Global Warming: Scientific Consensus Proved Wrong

[Merkinball]

Obviously, no one would be stupid enough to go to sub-Sahara Africa and try to sell people on saving the lions, trees or whatever. They'll more likely try to show the people how to get free energy, clean drinking water and food to eat. There are African environmentalist that do care about the saving the wildlife but the other problems often overshadow those issues. - Murky

I agree with you about other problems overshadowing wildlife...

Sure, there's lots of people that go there for other reasons. Some of them want to prey upon the easy pickings from the ignorant/corrupt people there and others want to convert them to their religion. - Murky

Where I was, people doing "God's work" are not allowed to overtly recruit for Christianity. They are there to do God's work. And in some ways I have an incredible amount of admiration for what they do. I'm particularly close with one group of missionaries and their leader, and he said it as, "Oh, we don't recruit, we don't get our funds to recruit, we get a couple converts every now and then, but those are just happy bonuses."

If it was suspected that they were overtly trying to convert Muslims, they'd probably get murdered. When we are out in town and see them, we're not to call them missionaries or anything like that.

 

[El_Machinae]

How many of those NGO's are trying to bring green technologies, though?

There are whole university departments devoted to developing green and affordable technologies, and then exporting them to the poorer nations. IFF we can get green energy sources there, first, then infrastructure around green energy will develop naturally.

It's the inverse of here. We're stuck with gasoline because we started with gasoline and built an infrastructure around it. Now we're trying to figure out how to get the gasoline infrastructure to work with green alternatives.

 

[Merkinball]

How many of those NGO's are trying to bring green technologies, though? - El

The US military?

So far as I know, we were the only ones doing anything that could be percieved as green. We installed numerous solar powered water pumps that had been drilled into clean aquifers across Djibouti, the Ogaden, and parts of Kenya. They always get vandalized. Most of the time it was for money. There was one pump though, that was continously vandalized by the women fetching water. They said they'd rather spend hours fetching water, than spend it at home with their ornary husbands. It was time for them to socialize so they broke the pumps and fetched water by venerable means.

Djibouti is friggin environmental disaster. If green people saw Djibouti, they'd crap themselves. They just dump used oil into the ground, they pump raw sewage from the slums into the ground right by the ocean, everything gets burned at the dump. Nobody's there trying to clean any of it up. The most that was ever done, was greenies heard the base built an incinerator and was polluting the poor pristine third world country. But less than a mile away is the dump where they burn EVERYTHING (carcasses, tires, plastic), and the sewage dump site.

There are whole university departments devoted to developing green and affordable technologies, and then exporting them to the poorer nations. IFF we can get green energy sources there, first, then infrastructure around green energy will develop naturally.

It's the inverse of here. We're stuck with gasoline because we started with gasoline and built an infrastructure around it. Now we're trying to figure out how to get the gasoline infrastructure to work with green alternatives. - El

This may be true, but they're not making a lot of headway, nor headway that will be beneficial for third worlders. One thing that must always be considered with such projects, is whether they can be maintained. I know of numerous projects where we've given nice things to these folks, but they don't have the resources to maintain anything on their own. So we end up going out there and fixing stuff ourselves. Seriously, how is it expected that nomads with no education in Djibouti are going to maintain a solar powered water pump? They can fix pumps, but they don't know the first thing about solar. There's lots of ideas floating around Djibouti and Ethiopia pertaining to geothermal energy, but it's not financially feasable at this point and would be an absolute money sink at this point. So far as other projects go, they are going to have to move MOUNTAINS in order to keep gas, oil, and coal. Those are just...so far and away, the cheapest form of energy in existance, and when you are the leaders of these countries, you're crazy, and perhaps murderous, to not put the PEOPLE ahead of the environment. Then the other thing to consider is that most third worlders are concentrated in urban centers. And even in third world centers, that infrastructure you speak of which promotes carbon based fuels already exists anyhow.

I think the west has a much more viable chance, and much greater ability to transform our pre-existing infrastructure and ways of living into greener infrastructure, than any third world nation has. It's a fanciful thought, but I just don't see it happening in the third world. With concerted efforts in the first world, there's really no reason we couldn't have a substantially more green way of living in just five years time.

 

[El_Machinae]

Thanks for your insights. I'd think you have a good perspective for generating solutions.

 

[BasketCase]

Do you have a source to back your claim up that human breathing is causing 10% of the total?

Uhhhh.....yeah, the post where I wrote up the idea. If you were too lazy to scroll back through the thread, Bigfatron did the math on his own one post after you asked. And his answer was very close to mine.

Breathing will remain a zero sum game

Provided populations remain constant, yes. But humans are becoming more numerous--at an increasing rate. The result is the same as with food supplies in the wild: moose become more numerous, which means more food for wolves, which in turn means wolves become more numerous. But the part with the moose (mooses??) has to happen first.

Humans become more numerous. Plants respond--afterwards. The plants lag behind, allowing CO2 to build up.

Thus the change in the 13C/12C ratio correlates with the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years or so, and is entirly consistent with the hypothesis that burning fossile fuels is driivng the increase.

Provided we're measuring atmospheric CO2 correctly.

Two ideas that have been getting tossed around recently: first, we might be measuring wrong. NASA's recent blunder with temperatures demonstrates this.

And the second idea is that the sources you listed might be lying.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Nevermind.

 

[Dr Tiny]

Provided we're measuring atmospheric CO2 correctly.

Two ideas that have been getting tossed around recently: first, we might be measuring wrong. NASA's recent blunder with temperatures demonstrates this.

And the second idea is that the sources you listed might be lying.

Ok easiest first, if the sources are lying/or misinterpreting their data then eventually this would be observed and the hypothesis would have to change. Just as happened with the NASA temperature records for the US (nb not global average temperatures).

The atmospheric CO2 has been measured by multiple labs using different methodologies (satellites, mass spec, ice core, tree rings etc) and their data have been consistent over a relativly long period of time, this would tend to support the hypothesis. Again if there were some problem in the measuring then eventually the data would not be consistent. This has not yet happened and until such a time speculation on errors in the CO2 measuring methodologies are just speculation.
I await your citation of Prof Beck's paper with bated breath.

Incidentally, mammalian cellular repiration
Glucose + O2 = H2O, CO2 and ATP
This is the source of the CO2 we exhale, we get the carbon (directly or indirectly) from plants who absorbed it from the atmosphere in the first place. Regardless of population growth all carbon we exhale originally came from the atomosphere. Hence breathing will have a zero sum impact on atmospheric carbon levels, but will contribute to the diurnal carbon cycle.

 

[brainpan]

Since when is 10% a significant amount?

A lot of the time. If you accept his premise, ten percent is significant.

 

[BasketCase]

Ok easiest first, if the sources are lying/or misinterpreting their data then eventually this would be observed and the hypothesis would have to change.

Absolutely. The key question being, have the (alleged) lies or (alleged) mistakes been caught yet? NASA's now-famous blunder went un-caught for quite a long time.....

This is the source of the CO2 we exhale, we get the carbon (directly or indirectly) from plants who absorbed it from the atmosphere in the first place. Regardless of population growth all carbon we exhale originally came from the atomosphere. Hence breathing will have a zero sum impact on atmospheric carbon levels, but will contribute to the diurnal carbon cycle.

Wrong. Atmospheric carbon levels depend on exactly two things: production and consumption. The mathematics don't care where the CO2 comes from. X amount of CO2 is being produced, and Y is being consumed. CO2 levels in the atmosphere will go up if and only if X is greater than Y.

Remove human breathing from the equation, and X goes down. It's that simple.


Since there seems to be a great deal of hostility towards this breathing idea I came up with, let me explain something here. I'm not trying to mitigate human responsibility for global warming. In fact, human responsibility remains unchanged if my theory turns out to be true. The fact is that we humans are being colossally irresponsible with our rampant population growth.

My point in posting that idea is to demostrate the following: if humans are causing global warming, then some degree of warming is unavoidable. We can't very well exterminate, say, half the human race to knock or CO2 emissions down to near-zero. Well, maybe we will end up doing so if we have a nuclear war or something. But any such massive reduction in human population would be labelled a disaster if it happened, and a crime against humanity if it was performed intentionally.

My point is that efforts to reduce our emissions are not going to solve the problem. We need to either come up with some means of editing the planet's CO2 levels to those which we desire, or simply deal with whatever is going to happen to the planet's climate. My bet is that it's going to be the first one.

A lot of the time. If you accept his premise, ten percent is significant.

I'd say it's more a matter of how much damage global warming is going to do. If global warming is going to flood the whole planet and drown 90% of the planet's population, then yes--ten percent is significant.

If global warming is merely going to change weather patterns, cause droughts in some regions, render other regions fertile, and cause a few more deaths from heat exhaustion, then my math is nothing to worry about.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Goodie, another combatant gets in on the issue to mix it up even more.

Things got real interesting with that recent NASA screw-up, and it just keeps getting better.

So now we have even more scenarios to choose from than we did before. Which one is actually gonna happen?

You DO KNOW about that screw up meant a 0.01% change in the graph right ?
(you should hang around the post a bit more to read rebuttles)

 

[Dr Tiny]

So the CO2 we exhale, where did it come from?

In order for the population to grow there must be an adequate food supply, this is (directly (vegetarian) or inderectly (meat eater)) from plants.

Plants absorb carbon in the form of CO2 from the atmosphere during photoshynthesis and must absorb enough to provide the next level in the food chain (cows, sheep + humans) with enough carbon (as carbohydrates etc) to grow.

Our cells utilise the carbohydrates to produce water, CO2 and energy, this is used to allow us to grow as child and maintain our bodies as adults. Excess carbohydrate is stored as fat.

The CO2 we produce is breathed out, it is an emission BUT is not contributing to the year on year rise in CO2 levels.

There are several carbon sinks in this system
1. Plants such as trees that absorb CO2 and do not enter the food chain.
2. The carbon we utilise to maintain our bodies (obesity is a carbon sink)
3. A growing population is a carbon sink.
Do not forget that the formation of fossil fuels initially acted as a carbon sink, and they were ultimately formed by this same process I have described. CO2 levels are lower than they have been in the past partly because of the formation of fossil fuels sequestering C from the atmosphere via plants.

We can not breathe out any more CO2 than we have already previously taken in via our food - all the carbon we breathe out and more was already absorbed from the atmosphere from our food sources. Your mathematics with regards the contribution of breathng to total human emissions is correct BUT is only a small part of the entire system.


Now with regards alleged erros in the measuring of atmospheric carbon. If there are errors the onus is on the people who do not believe them to put forth credible evidence to suggest otherwise. The only person I can think of who has put forward a counter argument is Prof. Berg and his 2006?/2007? paper has been debunked quite strongly. Even climate change sceptic, and mine safety engineer, Monte Hieb publishes data to show that atmospheric carbon levels have increased exponentially over the last 150years. Carbon levels have been measured by many different independent organisations using different methodologies, it is hard to concieve that all the data from different sources correlates and is also wrong - not to say it can't happen, but there is no hint in the data sets to suggest that carbon levels have not done anything except increase over the past 150 years.

 

[BasketCase]

So the CO2 we exhale, where did it come from?

A few billion years ago, there was zero plant and animal biomass on the planet. Therefore, in the long run, the answer is "inanimate matter".

The CO2 we produce is breathed out, it is an emission BUT is not contributing to the year on year rise in CO2 levels.

Yes.
It.
Is.

If you eliminate human exhalation, CO2 emissions GO DOWN BY TEN PERCENT, and that's the end of it.

Trying to violate basic mathematics in order to keep to your religious scriptures. Classic. Oh well. Not the first time I've seen it happen.

 

[MRM]

If you eliminate human exhalation, CO2 emissions GO DOWN BY TEN PERCENT, and that's the end of it.

No

Simple example. There is a tree with two apples. One apple is eaten by a human, the carbon that is stored in this apple, is turned to CO2 by this very human.

However, the other apple will fall down and rott. Microorganism will decompose it. And guess what, the carbon of this apple will be released as CO2 too. Take the human away, and both apples will be decomposed. Increase the number of human and both apples will be eaten by humans. No matter what, the apple tree took out some CO2 out of the air and stored some in this apple, and the carbon will be released again as CO2, it is just the question which organism will do this job ...

 

[BasketCase]

If there are errors the onus is on the people who do not believe them to put forth credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

The onus is on the creator of a theory to make sure his data sources are correct and that he did the math correctly. It has to be him rather than me who checks the data, because I'm not a professional in his field and don't know how.

The onus is on everybody else with experience in the field to double-check the theory for errors.

And the onus is on you to accept the possibility that errors exist.


Why do I doubt you when you say the burden of proof is on me? Consider: back when Iraq War #2 started to not find all the WMD's George Bush promised, the onus of proof was placed on.....who? On war doubters to prove Bush's accusations wrong? No. Everybody pointed the finger at Bush for taking action based on (allegedly) flawed intel. "It was George Bush's responsibility to make sure Saddam actually had WMD's."

So I'm suspicious of your actual motive when you claim I'm the one who has to do the disproving.

How ya like that? Effortless segue from global warming to Iraq. I'm awesome.

 

[BasketCase]

However, the other apple will fall down and rott. Microorganism will decompose it. And guess what, the carbon of this apple will be released as CO2 too.

Or that apple will disappear into the Earth and spend ten million years being turned into coal. So you see, that CO2 does not get released back into the atmosphere until humans dig it up again. They may never dig it up again. And there you have it: the CO2 balance does indeed go down.

Next opponent please? Put some effort in it here, people, I'm not even breaking a sweat.

 

[MRM]

Or that apple will disappear into the Earth and spend ten million years being turned into coal. So you see, that CO2 does not get released back into the atmosphere until humans dig it up again. They may never dig it up again. And there you have it: the CO2 balance does indeed go down.

Coal is ancient wood, and we don't eat wood ...

ANd this process is only a small fraction anyway, on the year to year basis. Of course, turning biomass to coal change the CO2 balance in a time frame of million of years, but this is an other good thing too. Why ? Because the sun increase output of energy in it s aging progress. ( I read someting of 10% more output each 1 billion years )

So if we burn all fossiles and go back to the CO2 levels of the far past ( billions of years ), the earth would be much hotter, then it was back then

Next opponent please? Put some effort in it here, people, I'm not even breaking a sweat.

Why sould someone if you are too ignorant to notice that your argument is refuted ?

CO2 output by breathing won't go up by 10% if there are 10% more humans. Other animals and microorganism would simple have less food, and because of this would breath that much less ... Take the humans away, and animals + microorganism would have more biomass to consume. Makes not much difference for CO2 levels in the air ...

And again, the CO2 that humans + animals + microorganism can relase is limited - they can only set the carbon free what plants captured before ...

 

[BasketCase]

Coal is ancient wood

Coal is ancient plants. Including, but not limited to, wood.

Why sould someone if you are too ignorant to notice that your argument is refuted?

I call shenanigans for your use of the word "ignorant".

I've shot down every refutation you or anybody else has fired at me. Well, I may have forgotten a few here and there, seeing as how there's so many of them. Keep firing, by all means. And if I forget one, feel free to remind me.

CO2 output by breathing won't go up by 10% if there are 10% more humans.

Yes it will. The explanation--and the spot where your whole argument goes wrong--is below:

And again, the CO2 that humans + animals + microorganism can relase is limited - they can only set the carbon free what plants captured before ...

Wrong.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=207151

A portion of the carbon (C) fixed by plants enters the soil via root exudation

Gotcha. Carbon doesn't only come from dead plants. Once again: early in the Earth's history, plant and animal biomass was zero. So what did early life breathe??? The oxygen and carbon dioxide that got life started must have come from somewhere else. And once the biosphere got going, oxygen and carbon had to be infused into the system--from somewhere else--so that the biomass level could grow.

Your mistake is the assumption that the CO2 balance is a fixed value. It's not.

 

[BasketCase]

ANd this process is only a small fraction anyway, on the year to year basis.

Lemme expound on this a bit more.

When a tree dies, where does its mass go? When you mow your lawn or rake the leaves, where does that solid mass go? As the dead leaves and/or wood decay, a large portion does in fact disappear into thin air--because much of a plant's mass is water. After the water evaporates, the solid mass left behind only returns to the atmosphere if it's burned.

You probably bundle the grass clippings/leaves into Hefty trash bags and drop them on the sidewalk for the garbage man to collect. And the mass ends up in the garbage dump, and eventually, therefore, either in the dump's waste incinerator or in the ground.

A great deal of plant mass (and therefore carbon) does get recycled back into the ground. Carbon moves in and out of the system all the time. And here's the kicker: the exact quantity cannot be known, because this isn't Star Trek and we don't have the tools to measure the process.

 

[Dr Tiny]

A few billion years ago, there was zero plant and animal biomass on the planet. Therefore, in the long run, the answer is "inanimate matter".


Yes.
It.
Is.

If you eliminate human exhalation, CO2 emissions GO DOWN BY TEN PERCENT, and that's the end of it.

Trying to violate basic mathematics in order to keep to your religious scriptures. Classic. Oh well. Not the first time I've seen it happen.

In order for humans to exhale X ammount of CO2 then at least X' ammount must have been sequestered from the atmosphere in the first place. This will create the diurnal change in CO2 levels as seen in the Keeling curve, that is CO2 level rise and fall naturally by 5ppm over the course of a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
This is why we call breathing a zero net effect, all the exchaled carbon and more had been sequestered earlier. So if we could eliminate breathing then yes total human emissions go down, but the carbon from the breathing was already taken out of the atmosphere. Therefore it will only change the amplitude of the diurnal cycle.
(long term changes over millions/billions of years occur by other process that include but are not limited to fossil fuel formation and the oceans absorbing/releasing carbon)

It is impossible for us to exhale carbon we have not already taken on board via our food.
Our food ultimately comes from plants who ultimately sequester carbon from the atmosphere (even that carbon which came from soil was still originally from the atmosphere).
In order for the population to increase there must be enough food to meet the demand for food from the growing population.

 

[Dr Tiny]

Lemme expound on this a bit more.

When a tree dies, where does its mass go? When you mow your lawn or rake the leaves, where does that solid mass go? As the dead leaves and/or wood decay, a large portion does in fact disappear into thin air--because much of a plant's mass is water. After the water evaporates, the solid mass left behind only returns to the atmosphere if it's burned.

You probably bundle the grass clippings/leaves into Hefty trash bags and drop them on the sidewalk for the garbage man to collect. And the mass ends up in the garbage dump, and eventually, therefore, either in the dump's waste incinerator or in the ground.

A great deal of plant mass (and therefore carbon) does get recycled back into the ground. Carbon moves in and out of the system all the time. And here's the kicker: the exact quantity cannot be known, because this isn't Star Trek and we don't have the tools to measure the process.

You forgot to mention that a significant portion of the trees biomass is metabolised by microorganisms who will release that carbon back into the atmosphere ie a mechanism other than burning. I assume an oversight on your part.