Your argument treats all CO2 as a pollutant. Nobody advocates eliminating all CO2 – which would mean the end of life on earth! What is important is what is happening at the margins – the balance between emissions and sequestering.
We seem to be adding more CO2 to the air than can be sequestered due to natural processes. Thus if only .3% of CO2 is not sequestered per year, by the end of a decade you have a 3% increase in global CO2 levels. But even this rate of increase seems to be increasing.
I think a number of people don’t believe the claims of global warming because the people making those claims aren’t acting like it’s real. Take Al Gore for one, who personally showed up (late) to help with the Kyoto accord, but he arrived (of course) in his own personal 747–not exactly the most low-emission vehicle.
Also, while environmentalists are warning about warming, they’re vehemently hostile towards any solution which is not either[ul][li]returning to preindustrial society, orusing only solar power (wind power is dangerous for birds, and hydro disrupts marine ecology).[/ul] For example, one person wants to drop iron in an iron-poor area of the ocean to foster a phytoplankton bloom to increase the subduction of CO[sub]2[/sub] into the ocean. It could potentially eliminate the excess of CO[sub]2[/sub] in the atmosphere, and give us time to find methods to reduce our emissions.[/li]
Yet all I saw in reply to the suggestion was predictions of doom and gloom if we were to attempt to tamper with the ocean’s ecology, etc. As if they weren’t saying that global warming will destroy the ocean too…
So until people start acting like they’re willing to go with a solution that’s feasible and that the public will accept, I can’t fully accept that the claims of global warming are true.
Source please. I’d really like to see a good estimate of this somewhere–it would debunk one of the major arguments I’ve seen against global warming.
Even if I saw some proof that the Earth was warming (and I don’t think we have been tracking worldwide average temperature long enough to be sure that it is a long-term trend), that would not convince me that this was because of human activity. I accept that the world may be warming, it’s about time for this ice age to end. Should we be looking into planning for a warmer world? Probably would be a good idea, but the change will be slow enough that we don’t really need to worry about it now - what would we do, start moving people out of coastal regions before the waters rise? It’s not like we are going to wake up one morning and the ice caps are melted and water levels are suddenly 30 feet higher…water levels would rise maybe a few inches a year, at most.
We neet to keep in mind that our planet’s climate changes, and there is a good chance we are going through a rather major change now. IF the scientific community does come to agree that this is NOT natural and is a direct result of something we are doing, we should probably stop doing whatever is causing it. If it is natural, however, we should concentrate on adapting.
Eliminating CO2 emissions would be VERY expensive. This would reduce the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people around the world, because we would all have to pay for it. It’s not a step to be taken lightly, it should only be done in the face of a real, proven problem and only if it will make a difference.
Now I know you haven’t bothered to actually read the materials I have provided. I do get annoyed by this, above all when people make arguments from ignorance.
I’m coming to the conclusion that your position is a priori and not susceptible to data. Or you just don’t want to look at data.
No, actually it isn’t by average, but we can’t know when “it is time for” anything in re climate. A meaningless statement.
Again, I refer you to the data, and my citations.
Oh yes we do. Large effects are rather difficult to counter, rather like stopping a barrelling freight train. Research and modest steps early in the process are much better than sitting around with a thumb up our butts saying, ah its in the future.
Other items:
Astroid crashing into the Earth in our lifetimes greater risk than…??? Al Gore flying on a place reflecting reality of global warming???
Sometimes I become depressed running into popular ideas about risk, science and causation. Bother.
Isn’t there news that the polar ice is melting?
I seem to recall reading that there is a lot more water spots up (or down) there than usual.
What If there was a massive meltdown?
What places would be flooded?
What if it was a sloooow melt?
Yep, the Polar Ice has thinned substantially in the past decade AND last summer observers noticed a slushy, not entirely frozen area of sea ice at the North Pole.
As for your questions, polar ice melting won’t do much to sea level since that ice is mostly floating in the ocean already (ice already displaces the water, just as melting ice in a full drink won’t cause the drink to overflow the glass).
Greenland’s ice, Antarctica’s ice, and other ice either on land, or supported by land, is another story. When it melts, it will send freshwater into the oceans, changing the salinity and density of ocean water while raising sea levels. This should be a gradual process. However, the Antarctic ice shelves could raise sea levels rapidly and catastrophically if they were to fall into the ocean suddenly, just as dropping an big ice cube into a full drink displaces the liquid in the drink, spills it on the counter, and gets your wife upset with you when you don’t clean it up.
No, Santa won’t drown. Fat makes people more buoyant, so he’d float long enough for the reindeer to pull him out. (Provided he met the terms of their latest contract arbitration for better work conditions.)
Actually, in terms of BTUs of energy consumed per passenger per mile, I’ve heard that the 747 is the second most efficient vehicle on Earth after the bicycle.
This comes from an erronious article from the NY Times. They breathlessly reported that there were open water spots in the North Polar ice cap, but that turned out to be a fairly normal summer phenomenon.
On the other hand, many glaciers have been shrinking for years. I saw a couple with my own eyes in the Rocky Mountains last summer – one in Jasper Park (Canada) and another in Glacier National Park. IMHO there is considerable evidence that some sort of long-term warming has been taking place.
Citation please. That’s for a full 747, right? Not one carrying one self-important diplomat and his staff, correct? Furthermore, my comment was about emissions, not BTU’s consumed.
First my apologies for citing to non-public website, normally I check that, but somehow I thought these articles were non-pay.
But, no I can’t share my password/username as they’re not my property per se, corp. sub. However, given Science is a widely available publication in even the most sketchy of libraries… At the very least, I should think we should not see any more statements in re not knowing of evidence. If one wishes to ignore that’s one thing, however the citations are there. I also direct everyone to the other, public sites which contain a wealth of data. I do mean a wealth.
If by “emissions” you mean traditional pollutants, then this has nothing to do with global warming or the Kyoto accord.
If by “emissions” you mean CO[SUB]2[/SUB], i.e. greenhouse gases, then this is directly related to the number of BTUs worth of fuel-energy consumed. Burning one gallon of jet fuel produces almost exactly the same amount of CO[SUB]2[/SUB], regardless of the fuel economy of the vehicle it is burned in, and regardless of how many unwanted pollutants the engine produces – pollutants are usually measured in parts per million.
I’m not saying I don’t trust you Collounsbury, but those links you provided COULD be to articles that were extremely biased, or even articles that had nothing to do with what we are talking about.
I’m sorry that I don’t have cites for my POV. I don’t keep track of them, and a lot of them are from less-than-reputable (by some people’s standards) sources. Every time I see something on global warming (or any other topic I have an interest in) I read it…but I don’t record where I read it and it’s page number…maybe I should start…but what I’m trying to say is that there is that the scientific community has not reached some kind of consensus that the climate is changing and that it is being caused by man, there are still those who disagree, and they can’t just be ignored (unless you are the type to ignore those who disagree with you). There are no reputable scientists who don’t believe that an asteroid could hit the Earth…there ARE reputable scientists who don’t believe mankind has anything to do with global warming. I’m not saying we should ignore the issue, but I do think we should learn more about it before we jump to conclusions, that’s all.
BTW, by ‘not reputable’ I don’t mean I am getting my info and basing my opinions on what uneducated whackos believe. I am a SF fan and I have learned a lot from Analog magazine, which also has non-fiction essays…a lot of the more knowledgeable SF authors (i.e. Larry Niven, David Brin, etc.) do not believe that humans are causing global warming, and I personally believe them, though they are not necessarily experts in their field (Niven majored in mathematics I believe, and I don’t know off the top of my head what Brin is an expert on, if anything).
I understand your concern as well as your inebriation as I am also.
Science is not of course always peer-reviewed, and so I myself approach it with caution. However, I believe if you review the other citations provided you should be able to see a trend. Insofar as peer-reviewed consensus --my references to consensus are not throwaways-- is running in a certain direction (note, not one publication but many) one should take notice. I do admit, however, that I do not follow this as closely as I should so I’m not claiming full certitude, but given what I have seen, I think this is accurate.
I’ll also, since in this thread I am told I have a rep --interesting-- will lay my own rep on the line. I believe my postings were fairly delibrative. To restate, it appears that consensus is there is global warming, significant and climate-wise rapid; there is significant and meaningful human contribution, recent data reinforcing this view; however mechanisms, inputs remain unclear.
On the other hand, this is not a home run per se (as per race, for example) and so there is some room for discussion around level of significance of human role – although I think it fair to say the burden of proof is shifting.
As such, policy should be cautious, per my original contribution.
In essence, I am stating that the data refutes a non-global warming position, as well as human role unimportant position. However, the data does not support a particular strategy or policy in re human actions. My personal position is that extreme solutions like Kyoto are wrong-headed but moderate responses whose utility goes beyond “global warming” such as moves to energy efficiency are, above all if they are market oriented.
I leave aside the opinions of SF authors who may or may not be literate in science or more directly, up to date.
