Is CO2 just a big COn?

Question

The truth about global warming has already been clearly elucidated elsewhere on this site and the fact remains that there is no evidence whatsoever that human CO2 emissions have any bearing on it. In fact a recent Channel 4 programme showed conclusively that nothing we can do can have the slightest effect. But, like religion, people cling to many erroneous beliefs which have no basis in scientific fact or contrary evidence, simply because it makes them 'feel good'.

The sooner we can eliminate all these spurious ideas and faulty logic the sooner we can come to terms with the prospect of a warmer climate - and the opportunities it offers.

Answer 1

Here's some perspective for the alarmists -

If you calculate the volume of the atmosphere and divide that by the total number of people on earth (as of 7/1/07) you'll find that there is nearly one CUBIC mile of atmosphere for every man, woman, and child on earth.  Of course there are some considerations: the majority of the world's population is in non-industrialized countries and the atmosphere is in constant flux - in other words, those cubic miles are not "closed".  What this speaks to me is that a very few countries would have to be responsible for polluting approximately 6.16 BILLION CUBIC MILES of atmosphere.  Frankly, this has CON written all over it.  I don't care what scientists are quoted, I don't care about Al Gore's Nobel nomination, there is a bigger agenda beneath the surface and it doesn't have anything to do with man-made climate change other than scaring the c**p out of the herd mentality crowd.

Answer 2

yes its absolute doodoo-even the Queen has "offset" her corgis or whatever it is -not even the tree hugging guardian readers know what offsetting is -its utter bunk

Answer 3

Well, the output of the sun has gone up .2% is the last 40 years and Mars and Pluto are warming up so I suspect we can't be blamed for that...

Read here ...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/su...

Answer 4

No.

The "swindle" movie is wrong.  It is simply a political statement which distorts science.  The director has a history of putting out misleading stuff.  In 1997 he made a series for Channel 4 called “Against Nature”, which compared environmentalists with n***s. Channel 4 had to apologise for the misleading stuff in that one.  The present movie is also a distortion of the science. More here:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environmen...

"A Channel 4 documentary claimed that climate change was a conspiratorial lie. But an analysis of the evidence it used shows the film was riddled with distortions and errors."

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313p...

"Pure Propaganda"

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

Explanations of why the science is wrong.

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

History of the director.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climat...

"The science might be bunkum, the research discredited. But all that counts for Channel 4 is generating controversy."  

Gore's movie may be a little over dramatic, but it has the basic science right.  This movie does not.

Channel 4 itself undercuts the movie in a funny way.  If you go to their website on the movie you find links to real global warming information.  They also have a way to "Ask the Expert" about global warming.  The questions go to a respected mainstream scientist who supports (mostly) human responsibility for global warming.

Global warming is real and mostly caused by us.  Three reasons, with solid support, most important first.

There's an overwhelming amount of peer reviewed scientific data that says that.  Short and long summaries.

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

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater...

There's a large number of people who agree that it is, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy".  Just three examples of many:

"Global warming is real, now, and it must be addressed."

Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/a...

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/fu...

Good website for more info:

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 5

It seems that even the sceptics agree that CO2 levels have increased. Any one with the right math and science tools can verify for themselves that an increase in CO2 levels will lead to increased retention of solar energy. The formulas are standard, used regularly and verifyable.

This says nothing about where the excess CO2 came from. Also if you want to bring in other factors that might be heating the earth to cause the CO2 increase, fine, but it doesn't change the fact that increasing CO2 levels create additional thermal insulation for the planet.

Some one said if its GW then the troposphere should heat up not the surface. Well the troposphere is the level of the atmosphere next to the surface, so actually it is one and the same thing as far as heating of the planet goes, heat one you heat the other.

Putting on an extra blanket keeps you warmer, it really doesn't matter how the blanket got there.

As to water vapour levels, they have differing effects, both trapping heat and when they form clouds, reflecting both solar radiation back into space and trapping heat radiation under neath them. A very messy complex situation which is not fully understood. But the levels of water vapour are independant of human activity, as least of direct human activity. We can neither increase nor decrease the amount of vapour available. But it does change according to the temperature. This is a dynamic equalibrium that is stable as long as global temperatures are stable.

But some of the arguments presented are simply false. The earth has not been heating up significantly to date. The estimated heating due to "global warming" is still miniscule, just barely measurable. So it is just not credible that this tiny increase is responsible for the increased carbon dioxide levels. This cause effect relationship is simply false. No evidence is presented to justify it. Because there is none.

The arguement that mans contribution is tiny in relation to the natural flows. That is poor maths, poor science and poor logic. First there is a natural carbon cycle which recycles carbon. Living things respire and most release carbon dioxide as a result, Green plants photosythesis and in the process tie up carbon dioxide in sugars and celulose etc. Its a nicely balanced system. There is a huge buffering effect due to the oceans which absorb CO2 so small changes are leveled out. Shell fish, corals etc create limestone from disolved CO2, and volcanoes and some other geologic activities add CO2. Again these are all part and parcel of the carbon cycle and its a very stable cycle, sudden changes in atmospheric CO2 are very rare events. They usually have very clear causes. No natural cause is identifyable for this sudden increase. (200 years is sudden in geologic time scales.)

Humans have reduced plant life by cutting forests, to create cities,  farmlands and grasslands and deserts.  Over recent years this has increased dramatically. Humans have also released carbon that was locked out of the carbon cycle for millions of years by burnig fossil fuels. With no increased plant production to remove this extra CO2 (instead less plant growth), the CO2 is building up in the atmosphere. It doesnt take a guinius to work this out.

Ok there are a lot of variables, but the big picture is pretty simple. Put more into the system, constrain the removal process, you get a build up. The ocean buffer moderates it, but bottom line sooner or later it builds up.

Every year humans put a larger amount of CO2 into the atmosphere than they did the previous year. How does anyone expect this not to have an effect? What magic is supposed to remove this?

The person who suggested that being active now to reduce the CO2 emmissions is harmful, should do a simple risk analysis.

Act now, while there is time to do it sensibly with minimal impact on quality of life, or risk catastophe. If the GW sceptics are right, at worst everyone has lost a tiny bit of income, but we all have a more sustainable cleaner energy system.

However if the sceptics are wrong and we follow their advice and do nothing, then we could have a very nasty result with massive sealevel rise, and a runaway green house effect. I for one would rather not risk catastophe when the cost of insurance (reducing CO2 emmisions) is so small.

The GW sceptics try to make a case for continuing to burn ever increasing amounts of fossil fuel as if there were no alternative. There are plenty of alternatives, and they are more sustainable, and will lead to increases in the quality of life not decreases. For the very poorest people of this world, well they contribute almost nothing to GW because they already use renewable energy, although they would like to improve the way they use it. Firewood for cooking is very common! Starchy foods to power muscles to walk and to till the fields is also very common. Now these people want to do better than that, but there are plenty of ways they can do better without burning fossil fuels. The current steady as you go approach does not improve the lot of these people anyway.

Now the suggestion in the question that a warmer climate isnt such a bad thing. Well if you lived in one of the worlds warmer areas you might feel differently. Add 5 degrees onto the average temperature in the tropics and its getting unliveable. Add 5 degrees onto warm temperate summers and regular temp over 40C with spikes to 50C, well that is not what I call comfortable. Add 5 degrees to winter temps in much of the cool temperate areas and a lot of ski resorts will have to reconsider their livelyhood, skiing on rock is not much fun.

As for agriculture, ask any farmer, what even a modest climate change does to his or her crops. Rain during harvest time is a disaster, dry around planting time equally. Its not just about temperature, but a total redistribution of rainfall patterns and increased unpredicability of weather. Farmers need as much certainty as possible to plant  and harvest their crops. The vintage will be pretty poor if theres too much rain when the grapes are ready for harvest.  Sure farmers can adjust, but it takes time and money, and if its not clear what the climate pattern will be, as it wont, then what changes should be made? Chop all those vines down and plant what exactly? Don't plant Cocoa, try cassava, oh, no market, never mind, go hungry. Runaway GW will spell disaster on a massive scale due to crop failures, not just locally, but globally. The lower the warming the less that effect.

As to opportunities, well the change from non renewables to more efficient use of renewables offers so many opportunities its crazy that countries aren't fighting to go that way. Those economies that embrace the changes early will win huge benifits down the track as they will have the advanced technologies that everyone will want.  They will discover who new industries and whole new markets, creating new jobs and powering those clever economies that go that way early. An interesting point to note is that, the CO2 impact of an average European is about half of that of an average American, yet their living standards are comparable. Clear evidence that CO2 emmisions can be reduced without loosing quality. As to China and India, their per capita CO2 emmisions are still way below those of any developed country.

Big problem with the debate on GW is that if we wait untill even the blind can see it happening it will be to late. (I've bought a block somewhat above sealevel  and look forward to a beach frontage). The cost of acting now is actually very small if the right decisions are made. There are more opportunities to gain than to loose. The restructuring required is a massive opportunity to reinvigorate moribound economies.

Economies restructure their work forces all the time, the information technology revolutin has cause massive job redistributions, this will be equally dramatic, but no less benificial in the long run.

The big anti GW talk is from those with vested interests in fossil fuels. I live in a third world country with a very low CO2 footprint, I walk to work, dont use fossil fuels to heat or cool my home. 70% of the electricity I use is from hydro. Still I see how efficiency can be improved to reduce CO2 emmisions further and to save money (energy is expensive here) without sacrificing any quality of life. Infact I can see investment opportunities that I will be following through to cash in on cleaner better more sustainable energy.

Answer 6

Benjamin Disraeli said originally and it was popularised in the U.S. by Mark Twain:

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and STATISTICS.

Clever things statisticians they can make numbers jump through hoops or even disappear.  Especially when the statistician has political power.

Answer 7

There are none so blind as those who will not see.  If you are so deluded as to not believe facts that abound from scientific journals then there is no hope for you.  I pray for your sake that you don't live near the coast.

Answer 8

Just like Al Gore, you are saying that your point has been conclusively proven. But it hasn't. One lie is as bad as another.

There is ample evidence that PAST climate change has caused CO2 increases and not the other way around. But that does not prove that THIS climate change cannot have a different cause. The CO2 graph in the source does show that the present CO2 increase looks NOTHING like any past one, so it is at least plausible that it has a different cause and will have a different effect. You need to keep an open mind!

By the way, nobody disagrees with the CO2 concentrations in the graph in the source. Al Gore and George Bush and the oil companies and everyone agrees with the data in the graph. It is the consequences of that CO2 increase that are being argued. The caption in the graph that says, "The Industrial Revolution Has Caused A Dramatic Rise in CO2" can safely be ignored without invalidating the actual concentration history. But the correlation with the beginning of the rise in CO2 and the start of the industrial revolution is quite striking, isn't it?

Answer 9

There is no question that CO2 is being increased by human activity. None. End of story.

the question is "how is climate changed?"

Please be careful saying that humans only add a small percent of the carbon. You must take account of time scales.

Humans introduce carbon that is not supposed to be in the current carbon budget. Petro-carbon is not to be released back to the atmosphere until it makes its way to a seep or volcano, in thousands and thousands of years.

the other carbon production is all carbon be cycled on the same time scale.

we are putting excess Carbon in to the atmosphere. That above the dynamic equilibrium that millions of years of life have helped to create.

Answer 10

out of the 187 billion tones of CO2 in the air, only 7 billion were contributed to by humans. They're trying to cut it but by the slightest bit which causes misery on our lives.

Oh and this 'air tax' thing they're charging us now...why, bloody why

Answer 11

Now that carbon trading and offsetting has been firmly entrenched in the world markets the global warming crowd are just not going to go away. Too many people making money out of it. Having said that, does anybody remember that programme about global cooling, where it was stipulated that emissions actually keep the planet cool? It was demonstrated after 9-11 when all the US planes were grounded and the ambient temperature rose 3degC.

Answer 12

The theory of man-made global warming is false.  Anyone who believes otherwise has not investigated the evidence or is purposely remaining ignorant to the legitimate opposition to global warming.  I have given up an one and a half hours to watch “An Inconvenient Truth” so I ask you to do the same and watch the movie detailing the opposition.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...  

Another general resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warm...

CO2 is not causing the globe to warm the opposite is true, the warming is increasing the atmospheric CO2.  When the world heats it gradually increases the temperature of the oceans which serve as the largest CO2 sink.  As the oceans heat up they release CO2 which is stored in them.  The information comes from the same data Al Gore uses, the temperature always goes up before the concentration of CO2 goes up.

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/artic...

CO2 makes up only .03% of our atmosphere.  Water vapor, another greenhouse gas, makes up 1-4% of our atmosphere, this gas is acknowledged to be the main greenhouse gas.  All human activities combined contribute only 6 Gigatons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year.  Animals, through respiration, decomposition, etc contribute 150 Gigatons of CO2 to the atmosphere.  So humans contribute only a small amount of CO2 to the atmosphere which is already in very small concentrations in the atmosphere.

http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/science.html This is where my data came from, it is an interesting site, it displays the same graphics as Al Gore in his movie but it tells how low the human contribution is.  So Al Gore is using the same data but coming to a different conclusion, who do you want to believe a politician with no scientific training or the NASA CO2 laboratory, a group of scientists who spend their entire careers studying CO2.

We know the greenhouse effect is real it is a necessary effect to keep our planet at a habitable temperature.  However if our current warming is due to greenhouse gasses it would cause warming in the troposphere , but the troposphere is actually getting cooler.

http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/temperature... That points to other explanations to our current warming.

So what is causing our current warming, it is the sun.

http://web.dmi.dk/solar-terrestrial/spac...

http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2003/s...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/06...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/...

The fact that only the earth’s surface is warming points to direct heating from the sun rather than heating due to greenhouse gasses.  Also other planets in our solar system are warming pointing to a common cause of warming, that common cause being the sun.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/0...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/sola...

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/sola...

The global warming crowd says our glaciers are melting and animals will suffer this is another false claim.

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Sci...

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA235.htm...

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/

the global warming crowd also claims a scientific consensus on the issue, this is wrong in two ways.  One, there is no consensus, this is a false claim to make you believe in global warming by suppressing the opposition.  http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Second, even if there was a consensus it would mean nothing, science is not politics, you don’t vote on theories to determine their legitimacy.

The IPCC is the main supporter of global warming, their statements are defended blindly by people who don’t want to admit that global warming is not real.  People will claim that they took into account natural sources of CO2, they didn’t.  Take a look for yourself:

http://www.ipcc.ch/activity/srccs/index....  That is the latest IPCC report, read the entire report, do a search of the documents, there is absolutely no mention of natural sources of CO2.  The natural sources have been completely ignored.  Also people will claim that the IPCC took the sun into account in their report, this is not entirely correct, while the sun is mentioned the report it’s effects have not been accurately represented.

http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/moderr....  The IPCC did not take into account the Svensmark factor.  This would greatly reduce the effect of solar radiation on the earth.  Look back up to the solar resources to see the effect of the sun correctly represented.

Also allegations have been by IPCC scientists who disagreed with the IPCC statements.  They say that their research was censored or taken out of the IPCC report.  This is not the first time the IPCC has lied, they forged the famous “hockey stick” graph, which later resulted in a reissuing of the IPCC report.

Quotes form politicians, CEO’s, and others are not proof of global warming, they issue these statements to get votes and customers.  Scientists are able to get published and get time on the media by supporting global warming.  The IPCC continually lies and misrepresents data so they keep their jobs.  

In regards to the precautionary principle that says we can only help if we switch over to alternative energy, this idea is not correct.  While this may seem legitimate it only helps the first world, third world countries can not afford to switch to the more expensive energy options.  Also the US currently spends 4 billion dollars a year on global warming research which could be better spent on research for disease or to fight poverty.  For an excellent example of how the precautionary principle is harmful you do not need to look further than DDT.  This pesticide was cheap and incredibly effective but it was banned because of it harmful effects on egg shells.  Now thousands of people die every year in third world countries because of malaria, a disease that could be easily controlled with DDT.

I hope anyone who believes in global warming they will take a look at the resources I provided.  These resources should convince you that global warming is not man-made, it is caused by cycles in the earths climate.  If you are not convinced I hope you at least take a new look at global warming as an unproven idea.  Remember that global warming is big business for anyone who aligns themselves with it.

I could not go this entire post without mentioning global cooling.  In the 1970’s it was claimed that there was a consensus on the fact that the world was headed into an ice age.  We have seen once before how damaging a false claim about our climate change can be to our world.  Most of the global warming crowd does not want you to know about this scare because it is so similar to the scare today.  Government panels were formed and claimed the world was headed to an ice age, evidence poured in supporting the claim, a consensus was claimed, then the whole issue just faded away.  That is what will happen with the false scare of global warming.

Answer 13

Like religion, you are also pretty sure of what channel 4 tells you.

Answer 14

Woo hoo a chap (?) after my own mind.

Answer 15

Any government loves to have a huge scare like global warming and how we are to blame, to use as an excuse to:

control the masses,

tax the masses,

and make out how good they are for caring. It makes them look like heros (they think)

They don't want us to doubt the scare so play down any questioning voices and over-hype anyone who supports them.

I would like to see a fair and un-biased study as to what is causing global warming. But anyone who currently dares to suggest any other cause is treated like a heretic.

If it does turn out that they have been wrong, just watch how quickly all politicians will claim they knew it all along and they were just being fed false intelligence!!!!

Answer 16

Some folks on this side of the pond claim consensus is science. Clearly this is not the case. I say "Good Show" to you for seeing through the fraud. Carbon Credits are equal to the indulgences that brought forth the protestant reformation. I understand Global Climate Change because the climate is always in flux, and I support the premise that we should be better stewards for economic and enviromental reasons. however Kyoto is a Dodo and Al Gore is an example of a living lobotomy.

Answer 17

no its not c02 levels have gone up from 0.02% to 0.04% in the last 200 years