Redone

Started this thread to avoid hijacking another one, where somebody said manmade CO2 emissions are only 3.2% (sounds about right) of the total.

True enough, but not the whole story. It that bit which is causing the recent historic increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.

The reason is that there is a natural carbon cycle, which recycles natural CO2. But it's a delicate balance, and we're messing it up. Here's the picture:



The little squiggles are the natural carbon cycle at work. In the Northern Hemisphere summer, plants pull down CO2. In winter it increases. But every year nature loses the game just a little, and overall CO2 increases. That's us, burning fossil fuels, clearing land, etc. Raising CO2 to levels the Earth hasn't seen in hundreds of thousands of years.

How do we know that for sure? Fossil fuels have a different ratio of various isotopes of carbon, a characteristic fingerprint. That fingerprint is evident in the changes we see year to year in CO2.

The short explanation is that we dig up carbon the natural cycle buried over millions of years, and burn vast quantities of it in a few decades. Nature just can't cope.

lazn

http://www.earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm

This from a eco freako organization..

Personally I am not at all worried about global warming, in fact global temperatures have stabilized (gone down a tiny bit in fact) since 2001 and I expect will continue to drop. Either way, running around screaming about the air you breathe out is crazy.

If you are so worried about the global warming do the world a favor and commit suicide, it will have a greater and better effect than ANYTHING else you can possibly do. (besides genocide I guess)

lazn

And directly regarding those graphs: http://www.john-daly.com/ipcc-co2/ipcc-co2.htm

"The IPCC carbon dioxide predictions are cited in mass media all over the world as the scientific truth although they tell a different story than the real measurements do."

"...Figure 3. shows clearly that the carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa start to divergate from the mass balance curve for AF = 50 % as early as in the year 1975"

RCVTR

Anybody can produce a simple plot to scare chicken little into thinking the sky is falling.

Here is a recent paper to the EPA putting all of the arguments and assumtpions that go into the manmade CO2:Global warming argument to the test.

This whole theory is crumbling to pieces, but nobody cares enough to do any research. Read it if you are interested in more than the opinions of people who want you to feel bad about being a human who uses technology:

http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf

killer5280

Yep. The man made global warming hoax is a scam that is being hysterically forced down our throats through saturation media coverage to drive a political agenda. That political agenda is, to put it simply, government regulation and taxation of all human activity.

cliby

Its an evolving science, in its infancy. trying to figure out global trends with such small amounts of data (time wise, relatively) is frought with problems. These are new theories. those that adopt them early are not more wrong than those that dismiss them as scare tactics and unfounded. Its good to be alive in a time when major theories are being batted around, we missed a lot of the good ones like the earths place in the solar system etc. I think even a little common sense would say the scope and acceleration of human activities leaves an effect. whether its depleting a resource which is finite, pollution or whatever effect on global warming. To say being concerned with those effects is pointless is beyond arrogance.

Redone

Not relevant or correct.

I wasn't making any "predictions" at all, I merely posted the measured data.
The Mauna Loa data has been duplicated (as with most all global warming data) at dozens of sites around the world. Here's the database:

http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/

Pick a (rural/ocean island) site and look up the data. It matches the Mauna Loa data quite well.

The "mass balance curve for AF=50%" refers to a custom prediction model of the late John Daly, an amateur scientist with a degree in economics. That's what's the actual Mauna Loa data diverges from, HIS predictions.

And the divergence he claims has no relevance to the top post here. It amounts to about 10 ppm in 30 years, the shape of the curve is virtually the same.

lazn

Not as arrogant as saying driving your car is responsible for warming up the ENTIRE PLANET when there is no evidence to support that.

Of course cleaning up the world is a good thing, very few people actually like living in a garbage dump.

And yes, buying local is the best way to support your community, just like buying American is a good way to support the economy and environment. (over buying cheap Chinese)

Hydrocarbons are a great way to store and transport energy. Where the hydrocarbons come from is just a matter of if the CO2 to make it was pulled from the air recently (biofuel), or a long time ago (petroleum, can also be called: antique biofuel). Either way, I expect we will be using them to fuel our transportation for some time to come. But we might as well use the cheap old stuff while we got it, rather than the new stuff that takes energy to produce (thus is worse for the environment).

lazn

well then how about here? http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/003901.html

Redone

And where did I say the sky was falling? My point simply was that we're having an effect on CO2 levels.

Yet another economist, with strong opinions but no actual expertise. This confused pile of nonsense (details upon request) was a draft memo by an EPA economist, who wanted his boss to adopt it as the official position of his organization, the National Center for Environmental Economics. The title is "Proposed NCEE comments on....". Not surprisingly the boss declined.
You gotta be kidding. The research effort on this is staggering. Thousands of scientists, thousands of papers in the scientific literature.

Stevebis1

Respectfully, BULLSHIT. You and all the other alarmists are utilizing this data to suggest, PREDICT, that if human CO2 production is not curbed then humans will impact and accelerate climate change.

Few are questioning the raw data. We are questioning the conclusions formed and then strongly questioning the suggested human behavioral changes your groups advocate

lazn

Or how about this: http://www.grist.org/article/CO2up

More CO2 in 2007 than worst predictions... Yet, as referenced above global temperature went down...

When the earth warms up, we get more C02 in the air, not the reverse. The cause and effect are being swapped, intentionally, by these people who PROFIT from their CO2 cap and trade companies! (Al Gore being one of them)

lazn

http://gribbitonline.com/2009/06/10/...-fabrications/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5E00_o_N4 (watch this video, scientist had to threaten to sue to have his name removed from the list of 2500 top scientists that supposedly support the IPCC)
http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+Study+...ticle15310.htm
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/...romm_bu_1.html

zmaniv

Well if plants love CO2 so much we should just all start growing large tracts of Marijuana.
Then we can all sit back and say f-it

Redone

This guy is a biologist and a high school teacher, who claims that all the chemists of the world don't know how to measure carbon dioxide.

I'm sensing a pattern here of people far from their field, with few credentials. I imagine the geologists and the weathermen can't be far behind.

Anywho, here's a detailed refutation of Beck's work on CO2 by a Ph.D. climatologist, actively engaged in research.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...to-the-future/

lazn

If the worst case predictions are true (which I don't believe) and it is CO2 that is the main driving factor and the thing we have to worry about (which it isn't).

The only reasonable solution is to kill as many humans as you can. Nothing else will make one lick of difference.

I lived in 3rd world countries most my early life. My parents are still in Africa trying to help people directly who actually need it, and are not some smug rich person driving a in a hybrid in California telling everyone else how to live.. And knowing human nature (from living where it gets exposed.. an African nation in civil war) there is no other way to stop people.

Developing countries will develop, and if you try to stop them, they will shoot you.

So, like I said, if you are so worried about it, commit suicide, or genocide, or learn to live with the results, just like the rest of us. (and be surprised when the world doesn't end in your lifetime as predicted)

Liquidogged

Ahh, the voice of reason. Not that you other guys aren't reasonable, but come on. This is the most common-sense, balanced post I've seen in ages. This IS a new science and it's fascinating to see it grow. I don't get why the comments that dissent from the OP seem so emotionally driven. If you guys really think global warming is a crock of ****, why do you get so excited and upset about someone claiming it's real?

Another thing, watch the sources you're referencing. The Mauna Loa thing is pretty standard, but some of the counter-points here used data from really obscure sites. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's a valid reference, and that goes for both "eco-freako" and non eco freako sources. www.anenglishmanscastle.com? WTF? If you're going to argue science with someone then you better come correct and cite something with a little more weight, maybe a peer-reviewed scientific journal or something of that nature. Yes, I know the OP did not cite a scientific journal in his original post but if you want to debate, the onus is on you to come up with something MORE compelling than the original guy.

Some of you feel that the whole idea of global warming is a ploy for greedy hands to reach further into our wallets and take more of personal freedoms. I'd argue that ANY idea with enough power to grip the minds of millions - media or no media - is an idea that someone's going to try to take advantage of for their own agenda/profit. That doesn't mean the science is bullshit. I'm sure there were people who called bullshit on the "world is round" theory when it first came around, mostly because it obviously benefitted merchants who were in the lucrative business of sending expeditions to other continents to rob and enslave less technologically advanced cultures. And yet, despite the profit made and evil acts committed because of the discovery of the world being round, it remains round. Asking someone not to believe in an idea because people have used that idea for ill purposes is like asking people to stop being religious because religious wars have killed a lot of people.

Sorry if I hijacked, carry on.

lazn

True, I probably shouldn't have just googled and gone with whatever came up. lol

But really I reacted this way because I find myself constantly shouted at by the media that CO2 will burn your house and rape your babies. I am SO SICK of hearing it that my natural reaction is to want to hit someone with a big stick.

It's like someone poking you on the chest for hours and hours and you can't slap their hand away.

Especially when it appears to not be as simple a correlation as presented. (and probably not even true)

Redone

This is what is known as "cherry-picking" looking at a small part of the data that supports your case. Lets look at ALL the data (since satellites made this stuff very accurate).



A few things are clear. Year to year things jump around a lot, aka "weather". But the range of the jumps follows a clear pattern of increase, aka "climate". And the years of the 21st century are quite close to the increasing trend. 9 of the ten warmest years are 2000-2008. The tenth is the highly unusual 1998.

So were does the common claim "we're cooling" come from? It's easy. Cover up all the data pre-1998 and presto - we're cooling.

Of course scientifically, that's ridiculous. "Cherry-picking" to the max. You could have made the same claim starting in 1991, and looking at the next several years. Or you could start in 1993 instead, and look only at 93-98. GOOD GRIEF, WE'RE DOOMED.

The fact is that take a carefully selected 7 year segment of the data, and you can show any damn thing you please. But try taking any 15 year segment. That's long enough for the weather to average out, and every one shows about the same trend.

But you really want to look at the whole 35 year record. That's science.

lazn

Ok if a simple high school teacher can see a problem does that mean there isn't a problem because he is only a high school teacher?

The dike in Holland was built by the GREATEST minds in the country, but it was a simple child that put his finger in it and held the water back. What if the people rather than going to help, said "oh it is just a kid saying that the dike is leaking, it was made by better men, ignore him" http://www.thehollandring.com/hans-brinker-story.shtml

I am not saying what he says is true, but I think throwing what he says out because of who he is, is akin to throwing out Dr. Carver's inventions because he was black.

Redone

And I'm not saying that. I'm just showing the data.

lazn

Why stop at 35 years? Go back all 5 billion.. What was the temperature 200 million years ago? And how much diversity in animals was there? Oh right, we think it was warmer, and there were more creatures (dinosaurs etc).

edit:

If we go back as far as we have data, it makes it look like in 1970 something we must have suddenly started farting CO2 at a horrendous rate, and all that industrial revolution the start of the century when we didn't have any pollution controls must have sucked CO2 out of the air somehow.

But even with that said we are talking fractions of a degree on a global scale. It's like worrying about one skin cell off your body falling off and ignoring the haircut you got yesterday.

Redone

Nope. But when he claims all the world's chemists don't know how to measure CO2, some skepticism is in order. The realclimate cite I made gives some more reasons for doubt.

There's a reason this guy's not front page news, and it isn't the "liberal media conspiracy".

Redone

The data gets shakier the farther you go back. But it's pretty clear something unusual is happening. 2000 year picture:



12000 years (back till we got out of the last ice age):



The black line doesn't end at the right hand edge. It jumps up, essentially vertically. We were in the long very slow cooling typical of periods after ice ages, when the temperature suddenly went nuts. A faster increase than when we were exiting the ice age.

The problem is not that we're getting so much hotter, that we're all going to fry. It's that we're getting warmer at a rate which will present challenges to adjust to.

lazn

On a similar note, only the skeptics seem to have data through 2008.. And the real alarmists stop their data at 2000 (like you said cherry picking data)

is 7 years out of 35 (if we take your cherry picked data set) or 20% of the data irrelevant because it shows cooling?

Redone

Good data. What happened in about 1970 was that we passed the Clean Air Act, and other nations followed. That cleaned up pollution that was counterbalancing the effects of greenhouse gases from about 1940-70. Scientists have looked at the numbers, and they compute.

As I said above, it's not the intensity of the change, it's the speed.

lazn

Challenges, sure.. but also opportunities.. We will have more land that will be better suited to growing crops.. (land that is currently frozen)

Or are you talking about non humans adjusting? From what I have seen, you take a cane toad to Australia and it adjusts so well it overwhelms the local fauna..

The world isn't static.. And trying to make it static is a fool's folly. Humans are part of the world, and we are a natural part of it. So even if we are warming it, that too is natural. So we might have to learn to live with our mess. Ok: we will, or we won't, and the next step on the ladder of evolution will replace us.

lazn

So cancel the clean air act and put those back into the air!

Redone

I quite agree that advocates on both sides cherry pick. Climatologists engaged in serious research, not so much. Note that I criticized cherry picking, posted ALL the data, and didn't do it, except as an illustration that you could pick a particular 7 year segment and get any result you wanted. So yes, 7 year segments don't tell you a damn thing.

CentralCoaster