Before everyone starts screaming DENIER at me let me say up front that, yes – the Earth is getting hotter, and some of the reason is from humans. So here’s a few inconvenient facts that disturb me about some of the alarmist predictions about global warming.
- In the above graph (NOAA) you’ll notice that 0 represents about where we are now and where we are now is on the high side of normal over the last 400,000 years. The real normal appears to be ice age. Look to me if you buy the CO2 correlation that it would be bad if CO2 levels dropped. Perhaps I’m missing something.
- The man made increase in CO2 is 100 parts per million. That’s one part in 10,000 in the atmosphere. That’s not a lot of change. I have a hard time conceiving that one part in 10,000 is the difference between paradise and Venus.
- 100% of the coal and oil came from plants. The plants got 100% of their carbon from the air. Therefore at some time in the past 100% of the carbon from coal and oil was in the air. And yet Earth didn’t turn into Venus when CO2 was 100 times greater than today.
So – yes – we should reduce all forms of pollution and manage our resources. For example – the use of one condom can prevent 44,000 tons of CO2 as a result of an unwanted pregnancy. And we should move to solar power and electric cars. But to those who are saying Earth is going to turn into Venus I say you’re full of stuff.
the use of one condom can prevent 44,000 tons of CO2 as a result of an unwanted pregnancy.
ROTFLMAO
Use two and save more!
You will be called a denier for simply questioning the “scientific consensus” as determined by liberal “journalists”.
I found a website a couple weeks ago that may be of interest: http://tinyurl.com/78yzfgp
Sorry Mark, global warming is a true, provable scam.
Building on Guyver, this just out:
From the Telegraph. Turns out them “Deniers” are undeniably right.
“The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever
New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming
official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified. ”
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html
Don’t you just hate it when the trend of the information presented in graphs is exaggerated by not starting at the origin, zero? Me, too — it always makes me immediately distrust the source and / or the argument presented. In this case, it’s from NOAA.gov… Just sayin’. 😉
Turns out our own Government has been lying to us all along. GASP!!!
From the Telegraph article linked above.
“In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.
> I have a hard time conceiving that one part in 10,000 is the difference between paradise and Venus.
Your points two and three are related and wrong. It is not the one part in 10000 that matters, but how much it changes. If you double CO2 levels from 1 part in 10000 to 2 parts in 10000, it warms the planet, by trapping in just a little more heat that would have otherwise escaped, every second of every day of every week of every month of every year. The previous small amounts of CO2 is what is warming the planet today by about 16C. 100 times more CO2 is just 6 doublings. It would not turn the planet into Venus, but maybe warm things by 7-8C. The same way, a current doubling will warm things a little bit, not a high amount. Basic physics says about 1.2C is the end result of doubling carbon dioxide levels. Now on top of that, there would be some feedbacks that would serve to moderate this warming. The most basic is Stefan-Boltzmann law that says warmer bodies emit more heat, which is likely included in that 1.2C number. You could also get a change in cloudiness that reflects more sunlight. Instead scientists have built models that assume positive feedback and claim much higher levels of warming.
Point one, it is possible that CO2 will stave off an ice age, for which we are overdue. Note that the long term correlation actual has CO2 levels rising AFTER a temperature increase, not before. This is also consistent with basic chemistry that warmer oceans hold less gas.
However, it is not clear that temperatures in the past are relevant to a theory that manmade global warming will wreck the planet.
A better chart would be a comparison of models and actual temperatures.
http://drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-90-models-global-Tsfc-vs-obs-thru-2013.png
So your drroyspenser site shows that the correlation hasn’t been good since 1998. That’s supposed to help us?
I’m much more comfortable with the understanding that we have been much warmer in the past, and as Robert Frost says:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
Sweating and hiding from the sun is easier on the body than shivering, and uses less energy.
The last IPCC report said global warming would result in 2-4.5C of warming with a best estimate of 3.0C. The latest report says 1.5-4.5C of warming with a best estimate of — err there is no number given.
Nic Lewis calculated it from the other numbers they gave in the report, and it would be 1.63C. They did not want you to know this number.
I was with you all the way, up to your comment about 1 condom.
If the man-made CO2 is not such a problem, why reference the amount of it that can be saved at all?
For the record, I agree that pollutants should be avoided or reduced where possible (within reason). However, I strongly disagree with the principle that CO2 is a pollutant… its called plant food. But that does not mean that we should ignore how much we produce. I would consider it like O2 (oxygen)….too much will kill you 🙂
On what data you do reject the opinion of qualified scientists that co2 continues to be plant food as it transitions to being a pollutant/poison for biological organisms? You do accept that plants and hoomans are not the same thing……. right? That maybe what is good for plants is not good for us?
Another “bold” opinion with nothing but ignorance to back it up.
Well done.
Check out the NOAA chart at the following NASA website. It watches yours except for sometime after the start of the Industrial Revolution. 2014 level is shown as about 400 ppm. I think you are missing some data…
http://climate.nasa.gov/system/content_pages/main_images/203_co2-graph-1280×800.jpg
Good example of one intelligent persons common sense does not match a consensus of qualified scientists.
Seems at base line you are arguing about the “sensitivity” of gas compound mixtures to retaining solar rays? How much of that have you actually “studied?”
But, if you admit humans have added to the increase in co2, then what is your quibble exactly?…loops back to the sensitivity issue I assume?
I watched a show last week where one of the qualified scientists was talking about aerosols. Not refrigerants that we have banned ((to the great howl of free market advocates everywhere)) but the aerosol action of wind against waves. Seems that constant action creates green house gases, some cooling gases, and some neutral ones too. Scientist said we need to study those more to assess their impact on GW.
Last week you posted about “thinking like a Christian.” That is what you are doing here: thinking like a Christian that your own untutored common sense, or the science that you have from unrelated fields, can provide you with insight into a specialized area of science. Buy a clue: you can’t. Yes…you can ask some questions that in my own ignorance sound interesting. A qualified scientist would get a migraine in view of our ignorance.
Quick: what is the carbon cycle and how long is it? What are its major transitions? What affects it the most? Don’t know??????
Silly Hooman.
The google reminds us (carbon cycle) that it is Millions of Years. Picture the top of the himalayas being ancient sea floor—only part of the carbon cycle. Biological orgnic carbon being taken from the sun and atmosphere and being deposited on the ocean floor only to rise up with plate tetonics to be exposed to air and weather.
Why did you post/even think you started to have an issue at all/ using a chart going back only 400K years?
You see the issue?????????? ————- BASIC SCIENCE.
Silly Hooman.
http://visionlearning.com/en/library/Earth-Science/6/The-Carbon-Cycle/95
“The global carbon cycle, one of the major biogeochemical cycles, can be divided into geological and biological components. The geological carbon cycle operates on a timescale of millions of years, whereas the biological carbon cycle operates on a timescale of days to thousands of years.”
Marc Perkel:
You really should watch the following videos and, this time listen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlgJJgKs-iA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUXmff5R_bI
Marc Perkel:
You really should watch the following videos and, this time listen!
youtube.com/watch?v=FlgJJgKs-iA
youtube.com/watch?v=nUXmff5R_bI
Watched both videos and they are morons.
You really need to say why.
I too watched both videos. Not much of the first one as I’ve seen it before. I simple decision tree….I think it is indeed faulty as not assigning valid risk analysis (likelhood to occur?) to each scenario…..I could be wrong.
The second one is really interesting as he shits on solar energy.
I constantly say: JUST LOOK.
did I hear that Germany is now getting 70% of its “base load’ from renewables? so, I don’t know where the guy in video 2 is coming from. That green energy will never be decentralized? He does emphasize we are in deep kimshee.
I do enjoy the contrary argument. Once you understand it and overcome it by invalidation of it or modification of your own position, then….. you understand the issue better.
You know—-actual specific issues. Not general conclusions.
Last 16 years, .07C of global warming according to NASA, within the margin of error.
Model predictions, much higher than that. However if they adjust their models to be in line with what actually happened, then the future predictions are not bad enough to be worried about.
What to do, what to do..
Read my post above (3rd post from top) and you will have your answer. It’s now proven that ALL test data was “manipulated” and there is no warming. None. We are actually cooling as a planet.
I’m not convinced by those stories of temperature adjustments.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2015/02/if-done-right-temperature-adjustments.html
That’s a good article and it’s probably correct in these summary statements.
“I think it’s fair to say that the recent global mean temperature change is zero for all practical purposes, the percentage of the variability caused by (largely unpredictable) natural drivers is so high that the fact that the human contribution is nonzero may be ignored, and the threat of a significant global disruption coming from the climate change over the next 100 years is basically non-existent,
and the proponents of the climate hysteria who have benefited from this hysteria should be treated exactly as all other fraudsters who have stolen tens of billions of dollars and who want much more to come.”
Beautifully said.
How then the sea level rise?
Ocean acidification?
……..and if it is the cause of natural variation….then… why not reduce our co2 input to cool the system down? …. or don’t you care about coastal cities 200 years from now????
I’ll put you down as Devo…. and a sheep.
DevoSheep.
What is your stand on measles?…. an individual right to determine the science on that too?
Ha, ha………………silly hooman.
The answers to your three points.
#1
If at some point in the future we need to produce lots of CO2 in order to increase earth’s temperature, we’ll have no problem in doing so.
Right now we don’t need to be THAT forthcoming since we don’t know how many hundreds/thousands of years it will take for that.
#2
Venus is an obviously an exaggeration, just 5 degrees in temperature will raise the oceans’ levels high enough to say bye bye to NYC, good parts of Florida, etc etc, you get the idea.
#3
Carbon (coal) is the nature’s way to “Carbon Sequestration”
It once was in the atmosphere and now it has been taken off circulation.
When we burn coal we are putting it back in the air, thus altering the natural CO2 balance.
Fine, great and admirable – as it shoud be – but when CO2 is being reimagined to be pollution I see a problem.
The problem is propaganda, not PROPANE, as Hank Hill might say..Or CO2 for that matter. If CO2 is the problem then people, being major emitters of this ‘deadly’ gas, should be banned or eliminated.
Stop plagiarizing J. Swift.
No, while people (moreso cows and termites) are part of the problem, very much moreso it is what we do: burn sequestered carbon.
You must be………….tired? Bad way to start the day. Take a power nap before you do yourself harm.
To quote pedrito… Yawn!
It’s funny to see a few amateur scientist wingnuts contradict the thousands of professional scientists who agree that AGW exists.
It’s also funny when they propose a massive global conspiracy to Hide The Truth From Us(tm)!!!!!
So why did they leave out the best estimate of global warming from their last report, which was included in previous reports?
I suppose you think it’s just a coincidence that according to their numbers, the best estimate would have been much lower than previously reported?
Why isn’t the number in the report?
Link?
I googled (best estimate of global warming) and the result teasers are ALARMING.
Add up all the zig zags, false evidence, astro-turf, lies, faulty data and what can we readers of People Magazine and TV Guide think?
I use something we can all see: the sea level is constantly rising. Sadly, not in a straight line, so if you squint you can see declines, and we have it on first person reports that some sea levels in the Caribbean have remained level for the last 20 years, but elsewhere in the Universe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
All you have to do is: look.
You know how to look don’t you?
Just open your eyes, clear away the BS, and violet: there is the world.
Silly Hoomans.
Estimate of 3C to 1.6C, and now they disappear the number from the report. Wonder why that is.
Thats three swings and three strikes. You’re out.
I read each link, you issue did not present itself to me.
Fun to see the aerosol issue I reference earlier is in the third abstract.
You know: doubting or even disproving one or more data points or concepts in a theory does not disprove the remainder.
To have any legitimacy at all, you have to yes find fault in the best theory available which many for some knuckle dragging reason are fond of doing, BUTH THEN: you have to offer an alternative theory that takes into account more of the observed data.
None of you do that.
…………..because………….. you got nothing.
Devo.
I didn’t really expect you to understand what was at the links. That was for others if they were interested.
All you really could understand is that they used to give the best estimate, and now they chose not to reveal this number in what was supposed to be their summary of the science.
Ya’ll arguing about the wrong thing.
Climate Change/Global Warming is nothing more than a propaganda attempt at creating a “new” fiat currency based on “Carbon Credits”, or some other such nonsense.
Nope – not a denier, I’m pretty sure “the climate” is in a continuing state of change and will continue to be so until the Sun reaches later stage life and envelopes the earth in fiery hell for humans and most other life forms we have grown accustomed/affectionate too/for. The human “impact” on this process is negligible at best. See various real science for proof.
Live green for sure! Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute! Be a responsible human and attempt to understand the ecology/geology/chemistry/biology sciences so you don’t crap in your own house, something even the lowest intelligent lifeforms on earth learn and practice. Its called good stewardship, no banking/bankster techniques required.
But make no mistake you are not “saving” the planet. The planet does not need to be saved. It does what planets do, revolve and evolve.
So, all those thousands of scientists worldwide, experts in their fields, who believe the evidence points toward AGW. They are all part of some massive global conspiracy to create a new fiat currency based on carbon credits?
What’s your opinion on Obama’s citizenship? Benghazi? The lunar landings… did they really take place??? Inquiring minds want to know! 🙄
The DON admirably taking me to task says:
2/9/2015 at 8:23 pm
Hiya Bobbo
My response to your post was to address your question “On what data you do reject the opinion of qualified scientists that co2 continues to be plant food as it transitions to being a pollutant/poison for biological organisms?”
I thought you were asking a question there… not making a statement… I think this is the root of our talking cross purposes. /// I was asking the question. The question I asked does reveal the context from which I am making it as does your original statement. I see no cross purposes.
You really should learn to articulate yourself better. /// I agree. I’ve always had a problem of thinking faster than my mouth, fingers even slower, now add in a sticking keyboard and what I take to be muscle memory…and I’m barely comprehensible at times. It worries me.
Your method of writing (near ranting) leaves large room misinterpretation. /// I agree.
Your confrontational approach could be welcomed for rigorous discourse – If it were to be conducted with civility. //// Ha, ha. Very fine line you attempt to draw there?==>or a demonstration of exercising your very complaint against me? I re-read and don’t see any lack of civility. Give it a deeper thought;;;;is it lack of civility or the actual challenge to your thinking that rankles you…. even just the little bit you admit to? ((Then multiple by 10 for situations that aren’t set up for it))
Ad hominem attacks and insults serve no purpose other than the stamping of one’s foot screaming “I’M RIGHT DAMMIT”, whilst demonstrating in real-time the speakers inadequacies. /// Again, you make me smile. Saying you argue like Alfie, when that is factually true, is : insulting (sorry Alfie, you do set a benchmark), I’m stamping my foot (rather than having fun with the reference), screaming (certainly a mischaracterization as no caps were used, and calling me inadequate is nothing more than the same aspersions you claim I use. Takes one to know one? You can only see in others what you see in yourself?—etc.
A good piece of advice (which, admittedly, I too could benefit from taking) would be to review a responding post in its context, before posting. /// I agree. Everything written is best left for a 24 hour resting state for final review, editing and posting. Too bad our attention spans are about 15 minutes?
In response to your last post:
Harder sciences??? I am tempted to mention at this point “hide the decline” or “Medieval warm period missing” or the “countless adjustments made to the historical temperature records which serve to amplify recent warming trends” etc.. Not to mention all the conflicting excuses for the “pause” including my two personal favourites “Faster trade winds” and “Slower trade winds”.
Are these the “harder sciences” you speak of? /// Yes. The fact that you can name the variables, and they are all subject to exact measurement makes them hard. Its a relative term, this time especially when juxtaposed with hooman medicine. It is definitional.
Of course atmospheric temperature increases are transferred to the oceans – That is not disputed. Wether man-made CO2 is responsible for the temperature increase is exactly the dispute in this case. /// Yes, I assume you admit we create co2 and it is added to the atmospher, and it is a greenhouse gas====>but magically, it just doesn’t do anything===>the very opposite of what BEING a greenhouse gas means? Tell us more.
Please also remeber that we are still coming out of the LIA (Little Ice Age), and that the average temperature for 2014 was in the 3% lowest temperatures over the last 10,000 years. /// Silly person…arguing like Alfie…I am fully possessed of the LIA==its what advocates our current uptrend in temps is so worrying. Now, you argue like Obama: think not of Extremist Islamacists of TODAY…because you know, get off your high horse and remember how bad (cold) the Christians (LIA) were 1000 years ago. Which is the worse insult????? Alfie or Obama?
Argue like Alfie… That comment doesn’t warrant a civil response, and reflects poorly upon you. /// My own humor. No reason for anyone else to appreciate it, but don’t we all post here mostly for our own satisfaction? (….♫…of which I can’t get no…)
what did I challenge you with? – your own question – Which you didn’t answer, but I think we were talking cross purposes there anyway. /// You challenged me with co2 toxicity and then the science of obesity and human health. Both issues irrelevant to the OP…. or at least you failed to make any connection. …♫……Whats it all about Alfie??????
After that I offered no challenge, but some proofs – to which, I see no evidence that you took the time to glance over. Proofs? Please identify said proofs and connect them to the subject of AGW. You second post does refer to “discrepancies” of no import.
I did preface my paragraph regarding fat in foods with a disclaimer of straying off topic – so lets not bother with anything about “anti-vaxxers”, but I will point out that there is NO CONSENSUS among qualified scientists in the climate field either. /// Of course there is. Not just the 97% figure with the occasional iconoclast jumping off the band wagon but (can google if I must) but from memory there are some 200 recognized groups of professional scientist organizations that slowly over time have all come to make written statements that AGW is the case. The last one was the American Petroleum Organization (sic) what with its professional ties took a long time to admit the evidence.
(Please quote the provenly false 97% consensus figure if you wish) /// Proven…ha, ha.
Just look.
With baking being a current hobby of mine, I found this change in consensus science (sic!) interesting:
http://dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2946617/Butter-ISN-T-bad-Major-study-says-80s-advice-dairy-fats-flawed.html
I currently use a 50/50 mix of butter and rendered lard from the pork shoulder I make sausage with. Good info there. Looks like shortbread cookies are back on my list?
Question: if you don’t know the difference between hard and soft, can you be a great lover?
Interesting bobbo! I have my mother’s molasses cookie recipe and I’ve been thinking about using lard instead of vegetable shortening in them…
Sheesh.
I really like sausage and have always thought it was rather “unique” in some way. Turns out–its only ground pork and spices. Very easy to make…. and enjoy. Pork shoulder just happens to be about the cheapest cut of meat there is and has the correct proportion of fat to meat to make sausages.
Now….what to do with the fat that you do come across? Again, it turns out that home made lard is not the same as store bought lard and by most factors is more healthy than butter…..the posted link not considered as yet. So…. if you are going to bake with butter…….no reason not to bake with lard. Butter for taste, lard for flakiness. So, why not a 50/50 mix and save on butter cost and recycle the whole animal?
I’m not into “sweet” food items, but molasses is often just a slight taste rather than overpowering sweetness? In the main, I make oatmeal cookies. Another mod: I use half bread flour and half oat flour as my Gen Purpose flour…works for most things and is more healthy.
Molasses might interfer/change the approach but I try to use applesauce in most baked items calling for sugar. It substitutes for sugar and for fat and a chewy factor I like in most items.
My neighbor had some butter she thought was too old so she gave it to me. What to do? So…first time ever, I made some shortbread cookies. They were GREAT…and about as basic as you can get….good starter recipe for all things cookie…..they all build up from there.
fyi–I use a frying pan to cook my cookies. Faster and more control than using the oven. Top bake with a NuWave. I call this:
Fun in the Kitchen.
I’m disappointed that nobody mentioned my favorite discredited theory about the origin of petroleum, abiotic genesis. If true, it would change everything, except for the fact that humans are releasing an awful lot of carbon that would otherwise be sequestered.
What would it change?
My favorite hypo not posted for a year or so: imagine every person (or country) has a magic spigot that provides all the oil or gasoline you want…………………what would be the critically important issue?????
Hint: tar sands.
Answer: how long we can use the free oil before we kill ourselves.
And that kiddies is why 75% of proven reserves of oil/coal (whichever) has to stay in the ground because if we burn it all…the temps go off the charts.
You Know–in Saudi and elsewhere the cost of production is near zero……………. and the ultimate issue is the same.
Amusing?
This was an interesting read.
Normally, I view most things that Mark Perkel writes as canned hammed of what other people have told him to think.
Right or wrong, this was great because it was independent thought.
And had great entertainment value because I have never run across those lines of thought.
I don’t have any real opinions on this subject despite having read an unusual amount of the science (or sometimes lack of science) behind it — except most people arguing about this topic tend to be canned-ham lefties and righties repeating words shoved in their mouths by people in the media. Which is boring and fucking lame and makes me think poorly of humans in particular that many people appear incapable of thought and believe about anything told to them.
+100 to Mark Perkel for giving me something to think about.
H—I don’t recall you posting in such a self centered, asinine, bloviating way before. Whats up?
MP’s point 2 and 3 were both demolished above.
His point one was skipped:
“In the above graph (NOAA) you’ll notice that 0 represents about where we are now /// no “about” about it. It “is” labeled as the present reference point. Very common in posting trends.
and where we are now is on the high side of normal over the last 400,000 years. /// Normal is not used in statistical analysis. Mean, median, mode, trend, deviation…but not “normal” which is undefined.
The real normal appears to be ice age. Look to me if you buy the CO2 correlation that it would be bad if CO2 levels dropped. /// Silly comment. Normal does not imply good or bad in any way.
Perhaps I’m missing something. /// High school science?
H….lots to think about huh? I disagree. You have posted with (gathered) expertise on AGW. Still…I agree with you…admirable that MP does post his own views rather than some copy and past article with no analysis at all.
Problem is…..MP has posted in this same vein for some time now and doesn’t incorporate any of the discussion points he is offered.
SCIENCE.
Starts with understanding we don’t know more than we do and holding off forming conclusions when the evidence is disputed……blah, blah, blah.
“You can’t handle the Science!!!!”
Ha, ha.
>Normal is not used in statistical analysis.
>
>“You can’t handle the Science!!!!”
>
>Ha, ha.
That about sums it up.
Anyone who is a true sceptic (of any scientific subject) , and not a fraud or lazy bum, will study the science as it is currently understood and identify exactly what teachings they have issue with.
There is an excellent free on-line course
“Global Warming: the Science and Modeling of Climate Change”
by Prof. David Archer, University of Chicago.
https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming
This 8 week course is Freshman college level and it should be a good start towards you getting your well-deserved Nobel prize for revolutionizing Climate science and proving the current understanding to be fallacious.
Why are people skeptical about climate change?
https://ipccreport.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/sceppre.pdf
Well, thats an interesting question.
……………………….. thinking about it ……………………..
I recall on first view, I was “against it” as well. I think some people get a charge out of being against the norm (sic), or against authority, or singling one’s self out against the other ignorant masses.
I also think there is a strong tendency in people to continue to think what is “first thought.” Read reviews since on how attitudes and beliefs just become harder set when given conflicting information.
……………so glad…………
I became a Man of Science. Challenging myself to formulate the best ideas possible. I use Science all the time. Last issue I changed my own mind on: living with a drug addict with Hepatitis C. I was uncomfortable, but the google (Science) teaches that Hep C is difficult to transmit…especially if you take precautions.
When is the last time you changed your mind about…….. anything?
Exercise that brain!
1) In the above graph (NOAA) you’ll notice that 0 represents about where we are now and where we are now is on the high side of normal over the last 400,000 years. The real normal appears to be ice age. Look to me if you buy the CO2 correlation that it would be bad if CO2 levels dropped. Perhaps I’m missing something.
Human produced emissions of CO2 are increasing the the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (and ocean acidification) at a rate greater than has ever been experienced by the planet. Not a great experiment for us to conduct just so that the fossil fuel industry can make a (few billion) buck(s).
2. The man made increase in CO2 is 100 parts per million. That’s one part in 10,000 if the atmosphere. That’s not a lot of change. I have a hard time conceiving that one part in 10,000 is the difference between paradise and Venus.
I wondered about this, too. As a skeptic, I studied the science as it is understood and became convinced that it does, in fact, make sense. I grant that it is not intuitive, as water is also a “Greenhouse Gas.”
The critical difference between between water as a greenhouse gas and CO2 is that water vapor is only present in the troposphere (the phase change of water being the main carrier of heat from the surface of the Earth to the top of the atmosphere where it can be radiated to space at an effective temperature of -30 deg. C.) and not present in the upper atmosphere because it condenses and freezes out. CO2 is equally distributed through the entire atmosphere and thereby has a greater effect on the Earth’s effective thermal emission temperature.
Climate scientists do not claim (none, so far as I know) that climate change on Earth could result in Venus-like conditions. It is thought that the sun is actually several percent brighter today than it was during the much warmer past of the dinosaurs (60 million years ago) and that the sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere into coal and petroleum was the cause of a much cooler planet and the eventual ice ages.
Previous mass extinctions on our planet are known to have occurred where ocean acidification wiped out all shell-based sea life and nearly all vertebrates, too. Evidence of the prior water temperatures near the north pole having been at least 80 degrees F. was first discovered by oil company geologists as they drilled for oil exploration.
Digging up and burning most of the previously (and naturally) sequestered carbon on the planet could certainly result in an ice-free earth and thereby raise the sea level by some 300 feet. What’s the highest elevation of Florida? Texas? Not Venus, but not too great for the coastal cities of the world where 90% of the population lives.
3. 100% of the coal and oil came from plants. The plants got 100% of their carbon from the air. Therefore at some time in the past 100% of the carbon from coal and oil was in the air. And yet Earth didn’t turn into Venus when CO2 was 100 times greater than today.
The issue is not whether the Earth becomes “like Venus,” it won’t. The issue is whether the Earth will be similar to the planet humans evolved on.
Human activity, in the blink of a geological eye, has raised the CO2 level of our planet from a pre-industrial 290 PPM (or possibly as low as 260 ppm) to its current level where we have broken through (yay team!) 400 PPM.
700 PPM will result in an ice-free earth, but who cares? Our great-great grandkids can cool off (sort of) by swimming with the amoebas.
Good luck to this messed up planet.
Just a casual reader on the subject and I don’t “know” anything, but quibbles as I think you might enjoy it?
1. CO2 is equally distributed through the entire atmosphere and thereby has a greater effect on the Earth’s effective thermal emission temperature. //// I disagree. CO2 has a greater effect because its % is increasing. The water vapor very roughly remains about the same so it doesn’t “change” and is not being increased by human activity. More than just semantics here.
2. Previous mass extinctions on our planet are known to have occurred where ocean acidification wiped out all shell-based sea life and nearly all vertebrates, too. /// Acidification did happen and had its role especially for sea life but the Mass Extinction was the result of warming water that released sequestered methane a very powerful greenhouse gas that increased the heating that lead to more methane release which actually reached a level that was toxic to almost all life. Think of those killer lakes that have temperature inversions and belch out methane killing the locals. The Mass Extinction was not a single quick event but was the result of several events over a larger time scale.
3. Digging up and burning most of the previously (and naturally) sequestered carbon …. /// This misses the scale and immediacy of the threat/physics involved. We “may have” already burned too much carbon for our civilization to continue. Thats what the 350ppm is all about–the final tipping point–and we went past 400 a while back. I need to google the tipping point issue some more to confirm what ppm levels result in what effects.
Ha, ha….I just thought of that formula for whether or not we will meet Space Aliens and one factor was whether or not the technology of the Aliens (Us included) caused them to blow themselves up. I don’t think dying from their own excrement was in the formula….but it certainly seems to be a “consequence” of technology that every society eventually has to control………or die.
Since I rag on Mark only because he is mostly wrong on this subject of AGW, let me say, on Item #2 above re the Permian/Triassic Extinction event, I know of it only because it came up in a prior MP post that caused some reading on the subject.
We all can learn stuff we don’t already know…. all you have to do is: READ.
Now, Mark and I read the same google articles and I come away thinking: Gee, no different between AGW and Natural Causes: if the Earth/Oceans heat up a certain amount…things get nasty.
Mark comes away thinking: …. I’ll leave it for him to say. My impression is he simply doesn’t accept what his own brain tells him. Resting on weasel words, short of the goal.
Common enough.
>We all can learn stuff we don’t already know…. all you have to do is: READ.
LOL