![[0083] The Solution Is Part Of The Problem](/comics/2009-08-06-[0083]-the-solution-is-part-of-the-problem.png "[0083] The Solution Is Part Of The Problem")
I had the idea for this strip during a period of very hot days two weeks ago. However, the current summer is fairly average compared to the “summer of the millennium” in 2003 (and the extremely hot July 2006). It is believed that the extreme heat wave in 2003 cost the lives of ten thousands of people all over Europe, especially elderly people in France. That summer was obviously not much fun without an air-conditioning system. (Houses with air-conditioning systems are very uncommon in Germany and other European countries.)
Having a look at the following chart of average daily temperatures in Germany, we can expect to get much more similarly hot summers during the next decades due to global warming :-(. You can see a rapid increase of the average daily temperatures starting in the 1980s after a slow increase during the first decades of the 20th century.
1761–1770: 7.5 °C 1771–1780: 7.8 °C 1781–1790: 7.6 °C 1791–1800: 7.9 °C 1801–1810: 7.4 °C 1811–1820: 7.3 °C 1821–1830: 7.8 °C 1831–1840: 7.5 °C 1841–1850: 7.4 °C 1851–1860: 7.4 °C 1861–1870: 7.9 °C 1871–1880: 7.7 °C 1881–1890: 7.3 °C 1891–1900: 7.7 °C 1901–1910: 7.7 °C 1911–1920: 8.0 °C 1921–1930: 7.9 °C 1931–1940: 8.1 °C 1941–1950: 8.3 °C 1951–1960: 8.1 °C 1961–1970: 7.9 °C 1971–1980: 8.2 °C 1981–1990: 8.5 °C 1991–2000: 8.9 °C 2001–2008: 9.3 °C
(The source of this list is the German Wikipedia article Zeitreihe der Lufttemperatur in Deutschland which uses the official weather data provided by the Deutscher Wetterdienst.)
- Sandra: Whew…
- Sandra: Something has to be done about the terrible consequences of global warming!
- Woo: Exactly!
- Richard: Forget it, I’m not buying an air-conditioning system for our house!
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Terrorism kills less people than bees do, and the United States is about as far from socialism as any major power in the world in has been in the last hundred years. Let alone the kind of communism that actually kills people, which is not even remotely the same thing as socialized healthcare. I’d rather worry about things that matter.
Grumble grumble grumble… I know how Sandra feels in this comic. And yes, Good Author, I do enjoy the comic.
But, I don’t believe the lie that is global warming. I’ll let more articulate people speak for me.
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/moregw.htm The Myth of Global Warming.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2009.htm It’s been getting colder and colder since 2001.
http://www.savage-productions.com/debunking_global_warming.html There’s also no consensus on global warming, as well as many skeptics. It’s a bit of a long list.
http://anarchy.wordpress.com/2006/11/25/an-inconvenient-lie-debunking-al-gore/ It’s never good when someone’s Inconvenient Truth is labeled an Inconvenient Lie.
Summers are usually hot anyway. On warm days I’ve seen raccoons nap in abandonned groundhog burrows, in trees, or even in the rafters of outbuildings. They become active at night when the temperatures have dropped to a comfortable level. Clever little guys.
Buwhahaha……….. Your complaining about an average temp of what, 9C and what, rather low humidity? ………………. your kidding right? down here in the upstate of SC we see an average yearly temp of 21.5C, yeah, you read right, 70.7F. Now, factor in 70%-90% with about 90F which comes to about 32.8C, yeah, its really really hot. Now, add a hanger with no airflow and your having to do some actual work in a really tight spot, thats how my summer has been.
Ugh.. your complaining.. our June was nothing but rain, COLD in July, and now FINALLY were getting some sun.
One of the problems that keeps the global warming arguments so alive is that the cause and the effect are so close to each other.
I’m sorry to say this but Novil provided the classical switch off, and it’s a tactic I’ve lost patience for.
Novil said ” don’t understand how anybody can be so stupid to deny global warming although the effects are ALREADY clearly visible all over the world” I’ll come back to this in one second.
Most of the global warming arguments are over the cause of global warming. Is carbon dioxide causing it? Is anthropogenic carbon dioxide tilting it over. Is the environment fragile? These are all arguments that can be refuted, and there is sufficient doubt on both sides. However, the one part that is pretty prevalent an know is that from when we started taking the temperature in 1850’s, our mean temperature has gone up by .5 C.
Now often in an argument over AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) an AGW supporter will often try to change the argument to CC The phenomena of climate change. Since the changes of the climate are pretty obvious, even if very small, they are pretty irrefutable. This makes it seem like the AGW party won the argument. (As a side note, there are other things that I think may have resulted in the sudden temperature spike of the 1980’s-90’s. Namely digital thermometers.)
I equate this to this little story.
Billy, Joe and Bob are driving down the street when suddenly the car goes sailing through the air, flipping end over end. After landing the boys are fortunately unhurt, but unsure as to what caused the flips. Billy thinks that the car hit a pole, while Joe sees a missing sewer cap and water on the road. The two argue about weather the flip was caused by the pole, or the sewer exploding. Joe begins to persuade bob that the car was flipped by the dangerously exploding sewer, when Billy begins to claim that the car flipped end over end. Unable to refute Billy on his claim Joe is defeated.
Its just much more obvious there.
But another thing. I’m tired of people citing the Medieval warm as a cause for why global warming is a natural thing. It was very limited to the Atlantic and Europe.
The Neolithic and Helocine eras though, Were much longer and much warmer than the MWP or Current day. And both were a boon for humanity. We developed farming, law, cultures, building, carpentry, and masonry in the Neolithic. We mastered the working of Bronze, Iron and Steel in the Helocine. And they were world wide too.
Anyway, I think this comic just stepped in something the dog left on the porch. I still love it though.
well i was gonna ask why they wouldn’t have an ac, but then i started reading everyone else’s comments and realized i already had my answer. and i don’t mean to be inconsiderate, but about that “extreme heat wave in 2003 [which] cost the lives of ten thousands of people all over Europe, especially elderly people in France.” it didn’t get that far above 100 F (about 37.7 C or so) and the idea that people would actually die from that to me is amazing. i mean, around here, the local paper has a contest each May to guess when the first day where we hit 100 F is. we consider it normal for summer at about 95-97 F (35-36 C) or so, and about 100F or so its “hot” for summer. really hot is about 110 F(43.3 C), but we hit that every 2 or 3 years naturally. i personally keep my house at 80 F(about 26.6 C) to reduce the costs of electricity. ‘course, i wouldn’t want to experience a european winter:having an average daily temperature of even 48.7 F(9.3 C) seems inordinately cold to me since ours is 65.5F (18.6 C)
I’d retype my previously lengthly response…but, I’m not up to it, right now.
Thought the messages section was shut down over the contraversy of the responses for awhile, there. Perhaps, it was apart of that Twitter attack???
Am I reading something wrong on the temperature list? Those averages are typical of mid-spring temps here in the Great Lakes.
Our winter temps range from -15C to 0C, spring runs 0C to 16C, summer runs 17C to 27C (occasionally to 35C) and fall is 4C to 18C.
I don’t think that the summer would lift our average up that much nor so I think that the winter would pull the average down, I would put out average around 13C.
Our family hosted an exchange student from the eastern section of Germany and she complained about the cold all of the time. Strange as I think that our average is higher than hers near Berlin.
Nice summer day here near Buffalo, NY, it started out at 23C and is going to 30C with thunderstorms later, winds gusting to 90KPH possible, just like home…
i really dont believe you people!
Nivarion, Anglomancer has the right idea- global warming IS happening.
there have been hundreds of tests, and, if i may point out, in africa the temperature has risen to 40 degrees celcius, as an average.
as said by the writer/drawer of the comic(pardon me, i don’t know your name)
the temperature in germany has risen like so:
1761–1770: 7.5 °C
1771–1780: 7.8 °C
1781–1790: 7.6 °C
1791–1800: 7.9 °C
1801–1810: 7.4 °C
1811–1820: 7.3 °C
1821–1830: 7.8 °C
1831–1840: 7.5 °C
1841–1850: 7.4 °C
1851–1860: 7.4 °C
1861–1870: 7.9 °C
1871–1880: 7.7 °C
1881–1890: 7.3 °C
1891–1900: 7.7 °C
1901–1910: 7.7 °C
1911–1920: 8.0 °C
1921–1930: 7.9 °C
1931–1940: 8.1 °C
1941–1950: 8.3 °C
1951–1960: 8.1 °C
1961–1970: 7.9 °C
1971–1980: 8.2 °C
1981–1990: 8.5 °C
1991–2000: 8.9 °C
2001–2008: 9.3 °C
by almost 2 degrees in the past 250 years.
it’s getting faster, due to the Co2 gas amissions, which cause more of the suns rays that heat up the planet, not to be able to escape, causeing them to reflect back down to earth, heating it.
you people are in deniel ~ either you don’t want to grow up in a world that’s rapidly heating up, or you dont want the next generation to- it IS happening.
some people are saying “oh, but it’s COLD here!”
so what if it is? it was colder before.
i invite you to read this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
very usefull. and detailed, and speaks with facts, not wishes.
also: http://www.climatehotmap.org/
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/global_warming_basics/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=global%20warming&utm_campaign=Allianz%20Knowledge-Climate%20Agenda
and: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/quiz-global-warming.html?source=sem_G2300&esvt=GOUSE&esvadt=999999-4994875-3690177-1&esvid=327778&gclid=CMGipr3ilpwCFRMUagod0V2bdA
@Itssnowing I did not say that the world is not heating. What I have trouble with is the the AGW statements that CO2 has the highest influence of all on the warming. Most of the computer models exclude the sun, cloud cover and oceanic forcing, which causes a very heavy tilt in CO2’s favor as being the cause of Global Warming.
Oceanic forcing is the idea that since the ocean is dark colored it absorbs heat faster than ice. Since it is water it takes longer to heat but holds that energy longer. As the ocean goes up the ice melts causing more dark space. This would eventually melt all the ice even if the ocean started as a small puddle at the equator and was surrounded by ice from pole to pole.
The sun has a long history of flux.
Clouds are white and reflect sun.
There are historical times in which CO2 concentrations have been much higher than today, with temperature at much higher or lower than current.
Oh and buy the way Itissnowing, Keep it on the subject of AGW. You did the switch i talked about. Tried to make it into Global Warming instead of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
HOLY CRAP! I hope the authors intended this debate-through-comments when they made the comic. Personally, I’d be pissed with so many people still arguing using my site to do it. [I have closed a live journal for that exact reason].
hmmmm so the weblink I posted on this was worthy of deleting yay for telling both sides 🙁
In the forties and fifties, atomic bomb tests scrambled the ratios of radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere, including Carbon (in the form of CO2). There is a dramatic increase in the amount of radioactive carbon, versus stable carbon, at this time, and therefore all radiometric dates are given as “years before present” meaning before 1955.
Since this time, we have spewed so much fossil carbon (which is stable carbon) into the air, that the ratio is more heavily weighted towards stable carbon than it was before the bomb tests.
This is a very difficult fact to harmonize with the idea that modern industry produces less carbon than natural earth processes. So most people take another switch and say that there are “colder temperatures” coinciding with higher levels of carbon. But generally, these coincide with massive injections of materials that cause cooling and are obviously bad examples, at least when those arguing the point are polite enough to actually provide examples.
Global warming is a real SOLAR CYCLE!!!! Mars and venus have both risen the same percentage of tempurature as the earth has. We are not causing it or effecting it in anyway. The solar system has heat waves when the sun produces relativly few sunspots accross multiple decades and has ice ages when the number of sun spots Increase to a high streching accross multiple decades. In fact we are actualy do for cooling soon as the sun should be nearing a time when it will start increasing the number of sun spots.
It’s a very fine line between pointing out an error and calling someone a complete idiot. It’s great to let your emotions drive you to the meeting, but it’d probably be better if we gave them a twenty and told them to go catch a movie until we’re done, instead of inviting them to join in.
But then again, what do I know, I’m just sittin’ here, eatin’ my pasta…
Taxil… just to answer an earlier post if yours…
“It gets worse, look beyond the debate itself. Who is pushing that debate (in the bigger sense, not anyone here ATM). When people say we are having “Global warming” or more recently “climate change” they also demand that the US (a rather responsable and cleaner that most county) ”
From BBC…
………………………………………
The US contains 4% of the world’s population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison, Britain emits 3% – about the same as India which has 15 times as many people.”
………………………………………
Assuming BBC does not speak complete lies, you are a bit off by saying the U.S. is clean and reponsible.
“get reduced to a 3rd world poverty crippled back water nation with all of their demands on us. India opently denouced the Keyoto treaty and China won’t abide by it. ”
Following the Kyoto Treaty would in no way make the U.S. a crippled back water nation. Far from it.
“Those two countries (India and China) pollute more than nearly the rest of the world combined. Why? think about it.”
http://www.vexen.co.uk/USA/pollution.html#2004
Once again BBC.
China+India+A bit of Europe, according to this, combined- do not pollute as much as the U.S. does on its OWN.
Ummm… aren’t we coming out of an ice age or did we forget about that time waaaay back in history where everything was frozen and covered in ice?
Solution: Swamp cooler! IMO they’re more effective anyway.
great title !!
@Clover it causes so much debate bc it’s very hard to actually win an argument over the internet.
I don’t particularly care if global warming/climate change is happening or not, fact of the matter is we should take better care of the place we live, I personally like the smell of trees a lot better than that of smog(as in cali)
@whoever made the comment about no deforestation in the USA, that’s baloney, it may not happen like the clear cutting in the rain forests, but trees are being cut down as cities and roads expand and not being replaced.
Speaking of cities, cities create things called heat islands as the city gets larger the effect of the heat island increases, that is just one more variable to consider in the whole climate issue, so really who cares about the truth of it?
@the authors of the webcomic love the irony
my best guess is the humidity, not the temp, got her. I’m a few hours SW of you, and i’ve had guys from ALASKA tell me they were chilly here in winter, and i have a bunch of west coast buddies who can’t stand being damp all the time. what can i say, i live in a swamp 😀
@ Long Tom:
While it may be alarmist, alarmism isn’t wrong if the threat is real.
Y2K was actually a problem which we dealt with by reprogramming systems in time. You can’t simply overhaul the source code to fix global warming.
@ Rocket_T_Coyote:
Well, it might have been cooler than many this decade but it was still “warm”:
http://www.bernd-hussing.de/Archivdateien/Klima072009.htm
To all others (regardless of their opinion/belief on climate change), I recommend this series of articles:
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
In general, I also recommend that if you are seriously interested in the debate about the anthropogenic greenhouse effect and its possible consequences, seriously try to understnd the scientific literature on it. You’ll learn a million things on this way from biology, geology and other sciences, independet to what conclusion you come in the end.
Kinda funny that a easy going and light comic can promote such a debate.. I just wanna remind you guys though.. that what ever your opinions are (mines rooting for pro-global warming)(Seen the effects first hand)… you dont have to produce mass essays and websites to prove that your right.. its just an opinion… well to sandra and woo.. i actually find that temp comforting~~
In my nation (Malaysia~Somewhere along the Equator)
temps are normally around 28C~32C all year long with 90~95% humidity..
So the temps you guys are actually sounds pretty cold to me~
Hope this helps you guys with your debate/forum~ (Lyncan)
While I am of the No-Human-Climate-Change opinion, I can understand why some people honestly believe in the subject. I used to, until I read into the history of earth, with .
@ DERP:
Sorry, accidentally hit enter on the last one before I was done with it. Anywho, the Medieval Warm Period, Ice Ages, and Global Cooling-Global Warming things kinda shifted my opinion. What people don’t realise is that most of the studies and such that show upward lines are done by groups that have a lot to gain if people start believing in CC, whether it be from monetary allowances or public opinion. Most of their data is actually flawed (such as having temperature sensors set up directly beside heater vents). Also, these questions are for people who believe in Man Made Climate Change:
IF humans are the main proprietors behind Climate Change, then how could we have ever gotten out of an Ice Age?
IF you often cite “Receding Glacier” photos, can you please try to find a wider picture? You know, one that would show how much the glacier has moved in the time frame between the pictures? (Which they do, something that you would know if you’ve ever paid attention during a grade 6 science class)
IF you often cite “Melting Antarctica” photos, can you also invest in the time to make a video to show the ice chunk floating away from the small-pizza-slice peninsula those pictures come from, and gathering more ice and such on it’s path around to the relative-west side, where it reattaches to Antarctica?
Related to Above: IF you see melting ice caps and icebergs as proof of Climate Change, then can I ask you to do this experiment: Put an ice cube (Rep. an iceberg) in a glass of water (Rep. the Ocean). Mark the level of water AFTER the ice cube is in the cup. Let the ice cube melt, then remeasure the water. According to Archemedies’ Principle, something that hasn’t ever been proven wrong, and is proven right by simple physics, the water level should remain the same. If you want to try it on a larger scale, try a bathtub with a couple of pails of ice. You should get the same results.
Honestly, every person that believes in MMCC has flipped out at me when I asked them those questions; Not because they couldn’t answer the questions, but because I didn’t think MMCC was existant. EVERY MMCC person I’ve met simply says that they believe in it because of a higher authority figure, often symbolized as “they”. None of them have actually done any research themselves, they just trust “them” to tell the truth. I would honestly LOVE to have a converstion with someone who has done research, and does solidly believe in MMCC. I think it would be educational for both of us.
@ Timmah360: Global Warming is a very real threat! I am sorry to say this, but people who don’t believe in it are some of the people causing it, because they aren’t as cautious.
@ Random: Noble of you, Random! We all need to take care of this Earth, but no sense in going back to the Stone Age, either! (As some environmentalists want us to… (yes, they do, no matter what they say, some people are crazy.) That concludes my rant.)
@ RHJunior: We aren’t a major emitter NOW, but meddling in the climate more than necessary, well, we shouldn’t do it. Better safe than sorry, RH. (I DO NOT mean technology is evil and we shouldn’t have it, but we ARE meddling in ecosystems that worked fine before. CO2 is necessary, but we ARE putting a awful lot out… I believe that the past is no indication of the future. The people saying the Global Cooling stuff were pretty silly though. I mean, factories taking CO2 (or, if you’re right, water vapor) away is like, what? Past is no indication of future. Rain forests breathe CO2, and they kept balance. Now, who is cutting down forests? (Not just rain-forests) Why, I believe it’s humans! Forests keep the CO2 balanced! When we cut them down, they stop! MMCC is real, and it isn’t just CO2! When we cut down the forests that turn CO2 into oxygen, what a surprise, more CO2! I noticed you didn’t include trees much in your argument, which is understandable, because trees are important to my side of the argument. You wanted somebody who could make a stronger debate? You got your wish. Nice use of facts, though. Most of your side are just as bad as mine, as in, not informed. I enjoyed being able to debate against someone informed, however, and informed people on your side? Rarer than on mine.
@ Long Tom: If you’re talking about humans, sorry, you’re out of luck. If you’re talking about polar bears, however… So many animals have been affected. If you were expecting more, look above. I don’t need to be a scientist to tell you that humans are pushing it. On terrorists, still don’t panic. At least we actually are making quite a bit of progress on that topic. *mutters to herself, “no more rant, no more rant…”
What’s shocking to me isn’t that there is global warming, it’s that in spite of tons of evidence, people still are taught and believe that the globe is warming because of us. Wake up people. The globe is warming because it’s a natural cycle of the earth. Because it is warming, it releases much more carbons than we could dream of putting out. What we produce is a fraction of what is released naturally. Even the scientists who produced the results that the theory of global warming is based on, disagree with the aim it has been used for.
No one is saying, “go polute the environment.” I drive a compact car, and would drive a hybrid or an electric one if i could afford it. Just stop believing every piece of garbage that you are fed.
F.Y.I. The majority of our oxygen doesn’t come from the rain forests, either. It doesn’t mean we should cut down all the trees.
@ Novil:
Actually, global warming is good. I have theorized that the earth has a pattern of hot and cold that fluctuate in turn. Notice, in history, that there’s always hot, ice age, hot, ice age. It’s just a natural cycle. In fact, we would be well into the next ice age if not for global warming. And it isn’t even caused by humans and we can do nothing about it; given, we do affect it about 1%, but the other 99% is all wildfires and volcanic action, nothing we can do anything about.
Some people get it, some people don’t. Any effect we could ever have on the earth is so minuscule that it doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t bang on about how we’re all doomed.
If we all came together, we could make it to where we don’t even hav a slight neutral or negative effect; we could have a positive effect.
Btw, woo is in my top ten favorite comics. Keep it up!
At least more is being done about it now though right? People are taking it seriously.
Global warming don’t exist. I am a biologist. It’s only a “sensation”, nothing more. Why the temperature increase so fast? Did anyone think about meltdown in ice age? It’s the same thing, couse the sun is getting closer. After 5 bilions years (or sth like that) it is.
oh gosh, Sandra looks so adorable in that last panel.
Much of the United States has been plagued with miserable summer weather for centuries. About halfway down, you start getting humidity effects from bodies of water that are too far away to mitigate the heat.
So basically, the Southeast in the summertime feels like northern Italy at the same time.
i’m sorry, i don’t mean to rant, but you call THAT hot? i live in the American South (particularly, the state of Georgia), so i had to do the conversions, but 9.3 Centigrade converts to 53 degrees Fahrenheit. Around here, we call that winter. the high here today is in the mid-90’s.
@ Achory: and on top of the heat, as someone mentioned about a month ago, humidity makes that 90 degrees fahrenheit feel like about 110 around here.
@ Achory: also, i’ve just realized i did the conversion wrong. that’s only 9.3 centigrade is only 49 fahrenheit (if i ever meet the guy fahrenheit is named after, i’m going to kill him for having such a difficult last name to spell.)
i have air conditioning. IN YO FACE!!!
@ BarGamer:
Won’t the fur actually intensify the increase in body temperature?
@ Zaiki:
The creators of the strip are in Germany, where AC is uncommon. The strips reflects that.
I’m still not convinced that any warming isn’t just the result of the Earth still heating up from the last Ice Age. We have millions of years of evidence that the planet gets hot and cold, yet temperature change over a mere 100 years has everybody in a panic.
NOW I understand why the german girl of my class was so suffocated with the heat when we go to a field trip, xD in Mexico (or at least in my city) we only have that temperature during winter (although it’s winter and we are at 21°C, we are melting at the afternoon and with sweater in the morning)
I can see it now..
“Russia’s harshest winter in 70 years! Global warming to blame.”
Its amazing how well cable news manage to cover up the story about how the global warming convention in D.C. was snowed out. that’s why they call it climate change now.
Looking at the numbers provided, it took 247 year for a 1.8 Degree change… in CELSIUS!
Check your numbers. someone tried to tell me that there were 4825 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. in 1980. Turns out, Mt. Saint Hellenes exploded in 1980. What a coincidence. Notice also the metric tons.
Most hilarious crap that I ever seen is claim that “vulcanoes emits more than human civilization”. Five minutes of google easily disproves it. Yet it is still thrown as argument in debate. And then they wonder and take offense for name calling like “denialist”. Good grief.
Second place is “in my location at time of writing of this post it was COLD therefore GW is disproven”. Taking aside this is not how world average temp measuring works, somehow “in my location at time of writing of this post it was HOT” is never taken for them as evidence for GW. Double standard, anyone?
¬_¬
Oh well… at least the commentary now is more interesting than the usual webcomic dose of misspelt sycophancy.
Long story short: the world is changing, and people hate change.
Many bits are getting hotter, some bits are getting colder.
And they cry “what can we do to stop this?!” … Nothing. You can do nothing to stop this. Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Rulers of the world? You’re just parasites on the Earth’s skin… along for the ride.
If you don’t like the temperature where you are… move north or south… or to higher or lower altitude… or to somewhere that isn’t so likely to get screwed up by sudden changes in the Earth’s thermohaline currents (when the Gulf Stream packs it in, Britain is going to end up like Canada, most likely).
And for the worst of the panic-mongers… Google the phrase “Eocene thermal maximum” … Current global temperature averages aren’t all that spectacular.
Change happens. Roll with it or go extinct.
Global warming is an effect, not a cause. It is a consequence in and of itself.
It’s funny coz I tell the same thing to my parents every summer…And it never happens.