CO2, Climate Change, Global Warming and Global Alarm

[Dawn Keeballs]

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of PSB,

Perhaps my opinion is slightly at odds with my occupation (the greener side of oil and gas) but I've always found myself to be very skeptical of human induced climate change. For starters, we've only just exited a glacial maxima (ice age), over the last xyz million years, the Earth has typically been much warmer. Throw into the mix the fact that the planet has naturally undergone many climate changes through a variety of different time periods and what we're supposed to be experiencing right now isn't aberrant at all.

The thing that irks me about the discussion on climate change is that it is entrenched in policy, not science. The nature of climate change is scientific, not cultural or diplomatic, yet it is being discussed by people educated in economics and law. Sure, scientists are approached, but given that there is no clear consensus over what is driving/causing change or what we can reasonably achieve to minimise it (which is presumptuous in itself), it's easy to find a scientist who will say more or less what you want to hear so as to reaffirm whichever bill, tariff or tax you wish to introduce.

This brings me roundly to what I think climate change (in the cultural sphere, not the scientific sphere) is really about. Money. Climate change is big business. Would you like to pay an extra $10 to make the seat on your Melbourne-Sydney flight carbon neutral? In the proposed ETS legislation, businesses are now entirely accountable for their CO2 emissions and taxed for them. Because of the altogether presumptuous thought that we are entirely responsible for global warming, it's become fashionable to "go green". Drive a Prius? Good for you, it's worse for the environment than a normal car because of how and where parts of it are manufactured and assembled.

How much of what is sold to us as environmentally friendly is actually so? In case it's not clear to anyone by now, I personally think that global warming is a perfectly natural occurring phenomenon. I also think that we're wrong in assuming that we started this recent trend (which has on a smaller scale actually seen the world get colder) and are just as wrong in assuming we can do anything to affect its change now.

Finally, a letter for you to peruse that I found in my blog browsing (that I find sums up the rest of my thoughts on global warming tremendously aptly):

Dear Administrator Jackson:

I write in regard to the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule, 74 Fed. Reg. 18,886 (Apr. 24, 2009), the so-called "Endangerment Finding."

It has been often said that the "science is settled" on the issue of CO2 and climate. Let me put this claim to rest with a simple one-letter proof that it is false.

The letter is s, the one that changes model into models. If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements.

Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with the research funds that have kept those models alive.

We can take this further. Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.

Let me next address the horror story that we are approaching (or have passed) a "tipping point." Anybody who has worked with amplifiers knows about tipping points. The output "goes to the rail." Not only that, but it stays there. That's the official worry coming from the likes of James Hansen (of NASA---PLEASE REPORT THIS THREAD OR MESSAGE NOW---GISS) and Al Gore.

But therein lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point. The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it. In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO2 concentration in the present cycle of glacials (ca. 200 ppm) and interglacials (ca. 300-400 ppm) is lower than it has been for the last 300 million years.

Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO2 concentration is (A) anthropogenic and ( B ) leading to global warming.

(A) CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution. Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the "pre-industrial" value.


* The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere.

( B ) The first principle of causality is that the cause has to come before the effect. The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming?

Nobody doubts that CO2 has some greenhouse effect, and nobody doubts that CO2 concentration is increasing. But what would we have to fear if CO2 and temperature actually increased?


* A warmer world is a better world. Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better.

* The higher the CO2 levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in greenhouses have shown. But a quick trip to the museum can make that case in spades. Those huge dinosaurs could not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough. CO2 is plant food, pure and simple.

* CO2 is not pollution by any reasonable definition.

* A warmer world begets more precipitation.

* All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms.

* The melting point of ice is 0 ºC in Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else. The highest recorded temperature at the South Pole is -14 ºC, and the lowest is -117 ºC. How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists?


Consider the change in vocabulary that has occurred. The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former is not supported by the data. The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions. If it warms up, that's climate change. If it cools down, ditto. Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change.

In a way, we have been here before. Lord Kelvin "proved" that the earth could not possibly be as old as the geologists said. He "proved" it using the conservation of energy. What he didn't know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and the earth.

Similarly, the global-warming alarmists have "proved" that CO2 causes global warming.

Except when it doesn't.

To put it fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate. It would be a travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense.

Best Regards,

Howard C. Hayden
Professor Emeritus of Physics, UConn

[jules_1972]

Nice....

[Dawn Keeballs]

I suppose what I'm driving at is, why is there so much alarm and fanfare for something perfectly natural and for all intents and purposes, more or less unavoidable? What do people that get up in arms about climate change see that I don't?

[Barfrangipani]

I think the lack of a response says it all.

People don't make the effort or have the time to research things for themselves, so just take on board what is dished up on the 6pm news. When they weight up a heap of conflicting scientific reports vs a cohesive front from the enivronazis, they would logically agree with the ones who seem to have their shit better sorted.

Personally I don't think there will be any form of environmental catastrophe, but weather pattern will continue to change and shift, as they have always done.

[polonY]

I suppose what I'm driving at is, why is there so much alarm and fanfare for something perfectly natural and for all intents and purposes, more or less unavoidable? What do people that get up in arms about climate change see that I don't?

Because most people are stupid.

The business man, who sees potential profit, leaps at the sight of the mindless human, and offers that $10-extra carbon neutral plane ticket.

I have never seen a person argue against nuclear power, who actually understands how a reactor works.*

It is the very same noisy, minority^ group of fuckwits that argue both of these retarded points.


* Inclusive of modern technological and safety advancements.
^ I'm beginning to doubt this point.

[g0zer]

The thing that irks me about the discussion on climate change is that it is entrenched in policy, not science.

<insert whole heap of dialogue that is not science here>

[panic]

similar to daylight robbery, they've just figured a nice argument for taxing air (CO2)

[Jedi]

Climate change is the most visible face in a shift of global policy towards more sustainable choices. In my degree there is huge focus put on not only designing things that work, but that work AND are good for the environment AND have positive social consequences (They call this the triple bottom line of good design). Humans have been destroying the planet in many different ways for centuries, now the movement towards symbiotic living is finally gaining momentum and people are bucking up at the changes because scientists can't agree on everything.

The fact of the matter is that whether or not the science behind this one phenomenon of global warming is in fact, fact, it is still a force of overall good. The principles behind the movement are sound, isn't that enough?

[Barfrangipani]

Jedi: you mean like a Prius? Or like taking a huge percentage of arable land to produce crops for biofuels?

[Jamathi]

Prius (useless bitta kit just like the Honda my sister bought (Holland) makes/creates more polution than any other normal car has ever done!
and drives like it looks, shithouse!
Now,.... that this global warming is debunked, can we have our 2 strokes back on the production line, please!

[Jedi]

It's a start dude. Maybe we would be further advanced if people would just get out of the fucking way and move towards sustainability.

[chew]

So we should increase our greenhouse gases and make less efficient products or is it just the suggested cause that offends people who are worried about their lifestyle being altered?

Sounds like lawyers arguing a point of law.

Seriously a lot of people I think are closet religious nuts who think we will all be saved by a deity before everything goes to crap and we should consume everything on the planet in a selfish manner as suggested in the holy books.

[panic]

isn't "sustainability" code for "lets get another 100 billion people on the planet so we can give them mortgages"?

[g0zer]

(A) CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution. Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the "pre-industrial" value.

Howard C. Hayden
Professor Emeritus of Physics, UConn

i seriously doubt the author is a profession of physics, they have merely added that behind the article to increase the weight of the BS theyve written

note that anyone with google and a working knowledge of arithmetic can quantify the rhetorical question he poses (and is presumably incapable of answering themselves despite being a 'professor of physics')

for example if 2001 CO2 production continues for 50 years, this would raise the current CO2 atmospheric concentration from 582ppm to 823ppm. If the oceans soak up 1/3rd of that production it would raise CO2 from 582 to 743ppm.

to put it simply, yes the CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere is enough to significantly alter its concentration.

re: panic reference to sustainability

its a very basic environmental science principle- creating sustainable civilisation.

not just a civilisation that lasts for a few hundred years and leaves some mysterious ruins behind- this is what history has taught us, major civilisations have failed in the past primarily due to their ignorance of their relationship with the environment.

Mass atmosphere = 5E10^15t
CO2 concentration = 582ppm
World industrial CO2 output 2001 = 2.4E10^13kg
CO2 (2001 production) percentage of total atmosphere = 4.8E10^-4
CO2 (2001 production) percentage of total atmosphere x 50 years = 2.4E10^-2

[rod]

Here's an interesting podcast by Ian Plimer. Unbelievabley he was allowed onto Ockhams Razor to give his point of view on the whole thing. MP3 file runs about ten minutes and gives a good and brief counter to the whole fanatacism: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podca...r_20091018.mp3

Download it before it mysteriously disappears!

[Jedi]

Interesting point that maybe some of you haven't come across - you know that the whole CO2 thing isn't actually (entirely) about carbon dioxide? It's an impact equivalence scale. Taken from Wikipedia -

Carbon dioxide equivalency is a quantity that describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gas, the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming potential (GWP), when measured over a specified timescale (generally, 100 years). Carbon dioxide equivalency thus reflects the time-integrated radiative forcing of a quantity of emissions or rate of greenhouse gas emission - a flow into the atmosphere - rather than the instantaneous value of the radiative forcing of the stock (concentration) of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere described by CO2e.
The carbon dioxide equivalency for a gas is obtained by multiplying the mass and the GWP of the gas. The following units are commonly used:
By the UN climate change panel IPCC: billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2eq).
In industry: million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MMTCDE).
For vehicles: g of carbon dioxide equivalents / km (gCDE/km).
For example, the GWP for methane over 100 years is 25 and for nitrous oxide 298. This means that emissions of 1 million metric tonnes of methane and nitrous oxide respectively is equivalent to emissions of 25 and 298 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.[1]

So the buzzword of 'carbon emissions' can apply to every sort of atmospherically damaging gas, including all your nitrous oxides etc.

[Xander]

This is a beautiful film which really moved me.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU]YouTube - HOME (English with subtitles)[/ame]

As Jedi said, regardless of the science (and most people don't understand it anyway), humans are changing the Earth with exponentially increasing impact. What you focus depends on how you see the world.

If you are green at your core, someone who has grown to intrinsically care about this impact on a delicate Earth, a 'hippy' or someone with beliefs along those lines you will care because you want minimise you impact on a planet you care about.

If you are a business person caring about success, lets call the colour orange. Then you will care because that is the way business and resources are headed, sustainability is an industry growing so rapidly that opportunities are everywhere and billionaires are strategically being made while the laggers havn't even realised the size of the shift taking place.

If your core belief is focused on integrity and morals, on justice and fairness. Say a strong yet cool blue type of energy that enforces what someone believes to be right. Things like the police, the law or religion telling people the one true way to live a righteous life. Then you following the golden rule would be important to you. That is do unto others as you would have them do unto you - thus its your responsibility to hand the planet to the next generation in the same way you had it handed to you.

If you feel its all just a lot of horse shit and those mother fuckers don't realise its a jungle out there, blood thirsty nature red in tooth and claw. Then realise many people consider leaders in this fight to be heros. As people follow their lead power and money will flow to them because they are standing up and fighting.
When oil prices were going up and up you know what some angry Americans did? What they perceived as someone else's greed affected them directly. So to make a political statement they got together into gangs, found the most petrol guzzing cars they could find, Hummers, and torched them. Literally burnt them to the ground as a bold warning. I'm not suggesting anyone go do that, but those people were not exactly a bunch of spineless hippy's. They were angry and took powerful action.


Now I may be wrong, but I hallucinate a large proportion of the population would have their mindset touched on by one or more of those groups in relation to climate change. Green with love for the environment. Strategic orange who sees opportunity. Blue who believes in justice and following the prescribed way. Red who just stands up and demands respect. The shift is happening in the world and in the culture, what it means is up to you.

[kriso]

I suppose what I'm driving at is, why is there so much alarm and fanfare for something perfectly natural and for all intents and purposes, more or less unavoidable? What do people that get up in arms about climate change see that I don't?

I hear your argument, its the rate/speed of climate change compared with previous bouts of CC experienced on Earth that is alarming.

[Pman]

From what ive read on the subject it seems the anticlimate-change theorists tend to be from scholarly fields other than anything to do with climate.

Many are geologists, many of whom are employed by oil companies.

Its the anticlimate-change crowd that are retarded ostriches.

[d0t-bat]

Age of the stupid, good movie. Watch it if you get a chance.
Who ever is right about global warming, two outcomes: we all survive, everyone continues to deplete a non renewable resource. or we all fucking die. fun times ahead