Climate Change Discussion [Split from Election 2008 Thread]

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

In my opinion, we are naive if we think that humanity can have a significant effect on the climate of the earth.

Depends on your viewpoint.

Whether or not you agree that GG contribute to the earth's climate and its warming potential.

Whether or not you agree that we are primarily responsible for the largest readings of CO2 and Methane (23 times more warming potential) ever found.

And whether or not you agree that GG levels have spiked in recent times is a random occurence or due to anthropogenic causes.

"We find that CO2 is about 30% higher than at any time, and methane 130% higher than at any time; and the rates of increase are absolutely exceptional: for CO2, 200 times faster than at any time in the last 650,000 years.....

"We found a very tight relationship between CO2 and temperature even before 420,000 years," said Professor Stocker. "The fact that the relationship holds across the transition between climatic regimes is a very strong indication of the important role of CO2 in climate regulation." "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4467420.stm

This is not entirely like but not dissimilar to the evolution debate except the argument against CC is not solely based on belief.

Findings can only be presented. After that it's up to individuals to make their own minds up re. how to interpret and the honesty of the findings, and to vet the scientists reporting for membership of left wing conspiracy organisations.

[mrdeeds]

Originally Posted by Jetsfan

This whole thing is a massive left-wing conspiracy to control our lives and impose a socialist agenda.

Who is at the head of this, the Illuminati or the Freemasons?

[Ronald Pagan]

Originally Posted by mrdeeds

Who is at the head of this, the Illuminati or the Freemasons?

I think it's Elvis.

[Azure]

Actually, it is laughable that the issue shouldn't be up for debate anymore, and that a consensus has been reached - humans are responsible for the changing climate of the planet.

I'm not going to deny that humans are having an effect, but to say that we are completely responsible, or even 90% responsible is ridiculous.

Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.

Good article.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?cid=9986&pid=12455&tid=282

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan

Scientists are trying to prove that the extra carbon dioxide emissions in our atmosphere have no effect on warming.

Your Sasquatch example doesn't hold.

You said scientists were trying to disprove that humans are involved. In that case the example works fine.

If you want to change your tune go ahead.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

You said scientists were trying to disprove that humans are involved. In that case the example works fine.

If you want to change your tune go ahead.

Wait for it....

Considering he has already done it once in this thread.

[Ronald Pagan]

Did you read that article?

It is talking about a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation system that could be a side-effect of, you guessed, human induced climate change. It works like this, we warm the Earth enough that the north Atlantic gets flushed with too much fresh water from Greenland's melting glacier. Fresh water is less dense than salt water meaning the start of the thermohaline conveyors is halted as the water in the north atlantic isn't able to sink. This then shuts down the currents that bring warm water from the tropics to the poles and submits the polar regions to a deep freezing trend. The whole this is caused by climate change. Your articles helps prove my point that we need action on this issue because we risk abrupt, catastrophic climate events.

Am I not explaining myself well enough? How can I be any more clear? The climate changes naturall. The rates of change that we have experienced are not natural. When we look at what is responsible for these rates of changes there is only one explanation, us burning fossil fuels.

[Azure]

Oh well, I knew there was a reason I started ignoring these threads.

Continue as usual.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Just wow.

Either it is human caused (greenhouse emissions) or it is caused by cyclical temperature change.

It doesn't matter to which degree you believe one or the other is responsible.

It is in our best interest to reduce greenhouse emissions wheher it is responsible for climate change or not.

How do you guys not understand that?

I'm with Dis here

Unless some here are environmental experts, I don't even know how you can make that call (how much of the global destruction is us?). Whether its 75% or 49% or 10%, we can't continue this trend.

Its funny, back before the Beijing Olympics, alot of people and media were dogpiling China for being dirty and polluted, among other things. However, China has recently been one of the biggest supporters of eco-friendly solutions such as alternative fuelds. China is one of the largest customers of solar cells, and have eco-revolutionary ideas such as eco-city's like Dongtan. As I posted in another thread, I know California has made a push for alternative fuels via tax breaks. Many big companies such as Google at Googleplex are run by solar power and their CEOs and VPs drive (regularly?) solar cars. As solar cells cross the chasm from the early adopters, costs should drop as their material and production costs are similar to regular consumer electronics (ie. just a grid of diodes).

Whats even funnier is ... despite Canada being "clean" I find Canada to be one of the most wasteful countries in the world. Lots of garbage being credited, usage of cars especially heavy fuel consuming trucks and SUVs, etc. The attitudes also seem to me more sloppy and don't-care too.

[mykalberta]

The simple fact is that reducing GHG is not the answer - its great to say but stopping something or reducing something has never been an answer to anything because humanity as a whole doesnt and never will have the collective will power to do it - it never has.

The answer is likely to be something we dont have yet, and that is the ability to simply rebuild the ozone layer. Why spend trillions of dollars on changing our economy when we could spend billions to develop a way to rebuild the ozone.

There by allowing us to burn all the fossil fuels we want and then let the market decide when we switch when oil runs out, the price hikes and people naturally move to an alternate method of transportation. That of course wont happen because Global Warming cannot be financially measured as to the cause/effect. When it can, then research into fixing it will become more real and less bs.

It is my opinion that the current Global Warming argument of "you driving cars are killing us you right wing facists" is simply because those who push that idea dont like the fact that we are consuming the earths natural resources. Of course they cant sell that argument outside the port of San Francisco so they mask it in statements of "electic vehicles" etc etc etc. If they were serious about Global Warming they would be using their puppets in Washington - Pilosi etc to push for funding on how to repair the ozone and how to decrease the average temperature of the planet instead of all on alternative forms of transportation.

From what I know, the simplistic version of the argument is as follows:

burn fossil fuels, the emissions kill the ozone, thereby heating the earth.

If that is the case and today we stopped buring all fossil fuels, will the earth still not continue to heat based on the damage already done and so to properly undo global warming you need to "fix" the holes in the atmosphere and somehow cool the earth.

How is everyone driving a Chevy Volt powered by the sun going to actually solve Global Warming - that will cause it to not get worse, but it wont actually fix the problem - right?

[Phanuthier]

^myk, what are you talking about?

Rebuilding the ozone layer? How do you rebuild an ozone layer?

How do you know for a fact that reducing GHG isn't going to help the environment? (via climate change)

I'm curious what your expertise is

[Ronald Pagan]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

You said scientists were trying to disprove that humans are involved. In that case the example works fine.

If you want to change your tune go ahead.

My god this is ridiculous.

I said humans are responsible for climate change as a means to say that the extra CO2 emissions from human behaviour are responsible.

Are we seriously getting down to this level of scrutiny as a means to discredit the argument?

[GGG]

I think that who causes Global wariming is actually irrevalent and a waste of resourses and debate.

The negative effects of global warming are born by the poorest people in the world increased drought, reduced fresh water and so on. Us here in the western world are relatively unaffected. Global warming if human caused is just another way of the West screwing the developing world.

This should mean that west/developed world is responsible for bearing the costs to fixing the problems. But what is the solution to global warming? The only answers have been to increase the cost of energy. As well as the even worse solutions of bio-diesal and ethonal increasing the cost of food.

So if we don't fix the global wariming problem the developing world gets screwed. If we spend trillions on fixing the problem the cost of everything (energy and food) increases and makes it more difficult for the developing world to feed itself so the real solution isn't to fight global warming it is to invest in preparing for its consequences. Instead of wasting trillions on green energy that will be more expensive then its counterparts spend the trillions on water projects in africa, developing dams to create more airable land and reduce flooding. Invest in real projects that save people lives and prepare them for a warming climate that may not be able to be stopped. The worst thing we can do is by offsets for someone to plant trees somewhere, double our cost of energy by buying wind power and pat ourselves on the back that we have actually done something to help the world

[arsenal]

So tell me this. How much CO2 do humans produce in a year? How much CO2 is produced through natural sources in a year?

[Phanuthier]

I beg people here to go back to high school biology ... equilibrium.

At the rate we are creating CO2 emissions ... are we at equalibrium?

Temperature ... are we at equalibrium?

Waste production ... are we at equalibrium?

etc

Now I don't think we are going to see radical change or anything like that, but we have to start taking steps soon.

[Ronald Pagan]

Originally Posted by arsenal

So tell me this. How much CO2 do humans produce in a year? How much CO2 is produced through natural sources in a year?

It doesn't matter how much CO2 is produced naturally. CO2 that is naturally produced is carbon neutral because it's part of the carbon cycle. That's why when you burn biofuels it is supposedly better for the climate because those carbon emissions came from the carbon cycle.

The CO2 that has been sequestered in the earth in the form of fossil fuels is not part of the carbon cycle.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan

My god this is ridiculous.

I said humans are responsible for climate change a means to say that the extra CO2 emissions from human behaviour are responsible.

Are we seriously getting down to this level of scrutiny as a means to discredit the argument?

Sorry, I didn't know the arguments weren't supposed to withstand scrutiny.

[Ronald Pagan]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

Sorry, I didn't know the arguments weren't supposed to withstand scrutiny.

Well apparently it did withstand the scrutiny as you haven't even bothered to address my rebut.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan

It doesn't matter how much CO2 is produced naturally. CO2 that is naturally produced is carbon neutral because it's part of the carbon cycle. That's why when you burn biofuels it is supposedly better for the climate because those carbon emissions came from the carbon cycle.

The CO2 that has been sequestered in the earth in the form of fossil fuels is not part of the carbon cycle.

Pardon my ignorance but could you explain how this works? Last I checked CO2 made naturally is 1 part carbon to 2 parts oxygen and weighs approximately 44g/mol while CO2 produced from burning hydro carbons also consists of 1 part carbon to 2 parts oxygen and also weighs 44g/mol. I believe they both have all the same characteristics as well do they not? Chemistry does not discriminate does it?

Originally Posted by arsenal

So tell me this. How much CO2 do humans produce in a year? How much CO2 is produced through natural sources in a year?

Seconded...just numbers, nothing else.
Human Produced CO2 = ?
Naturally Produced CO2 = ?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by kevman

Pardon my ignorance but could you explain how this works? Last I checked CO2 made naturally is 1 part carbon to 2 parts oxygen and weighs approximately 44g/mol while CO2 produced from burning hydro carbons also consists of 1 part carbon to 2 parts oxygen and also weighs 44g/mol. I believe they both have all the same characteristics as well do they not? Chemistry does not discriminate does it?



Seconded...just numbers, nothing else.
Human Produced CO2 = ?
Naturally Produced CO2 = ?

Those numbers you request are highly misleading and possibly irrevelavant depending on what kind of climate model is used.

In simplified terms if climate is like a pail with a small hole in the bottom. The small hole is the amount of CO2 the earth can absorb and you are pouring water from multiple hoses into the bucket it and problems only occur if the bucket over flows it really doesn't matter where the water comes from. You have two options one cut natually occuring CO2 or cut human generated CO2. If you believe that CO2 is causing warming it really doesn't matter what is causing CO2