global warming

[Kim O'Hara]

While we're thinking about protecting the environment ... dont' forget Earth Hour
It's largely symbolic, of course, but we need symbols and it's a lovely one.
http://www.earthhour.org/


Kim

[tiltbillings]

One solution that might please everyone concerned, would be to merge this topic with something called 'The Great Global Warming Debate',

If some one can find that thread for me, I'll merge them.

[Kim O'Hara]

One solution that might please everyone concerned, would be to merge this topic with something called 'The Great Global Warming Debate',

If some one can find that thread for me, I'll merge them.

I don't think there is one, Tilt - and if there was, I'm sure I would remember it.
Manas may be thinking of "The New Normal", which qualifies as a Great Global Warming Debate, or he may be suggesting a new all-in-one equivalent of the Great Rebirth thread. At this stage, however, this thread has taken on a life of its own, it has a good general title and the "New Normal" has been dead and locked for months. Maybe this thread should be the beginning of any ongoing 'Great Global Warming Debate'?


Kim

Edit: added an afterthought.

[daverupa]

Thanks, Buckwheat -

lots of

Indeed, up to a third time, let me also express admiration for your patience and tenacity in skillfully addressing those various points. Where innumerable means of making statements abounded, you chose among the best ways of wording and phrasing.

[Alex123]

See this:

This chart shows temperatures over hundreds of millions of years.

Right. It shows that when we take a wider, more inclusive perspective, today's levels are not too hot. They are actually closer to ICE Age.

The industrial revolution has only been affecting the atmosphere for about one millionth of that time scale. This chart is totally irrelevant to the discussion... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

Just like we can't make predictions about football game from first 1/1000th of a second, same about current weather. As someone has said, an eruption of volcano can easily over ride human contributions over decades.

As for extinction events. There have been previous extinction events in past hundreds of million years where MOST life forms have died. As your link says:

"Over 98% of documented species are now extinct,"

Even without humans, mass extinctions occur.

[Alex123]

In another post by Alex, he cited that humans are adding 3.76% more CO2, than the natural emission of earth processes. 3.76% of any Earth process is no chump change. In fact, I'm a little shocked at how high that number is.

How much of atmosphere is C02? 0.039%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

How much is 3.76% of 0.039% ?!!!!! 0.376*0.039 = 0.0014664%

This means that nature itself affects 100-0.0014664= 99.9985336% atmosphere.


So, the earth "sneezes" and it can easily cancel out any man made changes (if any).

[Alex123]

What matters is how fast it's changing right now.

It is not changing fast at all. In fact some reports suggest that it has stopped getting much warmer. And even IF, even IF, it is getting warmer - how do we know that it is our "0.0014664%" contribution of a gas to the atmosphere that doesn't even cause global warming? Sun and weather events on Earth are much more powerful than us and can easily cancel out any (if any) effects we have made.


I can find more graphs like:

[Dan74]

Maybe Danielion can interject and list the number of errors of logic in the preceding three posts.

E.g.

1. the fact that there is not a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere does not mean that it has no effect, just like me taking mere 0.0001% of potassium cyanide in my drink does not mean it will have no effect on my health.

2. Extensive modeling of the greenhouse effects on C02 has been done and shown that not only does it cause warming, but the amounts we have contributed can cause significant warming.

etc

Some years ago I've worked with a scientist who was a co-author of one of the UN Reports on Climate Change who's also written several pamphlets debunking common myths and misconceptions (more on that below). He was the first to admit that the precise extent of the warming is very hard to predict. A lot of uncertainty still exists but not in the actual fact of warming, just in the extent. Here's pretty thorough info written by some of the top people in the field (if anyone is interested in getting informed on the subject):

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/warming-of-the-20th-century.aspx

More detail:

http://www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange.html

And it's also a good idea to try to inform oneself on the concept of a "trend". For the impatient and the time-challenged:

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/01/explained-90-seconds-its-cold-climate-models-are-still-correct

Here's an interesting read for everybody on how vital issues have been obfuscated by the special interest groups:

http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/

[Buckwheat]

You are totally ignoring all the counter-arguments I made. The only new point you made was this:

As for extinction events. There have been previous extinction events in past hundreds of million years where MOST life forms have died. As your link says:

"Over 98% of documented species are now extinct,"

Even without humans, mass extinctions occur.

Even without humans, there is death. Does that make murder OK? No, it does not. Do we want to be the generation that allows a mass extinction to occur because we are too busy chasing fleeting pleasures to make the sacrifices necessary to prevent the mass extinction? Let's be clear: we are in the middle of a major extinction event, and it is caused by human action. We may choose to continue killing, or we may choose to reduce our impact to allow natural forces to resume their natural ebb and flow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

[Buckwheat]

In another post by Alex, he cited that humans are adding 3.76% more CO2, than the natural emission of earth processes. 3.76% of any Earth process is no chump change. In fact, I'm a little shocked at how high that number is.

How much of atmosphere is C02? 0.039%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

How much is 3.76% of 0.039% ?!!!!! 0.376*0.039 = 0.0014664%

This means that nature itself affects 100-0.0014664= 99.9985336% atmosphere.


So, the earth "sneezes" and it can easily cancel out any man made changes (if any).

Please find me a quote from reputable climate scientists saying that human contribution of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere is insignificant.

[Buckwheat]

What matters is how fast it's changing right now.

It is not changing fast at all. In fact some reports suggest that it has stopped getting much warmer. And even IF, even IF, it is getting warmer - how do we know that it is our "0.0014664%" contribution of a gas to the atmosphere that doesn't even cause global warming? Sun and weather events on Earth are much more powerful than us and can easily cancel out any (if any) effects we have made.


I can find more graphs like:

Um... did you notice that the black line is in an upward trend? Climate models have come a long way for improved accuracy in the last decade, and you seem to be using old data. What is the source for this document?

I can find more graphs like this.

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/

[Alex123]

Even without humans, there is death. Does that make murder OK?

So are you equating producing carbon dioxide with murder?

Please find me a quote from reputable climate scientists saying that human contribution of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere is insignificant.

So, Kim's site is NOT reputable?!!! http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-c ... ssions.htm
??

Can you say something about my calculations? You and Kim seem to have one type of argument:

"You are wrong Alex. You are using junk science. We have the Truth".

Please avoid ad hominem.


I also did some more calculations:
Person breath out ~1kg of C02 per day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2#Human_physiology

1kg x human population (7.073 billion) x 365 = 2,581.645 Billion of kg of CO2 humans exhale per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

So even IF, even IF, we would stop ALL industrial emission of CO2 through great sacrifice of living standards , humans would STILL produce 2,581.645 Billion kilograms of C02 per year. What would you propose then? Stop breathing?!

[Buckwheat]

...

Thanks, Dan.

[Alex123]

Um... did you notice that the black line is in an upward trend?

The short term "trend" seemed to have stalled at year 2000. Considering that we are close to ICE Age, it is great that temperatures bounced back a bit, a bit.

When we look at charts of greater and more important scale, the trend is still down. We are closer to Ice age rather than hothouse a more usual temperature for earth.

Judging a future trend of weather by few decades or even 133 years is like trying to see the trend of a game by first 1/100th of a second.

Anyone trades stocks/currencies? If the trend on a daily chart is down and trend on 1 minute chart is up. What is long term trend? Down, of course. Same is here.

[Dan74]

"It's good that children are encouraged to be critical thinkers. But it would've been great if they were taught how to do so."

---Anon

[Buckwheat]

Even without humans, there is death. Does that make murder OK?

So are you equating producing carbon dioxide with murder?

Please find me a quote from reputable climate scientists saying that human contribution of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere is insignificant.

So, Kim's site is NOT reputable?!!! http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-c ... ssions.htm
??

Can you say something about my calculations? You and Kim seem to have one type of argument:

"You are wrong Alex. You are using junk science. We have the Truth".

Please avoid ad hominem.


I also did some more calculations:
Person breath out ~1kg of C02 per day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2#Human_physiology

1kg x human population (7.073 billion) x 365 = 2,581.645 Billion of kg of CO2 humans exhale per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

So even IF, even IF, we would stop ALL industrial emission of CO2 through great sacrifice of living standards , humans would STILL produce 2,581.645 Billion kilograms of C02 per year. What would you propose then? Stop breathing?!

I am saying this: do you want human activity to an abrupt shock to the natural system, or should we live in harmony with the global ecosystem that is the foundation for our lives on Earth? Yes, there have been 5 mass extinction events in 600 million years since the Cambrian explosion. There is also a mass extinction event in the 10,000 years since humans started congregating into larger societies.

Apparently, you only read the paragraph where John Cook states the skeptic position, before dismantling it as a false view:

Before the industrial revolution, the CO2 content in the air remained quite steady for thousands of years. Natural CO2 is not static, however. It is generated by natural processes, and absorbed by others.

As you can see in Figure 1, natural land and ocean carbon remains roughly in balance and have done so for a long time – and we know this because we can measure historic levels of CO2 in the atmosphere both directly (in ice cores) and indirectly (through proxies).

But consider what happens when more CO2 is released from outside of the natural carbon cycle – by burning fossil fuels. Although our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year, it adds up because the land and ocean cannot absorb all of the extra CO2. About 40% of this additional CO2 is absorbed. The rest remains in the atmosphere, and as a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years (Tripati 2009). (A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years).

Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2.

The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.

As for your calculations, they don't really say anything, so it's hard to criticize them. I agree, the concentration of CO2 is low when compared to nitrogen. But Nitrogen (in the atmospheric form of N4) is an incredibly stable, inert gas. Nitrogen is the water, CO2 is the cyanide.

[Alex123]

Some years ago I've worked with a scientist who was a co-author of one of the UN Reports on Climate Change who's also written several pamphlets debunking common myths and misconceptions (more on that below). He was the first to admit that the precise extent of the warming is very hard to predict. A lot of uncertainty still exists but not in the actual fact of warming, just in the extent.

So how can "Climate Change" scientists predict that the weather will increase by 0.5 degree or so in few years or so?

How do we separate HUMAN activity (which is unproven to cause GW) from natural fluctuations. Our 0.0014664% contribution is NOTHING. Nature can easily in a day cancel out what we produced in years.

[Dan74]

Some years ago I've worked with a scientist who was a co-author of one of the UN Reports on Climate Change who's also written several pamphlets debunking common myths and misconceptions (more on that below). He was the first to admit that the precise extent of the warming is very hard to predict. A lot of uncertainty still exists but not in the actual fact of warming, just in the extent.

So how can "Climate Change" scientists predict that the weather will increase by 0.5 degree or so in few years or so?

How do we separate HUMAN activity (which is unproven to cause GW) from natural fluctuations. Our 0.0014664% contribution is NOTHING. Nature can easily in a day cancel out what we produced in years.

Trends.

PS Our contribution is far from nothing. It is consistent, increasing and significant.

[Alex123]

I am saying this: do you want human activity to an abrupt shock to the natural system, or should we live in harmony with the global ecosystem that is the foundation for our lives on Earth? Yes, there have been 5 mass extinction events in 600 million years since the Cambrian explosion. There is also a mass extinction event in the 10,000 years since humans started congregating into larger societies.

What do you propose? That we go to pre-industrial world? DO you know what that means? Have you lived in a world without trucks and cars? How will you feed cities with multi-millions of people living in them?

As for C02. My basic position is that we contribute TOO small amount. Nature can easily cancel it out any day. Not only that, it is questionable if C02 causes warming itself.

Also, plants need C02 for photosynthesis. It is NOT a "bad" gas.

[Alex123]

PS Our contribution is far from nothing. It is consistent, increasing and significant.

0.0014664% is very significant...