Telling CO2 Lies to Destroy America

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090408/ap_on_sc/sci_obama_science_adviser_2

WASHINGTON – The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

No Wonder Climate Alarmists Refuse to Debate

By Marc Sheppard

When you hear the names Al Gore and James Hansen in the same sentence you immediately assume the subject to be manmade global warming panic. But there’s another distinction which links these two – they both steadfastly refuse to defend their positions in formal debate. And a recent performance by one of their own in just such a venue reminds us why.

Roll Call TV has just posted video of the March 27th debate they hosted between Marc Morano, former communications director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), and Climate Progress's Joe Romm. Part one begins here at about the 3:45 mark and Part two begins here directly. The two philosophical adversaries arguing the heated subject of “Green Politics” makes for a fabulous show -- a must-see for all, particularly those still unsure why it is that the overwhelming majority of climate alarmists always find some excuse not to directly confront opposing opinion. And Romm wasted no time leaving no doubt, issuing these clumsily over the top words almost out of the gate: [my emphasis]

“On our current emissions path we are going to warm the United States 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century and sea level rise will be 5 feet or higher and a third of the planet will be desert.”

And just moments after grossly exaggerating the already hyped predictions of his fellow climate hysterics, he actually summoned the insolence to say that “the thing you have to understand about Marc Morano is that he basically makes stuff up and misrepresents science.” An accusation he’d later repeat and broaden to include Morano’s ex-boss and, ultimately, anyone else not buying the hype Romm and his accomplices have been selling door-to-door these many years.

I am sorry to find an article here with a large number of factual errors. I hope that it does not reflect the usual standards of reportage.

* EXCESS CO2 is a pollutant. It acidifies rain and the seas. This can have major effects on plant animal life.
* CO2 is poisonous to humans above a few percent concentrations.
*Your article states that CO2 is an important TRACE gas in the atmosphere. Quite right - an important TRACE, ie, from your own words its concentration in %age terms should be VERY low.
* CO2 levels (2008) in the atmosphere are the highest for 650 000 years.
* the %age level in the atmosphere is mis-leading. We should be looking at the %age increase
* The marked increase in the levels of CO2 can be directly correlated to inductrial activity (and, unless the Chimps are up to something I don't know about that means us).
*Yes, the oceans store and relase CO2 - and as they absorb more of it, so they acidify: CO2 + H2O = H2CO3 (an acid).
*Yes, in the past the CO2 levels were much higher - and the plant and animal life was very different too (remember eg dinosaurs and giant ferns?).
*The planet is warming now, in concert with rising CO2 levels. Don't confuse climate and weather. (Your sources on the cooling world are contradicted by NASA.) Even if it was true a decade of cooling after a century of warming could be nothing more than a 'blip' on the graph.
*I agree, global warming and cooling may well be events over which humanity has no control. that does not mean we have no EFFECT.
*Why is global warming a cause of increased CO2? If the temperature increases then (as your article implies) photosynthesis in plants should increase (think how much faster plants grow in summer than winter!) and MORE CO2 should be absorbed, reducing atmospheric concentrations.

Ironically, global warming can trigger an ice-age. Sounds contradictory doesn''t it? But, the reason that anything north and south of the tropics isn't under ice is due to the complex movement of heat from equatorial regions to temperate/polar regions by wind and sea currents. Global warming has the potential to stop these working and then the Earth freezes instead.

The point about which you prefer warmer/colder earth is trivial and simplistic.
A warmer earth puts more energy into the atmosphere = bigger storms. Fancy a few more Hurricane Catrina's anyone?
So I'd like my Earth no warmer and no colder than now, thank you!

I'm also surprised at your commment about polar ice. According to many scientists it is now THINNER than ever. I am not sure if you were referring to area alone, but a much more relevant measure is the VOLUME.
Hence is would be possible to have a thinner layer over an increased area and still have a decreasing amount of polar ice.
BTW, did you not hear that an antarctic ice-sheet broke away a few years ago?

where you and I do agree is in that we need a GLOBAL solution to a GLOBAL problem. However, the US and Europe (who use more energy per capita and anyone else) should set a lead in this.

My friend, the internationally famed climatologist, Dr. S. Fred Singer, calls them “the CO2 wars.” It is the last ditch attempt by the Greens, under the aegis of the Obama administration, to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant and thus open the door to its regulation.

Carbon Dioxide a pollutant? For lord sake we use it for breathing and plants use it for photosynthesis and respiration.

jonc wrote:

However, the US and Europe (who use more energy per capita and anyone else) should set a lead in this.

We will lead the way to solving the global problem when China decides to become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.

Marie:
Dr. S. Fred Singer may be an "internationally famed climatologist", but he is virtually a lone voice today. That of itself does not make it wrong, but when the majority verdict and most of the observations support a position contrary to his (though it is more accurate to call his position "contrary to the concensus") it suggests that he may be in error in the conclusions that he draws from the data.

Plants and animals both PRODUCE CO2 in respiration ("breathing"), it is one of the WASTE products of this reaction which liberates energy from the simple sugar glucose.
Plants USE CO2 in photosynthesis - which is the reverse (chemical) reaction to respiration.
Do you want the formulae?

You wrote: "We will lead the way to solving the global problem when China decides to become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem."

Now, that's a good idea. China's busily marching us all off an environmental cliff and you want to keep in lock-step with them? What's that old saying ... "Two wrongs don't make a right"?

Finally: SUPPOSE, just suppose, that Singer is wrong and everybody else is right. What might be the consequences of failing to act? Can we take that chance? This is the only World we got, if we mess up big-time we lose it. The World will recover no matter what we do, of course. It's just that 'Homo Sapiens' might not be around when it does.

I hope you will forgive me if I shift this debate a bit. Do you agree that oil (in particular) is very valuable for our chemical/pharmaceutical/plastics industries?
If so, isn't it a bit foolish to burn it?
Anyone who thinks about this in the long term realises that there will come a time when oil runs out - it is a finite resource.
By then, we will all have to use alternative sources of energy (not necessarily the same as 'alternative energy' btw). Developing these technologies now would have a manyfold advantages including:
1. New jobs (don't we all need those at the moment!)
2. A reduction in CO2 emissions (which can't hurt - no matter which side of the debate you are on).
3. It will extend the lifetime of our finite resources and preserve many industries that don't involve burning this valuable resource.
4. It will give a chance for proper RnD and full-scale trials to truly determine the best solutions.
5. It would (eventually) provide 'energy security'. If a Country produces all the energy it uses, no-one can hold it hostage to energy.

BTW, I have been looking up S. Fred Singer on the net.
Is this the same one who appears to believe that tobacco ISN'T linked to cancer?
Can you clarify?

jonc, hug another tree.

Humanist you wrote:
"JonC hug another tree." I like the ryhme, it's quite catchy!
BTW, is that supposed to be an insult or a compliment? Trees take a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere and put a lot of oxygen into the atmosphere in photosynthesis. So I really don't understand whether you are insulting or complimenting me. It would depend on your perspective wouldn't it?
So, where do you stand on trees? Do you value the importance of trees in the water cycle, nitrogen cycle, the photosynthetic cycle, for food production, soil stabilisation, wildlife habitat etc?
Or are trees just 'uncut lumber' to you whose only value to you is in $s as timber?

jonc wrote:

Now, that’s a good idea. China’s busily marching us all off an environmental cliff and you want to keep in lock-step with them? What’s that old saying … “Two wrongs don’t make a right”?

It will not matter if America and Europe attempt to do something about the problem if China will not do anything.

From CommonDreams.org

China's Boom Adds to Global Warming Problem
by Keith Bradsher

ZHANJIANG, China — China's rapid economic growth is producing a surge in emissions of greenhouse gases that threatens international efforts to curb global warming, as Chinese power plants burn ever more coal while car sales soar.

China is the world's second largest emitter of such gases, after the United States. But China's per-person energy use and greenhouse gas emissions remain far below levels found in richer countries. The emissions are, for example, roughly one-eighth of those per capita in the United States.

Until the last few months, many energy experts and environmentalists said, they had hoped that China's contribution to global warming would be limited. Its state-owned enterprises have become more efficient in their energy use as they compete in an increasingly capitalist economy, and until recently official Chinese statistics had been showing a steep drop in coal production and consumption.

But new figures from Chinese government agencies confirm what energy industry executives had suspected: that coal use has actually been climbing faster in China than practically anywhere else in the world.

To the extent that global warming is caused by humanity, as many scientists believe, this is a serious problem because burning coal at a power plant releases more greenhouse gases than using oil or natural gas to generate the same amount of electricity.

China's rising energy consumption complicates diplomatic efforts to limit emissions of global warming gases. The International Energy Agency in Paris predicts that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2000 to 2030 in China alone will nearly equal the increase from the entire industrialized world.

China is the world's second largest emitter of such gases, after the United States. But China's per-person energy use and greenhouse gas emissions remain far below levels found in richer countries. The emissions are, for example, roughly one-eighth of those per capita in the United States.

As a developing country, China is exempt from the Kyoto Protocol, the pending international agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. When President Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol two years ago, he portrayed China's exemption as a serious flaw. The protocol has been embraced by most other big nations, however, and only requires ratification by Russia to take effect.

Another developing country exempt from the protocol, India, is also showing strong growth in emissions as its economy prospers. General Motors predicts that China will account for 18 percent of the world's growth in new car sales from 2002 through 2012; the United States will be responsible for 11 percent, and India 9 percent.

Official Chinese statistics had shown a decline in coal production and consumption in the late 1990's, even as the economy was growing 8 percent a year. But many Western and Chinese researchers have become suspicious of that drop over the last several years.

They point out that the decline assumed that local governments had followed Beijing's instructions to close 47,000 small, unsafe mines producing low-grade coal and many heavily polluting small power plants. Yet researchers who visited mines and power plants found that they often remained open, with the output not being reported to Beijing because local administrators feared an outcry if they shut down important employers.

China's National Bureau of Statistics has not revised its coal figures for the late 1990's, but its latest data show that coal consumption jumped 7.6 percent last year. A Chinese official said the bureau was likely to report a similar increase for this year. Even those figures may be low: Chinese coal industry officials have estimated that coal consumption may be rising more than 10 percent a year.

China is now the world's largest coal consumer, and its power plants are burning coal faster than its aging railroads can deliver it from domestic mines, most of which are in the north. So the country is importing coal from Australia. This steamy city of 640,000, with its deep-water port, is the main receiving point in southern China.

As fishermen in wooden boats brought conical wicker baskets full of silvery, sardine-size fish ashore at dawn on a recent morning, the sun began illuminating an enormous, coal-fired power plant with a big freighter from Australia tied up next to it.

The plant is only nine years old. Zhanjiang drew its electricity over high-tension lines from other cities to the north before then. But the power plant is already inadequate for the area's needs, even though it is twice the size of a standard coal-fired plant. With blackouts frequent here for lack of power, construction has just begun on another, adjacent power plant, that one oil-fired.

Other figures from the Bureau of Statistics have also shown very large increases in energy consumption lately. China's electrical power generation, the main use of coal in China, jumped 16 percent in the first eight months of this year, nearly four times as much as Western experts expected. Power generation is poised to grow swiftly in the years to come, with China's output of equipment for new power plants rising by two-thirds in a single year.

China has also become the world's fastest-growing importer of oil, with foreign purchases surging nearly a third this year, although some of those imports went into stockpiles in January and February as a precaution in case the war in Iraq disrupted shipments from the Middle East.

The Chinese are using more energy in their homes, too, as China has turned into the world's largest market for television sets and one of the largest for many other electrical appliances.

A 53-year-old retired saleswoman here said that for more than half her life, her only electrical appliance at home was a light bulb.

She and her husband bought a black-and-white television set in 1984, then a refrigerator in 1988. Now she has an air-conditioner, which she acquired in 1998, along with two color televisions, an electric rice cooker, a radio, the refrigerator and many lights.

"Only the old people do not have air-conditioning now," said the woman, Ms. Long, who, like others interviewed in this militarily important city, insisted on giving only her family name.

Environmental groups that once promoted China as a good example are now increasingly worried. "If they're seeing 6 and 7 percent growth, that is obviously a concern," said Dan Lashof, a climate change expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has done several studies of Chinese energy use.

But environmentalists are also loath to criticize China too strongly, partly because Chinese emissions per person are still so much lower than those in the developed world, and partly because China has been trying with some success to improve the energy efficiency of its industries. Programs like requiring electrical appliances and building designs to waste less energy show considerable promise, said Barbara Finamore, the director of the Clean China Program at the council.

The central government in Beijing has had repeated difficulties in forcing provincial governments to pursue recent efficiency programs. China no longer has the central planning mandates to order improvements, but has not yet developed market-based incentives, like higher prices, to encourage people to curb their consumption of fossil fuels, Ms. Finamore said.

China's central bank is nervous that some sectors of the economy, especially luxury housing construction, are growing too fast, and it is trying to restrain them. If it succeeds, that could temper somewhat the increase in energy use.

China is not alone in consuming a lot more energy, although its enormous population of roughly one and a quarter billion, and rapid economic growth mean that its increases dwarf those of any other country in the developing world. India, for example, is also showing rapid growth in energy use. In populous countries from Indonesia to Brazil, power plants are burning more and more coal and oil to meet ever growing demand for electricity from industry and households.

Even some climate experts in developing countries are conceding that their emissions need to be addressed when international talks begin in 2005 on what will follow the Kyoto agreement, which calls for industrialized nations to reduce their emissions by 2012. Considerable reluctance persists among developing countries, however, to accept the kind of specific limits prescribed for wealthy countries by the Kyoto Protocol. "There's going to be a fairly heated debate about what developing countries should do in the next round," said Rajendra K. Pachauri, an Indian engineer who is the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that assesses the causes and consequences of rising temperatures.

The Chinese government is drafting a series of new economic policies, some of which will concern energy, and is expected to release them soon. Senior Chinese officials did not respond to requests for interviews over the last two months.

Two fairly senior Chinese officials said in earlier, separate interviews, after President Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin in March, that an active debate was under way over the extent to which conservation should be balanced against economic growth.

Growth in Chinese coal consumption should slow somewhat in the next four years. Completion of the Three Gorges dam and five nuclear power plants will provide considerable additional electricity for China's national grid by 2007, although posing different environmental risks from coal. But Larry Metzroth, a coal and electricity specialist at the International Energy Agency, warned that with no further large hydroelectric or nuclear power projects planned in China, coal consumption "is going to pick up again after 2007."

Beijing's official New China News Agency recently predicted that China's capacity to generate electricity from coal would be almost three times as high in 2020 as it was in 2000.

If China can continue to sustain 8 percent annual economic growth, then the next big growth area in greenhouse gas emissions is likely to be cars. China is already the world's fastest-growing car market, with sales up 73 percent this year.

China has just one-twentieth as many cars now as the United States, because car sales were tiny until the last three years. But a swift expansion of auto factories in China, together with rising household incomes and the growing availability of auto loans, has led to the surge.

Here in Zhanjiang, downtown streets are already clogged with cars. One of the best businesses in town seems to be a corner store in the city's old quarter, an area of tightly packed three-story homes with traditional tile roofs. The corner store sells every possible kind of fuse, tubing and wiring for electricians, and it was so busy that the store's owners barely had time to speak.

"People are rewiring a lot," said Mr. Pong, the patriarch of the family that runs the store. "Or they just demolish the old and build new."

Jonc wrote
I am sorry to find an article here with a large number of factual errors. I hope that it does not reflect the usual standards of reportage.

What factual errors? All you have done is corrected your own assumptions. Here...

* EXCESS CO2 is a pollutant. It acidifies rain and the seas. This can have major effects on plant animal life.

Excess of ANYTHING is a pollutant. Even excess of methane gas from your farts would be a pollutant. Alan stands corrected, CO2 by itself is NOT a pollutant.

* CO2 is poisonous to humans above a few percent concentrations.

Where did Alan state otherwise? Once agin, you have proven nothing.

*Your article states that CO2 is an important TRACE gas in the atmosphere. Quite right - an important TRACE, ie, from your own words its concentration in %age terms should be VERY low.

Your point?

* CO2 levels (2008) in the atmosphere are the highest for 650 000 years.

Prove it. Unless you have a time machine, this is not possible. All you have is 'evidence' and not proof of anything.

* the %age level in the atmosphere is mis-leading. We should be looking at the %age increase

Percentage increase is no proof of global warming.

* The marked increase in the levels of CO2 can be directly correlated to inductrial activity (and, unless the Chimps are up to something I don’t know about that means us).

WOW! I AM AT A LOSS OF WORDS HERE!!! CLEARLY I AM IN THE COMPANY OF A GENIUS!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who needs to prove anything when we have your superior logic to decipher truth? LOL!!!!!!!!!!

*Yes, the oceans store and relase CO2 - and as they absorb more of it, so they acidify: CO2 + H2O = H2CO3 (an acid).

Did Alan state otherwise?

*Yes, in the past the CO2 levels were much higher - and the plant and animal life was very different too (remember eg dinosaurs and giant ferns?).

Once again, whats your point? You have not proven anything with this stupid statement. The point Alan was trying to make is that there is no proof that rising levels of CO creates global warming. Have you managed to prove him wrong? No, you have not.

*The planet is warming now, in concert with rising CO2 levels. Don’t confuse climate and weather. (Your sources on the cooling world are contradicted by NASA.) Even if it was true a decade of cooling after a century of warming could be nothing more than a ‘blip’ on the graph.

Stop playing with words, we all know what climate and weather means.Please provide the link to what NASA states otherwise it's mere conjecture from you. Once again, your ludicrous statement of global cooling 'reversing' global warming effects are nonsense and you have gone off on a tangent. The point here was that there is NO proof that mans activity is the CAUSE of Global Warming but you're so arrogant to 'win an argument' you create one by interjecting your own assumptions and proving your OWN assumptions wrong. LOL!!!!

*I agree, global warming and cooling may well be events over which humanity has no control. that does not mean we have no EFFECT.

Again, whats your point? Did you prove Alan wrong with this dumb statement?

*Why is global warming a cause of increased CO2? If the temperature increases then (as your article implies) photosynthesis in plants should increase (think how much faster plants grow in summer than winter!) and MORE CO2 should be absorbed, reducing atmospheric concentrations.

I don't believe Alan stated Global Warming is CAUSING an increase in CO2. Isn't the argument of Pro Global Warming the other way round? Did you even read the article or just skim through?

You have not proven anything factually wrong with Alan's article. All you've done is interjecting your own assumptions and then claiming those assumptions are wrong.

Another 'classic' from jonc

Dr. S. Fred Singer may be an “internationally famed climatologist”, but he is virtually a lone voice today. That of itself does not make it wrong, but when the majority verdict and most of the observations support a position contrary to his (though it is more accurate to call his position “contrary to the concensus”) it suggests that he may be in error in the conclusions that he draws from the data.

A billion people today believe in Islam therefor it must be true.

History has proven time and again that truth is not determined by number of 'believer's' yet we have people like you today who have not 'evolved' mentally, still exhibiting medieval way of thinking. Go buy a brain.

From NPR.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise in China

by Richard Harris

Listen Now add to playlist

All Things Considered, March 14, 2008 · China's carbon dioxide emissions are growing much faster than anticipated and are on pace to double during this decade. Forecasts of global warming don't take this growth into account, so scientists may be underestimating how fast the planet will heat up.

When scientists last tried to project China's contribution to global warming, it was the late 1990s. Asia was in a recession and China's emissions weren't growing particularly fast.

But Maximilian Auffhammer of the University of California, Berkeley, says things have changed radically since then. Since 2000, carbon dioxide emissions have been "off the charts," he says.

For example, in 2004, emissions from China grew by 14 percent — or the equivalent of an additional Germany or England.

Auffhammer and a colleague have used detailed information from within China to estimate what emissions will be like through the end of the decade. His forecast is being published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

The average of all the scenarios predicts continued growth in emissions of about 10 percent to 11 percent a year. That is roughly what Auffhammer has observed over the last four years — and it would lead to a doubling of emission levels every decade.

By this reckoning, China overtook the United States as the leading emitter of carbon dioxide about a year ago. And its emissions are now increasing about 10 times faster than in the United States.

That also means that carbon dioxide is building up in the atmosphere a lot faster than the United Nations science panel, the IPCC, figured in a major report last year.

Gregg Marland works at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which compiles emissions figures from around the world. He says economists are now starting to update their forecasts, knowing that more rapid increases in emissions mean more rapid global warming.

But Marland says it's a mistake to look at China in isolation.

"A significant fraction of emissions from China are to produce goods that will be consumed in the United States. So it's wrong … to point fingers at individuals or individual countries. We have to recognize that we're all in this together," he says.

And China isn't just ignoring the issue. The country's economy is growing rapidly as it struggles to bring a large percentage of its population out of poverty.

But Deborah Seligsohn, who works for the World Resources Institute in Beijing, says in the past few years, China has instituted policies to slow emissions growth. So China might end the decade better than scientists are currently forecasting.

"What happens is a complex mix of business behavior, policy behavior, financial behavior," she says.

But Berkeley's Auffhammer says even if China does slow its emissions, the recent building boom in coal-fired power plants — which can operate for 40 to 80 years — will have repercussions for decades to come.

"Any policy now is not going to tear down existing, costly, capital equipment in China. But we should really worry about what the next power plant they put in next week and the week after and the week after is going to be," he says.

jonc wrote:

I hope you will forgive me if I shift this debate a bit. Do you agree that oil (in particular) is very valuable for our chemical/pharmaceutical/plastics industries?
If so, isn’t it a bit foolish to burn it?
Anyone who thinks about this in the long term realises that there will come a time when oil runs out - it is a finite resource.

How long do you think it will take for run oil to completely dry out?

Humanist you wrote:
“JonC hug another tree.” I like the ryhme, it’s quite catchy!
BTW, is that supposed to be an insult or a compliment? Trees take a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere and put a lot of oxygen into the atmosphere in photosynthesis. So I really don’t understand whether you are insulting or complimenting me. It would depend on your perspective wouldn’t it?
So, where do you stand on trees? Do you value the importance of trees in the water cycle, nitrogen cycle, the photosynthetic cycle, for food production, soil stabilisation, wildlife habitat etc?
Or are trees just ‘uncut lumber’ to you whose only value to you is in $s as timber?

I think it would be a good idea if we don't say anything negative about jonc's girlfriend ( Tree ).

Hi jonc

jonc says: EXCESS CO2 is a pollutant. It acidifies rain and the seas. This can have major effects on plant animal life.

First of all, CO2 is not a pollutant. Though, many environmental groups and politicians are try to get the EPA to classify CO2 as a pollutant - even though it does not meet the EPA criteria. Will the EPA capitulate? Well, if going by the article - it looks like it has. It is my understanding the Supreme Court, in an earlier case, did not rule the CO2 was a pollutant, but instructed the EPA to submit its scientific findings.

Yes, you have used the "excess," but what is "excess" in the scientific community rather than defined by the dictionary. If a person googles whether CO2 is a pollutant, you get more than your fair share of responses from policy makers rather than scientists. It has been proven that in tropical forests, every 24 hours, that CO2 doubles during the nighttime and eases off to their original numbers in the daytime -- due to the release (soils and plants) and assimilation (vegetation) of CO2. This is done without any damage and surely that would not be called a pollutant.

If you are concerned about Acid Rain, I think you should be more concerned with sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). I think since the 70's that pretty much has been cleaned up.

jonc says: CO2 is poisonous to humans above a few percent concentrations.

That is a very vague statement on your part. Drinking too much water can kill you -- should we classify it as a poison?

jonc says: Your article states that CO2 is an important TRACE gas in the atmosphere. Quite right - an important TRACE, ie, from your own words its concentration in %age terms should be VERY low.

Is there an argument or a rebuttal in your statement.

If you look at the Mauna Loa Observatory graph on carbon dioxide it shows that CO2 is at 380 ppm (parts per million). As Dr Roy Spencer explains

[f]or every million molecules of air, 380 of them are carbon dioxide. Or alternatively, for every 100,000 molecules of air, 38 of them are carbon dioxide. This small fraction reveals why carbon dioxide is called one of the atmosphere's "trace gases." There simply isn't very much of it.

Dr Roy Spencer continues

At the rate of rise shown in this graph, mankind adds only 1 molecule of C02 to every 100,000 molecules of air every five years or so.

jonc says: CO2 levels (2008) in the atmosphere are the highest for 650 000 years.

That is not true -- and frankly it would take to long to explain here. These are the numbers that Al Gore (highest in the last 400,000 years) likes to push on the public. In short, CO2 measurements were taken by chemical means in the Northern Hemisphere with readings, for the year 1800, that were higher than today's readings.

Throughout history the concentration of carbon dioxide has been changing. That is a constant. How do scientists explain the three warming periods, Holocene Climate (8000-4000 years ago), Roman Warm Period (1800 years ago) and the Medieval Warm Period (800 years ago) since the last ice age? Hard to blame that on the industrial world.

Your comment about CO2 levels being the highest in 650,000 years comes from the Guardian, who in turn, cite the scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Once the story is in the Guardian it propagates throughout the Web as an "undeniable fact."

One of the tricks to get readers to believe the numbers that are put forward is to have a very short time span on the x-axis. These are known as "Gee-Whiz Graphs" and were coined by Darrel Huff in his book -- How to Lie With Statistics. Also, a reader has to be careful when the graph on the y-axis does not start at zero. Then you need to look at the change as a percentage.

In the article it also claims that CO2 is the "chief" greenhouse gas. According to many scientists, which includes Howard Hayden, who states

The most important greenhouse is water vapor, partly because it is more abundant (about 100 times as abundant as CO2), and partly because the H2O molecule, its dimers, and trimers etc. have many ways to absorb IR. But adding a little more H2O to the atmosphere does little to add to the greenhouse effect because all the radiation that H2O can absorb is already being absorbed.

jonc says: The marked increase in the levels of CO2 can be directly correlated to inductrial activity (and, unless the Chimps are up to something I don't know about that means us).

I don't see one piece of evidence that you have supplied to back up your claim. As a matter of fact I have shown you that there have been other warmer periods long before the industrial revolution.

Alan Caruba was correct in his assertion using the Mauna Loa reading that in fact CO2 is a mere 0.038 percent of the atmosphere. And of that, man is only responsible for about 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent of that number.

[...]

The rest of your commentary really wasn't worth responding to as it just seemed you were repeating things you have heard without showing any evidence to prove that Alan Caruba was incorrect.

This is going to be quick -- major hurricanes have hit the US long before Katrina. The 1930's were an extremely bad decade. Howard Hayden writes

The source of energy for hurricanes is warm water, but warm water in and of itself does not cause hurricanes. One thing to understand is that if the entire earth were at one single temperature, there would be no storms whatsoever, whether that temperature be high or low. In fact it is temperature gradients that cause storms.

And as to the ice thickness and square miles of ice at the North/South Poles there is so much evidence to contradict the notion that things are melting away. What usually happens in every case since the AGW alarmists have been predicting gloom and doom is that they make a global warming claim and in time it all sorts itself out. This happens due to balancing or just the fact that the original claim wasn't all that scientific to begin with.

Polar Ice Worries - North and South

I think the chinese are the biggest problem makers need to be reined in before they destroy rest of the world.

First my thanks to Mindstorm, Samuria_Jack and Marie for a proper engagement in debate.
Second - I am sorry, since Alan did not provide any sources within his article, I saw no reason to in my reply.
I stand corrected: I will at least mention my sources in future.

Marie:
Firstly may I offer my thanks for your defence of my (putative) girlfriend. I'm glad you stand alongside the females of all species! (Just in case anyone doesn't 'get' this sentence - it is a joke, okay?)
I do not dispute that China and India are very major players in this area.
I read your quoted article with interest. It shows that we need to engage even more with China and India. (You may recall that I said a global solution was needed.)
I am still struggling to understand why you think this means that no-one else should do anything.
Given that most developing countries will follow the same path of development as the first World then would it not be better to develop the alternatives and offer them as a better way?
Secondly, I also worry that this becomes a circular argument: If China and India won't do anything why should America and the west? But, if America and the West do nothing, then why should China and India?
Would it not be better for the 'First World' to provide leadership? Or do you assume that 'no matter what' the Chinese will be totally intractible and carry on regardless?

Samurai-Jack:
You are partly right, Alan did not state that CO2 had no harmful effects, but the tenor of his points certainly seems to imply (to me at least) that he deems it harmless; which it is not, and for the reasons I gave.
CO2 and pollution: I'll try to clarify my point for you. CO2 is a part of the natural world, as Alan says, but so is Mercury, Lead and Cadmium. These are also pollutants - if present in the wrong amounts or places.
We don't actually need a time-machine to find out about CO2 levels: we need Antarctic ice cores which have bubbles of trapped (ancient) atmosphere in them. These can then be analysed to find out the historical CO2 levels.
I really don't understand your comment about 'evidence' and 'proof'.
For instance: If I compare worldwide birth and death rates and find (as we all know) that the former is greater than the latter, in what way am I wrong to say that this 'proves' that the world's human population is rising?
I suppose that if you take the definition of 'proof' in the empirical scientific sense of repeatable experiment, then you are right, we can't 'prove' anything about the physical world itself because we only have one of it and so can’t repeat our ‘experiments’ with it. Under that definition I should have been clearer that this was a 'conclusion'. (That also implies that neither you nor Alan have 'proved’ anything either.)
What standard of proof would you require to demonstrate conclusively that CO2 levels are increasing as a long-term (century+) trend?
I fear you missed the point about %age levels and %age increase.
CO2 was present in the air is the late 1950s at ~315 ppm or 0.0031%. Now (+50 years) it is at 378 ppm or 0.0038%. Both are tiny figures and it might be tempting to dismiss them as insignificant, but this 'tiny' change represents a 36% increase in a very short time (talking in geological terms) and as such should be considered seriously. (Source Wiki, NOAA)
I did not say that the %age increase was "proof of global warming", though I concede it may be the cause of it.
Alan made no point about the effect of CO2 on the oceans. That was my point - as the oceans absorb more, they change and for the worse in terms of marine life.
My point about past CO2 levels is that modern plants and animals are not adapted evolutionarily for a high CO2 low pH environment and that if the change in CO2 levels continues to accelerate, many species won't be able to. (This effect is already evident in [some] forests and tropical reefs.)
Alan wrote: "The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another 20 years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.
All the records I have been able to source, running from Wiki, through the World Climate Report and PNAS to NASA all disagree with this. The hottest year on record was 2004. Since then the yearly average temperatures have (generally) fallen, but 3 years data compared to a 100 year trend of increasing temperatures is hardly enough to conclude that cooling will continue. (Actually I hope Alan is right, the evidence just suggests he isn't.)
This is what I meant by 'weather' versus 'climate'. Every year is either cooler or hotter than the last - that's weather. But the Climatic trend is towards a warmer world and, unless you place undue emphasis on the last few years, continues to be that way. To be fair, I have found one trend line, the WCR 8 year trend that has just dipped below zero - ie that is the one trendline that at the moment 'predicts' global cooling. It is contra-indicated by both the WCR 5 and 10 year trendlines, as well as the other sources.
At this point I do owe you and Alan an apology, I meant to write NOAA not NASA. So you are welcome to attack me for not checking my typing carefully enough. Ahhhh! you got me!
The point about global warming possibly triggering an ice age is not ludicrous. I suggest you look up information on global heat transfer and the possible effect that the loss or arctic polar ice might have on this with the concommitant loss of the essential polar heat sink.
If you read what I said carefully, you would note that I said "global warming has the potential to".
With respect and quoting Alan: "The Sun is the primary source of warmth on Earth. Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause."
I well know that rising CO2 causes global warming, but Alan is not entirely wrong either. If the seas start to warm significantly, they will be able to adsorb less CO2 from the air (despite an increase in the amount and thus partial pressure from continued fossil fuel combustion) for the simple reason that gases are less soluble as the temperature of water increases. (Source: any decent science text book.)
Thus, global warming itself may trigger the release of CO2 from the Oceans into the air, thus increasing global warming and producing a positive feedback cycle.
The two statements are not mutually contradictory, because the Earth is a very complex system with many inter-locking effects and cycles.

You are quite right in your point about Fred Singer, although I am not sure I agree with your Islam point, or see its relevance either.
We are not talking about ‘Prophets’ here (though profits may come into it somewhere), we are talking about science, which is evidence based.
In any case I conceded that he might be right. I wrote “he may be in error”. I just don’t think he is right. To me (and virtually all others who study the evidence) the conclusions are otherwise to his.
Mind you, I do find your ‘faith’ in this man quite touching.

Mindstorm:
In particular I thank you for correcting my data source to NOAA.
I agree with your point about “gee-whiz”. You will note that I have (insofar as it is possible) used 50 – 100 years as a minimum time-frame.
Could I have your source about CO2 in 1800? (BTW Doesn’t quoting one year’s value drop you into the “gee-whiz” trap you mentioned?)
According to NOAA, “the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was 278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years between 1000 and 1800 A.D.”
If this is true, then is in 1800 the level would have been 285 ppm, well below the 351 of ~1960.
Isn’t your point about H2O vs. CO2 self-negating? Your source states that “all the radiation that H2O can absorb is already being absorbed”.
Without looking it up in detail, my guess is that water absorbs different frequencies of energy to CO2, so even if water is more ‘powerful’ as a ‘greenhouse gas’, CO2 can still be the greater problem because it can absorb a different part of the spectrum.
I will concede that I did not supply evidence to back my claim about industrial activity and CO2, (but see NOAA data above.
With regard to the Holocene period, I will quote NOAA:
"In summary, the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years ago, was generally warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the northern hemisphere. More over, we clearly know the cause of this natural warming, and know without doubt that this proven "astronomical" climate forcing mechanism cannot be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years."
So, not only are you comparing dis-similar evidence (summer Northern hemisphere temperatures with global) but this period (apparently) can be explained by a mechanism not operating today.
On the Roman warm period: I have yet to find any data from outside the Mediterranean, so I have yet to be convinced that it was global in scale, rather than local.
On the medieval period NOAA concludes: “"The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect.”
This on the basis of a number of proxy studies carried out.
I accept that all of the above can be and is disputed. But that is the point: these ‘warm periods’ are not proven to be either real or more than local.
I fully accept that they may have occurred, but are we sure of the mechanism?
I followed your link to “polar ice …” It is true that Antarctic ice is growing and there is also no doubt that Arctic ice is being lost. Unfortunately, the one doesn’t cancel the other and the Arctic ice is a more sensitive indicator of temperature since most land mass is in the North and the seas have a greater thermal inertia.
Furthermore, do remember the ‘hole in the ozone layer’ that used to be over Antarctica? This has mostly healed (resulting in less solar energy reaching that part of the world) thus producing some (relative) cooling, which in turn might well lead to increases in ice.
I also note that the data on that article started in 1979 – gee whiz!

-------
As a final point: I quite accept that a ‘proof’ of a causal link between CO2 and global warming is impossible at present. The world is simply too complex, interlocked and variable as a system to make this practicable.
As such, we will always be looking for the effects of our activity (in terms of global warming / climate change) through the ‘noise’ of natural variations in both.
This is very hard and it means that evidence will always be (somewhat) controversial. But as the body of evidence grows and the expert consensus builds, the probability grows that CO2 emissions are damaging our planet grows also.
So I ask you, is it safe to ignore that probability and carry on ‘business as usual’?

PS. I have not, and will not, personally abuse anyone for their views – no matter how asinine or risible I might feel them to be.

Jonc wrote:

I am still struggling to understand why you think this means that no-one else should do anything.

Dude there are Americans out there who are trying to do something about it. In fact it is on Obama's agenda. Americans are doing something about it by creating technologies, putting out recycle garbage bins for plastic bags, recycling, and exc. But what has China done to reduce the problem? According to experts in this field, unless China does something about the global problem, all our efforts will be fruitless, because China contribution to greenhouse gases, and other pollutants is going to exceed both the U.S. and Europe because of their lack of ethics and population.

By the be careful using wiki. They are not always accurate and the people who contribute to the information on the site are regular people ( in other words anyone who comes to that site are "scholars" ), meaning the information is not reviewed by scholars and experts and according to Ali Sina, biased people put misinformation on there.

Also putting all the pressure on the U.S. and Europe to do something about global warming will do nothing if we ignore developing countries who are also contributing to the problem and have no ethics or solutions when it comes to pollution and the environment.

Hi jonc

jonc says: I agree with your point about "gee-whiz". You will note that I have (insofar as it is possible) used 50 - 100 years as a minimum time-frame.

That is still considered a "gee-whiz" graph. That is the technique that people, like Al Gore, uses to scare the public into believing that his claim of AGW is true. He knows better as he has a team of scientists working for him, but he still shortens the x-axis and uses a zero-suppressed graph.

For instance, in An Inconvenient Truth he stands on a scissor lift to elevate himself as he shows the CO2 concentrations in the last 50 years. He raises himself 15-20 feet in the air to dramatize the "danger" we are all in. The audience gasps while he claims what he is showing that "these facts are indisputable."

He is showing points along the graph that are almost horizontal, and then the points rise in a sudden spike (in his time frame) in order to make it look like nothing had been going since the beginning of time and only now, is there danger.

Scientists know this. There know they can fool the audience if they want to. Another trick is have the x-axis in time expressed as Modified Julian Day. Again, scientists know what that is, but to the lay person they look like big scary numbers.

Now, I not saying there is anything wrong using a shorter time frame that have a zero-suppressed graph when you are talking to scientists who are in the type of field where they deal with graphs -- for the simple fact that they recognize what the graph is all about and what its worth is.

Going back to Al Gore and his scissor lift. If that graph was used on a graph going back 600 million -- Phanerozoic Carbon Dioxide -- years it would not even register a dot. Even the ice cores taken at Vostok in the Antarctic that determined the CO2 for the last 400,000 is not really identifiable on the graph.

And reading from right to left you can see that the last half billion years the CO2 has never been this low as it is now.

On that graph the [J] is the Jurassic. As you can see that CO2 concentration is anywhere from 10 times to 25 times higher than what it is today. So, Al Gore would need the world's tallest crane to show the CO2 concentration of that time, not a puny scissor lift.

jonc says: Could I have your source about CO2 in 1800? (BTW Doesn't quoting one year's value drop you into the "gee-whiz" trap you mentioned?)

To you second question the answer is no. As to your first question, no problem. Ernst-Georg Beck "180 years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods," Energy and Environment, vol. 18 no. 2, 2007.

A short version can be found on the Web here (PDF) -- however, it does not come with the graph I was looking at, but lots of graphs that are similar.

jonc says: Isn't your point about H2O vs. CO2 self-negating? Your source states that "all the radiation that H2O can absorb is already being absorbed".

Not at all. The point that I clearly made is the there are lots of eminent scientists who state that the "chief" GHG is water vapor. The reason many scientists from the alarmist side try to disparage it is because they don't fully understand it. And if they don't fully understand how can the use in the their climate models. Again, this points out the flaws of climate models -- scientists are only inserting their best guess with many of the factors.

Earth Gases - Water Vapour

Paradoxically, the "gas" which is most important to greenhouse warming is one not normally thought of as a gas at all: water (H2O). We are used to thinking of water in its pure liquid form and seldom as gas or steam. The water vapour in the atmosphere is essentially molecules of steam - evaporated water - bounding around very thinly diluted among the gaseous nitrogen and oxygen molecules that make up the atmosphere. This water vapor can be experienced as humidity.

Water vapour plays a number of critical roles in affecting both climate and weather. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is not at all uniform - far from it - but changes drastically and abruptly, often in a matter of a few hours, to cause, for example, thunderstorms.

It takes a lot of energy to evaporate water. A molecule of water vapor "contains" much more energy than a molecule of liquid water. And quite a bit of water is evaporated every day as the Sun shines down on Earth's vast oceans. In short, water vapor is one of the most important "storehouses" of energy in the atmosphere and in the climate system.

[...]

[T]here is also substantial scientific uncertainty about water's role as vapor or clouds. Since it has both warming and cooling effects, water is a "wild card".

If you google you will see many sites that claim water vapor is the major player.

jonc says: With regard to the Holocene period, I will quote NOAA:
"In summary, the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years ago, was generally warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the northern hemisphere. More over, we clearly know the cause of this natural warming, and know without doubt that this proven "astronomical" climate forcing mechanism cannot be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years."

First of all I only mentioned three from the last ice age. Throughout history there has been many warming periods.

So let me get this right. It is natural warming when things can't be explained away. Yeah, okay. The Holecene Climate Optimum was much warmer than what the IPCC predicts for the year 2100. And the Holecene Climate Optimum warm period lasted for 400 years.

jonc says: On the Roman warm period: I have yet to find any data from outside the Mediterranean, so I have yet to be convinced that it was global in scale, rather than local.

Again, it doesn't fit into your arguments and can't be explained, it needs to be dismissed.

jonc says: On the medieval period NOAA concludes: "The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect."

Here we go again, you got to get off this government agency nonsense. One of the reasons for the full press court attack on the Medieval Warm Period, is because it needs to be discredited in order to save Michael Mann's hockey stick graph with has been thoroughly debunked. Not only has his methodology been seriously questioned, but Michael Mann conveniently omitted that time period to get the numbers he wanted, in order to prove that we were in a serious climate crisis. When the hockey graph first came out the world was stunned -- I think this was the start of the AGW alarmism.

And who was the lead author of the UN IPCC report on global warming -- Climate Change 2001: Third Assessment Report -- yeah, it was Michael Mann.

This became such a contentious issue among scientists the they omitted the hockey stick graph from that the IPCC dropped it from its Summary for Policymakers in the 2007 report.

I should add, previous to Mann's work, the climate scientists, which would include all those from the IPCC all thought that it was warmer a thousand years ago, as compared to today. You can check out this report (PDF) which shows the graph used in the 1990 IPCC report. It is figure 4.5

jonc says: I followed your link to "polar ice..." It is true that Antarctic ice is growing and there is also no doubt that Arctic ice is being lost. Unfortunately, the one doesn't cancel the other and the Arctic ice is a more sensitive indicator of temperature since most land mass is in the North and the seas have a greater thermal inertia.

See, now one of us is going in circles. Earlier you argue that it is local and not global to make your point, now you are claiming the opposite to make your point. This is why these conversations never end, because the goal posts keep shifting.

Something of interest.

NASA: Clean-air regs, not CO2, are melting the ice cap

New research from NASA suggests that the Arctic warming trend seen in recent decades has indeed resulted from human activities: but not, as is widely assumed at present, those leading to carbon dioxide emissions. Rather, Arctic warming has been caused in large part by laws introduced to improve air quality and fight acid rain.

Dr Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies has led a new study which indicates that much of the general upward trend in temperatures since the 1970s - particularly in the Arctic - may have resulted from changes in levels of solid "aerosol" particles in the atmosphere, rather than elevated CO2. Arctic temperatures are of particular concern to those worried about the effects of global warming, as a melting of the ice cap could lead to disastrous rises in sea level - of a sort which might burst the Thames Barrier and flood London, for instance.

Shindell's research indicates that, ironically, much of the rise in polar temperature seen over the last few decades may have resulted from US and European restrictions on sulphur emissions. According to NASA:

Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

jonc says: I also note that the data on that article started in 1979 - gee whiz!

By golly, I got your humor, but I must say that I have educated you enough on what to look for.

To wrap this up today - there is no doubt that the claim of AGW (man-made global warming) is a complete hoax. Everything that the global warming alarmists come out with to blame man has been, and will continue to be, debunked with new science studies in 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years. That has been the standard since the hockey stick graph.

Ok I am neither an environmentalist nor a science geek, but I will add my two cents anyway: According to my environmental biology Professor, the hole in the Ozone layer was originally discovered in the 1940's ( it was overlooked because of WWII ) before cfc's became popular in usage.

jonc wrote

"Secondly, I also worry that this becomes a circular argument: If China and India won’t do anything why should America and the west? But, if America and the West do nothing, then why should China and India?
Would it not be better for the ‘First World’ to provide leadership? Or do you assume that ‘no matter what’ the Chinese will be totally intractible and carry on regardless?"

Hi Jon

I have a suggestion. Let's employ your standards on you and I believe every man should live by their own standards. Why don't we get the goverment to initate a 'Voluntary Carbon Tax' and proponents of Global Warming like yourself can contribute and those like me who are skeptical can be excluded.

I think it's fair. Since you're willing to give China and India a pass, you should be more then willing to give us all a pass as well. Your 'Voluntary Carbon Tax' can be used to 'fight' global warming. Maybe it can be channeled to Al Gore? I'l leave it up to the likes of you and your buddies to decide.

I think the world is big enough for everybody and someone feels really strongly about GW, go ahead and give your money to the cause. It is a win win situation.

What say you?

jonc wrote

"You are partly right, Alan did not state that CO2 had no harmful effects, but the tenor of his points certainly seems to imply (to me at least) that he deems it harmless; which it is not, and for the reasons I gave."

Key word here 'imply', none of us can help you if you're reading into somethings thats not there. You may need psychiatric help, and I'm serious. The problem with people like yourself is that you have made politics your religion and no matter what, you're not going to allude to the facts, so you read into something thats not there.

"CO2 and pollution: I’ll try to clarify my point for you. CO2 is a part of the natural world, as Alan says, but so is Mercury, Lead and Cadmium. These are also pollutants - if present in the wrong amounts or places."

Once again, key words 'if present in the wrong amounts and places'....Curious, did Alan state otherwise? Why is it so hard for you to understand simple English? You have not proven anything here nor have you disproven Alan in anyway. Alan stands corrected, CO2 is NOT a pollutant.

Secondly, I don't think you're understanding the word 'pollutant' in the true sense of the word. You're mixing TOXIC with POLLUTANT.

"We don’t actually need a time-machine to find out about CO2 levels: we need Antarctic ice cores which have bubbles of trapped (ancient) atmosphere in them. These can then be analysed to find out the historical CO2 levels."

Yes we do othersise all you have is evidence, nothing more.

"I really don’t understand your comment about ‘evidence’ and ‘proof’."

I'l make it easy for you now follow my words carefully....EVIDENCE SUGGESTS AND PROOF CONFIRMS...That is the difference between Evidence and Proof. For example, I may go through your wardrobe and personal belongings and decide that you're a closet gay as there is 'evidence' like a dildo and pictures of you and other Homosexuals naked....So I say I have Evidence to suggest you're homosexual. However, later I find out that those pictures were doctored and the dildo belongs to your girlfriend, now my evidence suggests you're not gay.

One day maybe I actually see you having sex with a woman so now I have PROOF that you're at least heterosexual as I witnessed it firsthand.

Do you now see the difference between evidence and proof?

"For instance: If I compare worldwide birth and death rates and find (as we all know) that the former is greater than the latter, in what way am I wrong to say that this ‘proves’ that the world’s human population is rising?"

If we have rising birthrates with proof ie physical count and birthcertificates, we can conclusively prove that birthrates are rising. As for population is rising or not, we'll need death rates as well.

"I suppose that if you take the definition of ‘proof’ in the empirical scientific sense of repeatable experiment, then you are right, we can’t ‘prove’ anything about the physical world itself because we only have one of it and so can’t repeat our ‘experiments’ with it. "

Bravo, you're learning! BTW isn't science supposed ot be BASED on empirical data? What are you learning in school?

"Under that definition I should have been clearer that this was a ‘conclusion’. (That also implies that neither you nor Alan have ‘proved’ anything either.)"

Alan has proven that the study on GW is NOT caused by rising CO2 is not conclusive and full of holes.

"What standard of proof would you require to demonstrate conclusively that CO2 levels are increasing as a long-term (century+) trend?"

You just don't get it. It looks like that there is not much critical analysis and thinking on your part but mindless leftist babble. Read Alan's article again, maybe another 5 times. Alan like so many others are not denying arguing about rise and fall of CO2.

I quote Alan from the above article

"In past millennia, CO2 levels were often much higher than the present."

It is obvious to all that you've not read the article or you have reading comprehension skills. Maybe you need to sign up for 'hooked on phonics'? LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alan is arguing that there is no conclusive proof that CO2 is the cause of GW, or man has the capacity to create large amounts of it and it is NOT a pollutant.

Read damn it, READ!!!!! Exercise that brain of yours! Don;t come here just to 'win an argument', you will be left the fool not Alan.

"Alan wrote: “The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another 20 years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.
All the records I have been able to source, running from Wiki, through the World Climate Report and PNAS to NASA all disagree with this. The hottest year on record was 2004. Since then the yearly average temperatures have (generally) fallen, but 3 years data compared to a 100 year trend of increasing temperatures is hardly enough to conclude that cooling will continue. (Actually I hope Alan is right, the evidence just suggests he isn’t.)"

For obvious reason' please don't quote Wiki. You might as well start quoting Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse. LOL!

"This is what I meant by ‘weather’ versus ‘climate’. Every year is either cooler or hotter than the last - that’s weather. But the Climatic trend is towards a warmer world and, unless you place undue emphasis on the last few years, continues to be that way. To be fair, I have found one trend line, the WCR 8 year trend that has just dipped below zero - ie that is the one trendline that at the moment ‘predicts’ global cooling. It is contra-indicated by both the WCR 5 and 10 year trendlines, as well as the other sources."

Warmer? How so? What is benchmark here? The ice age? 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? As Mindstorm stated earlier, the medieval times experienced a far hotter weather. So which benchmark are you using? As you yourself have stated, the study is contradictory.

"The two statements are not mutually contradictory, because the Earth is a very complex system with many inter-locking effects and cycles."

When it suites the likes of you, you're quick to dismiss others and claim it's quite 'complicated' yet you're willing to accept that CO2 is chief cause of GW as proof, UNDENIABLE FACT'...like honey attarcts bees!

"You are quite right in your point about Fred Singer, although I am not sure I agree with your Islam point, or see its relevance either."

You need to stop talking and do some serious reading. Your ignorance is showing.

"Mind you, I do find your ‘faith’ in this man quite touching."

Actually no, I base my decision on logical thinking with proof backing it up. If you claim that Bigfoot lives in your backyard, fine, I'l give you the benefit of the doubt however I require conclusive proof. I will not simply accepth what you say as gospel truth or just because 20 of your neighbours believe it as well. I want the bugger caght and numerous tests done on it to prove it is the Bigfoot.

This is the difference between me and you. I think and you accept.

I have read all the arguments about GW and I'm not convinced it is caused by man. I find the the attitude of proponents of GW troubling, frequently resorting to name calling ie 'deniers' and I note there is no critical thinking, all behaving like zombies. We have a washed out ex president leading the way who in my opinion is a maniac and millions of loons following his lead. The frequent argument of the loons are "hundreds of scientists says it is therefore it must be true." This is the type of arguments these lunatics provide and they expect everybody to lock step with them.

I say the world is big enough for everubody. If you feel so strongly about it, you give your OWN money to the cause and leave others be. I thinks thats fair.

I believe that subjects like GW and Evolution is a pseudo religion for many. I have talked to a psychologist and she claims that everybody is slightly insane but the difference between an insane person and a normal person is that the insanity level is much higher in them. A lot of insane people can act sane but they're actually insane. I think people like Al Gore maybe acutally insane. I read somewhere that liberalism is a desease and I suspect it may be true.

samurai_jack wrote:

I read somewhere that liberalism is a desease and I suspect it may be true.

Extreme political ideology is a disease.

It seems Christian nutjobs assume they are entitled to comment on issues they have no idea about.

Academia does not debate on this issue of global warming anymore. There is no debate, it is a scientific fact that global warming is due to human activity.

The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another 20 years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.

Which scientific study says that the Earth is cooling?

Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.

Again which scientific study says so?

Ficked up Christians evangelists go around saying such things without any responsibility towards environment as they believe in stupid stories like judgment day and hence do not care about what is happening to Earth or survival of different species.

Ali Sina has become an irresponsible fellow to allow such garbage in his website to be posted.

I am surprised that ALi Sina has fallen into the trap of Christian evangelists and is allowing such garbage to be posted in his website.

Lets see what NASA says.

nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html

The result has direct connections to NASA-funded studies conducted last year that found perennial, or year-round, sea ice in the Arctic is declining at a rate of nine percent per decade and that in 2002 summer sea ice was at record low levels. Early results indicate this persisted in 2003.

It is interesting that the media only concentrates on the Arctic, which, only has 3 percent of the world's ice. While the Antarctic has about 90 percent of the world's ice. The reason is simple -- to bring up the growing ice mass in the Antarctic does not fit into their doomsday equation of a planet dying.

Another underhanded ploy that the AGW alarmists use, in the media, is to claim that the Arctic ice mass is the lowest on "record" - however, when you dig a little deeper you find out that the record they are talking about is the "satellite record," which has only been documenting the ice mass for 30 years.

Of course they don't mention all the ships that navigated, quite often, the Northwest Passage in the first half of the century -- that is until a slight planetary cooling took place. Nor do they tell you that during the Last Interglacial Period the temperatures were 4-5°C warmer than the temperatures today.

Meanwhile, Antarctic ice mass has grown by over 1,000,000 km2 since 1979.

Mindstorm,

Are you an evangelical Christian? Why do you quote half-truths?

It is interesting that the media only concentrates on the Arctic, which, only has 3 percent of the world’s ice. While the Antarctic has about 90 percent of the world’s ice..........

Meanwhile, Antarctic ice mass has grown by over 1,000,000 km2 since 1979.

1. Where did you get your data from? Which scientific journal?

2. Where does it say that all antarctic ice is growing? I know that there are parts of antarctic ice where it is thinning.

Do not mislead people. You are NO scientist and are not qualified to make comments on these issues, unless you read the scientific works.

1). It is a fact, that even I'm sure you can look it up. It is not a secret.

1). A link is posted in this thread. Again, another fact - not a secret.

If you disagree then why don't you post your information that contradicts the facts I have posted?

Will be waiting for your information.

Antarctic's ice 'melting faster'

Guide to Climate Change
Hunting climate evidence
A team of UK researchers claims to have new evidence that global warming is melting the ice in Antarctica faster than had previously been thought....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4228411.stm

Arctic ice melting faster as temperatures climb
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9527485/

actually bot artic and antartic are melting...

co2 is a green house gas..we all know that, so whats the purpose of this discussion..while US may compete with china and ask developing nations to reduce pollution levels..but one has to take into account the population too,us consumes more energy,produces more co2 when compared to China or India,which have world's largest populations
Im not saying they should not try to reduce their emissions,i just saying the fact.More over china and India have to be given cleaner technologies,obviously they cannot grow and feed their every growing population which demands more and more resources....I don't see a end to this,more co2 will be produced and more climate change will occur,

if this trend continues glaciers will melt,ie there will be no perennial rivers,no water no food in developing countries..so more upheavals and fights..i think this is going to be the future..

1). It is a fact, that even I’m sure you can look it up. It is not a secret.

1). A link is posted in this thread. Again, another fact - not a secret.

If you disagree then why don’t you post your information that contradicts the facts I have posted?

Will be waiting for your information.

Mindstorm,

I asked you last time to provide references for your data, preferably scientific journal.

Then you say, unless I provide references to the contrary your "data" your "data" are facts. I do not see any credible link for your data. Do not provide some unknown links. At the least provide some credible news articles like bbc, cnn or some websites such as NASA.

You made a claim. You need to prove your claims. You cannot call your data as facts and then ask us to prove it is NOT fact. This is like mullah logic. Christians are no different than mullahs.

I will provide a bbc link which actually talks about the scientific study. I need to know if you have read any Scientific journals at all before I quote any.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1766064.stm

He said the research only covered a relatively small area, over a short period of time and it was possible that what they were detecting was a minor fluctuation.

He pointed out that there were other areas in West Antarctica where the ice was thinning significantly, such as the Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaites Glacier.

@ continuum1

The links are in this thread. I take it you found them because you stated you "do not see any credible link. They are very credible.

Continuum wrote
"It seems Christian nutjobs assume they are entitled to comment on issues they have no idea about. "

Hey moron, I'm not a Christian. Stop making GW a pseudo religion. Open your mind and at least see what others have to say. FYI, science is supposed to be debatable. It is not dogmatic or a religion.

The links are in this thread. I take it you found them because you stated you “do not see any credible link. They are very credible.

Meanwhile, Antarctic ice mass has grown by over 1,000,000 km2 since 1979.

There are no links for the above claim.

The rest of the links are some random websites, and I do not know who put up those websites and what is his/their credentials.

Just stating that they are credible does not make them credible.

Hey moron, I’m not a Christian. Stop making GW a pseudo religion. Open your mind and at least see what others have to say. FYI, science is supposed to be debatable. It is not dogmatic or a religion.

Dipshitjackass,

Since this is not some christian-islam debate which numerous evangelists put up like vegetables, I need “credible references” for all the claims you or any other fellow makes.

I want to see firsthand the research works published in peer reviewed journals or at the least some websites like that of NASA. Otherwise I am not even going to read tons of crap here.

I am NOT going to open my mind to garbage.

continuum wrote:

It seems Christian nutjobs assume they are entitled to comment on issues they have no idea about.

continuum there are "green" Christians out there who support global warming.

http://greenchristiannetwork.com

Hey moron, I’m not a Christian. Stop making GW a pseudo religion. Open your mind and at least see what others have to say. FYI, science is supposed to be debatable. It is not dogmatic or a religion.

foul mouthed filthy fellow,

Since this is not some christian-islam debate which numerous evangelists put up like vegetables, I need “credible references” for all the claims you or any other fellow makes.

I want to see firsthand the research works published in peer reviewed journals or at the least some websites like that of NASA. Otherwise I am not even going to read tons of crap here.

I am NOT going to open my mind to garbage.

Mindstorm says: Meanwhile, Antarctic ice mass has grown by over 1,000,000 km2 since 1979.

continuum1 Says: There are no links for the above claim.

Yes, there is. I only have a handful of posts in this thread and for some reason you are unable to find the link - which clearly demonstrates to me that, quite possibly, your not interested in the truth.

If you go back and try to find this information that is clearly posted, you will see that the Web site is very credible. The would include the author of the Web site and the links that he supplies to support the growth of 1,000,000 km2 of Antarctic ice mass.

However, since you can't find what is so clearly in front of you, then I doubt we can go any further in our conversation.

This will be my last post to you as you seem to be having some serious problems with the most simplest of tasks - enforcing my belief that you are incapable of discussing this topic in a mature and responsible way.

Hi venkat379

venkat379 Says: co2 is a green house gas..we all know that, so whats the purpose of this discussion..while US may compete with china and ask developing nations to reduce pollution levels..but one has to take into account the population too,us consumes more energy,produces more co2 when compared to China or India,which have world's largest populations

Discussions like this always get side tracked. My original responses were to another poster when he/she stated that Alan Caruba was wrong. I don't plan on playing the ever widening argument game, but I will point out a few things.

I have never seen any person deny that CO2 is a GHG. The question is how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere is man caused and what, if anything, is it responsible for? I side with those who say it is so miniscule that it doesn't not warm the planet and that the earth is in another cycle that has been going on since the beginning of time.

The argument has been made that China has already passed the USA in CO2 emissions. Those who disagree say that it will happen no later than the end of 2009.

Using your criteria then means that since the US has 5 percent of the population then we can only use 5 percent of the world's resources. That would not have been good for the world. The US has lead the world in innovation and technology and has supplied those less fortunate countries with much of our know-how.

Yes, there is. I only have a handful of posts in this thread and for some reason you are unable to find the link - which clearly demonstrates to me that, quite possibly, your not interested in the truth.

This is interesting.

Instead of posting 10 times that you have provided the links, all you have to do is point out the link or the reference directly once.

If you go back and try to find this information that is clearly posted, you will see that the Web site is very credible. The would include the author of the Web site and the links that he supplies to support the growth of 1,000,000 km2 of Antarctic ice mass.

However, since you can’t find what is so clearly in front of you, then I doubt we can go any further in our conversation.

This will be my last post to you as you seem to be having some serious problems with the most simplest of tasks - enforcing my belief that you are incapable of discussing this topic in a mature and responsible way.

Mindstorm,

All you have to do is point out the website, give information who is the author and his/hr credentials along with some of his/her published works.

However I think since you are a cheat, you cannot provide any of these and say I am unable to di simple tasks. Let it be that I am unable. What makes you unable to provide the links once.

Hi venkat379

I never mentioned that the ice was not melting in the Arctic. Although I see Alan Caruba was not very clear in one of his points.

Reading your MSNBC article, I noticed that they show the first satellite image from 1979. Now, I have already pointed in an earlier post many news articles don't mention that. And from the same article they at least admit "Sea ice records in the Arctic are sketchy before 1978."

Another underhanded ploy that the AGW alarmists use, in the media, is to claim that the Arctic ice mass is the lowest on "record" - however, when you dig a little deeper you find out that the record they are talking about is the "satellite record," which has only been documenting the ice mass for 30 years.

Which I continued to talk about ships travelling the Northwest Passage in early 20th century.

Of course they don't mention all the ships that navigated, quite often, the Northwest Passage in the first half of the century - that is until a slight planetary cooling took place. Nor do they tell you that during the Last Interglacial Period the temperatures were 4-5°C warmer than the temperatures today.

I also noticed from your article, although it was from 2005, made mention of "The scientists stopped short of directly blaming the melting trend on global warming but said they have few other explanations at this point." Nor do they mention anything about man-made global warming.

Another point in keeping with sailors in the Northwest Passage. Dr Roy Spencer points out.

[t]he available thermometer measurements in the Arctic region suggest that it was just as warm back in the 1930's, which couldn't have been caused be the activities of mankind.

I'll respond to your other link when I have time.

Hey Continuum

You accusing me of being foul mouthed? Hey hypocrit, read your posts moron!

This is for you

http://petitionproject.org/

31 thousand scietists REJECT GW caused by CO2.

You accusing me of being foul mouthed? Hey hypocrit, read your posts moron!

When people like you run out of valuable arguments, they start abusing. I called you a foul mouthed filthy fellow, because that is what you are.

This is for you

http://petitionproject.org/

31 thousand scietists REJECT GW caused by CO2.

What a joke? How many of the ones who signed possess Ph.D. degree? less than 10000.

How many of these Ph.D.s signed possess a degree in relevant field?

A Ph.D. degree in physics does not warrant or qualify anybody to comment on global warming issues. The BS site has signatures from medical doctors. What the hell a medical doctor knows about global warming issues?

What problem these people have to publish their works in peer reviewed journals that they have to write blogs and create petitions? Who is the moron here to "believe" in such petitions.

It is very surprising that when some people are challenged for their statements like (1,000,000 km^2 of ice etc.) and were asked to provide references for their claims, they simply even refuse to provide some. Strange that these people then blame me for not being interested in truth. Since I am interested in truth, I am asking for references.

On the other hand, some people here have vested interests, perhaps being paid by big oil industries to peddle their goals.

You accusing me of being foul mouthed? Hey hypocrit, read your posts moron!

When people like you run out of valuable arguments, they start abusing. I called you a foul mouthed filthy fellow, because that is what you are.

This is for you

petitionproject.org/

31 thousand scietists REJECT GW caused by CO2.

What a joke? How many of the ones who signed possess Ph.D. degree? less than 10000.

How many of these Ph.D.s signed possess a degree in relevant field?

A Ph.D. degree in physics does not warrant or qualify anybody to comment on global warming issues. The BS site has signatures from medical doctors. What the hell a medical doctor knows about global warming issues?

What problem these people have to publish their works in peer reviewed journals that they have to write blogs and create petitions? Who is the moron here to "believe" in such petitions.

It is very surprising that when some people are challenged for their statements like (1,000,000 km^2 of ice etc.) and were asked to provide references for their claims, they simply even refuse to provide some. Strange that these people then blame me for not being interested in truth. Since I am interested in truth, I am asking for references.

On the other hand, some people here have vested interests, perhaps being paid by big oil industries to peddle their goals.

Oh dear, some of this is getting personal and nasty - on both sides now.
I have been doing a lot of research on this stuff (sourced from NOAA, The Royal Society, UCAR, NCAR, PNAS, Expert voices, and Wiki [this last always cross-checked]) and I want to bring the following to folks' attention:

Pre-industrial CO2 levels (last 40k years) 260 – 300 ppm. (1)
Atmospheric CO2 concn currently at ~380 ppmv (2)
Thus a 100 ppm increase within the last ~200 years.

CO2 concn 0.038% or (converting to weight fraction) ~ 582 ppmw (0.0582%).

Atmospheric mass ~ 5.15 x 10^15 Tonnes and hence CO2 mass ~ 2.99 x 10^12 Tonnes. (~3 TeraTonnes)

Fossil fuel burning puts ~9 x 10^9 Tonnes of carbon into air per year.
This is ~ 33 x 10^9 Tonnes of CO2 (equiv. to 6.4 ppmw/year of CO2)
Deforestation puts ~ 27 x 10^9 Tonnes into air per year.
Total: ~ 60 x 10^9 Tonnes/year, equivalent to 11.6 ppmw/year.

At present rate of human CO2 emission, the 100 ppm increase in CO2 represents ~ 10 years emissions (assuming no absorbtion).
Allowing for (estimated) 9% removal from the atmosphere per year (3), the time required for humans to add 100 ppm to CO2 levels increases to ~20 years.

We can even (ludicrously) assume that the average human emissions over the last 200 years were only 10% of what they are now, or that CO2 atmospheric removal rates are much higher than any experimental evidence shows and still show that human activity pretty much produces the change in CO2 levels that we have observed.

Now 11.6 ppm is ~3% of the CO2 levels. to make the point clear that is PER YEAR.

How can anyone say that the increase in CO2 is not human-caused?
Then again, some folk insist the Earth is flat…
Perhaps some still really think the Moon is made of green cheese too.

(1) This is a sufficently long time frame to avoid any (reasonable) "gee-whizz" claim about the data.
(2) Instrumental data - therefore fact (unless we assume the scientists have have mis-calibrated and mis-read there instruments over last 100 years. Not that most of them even had any idea about global warming etc.)
(3) this figure usually averaged over 5 years to 45%, but calculation easier if taken yearly.