Anyone Not believe we are causing Global Warming?

[Sidhe]

Maybe it's just you who doesn't have the foggiest goddamn idea what's going on.

There's a nail, and I think you've just hit squarely on the head. If Basket Case ever knows what is going on, we might just listen to his weak arguments.

 

[BasketCase]

If my arguments were weak, somebody would have at least tried to tear them down.

If nobody does, then my work here is complete.

Edit: So I thought. Just found something interesting on Wikipedia: it appears the global dimming trend reversed sometime around 1990.

In 2005 Wild et al. and Pinker et al. found that the "dimming" trend had reversed since about 1990 [5]. It is likely that at least some of this change, particularly over Europe, is due to decreases in pollution.
Most governments of developed nations have done more to reduce aerosols released into the atmosphere, which helps reduce global dimming, than to reduce CO2 emissions.

It would appear I'm not the only guy who came up with the idea that human cleanup efforts might have unintentionally contributed to global warming.....

 

[brennan]

If my arguments were weak, somebody would have at least tried to tear them down.

If nobody does, then my work here is complete.

Your arguments have been repeatedly torn down. You just can't even see it.

 

[BasketCase]

Nope. None of them were. In fact, many of them were never challenged at all.

The ironic part is that many of them weren't even invented by me--but by environmentalists.

 

[brennan]

...even nore ironic: they all believe in global warming and you don't.

 

[BasketCase]

Which is another problem with the global warming advocacy--peer pressure.

 

[brennan]

Or maybe they can interpret evidence.

 

[BasketCase]

To summarize: whether humans are the cause of global warming cannot be known unless most or all of the variables in the CO2 "budget" are known. And they're not.

Also, there's more than one explanation of where what we're seeing today might come from.

And there's no reason you should consider my heretical ideas dangerous--because I said myself that all of them are theoretical.

Thread's pretty much dead, so I'm done for now.

 

[azzaman333]

I haven't seen BC say (in this thread at least) that we SHOULDN'T be trying to reduce CO2 emissions, rather just saying we don't know all of the effects causing the global warming, and to what extent.

 

[Abaddon]

But we know they are causeing some of the effects, so why not at least try?

 

[azzaman333]

But we know they are causeing some of the effects, so why not at least try?

EXACTLY!!!!!! Thats what I said!!!!!!!

 

[BasketCase]

Actually, Azzaman, in a previous GW thread I did mention a few scenarios in which cutting CO2 emissions might be bad. All of them are entirely hypothetical.

Dr. William Ruddiman (a recently-retired Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and who says humans ARE causing global warming) theorizes that human activity actually prevented a currently-overdue Ice Age from starting. If true, reducing CO2 emissions might allow said Ice Age to start.

The Exit Mundi web site (who in turn got this next idea from somebody else, I know not who) raised this idea: as CO2 levels rise, plants grow faster and soak up the CO2 at an increased rate. Then humans institute extensive programs to reduce CO2 emissions. So humans stop emitting--but the plants are still there, and still consuming CO2 at the increased rate. Hypothetical result: a CO2 crash to near-zero levels--and the planet turns into an ice cube.

Third, the video mentioned in the Global Dimming thread, raised this idea: global warming and global dimming compete with each other. If we reduce particulate pollution without reducing CO2 levels, we allow more solar energy in, which might make global warming worse. If we reduce CO2 levels without reducing particulate pollution, we might make the planet too cold.


Again, all three of these ideas are purely maybes--and (again) none of them was invented by me.

That said, I have no objection to a CO2 scrubber on my car. And I certainly have no objection to further research on the subject. What I have a problem with is when people go "Omigod!! GLOBAL WARMING!!! DROP EVERYTHING!!!" and have a damn panic attack. That doesn't help anybody. And I have a problem with radical global warming activists who work to squash dissenting ideas. One of those dissenting ideas might turn out to be right.

The global dimming idea embodies my concerns perfectly: in trying to combat pollution, we may have actually made the problem worse. Whatever action we take, we have to be ready for that.

 

[Sidhe]

Actually, Azzaman, in a previous GW thread I did mention a few scenarios in which cutting CO2 emissions might be bad. All of them are entirely hypothetical.

Dr. William Ruddiman (a recently-retired Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and who says humans ARE causing global warming) theorizes that human activity actually prevented a currently-overdue Ice Age from starting. If true, reducing CO2 emissions might allow said Ice Age to start.

This was debunked on the thread with Gothmog, Scientists currently see us at about a halfway point, but of course it's hard to be sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

The Exit Mundi web site (who in turn got this next idea from somebody else, I know not who) raised this idea: as CO2 levels rise, plants grow faster and soak up the CO2 at an increased rate. Then humans institute extensive programs to reduce CO2 emissions. So humans stop emitting--but the plants are still there, and still consuming CO2 at the increased rate. Hypothetical result: a CO2 crash to near-zero levels--and the planet turns into an ice cube.

As has already been mentioned though we're deforresting large areas of the planet. Plus it doesn't work like that, an area can only grow to a size it's soil etc will support, most areas are cut back when they begin to infringe on humans anyway. The growth will not shoot up at all, it may increase a little but rain forests support just about as much plantlife per square metre as is possible.

Third, the video mentioned in the Global Dimming thread, raised this idea: global warming and global dimming compete with each other. If we reduce particulate pollution without reducing CO2 levels, we allow more solar energy in, which might make global warming worse. If we reduce CO2 levels without reducing particulate pollution, we might make the planet too cold.

Global dimming is an effect but it's being overcome by the warming. The sun is reaching a peak output at the moment, which should help to slow down global warming when it starts to revert back to a lower output. But global dimming is not significant enough to disturb the figures over a sustained period. This is taken into account when they make models anyway.

Again, all three of these ideas are purely maybes--and (again) none of them was invented by me.

They've also been looked into and accounted for by climatologists.

That said, I have no objection to a CO2 scrubber on my car. And I certainly have no objection to further research on the subject. What I have a problem with is when people go "Omigod!! GLOBAL WARMING!!! DROP EVERYTHING!!!" and have a damn panic attack. That doesn't help anybody. And I have a problem with radical global warming activists who work to squash dissenting ideas. One of those dissenting ideas might turn out to be right.

The global dimming idea embodies my concerns perfectly: in trying to combat pollution, we may have actually made the problem worse. Whatever action we take, we have to be ready for that.

The dimming idea may be a mitigating factor but it is already accounted for. You'll have to do better than that I'm afraid

Global dimming article NS

The efforts of industrialised nations to cut smog pollution has had a bizarre side-effect - accelerating global warming.

New data show that after years of getting smoggier, our skies have become clearer since about 1990. And one effect has been to allow more solar radiation to reach the surface of the Earth.

The phenomenon known as “global dimming” has gone into reverse, according to research by Martin Wild at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, Switzerland, and been replaced by “global brightening” (Science. vol 308, p 847). “There is no longer a dimming to counteract the greenhouse effect,” he told New Scientist.

Climate scientists say there have been two critical influences on global air temperatures in the past half-century. First, rising atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide have warmed the Earth, by preventing more of the heat that reaches the Earth’s surface from escaping back into space.

But a parallel increase in smog particles has shaded the planet, partly offsetting the warming. Past studies have shown an increase in average aerosol particle levels in the atmosphere between 1960 and 1990 that were sufficient to reduce solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface by about 5%.

The net effect of these two conflicting influences has been a warming of almost 0.5°C since 1960. But the rising levels of aerosols have led to concern that they might be masking greater underlying warming. And now the mask appears to be coming off.
Satellite corroboration

Wild’s new data - assembled from measurements of surface radiation made round the globe - show a widespread reduction in aerosols in the atmosphere since around 1990. His findings are corroborated by satellite data reported by Rachel Pinker, a meteorologist at the University of Maryland at College Park, US, in the same issue of Science (v 308, p 850).

The main cause of the global brightening, says Wild, is the clean-up of air pollution, especially in Europe and the former Soviet Union, where industrial decline has also played a role.

But the same trend emerges in data from North America, Australasia, Japan and, most recently, in China, where smogs have been reduced despite swift industrialisation. The exceptions, where dimming continues to worsen, are mainly in South Asia and Africa.

So should the world hurriedly reinstate smogs to stop global warming from accelerating? Probably not, as Wild points out that carbon dioxide lasts in the atmosphere for a century or more, whereas aerosols typically hang around for only a few days. So as carbon dioxide accumulates in future decades, we would need ever-thicker smogs to counteract it.

And another Science paper reports that current smog levels kill half a million people worldwide each year from heart and lung diseases.

 

[BasketCase]

This was debunked on the thread with Gothmog, Scientists currently see us at about a halfway point, but of course it's hard to be sure.

If you want to say something is definitely not happening, you have to be sure.

As has already been mentioned though we're deforresting large areas of the planet.

Life is always deforesting the planet; animals have been consuming plants ever since evolution got started. Humans deforest? Forests grow back. Sometimes with human help. Humans are removing biomass in some areas, and replacing it in others--sometimes with other trees, sometimes with farms. Or sometimes we put farms in previously barren areas that had no plants at all. As a lifelong member of Boy Scouts of America, I myself have planted more trees than any three Greenpeace activists. (A curious irony of BSA; we are conservatives and environmentalists at the same time.)

Again, the problem is you have to know income AND expenditures (not just one of the two) to know what is happening.

Plus it doesn't work like that, an area can only grow to a size it's soil etc will support, most areas are cut back when they begin to infringe on humans anyway. The growth will not shoot up at all, it may increase a little but rain forests support just about as much plantlife per square metre as is possible.

Most of the world is non-rain-forest. (Why do environmentalists keep obsessing about rain forests??) The primary source of the planet's oxygen is the oceans. Which are three-dimensional, and have plenty of space for free-floating microscopic plants. The only practical limit on plant growth is the combined effects of the available supply of carbon dioxide, water, sunlight, and trace elements.

Edit: Whoa, hold on a second---who said the rain forests are at their limit anyway??? That claim seems completely arbitrary, and I've seen plenty in real life to disagree with it (such as experiments done by my own hand).​

Further still: a surplus of any one nutriet allows a plant to make more efficient use of the others. Give a fire more oxygen, it burns more cleanly--and produces more energy from the same amount of fuel. Give humans more oxygen, they have more energy. Give humans more water, and they are healthier even without more food or more oxygen. Give plants more CO2, and they grow even if sunlight and water remain the same. That's what's happening in the FACE experiments.

The dimming idea may be a mitigating factor but it is already accounted for. You'll have to do better than that I'm afraid

I got you to admit the boldface part, so I've already accomplished plenty.

I was never looking for you to say "global warming is not happening". Just be open to "maybe" ideas.

 

[brennan]

Humans deforest? Forests grow back. Sometimes with human help.

Easter Island.

 

[BasketCase]

Rest of the planet trumps Easter Island.

By the way, something from the FACE experiments which I hadn't noticed before:

Briefly, however, averaged over three years, cotton yields were increased about 40% with CO2 concentrations elevated to 550 ppm, and there was no significant increase in water use.

Curious, isn't it....?

 

[Fifty]

yo i think global warmin be the troof, & im american

 

[FriendlyFire]

If my arguments were weak, somebody would have at least tried to tear them down.

If nobody does, then my work here is complete.

Edit: So I thought. Just found something interesting on Wikipedia: it appears the global dimming trend reversed sometime around 1990.

It would appear I'm not the only guy who came up with the idea that human cleanup efforts might have unintentionally contributed to global warming.....

you ARE AWARE that the concenses at that time and now was that both dimming and warming was occuring at the same time right ?

 

[StarWorms]

Life is always deforesting the planet; animals have been consuming plants ever since evolution got started. Humans deforest? Forests grow back. Sometimes with human help. Humans are removing biomass in some areas, and replacing it in others--sometimes with other trees, sometimes with farms. Or sometimes we put farms in previously barren areas that had no plants at all. As a lifelong member of Boy Scouts of America, I myself have planted more trees than any three Greenpeace activists. (A curious irony of BSA; we are conservatives and environmentalists at the same time.)

I'm afraid you miss the point entirely. Forests ARE NOT growing back as we continue to deforest them faster than they can regrow. We are not deforesting sustainably in places like rainforests. Animals and plants live in a balance. Animals NEED plants to survive. Get rid of the plants and you get extinction of both plants and animals that depend on those species.

Most of the world is non-rain-forest. (Why do environmentalists keep obsessing about rain forests??) The primary source of the planet's oxygen is the oceans. Which are three-dimensional, and have plenty of space for free-floating microscopic plants. The only practical limit on plant growth is the combined effects of the available supply of carbon dioxide, water, sunlight, and trace elements.

Rainforests alone contain around 2/3 of all living species of plants and animals (according to Wikipedia). That is why it's very important. Oceans have a very large portion too (possibly more than). However it's far easier to manage something on relatively small areas of land rather than vast oceans.

 

[batteryacid]

Most of the world is non-rain-forest. (Why do environmentalists keep obsessing about rain forests??) The primary source of the planet's oxygen is the oceans. Which are three-dimensional, and have plenty of space for free-floating microscopic plants. The only practical limit on plant growth is the combined effects of the available supply of carbon dioxide, water, sunlight, and trace elements.

.

Thats so wrong: Photosynthesis on land fixes about 110 gt CO2 per year, in the the ocean ~50 GT/year, you should just take a closer look on the figures I and others have presented here. This fact is easily explained with some very BASIC physics: The Volume in which the photosynthesis takes place is IRRELEVANT ; the only relevant number is the number of photons hitting the surface per area, which is THE SAME for land and sea for identical degree of latitude.

But the differences between land and sea is that water ABSORBS a large amount of the photons before they can hit some algea, thus the much lesser efficiency compared to land.

BTW to say that the rain forest is not a three dimensional system compared to sea is very bold and very wrong; for example the rainforest parted into 5 botanic layers (concerning height). The sheer density of leaves with different shades of green make them the most efficient areas for photosynthesis on this planet.