Global Warming? They were scared of Global Cooling not too long ago...

[DaSmerg]

Global warming is become so politicized for this rationale...without doubt or question, the western world "drives" the global economy.  We have the populations that make the dollar, dollar bills who have disposable income to buy not only the essentials of life but also a bevvy of products and services.

The largest piece of this economic engine in the western world is in the United States.  

One small problem...this economic engine runs on fossil fuels.  The burning of fossil fuels is largely responsible for a larger than average year over year warming of the planet's atmosphere.  While we who sit atop the food chain barely notice this change, nor are we dramatically affected by it as we alter our environment to suit our needs, simpler life forms which make up the bulk of the food chain, are dramatically affected by changes in their environment, most especially dramatic ones, as they must adapt themselves over generations to their environment.

It is going to cost trillions to switch our economies off of fossil fuels nevermind the trillions it's going to cost to outfit our vast manufacturing processes with clean or "green" technologies.  For quite some time now, a conservative mindset has been in place both politically and economically.  Conservatives have historically resisted change.  This would be the rationale behind why we haven't even seen an attempt to curb our consumption of fossil fuels, nevermind put much faith in the science of so-called 'global warming' or seriously develop a replacement for the 19th century invention of the internal combustion engine.  More liberal elements, who have generally been open to rapid change and even successive rapid changes, see real opportunities in switching to "green technologies".  Without a doubt, when trillions are being spent, it doesn't take much of a genius to see opportunity no matter what your affiliation may be.

In a sense, who wants to really believe some of the science of global warming?  It's pretty nightmarish stuff at the alarmist end of the scale, just plain old frightening at the conservative end.  The real dillema is that leading scientists are saying we are rapidly approaching a point in time where we are going to see an increasing degradation of our global eco-system in the near term future.

Make sense/semi-accurate summary?

[MONOLITH]

Mankinds contributions to Greenhouse gases are less than 2%. All other atmospheric and climate changes are occuring naturally.

There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "
~Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist

The Kyoto Protocol calls for mandatory carbon dioxide reductions of 30% from developed countries like the U.S. Reducing man-made CO2 emissions this much would have an undetectable effect on climate while having a devastating effect on the U.S. economy.


http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html




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[DaSmerg]

Three Views on Global Warming-NPR circa 2004

Understanding Atmospheric Processes: Answering the "How?" and "Why?" Questions -NOAA

Global Warming Explained -Sierra Club

Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario - NASA

Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming Richard Lizden, C.M.P.M. @ MIT

Global Warming -Wikpedia

To name a few places to look for a variety of opinions...versus just one :wink:  

Interesting quote came up in the hunt though...

"Laypeople frequently assume that in a political dispute the truth must lie somewhere in the middle, and they are often right. In a scientific dispute, though, such an assumption is usually wrong." - Paul Ehrlich

[Ronin]

Another flaw in the Kyoto accord is that India and China are exempt from it.  In a few years China pass us as the worlds largest emitter of CO2.  And India will be right behind them.  Together, these two countries contain 1/3 of the world's population.  And they are exempt from the Kyoto accord.  Sounds to me like the Kyoto accord is really only designed to bring the economies of the developed world down to the level (or below it) of the "developing" nations.

I've said this before about the whole global warming/climate change thing.  If CO2 levels are the culprit why is no one talking about strategies to remove it from the atmosphere?  That would most certainly be easier to do than to just stop using combustion to power things.  And it wouldn't destroy the economies of the industrialized nations.

It's not just fossil fuels that create CO2 when burned.  Anything you burn that has carbon in it will generate CO2 (as well as CO).  So if we switched to 100% ethanol tomorrow, it wouldn't make any difference at all.  It would just reduce our dependency on oil which isn't a bad thing.  But it's not a solution.  

Burning hydrogen wouldn't generate CO2.  But it would generate water vapor which is supposed to be an even better "greenhouse" gas than CO2.  So that doesn't solve the "problem" either.

Of course the whole premise above is that man made CO2 is causing global warming.  Which is not in any way an established fact.  It is a theory (just like evolution) that is believed to be a plausible explanation.

And don't forget that even if CO2 is the cause.  Man isn't the only generator of CO2.  Mount Pinatubo put more CO2 into the atmosphere than man has since the Industrial Revolution began (source ).

[MONOLITH]

[versus just one :wink:  

Versus just one...... becuase I only had a minute to devote to it. I was just bringing up another perspective, not competing for how many sites we could google.

I'm sure if I chose to sit here all day I could make it 300 versus your 6, but what would be the point?

[DaSmerg]

Just had a little more time than you...that and the links I listed offer a variety of Global Warming informational, pro and against.

IMHO on Kyote, it's biggest flaw...other than the U.S., India and China not being part of it...was the trading of credits.

[DaSmerg]

Of course the whole premise above is that man made CO2 is causing global warming.  Which is not in any way an established fact.  It is a theory (just like evolution) that is believed to be a plausible explanation.
 

Might want to becareful how you are interpreting scientific "theory" versus how we use word "theroy" in everday language.  Mike will be beating you with a dictionary

[Ronin]

Might want to becareful how you are interpreting scientific "theory" versus how we use word "theroy" in everday language.  Mike will be beating you with a dictionary

You're right.  Anthropogenic global warming is actually more of a hypothesis than a theory. :tongue:

[Ronin]

Just had a little more time than you...that and the links I listed offer a variety of Global Warming informational, pro and against.

The link I posted was just to show that I [didn't] make that up... :roll: I didn't mean to start number of links contest.

[Zazoo]

Everyone here is in agreement that the issue of Global Warming/Global Climate Change has been highly politicized -- to the point of interfering with legitimate scientific research (and the distillation and dissemination of scientific findings to the public). Objective scientific research and inquiry is being hijacked and derailed by government, industry, and special interests.
Yet... people are still posting links and information about global warming that originate from sources that are either considered special interest groups/organizations or have had highly questionable ties to special interest groups, government and/or industry (CO2Science, The Sierra Club, etc.).

It's like fighting misinformation and cherry-picked scientific data/research with even more misinformation and cherry-picked scientific data/research -- all while acknowledging what a huge problem misinformation and cherry-picked scientific data/research have become in the world of objective science. :tongue:

Just my two-cents.
~Mike

[Ronin]

I agree, Mike.  It's almost impossible to find accurate and unbiased information about the whole issue.

There is also the issue with some people confusing million and billion (which is a whopper of a discrepancy).  To some people, the value 1000000 is a million.  And to others the value 1000000 is a billion.  This is because of confusion caused by the value mille in some languages which means 1000 (or 1/1000).

According to the USGS, Mount Pinatubo put out a minimum of 47 MILLION metric tons of CO2 during it's 1991 eruption.  Another website (can'tseetheforest.org) says that humans cause about 6.5 BILLION metric tons to be released into the atmosphere every year.  But NASA says that humans emitted ~25 MILLION metric tons of CO2 in 2003.  And on the SAME PAGE, a graphic says that value is ~25 BILLION metric tons. Who do you believe?  Can you believe any of them? :roll:

If you take the BILLIONs of tons figure from the NASA page then the Mount Pinatubo emission claim is wrong (assuming the NASA and USGS pages are correct -- a big assumption).  But if you take the MILLIONs of tons figure then the Mount Pinatubo comparison is correct.  The worst part is you don't know which figure might be skewed. It could even be that both figures are wrong.  You would HOPE that report from the USGS and NASA would at least have their facts right.  But even the NASA page contradicts itself.  Oy vey!  :hmm:

So not only do disinformation and misinformation run rampant.  But there appears to be a confusion factor mixed in as well.  Is it any wonder many people are skeptical? :tongue:

[Zazoo]

But NASA says that humans emitted ~25 MILLION metric tons of CO2 in 2003.  And on the SAME PAGE, a graphic says that value is ~25 BILLION metric tons.

LOL! You'd think they'd have learned to be a little more careful with numbers after crashing-and-burning that Mars probe.  link?


~Mike

[Ronin]

LOL! You'd think they'd have learned to be a little more careful with numbers after crashing-and-burning that Mars probe.  link?


~Mike

OOPS, I made a mistake.  The page isn't from NASA (not sure why I thought it was -- probably from a previous page).  It's from the DOE.

Here's the linky:  http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/emissions.html

You'd think the most authoritative data would come from NOAA.  But I haven't seen a link about CO2 emissions (from Google anyway) to a NOAA site.  Maybe I just haven't dug far enough.

[Frozyn]

I want to preface by saying that most of my knowledge comes from one of my Biology professors last semester, Donal Manahan. He's been to Antarctica 3 times and, irrelevant to this discussion, has been the Lead Scientist on the US research vessel Atlantis. He's briefed Congress multiple times on the effects/possibility of climate change.

Yes, global warming occurs naturally. It is a natural process that will take its toll no matter what we do. There is no way, at this time, to prevent it from happening and I doubt there ever will be.

According to his lecturing, CO2 levels are at the highest the world has seen in the past 10,000 years. That number is larger, but 10K is the farthest back I can remember him saying, so we'll go with that.

http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/7065/gwcchi1.jpg

If I'm remembering correctly, that was approximately where he circled the slide during lecture. It may be higher, but it was no lower than what I circled. The picture itself shows a correlation between carbon dioxide levels and arctic temperatures. As CO2 increases, the arctic temperatures increase. This increase is what explains the melting of the polar ice caps periodically over the history of the earth. The little dip that you can see in the exponential increase, if you look very closely, on the far left of the graph, is the Middle Age cool-down, caused by its "ice age".

EDIT: Here's a link talking about a study from Science how CO2 is the highest its been in 650K years.

Global warming is happening. It will cause the ice caps to melt and flood the earth, cause an ice age, et cetera. This knowledge comes from deep-core studies of ice from Antarctica. They take deep-core samples from the ice, age it via carbon-dating or other methods, and study the CO2 levels. My professor said during his work there were obvious CO2 level differences between ice cores 10, 200 years ago and 9,900 years ago.

The main disagreement is found when such arguments as "when will this happen" and "what will it cause" come up. No one can be positive as to when the ice caps will completely melt, or at least melt to the point of causing another Ice Age. Models 20 years ago said 10s of 1000s of years. 10 years ago said 1000s of years. Models today are bringing predictions even closer to home, from 60-200 years.

It is going to happen. It's inevitable, according to Nature's Laws (Earth, not the journal :wink:). But we can affect how soon it happens. If we drastically cut down CO2 emissions, it can delay the Ice Age. The major problem is knowing the Tipping Point. How much CO2 is too much? How long can the earth sustain at this level? No one knows for sure. There isn't any climatological data from the time leading up to the last Ice Age.

Anyways, that's just a few of my thoughts. I have to go finish my paper on cold fusion.

Cheers!

[Zazoo]

Alright Ronin, I'm obviously blind...
Where in the text is the 25 million part?
Way too many numbers and charts on that page. :tongue:

~Mike

[Zazoo]

Donal Manahan. He's been to Antarctica 3 times

Somewhat of an derailment... but this reminded me:
Wasn't KornKob's dad an Antarctic geologist/climatologist/something-ologist? I remember him posting pictures when I was on Pie's. Am I crazy? Anyone remember this?

Speaking of which, anyone heard from Kob lately...? How's he doing?

Sorry. Back on topic.
~Mike

[Ronin]

Alright Ronin, I'm obviously blind...
Where in the text is the 25 million part?
Way too many numbers and charts on that page. :tongue:

~Mike

The ~25 Million ton figure is in the last sentence in the second paragraph.  The ~25 Billion ton figure is in the first chart on the right.  Just opposite the ~25 Million ton figure.

 That page desperately needs a redesign.  Ick!

[Dr.Jeckyl]

ooo.. wait i have a novel idea. instead of us fighting about whether or not global warming is real or not, how about we just pretend it is and clean up our act anyways? what would the harm be in that? :wink:

[Zazoo]

ooo.. wait i have a novel idea. instead of us fighting about whether or not global warming is real or not, how about we just pretend it is and clean up our act anyways? what would the harm be in that? :wink:

The voice of reason.

~Mike

[Zazoo]

The ~25 Million ton figure is in the last sentence in the second paragraph.  The ~25 Billion ton figure is in the first chart on the right.  Just opposite the ~25 Million ton figure.

 That page desperately needs a redesign.  Ick!

That's 25 billion tons (25,028 million tons). :wink:  

I agree though. Definitely needs a redesign. Too much information with very little organization to tie everything together.
~Mike