[Kazan]

Let's see here - why your comemnt doesn't make sense

A) Bush & Co (in particular his Tobacco Industry friends) would want to say that Tobacco is harmless and try to twist things to say this
B) the Tobacco industry was trying to claim that it was harmless for decades
C) it is a proven fact that the Tobacco industry performed studies, found it to be harmful themselves and then quickly supressed those studies and/or altered their results
D) every reputable study show tobacco smoke being harmful


now perhaps your post would make sense of Buch & Co was freely admitting that it's harmful - but then that would just be a case of him actually owning up to the overwhelming content of independant studies --- no matter how much you try and distort the facts, some of them will always bite you in the ass

[Kazan]

As for Liberator's Post - we have every power to make this planet unable to support human life, without affecting the global average temperature

I however think global warming is bunk-science as well - the temperature goes through flux, always has and always will, I've never been shown sufficien data to support that we are playing a significant roll in the current upturn in GAT --- We are however perfectly capapble of producing enough greenhouse gasses _if_ we're not careful.   I don't see any reason not to play it on the safe side.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Kazan
Let's see here - why your comemnt doesn't make sense

A) Bush & Co (in particular his Tobacco Industry friends) would want to say that Tobacco is harmless and try to twist things to say this
B) the Tobacco industry was trying to claim that it was harmless for decades
C) it is a proven fact that the Tobacco industry performed studies, found it to be harmful themselves and then quickly supressed those studies and/or altered their results
D) every reputable study show tobacco smoke being harmful


now perhaps your post would make sense of Buch & Co was freely admitting that it's harmful - but then that would just be a case of him actually owning up to the overwhelming content of independant studies --- no matter how much you try and distort the facts, some of them will always bite you in the ass

You didn't do it on purpose. I'm frightened. Somebody explain to him, please

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kazan
I however think global warming is bunk-science as well - the temperature goes through flux, always has and always will, I've never been shown sufficien data to support that we are playing a significant roll in the current upturn in GAT --- We are however perfectly capapble of producing enough greenhouse gasses _if_ we're not careful.   I don't see any reason not to play it on the safe side.

You're almost as bad as Liberator then

Papers in Science and Nature both support the view that the worlds temperature is changing. Papers also support the fact that it is the sheer quantity of CO2 (amongst other gases) that has been dumped in the atmophere that has caused this

Here. Get some facts.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/WG1_TAR-FRONT.PDF

[Col. Fishguts]

@Kaz:
You're right that global temperature is in constant flux.
But it's the speed of those changes, which has been increased by a couple of magnitudes, as a direct effect of human CO2 exhaust.

And we're already too late to play on the safe side, it takes somthing around 50-100 years until a positive effect would be noticable, IF we would lower our CO2 output.

[Thorn]

Originally posted by Kazan


wtf are you talking about - every reputable study shows that tobacco is universally harmful

Error 257634: Sarcasm lost in connection.

[aldo_14]

I thought it was pretty obvious that the US government - whoever it is - is beholden to campaign contributors?

NB:  Apparently, the Earth has a tendency towards violent climate change between relative warmth and cold - i.e lurching in and out of ice ages - readinds from Greenland ice cores show an 8 degree difference in temperature over 10 years.  It's apparently unexplained why human history has occured in such a relatively stable climatic period (Holocence).  Some people might think that global warming would act against an ice age, but the converse could happen - more heat means more evaporation, means more clouds, means more snow lies for longer -> more cold, and an ice age.  

In the last 50 years, the sea around the West Antartic Ice Sheet has warmed by 2.5 degrees (C) - this has resulted in ncreasing collapses,  whic could lead to larger scale collapses (ice melting) and a global sea level rise of 4.5-6.5 metres.

[Kazan]

Thorn & Nico - it's hard to tell when someone is being sarcastic online


Furthermore the ammount of CO2 we released is negligible next to how much is naturally released by VOLCANOS and other animals.  One volcanic eruption is 40 years worth of our pollution.  

Furthermore 30-40 years ago they were talking about _global_ _cooling_  -  This is the only time you'll find me agreeing with the conservatives _partially_ on an environmental issue: Global Warming is bunk science.  We are not causing global warming, we're just enduring it.  

However I don't think that should give us a free license to increase CO2 emissions, etc - there is no reason not to play it on the safe side

[aldo_14]

Apparently (it says here the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is ~25% greater than any time in the last 750ka (kilo anu7m, apparently), and ~30% higher than before the industrial revolution.

Now, according to his thing - http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/causes.htm - CO2 emissions from volcanoes are much less than that from man-made causes. (also http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/paleoclimate.htm#1000years).  Now, the thing at the very bottom is interesting, as it indicates 2 cases where climate change appears to have been caused by greenhouse gas emissions (specifically a methane release and an asteroid impact releasing CO2 from rocks).

Now, I'm not sure on how much animals contribute  - i simply don;t have the time to properly look into all the info - but IIRC we live on a climatic knife edge, so even a comparatively [/i]minor change of atmoshperic conditions[/i] could send us off that knife edge.

Oh, and 'global warming' can contribute to a cooling effect (the whole evaporation thingie I mentioned earlier).  Presumably the climate is sufficiently complex to make it extremely difficult to raise exact answers & predictions - i.e. events can have different causes / combinations of causes.  Nevertheless, from what I've seen, it does seem very convincing that human activity has cause climate change thorugh increased greehouse gas emissions and deforestation.  Depending on how sensitive the balance is - I'm not qualified to say - this could have disasterous on negligable consequences.

EDIT; This seems to give a bit more info on volcanic vs human emissions, on an average scale (not per-eruption).  Worth notings it's estimates, though - i.e. don't know how many underwater volcanoes there are.

[Nico]

Mmh, I've seen a very interesting thing on TV the other day: basically, the global warmth would lead to a much colder climate in the northern hemisphere in not long:
You all know the glufstream, right? It's a result from the water of the eurasian rivers meeting with the much colder northern seas. The gulfstearm is what keeps our local climates. The thing is, because of global warmth, the amount of water from said rivers has decreased a lot. The result is the Gulfstream might simply disappear. W/o the gulfstream, the temperature would drop dramatically. And that's expected for our generation.
Wheeee!

[Kazan]

aldo: my apologies but you are commiting a fallicious argumentum ad verecundiam - your source is not expert

the claim that human CO2 emissions are GREATER than Volcanic CO2 emissions is pure total and complete BS, you would get laughed at by thousands of geologists

Methane is around 26 times more potant per volume as a green house gas than CO2 - if any gas we're emitting is affecting globla temperature it's much more likely to be the methane.  


Your volcanic data is looking at "calm" periods - ie low volcanic activity - it is NOT looking at eruption events - eruption events massively overwhelm our emissions



I am not denying that we can have an affect on the G.A.T. however in this case i have not seen sufficient evidence that our CO2 emissions are - everythnig i have ever seen is CORRELATION at best, not causation - i see a very strong CORRELATION but not a causation.

It's more likely an agregrate causation - Deforestration+planktin kills AND Human CO2 and CH4 emissions

[Kazan]

Nico: the "Gulfstream Collapse Theory" remains a theory

[Thorn]

If Rhode Island were to up and dissapear the Gulf Stream would shift a few miles to the west, and Nova Scotia would have a climate similar to Vancouver's.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Kazan
aldo: my apologies but you are commiting a fallicious argumentum ad verecundiam - your source is not expert

the claim that human CO2 emissions are GREATER than Volcanic CO2 emissions is pure total and complete BS, you would get laughed at by thousands of geologists

Methane is around 26 times more potant per volume as a green house gas than CO2 - if any gas we're emitting is affecting globla temperature it's much more likely to be the methane.  

Your volcanic data is looking at "calm" periods - ie low volcanic activity - it is NOT looking at eruption events - eruption events massively overwhelm our emissions

I am not denying that we can have an affect on the G.A.T. however in this case i have not seen sufficient evidence that our CO2 emissions are - everythnig i have ever seen is CORRELATION at best, not causation - i see a very strong CORRELATION but not a causation.

It's more likely an agregrate causation - Deforestration+planktin kills AND Human CO2 and CH4 emissions

Firstly, I should have made it clear I didn't have much time to spend searching this - I was just curious.

Secondly, can you post some expert sources, then.   It's all very well posting stuff like '"you would get laughed at by thousands of geologists" (etc - which does seem pretty insulting in the context you're using it), but you need to actually provide some form of evidence to support it.  I've made the  - small admittedly - effort to see what I could find on this topic, I have no objection to being corrected if you can provide the information for me too look at*.  There's not much point telling someone they're wrong if you don't explain why, y'see.

Cheers.

NB:  What VEI scale do you mean by 'eruption event'?

* actually, I probably won;t look at cos I'm too busy / lazy.  But it helps

[Rictor]

I keep waiting to hear "Nuclear Explosion on Rhode Island, island sinks, Newfies suspected" on the news..

:D

Nothing is too great a sacrfice for warm weather.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Kazan
Nico: the "Gulfstream Collapse Theory" remains a theory

Much like everything until it happens.

[Kazan]

Nico: i was implying that it is a merely whimiscal theory with modest support at best - not enough support to start chicken-littling

This guys playing devil's advocate in this thread - but you note before hand that he's personally advocating caution in committing to a certain position - which is what i am doing.   I have not seen sufficient hard evidence to attribute global warming primarily to us

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=112967

According to David Johnson, “the warming trend
we have been experiencing since the Little Ice Age has actually slowed
during the past 50 years-the one period in history in which mankind
has produced significant “greenhouse gases.” (2)
 Even though the earth’s surface temperatures have been rising, the
atmospheric temperatures have actually been cooling in some areas. The
relationship between the earth’s surface temperatures compared to
atmospheric temperatures has given no credence to the theory of global
warming. “According to computerised climate models, the warming should
spread right through the troposphere, the bottom ten kilometres or so
of the atmosphere. Sceptics argue that if the models are wrong about
how surface warming influences temperatures in the troposphere, they
are also likely to be wrong about the movement of water vapour between
the surface and the upper troposphere. That in turn may mean they are
wrong about water-vapour feedback - one of the vital mechanisms behind
global warming.”

  Periods of global warming are evidenced in history, and are not
peculiar to today. Scientific evidence points to occurences in the
past when the warming of the earth’s surface was similar to today. A
March 2002 article by Science magazine states that “a tree ring
analysis found striking similarities between 20th century increases in
global temperature and the Medieval Warm Period -- a period lasting
from 1330 AD to 1600 AD which saw similar increases in temperature.”(5)

  Although few scientists would refute the fact that the earth’s
surface is in a warming trend, the question remains : Is global
warming a product of man’s ignorance and destructiveness, or is it all
part of a natural cycle? It is important to realize that we have only
had the ability to measure the earth's surface and atmospheric
temperature for a very short time. What occurred in times past is mere
speculation. Until mankind can be proven to be overwhelmingly
responsible for the “unnatural” increase in the earths’s temperature,
it is only prudent to remain cautious in making any judgements
concerning the thousands of years of climatic changes concerning our
planet.

[Bobboau]

"however in this case i have not seen sufficient evidence that..."
it seems you have fund yourself in a position similar to that wich I have found myself on ocasion.
insidently I agree with your stance, not enough conclucive evidence, but no reason to go hog whild on the CO2 (ect).

and just to piss you off
"tobacco is universally harmful"

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kazan
aldo: my apologies but you are commiting a fallicious argumentum ad verecundiam - your source is not expert

While your source is..... Oh. You've failed to give any sources at all besides what goes on in the mind of Kazan. For all your complaints in other threads about Liberator making assertions he doesn't back up I don't see you pointing to much data.

Originally posted by Kazan
Methane is around 26 times more potant per volume as a green house gas than CO2 - if any gas we're emitting is affecting globla temperature it's much more likely to be the methane.  

I really expected better from you than a comment like this. Quite simply we're emitting more CO2 than methane. If we emit more than 26 time more CO2 than we do methane then your guess is wrong. Guess what. We emit more than 26 times more CO2 than methane.  Your guess is wrong.

And that's without counting the fact that it may take longer for CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere once it's released.

Methane does have a contributory effect but CO2 is the big problem. That's why climatologists always talk about it rather than anything else.

Originally posted by Kazan
the claim that human CO2 emissions are GREATER than Volcanic CO2 emissions is pure total and complete BS, you would get laughed at by thousands of geologists

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo released 42 Megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere (source)

The USA however produces emissions of 5,500 Megatons each year (source)
(another source)

Feel free to find me some hard data that shows that volcanos produce more than 5,000 Mt of CO2 a year.

Originally posted by Kazan
I am not denying that we can have an affect on the G.A.T. however in this case i have not seen sufficient evidence that our CO2 emissions are - everythnig i have ever seen is CORRELATION at best, not causation - i see a very strong CORRELATION but not a causation.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. It isn't one shared by the majority of climatologists though.

Originally posted by Kazan
It's more likely an agregrate causation - Deforestration+planktin kills AND Human CO2 and CH4 emissions

What effect do you think that deforestration and plankton kills would have on the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere? Both of those are CO2 sinks. When the scientists say that mankinds actions are causing a rise in CO2 they aren't saying that burning fossil fuels == gloabal warning. They are on about the whole spectrum of human activities including removing CO2 sinks.

[Rictor]

I'de just like to point out that just because you (Kazan, Bobbauo..anyone) has not seen evidence, that does not mean the evidecne does not exist. I'm sure that mere mortals don't have access to certain research information regarding the issue, and even then, I would venture to guess that few outside the scientific community have the knowledge to interpret the data. Don't be offended, but I'd rather side with scientisist who have dedicated their entire lives into researching the subject, instead of you.


But even if you're right, and its not as bad as people think, is there any reason why we shouldn't be cautious anyway? We're standing on thin ice, and just because its has not yet broken doesn't mean we should jump up and down on it.