Asteroids and global warming?

[Ed W]

There are no words:

"Talk about something else that's falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What's coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming, or is this just some meteoric occasion?" CNN's Deborah Feyerick asked Bill "The Science Guy" Nye, head of the Planetary Society, in a Saturday segment.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/11/cnn-anchor-blames-asteroid-on-global-warming/#ixzz2KeRD6eAZ

...and in a stunningly ironic twist, the story is on Fox!

[Townsend]

There are no words:

"Talk about something else that's falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What's coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming, or is this just some meteoric occasion?" CNN's Deborah Feyerick asked Bill "The Science Guy" Nye, head of the Planetary Society, in a Saturday segment.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/11/cnn-anchor-blames-asteroid-on-global-warming/#ixzz2KeRD6eAZ

...and in a stunningly ironic twist, the story is on Fox!

He must bash his face against periodic tables in disgust daily.

[sauerkraut]

Not that surprising- I heard people blame EarthQuakes on Global Warming... In fact everything is global warming caused, if it's too hot, too cold, too dry too wet, too much snow, not enough snow whatever, it's all from global warming. Why not asteroids too? I wonder what kind of weather we can have that is "normal" and not global warming  weather? They blamed "Sandy" on global warming and the snowstorm in New England on global warming. How cold weather and snow means the planet is hotter is beyond me. Global warming is really a political movement, it's a made-up thing so the gov't can get control of the people. The new catch all phase id "Climate Change" that covers all the bases better. But what they never say is what is the climate changing from and what is the climate changing into? That's gotta be one of the biggest hoaxs in history.  Back in the 1970's the talk was global cooling, experts were saying that New York harbor will be frozen over by the year 2000. "Time" & "Newsweek" mags both did cover stories on the coming ice age.

[sauerkraut]

Bill Nye has no degree in climate anyhow, his degree is in engineering- Al Gore (the worlds #1 self made climate expert) has his degree in Law and he almost flunked his science class. I bet if they could they would like to blame the asteroid on global warming.

[Townsend]

Bill Nye has no degree in climate anyhow, his degree is in engineering- Al Gore (the worlds #1 self made climate expert) has his degree in Law and he almost flunked his science class. I bet if they could they would like to blame the asteroid on global warming.

I'm sure your training has made you the ultimate reference.

[Conan71]

I used to have problems with asteroids, then I tried Preparation H.

[Hoss]

I used to have problems with asteroids, then I tried Preparation H.

Hell, C...I heard you used that for toothpaste....



..runs for cover...

[Conan71]

Hell, C...I heard you used that for toothpaste....



..runs for cover...

Not good to mistake the two!  Toothpaste on the donkey would be just as bad!

[Townsend]

Not good to mistake the two!  Toothpaste on the donkey would be just as bad!

It's not so bad.

[TheArtist]

Not that surprising- I heard people blame EarthQuakes on Global Warming... In fact everything is global warming caused, if it's too hot, too cold, too dry too wet, too much snow, not enough snow whatever, it's all from global warming. Why not asteroids too? I wonder what kind of weather we can have that is "normal" and not global warming  weather? They blamed "Sandy" on global warming and the snowstorm in New England on global warming. How cold weather and snow means the planet is hotter is beyond me. Global warming is really a political movement, it's a made-up thing so the gov't can get control of the people. The new catch all phase id "Climate Change" that covers all the bases better. But what they never say is what is the climate changing from and what is the climate changing into? That's gotta be one of the biggest hoaxs in history.  Back in the 1970's the talk was global cooling, experts were saying that New York harbor will be frozen over by the year 2000. "Time" & "Newsweek" mags both did cover stories on the coming ice age.

I have yet to hear any scientist or group of scientists say "any earthquakes, Sandy, the snowstorm in New England, etc." were caused by global warming or climate change. 

I would like to see where you have seen this happen.

As for the "global cooling" thing that you and Inhofe keep bringing up.  I, and others, have addressed this many times.  People were just beginning to consider that human activity could actually have an effect on global climate. This was almost a generation ago and the science was still in it's infancy.  But, our cities and even places far away from them, like the Grand Canyon, were being choked with smog.  So people looked at what they could see "the smog" and then to the best of their then early and limited knowledge, extrapolated what might happen if this trend continued.  The type of smog they looked at cools, and still does.  And guess what, we changed and cleaned up the air, hence, even if what they thought was true, was true, it would no longer be true for the discussion at hand... because we changed our act and we don't emit those cooling pollutants to that extent anymore (except in developing countries and yes it does have a cooling effect but that cooling effect is offset by the larger amounts of warming gasses we all emit).

(we also got rid of the things that were destroying the ozone and creating ever larger ozone holes at the poles).

But then they "looked" closer at what we were still emitting, and saw that those were even worse for the climate.  Aka, we got rid of the cooling effects (which we still needed to get rid of anyway for they are bad for your health) but have not worked as hard to reduce the warming ones.  Perhaps it's because you can see smog that made it an easier target to get rid of and the invisible warming gasses are then easier to ignore?     


The climate is changing from what? to what?   Well, the climate has changed, and will change, for many reasons from 11 year sun spot cycles to Milankovitch Cycles, different types of volcanic eruptions, yes asteroid impacts, etc. each has a varying degree of effect and length of time for that effect.

Currently, we should be within a cooling period for the earth. 

In other words, taking into consideration the large long term climate "drivers", and the short term temporary ones (like say a volcanic eruption) we should have an earth that is slowly fluctuating between ice ages and indeed even slowly, gradually, heading into another one.  BUT with the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the extraordinary,  historically exceptional amount of greenhouse gasses currently and potentially being placed into the atmosphere could (unless something dramatic happens) push our climate into one more like what the Dinosaurs saw. 

And most importantly, this won't happen on a scale of millions of years or even tens of thousands, but within hundreds of years which will have dramatic effects on human habitations and natural habitats.  It would be one thing if indeed there were a huge asteroid impact that would change the climate suddenly, but this isn't something out of our control, this is a sudden change we are bringing upon ourselves.   And since this is not a slow "natural" cycle of change that can be dealt with over a long period of time, but because this change will instead happen relatively quickly, the effects will be costly for us to deal with.