If CO2 causes global warming then by the same reasoning smoke causes fire?

Question

If CO2 causes global warming then by the same reasoning smoke causes fire?

Answer 1

uhmmmm what?

Answer 2

You must be one of those people who really sat and pondered the question:  "Do you walk to school, or bring a lunch?"

Answer 3

I'm not certain what you mean by your analogy, but adding CO2 to the atmosphere is like rolling up the windows in your car with the sun shining inside the car. It will get warmer inside. By adding CO2 to the atmosphere we are effectively rolling up the windows on the earth and preventing (some additional) heat from the sun from escaping and thus the average temperature of the earth increases. As for smoke causing fire, well I'll let you answer that.   :)

Timothy D.

West Melbourne, FL

Answer 4

Very good analogy!  Smoke can FEED a fire, but doesn't have the ability to start a fire without an outside source (like CO2 and the sun).

Answer 5

Do you really think that you can't measure the thermal properties of CO2????

Come on!!

Answer 6

Well Al Gore spent a lot of time of Inconvenient Truth getting excited about the past links between CO2 and warming.  He completely forgot to mention that Warming causes CO2, not the other way around.  

Apparently he won the Nobel prize for raising peoples awareness which is different to educating people.  I suspect he also made a donation to the Nobel Prize fund.

Answer 7

No, that is not the same reasoning at all.

CO2 causes global warming because it is a greenhouse gas.  It's transparent to visible and UV wavelength incoming light from the Sun, but absorbs infrared light re-radiated from the Earth.  Thus it traps heat and warms the planet.  That's why the Earth isn't a frozen wasteland.

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

Perhaps you're making this analogy because of the '800 year lag' argument.  If so, please see my response to this question:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...