the term 'entropy'. Scheisters who don't understand thermodynamics hide behind the term 'entropy' to conceal their shortcomings."

After that Into the Night said, "You obviously don't understand what entropy is. Entropy can never decrease. You cannot decrease entropy... ever."

One troll shuns the "e" word in thermodynamics. Another lobs it as a grenade.

I'm pretty sure that I explained how fossil fuel formation includes increasing entropy, as hydrogen and oxygen bonded to carbon break away to join together and become water molecules. I'm pretty sure I never asserted that entropy actually decreases, unless the microscope excludes higher entropy gaseous products and focuses only on the remaining solids and liquids.

On the other hand, these guys will literally tell you that "there is no such thing as 'fossil fuel'.", so don't expect them to understand how entropy increased in something that doesn't even exist.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

References:

1. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

2. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

3. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence

4. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

5. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

Need I say more?

No.

The thread's initial post by Patricio stands as a masterpiece worthy of discussion.

BUMP IT UP! Until you can feel it... BUMP IT UP! When you don't really need it..

sealover wrote: Need I say more?

IBdaMann wrote:

sealover wrote: Oh, those "value-added" posts!

What would you know of value-added posts?

sealover wrote: Pictures depicting you as a troll, with specialized features to mock you.

I made realistic portraits of you, with attention to detail.

sealover wrote: You may have noticed that IBdaMann and ITN don't really coordinate their arguments very well.

You may have noticed that it isn't done at all.

sealover wrote: For example, IBdaMann said, "I refuse to use the term 'entropy'. Scheisters who don't understand thermodynamics hide behind the term 'entropy' to conceal their shortcomings."

Correct.

sealover wrote: After that Into the Night said, "You obviously don't understand what entropy is. Entropy can never decrease. You cannot decrease entropy... ever."

Just out of curiosity, how does Into the Night's correct commentary about your erroneous commentary involving "entropy" pertain to my avoidance of the term "entropy"?

sealover wrote: I'm pretty sure that I explained how fossil fuel formation includes increasing entropy, as hydrogen and oxygen bonded to carbon break away to join together and become water molecules.

You have said many contradictory things, and used the term "entropy" in an attempt to conceal that you don't know about which you speak, exactly as I explained.

sealover wrote: I'm pretty sure I never asserted that entropy actually decreases, unless ...

That word "unless" delineates the conditions under which you assert that entropy "actually decreases." You err to that extent.

sealover wrote: On the other hand, these guys will literally tell you that "there is no such thing as 'fossil fuel'."

On the other hand, our solar system will die out before you become honest.

* What fuel do fossils use?
* What fossils are burned as fuel?

No one should ever expect you to understand thermodynamics to any useful extent.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

References:

1. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

2. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

3. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence

4. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

5. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

Need I say more?

No.

The thread's initial post by Patricio stands as a masterpiece worthy of discussion.

BUMP IT UP! Until you can feel it... BUMP IT UP! When you don't really need it..

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

I've should've responded to this before...

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

Climate cannot change.
Climate is not an acid nor an alkaline.
Climate is not science.
Science is not an institution.
It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
No data. No observation.
You deny physics.
Success is not a bill.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

Science is not a 'mainstream'.
Science does not use consensus.
Climate is not science.
It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
There is such thing as 'ocean heat measurement'.
Climate has no timeframe.
It is not possible to measure the total carbon dioxide content of Earth.
Argument from randU fallacies. Random numbers are not data.
Ice cores do not measure global temperature or clobal carbon dioxide.
Climate is not a research.
There is no such thing as a 'heat extreme'.
Rainfall is not a pattern.
The seas are not rising.
There is no such thing as an 'ecosystem'.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Cliamte is not science.
Science is not fortune telling.
There is no 'global trend'.
It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
Rainfall is not a pattern.
A storm system is not the Earth.
Storms are subject to the laws of physics. That won't change.
There is no such thing as 'climate sensitivity'.
No gas or vapor is capable of warming the Earth.
You are ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics again.
There is no 'tipping point'.
It is not possible to measure the total ice and snow on Earth.
Ocean currents are not changing. They are driven by uneven heating.
There is no such thing as 'climate damage'.
Climate is not a policy.
No such thing as 'reasonable experts'. Courtier's fallacy.
There is no 'core diagnosis'.
Buzzword fallacies.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Climate is not a policy.
No gas or vapor is capable of warming the Earth.
Carbon is not carbon dioxide.
Step 1: Doom and Gloom.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
No gas or vapor is capable of warming the Earth.
You are ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics again.
I despise your socialism.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

There is no such thing as 'carbon capture'.
Hydrogen vehicles are difficult to fuel and have limited range.
A battery is not a way to produce energy. It only stores it.
No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth.
There is no 'problem', so there is no 'urgency', and no 'solution' is required.
I despise your socialism.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

There is no 'arithmetic to wish away'. You deny mathematics.
There is no such thing as a 'greenhouse gas'.
No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth.
You are ignoring the 1st law of thermodynmamics again.
Climate is not a policy.
There is no such thing as a 'global climate'.
Climate cannot change.
I despise your socialism.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

Climate is not a computer model.
Computer 'climate models' are nothing more than random number generators of type randU.
A computer is not a fortune teller.
Science is not a fortunet teller.
Climate is not a research or study.
Attempted negative proof fallacy.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

There is no thing as 'carbon capture'.
The three grids in the United States are fully modernized already.
You don't give a damn about energy efficiency. Buzzword fallacy.
You are ignoring Carnot's law.
I despise your socialism.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
Climate is not a strategy.
I despise your socialism.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

You don't want an honest conversation. You want to preach.
Climate cannot change.
Cliamte is not a moral.
Climate is not science.
Science is not a conclusion.
It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth.
You don't want a debate. You want to preach.
There is no 'problem'.
I despise your socialism.
I despise your religion.

Patricio wrote: I despise your very numb and impenetrable skull

Patricio wrote: I despise your ignorance

Patricio wrote: I despise your utter inability to respond on point

Patricio wrote: I despise your false accusations

Patricio wrote:I despise your projectionism, accusing others of that which you are most certainly guilty.

Patricio wrote: I despise your egregious mischaracterizations. I despise your vacuous and nonsubstantiated claims

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

References:

1. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

2. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

3. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence

4. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

5. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

sealover wrote: As a biogeochemist, I am aware of ...

sealover wrote: ... to accomplish reductions in concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

IBdaMann wrote:

sealover wrote: As a biogeochemist, I am aware of ...

What about when you are role playing a Vulcan, or an orc, or a reindeer with a shiny nose?

sealover wrote: ... to accomplish reductions in concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

How about accomplishing actual things in reality? Greenhouse gas is fine for science fiction fantasy thrillers, but do you have anything in non-fiction?

sealover wrote: My basic instinct is to IGNORE your stupid ass, IBdaMann.

sealover wrote: In the non fiction department, I am credited for discovering an important "New cog in the nitrogen cycle". Published in the shit rag known as Nature.

sealover wrote: "There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.", says YARP

sealover wrote: But there really IS such a thing, and it causes BILLIONS of dollars of LOSSES to farmers.

sealover wrote: There is another pathway of dissimilatory nitrate reduction by other bacteria that does NOT generate dinitrogen gas, N2. It is dissimilatory reduction of nitrate to ammonium. It is also the use of nitrate as terminal electron acceptor to oxidize organic carbon, and it also generates carbonate ion, CO3(2-) as the oxidized (inorganic) carbon waste product. Unlike dinitrogen gas N2, ammonium, NH4+ doesn't go off the the atmosphere and can be retained on cation exchange sites.

Did I forget to mention that BOTH pathways of dissimilatory nitrate reduction produce nitrous oxide, N2O and nitric oxide, NO as by products?

But only one of the steals the farmer's fertilizer to blow it straight into the atmosphere as dinitrogen gas, N2.

IBdaMann wrote:

sealover wrote: As a biogeochemist, I am aware of ...

What about when you are role playing a Vulcan, or an orc, or a reindeer with a shiny nose?

sealover wrote: ... to accomplish reductions in concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

How about accomplishing actual things in reality? Greenhouse gas is fine for science fiction fantasy thrillers, but do you have anything in non-fiction?

Patricio wrote:
Patricio wrote:
I despise your very numb and impenetrable skull

sealover wrote:
As a biogeochemist, I am aware of the incredible potential to mimic or enhance what occurs in natural ecosystems to accomplish reductions in concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I am aware of how human management practices influence emission or sequestration of greenhouse gases. Very low cost technologies are already proved effective. I am very optimistic that when cooler heads prevail, such technologies will be more broadly implemented.

sealover wrote:
MEANWHILE, I am very pessimistic about the vast majority of geoengineering schemes that have gotten attention and support. Building giant gizmos, for centralized high-tech, energy intensive removal of gases from the atmosphere will be a regrettable waste of precious resources. Building giant gizmos, for centralized high-tech, energy intensive SPEWING of sun blocking crud high into the atmosphere will be even more regrettable.

sealover wrote:
Right now, the website is under attack from the New Messiah again, and it's kind of a buzz kill for discussion.

sealover wrote:
But I'd love to come back when the smoke clears to discuss some of the low tech applied biogeochemistry for a different kind of geoengineering. Natural alkalinity-based CO2 traps with a volunteer army of microorganisms, for example.

sealover wrote:
My basic instinct is to IGNORE your stupid ass, IBdaMann.
[quote]sealover wrote:
However, despite your attempt to defile Patricio's fine thread, you provide a teachable moment.

sealover wrote:
In the non fiction department, I am credited for discovering an important "New cog in the nitrogen cycle". Published in the shit rag known as Nature.

sealover wrote:
"There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.", says YARP (Yellow And Red Parrot)

But there really IS such a thing, and it causes BILLIONS of dollars of LOSSES to farmers. It robs the expensive nitrogen fertilizer the farmers apply. And "billions" is an understatement for the losses.

sealover wrote:
Globally, less than 30% of applied nitrogen fertilizer is actually taken up into the target crop roots. More than 70% goes somewhere else. Denitrification often takes the lion's share of that nitrogen that didn't get to the crop.

sealover wrote:
Denitrification is the anaerobic microbial process during which denitrifying bacteria use nitrate, NO3- as terminal electron acceptor to oxidize organic carbon for metabolic energy. This is dissimilatory nitrate reduction, because the bacteria don't want the nitrogen as a nutrient, just as an oxidant. They do not assimilate the nitrogen. As an additional fun fact, this biochemical process produces CARBONATE ION, CO3(2-) as the inorganic carbon product of oxidation. Not a CO2 producer, but an acid neutralizing reaction.

sealover wrote:
So, the denitrifying bacteria use the nitrate as oxidant to metabolize organic carbon, and they turn it into dinitrogen gas, N2. Well, they turn MOST of it into N2, but they also generate some by product nitrous oxide, N2O and some nitric oxide, NO. These NOx by products are powerful greenhouse gases.

sealover wrote:
So, in the non fiction world, for IBdaMann's benefit, I submit the fact that my 1995 paper gets cited in so many practical applications to reduce fertilizer loss to denitrification. You don't have to care about the global warming impact of the NOx's to be happy that the farmers lose less money to denitrification.

sealover wrote:
Because there IS such a thing as denitrification.

Denitrification is the greatest source of nitrous oxide, N2O emissions on Earth.

sealover wrote:
BUT denitrification may have gotten TOO much of the credit.

sealover wrote:
There is another pathway of dissimilatory nitrate reduction by other bacteria that does NOT generate dinitrogen gas, N2. It is dissimilatory reduction of nitrate to ammonium. It is also the use of nitrate as terminal electron acceptor to oxidize organic carbon, and it also generates carbonate ion, CO3(2-) as the oxidized (inorganic) carbon waste product. Unlike dinitrogen gas N2, ammonium, NH4+ doesn't go off the the atmosphere and can be retained on cation exchange sites.

sealover wrote:
Did I forget to mention that BOTH pathways of dissimilatory nitrate reduction produce nitrous oxide, N2O and nitric oxide, NO as by products?

sealover wrote:
But only one of the steals the farmer's fertilizer to blow it straight into the atmosphere as dinitrogen gas, N2.

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:?
[quote]sealover wrote:
?

Bulverism fallacy.
You defile your own thread.
You aren't teaching anything.

sealover wrote:
?

Fiction is not nonfiction.
Buzzwords are meaningless.
There is no such thing as a 'cog in the nitrogen cycle'.
Nitrogen is not a cycle.
Nature is a shit rag.
Science is not a magazine or journal.

sealover wrote:
?

There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.
Nitrogen is not a fertilizer.
Argument from randU fallacies.
Attempted proof by randU.

sealover wrote:
?

Nitrogen is not a fertilizer.
A crop is not a target.
A crop is not a root (with a few exceptions).
There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.

sealover wrote:
?

There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.
Nitrate is not a chemical.
There is no such thing as 'terminal electron acceptor'.
Carbon is not oxygen.
Carbon is not organic.
'Dissimilatory' is not a word.
You cannot reduce a buzzword.
Nitrogen is not a 'nutrient'.
Nitrogen is not oxygen.
There is no such thing as 'biochemistry'.
Carbonate is not a chemical.
Carbon is not inorganic.
You seem to have a lot of trouble understand what an acid is.

sealover wrote:
?

There is no such thing as 'denytrifying'.
Nitrate is not a chemical.
A buzzword is not oxygen.
Carbon is not organic.
No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth.
You are ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics again.
NOx is not a chemical.
There is no such thing as a 'greenhouse gas'.

sealover wrote:
?

Science is not a paper.
Science is not a cite.
Your vanity is getting the better of you again.
No gas or vapor has any capability to warm the Earth.
You are ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics again.
NOx is not a chemical.
There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.

sealover wrote:
?

There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.

sealover wrote:
BUT denitrification may have gotten TOO much of the credit.

There is no such thing as 'denitrification'.

sealover wrote:
?

'Dissimilatory' is not a word.
Nitrate is not a chemical.
You can't reduce a buzzword.
Ammonium is not a chemical.
There is no such thing as a 'terminal electron acceptor'.
Carbon is not organic.
Carbon is not oxygen.
Carbonate is not a chemical.

sealover wrote:
?

'Dissimilatory' is not a word.
Nitrate is not a chemical.

sealover wrote:
?

Nitrogen is not a fertilizer.

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

References:

1. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

2. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

3. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence

4. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

5. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

Patricio wrote:
The science is unusually coherent; the politics is where the friction begins. Why an honest conversation requires moving past binary thinking to face the real trade-offs.

Climate change has achieved the dubious honor of becoming one of those topics that Americans discuss incessantly while conspicuously avoiding its actual substance. It is treated as a tribal marker rather than an empirical question, a litmus test of political identity rather than a problem to be understood and managed. This is odd, because beneath the noise the scientific picture presented by the major research institutions is unusually coherent. The Earth is warming. Human activity is widely understood to be the primary driver [2][3]. The evidence cited in support of both propositions is extensive, overlapping, and drawn from many independent lines of observation. What remains controversial is not the basic physics of the atmosphere, but how a modern society should respond when the bill for two centuries of industrial success finally arrives.

It is worth starting from ground that, according to mainstream climate science, is no longer seriously disputed. Instrumental temperature records, satellite data, ocean heat measurements, and reconstructions of past climates are repeatedly cited as pointing to the same conclusion: global average temperatures have risen sharply over the past century, with the most recent decade standing apart even from the recent past [1][3]. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations now exceed 427 parts per million, a level scientists say has not occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, based on ice-core records and modern measurements [1]. The timing of this increase closely tracks the industrial era. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and producing cement are widely identified as the dominant contributors [2]. By contrast, natural influences--changes in solar output, volcanic activity, and long-term orbital cycles--are generally regarded by climate researchers as insufficient to explain the observed warming on their own [2]. Meanwhile, the consequences are no longer abstractions. Heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, rising seas, and shifting ecosystems are increasingly reported across many regions and datasets by institutions with differing methods and missions [3].

None of this implies that climate science has reached some priestly certainty beyond further inquiry. On the contrary, scientists are often explicit about the limits of their projections. Uncertainty here does not mean ignorance; it reflects a range of possible outcomes rather than a single, fixed prediction. Broad global trends are easier to estimate than local effects. Predicting how average temperatures change worldwide is more straightforward than predicting how rainfall patterns will evolve in a particular state or how individual storm systems may behave decades from now. Estimates of climate sensitivity--the amount of warming associated with higher carbon dioxide levels--fall within a studied range rather than a precise figure [2]. Potential tipping points, such as ice-sheet loss or changes in ocean circulation, are discussed as real risks but with acknowledged uncertainty about timing and thresholds [2]. Add to this the difficulty of forecasting economic impacts, whether from climate damage or from climate policy, and it becomes clear why reasonable experts can disagree without disputing the core diagnosis.

Where the argument truly begins is not in the laboratory but in the legislature. Democratic climate policy, broadly speaking, treats emissions reduction as an urgent imperative. It favors rapid decarbonization, large-scale deployment of renewable energy, electrification of transport, regulatory pressure on industry, international agreements, and significant public investment in clean technologies. The underlying wager is that early action is cheaper than delay, that prevention costs less than repair, and that the risks of inaction grow faster than the costs of transition. This is not an irrational position; it reflects a particular approach to managing long-term risk under uncertainty.

Republican approaches are more varied than their caricatures, and their strongest arguments are often misrepresented by opponents who prefer straw men to engagement. Many on the right do not deny warming so much as question the proposed remedies. They emphasize the economic and social costs of rapid decarbonization: higher energy prices, disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, disruption of existing industries, and potential loss of competitiveness. These concerns are not imaginary. They reflect real tradeoffs, and acknowledging them is part of taking the issue seriously rather than turning it into a moral contest.

There is also a defensible case for technological optimism. Major energy transitions in the past were driven less by bans than by better alternatives. Advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, geothermal energy, hydrogen systems, and next-generation batteries are often cited as examples of technologies that could reduce emissions without requiring abrupt economic dislocation. Many researchers argue that innovation of this kind may ultimately prove more effective than regulation alone. To raise this point is not to deny urgency, but to question which tools are most likely to work.

Then there is the arithmetic that refuses to be wished away. The United States is no longer the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China now accounts for more than 30 percent of global emissions, with India rising rapidly behind it [4]. Even the most ambitious American climate policy cannot, by itself, stabilize the global climate. This does not excuse inaction, but it does underscore the necessity--and fragility--of international cooperation. Climate change is, by definition, a collective-action problem. The atmosphere does not recognize national borders.

Republicans also draw attention to uncertainty in climate modeling, sometimes clumsily, sometimes fairly. Models generate ranges of outcomes rather than definitive forecasts. Regional projections are less certain than global ones, and uncertainty grows over longer time horizons. This is not a concession forced from scientists; it is part of how climate research is routinely described. Uncertainty does not negate risk, but it complicates long-term planning. Finally, there is the emphasis on adaptation: wildfire management, water systems, coastal defenses, and infrastructure hardening. These measures are necessary regardless of how emissions trajectories unfold, and many climate scientists themselves note that adaptation receives less attention than mitigation [5].

For all the shouting, the overlap between the parties is larger than commonly admitted. Support for nuclear power has grown substantially in recent years. Investment in carbon capture, grid modernization, energy efficiency, research and development, and infrastructure resilience has attracted bipartisan support through legislation and funding. These areas offer the most plausible foundation for durable progress, precisely because they do not require either side to pretend the other is acting in bad faith.

The real dispute, then, is not about whether the planet is warming. It is about how to respond, how fast to move, how much to spend, and who should bear the costs. Democrats tend to emphasize speed, regulation, emissions reduction, and international coordination. Republicans tend to emphasize cost, innovation, energy independence, adaptation, and competitiveness. Both sets of priorities contain insights, and both contain blind spots. A serious climate strategy will almost certainly borrow from each.

What an honest conversation requires is a refusal to reduce climate change to a morality play. The mainstream scientific conclusion--that the planet is warming and human activity plays a central role--is well established [2][3]. Everything beyond that is strategy. A productive debate acknowledges the reality of the problem, the legitimacy of economic concerns, the importance of innovation, the necessity of global cooperation, and the value of both mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is not a binary proposition to be believed or denied. It is a complex challenge that demands scientific humility, economic pragmatism, technological ingenuity, and political maturity. No party has a monopoly on wisdom here, and no ideology will be vindicated by the atmosphere.

References:

1. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

2. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

3. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence

4. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

5. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
In any case, THIS post by Patricio offers some topics worthy of discussion.

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
In any case, THIS post by Patricio offers some topics worthy of discussion.

You aren't discussing anything, Robert.

Im a BM wrote:

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
In any case, THIS post by Patricio offers some topics worthy of discussion.

You aren't discussing anything, Robert.

Right.

It would be SO MUCH MORE INFORMATIVE if I responded with a post that makes of long list of random things that "Science is not..". Just in case anyone thought that science is a banana or something.

Even MORE informative would be a long list of things that I UNILATERALLY declare to be "..not a chemical.", regardless of what the chemistry TEXTBOOKS say.

Because "Science is not a textbook."

And textbooks are not chemicals.

Keep on teaching your INFORMATIVE science lessons, "Mr. Chemistry Genius".

("Mr. Chemistry Genius" is what IBdaMann called me when he explained how PURE WATER is MORE buffered than SEA WATER to resist pH change upon addition of a drop of acid).

Hey, at least he stipulated that this was only true if one added a drop of a "magical acid" of pH =0 to a liter of sea water versus a liter of pure water!

Im a BM wrote:

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:
In any case, THIS post by Patricio offers some topics worthy of discussion.

You aren't discussing anything, Robert.

Right.

It would be SO MUCH MORE INFORMATIVE if I responded with a post that makes of long list of random things that "Science is not..". Just in case anyone thought that science is a banana or something.

Even MORE informative would be a long list of things that I UNILATERALLY declare to be "..not a chemical.", regardless of what the chemistry TEXTBOOKS say.

Because "Science is not a textbook."

And textbooks are not chemicals.

Keep on teaching your INFORMATIVE science lessons, "Mr. Chemistry Genius".

("Mr. Chemistry Genius" is what IBdaMann called me when he explained how PURE WATER is MORE buffered than SEA WATER to resist pH change upon addition of a drop of acid).

Hey, at least he stipulated that this was only true if one added a drop of a "magical acid" of pH =0 to a liter of sea water versus a liter of pure water!

Patricio wrote: Feeding trolls is like feeding pigeons, all you get is pidgeon shit and no substantive conversation

Im a BM wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:

Patricio wrote:Patricio rebuts:

Spongy, you just revealed exactly where you stand--and it isn't on solid ground.
"Calling it" isn't an argument. It's a concession dressed up as a victory lap.

This was written by an AI assistant.

Into the Night is probably correct, i.e. that this account is a sock (of Robert's).

I should have noticed right away when "Patricio" used the term "species" (with respect to chemistry) when he doesn't even know any science fundamentals whatsoever, just as Robert doesn't know any science fundamentals. "Species" wrt chemistry is an AI term.

Patricio wrote:Let's be precise about what ITN and IBdamann actually claimed,

This is AI wording.

Patricio wrote: That is not the greenhouse mechanism.

This is AI-speak.

Now I understand why Robert is the excited cheerleader ... "Patricio" is his sock! This is why Robert immediately declares victory for "Patricio" before anyone has had any chance to respond. This is why Robert is so desperate to get "Patricio" recognized as a "true scientist", just as he is desperate to have himself viewed as a "true scientist."

Patricio wrote: Here's what the greenhouse effect actually says:

There is no greenhouse effect model that says anything.

I think we're done on this.

IBdaMann, your detective skills are AMAZING!

Just as it only took a couple of posts, four years ago, for you to determine that I was a LIAR.

"You do not have a degree in chemistry. That much is painfully obvious."

You figured me out right away, didn't you? You knew that a real chemist would never choose the terms I was using, such as "organic carbon".

And now your detective skills, the same ones that have made you such a successful, recognized scientist, reveal that Patricio is another "sock" of mine.

What gave it away?

The word "species". A real scientist would never say "species" for "chemical". It must be AI. Or a "sock".

Chemical speciation is an important part of analytical chemistry.

Look it up, if you dare!

Alkalinity, for example.

One of the few things that Into the Night is actually CORRECT to assert is that "alkalinity is not a chemical". That is one of those few "not a chemical" statements he makes that is NOT a stupid interpretation of chemistry.

No, alkalinity is not a single species of oxyanion. EVERY chemical that imparts alkalinity is an oxyanion of one kind or another. The conjugate base of a weak acid.

Allow me to define the terms "chemical species" and "oxyanion".

I'll start with oxyanion, because you STILL seem to think that DILUTION is some kind of pH BUFFERING.

An ANION is a negatively charged ion. It carries a negative charge. Chloride, Cl- is the most abundant anion in sea water. Chloride is not an oxyanion, nor is it the conjugate base of a weak acid. Chloride is the conjugate base of a very STRONG acid, HCl. The chloride ion provides no buffering capacity, although it certainly increases the ionic strength of sea water.

Oxyanions are anions that have oxygen in their structure. One or more of the oxygen atoms on an oxyanion can protonate or deprotonate, depending on pH.

This will take too long and IBdaMann won't understand it anyway.

SPECIES! Rhymes with feces. And it IS a word that CHEMISTS use to identify unigue CHEMICALS in a mix.

Back to alkalinity. Acid neutralizing capacity can be speciated or not, depending on the needs of the research.

For many applications, you do not need to know the different species, so you don't bother speciating. You just measure TOTAL alkalinity. But if you want to know which CHEMICALS are contributing how much, you SPECIATE the alkalinity for separate quantification of the different "species", as CHEMISTS like to call them.

NO, it doesn't prove that AI was used or that Patricio is a "sock".

So, alkalinity is usually speciated for government reports. The environmental bureaucracies at the federal, state, and county level usually need alkalinity speciation in addition to total alkalinity for water quality reports/compliance.

So they SPECIATE the alkalinity into the three major SPECIES that supply it. You get three numbers for the three oxyanions (specific chemical species) that provide more than 99% of sea water alkalinity. Bicarbonate alkalinity is about 90% of total alkalinity in sea water. The bicarbonate ion, HCO3-, is a unique chemical, a "species". Into the Night needs to learn what a "chemical" is.

I won't go over sea water chemistry again..

I'll just mock IBdaMann for being so IGNORANT (maybe "scientifically illiterate" is a better term) that he does not know CHEMISTS often use the word "species" to say "specific chemical".

I used to speciate a lot of things in my research.

Most famously, I SPECIATED the dissolved forms of nitrogen leaching out of decomposing forest litter. We were the first to show that dissolved ORGANIC NITROGEN was the dominant species of nitrogen moving in forest solutions.

I'm not going to tell Patricio what to do.

I hope that he gets bored of interacting with you, but doesn't just bail on the website.

I know that the "target audience" I seek to reach would benefit from reading the kind of conversations Patricio and I could be having here.

We could understand each other perfectly because we BOTH understand the language of scientific "gibber babble". I'm sorry if that leaves you out, IBdaMann, but it's still not too late for you to learn something.

Actually, I think it IS too late for you to learn something.

For years is enough for you to convince me that you are UNTEACHABLE.

And very unlikeable. And often intolerable.

My AI-driven "sock" Patricio will have to find his own way.

I hope before long, he and I will just IGNORE you trolls as we exchange information and ideas that will be of great value to the target audience.

I still fear that he will get too disgusted with you and decide that this website is simply a waste of his time.

Galileo set up his "debate" with Ignoramus to play the straw man. But at least Galileo's Ignoramus was arguing state-of-the-art Earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe science.

Nobody here was competent to be a good Ignoramus. Not even familiar enough with the "skeptic" pseudo science to advance their argument.

So, how about a Sherlock-Holmes-and-Dr.-Watson model instead?

No Ignoramus required. Just two detectives exchanging information and ideas while the target audience gets informed.

Moriarty was never there heckling and interrupting them as they tried to have their discussion. Moriarity's interests would have been well served if he had been given the opportunity to obnoxiously derail those discussions.

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:

Patricio wrote:Patricio rebuts:

Spongy, you just revealed exactly where you stand--and it isn't on solid ground.
"Calling it" isn't an argument. It's a concession dressed up as a victory lap.

This was written by an AI assistant.

Into the Night is probably correct, i.e. that this account is a sock (of Robert's).

I should have noticed right away when "Patricio" used the term "species" (with respect to chemistry) when he doesn't even know any science fundamentals whatsoever, just as Robert doesn't know any science fundamentals. "Species" wrt chemistry is an AI term.

Patricio wrote:Let's be precise about what ITN and IBdamann actually claimed,

This is AI wording.

Patricio wrote: That is not the greenhouse mechanism.

This is AI-speak.

Now I understand why Robert is the excited cheerleader ... "Patricio" is his sock! This is why Robert immediately declares victory for "Patricio" before anyone has had any chance to respond. This is why Robert is so desperate to get "Patricio" recognized as a "true scientist", just as he is desperate to have himself viewed as a "true scientist."

Patricio wrote: Here's what the greenhouse effect actually says:

There is no greenhouse effect model that says anything.

I think we're done on this.

IBdaMann, your detective skills are AMAZING!

Just as it only took a couple of posts, four years ago, for you to determine that I was a LIAR.

"You do not have a degree in chemistry. That much is painfully obvious."

You figured me out right away, didn't you? You knew that a real chemist would never choose the terms I was using, such as "organic carbon".

And now your detective skills, the same ones that have made you such a successful, recognized scientist, reveal that Patricio is another "sock" of mine.

What gave it away?

The word "species". A real scientist would never say "species" for "chemical". It must be AI. Or a "sock".

Chemical speciation is an important part of analytical chemistry.

Look it up, if you dare!

Alkalinity, for example.

One of the few things that Into the Night is actually CORRECT to assert is that "alkalinity is not a chemical". That is one of those few "not a chemical" statements he makes that is NOT a stupid interpretation of chemistry.

No, alkalinity is not a single species of oxyanion. EVERY chemical that imparts alkalinity is an oxyanion of one kind or another. The conjugate base of a weak acid.

Allow me to define the terms "chemical species" and "oxyanion".

I'll start with oxyanion, because you STILL seem to think that DILUTION is some kind of pH BUFFERING.

An ANION is a negatively charged ion. It carries a negative charge. Chloride, Cl- is the most abundant anion in sea water. Chloride is not an oxyanion, nor is it the conjugate base of a weak acid. Chloride is the conjugate base of a very STRONG acid, HCl. The chloride ion provides no buffering capacity, although it certainly increases the ionic strength of sea water.

Oxyanions are anions that have oxygen in their structure. One or more of the oxygen atoms on an oxyanion can protonate or deprotonate, depending on pH.

This will take too long and IBdaMann won't understand it anyway.

SPECIES! Rhymes with feces. And it IS a word that CHEMISTS use to identify unigue CHEMICALS in a mix.

Back to alkalinity. Acid neutralizing capacity can be speciated or not, depending on the needs of the research.

For many applications, you do not need to know the different species, so you don't bother speciating. You just measure TOTAL alkalinity. But if you want to know which CHEMICALS are contributing how much, you SPECIATE the alkalinity for separate quantification of the different "species", as CHEMISTS like to call them.

NO, it doesn't prove that AI was used or that Patricio is a "sock".

So, alkalinity is usually speciated for government reports. The environmental bureaucracies at the federal, state, and county level usually need alkalinity speciation in addition to total alkalinity for water quality reports/compliance.

So they SPECIATE the alkalinity into the three major SPECIES that supply it. You get three numbers for the three oxyanions (specific chemical species) that provide more than 99% of sea water alkalinity. Bicarbonate alkalinity is about 90% of total alkalinity in sea water. The bicarbonate ion, HCO3-, is a unique chemical, a "species". Into the Night needs to learn what a "chemical" is.

I won't go over sea water chemistry again..

I'll just mock IBdaMann for being so IGNORANT (maybe "scientifically illiterate" is a better term) that he does not know CHEMISTS often use the word "species" to say "specific chemical".

I used to speciate a lot of things in my research.

Most famously, I SPECIATED the dissolved forms of nitrogen leaching out of decomposing forest litter. We were the first to show that dissolved ORGANIC NITROGEN was the dominant species of nitrogen moving in forest solutions.

I'm not going to tell Patricio what to do.

I hope that he gets bored of interacting with you, but doesn't just bail on the website.

I know that the "target audience" I seek to reach would benefit from reading the kind of conversations Patricio and I could be having here.

We could understand each other perfectly because we BOTH understand the language of scientific "gibber babble". I'm sorry if that leaves you out, IBdaMann, but it's still not too late for you to learn something.

Actually, I think it IS too late for you to learn something.

For years is enough for you to convince me that you are UNTEACHABLE.

And very unlikeable. And often intolerable.

My AI-driven "sock" Patricio will have to find his own way.

I hope before long, he and I will just IGNORE you trolls as we exchange information and ideas that will be of great value to the target audience.

I still fear that he will get too disgusted with you and decide that this website is simply a waste of his time.

Galileo set up his "debate" with Ignoramus to play the straw man. But at least Galileo's Ignoramus was arguing state-of-the-art Earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe science.

Nobody here was competent to be a good Ignoramus. Not even familiar enough with the "skeptic" pseudo science to advance their argument.

So, how about a Sherlock-Holmes-and-Dr.-Watson model instead?

No Ignoramus required. Just two detectives exchanging information and ideas while the target audience gets informed.

Moriarty was never there heckling and interrupting them as they tried to have their discussion. Moriarity's interests would have been well served if he had been given the opportunity to obnoxiously derail those discussions.

When Ibdamann declared that "chemical species" don't exist -- that it was an AI hallucination or some such -- that settled it for me. You're not dealing with a skeptic. You're dealing with someone who is simply not equipped for the conversation. Contrarian by reflex, not by argument -- which is the working definition of a troll. There's no meeting of minds to be had. Your "unteachable" was the right word, I use the term 'knucklehead', or dude with an impenetrable skull.

IBdaMann wrote:

sealover wrote: "Higher energy forms"?

Yes, whereby the amount of chemical potential (fuel) increases after death

sealover wrote: I doubt that you mean carbon compounds that contain more chemical energy than originally in the dead organisms.

That is exactly your position, and it violates the 2nd LoT.

sealover wrote: I suspect that by "Higher energy" you mean lower entropy.

Nope. I refuse to use the term "entropy." Scheisters who don't understand thermodynamics hide behind the term "entropy" to conceal their shortcomings.

sealover wrote: Some would claim that life itself violates the laws of thermodynamics,

The world is full of stupid people making stupid claims.

Let me know if you wish to discuss thermodynamics, or you can let me know if you'd like me to teach you thermodynamics.

Your extremely stupid position remains that hydrocarbon wells (petroleum and natural gas), that were never under any ocean and that were always *far* below any fossil record and always beneath impermeable rock, were somehow filled with hydrocarbons by living organisms that died, and upon death began to dig downward until reaching the impermeable rock, and then began drilling through the impermeable rock until reaching the other side, and then commenced rotting and decaying into a higher form of energy (into combustible fuel) in violation of the 2nd LoT.

Your position is stupid.

Hydrocarbons are formed in the earth, below impermeable rock, by geological activity-induced Fischer-Tropsch processes that convert hydrogen and carbon in the earth's lower crust using the earth's elevated temperature's and pressures (with metal catalysts and other conditions).

I'm sure you see the humor in a guy who is desperate to be viewed as a chemist who is nonetheless fighting tooth and nail to deny Fischer-Tropsch science because his religion forbids it.

Too funny!

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:
Into the Night is probably correct, i.e. that this account is a sock (of Robert's).

I should have noticed right away when "Patricio" used the term "species" (with respect to chemistry) when he doesn't even know any science fundamentals whatsoever, just as Robert doesn't know any science fundamentals. "Species" wrt chemistry is an AI term.

Now I understand why Robert is the excited cheerleader ... "Patricio" is his sock! This is why Robert immediately declares victory for "Patricio" before anyone has had any chance to respond. This is why Robert is so desperate to get "Patricio" recognized as a "true scientist", just as he is desperate to have himself viewed as a "true scientist."

When Ibdamann declared that "chemical species" don't exist -- that it was an AI hallucination or some such -- that settled it for me. You're not dealing with a skeptic. You're dealing with someone who is simply not equipped for the conversation. Contrarian by reflex, not by argument -- which is the working definition of a troll. There's no meeting of minds to be had. Your "unteachable" was the right word, I use the term 'knucklehead', or dude with an impenetrable skull.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
It is one thing to be a reflexive naysayer or knee-jerk contrarian. But when the unsupported contrarian assertion stands alone as the entire argument, it rings hollow. "Science is not a chemical" tells us neither what science nor a chemical actually IS. It heavily depends on some straw man claim attributed to another.

IBdaMann once wrote the sentence "carbonate is not a chemical" two hundred times in a row, without using any copy cut and paste function, to prove an important point. I was mocking ITN's main "argument" about sea water chemistry, and IBdaMann was mocking my mockery.

From now on, I might just write CO3(2-) for sea water buffering discussion, and never call it by its name "carbonate". Perhaps Into the Night will assert that CO3(2-) is not a chemical either.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
These guys caught on to my fraud within my first three posts. The non science gibber babble composed with meaningless buzzwords could only have been written by a scientifically illiterate moron. A real scientist knows that those big words don't actually mean anything. Half of them refer to things that don't even exist, and the other half don't mean anything to anyone.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with incomprehensible gibber babble.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
And within the past few hours Into the Night reaffirmed his belief that "Patricio" is my very own "sock" which I control.

Patricio, today isn't the day I want to try it, but I hope you're game one of these days to do a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson thing with me.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
We could get back to the basics with alkalinity depletion in the sea, or we could shoot for the stars and take on stratospheric denitrification, a relatively new thing thanks to a COLDER stratosphere. But is stratospheric denitrification helping or hurting the ozone layer recovery? NOx's do a lot of different things in the stratosphere, and human activity has made a lot more of them available.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
Did we accidentally save the ozone layer with our NOx's, or are our NOx's what most threaten the ozone layer after we get our CFCs under control?

It's not a trick question. The evidence is confounding.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
But now that the stratosphere can get cold enough to freeze suspended droplets of nitric acid into ice crystals that fall out of the stratosphere, the denitrification occurring in polar stratospheric clouds is a BIG DEAL.

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
It is one thing to be a reflexive naysayer or knee-jerk contrarian. But when the unsupported contrarian assertion stands alone as the entire argument, it rings hollow. "Science is not a chemical" tells us neither what science nor a chemical actually IS. It heavily depends on some straw man claim attributed to another.

IBdaMann once wrote the sentence "carbonate is not a chemical" two hundred times in a row, without using any copy cut and paste function, to prove an important point. I was mocking ITN's main "argument" about sea water chemistry, and IBdaMann was mocking my mockery.

From now on, I might just write CO3(2-) for sea water buffering discussion, and never call it by its name "carbonate". Perhaps Into the Night will assert that CO3(2-) is not a chemical either.

CO3(2-) is not a chemical.
Carbonate is not a chemical.
Water is a buffer for acid.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
These guys caught on to my fraud within my first three posts. The non science gibber babble composed with meaningless buzzwords could only have been written by a scientifically illiterate moron. A real scientist knows that those big words don't actually mean anything. Half of them refer to things that don't even exist, and the other half don't mean anything to anyone.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with incomprehensible gibber babble.

You don't get to speak for everyone. You only get to speak for you. Omniscience fallacy.
Courtier's fallacy.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
And within the past few hours Into the Night reaffirmed his belief that "Patricio" is my very own "sock" which I control.

Patricio, today isn't the day I want to try it, but I hope you're game one of these days to do a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson thing with me.

Talking to yourself is pointless, Robert.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
We could get back to the basics with alkalinity depletion in the sea, or we could shoot for the stars and take on stratospheric denitrification, a relatively new thing thanks to a COLDER stratosphere. But is stratospheric denitrification helping or hurting the ozone layer recovery? NOx's do a lot of different things in the stratosphere, and human activity has made a lot more of them available.

Alkalinity is not a chemical.
There is no such thing as 'stratospheric denitrification'.
The ozone layer never needed 'recovery'.
NOx is not a chemical.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
Did we accidentally save the ozone layer with our NOx's, or are our NOx's what most threaten the ozone layer after we get our CFCs under control?

It's not a trick question. The evidence is confounding.

The ozone layer never needed 'saving'.
NOx is not a chemical.
CFCs is not a chemical.
It is not possible to destroy the ozone layer, even if we wanted to.
You are ignoring the Chapman cycle again.
You are ignoring the chemistry of oxygen and ozone again.

sealover wrote:

Patricio wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
But now that the stratosphere can get cold enough to freeze suspended droplets of nitric acid into ice crystals that fall out of the stratosphere, the denitrification occurring in polar stratospheric clouds is a BIG DEAL.

What 'nitric acid'??
There is no such thing as 'polar stratospheric denitrification'.

Im a BM wrote:
Google Inquiry: "Is there such a thing as 'stratospheric denitrification?"

[b]Im a BM wrote:
[/b]
Google knows so much MORE science than Into the Night.

Im a BM wrote:
Google AI provides a brief answer in the upper left, for those who have the balls to find out if there's really "such a thing" as "stratospheric denitrification".
[quote]Im a BM wrote:

"Abstract. The sedimentation of HNO3 containing Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC) particles leads to a permanent removal of HNO3 and thus to a denitrification of the stratosphere, an effect which plays an important role in stratospheric ozone depletion."

Im a BM wrote:
Right, but everybody already knows THAT much. But what, exactly is that "important role in stratospheric ozone depletion"?

Im a BM wrote:
That is controversial cutting edge science. It has barely been a quarter century since the stratosphere got cold enough to even do this crazy thing with the HNO3 (a.k.a. nitric acid). Some models/mechanisms would mean that this is what SAVED the ozone layer when all those bad CFCs were unmitigated.

Im a BM wrote:
Into the Night would have nothing of value to contribute, but that won't stop him from doing everything in his power to obnoxiously derail the discussion.

Im a BM wrote:
Science is not a reference.

Into the Night wrote:

Im a BM wrote:
Google Inquiry: "Is there such a thing as 'stratospheric denitrification?"

There is no such thing as 'stratospheric denitirfication'.

[b]Im a BM wrote:
[/b]
Google knows so much MORE science than Into the Night.

Science is not Google.
Google is not sentient.

Im a BM wrote:
Google AI provides a brief answer in the upper left, for those who have the balls to find out if there's really "such a thing" as "stratospheric denitrification".
[quote]Im a BM wrote:

"Abstract. The sedimentation of HNO3 containing Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC) particles leads to a permanent removal of HNO3 and thus to a denitrification of the stratosphere, an effect which plays an important role in stratospheric ozone depletion."

There are no sediments in the atmosphere.
Nitric acid is not in the atmosphere.
There is no such thing as 'Polar Stratospheric Cloud denitrification.

Im a BM wrote:
Right, but everybody already knows THAT much. But what, exactly is that "important role in stratospheric ozone depletion"?

There isn't any.
It is not possible to destroy the ozone layer.

Im a BM wrote:
That is controversial cutting edge science. It has barely been a quarter century since the stratosphere got cold enough to even do this crazy thing with the HNO3 (a.k.a. nitric acid). Some models/mechanisms would mean that this is what SAVED the ozone layer when all those bad CFCs were unmitigated.

Now you claim the poles are cooling. Just a few posts ago, you claimed they were warming! Hilarious!

There is no 'crazy thing with nitric acid'.

Im a BM wrote:
Into the Night would have nothing of value to contribute, but that won't stop him from doing everything in his power to obnoxiously derail the discussion.

Inversion fallacy.

Im a BM wrote:
Science is not a reference.

Theories of science can indeed be references.

You just choose to ignore them.

sealover wrote:
Are the poles warming or cooling?

sealover wrote:
That depends on which layer of the atmosphere you are asking about.

sealover wrote:
The STRATOSPHERE over the poles is COOLING.

sealover wrote:
In fact, it get cold enough now in the dead of winter to form these things they call "polar stratospheric clouds".

sealover wrote:
Some of the droplets of nitric acid that condense into these polar stratospheric clouds gets cold enough to freeze into a crystal of nitric acid ice.

sealover wrote:
That heavy thing falls down out of the stratosphere in a process the call "denitrification". Denitrification in soil/water is not the same.

Into the Night wrote:

sealover wrote:
Are the poles warming or cooling?

It is not possible to measure the temperature of either pole.

sealover wrote:
That depends on which layer of the atmosphere you are asking about.

No one is measuring it.

sealover wrote:
The STRATOSPHERE over the poles is COOLING.

Argument from randU fallacy.
You cannot reduce entropy.
You are ignoring the 2nd law of thermodynamics again.
You cannot trap light.
You cannot trap heat.
You cannot trap thermal energy. There is always heat.
You are also ignoring the Stefan-Boltzmann law again.

sealover wrote:
In fact, it get cold enough now in the dead of winter to form these things they call "polar stratospheric clouds".

No such thing. Clouds do not form in the stratosphere. Convective heating is not available, and the stratosphere is too dry.

sealover wrote:
Some of the droplets of nitric acid that condense into these polar stratospheric clouds gets cold enough to freeze into a crystal of nitric acid ice.

No nitric acid.

sealover wrote:
That heavy thing falls down out of the stratosphere in a process the call "denitrification". Denitrification in soil/water is not the same.

No such thing.

Buzzword fallacies..

sealover wrote: The STRATOSPHERE over the poles is COOLING.

sealover wrote: "Is there such a thing as 'stratospheric denitrification?"

sealover wrote: Google AI provides a brief answer in the upper left, for those who have the balls to find out if there's really "such a thing" as "stratospheric denitrification".

Google AI: "Abstract. The sedimentation of HNO3 containing Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC) particles leads to a permanent removal of HNO3 and thus to a denitrification of the stratosphere, an effect which plays an important role in stratospheric ozone depletion."

Im a BM wrote:
"You are ignoring... You cannot... You are ignoring... You cannot.."

So many of Into the Night's sentences begin with the word "you"...
...deleted remaining whining...

Im a BM wrote: "You are ignoring... You cannot... You are ignoring... You cannot.."

So many of Into the Night's sentences begin with the word "you"...

Im a BM wrote: ... YOU are ignoring the fact that most of the other trolls are simply NOT coming back to play with you again.