The Great Global Warming Swindle

[mastacox]

AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming = Man-Made Global Warming

Sorry for rambling. I didn't understand your last question, as i didn't understand "AGW"

Well, the basic idea is that there are a few assumptions that have to be made for a person to believe the AGW mantra:

1) Man is directly responsible for the current climate changes occurring.

2) The climate that we currently have around the world is the best one, hence we would not want it to change to any other state.

The first assumption is severely suspect in my opinion, especially since the "largest problem" according to the AGW advocates is CO2, which is not anywhere close to the largest greenhouse contributor (the largest one BY FAR is, you guessed it, water vapor).

The second one is such a basic question, it seems no one has even asked it: how do we know the climate changing would be a bad thing? I think this question speaks for itself, people fear change, although the only constant in the universe is that EVERYTHING changes. In years past, warming has been accompanied by longer growing seasons, and greater overall productivity around the world...

[AxleIke]

Well, growing season's are one thing, but i think the greater concern is melt water.

I agree, we could be changing it for the better, or the worse, we don't know. I think where we lose farmland to drought, we will gain farmland in the north.

However, there are a great many cities that will have to change or move if ocean levels rise. Most of the perdictions have been wildly innacurate, but there are several places around the globe where even a mild sea level increase could be a major problem. New Orleans comes to mind, as does much of the Netherlands.

However, i believe that these sea level changes will occur over a pretty long time scale for human standards, say 50-100 years. Assuming the government gets its act together, there would be more than enough time to correct the problems.

I'm a little confused on one point, since the title of this thread indicates that perhaps you don't think anything is changing at all, and that we are not warming, while your posts seem to indicate that you do think things are changing. Just that the changes might not be the "doomsday" that the enviro lobby wants you to believe.

Disclaimer: Since i've had so many issues with this in the past, whenever discussing something like this, i usually point out that my posts are in effort to have a good, and stimulating discussion, and not meant to be read in a condescending or otherwise "jerk-like" tone. I think your points are valid, and I hope we can continue in a civil manner.

[mastacox]

My beliefs are simple:

- The earth's climate is currently (and will always) be in a state of flux. The changes we are currently seeing are small, and not any more incredible than any other climate changes in earth's very long history.

- Man has little to nothing to do with this.

As for the title- the video linked at the start of the thread titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is a documentary by the BBC that covers the AGW theory and how it has progressed into a sort of religion that brands people that don't believe as heretics, while the scientific facts that have been thoroughly peer-reviewed have been overrun by the media hysteria that feeds on famine, death, destruction, and disaster. AGW theory these days is all about belief and has little to nothing to do with fact.

And I think this conversation has been quite civil compared to others I have been involved in on other forums not associated with Yota's.

[AxleIke]

I wasn't insinuating that it wasn't, just trying to keep my post from being taken out of context.

I completely agree with your point on belief vs fact.

I completely dissagree with your view that we have little impact.

Time will tell which one of us is right.

[mastacox]

I completely dissagree with your view that we have little impact.

Let me ask you this, do you think that it is our addition of CO2 to the atmosphere that is causing this warming?

[AxleIke]

Not all by itself, but i believe it to be a signigicant contributer. As was pointed out, water is the biggest "greenhouse gas", but CO2 helps. As you warm the globe, even slightly, you evaporate more water from the oceans, which in turn warms the atmosphere a little more, and so on.

We also release a great many other things, like nitrates and hydrocarbons that contribute, along with sulfer dioxide, to smog. Smog is a heat trap as well, and while it is more local, the number of cities affected by it world wide is growing. As those particles make it into the upper atomosphere, the act like a "cloud" just like H20 does, and help to trap heat.

[Henrythewound]

Check out the graphs of CO2 in our atmosphere since the industrial revolution. It is SKYROCKETING. Water vapor and many other greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter/aerosols are naturally added to the atm via volcanos and other natural processes. I don't think anyone is refuting that climate changes on its own, but the addition of massive amounts of CO2 and methane into the atm are directly related to man.

The US had a chance to join in w/ the Kyoto protocol which is at least trying to make a dent in how we keep pumping more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. GUess what, we didn't join citing lack of proof that these considerations would help and that we don't really know for sure we are the cause of recent warming.

If you look at ice cores that record the amount of CO2 in our atm over the past thousands of years you will see that it changes naturally, you will not see as rapid a change as we have experienced in the past 100 years due to natural causes.

I'm not saying we will end up with a runaway greenhouse effect like Venus, but we will definitely warm, resulting in more melting of presently frozen glacial and polar ice. This in turn makes for less reflective portions on earth (white (ice and snow) reflects incoming solar radiation, darker colors like blue (ocean) and brown (land) absorb this radiation). We will have a positive feedback system where melting induces more meltin, and thus continued warming. Tell anyone living within a few meters os current sea levels this isn't a problem. Tell anyone depending on current weather patterns (monsoons, winter rains, etc) this isn't a problem.

100 years is not a long time, in fact it is a blink of an eye as far as Earth's geologic history is concerned.

Humans HAVE had an impact, there are some scientists that want to name a new geologic time period called the Anthropocene based on the impact we now have on the earth.

[AxleIke]

If you look at ice cores that record the amount of CO2 in our atm over the past thousands of years

As it turns out, I do.

[mastacox]

Check out the graphs of CO2 in our atmosphere since the industrial revolution. It is SKYROCKETING. Water vapor and many other greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter/aerosols are naturally added to the atm via volcanos and other natural processes.

It's interesting that you would mention that, because if atmospheric CO2 is directly linked to global temperature averages why is it that the data doesn't match up? Why is it that the majority of the warming we have seen occurred before the industrial revolution? Why is it with the advent of the industrial revolution, CO2 levels began to rise, yet temperatures actually DECREASED?

You say that CO2 levels are rising as if they are a dangerous pollutant, yet CO2 is a natuarlly occurring part of the environment, not a heavy chemical leftover from industrial processes... The video I linked to in the very first post argues that CO2 levels are actually a function of mean global temperture, not visa-versa. Based on findings from ice core samples in Antarctica, CO2 levels seem to for the most part proportionately follow mean global temperture, but lag behind by 50 or 60 years. It is not CO2 which drives global temperture, but rather global temperture that drives CO2.

The US had a chance to join in w/ the Kyoto protocol which is at least trying to make a dent in how we keep pumping more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. GUess what, we didn't join citing lack of proof that these considerations would help and that we don't really know for sure we are the cause of recent warming.

Well, what's wrong with asking for definitive proof that it will help before trying to hobble industry and spend billions of dollars? If there is no substantive evidence showing that CO2 is directly conected as a driver of global temperature, then obviously money can be better spent elsewehere. "The fuzzy feeling you get" is not good enough.

If you look at ice cores that record the amount of CO2 in our atm over the past thousands of years you will see that it changes naturally, you will not see as rapid a change as we have experienced in the past 100 years due to natural causes.

I find this statement suspect. Got some hard data to back it up? Even if it were true, saying this still doesn't prove we are directly responsible for the changes.

I'm not saying we will end up with a runaway greenhouse effect like Venus,

That good, because I laugh at and incessantly nag THOSE people.

but we will definitely warm

I have seen no irrrefutable evidence that we are to blame for it though...

resulting in more melting of presently frozen glacial and polar ice. This in turn makes for less reflective portions on earth (white (ice and snow) reflects incoming solar radiation, darker colors like blue (ocean) and brown (land) absorb this radiation). We will have a positive feedback system where melting induces more meltin, and thus continued warming.

Now this is nothing but speculation... Trying to use "common sense" arguments along with slippery slope scenarios proves nothing; it is nothing more than a theory.

Tell anyone living within a few meters os current sea levels this isn't a problem. Tell anyone depending on current weather patterns (monsoons, winter rains, etc) this isn't a problem.

This is also a common tactic used by AGW propnents- guilt. I should feel guilty for not caring about what happens to the poor slobs living on the coast that might have to move in 60 years; I should feel guilty for driving my SUV and dumping terrible CO2 into the atmosphere becasue I am bringing about the downfall of mankind... I should feel guilty for not wanting to buy into an ill-prepared "treaty" that wants to spend billions trying to limit CO2 production when it will in all probability do nothing.

100 years is not a long time, in fact it is a blink of an eye as far as Earth's geologic history is concerned.

On that we can agree. However, in its own way this statement undermines your arguments that the changes we have seen in the past 50-60 years are significant and out of the ordinary.

Humans HAVE had an impact, there are some scientists that want to name a new geologic time period called the Anthropocene based on the impact we now have on the earth.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There really isn't even regular evidence... just theories and speculation.

[mastacox]

You know, industrial processes and automobiles create as much or even more H2O than CO2 as a byproduct of their processes... Since H2O(g) is a far more powerful greehouse gas, I propose we limit the production of water vapor by industry the world over.