Global warming: Hogwash???

Yes, keep driving your Ferrari's now, and forever.

Don't take this as a harsh angst toward the group. If this somehow whips up some severe emotions, I will more than happy to share my bottle of B vitamins. It was with great restraint to keep this topic as nuetral as possible from spilling over into "that" other forum. I'm just sitting down with a cup of coffee throwing my two cents on the table of something I agree with, in the group here.
There have been warming cycles of the earth and freezing cycles, ice cycles, for as long as the earth has been around. We very well may be in a naturally warming cycle. Where I disagree with this pseudo science is that man is causing it. There's nothing more than a twenty five year crying campaign to subconsciously create the idea in everybody's mind that when it gets hot in July and hot in August it must be global warming; when it gets cold and a snowstorm happens in January, and happens to be a little bit more intense than it was last year, it must be global warming. Nobody can prove it. Nobody can prove that man is causing global warming. Heck, even Mars is getting warm and melting ice, how did we do that? To me the proof that man is not causing it is there's nothing we can do to stop it. Everything that happens on earth is not a manmade problem, nor an American-made problem. If it's hot one day and not hot the next day someplace where it's cool, it's not man made. It's not our fault. Why can't these guys just accept that there are powers greater than us, greater than we have that may have influence over this over which we have no control? There's not one climactic event that we can stop. We cannot stop it raining harder; we cannot move thunderstorms; we cannot weaken hurricanes; we cannot steer them out of the way; we can't stop snowstorms; we can't stop drought, so there's no way we can cause it. You can't have one without the other. If we're causing it, then we can stop it. And this fossil fuel business is nothing more than a theory, and there are countless scientists who disagree with it. There are countless scientists who oppose that theory. There are many disasters all over the world. To blame America, to blame fossil fuels, when these disasters have happened throughout time? C’mon, let’s be real. When you understand that a volcanic eruption will spew more destructive pollution into the atmosphere than all automobile pollution since the history of the invention of the car combined, it’s clear we are pretty inconsequential when it comes to the climate system and the ecology system of this planet. Why do you think we haven't signed Kyoto? Because we still have some sanity left in this country in the scientific movement!
I'm not opposed to keeping things as clean as we can. We do a better job of that than any country in the world. We clean up our messes better than anybody in the world, and we spread the technology that we have developed with the rest of the world that has the ability to incorporate it.
All these global warmists do is complain about how we destroy the earth and we somehow need more laws to save us from ourselves. Some of these environmental laws are not solutions at all. They would have us destroy our economy and millions of jobs based on pseudoscience. They drive up the cost of energy while driving down the supply of energy. They make it more difficult to heat homes during winter and cool homes during the summer. They drive up the cost of food and all products which are processed and transported with fuel. Their bad science causes us to rely more and more on foreign countries and foreign regimes that seek to harm us and just so happen to control countries that are rich in oil. On the one hand they use the power of government to obstruct progress, and on the other hand they demand the government act when tragedy hits! It's the same thing with military and law enforcement. They work year after year to undermine them and then when there's a disaster, they're the first to demand the military and law enforcement come to the rescue.
It’s scary how the environmentalists make it much more difficult to survive Mother Nature, not to control 'her'. It’s hilarious to think that ‘she’ can somehow be controlled. Any time any local or state government attempts to build defenses against floods and other potential safeguards, who runs into court? Who runs into the EPA and the interior department and throws up one obstacle after another? The environmentalists, who treat Mother Nature like god, left to be untouched just as “Merry Christmas”, “In God We Trust”, “The Ten Commandments”. They don't fix things. They only make things worse and that's why I find the global warming view as nothing more than pure hogwash.

 

I don't know what the hell all you guys are talking about. Cold, hot whats the difference?

All I really know is when I was 17, 17 year old girls didnt look like they do today. So things change, sometimes for the better!

 

It also gives groups like Greenpeace, an "excuse" to light massive amounts of cars on fire, along with other things. Which just contradicts their entire movement.

And 12 year old girls looked 12, not 21. That's scary.

 

Much of the concern over global warming, especially from lay people, seems to result from the concept that the climate should not be changing at all. The fact is change is a constant.

Now, if keeping the climate the same is not an option, which choice would you prefer-- warming or cooling?

 

After reading the initial post and some follow posts, I see that most of you don't have a clue.

 

As much as I think there's strong evidence for human-caused changes in the composition of the atmoshpere and hydrosphere I'd agree that there's little use in discussing recent climactic events in the context of global warming.

To add significant net energy to the earth system via increased greenhouse effect from added CO2 will take quite some time. I'd also suggest that it can't hurt to start looking at alternatives to fuels which deposit high levels of long-buried organic carbon back into the atmosphere and biosphere. Drive your cars, heat your homes and don't feel guilty for doing it; there isn't a better alternative yet and no, the hurricanes aren't your fault.

There is great economic incentive for entrepeneurs to continue developing cleaner burning fuels and innovative energy sources, and at some point it will be economically desireable to use them in large quantities.

 

It's not. Infact it's really not. There's a nice murmering cycle right around every 10k years, and there's another every 60k and a few smaller ones every few years, etc. Then there's random fluctuations & unevenly spaced recurring events. Hell the sun itself is literally gravity wrestleing a HYDROGEN BOMB THAT'S GOING OFF ALL THE TIME back in. Think that ****'s gonna be 'ol faithful?

The sun, liquid water, and the earth under our feet are really NOT perminant conditions, as much as our very short lifetimes would have us believe.

Recall for the moment also that the earth is around 250-300 degrees hot (from where it would be withought the sun) and a 5% swing in the sun's output looks suddenly catastrophic beyond imagine.

We idoit humans are looking at 0.5% earthbound temp trend change blips, and it's like looking at the price of YAHOO stock for the last 3 hours on monday. Ie it tells you exactly BUPPKISS!

 

Except that CO2 IS much greater than at any time in the past, just because of population growth and associated desires for higher quality of life. Both lead to more energy usage and more CO2 production in a world where energy is primarily fossil fuel related.

While there is much debate over whether or not climate change (which will occur anyway) is being influenced by mankind, there is no debate about fossil fuel putting more CO2 into the atmosphere and that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased in the last 10 years, but mostly in the last 50.

 

Nope.... but you can measure gas concentrations going back thousands of years in the Antarctic ice.

 

What source and timeframe would you like?

Physics Institute at the University of Bern, Switzerland
http://www.climate.unibe.ch/press251105.pdf
"The analysis highlights the fact that today’s rising atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentration, at 380 parts per million by volume, is already 27
percent higher than its highest recorded level during the last 650,000 years."

Environment Canada
http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange/figure_1.jpg

The UN International Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/sarsum1.htm#one
"Increases in greenhouse gas concentrations since pre*industrial times (i.e., since about 1750) have led to a positive radiative forcing2 of climate, tending to warm the surface and to produce other changes of climate.

The atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, inter alia, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have grown significantly: by about 30%, 145%, and 15%, respectively (values for 1992). "

University of Michigan (the last 50 years, as I noted)
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/labs/carboncycle/carboncycle.html


US EPA
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climateuncertainties.html#known
"Scientists know for certain that human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2 ), in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times have been well documented. There is no doubt this atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities."


Now as far as then versus now. The "Black Fog" in London was a terrible thing, but it was caused by particulates from coal, which as you note are tremendously reduced now. However, climate change is related to emissions of CO2 and a few other gases. The COe emissions are directly related to energy usage and little effected by the other pollutants in various fuel sources.

The population of the earth has grown from an estimated 1 billion in 1850 to present day 6 billion plus.

200+ million Americans (early 21st century) using a broad mix of good clean natural gas, coal, nuclear, etc still put out far more CO2 than 76 million Americans burning just nasty old coal in 1900.

http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Population_Growth.htm

http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/1population1.htm#popchart1

Global perspective
Page 3 of http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/default/speeches/spc051005gdnew.pdf

And this doesn't begin to account for the CO2 emissions from gasoline vehicles, which were essentially non-existent in 1900.

Finally, for a bit of levity. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas. A typical cow emits 400 liters of methane PER DAY. There are 2 billion cows in the world.
http://www.scientific-alliance.org/news_archives/climate/researchraceto.htm

 

Bryan, good post, but I have a question. Since it is widely believed that CO2 emissions and warming of the planet are intrinsically linked, what was the source of CO2 in eons past when the levels were higher than today and the planet was also warmer?

 

Wouldn't that be Methane?

 

Holy ****!

 

Can I say Holy S**t
or Holy Sh*t

 

How many eons past? Atmospheric composition has evolved over time, to explain exactly why C02 levels were what they were at a particular point would require me to do a a good bit of reading up but here is here is a brief snapshot that will hopefully illuminate things. When dinosaurs roamed the earth during the Cretaceous (65 to 145 million years ago) C02 levels were 5 to 10 times higher and average temperatures were 4 to 11C warmer. The C02 levels are lower now because some of the carbon is sequestered underground. The point is that by digging up and burning that carbon (oil, coal, gas) we are changing atmospheric composition in a way that doesn't really have a historical anology. As previously stated I am pretty much agnostic when it comes to any level of concern over the matter though I do like warm weather And as Donv mentioned things are always changing so it's really a matter of which way would you like the change to be? Of course the matter is not exactly entirely up to us......

 

I'm chuckling so hard at the followup posts, I am not able to answer your question! I'm glad we continue to be light-hearted about it all.

I'll post more later..

 

As science looks farther back in time, the methods get more difficult and complex and the associated uncertainty grow.

For example, the ice core data works like this. The team drills several hundred meters into a layer of ice in Antarctica. They extract a core. They have to keep the core from melting, as well as prevent present day atmosphere from contaminating the contents of the bubbles in the core itself. I assume, but am not sure, that they store the cores under N2 at extremely low temps.

They then have to withdraw the air from tiny bubbles in the ice, while still avoiding contamination with present day air.

The amount of CO2, methane, and other gases can be directly measured, assuming good sample preservation. The temperature at the time of the ice formation cannot be measured, but is correlated to the ratio of deuterium (a readio isotope of hydrogen) to normal hydrogen. The basic science of this is WAY beyond me, but as far as I can tell, it is accepted as robust, but all admit that there is uncertainty in the correlation.

and this methodology only works, up to now, for the last 650,000 years!!

Estimating CO2 and temps back to the large cow era (or dinosaurs, i.e. 50-150 million years) or beyond is a whole different ball of s**t. Various approaches, including computer modelling and evaluation of fossil evidence. See link below for intro.
As Mark noted, the levels back then appear to have been 200-800% larger (or perhaps more) than in the last 650,000 years.

The CO2 was part of the overall process of the formation of the earth. The original atmosphere was not hospitable by human standards. Much of what we measure now on other planets is what we think the earth was like 500 million and further back. There was significant plant life on the earth back then (high temps, high CO2, quite the greenhouse, eh) and not much else. Via normal photosynthesis, this plants adsorbed the CO2, converted it to plant material, and emitted oxygen. Gradually, the atmospheric concentrations shifted (the time span is immense) resulting in lower CO2 and much higher O2. This led to the development of life that requries oxygen. In addition, the plant material was gradually converted into "oil". The dead dinosaurs did not make up the mass of oil and gas we use today; it was all plant matter.

See http://www.geo.arizona.edu/~rees/PGAPabstracts.html

Be warned, the nomenclature and science are obscure and, again, way beyond me, but you can gain some insight with time and nice single malt! OK, more than one...

Check out the rest of Allistair Rees' Web site for more info. Similar info is widely available, but for a "quick" (two shots) summary, you can find a lot just in the U of Arizona Department.

FYI. Ma = miilion years ago.

 

You don't make any sense and you are not credible because you use logic and common sense.
Are you trying to negate what great scientists like Gore and Barbara Streisand are saying for years?????

 

People say that there is 'no evidence' of man creating global warming...but yet we have a direct cause an effect relationship between the amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere and the amount of heat it will hold in...That to me, sounds like evidence.
I'm another one who is agnostic about the whole global warming situation because I feel that variations throughout history that have caused previous ice ages are much more of a threat to us then our own production of CO2. This is what I wonder though, how much of a problem are we causing.... Is it insignificant or not? To write it off as a bunch of hogwash is to turn a blind eye, and to deem it as our downfall is to reach conclusions that are not warranted.
I agree with what Art said...

Also, for all those that say that they are not worried about it because they wouldn't mind it being a little warmer....Isn't a little warmer going to equal a lot colder because of the polar ice caps melting and tossing a lot more cool water into our oceans?

My question....we have all seen the movie "The Day After Tommorow"...if global warming were effecting us, would an ice age happen as fast as they portayed to it happen in that movie, basically in a matter of months? Is there logic to their conclusions or is it just Hollywood movie magic?