Let's ignore this graph and talk about climate change

[AggregateDemand]

This is my personal favorite. See that blue blob on the far right side of the graph, where no climate change is happening? That's what we are calling climate change.

[MalaspinaGold]

considering that the time period in question (1900-) is 1/100th the width of the last column, your argument is not particularly persuasive. Try again.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

considering that the time period in question (1900-) is 1/100th the width of the last column, your argument is not particularly persuasive. Try again.

yeah, the time period covered by that indistinct blob includes all sorts of climate change (incl. the Little Ice Age, to pick a fairly recent example)

[AggregateDemand]

considering that the time period in question (1900-) is 1/100th the width of the last column, your argument is not particularly persuasive. Try again.

The burden of proof is on you. Whatever has happened in the last 100 years is not particularly strange, nor is it particularly threatening compared to the specter of -8C

[IceSpear]

Hmm, I wonder if the Republicans in West Virginia are regretting this attitude right now?

[MalaspinaGold]

considering that the time period in question (1900-) is 1/100th the width of the last column, your argument is not particularly persuasive. Try again.

The burden of proof is on you. Whatever has happened in the last 100 years is not particularly strange, not is it particularly threatening compared to the specter of -8C

I explained this to you in our most recent skirmish. You never answered me there.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I'm not sure what this means, because I'm not a scientist, but both of those graphs look like they're going up to me.

[MaxQue]

I'm not sure what this means, because I'm not a scientist, but both of those graphs look like they're going up to me.

To be honest, it looks like it's plateauing, but the real science answer is than there is too much noise to get any sure and meaningful "right" answer.

[muon2]

I'm not sure what this means, because I'm not a scientist, but both of those graphs look like they're going up to me.

A scientist would say they are consistent with an upward trend until 2002 and no significant change since 2002.

[AggregateDemand]

I explained this to you in our most recent skirmish. You never answered me there.

I must have missed it

[MalaspinaGold]

It was under the "30 Senators stay up all night thread".

[AggregateDemand]

It was under the "30 Senators stay up all night thread".

Positive feedback from the methane cycle, and less heat reflection from the ice caps?

Rising oceans capture more heat, which increases evaporation rates. Clouds are the biggest atmospheric determinant of surface temperature, and the earth begins to cool down.

To be pro-environment doesn't require membership in the cult of AGW, anyway. Bad arguments and shoddy marketing aren't going to make life on this planet any better. Furthermore, when you attack people or you scare them, you have no idea what behaviors you're going to get.

We waste a huge amount of time and energy humoring climate scientists. We don't need definitive scientific evidence to eliminate pollution.

[MalaspinaGold]

You seem to neglect that higher evaporation rates means more water in the atmosphere. Water is of course a greenhouse gas.

My original point was:
Do you disagree with the following two statements?
1. We are currently pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to near unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
2. CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, meaning that high levels of it in the atmosphere will lead to global warming.

Do you disagree with either of these two statements? If not, then why do you deny the inevitable conclusion?

[MaxQue]

You seem to neglect that higher evaporation rates means more water in the atmosphere. Water is of course a greenhouse gas.

My original point was:
Do you disagree with the following two statements?
1. We are currently pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to near unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
2. CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, meaning that high levels of it in the atmosphere will lead to global warming.

Do you disagree with either of these two statements? If not, then why do you deny the inevitable conclusion?

Because, as a scientist, things are never as simple. CO2 emission isn't happening alone, in a closed system. Other events happens, which can have an effect on greenhouse effect and amplify or decrease it. Because the warming graph isn't fitting with your conclusion.

The most logical conclusion is than there is not only CO2 which is relevent here. I agree than we must reduce our CO2 emissions, but it's not a reason to create or bastardize science.

[AggregateDemand]

You seem to neglect that higher evaporation rates means more water in the atmosphere. Water is of course a greenhouse gas.

My original point was:
Do you disagree with the following two statements?
1. We are currently pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to near unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
2. CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, meaning that high levels of it in the atmosphere will lead to global warming.

Do you disagree with either of these two statements? If not, then why do you deny the inevitable conclusion?

As far as I know, no one has proposed eliminating water vapor to cool the planet. Precipitation is necessary and water has different radiant properties than CO2 or methane.

1. yes
2. no

The earth has fail safes, like rising seas that store heat and longer growing seasons that increase rate of sequestration compared to decomposition. Furthermore, the earth does not supply its own heat, and last time I checked, we can't control the sun.

Carbon pollution is its own economic/moral/existential problem. Climate science is not going to help anything. Politicians already believe it, and they still spend money on dumb initiatives. Compiling more data is not going fix anything. You've have to come up with policy initiatives that people want.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Lol at how the Dems never valued the economy

It is ironic, considering this.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Lol at how the Dems never valued the economy

It is ironic, considering this.

Yep the Carter years were so much more prosperous than during Clinton or Reagan . . . srsly, what is up with that chart?

[AggregateDemand]

It is ironic, considering this.

It's not ironic. Most Republicans were never keen to use inflation to artificially stimulate employment. We don't use inflation as an employment policy tool anymore because it had dire consequences.

History has spoken.

[MaxQue]

It is ironic, considering this.

It's not ironic. Most Republicans were never keen to use inflation to artificially stimulate employment. We don't use inflation as an employment policy tool anymore because it had dire consequences.

History has spoken.

Unemployment is a more important issue than inflation for most people. Most people aren't wealthy.

[AggregateDemand]

Unemployment is a more important issue than inflation for most people. Most people aren't wealthy.

Not true. People were not happy about dollar devaluation during the Bush presidency, despite low unemployment. Devaluation and inflation are not the same phenomenon, but the the people lost purchasing power and they were quite angry. People expressed anger prior to stagflation as well.

The Austrians wrote about the counter-intuitive effects of prolonged macro currency manipulation.

[MaxQue]

Unemployment is a more important issue than inflation for most people. Most people aren't wealthy.

Not true. People were not happy about dollar devaluation during the Bush presidency, despite low unemployment. Devaluation and inflation are not the same phenomenon, but the the people lost purchasing power and they were quite angry. People expressed anger prior to stagflation as well.

The Austrians wrote about the counter-intuitive effects of prolonged macro currency manipulation.

Well, sure they aren't pretty, but I'm pretty sure they prefer to be employed with inflation than being unemployed without inflation.

And the Austrians aren't a repudiable source for enonomy. They twist the facts until they get something fitting their neo-liberal ideology.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Lol at how the Dems never valued the economy

It is ironic, considering this.

Yep the Carter years were so much more prosperous than during Clinton or Reagan . . . srsly, what is up with that chart?

The number of people turning 18 in the U.S. shot up from 2.5 million in the late '50s to 3.7-3.9 million per year from 1965-1970... then growing to 4.3 million by 1975 where it stayed above 4 million per year until 1983.

The economy was adding jobs like crazy in the late 1970s... but there were multiple young people ready to take each available job.  This, along with the oil price increases and the end of the gold standard were all individually feeding inflation.. but also fed off of each other.

This is because as these young people, which represented a sudden and massive increase in people per year entering adulthood, began to put strain on our nation's infrastructure on a whole new level.  It wasn't so apparent at first... but within the first 1-2 years of the baby boomers beginning to graduate high school, inflation began to climb.

Suddenly they were moving out of mom and dad's and setting out for their own new place.  Suddenly there were 2 or 3 or 4 households instead of just mom and dad's, as Billy and Suzy and Johnny and Kathy all moved out in rapid succession.

So there's a demand for new housing... for appliances and other durable household goods.  While food consumption and things like car usage would have risen in a gradual way... there are predictable waves of boom and bust in various economic sectors as a baby boom grows up.  This is especially the case in the U.S. since total fertility rates for women declined from a modern peak of 3.75 children per woman in 1957 (which rose from a low of 2 in the early 1930s).. and fell to 1.6 children per woman by 1976.  After 1976 it gradually rose back to just under 2.  So we had a boom, a bust, and a gradual recovery.

In effect, as the 'wave' of people grow up, you begin to see the natural progression of somebody growing up in the economy at the crest of the wave.  That wave peaked between 1957-1961 or so...

So there was a building wave of teachers taking leave because they were pregnant (a massive number, actually to the point that it caused major problems)... and it came to a head in 1957 and then waned.

Then you saw a massive increase in purchases of cribs and diapers and baby formula... that peaked soon after... then tricycles and playground equipment and an explosion in school construction.

Town after town across America saw a massive overcrowding problem in schools... first in the elementary schools.. peaking in the mid-late 1960s, then the junior highs in the early-mid 70s, then the high schools in the late 70s/early 80s.

You saw it in the character of communities.  In the late '50s to late '60s Halloween was a nightmare for my grandma, for example, because hundreds of kids would come to your door for treats.  And this was repeated on every block in suburbs around America.  Not like today where there are now apps to find the best, most frequented candy routes because there are so many houses and relatively few kids.

By the early '80s the streets were almost empty on Halloween.  A massively disproportionate number of homeowners in these places were recent empty-nesters.  Schools closed, teachers were laid off, playgrounds dismantled, community pools shut down.  Sensing this emptiness, many people sold their homes and moved elsewhere or retired and moved... so there was turnover again in the '80s that "refreshed" some of these communities.  But you had cases where school districts were graduating 2500 students per year in the mid-70s... but were only enrolling perhaps 1/4 as many kindergarteners.  And yet they had capacity for 2500 in each grade.

But as far as economics goes, this wave would tend to put more inflationary pressure on the forefront than there would be deflationary pressure on the back end... because once infrastructure is built.. it is still useful even if under utilized... So rather than tearing the school down and reverting it to empty land.. businesses moved into these buildings.  Or they were demolished and quickly replaced by offices or other business interests that were increasingly employing the baby boomers who went to school on these sites.

But as these pressures all helped to feed inflation... a perfect storm of high interest rates, the waning of the baby boom and the beginning of the coming of age of the "baby bust", and the relaxation in oil prices all worked to end that inflationary pressure.

Interestingly... the baby boom peaked a few years later in the UK... and inflation stayed higher a few years later than in the U.S.

Population structure has an enormous impact on the macro level in our economy.  Assisted living facilities can't be built fast enough at the moment and despite low wages and generally demanding conditions, demand for nurses and nurses aids is exploding.  The crest of the baby boom has since become less giant in comparison to the whole population because the throngs of immigrants that have come to America generally came after 1980 and were generally not from the baby boom generation... so immigration has kind of filled in the dip so that America's population age structure is remarkably consistent below age 55.  This is almost unique in the world with one exception:  France  (And Scandinavia but they're small potatoes).

This means we can expect relatively consistent and stable growth in most economic sectors catering to people under the age of 55 while the only place for growth really in existing sectors is for those catering to the elderly.

In effect, diaper producers can count on a relatively stable demand for baby diapers while adult diaper demand will mushroom.

I think that's enough for my tl;dr

[muon2]

Lol at how the Dems never valued the economy

It is ironic, considering this.

Yep the Carter years were so much more prosperous than during Clinton or Reagan . . . srsly, what is up with that chart?

The number of people turning 18 in the U.S. shot up from 2.5 million in the late '50s to 3.7-3.9 million per year from 1965-1970... then growing to 4.3 million by 1975 where it stayed above 4 million per year until 1983.

The economy was adding jobs like crazy in the late 1970s... but there were multiple young people ready to take each available job.  This, along with the oil price increases and the end of the gold standard were all individually feeding inflation.. but also fed off of each other.

This is because as these young people, which represented a sudden and massive increase in people per year entering adulthood, began to put strain on our nation's infrastructure on a whole new level.  It wasn't so apparent at first... but within the first 1-2 years of the baby boomers beginning to graduate high school, inflation began to climb.

Suddenly they were moving out of mom and dad's and setting out for their own new place.  Suddenly there were 2 or 3 or 4 households instead of just mom and dad's, as Billy and Suzy and Johnny and Kathy all moved out in rapid succession.

So there's a demand for new housing... for appliances and other durable household goods.  While food consumption and things like car usage would have risen in a gradual way... there are predictable waves of boom and bust in various economic sectors as a baby boom grows up.  This is especially the case in the U.S. since total fertility rates for women declined from a modern peak of 3.75 children per woman in 1957 (which rose from a low of 2 in the early 1930s).. and fell to 1.6 children per woman by 1976.  After 1976 it gradually rose back to just under 2.  So we had a boom, a bust, and a gradual recovery.

In effect, as the 'wave' of people grow up, you begin to see the natural progression of somebody growing up in the economy at the crest of the wave.  That wave peaked between 1957-1961 or so...

So there was a building wave of teachers taking leave because they were pregnant (a massive number, actually to the point that it caused major problems)... and it came to a head in 1957 and then waned.

Then you saw a massive increase in purchases of cribs and diapers and baby formula... that peaked soon after... then tricycles and playground equipment and an explosion in school construction.

Town after town across America saw a massive overcrowding problem in schools... first in the elementary schools.. peaking in the mid-late 1960s, then the junior highs in the early-mid 70s, then the high schools in the late 70s/early 80s.

You saw it in the character of communities.  In the late '50s to late '60s Halloween was a nightmare for my grandma, for example, because hundreds of kids would come to your door for treats.  And this was repeated on every block in suburbs around America.  Not like today where there are now apps to find the best, most frequented candy routes because there are so many houses and relatively few kids.

By the early '80s the streets were almost empty on Halloween.  A massively disproportionate number of homeowners in these places were recent empty-nesters.  Schools closed, teachers were laid off, playgrounds dismantled, community pools shut down.  Sensing this emptiness, many people sold their homes and moved elsewhere or retired and moved... so there was turnover again in the '80s that "refreshed" some of these communities.  But you had cases where school districts were graduating 2500 students per year in the mid-70s... but were only enrolling perhaps 1/4 as many kindergarteners.  And yet they had capacity for 2500 in each grade.

But as far as economics goes, this wave would tend to put more inflationary pressure on the forefront than there would be deflationary pressure on the back end... because once infrastructure is built.. it is still useful even if under utilized... So rather than tearing the school down and reverting it to empty land.. businesses moved into these buildings.  Or they were demolished and quickly replaced by offices or other business interests that were increasingly employing the baby boomers who went to school on these sites.

But as these pressures all helped to feed inflation... a perfect storm of high interest rates, the waning of the baby boom and the beginning of the coming of age of the "baby bust", and the relaxation in oil prices all worked to end that inflationary pressure.

Interestingly... the baby boom peaked a few years later in the UK... and inflation stayed higher a few years later than in the U.S.

Population structure has an enormous impact on the macro level in our economy.  Assisted living facilities can't be built fast enough at the moment and despite low wages and generally demanding conditions, demand for nurses and nurses aids is exploding.  The crest of the baby boom has since become less giant in comparison to the whole population because the throngs of immigrants that have come to America generally came after 1980 and were generally not from the baby boom generation... so immigration has kind of filled in the dip so that America's population age structure is remarkably consistent below age 55.  This is almost unique in the world with one exception:  France  (And Scandinavia but they're small potatoes).

This means we can expect relatively consistent and stable growth in most economic sectors catering to people under the age of 55 while the only place for growth really in existing sectors is for those catering to the elderly.

In effect, diaper producers can count on a relatively stable demand for baby diapers while adult diaper demand will mushroom.

I think that's enough for my tl;dr

Great piece and not tl;dr for me. I was born in '58 and can confirm firsthand the many effects of the baby boom you've laid out. To give one particular, my family bought a new house in suburban St Paul in 1967. My street had 60 children along a half mile stretch. My HS was built in 1967 as a second HS in the district to meet the huge demand. A major addition was added in 1974 to replace the some of the mobile classrooms already sitting alongside the relatively new building. But in 1983 the HS was closed and consolidated with the older one across town due to plummeting enrollment.

[MalaspinaGold]

You seem to neglect that higher evaporation rates means more water in the atmosphere. Water is of course a greenhouse gas.

My original point was:
Do you disagree with the following two statements?
1. We are currently pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to near unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
2. CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, meaning that high levels of it in the atmosphere will lead to global warming.

Do you disagree with either of these two statements? If not, then why do you deny the inevitable conclusion?

Because, as a scientist, things are never as simple. CO2 emission isn't happening alone, in a closed system. Other events happens, which can have an effect on greenhouse effect and amplify or decrease it. Because the warming graph isn't fitting with your conclusion.

The most logical conclusion is than there is not only CO2 which is relevent here. I agree than we must reduce our CO2 emissions, but it's not a reason to create or bastardize science.

I completely agree. However, what I also say is that unless you can definitively show that there is some third factor balancing out the these two, the worst should be assumed.

And AD, you're examples provided are not the best. First of all, rising sea levels pose their own risk. Second of all, rising (presumably warmer) seas have a lower capacity to store dissolved gases.  So actually there should be less sequestration in the oceans when they are warming.

Secondly, the tree sequestration argument only works when you aren't deforesting the planet at record rates.

Thirdly, H20 as a gas works exactly the same way as CO2 and CH4. True it is weaker, but it is a greenhouse gas. It has nothing to do with "radiant" properties.

I'll rephrase my point 2. Do you agree with the statement that CO2, CH4 and other dipole gases are greenhouse gases, meaning they trap incoming infrared radiation?

EDIT: And regards to the graph going around here, does someone have the previous, say 100 years of it? Context is always a good thing.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Thanks, Muon.  My original point there was to show that despite there being rather impressive job growth during the end of Ford's and during the first, oh, 3/4 of Carter's term... you wouldn't have known it with high inflation.  This was the beginning of flat and declining wages for men and women were being pushed into the workforce at much higher rates.  After 30 years of prosperity and rising tides, there was a pessimism and Carter embraced that rather than fight it.

If Carter had instead had it in him to rally the spirit of Americans the way Reagan did and had been tougher on foreign policy, he probably would have won in 1980.  But that's all "shoulda coulda woulda".


Here's another interesting graph to add to the thread:


This shows the mean solar insolation (how much solar radiation is absorbed) at 80*N (near the north pole) along with the average ice thickness of the Arctic ice cap.

Numerous proxy records, shown in the blue-green, indicate the amount of ice in various geographic regions while the red and orange indicate overall ice cover.

What they found was that during the holocene climate optimum from 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, sea ice in the Arctic was much less prevalent than today and indications are that for periods of hundreds of years during this time, there would have been no sea ice during summer.

This is corroborated by proxy studies of temperature all over the world.  My neck of the woods, for example, was covered in patches of hardwood forest and prairie.  Lakes were many feet lower on average.

In fact, many of the boreal species that are common here today are still migrating westward in response to the generally wetter and cooler conditions that have prevailed in the past 800 years.

There is some proof of this in my yard.  The top 18" of soil is nice and black while below it is pure sand.  Black soil forms in hardwood forests with annual leafdrop and in grasslands where frequent fires burn the grass and enrich the soil.

But at least for the last 800 years this land would favor pines.. which would not add to the black soil.  Needle drop and the burning of those needles would keep the soil starved of nutrients... and in areas where conifer cover has been consistent for thousands of years... the topsoil is grey.. not black.