Is AGW real or a means of control It's proponents have little regard for absolute truth?

Question

1. The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example-- so-named because it was the hottest period in human history. The interesting thing is this period occurred approximately 7500 to 4000 years B.P. (before present)-- long before humans invented industrial pollution.

"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory)

(in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989)

"Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen

Answer 1

Real.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global...

You're using a strawman argument pretending that AGW proponents claim CO2 is the only driver of climate.  Of course there are other climate drivers (discussed in the link above) which can cause warm temperatures.

However, for the record, the Holocene Maximum was not likely as warm as today.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

Your CO2 argument is irrelevant.  The natural carbon cycle is in balance.  When humans burn fossil fuels, we release carbon which has been trapped for millions of years, is more than the carbon cycle can absorb, and it accumulates in the atmosphere.

This is climate science 101.  If you don't understand the basics, you're in no position to dispute the consensus of experts.

*edit* yes of course the experts have a solid grasp on a concept as basic as the carbon cycle.

Answer 2

Unless you claim some sort of divine revelation that global warming is nonsense, then you have to admit you aren't dealing with "absolute truth" either.  All science is tentative (it will change as new evidence and data becomes available). Scientists will leave proclamations of "absolute truth" to the theologians.

As for your point (dealt with many, many times before around here) that it was once warmer in the past, that is completely irrelevant.  Do you think no climate scientist is smart enough to know that?

Two different things can have the same effect:

Lightening can cause forest fires.

Humans can cause forest fires.

Natural processes can cause climate change.

Human activity can cause climate change.

Answer 3

Contrary to popular opinion man made green house gases are NOT the major cause of global warming. Natural occurrences release more green house gases on a daily basis than all of mankind produces in a year. In fact a single volcanic eruption releases more green house gases than have been produced in the past 10 years by mankind.

Overall the Global Warming crowd is more interested in self promotion than presenting a factual discourse regarding other harmful man made products that are a true threat to our environment.

When you realize that pollution of our oceans by the illegal dumping of toxic substances is a multi-billion dollar a year operation that pays only a few million in fines, the prolific deforestation of the worlds forests, and the virtual snails pace of alternative fuels research to reduce oil dependence are very real problems then you look at who is paying for all the Global Warming propaganda you begin to understand that it is just a big smoke screen to distract people from the true horrors we are facing.

Answer 4

There is no such thing as ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

There are problems..maybe not as bad as they make out, maybe a whole lot worse.

There are a large number of different science specialties involved in trying to work it all out. Just co-ordinating them must be a huge headache. And for sure some of their answers are going to turn out wrong, or on the right track but not gone far enough. This is normal in any scientific investigation of any new phenomenon.

Forget the Holocene argument, nobody says pollution is the only possible cause of temperature rise...and there's a lot more to global warming than just the temperature; wind and ocean current changes are much more serious. Also in the Holocene there were no people living in many parts of the world which THIS overheating is going to affect or destroy.

The big trouble is, IF things are as bad as the worst fears, waiting to be sure about it is TOO LATE. So we have to start trying to fix it before fully knowing what we are fixing. THe measures being planned will bring other benefits, anyway, even if the warming turns out be a bit overstated.

Think of it a little as trying to fix a hydraulic wheel problem in an aircraft at 30,000 feet.....it MIGHT come good by itself at the last moment. But you're in deep trouble if it doesn't. And you have to land somehow before it runs out of fuel.

Arguing that it WILL come good, not fixing it,then crashing the plane, are not the best series of choices to make.

Answer 5

Global climate is warming and mankind is releasing the same fossil carbon that accompanied the past warmings, but the real horror story is that politicians are using it as an excuse to implement treaties and taxes that do not and will not address the problem.  If rising global GHG emissions are the problem, then only solutions that reduce global emissions should be implemented.  There is no current treaty that accomplishes that, and no such solution is even being discussed.

If you'd let go of the fight against science, we might all make some progress discussing the proposed proposals and revealing their severe weaknesses.  Since people resisting the science are in the minority, failing to join the discussion on the remedies only takes those people completely out of the equation, greatly increasing the odds that harmful knee-jerk responses will be quickly implemented.

I don't care what a few people said in the past when valid science is being misused to justify costly and illogical responses.  Would you like to join the conversation on them?

If you'd still prefer to discuss the theory of anthropogenic global warming, understanding our role boils down to physics.  Here's detail on the 100+ year history behind CO2 science:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.h...

Here's how we accurately measure mankind's contribution to current CO2 levels though carbon isotope analysis:

http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/e...

Here's experimental confirmation of the net energy flows in and out of the planet, as predicted by physics and smaller scale experiments:

Earth’s Energy Out of Balance: The Smoking Gun for Global Warming

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/imbalance_...

"Scientists at Columbia University, NASA, and the Department of Energy have found that the Earth is out of energy balance: the Earth is absorbing more energy from sunlight than it is emitting back to space in the form of heat radiation. This imbalance provides confirmation of global warming theory and a measure of the net forcing that human’s are applying to the Earth by adding greenhouse gases and other pollutants to the Earth’s atmosphere."

Additional measured data supporting greenhouse gas theory and providnig evidence of the impact of our GHGs comes from changing troposphere and stratosphere temperature measurements, which are changing as predicted by greenhouse gas theory:

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/earth/atmo...

Supporting our understanding that this current warming is unique is the evidence that the current rate of climate change has not happened in the recent past:

New Research Confirms Antarctic Thaw Fears - Spiegel Online

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk...

"...the Pine Island Glacier has shrunk by an average of 3.8 centimeters annually over the past 4,700 years. But the Smith and Pope glaciers have only lost 2.3 centimeters of their thickness annually during the past 14,500 years. Satellite measurements taken between 1992 and 1996, though, show a loss of 1.6 meters in thickness per year on the Pine Island Glacier -- a figure that represents 42 times the average melt of the past 4,700 years."

Here's how current man-made CO2 levels and emission rates compare with measurements of past, natural CO2 levels:

"The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached a record high relative to more than the past half-million years, and has done so at an exceptionally fast rate. Current global temperatures are warmer than they have ever been during at least the past five centuries, probably even for more than a millennium. If warming continues unabated, the resulting climate change within this century would be extremely unusual in geological terms. Another unusual aspect of recent climate change is its cause: past climate changes were natural in origin, whereas most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities."

"The main reason for the current concern about climate change is the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration (and some other greenhouse gases), which is very unusual for the Quaternary (about the last two million years). The concentration of CO2 is now known accurately for the past 650,000 years from antarctic ice cores. During this time, CO2 concentration varied between a low of 180 ppm during cold glacial times and a high of 300 ppm during warm interglacials. Over the past century, it rapidly increased well out of this range, and is now 379 ppm. For comparison, the approximately 80-ppm rise in CO2 concentration at the end of the past ice ages generally took over 5,000 years. Higher values than at present have only occurred many millions of years ago."

http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/ar4/wg1/faq/ar...

http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/ar4/wg1/faq/in...

There is no precedent for current CO2 levels or for the resulting rate of climate change, in the entire history of humankind.  While performing this grand experiment on our planet and on ourselves, we're most rapidly increasing emissions in developing nations containing 80% of the world's population.  

With this sort of unusually rapid increase in CO2 we might expect to see accelerating melt rates and upward-revised estimates:

"Instead of sea levels rising by about 40 centimetres, as the IPCC predicts in one of its computer forecasts, the true rise might be as great as several metres by 2100. That is why, they say, planet Earth today is in 'imminent peril.'"

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserve...

"Ground-based surface temperature data shows that the rate of warming in the Arctic from 1981 to 2001 is eight times larger than the rate of Arctic warming over the last 100 years. There have also been some remarkable seasonal changes. Arctic spring, summer, and autumn have each warmed, lengthening the seasons when sea ice melts from 10 to 17 days per decade."

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/eart...

There's also an entirely separate line of inquiry that implicates black carbon soot pollution as a major anthropogenic forcing influence as well:

Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming - PhysOrg

http://www.physorg.com/news125500721.htm...

"Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience."

"Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan and University of Iowa chemical engineer Greg Carmichael, said that soot and other forms of black carbon could have as much as 60 percent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide, more than that of any greenhouse gas besides CO2."

Of course carbon emissions and black soot air pollution are symptoms of the rapidly expanding global human population.  We've added about 3 billion carbon-using people to the planet since 1960.  Don't expect politicians to tackle that primary cause any time soon.

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Just curious, if CO2 and other GHGs didn't cause the Holocene Maximum, what did?  Ocean current oscillations or solar variation?  Assuming we accept that, would the presence of one non-CO2 climate warming disprove the physics of greenhouse gases?  Of course not.  I can't follow the argument.of people who think that the Holocene Maximum proves something.  

If past natural warmings involved CO2 99 times (show me one major warming event that didn't), how could man's release of that same warming agent not cause global warming?  Here's how many past warmings did work:

Climate Model Links Warmer Temperatures to Permian Extinction

http://www.physorg.com/news6003.html

"The CCSM indicated that ocean temperatures warmed significantly at higher latitudes because of rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The warmer temperatures reached a depth of about 10,000 feet (4,000 meters), interfering with the normal circulation process in which colder surface water descends, taking oxygen and nutrients deep into the ocean.

As a result, ocean waters became stratified with little oxygen, proving deadly to marine life. Because marine organisms were no longer removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, that, in turn, accelerated warming temperatures.

"The implication of our study is that elevated [carbon dioxide] is sufficient to lead to inhospitable conditions for marine life and excessively high temperatures over land would contribute to the demise of terrestrial life," the authors conclude.

None of the evidence in favor of climate science however automatically endorses any of the proposals that have been pitched under its banner.  Of those we need to be extremely skeptical and critical.  

All current schemes put poor people in developed nations on hook for the bill for compensating for the emissions of everyone on the planet,  That's not ethical, with the added outrage that no one is being honest and discussing how these schemes completely fail to reduce global emissions.

Answer 6

The thought that man made co2 is causing global warming has little evidence of support.  Increased temperatures caused by increased warmth of the Sun causes an increase of co2.

It can be shown that while Venus and Mars both have an atmosphere of 95% co2 and no water vapor, the temperature ranges for the planets is very different.  Compared to Earth where co2 is nothing but a trace gas (300ppm) the only relation that can be made is the distance the planets are from the sun.

"Global Warming" is the modern day phrenology.

Answer 7

Very good points.  Thank you.

This helps explain why global warming people are so irrational, and unremorseful for all the harm they cause.

global warming is solely about power and control.

Enronatzism is most certainly an accurate term.

How sad.

Answer 8

There are so many blind faith sheep here it's ridiculous.  Do some research and wise up, folks.  There is no such thing as man made global warming.  There is an entire industry based around this latest climate scare (there is one every 30 years or so, either warming or cooling). The global warming religion likes to use the National Academy of Science report as their bible, but this is bias and funded by special interest groups. Look carefully at the facts. For example, it states that temperatures have risen 1.4 degrees since the beginning of the 20th century. This is true. However, temps have NOT increased in the last 10 years. You'll notice that, in the 2008 report, none of the graphs contain data past 2000... sketchy, huh? It's because this defies the rising temp theory.

Even though the polar bears have now been put on the endangered species list, it is because environmentalists petitioned to change the rules. The population has actually tripled in the last 30 years. It's the reason that the governor of Alaska is now suing the federal government.

Furthermore, the ice shelfs are the among the highest seen in 30 years. Carbon dioxide is actually a good thing. The list goes on and on for evidence to the contrary of man made global warming, but there is no irrefutable evidence that it does exist.

No matter what environmentalists say (or how they say it), there is no evidence that man is causing global warming. They will use sleight of hand to try and get you, but don't be a sucker. For example, notice how NO commercials say anything about "global warming" anymore? The use the words "climate change" now. That's because environmentalists realize that time is becoming limited on this scare, but they can use the words "climate change" and keep us afraid that we're going to die, whether it be from warming, cooling, etc.

A link that'll get you started on your education (not funded by any special interest groups): http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_...

For your own good, the good of the nation, and yes, the planet, you should be VERY skeptical. Look carefully at the facts and the language. Environmentalists are not always keeping the green of nature in mind. There is a lot of money to be made in this hugely expanding industry.

Even if you are someone who will never believe that global warming doesn't exist, think about this... it will cost 29 trillion dollars to fight this threat of sketchy (and special interest funded) "science" along with ruin our economy. Know how much it will take to feed the entire human population for the next 100 yrs? 7 trillion.

Still think we should be making public policies and spend all that money? Then do one thing for me before you call your local congressman: Name one thing that the government hasn't screwed up.

And anyone who has "proof" can feel free to collect the half a million dollar reward:

http://ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.co...