Science Rant, Not politics: Can CO2 cause "Climate Change?"

[MrsG]

Yikes, "Sunday Morning" just showed some pretty sad photos of glaciers vanishing!!!

[skiadikt]

Yikes, "Sunday Morning" just showed some pretty sad photos of glaciers vanishing!!!

everyone's in on "it". part of the whole "hoax". that's just photoshop ...

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

Now there's a lot here, but I would like to ask that you respond to as much of it as you can such that we can have a real substantive discussion. This is a very cool article I'm glad you shared it.

there's almost 2000 posts in this thread and NOW someone wants to have a real substantive discussion. that poor horse can't take any more beatings ...

Substantive discussion is not possible with someone who:
1. Doesn't even believe C02 can cause climate change
2. Believes the 97% consensus doesn't exist.
3. Rejects the IPCC report as "non-science" because he doesn't like the way the data is presented.
4. Cherry picks data at every opportunity to prove his points.
5. Insists that most climate scientists don't know what they are talking about because in his estimation they aren't even scientists.
6. Rejects the peer reviewed process as fraudulent, but curiously relies on paid bloggers for his data (e.g. Watts up...).

I could keep going, but why bother. Welcome to the fray, Jinklejunkie, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

How much stupid cab you pack into a single post?
1. "Doesn't even believe C02 can cause climate change" How many times have I acknowledged that SOME "climate change" is of course due to CO2...in much the same way SOME of the weight gain of a growing elephant will be due to the multiplication of the fleas which live on the elephant. The relevant question is...HOW MUCH?

2. "Believes the 97% consensus doesn't exist." If you bother to look into the 97%, beyond the methodology for tabulating the consensus being utter nonsense... the proposition being agreed to is merely that:

"Humans are causing SOME increase in CO2 which is causing SOME increase in global temperature"

That proposition I WOULD AGREE to....so rather than DENYING the consensus.... I AM PART OF IT.....and it is virtually meaningless.

3. I don't reject the IPCC report in toto but I do think large segments of the summary(mostly produced by non-scientists) are in fact NOT justified as science. As noted a few days ago the 95% certainty figure IS NOT SCIENCE.

4. I am entirely inclusive in my assembling of data. NO EXCLUSIONS... unlike some of the superstars of the consensus. Look up Yamal larches.

5 & 6 "Scientists" is NOT a title that confers authority. I look at evidence and argument and make my judgements based on their quality not the titles of the presenters. If you were capable of understanding scientific arguments perhaps you would do the same. The massive amount of malfeasance and even fraud in "climate science" is what has eroded my even tacit acceptance of papers published in this field.

I could keep going but why bother....

as per usual if I ask a SPECIFIC question it will be ignored and in response I will receive a shower of indignant invectives....monkeys throwing poopies.

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

Yikes, "Sunday Morning" just showed some pretty sad photos of glaciers vanishing!!!

everyone's in on "it". part of the whole "hoax". that's just photoshop ...

Glaciers vanishing.

To whom is this PROOF that HUMAN USE OF HYDROCARBON FUELS IS CAUSING DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE??????????????

Vermont was covered by a mile thick slab of GLACIAL ICE...not that long ago in geological terms....and IT MELTED!

Due to.....NATURAL CAUSES.

Some glaciers are still meting!!!!!!!

Oh my how frightening....let us allow a global government to deconstruct modern society (massive reduction in use of hydrocarbon fuels) so that we can stop the melting.... if only we had a UN 20,000 years ago maybe we could have stopped the terrible melting and there would still be glaciers at Killington.

SO...just in case you still don't get it....I don't deny glaciers are melting...and only dumb people think that "deniers" don't believe that some glaciers are melting.... which means you are......what? (it's a quiz question just to see if you can follow along)

Unless you are merely being sarcastic and I missed that? If so...sorry!

[Rime & Reason]

Now there's a lot here, but I would like to ask that you respond to as much of it as you can such that we can have a real substantive discussion. This is a very cool article I'm glad you shared it.

there's almost 2000 posts in this thread and NOW someone wants to have a real substantive discussion. that poor horse can't take any more beatings ...

Substantive discussion is not possible with someone who:
1. Doesn't even believe C02 can cause climate change
2. Believes the 97% consensus doesn't exist.
3. Rejects the IPCC report as "non-science" because he doesn't like the way the data is presented.
4. Cherry picks data at every opportunity to prove his points.
5. Insists that most climate scientists don't know what they are talking about because in his estimation they aren't even scientists.
6. Rejects the peer reviewed process as fraudulent, but curiously relies on paid bloggers for his data (e.g. Watts up...).

I could keep going, but why bother. Welcome to the fray, Jinklejunkie, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

Rogman, I usually find your posts to be both interesting and educational, butt I think you missed the boat this time. Is it not obvious to anyone besides me that Crazy Eddy has created a new alias for himself called Jinklejunkle? Et tu, Mister Moose?

[rogman]

Now there's a lot here, but I would like to ask that you respond to as much of it as you can such that we can have a real substantive discussion. This is a very cool article I'm glad you shared it.

there's almost 2000 posts in this thread and NOW someone wants to have a real substantive discussion. that poor horse can't take any more beatings ...

Substantive discussion is not possible with someone who:
1. Doesn't even believe C02 can cause climate change
2. Believes the 97% consensus doesn't exist.
3. Rejects the IPCC report as "non-science" because he doesn't like the way the data is presented.
4. Cherry picks data at every opportunity to prove his points.
5. Insists that most climate scientists don't know what they are talking about because in his estimation they aren't even scientists.
6. Rejects the peer reviewed process as fraudulent, but curiously relies on paid bloggers for his data (e.g. Watts up...).

I could keep going, but why bother. Welcome to the fray, Jinklejunkie, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

Rogman, I usually find your posts to be both interesting and educational, butt I think you missed the boat this time. Is it not obvious to anyone besides me that Crazy Eddy has created a new alias for himself called Jinklejunkle? Et tu, Mister Moose?

If SEB has created an alias so he can have arguments with himself, he's losing those arguments. JJ's basic point was that although C02 is causing additional greening, the other effects effects of additional C02 are so much more serious that it negates the argument. JJ's pointing out, "it is a lovely bonfire, but you are burning your house down to make it." He also subtly pointed out the hypocrisy of some of SEB's positions, which clearly went right over his head. What I wrote was a bit tongue in cheek, and SEB's response was a typical off the rails rant, where he didn't so much as rebut my arguments, as confirm them. Meh, he's not a scientist, he just plays one on the Internet.

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

If SEB has created an alias so he can have arguments with himself, he's losing those arguments. JJ's basic point was that although C02 is causing additional greening, the other effects effects of additional C02 are so much more serious that it negates the argument. JJ's pointing out, "it is a lovely bonfire, but you are burning your house down to make it." He also subtly pointed out the hypocrisy of some of SEB's positions, which clearly went right over his head. What I wrote was a bit tongue in cheek, and SEB's response was a typical off the rails rant, where he didn't so much as rebut my arguments, as confirm them. Meh, he's not a scientist, he just plays one on the Internet.

I actually only responded to JJ's initial points...there is A LOT more there to respond to...I am really busy this time of year so I haven't responded YET to most of what he posted... but you DID NOT UNDERSTAND that did you?

[Jinklejunkle]

That's an extremely interesting article ....

Hey now. This is a skiing forum. Your first post is 10 paragraphs on global warming? Snow starts flying on the mountain at 7pm tonight. Ski season is close enough to smell it. Where are your priorities?

Other than that, welcome to the mayhem.

My priorities are right where they should be. I'm as excited for the ski season as anyone else out there. I was extremely bored waiting in an airport on an extended delay, read the article that Sgt posted, and decided to move from lurker to poster. Apologies if this was an odd first post though!

Rogman, I usually find your posts to be both interesting and educational, butt I think you missed the boat this time. Is it not obvious to anyone besides me that Crazy Eddy has created a new alias for himself called Jinklejunkle? Et tu, Mister Moose?

HAHA I can assure you I am not the Sgt.

[Jinklejunkle]

there's almost 2000 posts in this thread and NOW someone wants to have a real substantive discussion. that poor horse can't take any more beatings ...

I was specifically referring to the article itself. I think the article poses a very unique set of questions and insight into the effects of climate change. More importantly, I think it can move the thread in a slightly different direction than it has been going, at least for the time being.

I could be proven wrong, but until then, I'm having a good time at least!

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

That's an extremely interesting article for you to post given your views on climate change but you raise some great points. The article is published in Nature's Climate Change journal, cites dozens of different articles which provide evidence for climate change and itself admits anthropogenic climate change, primarily driven by CO2.

Onto the paper itself though, the global greening trend is entirely due to anthropogenic causes, and that's not coming from me, that's coming from this article, literally the main conclusion of this article: "Overall, the described LAI trends represent a significant alteration
of the productive capacity of terrestrial vegetation through
anthropogenic influences."

Thats the literal last sentence of the paper. Not saying you debated that, but I just wanted to point that out for anyone else.

Yeah you are right…I did not debate that… I pointed out that using models to establish attribution was lame.

Additionally, the article actually very clearly delineates the major sources for greening in different geographical areas. While the article says that overall CO2 is responsible for 70% of greening, when you dive into the figures themselves its a bit more complicated than that. CO2 is the major cause of greening in the tropics, where temperatures and humidity are already at ideal levels however, another main point of the paper is that in the more temperate latitudes anthropogenic CO2 driven climate change is the major driver of greening. See the quote from the article below:

"Overall, climate change has dominant contributions to the greening trend over 28.4% of the global vegetated area (Fig. 3c, d). Positive effects of climate change in the northern high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau are attributed to rising temperature, which enhances photosynthesis and lengthens the growing season5, whereas the greening of the Sahel and South Africa are primarily driven by increasing precipitation (Supplementary Fig. 13)."

Again I hate to criticize the paper I cited but…I did put in a NB about the attribution by modelling being suspect. As I said:

“take the attribution to CO2 as the major cause...with a grain of salt... but the increase in plant biomass is virtually proven....and does correlate with the increase in CO2.”

My point was to show a correlation of increased CO2 with SOMETHING GOOD for the planet!! And to point out that if we used the logic of the consensus and used fitness to models for attribution ( which is also all that is used to attribute all those wild negative projections to CO2) …then we would declare that CO2 CAUSED SOMETHING GOOD to happen.

I myself do not believe that the data /analysis is adequate to establish attribution but they do! And the false precision (28.4%) given shows to any sane scientist that the authors have an INSANE confidence in their attribution estimates


So again, you said that greening was virtually proven,

Yes the greening seems adequately established but the attribution to CO2 …I said take it with a grain of salt…yes????

and all the work done by this paper suggests that outside of the tropics increased CO2 concentrations do nothing without associated increases in temperatures and precipitation associated with climate change. How can you deny climate change is anthropogenic and partially caused by CO2 when you tout greening and this paper?

Again it is the ATTRIBUTION of the causes that I do not accept…not the greening data, which seems a bit bulletproof.

Furthermore, all the data in this paper points to the fact that the significant greening and lengthening of the growing season (what they define as greening) in areas outside the tropics is occurring due to rising temperatures, if a rise in temps of an average of just 0.6 or .7C has such a profound effect on plant behavior do you now understand why people fear a change in temps and CO2 levels of 3-4 times what has occurred already? I'm not sure if you personally feel this way (apologies if you don't, I'm new), but I've consistently heard other people say that even if the planet is warming its not that big a deal because 2 degrees C is nothing.


Temps increased maybe one degree F since anthropogenic CO2 has become even potentially significant (1940-present) Projected temp increases beyond another 1-2F degree in the next century DEPEND ENTIRELY on “positive feedbacks” mostly from water vapor and methane. I think the best current evidence argues strongly against these positive feedbacks. Without those feedbacks I have no fear of future temp increases.

CO2’s IR absorbance is virtually saturated at current concentrations. So even huge increases of anthropogenic CO2 will only cause marginal increase in IR absorbance. But…It will likely cause a massive increase in planetary greening because in any sane estimation the two limiting factors in plant growth (in the vast majority of situations) are availability of water and CO2. More CO2 almost always (not always!) increases plant growth. Increased CO2 also, almost always, DECREASES TRANSPIRATIONAL WATER LOSS. More CO2 less water drained from the soil. Lots of data supports this as a general principle.

And all that plant growth provides an increase in the down-flux from the atmosphere to the biosphere.



.

So that's a bit more... thanks for your consideration...they are great questions...I hope the answers don't sound snarky. Sometimes a scientific discussion is a pain in the ass to plow through... I appreciate the effort.

My post on this forum, except when I am "attacked" ( which makes me laugh not cry) and I respond in a snarky tone, are never meant to be:

"I am right and you are wrong...I am smart and you are stupid!"

I might be wrong about any of this and my questions to others here are genuine and sincere (unless someone acts like a j@ck@ss in their response)

Despite what others may declare I have been paid to be an actual scientist for most of my adult life (and an educator for the rest)

Cheers

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

And to follow up on my hesitance to accept attribution (causes) due to statistical analysis (model analysis) here is an article about the replication crisis in science (if you were not aware of the "replication crisis" you need to broaden your sources.Most published research, in large sectors of modern science, cannot be replicated!!)

In any case anyone interested in science should read this

http://wmbriggs.com/post/20014/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyway the article is titled:

Statistical Models CANNOT Show Cause, But EVERYBODY Thinks They Can. Hence the Replication CRISIS

and it gives very sound logic why the path that "modern science" has chosen to establish CAUSE is probably deeply flawed.

[Sgt Eddy Brewers]

Finally, you mention that the knowledge/evidence of greening is virtually proven, which it is, but it is "proven" from the exact same satellite and remote sensing techniques used to provide evidence for sea level rise and ocean acidification (in addition to physical evidence seen in mean high water marks, shellfish responses, and pH measurements).

“ocean acidification” is grossly misleading. The ocean is solidly basic and will never become acidic. “Ocean neutralization” would be more accurate…but less scary I guess? The pH capacitance of the ocean and potentials for redistribution of the absorbed CO2 into other reservoirs makes me confident we face no risk on this issue.

Using remote sensing you can actually show that the majority of CO2 that has been absorbed by the oceans in the past 50 some odd years comes from anthropogenic sources because CO2 coming from fossil fuels has a different isotopic signature that's easily identifiable. Believe what you want about warming and severe weather, but if you trust in remote sensing like you said you do, then this is every bit as virtually proven as that.

Again the down-flux of anthropogenic CO2 into the ocean does not scare me at all. The rise in sea level is not impressive, not increasing (according to best data) and much lower than it has been at earlier stages of the Holocene. I do not deny sea level rise but it is modest and the attribution to CO2 impact is quite unconvincing.

More importantly I feel ocean acidification alone warrants phasing out carbon as it'll destroy shellfish and many economies with it and we have viable alternatives to start substantive change NOW (to be clear I am not talking about an overnight switch, I'm talking about a switch similar to what we did to halt acid r*in in the US). I lived in Maine for years and my wife's whole family are in the lobster industry so I especially care about this issue. Furthermore, even if you don't believe the remote sensing, acidification effects are easily attributable to CO2 through simple laboratory experiments you could do in your basement; stick a lobster in a tank with salt water and model todays CO2 levels and see what happens when you increase the concentration by just a bit. While greening has its benefits, increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have substantial consequences too.

I simply think your numbers on this issue are jumbled. Yes you can mess with sea water in a lab and have results suggest it could cause problems but….the papers I have seen are pretty awful. SO…send me a paper that you think PROVES the CURRENT IMPACT of CO2 on shellfish. (or even damage at “projected levels”)

PLEASE…(I’m not kidding or being snarky…if you know of such a paper please post a link…I promise I will read it)

I will acknowledge that I have been very unimpressed by many papers involving field biology…so try to link a good one.


You implied that it is silly to be scared of CO2 because of greening, and youre right, by enlarge greening and lengthened growing seasons are substantial benefits to CC and CO2 productions, but what people are scared of are the other effects I've mentioned (sea level rise and ocean acidification both with as much if not more evidence as to their existence than greening and growing season change). Siberia may become the next bread basket but Maldova will disappear and the lobster industry will disappear from Maine plunging the state into a massive economic depression. Interestingly enough the ipcc actually lists all of these. I forget which year, maybe 2012 but they had a great section of the benefits and risks of climate change. Russia until recently was on record as wanting climate change to happen so that Siberia could green.

The health of the lobster industry in Maine is likely due to more factors than you could list in a single post. The absolutely minimal decrease in pH that could be due to potential CO2 enrichment would be right down near the bottom of that list if you ranked by plausible impact. The evidence for significant pH change is AWFUL. NOAA suggests a change of pH -0.1 in the LAST HUNDRED YEARS then ADMITS:
“The data collected prior to 1989 are typically not well documented and their metadata is incomplete; therefore, such data are of unknown and probably variable quality. The reasons for this are manifold (see next section). The uncertainty of these older pH measurements is rarely likely to be less than 0.03 in pH, and could easily be as large as 0.2 in pH. This data set is thus not at all well-suited to showing a change of 0.1 in pH over the last 100 years — the amount of pH change that would be expected to occur over the 100 years since the first seawater pH measurements, as a result of the documented increase in atmospheric CO2 levels and assuming that the surface ocean composition remains in approximate equilibrium with respect to the atmosphere.”


WHICH MEANS…they don’t have any way to claim any pH change at all!!!!! (if your pH change is claimed to be -0.1 and your uncertainty is +/- 0.2 you have NOTHING to report. (if you do science this will make sense to you)

I also care about New England lobster but depletions of stock seems as likely to be due to over-harvest, increased striper populations, or any host of unknown factors that to this incredibly small and UNPROVEN change in pH.

The IPCC listen multitudes of bad things they suggest might be caused by CO2. Those included lots of things which have not occurred… like an increase in US landfall hurricanes. The list of unfulfilled projections (even though many of them were quite vague) is legion.

I could just as easily construct a model which posits that “climate change” is caused by increase in postal rates (the correlation is equally as strong) and make lots of dire predictions about the disasters which await us if we refuse to cut postal rates. If only some of them need to occur in order to satisfy your version of success….. I will guarantee success.

I predict that unrestrained postal rate increases will cause: more snow in some places, less snow in others, historical (100 year extreme) droughts at unspecified locations within the next decade, 100 year floods at unspecified locations within the next decade, very warm summer days including some record high temperatures somewhere on the planet some time soon, some hurricanes (even if NO major hurricanes make US landfall) in the Atlantic, some very damaging tornadoes in Kansas…etc etc…..pretty easy!


Now there's a lot here, but I would like to ask that you respond to as much of it as you can such that we can have a real substantive discussion. This is a very cool article I'm glad you shared it.

I guess that is my response to your post> I will honestly be happy if you correct me where I am in error. That is what science is about. Thanks for your time.

[Guy in Shorts]

Well the climate has changed enough blow snow and open for skiing. That’s the kind of climate change that I have been waiting for.

[ME2VTSkier]

Well the climate has changed enough blow snow and open for skiing. That’s the kind of climate change that I have been waiting for.

[rogman]

Finally, you mention that the knowledge/evidence of greening is virtually proven, which it is, but it is "proven" from the exact same satellite and remote sensing techniques used to provide evidence for sea level rise and ocean acidification (in addition to physical evidence seen in mean high water marks, shellfish responses, and pH measurements).

“ocean acidification” is grossly misleading. The ocean is solidly basic and will never become acidic. “Ocean neutralization” would be more accurate…but less scary I guess? The pH capacitance of the ocean and potentials for redistribution of the absorbed CO2 into other reservoirs makes me confident we face no risk on this issue.

Using remote sensing you can actually show that the majority of CO2 that has been absorbed by the oceans in the past 50 some odd years comes from anthropogenic sources because CO2 coming from fossil fuels has a different isotopic signature that's easily identifiable. Believe what you want about warming and severe weather, but if you trust in remote sensing like you said you do, then this is every bit as virtually proven as that.

Again the down-flux of anthropogenic CO2 into the ocean does not scare me at all. The rise in sea level is not impressive, not increasing (according to best data) and much lower than it has been at earlier stages of the Holocene. I do not deny sea level rise but it is modest and the attribution to CO2 impact is quite unconvincing.

More importantly I feel ocean acidification alone warrants phasing out carbon as it'll destroy shellfish and many economies with it and we have viable alternatives to start substantive change NOW (to be clear I am not talking about an overnight switch, I'm talking about a switch similar to what we did to halt acid r*in in the US). I lived in Maine for years and my wife's whole family are in the lobster industry so I especially care about this issue. Furthermore, even if you don't believe the remote sensing, acidification effects are easily attributable to CO2 through simple laboratory experiments you could do in your basement; stick a lobster in a tank with salt water and model todays CO2 levels and see what happens when you increase the concentration by just a bit. While greening has its benefits, increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have substantial consequences too.

I simply think your numbers on this issue are jumbled. Yes you can mess with sea water in a lab and have results suggest it could cause problems but….the papers I have seen are pretty awful. SO…send me a paper that you think PROVES the CURRENT IMPACT of CO2 on shellfish. (or even damage at “projected levels”)

PLEASE…(I’m not kidding or being snarky…if you know of such a paper please post a link…I promise I will read it)

I will acknowledge that I have been very unimpressed by many papers involving field biology…so try to link a good one.


You implied that it is silly to be scared of CO2 because of greening, and youre right, by enlarge greening and lengthened growing seasons are substantial benefits to CC and CO2 productions, but what people are scared of are the other effects I've mentioned (sea level rise and ocean acidification both with as much if not more evidence as to their existence than greening and growing season change). Siberia may become the next bread basket but Maldova will disappear and the lobster industry will disappear from Maine plunging the state into a massive economic depression. Interestingly enough the ipcc actually lists all of these. I forget which year, maybe 2012 but they had a great section of the benefits and risks of climate change. Russia until recently was on record as wanting climate change to happen so that Siberia could green.

The health of the lobster industry in Maine is likely due to more factors than you could list in a single post. The absolutely minimal decrease in pH that could be due to potential CO2 enrichment would be right down near the bottom of that list if you ranked by plausible impact. The evidence for significant pH change is AWFUL. NOAA suggests a change of pH -0.1 in the LAST HUNDRED YEARS then ADMITS:
“The data collected prior to 1989 are typically not well documented and their metadata is incomplete; therefore, such data are of unknown and probably variable quality. The reasons for this are manifold (see next section). The uncertainty of these older pH measurements is rarely likely to be less than 0.03 in pH, and could easily be as large as 0.2 in pH. This data set is thus not at all well-suited to showing a change of 0.1 in pH over the last 100 years — the amount of pH change that would be expected to occur over the 100 years since the first seawater pH measurements, as a result of the documented increase in atmospheric CO2 levels and assuming that the surface ocean composition remains in approximate equilibrium with respect to the atmosphere.”


WHICH MEANS…they don’t have any way to claim any pH change at all!!!!! (if your pH change is claimed to be -0.1 and your uncertainty is +/- 0.2 you have NOTHING to report. (if you do science this will make sense to you)

I also care about New England lobster but depletions of stock seems as likely to be due to over-harvest, increased striper populations, or any host of unknown factors that to this incredibly small and UNPROVEN change in pH.

The IPCC listen multitudes of bad things they suggest might be caused by CO2. Those included lots of things which have not occurred… like an increase in US landfall hurricanes. The list of unfulfilled projections (even though many of them were quite vague) is legion.

I could just as easily construct a model which posits that “climate change” is caused by increase in postal rates (the correlation is equally as strong) and make lots of dire predictions about the disasters which await us if we refuse to cut postal rates. If only some of them need to occur in order to satisfy your version of success….. I will guarantee success.

I predict that unrestrained postal rate increases will cause: more snow in some places, less snow in others, historical (100 year extreme) droughts at unspecified locations within the next decade, 100 year floods at unspecified locations within the next decade, very warm summer days including some record high temperatures somewhere on the planet some time soon, some hurricanes (even if NO major hurricanes make US landfall) in the Atlantic, some very damaging tornadoes in Kansas…etc etc…..pretty easy!


Now there's a lot here, but I would like to ask that you respond to as much of it as you can such that we can have a real substantive discussion. This is a very cool article I'm glad you shared it.

I guess that is my response to your post> I will honestly be happy if you correct me where I am in error. That is what science is about. Thanks for your time.

You are a fraud: you have no idea what you are talking about. Since you cited NOAA as "proof" that there is no acidification going on and that it isn't affecting shellfish, so for symmetry, I'll use something from the NOAA web site as a source to debunk your nonsense: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocea ... +shellfish

The sheer mendacity of your post boggles the mind. You suggest the term of "acidification" is misleading because the oceans are slightly basic and in fact becoming more neutral, and imply that that's somehow a good thing. WTF???? Do you understand the difference between "acid" and "acidification", or are you just dishonest? You further suggest that a 0.2 change is pH is slight, and wouldn't make any difference anyway, ignoring the fact that pH is a logarithmic scale, and 0.2 represents about a 30% increase in acidity. The chemistry and its effect on shellfish are pretty well known, and you pretend as if it is still in doubt. It isn't.

As for sea level rise, it is well documented world wide. That the rate is increasing is also well documented. Some places are seeing more than others, the reasons for the difference are complex, some of it stems from differences in the earth's gravitational field as a function of location, some from the effects of water currents like the Gulf Stream. Long term, we will likely see large increases in sea level. Tens of meters. It will (hopefully) take hundreds of years, so we have time to adjust. However the social upheavals due to climate change are already being seen.

To pretend that it isn't happening, and we can safely ignore it, is ridiculous.