Anyone Not believe we are causing Global Warming?

[GenMarshall]

I thought you said you didn't believe in rational science last night, CG. Science deals with data.

I will admit that I am wrong on my reasonings on Science and Rationality.

 

[Sidhe]

the question is not fair, because it pegs "dissenters" into defending that humans have an impact on their environment, which is very easy to prove.

It's like asking if the sun has influence on alpha centauri. Those who answer "no" are barraged with evidence of gravitational fields and solar radiation being able to reach and influence alpha centauri.

So people are giving all sorts of evidence there is more CO2 in the atmosphere etc, which is obvious.

The question is how much, so when people say "no" they are given evidence that does not directly prove humans are causing global warming.

I've seen the evidence from the anartic core samples etc.

But really, nobody answered how did the middle ages heat wave happen?

(besides the cow answer, which was not correct, and I don't care to go into detail as to why, but there were heards of buffalo, now there isn't, and the world colled back down even though livestock numbers increased)

The position of the sun,Milankovich cycles,volcanic activity,Increased agrarian activity, cutting down forrests, livestock etc, solar output was higher at the time which has been shown to increase the Earths temperature more radically than previously thought.

Also the Middle Age warming period was not a Global event and was mostly a local event. Areas elsewhere have shown prolonged periods of cooling within this period, the problem with the modern raise in temperature is it's happening everywhere at once, which suggests that there is a different reason behind this phenominum and the Middle age one.

We can isolate Milankovich cycles, the Earth is not in a particularly tilted or non tilted attitude,volcanoes are not particualrly active, the Earth is not particualrly close to the sun in it's orbit in comparrison to the last 400 years or so. Output of the sun is at an all time high but scientist suggest that this could only account for about a third of global warming and the sun is set to cool in the next 50 years, which should give us a little breathing space.

In other words if you take out the back ground events you still have a significant temperature rise which has no natural scientific explanation. Whilst it's possible that scientists could have under estimated their experiments by a wide margin. It'd have to be an extremely wide margin, and I see little evidence to show that it has made such grevious mistakes so far.

With that in mind, and an obvious interest in people to destroy the theory, I've yet to see any thing significant that places global warming solely in the remit of nature, therefore any hypothesising based on said ideas is merely that, either that or it's agenda driven speculation. Healthy skepticism is fine in fact it's postively beneficial, but it needs to be backed up with firm evidence if it wants to overturn the concencus position.

 

[Abaddon]

Glacial periods come and go.. we can prove this from ice cores.

 

[JerichoHill]

It is probably separated because it is perceived that Americans are more distrusting of human involvement in Global warming, and the poll is to test if this may be true. Looking at the results of the poll, it may well be.

I would contend that the American sample from a Civ Forum is not representative of the whole (that, and the sample size, etc).

That, and the tone of the question, the way the answers are listed, all reflect a question designed to , obsentibly, make Americans look bad. Its not a non-biased question.

 

[JerichoHill]

That being said, what is your opinion on the matter?

Of course we're contributing. And I'm pretty sure that if we ranked our ecological footprint, I'd be one of the top 5 green guys here. That being said, the problem is one of "the commons" and subject to free riders. In this respect, American production and industry is not as problematic as dirtier devloping world production, nor on that same level as Russia and China.

Separating out 1 country as more causal than these others is a silly, endeavor that merely reassigns blame, causes talk, and no action.

 

[JerichoHill]

Was the poll ideal? No, but the point is that a contrast was found.

You don't even have a statistically significant sample for the population on CFC. Nor was the question phrased correctly. Nor was it neutral.

 

[Sidhe]

Of course we're contributing. And I'm pretty sure that if we ranked our ecological footprint, I'd be one of the top 5 green guys here. That being said, the problem is one of "the commons" and subject to free riders. In this respect, American production and industry is not as problematic as dirtier devloping world production, nor on that same level as Russia and China.

Separating out 1 country as more causal than these others is a silly, endeavor that merely reassigns blame, causes talk, and no action.

Compared to C02 per capita your well above China and india, in fact your in a different ball park, you also out pace them by amount of CO2 emission per year, in fact you out pace Europe by over a 120 billion tonnes and you have 150 million less population. No ones saying others don't have to take responsibility, what they are saying is that taking no responsibility whatsoever and just continuing BAU(business as usual) Is extroadinarily arrogant and short sighted.

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

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

If you(and by you I mean your governement institutions) Want to be taken seriously stop pointing the finger elsewhere and start taking responsibility for your own actions, because this: but their worse than us(untrue) Attitutde so we should do nothing, is getting tired fast. Moral argument: because someone else is immoral, I am justified in behaving equally imorally. It's the sort of excuse you expect from a child not a responsible world nation.

Essentially it's not the reason for anything anyway, the real reason is that it would hurt business that's it, it's just not politically correct to say this so openly.

Do you not find it shocking that your country contributes nearly a quarter of global CO2 emissions but has only 5% of the worlds population. Because I'd be embarassed personally. My country isn't clean but at least it's trying hard to become more clean.

 

[brennan]

Separating out 1 country as more causal than these others is a silly, endeavor that merely reassigns blame, causes talk, and no action.

Per capita the US pollutes more than anyone else. Did you even sign Kyoto? No. Make a serious effort to clean your own act up and places like China might not see you as merely wishing to extend your economic tyranny over them and actually start working on the problem themselves. Talk is cheap, but the rest of the world sees precious little action on the part of the USA where this is concerned. America likes to lead the world, so lead it and cut your emissions.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't really like 'per capita' as a measure, because it fails to reward (as far as congratulations go) those who have limited their population growth. I much prefer to look at it via "biomass in the territory"; how much CO2 is produced in relation to how much biomass is in the territory.

That way, Canada doesn't get let off the hook (even with their huge tundra) and Brazil is acknowleged for their huge carbon sink.

 

[JerichoHill]

Bravo El Machinae.

Excellent post, excellent point. I think that's a better measure.

To me, placing blame on America is like placing blame on the biggest smoker in a room full of smokers.

 

[JerichoHill]

Do you not find it shocking that your country contributes nearly a quarter of global CO2 emissions but has only 5% of the worlds population.

Question? Doesn't America produce a whole lot of goods for the rest of the world? Could we measure by (Good production for own country divided by population?)

If we do, then 2005 estimated world GDP is 43.07 trillion, and US GDP is 12.49 trillion, leading to a percentage share of 29%.

So no, it is not embarassing that we account for 25% of global C02 when our economy is responsible for 29% of the production in the world.

 

[Mulholland]

Here's a graph that maybe, just maybe will convince some non-believers. It shows CO2 and Temperature over the last 350 000 years. If you'll note, they correlate quite well. Now, look where carbon emissions are today. Something bad is bound to happen when we have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere than all throughout this time period. If you look at projected CO2 emissions for 2050 that amount doubles again.

 

[El_Machinae]

Bravo El Machinae.

Excellent post, excellent point. I think that's a better measure.

To me, placing blame on America is like placing blame on the biggest smoker in a room full of smokers.

Even with my system, America is a still a huge problem in this regards.
I just think it's a better system, because it addresses the concern: CO2 production vs. our ability to sink it back down.

Many people have issues that they're causing, but in sheer CO2 volume, the States is a concern. They might be smoking using biodegradable filters, but they have two cigs and a cigar on the go

 

[skadistic]

Question? Doesn't America produce a whole lot of goods for the rest of the world? Could we measure by (Good production for own country divided by population?)

If we do, then 2005 estimated world GDP is 43.07 trillion, and US GDP is 12.49 trillion, leading to a percentage share of 29%.

So no, it is not embarassing that we account for 25% of global C02 when our economy is responsible for 29% of the production in the world.

Thats a brilliant post.

Who makes up the othe 75%? How much is from the EU? How much is from China? How much is from S America? How much is from India?

HOw much do those areas produce in goods compaired to their pollution level? Are thier evnviromental restrictions on manufacturing as stringent as in the evil US?

What percentage of this current warming trend is a direct relation to humanity?

 

[El_Machinae]

Thats a brilliant post.

I dunno; it's merely acknowledging that the US is not only polluting the most, but producing the most. We'd expect that.

How much of that production is for internal use? I can potentially see a discussion where you're off the hook for goods that your country exports (and make the importer responsible for the pollution (skadistic did this recently by pointing out that China does a lot of California's pollution). However, the rapacious production levels (which cause problems for the world) mainly internally benefit the American population.

I don't think that the United States captures the externalities of their CO2 production, since the victims are not compensated. The free market works much better when the cost of pollution is captured, and I like the free market to work properly.

 

[Whomp]

Why is the Mann hockey stick graph considered 100% fact? The data looks at western North America but assumes if temperatures in Europe were cooler than the US during the 20th century then Europe would've been cooler than the US at all times during the last millennium. Isn't this too simplistic when it uses a single set of proxy measurements?

I think we can conclude the 20th century was warmer but it's inconclusive that it was unusual. There is scientific literature where 79 of 102 proxy temperature studies have identified a 50 year period over the last millenium that was warmer than any 50 years in the 20th century.

 

[puglover]

Well it's quite obvious humans do cause global warming. The question is how much.

From what I've heard, humans have very little effect on global warming anyway. I see it as just another natural process beyond our control.

 

[JohnRM]

I am of the opinion that we are experiencing a periodic climate change that has occured throughout the Earth's entire existence. There is reason to believe that human activities are enhancing or augmenting that effect on a local or even regional level, but I do not believe that we are impacting the global climate.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Separating out 1 country as more causal than these others is a silly, endeavor that merely reassigns blame, causes talk, and no action.

You don't even have a statistically significant sample for the population on CFC. Nor was the question phrased correctly. Nor was it neutral.

Both of these are true, but I am willing to bet that if proper polls of the developed world were taken, the proportion of Americans not believing in the severity of anthropogenic climate change would be significantly higher than non-Americans.

Does that mean you can generalize over each individual American? No. In fact I like the initiatives taken on the state level by the west coast states, the northeast, and Illinois to force change.

But surely you can admit that there seems to be a lot more American skepticism, at least in the CFC population.

Question? Doesn't America produce a whole lot of goods for the rest of the world? Could we measure by (Good production for own country divided by population?)

If we do, then 2005 estimated world GDP is 43.07 trillion, and US GDP is 12.49 trillion, leading to a percentage share of 29%.
.

You are paid handsomely for those goods. And why is it that Europe, which produces the same amount of GDP manages to do it with far less greenhouse gas emissions?

Considering how much product input involves people driving around in traffic to get to inefficiently located workplaces, I don't see how the rest of the world should be thankful for that. Surely you can find a more efficient way to produce those goods. (Not saying you yourself engage in this behaviour, and Canada cannot lecture considering how much of its wealth is dependent on dirty tar sands industry)

 

[JerichoHill]

@@Sobieski II

Both of these are true, but I am willing to bet that if proper polls of the developed world were taken, the proportion of Americans not believing in the severity of anthropogenic climate change would be significantly higher than non-Americans.
--No such polls exist, and in actuality, I think that its presupposing alot to assume this. Last I checked the administration had a very low approval rating, so most of America doesn't think like the current administration.


Does that mean you can generalize over each individual American? No. In fact I like the initiatives taken on the state level by the west coast states, the northeast, and Illinois to force change.
--Yet this is what the poll does.

But surely you can admit that there seems to be a lot more American skepticism, at least in the CFC population.
--I don't even kid myself thinking the CFC population is representative of anything of worth other than a few hardcore computer gamers.

You are paid handsomely for those goods. And why is it that Europe, which produces the same amount of GDP manages to do it with far less greenhouse gas emissions?
--Let's see, US GPD per capita is 10K higher than Europe. Thus the US can purchase more. The US produces alot more electricity than Europe (3.9trillion kwh to 2.9trillion kwh). I'm going to go out on a limb and saying living standards, that this is primarily a function of the ability to purchase.

Considering how much product input involves people driving around in traffic to get to inefficiently located workplaces, I don't see how the rest of the world should be thankful for that.
--How are our workplaces inefficiently located? The United States is the SIZE of the European Union, geographically. It would seem plausible that a transportation system design would be differently configured because of size and population distribution (The US had alot more room, still does).

Define terms better please. Of course I am not saying that there isn't inefficiency, but I'm trying to point to the causes in a non-emotional, non-blame hurling, non-denigrating way. The US would appear to be able to afford more on average, and thus demands more. The problems the US faces are different than the problems other countries face. Thus to assume superiority on either side of the argument seems silly, trite, and ultimately ridiculously fruitless.