Isn't Global warming intutively obvious?

Question

We have over 6 1/2 billion people most of which are using or are starting to use fossil fuels. The total amount per year of human caused CO2 emission is at 30 billion tones. Both population and emission counts are so high no one can realistically conceive of. In any case if all these people are expend so much proven to be heat trapping gases into the atmosphere does it take a brain scientist (or in this case a climatologist) to tell us global warming is and will continue to occur?

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

From what I have heard that the atmosphere is so comparatively thin to the earth if one were to wax an apple the wax would represent about the amount of atmosphere to earth ratio. This type of example shows how powerful a little bit of atmosphere can have on a planet. How much more would this effect be by adding 30 billions tones of CO2 to this already thin layer? And we're not even taking into account the issue of methane.

Answer 1

Everyone knows that Global warming is real. We just have people paid by the energy industry to deny it just to confuse the issue.

Isn't it interesting that the people who deny global warming now are the same people who told us that cigarette smoking was good for you? And the political party that embraces global warming denying is the same political party that thinks that evolution isn't true, the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, and public education isn't important?

I guess  it is not surprising that people who think that knowledge is curse, end up a bit ignorant.

Answer 2

Definitely obvious!

Answer 3

Absolutely.  The unscientific arguments posted above (note that they have no references) have been extensively refuted.  Here's one good place where many refutations are collected.

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

"Objective" physical models (those based only on uncontroversial known physical facts, like the properties of CO2 and its' measured levels) show that it will definitely cause warming in an amount comparable to that we've observed.  The bottom line:

"Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Answer 4

no! everyone is complaining that global warming will melt the ice caps. sure, it will! but it wont overflow onto the lands!!! when you fixate yourself with a glass of icewater, and said ice melts, it does not overflow the cup! if only the small minded would take attention to this!

Answer 5

If it was, it would get warmer each year as co2 levels continue to increase.

However it doesn't as there is no correlation between co2 and temperatures.

Answer 6

yesterday in worcester (england) we had about 2 inches worth of snow at 4am. I thought it was a joke untill my boyfriend hit me in the face with a snowball!

Answer 7

scientists say co2 causes global warming but i doubt that there is any way of stopping it otherwise every living thing that exhales c02 would have to die. hmmm funny scientist never mentioned that the co2 we exhale from our mouthes causes global warming

Answer 8

Yes, but you can't make big decisions on things that are "intuitively obvious".  You need evidence to back it up (which we have).

Answer 9

I don't think you should refer to Wiki-poodle.  The fact is that CO2 cannot hold that much thermal energy and even the energy it holds, it only holds it for a split second once the heat source goes away. (Thus the cooling at night)  The fact is that there is no global warming caused by CO2.  CO2 is the result of rising temperatures but only after a lag of about 800 years.  IPCC's own reports and that ridiculous hockey stick graph tells us that.  The only thing that will happen with increased CO2 is a major cool down and many more plants.

Answer 10

I don't think it's as obvious as you make it out to be, but it is something to think about.  No one will deny that the population is growing and that our pollution problems will grow with it unless we find ways not to waste as much as we do.  Global warming is only a symptom.

What I do think is intuitively obvious is that breathing industrial and automobile pollution is bad for your health.  Air pollution (as well as other types of pollution) in highly populated areas is getting worse and worse, and health problems like asthma are growing in frequency.

Has anybody looked at the recent pictures of Beijing?  The smoky pollution is so bad, it looks like the city is on fire.  Olympic athletes are wearing air filtration masks while they train.  I wouldn't want to live in that, and I don't think anybody else would either.  Pollution reduction is an unbelievably important issue that needs to be solved now to avoid future catastrophes.

ONE LAST NOTE:  For those of you who argue that plants will use all of the extra CO2 to live, you are ignoring the fact that plants are being destroyed much faster than they are being planted.  When our CO2 levels keep going up and plantlife keeps going down, the plants can only do so much to help the problem.

ONE LAST LAST NOTE:  It is a fact that plants store CO2.  When a plant is cut down, it releases more CO2 into the environment.  Every tree that is cut down is also a pollutant.  So recycle your paper!

Answer 11

sure the ice caps are melting on mars and Jupiter is growing warmer maybe just maybe its the suns fault

Answer 12

The  WIKI is not a real source.  Anyone can post anything.  It is more of a rumor and fanasy wold.

Global Warming hoax has been exposed.

#1 produce of methane =  COWS

Answer 13

I certainly think so.  It's a pretty logical thought process:

1) We've increased atmospheric CO2 levels by 37% since the Industrial Revolution.

2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

3) Greenhouse gases warm the planet.  More greenhouse gases means more warming.

This is very intuitive and obvious to me.  Of course, you still have to determine how much warming this increase in CO2 will cause.  Some people (who have not studied the science) argue that it's a small amount.  However, the scientific evidence proves otherwise, as discussed in the link below.

Answer 14

You must already know that it is not entirely intuitively obvious. Some reasonable and many unreasonable objections to the theory they are reading about in the press are being made.

The big problem is that we are failing to deal with the objections. We are playing the card that guys a lot smarter than us are convinced. We don't want to go there lest some who are on our side might conclude that the debate is not all over.

But there are other problems. We do not appropriately set out what are realistic objectives. When some people are talking about stopping Global Warming, they really should be adding a word... stop anthropogenic global warming makes sense. We may be deluding our self if we think we can stop all global warming.

This is not  defeatism. We know that if global warming passes its tipping point, Global Warming itself will drive further global warming even without our contribution. That is why it really matters to stop AGM soon. If we could accomplish this at any time, timing would not matter.

Global warming does go on from ice age to the beginning of the next ice age. That is intuitively obvious. Failing to make that statement, loud and clear hurts credibility. How could we overlook that and say we understand the problem.

Plants gobble up enormous amounts of CO2. So the question arises, why are plants not keeping up with our output? Now there are good reasons why this is not happening. We are not giving out the answers in a way that makes sense.

The Oceans have always been able to absorb  most of our excess CO2. Some people have been talking about deliberately pumping millions of tons of CO2 to the bottom of ocean trenches. We have not been discussing why that might be the  worst 'solution'.

Or increasing the growth of sea plants to get the CO2 into the oceans... how very bad that idea is!

Yes, we even have some people who have no concept of how CO2 coming from eating currently growing crops is different from getting it from fossil fuels, so  how can it be called intuitively obvious.

When we evaluate the CO2 output of volcanoes, and discover that at some times this had been greater than the CO2 output from burning fossil fuels, and that despite that we went into an ice age shortly after the eruptions, enquiring minds would like an explanation, not a put down like this is intuitively obvious.

In fact, a lot of volcanic activity can generate an ice age even despite CO2... the sun is reflected off the top of the volcanic dust layer, so even a lot of CO2 has no effect. CO2 is no protection against an ice age because ice age is triggered by extensive increased reflectivity.

But we see people arguing for more CO2 to avoid an ice age.... it is not intuitively obvious.

Very frankly, the attempt to appeal to intuition is not going to work. We have to deal with all the arguments, not starting with them for refutation, but for the purpose of developing a presentation that leaves no argument.

Hopefully it will be presented by a known Conservative to remove any hint that this is a socialist plot.

Answer 15

In my opinion, it is intuitive to a leftist mind that believes humans must be responsible for everything bad.  In fact, you  don't look at it in a scientific way in my opinion.  Humans have emitted CO2.  We have also emitted particulates, and other chemicals such as sulfur.  You cannot disregard those other pollutants.  As for CO2, humans may have added 100 ppmV (parts per million by Volume) of the nearly 400 ppmV CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere.  I doubt human contribution is that large but just for the sake of argument, let's assume that.  100 parts per million is one part in 10,000.  Your belief that that contribution must be driving the climate warmer is unsupported by the facts.  The climate cooled in the 1960s and 1970s in spite of increasing CO2.  CO2 hasn't been shown to drive temperatures in the past unless you accept unproven theories.  It certainly hasn't in the last few million years.  Your belief that it must be causing it now is more of a belief system than science.  It is not intuitive.  Sorry, climate system are too complex for your intuition to predict.

Answer 16

Some things may seem intuitive, but not all are, I assure you.  I have given up trying to explain the relationship of CO2 and heat to people who know no chemistry.  So have many of the brighter people in this section.  It is not at all intuitive, and can't be explained that way.  If you use intuition as a "test", most of the scientific knowledge we have would not pass the test.