# How many people take Global Warming totally on faith? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2007, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356 "2007-08-21T13:06:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/141 "2007-08-22T03:59:31Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > There’s absolutely no actual evidence for the A in AGW. Lots of models but no actual evidence > … > **Gigobuster** claimed that CO2 was the main cause of the warming. The rise in CO2 levels is well documented. But correllation does not imply causation. Let him prove his claim. > … > In all the discussions I’ve had and papers I’ve read, there has been not one shred of actual proof of AGW. Not one shred. [QUOTE=Matt] The cite assumes that greenhouse gases are the cause of observed warming, it doesn’t show it. Showing that is rather more difficult. [/QUOTE] What exact kind of evidence and/or proof would you folks consider valid? What fact, test, measurement, argument, or other element of a proof would convince you? IOW what has not been produced in argument here that, if it were, would sway you? Is there anything at all? If AGW was true how would the situation differ from what we see around us? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/142 "2007-08-22T05:05:49Z")
**kanicbird** , do you believe that AGW is another false religion fostered by demons and or devils? ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/143 "2007-08-22T08:35:15Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] They would assume only if they had no justifications, did you bother to read the rest? [/quote] The rest of what? It’s a one-page pdf, “slide 17”, and I read all of it. No I didn’t read slides 1-16. You declared “CO2 is the major contributor to global warming” which may well be true. I’m just disputing the strength of your cite. It is a pie chart of estimated gas releases over the next century, the proportions of which are weighted by the effectiveness of each gas as a greenhouse gas. It doesn’t show any _data_, any _evidence_, or any _physics_. [QUOTE=GIGObuster] Unless you can find a valid alternative physical explanation, the evidence of the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are there. [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11638](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11638) [/quote] Again you make a declaration, but this time your cite is even worse. It has nothing to do with the _effects_ of CO[sub]2[/sub]! It is all about the increased _level_ of CO[sub]2[/sub], and how that increase is the result of human activity. And very few people dispute that. [QUOTE=GIGObuster] There is that, and then finding that the Sun was not the main factor, as it was mentioned before by many contrarians, is what is convincing me that it is faith what is keeping climate change deniers going. [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11650](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11650) [/quote] And this is fine. A strong cite that relates to your declaration. Okay, so I’m a dreadful nitpicker! I just have a very low tolerance for cites that don’t support their related statements. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/144 "2007-08-22T08:54:12Z")
[QUOTE=matt] Okay, so I’m a dreadful nitpicker! I just have a very low tolerance for cites that don’t support their related statements. [/QUOTE] That is only when you \*assume \* 🙂 they are not based on evidence, the original cite has the links to the science those “slides” are being based: [http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publications/scitech/index.html](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publications/scitech/index.html) That was one of the reasons why I picked that site, and because it had good examples and charts. It is because in a subject like this one that has many people falling for confusion, I see the need for science to present the evidence in a more accessible or educational way, even so it seems that it is a problem for people like \*\*brazil84 \*\* that call the lack of easier to take examples a “cop out”. So, care for an 18 MB PDF file? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/145 "2007-08-22T08:57:04Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] I do find that non/antibelievers take a certain amount of pride in not worshiping or believing in any god, and IMHO would find the suggestion that indeed they do worship a god. So I do expect resistance to this idea from non/antibelievers. [/QUOTE] I must have missed the bit where you polled the people who disagree with you on whether AGW is a religion. How do you know that the people who are resisting you on this idea are non/antibelievers? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/146 "2007-08-22T09:13:56Z")
[QUOTE=matt] Again you make a declaration, but this time your cite is even worse. It has nothing to do with the effects of CO2! It is all about the increased level of CO2, and how that increase is the result of human activity. And very few people dispute that. [/QUOTE] I got into that article because it showed why explanations by contrarians do not stand to scrutiny regarding their points that CO2 is not coming from human activities. This is the article I meant to link first: [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11652](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11652) ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/147 "2007-08-22T09:37:46Z")
[QUOTE=LilShieste] There’s been plenty of evidence provided in the threads you referenced earlier. [/quote] No, there hasn’t. There’s been no evidece whatsoever presented linking the rise in CO2 levels with the rise in temperature. Equally, there’s been no evidence linking the rise in temperature with the solar sunspot activity. There is correllation in both cases but the link has been shown in neither. > [@](#): > > Do you not think the excess CO2 is responsible for the warming? I don’t know whether the increase in CO2 is relevant or isn’t > [@](#): > > If so, then why not? Sorry, but it’s for those making the claim to prove their point. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/148 "2007-08-22T09:46:44Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] As you state, no I don’t think the whole study is highly suspect, and I think many people have honestly dedicated their lives to such work to unraveling this, but as you know a small change in data by even a single person can vastly change the results, especially in things that are just barely measurable above the noise level. And I don’t think anyone can deny there is very strong political motivation for AGW to be proved true (or by others be proved false). [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=kanicbird] The scientific process, what I see as the study of God’s creation, is fine in and of itself. It is the corruption of this process that I see problems with. With such a dramatic life changing issue that this could mean I see great potential for abuse. [/QUOTE] Seems to me that you are thinking that it is all a conspiracy. So far, I see the abuse is coming from the side that wants to deny the evidence. [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11653](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11653) > [@](#): > > Conspiracy (noun): a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. > > If you believe that tens of thousands of scientists are colluding in a massive conspiracy, nothing anyone can say is likely to dissuade you. But there are less extreme versions of this argument. > > One is that climate scientists foster alarmism about global warming to boost their funding. Another is that climate scientists’ dependence on government funding ensures they toe the official line (pdf). > > It has taken more than a century to reach the current scientific consensus on climate change ([see Many leading scientists question the idea of human-induced climate change](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11654)). It has come about through a steadily growing body of evidence from many different sources, and the process has hardly been secret. > > Now that there is a consensus, those whose findings challenge the orthodoxy are always going have a tougher time convincing their peers, as in any field of science. For this reason, there will inevitably be pressure on scientists who challenge the consensus. But findings or ideas that clash with the idea of human-induced global warming have not been suppressed or ignored – far from it. > [@](#): > > Under pressure > As for the idea that scientists change their tune to keep their paymasters happy, under the current US administration many scientists claim they have been pressurised to tone down findings relating to climate change ([see US fudging of climate science details revealed](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11417)). > > Indeed, those campaigning for action to prevent further warming have had to battle against huge vested interests, including the fossil-fuel industry and its many political allies. Many of the individuals and organisations challenging the idea of global warming have received funding from companies such as ExxonMobil. > > That in itself does not necessarily mean that the sceptics are wrong, of course. Nor does the fact that most scientists believe in climate change necessarily make it true. What counts is the evidence. And the evidence – that the world is getting warmer, that the warming is largely due to human emissions, and that the downsides of further warming will outweigh the positive effects – is very strong and getting stronger. > > Finally, perhaps the most bizarre conspiracy-related claim is that the journalists covering science have an interest in promoting global warming. > > Journalists do have an interest in promoting themselves (and their books), while their employers want to boost their audience and sell advertising. Publicity helps with all these aims, but you get far more publicity by challenging the mainstream view than by promoting it. Which helps explain why so many sections of the media continue to publish or broadcast the claims of deniers, regardless of their merit. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/149 "2007-08-22T09:48:22Z")
[QUOTE=Askance] What exact kind of evidence and/or proof would you folks consider valid? [/QUOTE] Actual positive experimental proof that can be and is independently validated. No models involved. Not merely simply noting the coincidence between the rise in CO2 and the rise in temperature; there are other coincidences. I’m not sufficiently expert to define it further save to say that I’ll know it when I see it. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/150 "2007-08-22T09:54:08Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] don’t know whether the increase in CO2 is relevant or isn’t. [/QUOTE] Relevant? Do you mean that you don’t know whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Or that you don’t know whether CO2 is a factor in global warming? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/151 "2007-08-22T09:54:13Z")
**Quartz** - you do acknowledge that CO[sub]2[/sub] absorbs solar radiation (more than, say, Nitrogen), don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/152 "2007-08-22T10:03:20Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] No, there hasn’t. There’s been no evidece whatsoever presented linking the rise in CO2 levels with the rise in temperature. Equally, there’s been no evidence linking the rise in temperature with the solar sunspot activity. There is correllation in both cases but the link has been shown in neither. [/quote] [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11652](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11652) > [@](#): > > Double up > But the overall quantities of these other gases are tiny. Even allowing for the relative strength of the effects, [CO2 is still responsible for two-thirds of the additional warming](http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf) caused by all the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activity. [QUOTE=Quartz] I don’t know whether the increase in CO2 is relevant or isn’t [/QUOTE] [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm) > [@](#): > > The complacent view that CO2 from human activity could never become a problem was overturned during the 1950s by a series of costly observations. This was a consequence of the Second World War and the Cold War, which brought a new urgency to many fields of research. American scientists enjoyed massively increased government funding, notably from military agencies. The officials were not aiming to answer academic questions about future climates, but to provide for pressing military needs. Almost anything that happened in the atmosphere and oceans could be important for national security. Among the first products were new data for the absorption of infrared radiation, a topic of more interest to weapons engineers than meteorologists.(23) > > The early experiments that sent radiation through gases in a tube, measuring bands of the spectrum at sea-level pressure and temperature, had been misleading. The bands seen at sea level were actually made up of overlapping spectral lines, which in the primitive early instruments had been smeared out into broad bands. Improved physics theory and precise laboratory measurements in the 1940s and after encouraged a new way of looking at the absorption. Scientists were especially struck to find that at low pressure and temperature, each band resolved into a cluster of sharply defined lines, like a picket fence, with gaps between the lines where radiation would get through.(24) The most important CO2 absorption lines did not lie exactly on top of water vapor lines. Instead of two overlapping bands, there were two sets of narrow lines with spaces for radiation to slip through. So even if water vapor in the lower layers of the atmosphere did entirely block any radiation that could have been absorbed by CO2, that would not keep the gas from making a difference in the rarified and frigid upper layers. Those layers held very little water vapor anyway. And scientists were coming to see that you couldn’t just calculate absorption for radiation passing through the atmosphere as a whole, you had to understand what happened in each layer — which was far harder to calculate. > > Digital computers were now at hand for such calculations. The theoretical physicist Lewis D. Kaplan decided it was worth taking some time away from what seemed like more important matters to grind through extensive numerical computations. In 1952, he showed that in the upper atmosphere, adding more CO2 must change the balance of radiation significantly.(25) > > But would adding carbon dioxide in the upper layers of the air significantly change the surface temperature? Only detailed computations, point by point across the infrared spectrum and layer by layer up through the atmosphere, could answer that question. By 1956, such computations could be carried out thanks to the increasing power of digital computers. The physicist Gilbert N. Plass took up the challenge of calculating the transmission of radiation through the atmosphere, nailing down the likelihood that adding more CO2 would increase the interference with infrared radiation.(26) Going beyond this qualitative result, Plass announced that human activity would raise the average global temperature “at the rate of 1.1 degree C per century.” > > The computation, like Callendar’s, paid no attention to possible changes in water vapor and clouds, and overall was too crude to convince scientists. “It is almost certain,” one authority scolded, “that these figures will be subject to many strong revisions.”(27) Yet Plass had proved one central point: it was a mistake to dismiss the greenhouse effect with spectroscopic arguments. He warned that climate change could be “a serious problem to future generations” — although not for several centuries. Following the usual pattern, Plass was mainly interested in the way variations in CO2 might solve the mystery of the ice ages. “If at the end of this century the average temperature has continued to rise,” he wrote, then it would be “firmly established” that CO2 could cause climate change.(28) > > None of this work met the argument that the oceans would promptly absorb nearly all the CO2 humanity might emit. Plass had estimated that gas added to the atmosphere would stay there for a thousand years. Equally plausible estimates suggested that the surface waters of the oceans would absorb it in a matter of days.(29) Fortunately, scientists could now track the movements of carbon with a new tool — the radioactive isotope carbon-14. This isotope is created by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere and then decays over millennia. The carbon in ancient coal and oil is so old that it entirely lacks the radioactive isotope. In 1955, the chemist Hans Suess reported that he had detected this fossil carbon in the atmosphere. > > The amount that Suess measured in the atmosphere was barely one percent, a fraction so low that he concluded that the oceans were indeed taking up most of the carbon that came from burning fossil fuels. A decade would pass before he reported more accurate studies, which showed a far higher fraction of fossil carbon. Yet already in 1955 it was evident that Suess’s data were preliminary and insecure. The important thing he had demonstrated was that fossil carbon really was showing up in the atmosphere. More work on carbon-14 should tell just what was happening to the fossil carbon.(30) > > Suess took up the problem in collaboration with Roger Revelle at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. (Some other carbon-14 experts attacked the topic independently, all reaching much the same conclusions.) From measurements of how much of the isotope was found in the air and how much in sea water, they calculated the movements of CO2 (link from below). It turned out that the ocean surface waters took up a typical molecule of CO2 from the atmosphere within a decade or so. Radiocarbon data also showed that the oceans turned over completely in several hundred years, an estimate soon confirmed by evidence from other studies.(31) At first sight that seemed fast enough to sweep any extra CO2 into the depths. > > But Revelle had been studying the chemistry of the oceans through his entire career, and he knew that the seas are not just salt water but a complex stew of chemicals. These chemicals create a peculiar buffering mechanism that stabilizes the acidity of sea water. The mechanism had been known for decades, but Revelle now realized that it would prevent the water from retaining all the extra CO2 it took up. A careful look showed that the surface layer could not really absorb much gas — barely one-tenth the amount a naïve calculation would have predicted. [QUOTE=Quartz] Sorry, but it’s for those making the claim to prove their point. [/QUOTE] Sorry, you need to check what was posted earlier. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/153 "2007-08-22T11:14:36Z")
[QUOTE=netsplit] Removing our dependence from fossil fuels also has another important point. The oil’s gonna run out! You don’t honestly believe there’s an infinite supply of it do you? Now we can either ween ourselves of it now, or really suffer when it runs out. [/QUOTE] The other side of this is that God has provided us with plenty of oil and coal (and nuke), there is no need to switch to biofuels at this time, a energy intensive immature technology where we will be burning our very food supplies in our gas tanks. This could cause a worse famine then the global temperature rising. [QUOTE=Der Trihs] Not only is there no evidence for gods, false or not, but there’s no reason to consider one god any falser than any other. [/QUOTE] In Christianity a false god can mean anything that one places as a priority in their life, such as money. [QUOTE=Der Trihs] he’s more likely to lie or be deluded about it. Besides the basic mental handicap of being religious, Christianity has a strong strain of anti-environmentalism, anti-futurism, and apocalyptism. [/QUOTE] **Der Trihs** there are many self professes Christians, but very few who actually are Christ centered, those who are really servants of Jesus as their king. This touches again with the discussion with **Revenant Threshold** , you can have someone who says the are a Christian but puts Jesus on the back burner and actually are worshiping money or at the alter of AGW. When I stated above that I am more likely to accept AGW witnessing from a Christian, I am referring to the small circle of people I know are truely Christ centered, not just anyone who has a lit up tree in December. The number of these people seems unfortunately very small. > [@](#): > > Talking about a near-certainty and modifying your lifestyle to accommodate it is not even close to religion. It even has it’s own phophit , well several, but lets stick with one, Al Gore, Son of rich man, has seen the light and flies around in a bio-fuel private jet, flying commercial when he can, offsetting every carbon atom he releases into the atmosphere by carbon credits, living the perfect life, telling the masses to repent, stop releasing carbon, become carbon neutral to reach carbon nirvana, if you can’t now, reduce your carbon footprint as much as you can - or else out god will deliver the disasters I have phrophisized about in my movies. [QUOTE=Raygun99] I find it interesting that there seems to be a certain segment of religious people that just can’t accept that there are people that don’t need religion. [/QUOTE] But there was a thread not to long ago on this very board, IIRC it cited a study that found that man is hardwired to have a god. [QUOTE=Askance] This ridiculous claim assumes that the Evil Scientists are in the upper classes. Do you have any idea of what a climatologist gets paid versus, say, an oil company PR flak? How often they get invited to the White House? [/QUOTE] Speculating on a reason a rich evil member of a political party has a advantage to strike fear in the heart of the general public, so he offers hard working, but barely making it scientist a bribe, maybe cash, or nice cushy government job or grant, to research AGW in a way that favors that end. Yes total speculation, but lower class people corrupted by the rich is not unheard of in human history. [QUOTE=Czarcasm] kanicbird, do you believe that AGW is another false religion fostered by demons and or devils? [/QUOTE] Whenever corruption enters it does open the door to demonic influence. We have at least 2 sides, AGW supporters and deniers there is the appearance of corruption on at least one side as numbers are numbers. And the closer a issue gets to becoming a god, the more opportunity people may open themselves to demonic oppression. Is it possible that part of AGW issue is satanic/demonic in nature - yes. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/154 "2007-08-22T11:21:25Z")
[QUOTE=Askance] What exact kind of evidence and/or proof would you folks consider valid? What fact, test, measurement, argument, or other element of a proof would convince you? IOW what has not been produced in argument here that, if it were, would sway you? Is there anything at all? If AGW was true how would the situation differ from what we see around us? [/QUOTE] That is an excellent question. Certain facts are not in dispute. 1. Humans have been extracting ancient sequestered carbon and burning it, raising the level of atmospheric CO2. 2. There appears to be a measurable warming trend in the global temperature over the past century or so. This is not quite as clear-cut as many people seem to think, the USA temperature record for example shows a much weaker warming trend, if any at all, than the global average. Compare: [http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/new\_Fig.A.lrg.gif](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/new_Fig.A.lrg.gif) with [http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D\_lrg.gif](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D_lrg.gif). Personally, I was convinced of the _fact_ of global warming because the sea shows a warming trend, and I trust sea measurements rather more than those of land weather stations. 3. CO2 acts to alter the energy balance of Earth by trapping longwave emissions from the Earth’s surface. So far so good. Now we have to look at the overall physics. There is a nice little summary of the Earth’s energy balance given on this page: [http://www.eoearth.org/article/Earth’s\_energy\_balance](http://www.eoearth.org/article/Earth's_energy_balance) Take a good look at figures 6 and 7, there’s something worth noting. 90% of the longwave energy emitted from the surface is _already_ trapped by greenhouse gases. That is why the Earth is habitable in the first place. _The atmosphere is already close to opaque to the longwave energy emitted from the Earth’s surface._ Now, something that I haven’t seen much discussion of is _stability_. The balance between incoming and outgoing energy is an equilibrium, the question is what kind of equilibrium? Stable, neutral or unstable? The differences are shown here, top figure. [Equilibrium, Stability, and Behavior over time](http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/models/EqStBOT.html) If the equilibrium is stable, then if you nudge the system out of equilbrium, there will be negative feedbacks to bring it back. Like a marble in the bottom of a bowl. If the equilibrium is unstable, it is like a pencil balanced on its point. The slightest nudge will send it crashing away from its equilibrium state. People arguing for global warming are in the habit of pointing out all sorts of positive feedbacks that should make the climate an unstable equilibrium. Examples: a) If the temperature goes up, there will be greater evaporation from the oceans, which increases the amount of water vapour, which is a greenhouse gas and so it will get even hotter. And vice versa. b) If the temperature goes up, the solubility of CO2 in the ocean decreases so it’ll release more CO2, which is a greenhouse gas so it will get even hotter. And vice versa. c) If the temperature goes up, it’ll melt the reflective white polar ice, decreasing the Earth’s albedo. So more solar radiation will be absorbed, and again, it will get even hotter, and vice versa… The problem I have with all these positive feedbacks is that if they were the only factors, the Earth’s climate should be a pencil balanced on its point. The slightest nudge and we should either go plummeting into a permanent ice age, or sweltering up to an ice-free hot rock. And the climate takes plenty of big nudges, e.g. the volcano eruptions that gave us [the year without a summer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer). Why didn’t the positive feedbacks mentioned above send the temperatures crashing for ever more? There _have_ to be some strong negative feedback mechanisms that overwhelm the positive feedbacks. If not, then our climate walks a tightrope, and history doesn’t support that. How did the Earth ever come out of an Ice Age with all that ice reflecting the sunlight, and water vapour and CO2 levels way down? You asked what would sway me. What I’d like to see for a start is a decent correlation between 20th century CO2 levels and temperatures. If the warming is due to a simple radiation-trapping mechanism, why is there a cooling trend from 1940 to 1970? CO2 was still increasing over that thirty year period. Where did the trapped energy go? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/155 "2007-08-22T11:23:19Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] The other side of this is that God has provided us with plenty of oil and coal (and nuke), there is no need to switch to biofuels at this time, a energy intensive immature technology where we will be burning our very food supplies in our gas tanks. This could cause a worse famine then the global temperature rising. [/QUOTE] And the other side of _that_ is that we’re supposed to exercise some kind of responsible stewardship, aren’t we? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/156 "2007-08-22T11:30:48Z")
[QUOTE=matt] You asked what would sway me. What I’d like to see for a start is a decent correlation between 20th century CO2 levels and temperatures. If the warming is due to a simple radiation-trapping mechanism, why is there a cooling trend from 1940 to 1970? CO2 was still increasing over that thirty year period. Where did the trapped energy go? [/QUOTE] [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11639](http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11639) > [@](#): > > After rising rapidly during the first part of the 20th century, global average temperatures did cool by about 0.2°C after 1940 and remained low until 1970, after which they began to climb rapidly again. > > The mid-century cooling appears to have been largely due to a high concentration of sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere, emitted by industrial activities and volcanic eruptions. Sulphate aerosols have a cooling effect on the climate because they scatter light from the Sun, reflecting its energy back out into space. > > The rise in sulphate aerosols was largely due to the increase in industrial activities at the end of the second world war. In addition, the large eruption of Mount Agung in 1963 produced aerosols which cooled the lower atmosphere by about 0.5°C, while solar activity levelled off after increasing at the beginning of the century > > The clean air acts introduced in Europe and North America reduced emissions of sulphate aerosols. As levels fell in the atmosphere, their cooling effect was soon outweighed by the warming effect of the steadily rising levels of greenhouse gases. The mid-century cooling can be seen in this NASA/GISS animation, which shows temperature variation from the annual mean for the period from 1880 through 2006. The warmest temperatures are in red. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/157 "2007-08-22T11:37:05Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] Whenever corruption enters it does open the door to demonic influence. We have at least 2 sides, AGW supporters and deniers there is the appearance of corruption on at least one side as numbers are numbers. And the closer a issue gets to becoming a god, the more opportunity people may open themselves to demonic oppression. Is it possible that part of AGW issue is satanic/demonic in nature - yes. [/QUOTE] Which do you think that it would be more fruitful in the long run, to try to find out the facts in the matter and act upon them as soon as possible, or find some way to exorcise the demons and just pray on the issue instead of doing any more scientific testing? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/158 "2007-08-22T11:37:31Z")
[QUOTE=matt] There _have_ to be some strong negative feedback mechanisms that overwhelm the positive feedbacks. If not, then our climate walks a tightrope, and history doesn’t support that. How did the Earth ever come out of an Ice Age with all that ice reflecting the sunlight, and water vapour and CO2 levels way down? [/QUOTE] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/iceage\_02.shtml](http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/iceage_02.shtml) > [@](#): > > There is a third quirk in the Earth’s orbit, namely a ‘wobble’ in its axis of rotation. This is caused by the pull of the moon and has a cycle of approximately 24,000 years. The significance of these variations is that some sixty years ago a Yugoslavian geophysicist, Milankovitch, suggested that these alternations could account for the ice age/interlgacial pattern. > …it is these orbital variations that account for our weather pattern during the present ice epoch. > His argument was that only when these variations combined sufficiently to allow Summers warm enough to melt the ice sheets could the Ice Age be halted and temporarily forced back. Subsequent analysis of climatic history suggests that this indeed is what has happened in practice and that it is these orbital variations that account for our weather pattern during the present ice epoch. > > This theory, known as the Milankovitch model, is now widely accepted as a good explanation of the ice-age cycle, although it does not explain what may trigger an ice age, or cause the mini-cycles of optima and little ice ages. > > The reasons behind these may be a combination of complex factors including the Earth’s magnetism, changes in the sun’s heating and variations in the atmosphere. These could be caused both by natural forces like earthquakes or even by meteor strikes. Man-made activities can also result in dust and fumes, which could potentially influence future climatic trends. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/159 "2007-08-22T11:40:03Z")
The sad part of this thread is that someone can post some opinions about a topic that are exceedingly ill-formed, nonsensical, clearly and obviously biased by religious points of view, clearly at odds with vast amounts of solid evidence, and yet there is some kind of debate going on still by page 4 and the OP is simply unaffected in any apparent fashion. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2007, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356/160 "2007-08-22T11:53:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] And the other side of that is that we’re supposed to exercise some kind of responsible stewardship, aren’t we? [/QUOTE] Yes we are, but I don’t see how burning the food intended for the poor in the gas tanks of the rich’s SUV’s is using the land God has provided responsibly. [QUOTE=Czarcasm] Which do you think that it would be more fruitful in the long run, to try to find out the facts in the matter and act upon them as soon as possible, or find some way to exorcise the demons and just pray on the issue instead of doing any more scientific testing? [/QUOTE] Why not both? If there is demonic influence at the level that corrupts the data and scews the results, would it not be necessary to cast out that influence to get the truth? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-take-global-warming-totally-on-faith/416356.md?page=9)