Why is CO2 not the cause of global warming?

Question

Let's practice some real science & exercise our logic at the same time. Let's assume for this question that CO2 is NOT the cause of global warming. What is the cause of global warming?

Answer 1

Note that you haven't received a plausible answer.

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.

The Oregon Petition is a phony document.

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

There is a consensus:

"Regardless of these spats, the fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the AGU or EGU meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists (not the famous ones, the ones at your local university or federal lab). I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts at the Fall meeting (the biggest confernce in the US on this topic) that support your view - you won't be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can't credibly argue it doesn't exist."

Dr. James Baker - NOAA

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics".

Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

and:

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

Answer 2

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 3

I have not watched “An Inconvenient Truth" - I don't have to - I've seen the data generated by atmospheric scientists and it's more compelling than anything a politician could say; more compelling than anything the world's largest publicly traded company (Exxon/Mobil) is saying.

Science is objective, to ignore CO2 in this research is ridiculous; as ridiculous as Mc's answer, as ridiculous as jim m's answer.

Let's practice some real science and look at the result of 30 years of climate research from an international team of respected scientists:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf

Answer 4

The reason CO2 does not cause global warming is warming anything requires energy and CO2 ain't got no energy. At best you could say CO2 traps heat but that makes very little sense either since everything traps heat.

Answer 5

solar radiation from the sun.  CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps this radition in our atmosphere instead of letting it reflect back into space.

Answer 6

We are experiencing a warming trend in an interglacial.  They are quite common, just look back over the last millenia till the previous glaciation.

Answer 7

Thousands of scientists have agreed that global warming exists.

A few scientists disagree, but they are all funded by big oil interests, rightwing pundits, and big business interests who have money to lose if the government creates laws mandating reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

So the question boils down to:  Do you trust science?

Or do you trust people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, none of whom have any education in the environmental sciences?