The Great Global Warming Swindle

[Slim]

I read that the planet Mars has suffered from global warming there. Damn martians!

 

You're actually depressing me.

[Cambon]

Cambon is claiming there is a natural cycle which will reduce CO2 levels - I'm asking him to justify his opinion - I don't think he can, hence my quip about gut feelings and hot air!

 

No Chinahand. I said there is a natural cycle of climate change which is well documented throughout the history of the planet, even the history of mankind. I sid nothing to do with CO2 at that time.

 

However, I did say that there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend, and there isn't.

[Miss Take]

Cambon is claiming there is a natural cycle which will reduce CO2 levels - I'm asking him to justify his opinion - I don't think he can, hence my quip about gut feelings and hot air!

 

No Chinahand. I said there is a natural cycle of climate change which is well documented throughout the history of the planet, even the history of mankind. I sid nothing to do with CO2 at that time.

 

However, I did say that there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend, and there isn't.

 

There's no proof that you won't get run over by a bus tomorrow, but I bet you're still making plans for the weekend?

[Slim]

However, I did say that there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend, and there isn't.

 

That's a pretty spectacular failure in understanding of scientific process. There's no proof of many things we take for granted. What there is is an overwhelming amount of scientific opinion that cutting co2 output will reduce warming.

[Chinahand]

Cambon is claiming there is a natural cycle which will reduce CO2 levels - I'm asking him to justify his opinion - I don't think he can, hence my quip about gut feelings and hot air!

 

No Chinahand. I said there is a natural cycle of climate change which is well documented throughout the history of the planet, even the history of mankind. I sid nothing to do with CO2 at that time.

 

However, I did say that there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend, and there isn't.

 

What gets me about all this is the presumption by the sceptics that the scientists involved are just idiots who make up their spurious claims with no evidence - there is a huge amount of evidence that Natural Cycles cannot explain the current changes in climate. There is also a huge amount of evidence that it is only when you add Man Made climate change - sorry Cambon, but that, predominately means CO2, can current changes be explained.

 

 

These graphs are the result of huge amounts of work - and they definitely do show that man made CO2 is the main contributing factor and stopping/reducing the increase in CO2 will reduce future climate change.

 

Cambon, you have an interesting caveat in this sentence -

I ssid nothing to do with CO2 at that time.

No CO2 increases weren't a factor in natural cycels "at that time" - BUT they are now, why - its a thing called the industrial revolution and fossil fuels.

 

And your claim that

there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend

totally ignores the work of thousands upon thousands of scientists. Back statement up - I flatly say you are talking rubbish.

[Chinahand]

If people are interested the IPCC has published a series of Frequently asked questions which try to give state of the art answers to the type of questions and skeptical responses given in this topic.

 

The IPCC AR4 Frequently Asked Questions (pdf) is an excellent start. That covers:

 

What Factors Determine Earth's Climate?

What is the Relationship between Climate Change and Weather?

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

How do Human Activities Contribute to Climate Change and How do They Compare with Natural Influences?

How are Temperatures on Earth Changing?

How is Precipitation Changing?

Has there been a Change in Extreme Events like Heat Waves, Droughts, Floods and Hurricanes?

Is the Amount of Snow and Ice on the Earth Decreasing?

Is Sea Level Rising?

What Caused the Ice Ages and Other Important Climate Changes Before the Industrial Era?

Is the Current Climate Change Unusual Compared to Earlier Changes in Earth's History?

Are the Increases in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Other Greenhouse Gases During the Industrial Era Caused by Human Activities?

How Reliable Are the Models Used to Make Projections of Future Climate Change?

Can Individual Extreme Events be Explained by Greenhouse Warming?

Can the Warming of the 20th Century be Explained by Natural Variability?

Are Extreme Events, Like Heat Waves, Droughts or Floods, Expected to Change as the Earth's Climate Changes?

How Likely are Major or Abrupt Climate Changes, such as Loss of Ice Sheets or Changes in Global Ocean Circulation?

If Emissions of Greenhouse Gases are Reduced, How Quickly do Their Concentrations in the Atmosphere Decrease?

Do Projected Changes in Climate Vary from Region to Region?

 

Its 34 pages with lots of graphs and pictures - so an evenings work, but it is a genuine attempt by the scientists involved to explain why they are saying what they are saying.

 

Albert, Cambon - how about reading "How Reliable Are the Models Used to Make Projections of Future Climate Change?" and "How do Human Activities Contribute to Climate Change and How do They Compare with Natural Influences?"

 

The only trouble for people on dial up is that its a big file 8.5Meg

[Cambon]

...... totally ignores the work of thousands upon thousands of scientists. Back statement up - I flatly say you are talking rubbish.

 

Reducing CO2 output is one thing, but the problem is the CO2 that is already there. How are there thousands of scientists going to get rid of that? That is what is causing the problem, not future output. Nature can reduce it over centuries (if they dont cut down the remaining rainforests) but by then it will be too late. Basically, it is too late to cut CO2 we need to break down / convert CO2 to other forms to improve the situation.

[Albert Tatlock]

Cambon is claiming there is a natural cycle which will reduce CO2 levels - I'm asking him to justify his opinion - I don't think he can, hence my quip about gut feelings and hot air!

 

No Chinahand. I said there is a natural cycle of climate change which is well documented throughout the history of the planet, even the history of mankind. I sid nothing to do with CO2 at that time.

 

However, I did say that there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend, and there isn't.

I would agree with that. Even if we can reduce emissions, this will not stop change - only slow it down. Meanwhile, people like Gordon Brown and their linkage with the IPCC, see nothing but 'Clim£te Ch£nge' - which above all else is affecting people's perceptions, trust and priorities.

 

Actually I have a suspicion that levels will probably rise back to the levels where they were over a million years ago (before the ice-ages of the past million years or so) before levelling off again. There have been various equilibrium points (at various levels of CO2 and other gases) throughout Earth's history, but what is different this time is that humans have cut down and over-fished the natural Carbon sinks. Most humans have little concept of time or distance in our short little lives, nor realise that literally billions of species are no longer around anymore as a result of historical climate changes long before we arrived. We are being arrogant and naive if we think we can really control nature with our current level of knowledge. We can do little about climate change and should be learning to live with it, and if people think that by simply reducing CO2 will stop it, they have another think coming as there are many factors involved - many of which we still do not understand.

 

However, most people still haven't put 2 and 2 together to realise that there are simply too many human beings being born everyday for us ever to be able to reduce emissions - at least until all the fossil fuels start to run out. These additional humans are also cutting down the forests to live and farm, are over fishing the seas - taking out some of the natural carbon sinks - and driving the demand to convert even more fossil fuels into CO2 and other pollutants. Even if 6 billion people reduced their emissions by 50%, this will have little effect when there will be 10 billion (or more) of us by 2050. Like Yeast, humans will multiply to such a level where they will produce enough CO2 to eventually destroy their own environment (which is what yeast does) - so that 'trading' CO2 will soon become irrelevant. The only thing that will effectively reduce CO2 emissions over the next 50 years will be CO2 reduction in conjunction with major population control efforts; replacing the carbon sinks (literally replanting billions of lost acres); a plague; or world war three. Until we move our whole way of life away from £1 notes and manufacturing piles of crap that we don't need, the problem won't ever go away, never mind be properly addressed.

 

If the sh1t really hits the fan over the next 20 years, I'd put my money on a government funded plague. Sci-Fi? ...maybe. But if you were elected president/prime minister and told it was the only way of saving the human race - what would you do? Don't forget that we have recently been warned about an 'impending' bird-flu pandemic (a theory that would at least make an interesting novel.)

[Chinahand]

Ok now we are getting to the nuance of the issue - as far as I'm aware the view is that if CO2 levels can be kept below 450 ppm then catastophic changes can be averted. In the 18th century they were at 280, in the 1980s 330, now about 380 - that 100 ppm increase is now catching up on us - yes getting rid of that CO2 is problematic and will take a century or so for the earth to absorb it. But it is the future output we should be really scared of - and which we need to take action to curb.

 

If we stopped CO2 emissions today - then temperatures would continue to rise, I agree with you, but not catastrophically. It is the fact that future CO2 is going to push the world even further out of equilibrium that should concern us, much more so than the fact that we are already out of equilibrium - due to population and economic change humanity's ability to generate CO2 is increasing exponentially - China and India industrializing - this is more of an issue than the 20% of the world that has generated the current increases!

[VinnieK]

We are being arrogant and naive if we think we can really control nature with our current level of knowledge. We can do little about climate change and should be learning to live with it, and if people think that by simply reducing CO2 will stop it, they have another think coming as there are many factors involved - many of which we still do not understand.

 

...and what is our current level of knowledge? You make fantastic claims about "arrogant" scientists and politicians, but what's this based on? What grasp do you have of cutting edge climate science? I'm happy to bet you that it, like it is for the vast majority of us, negligeable. And yet you still feel as if you're in some position to pronounce upon the current state of scientific knowledge in this area, drawing conclusions from single papers and regurgitating whatever tired old nonesense you happen to have culled from a couple of websites, not to mention making assertions and issuing suspicions about "how it's all going to turn out" based on nothing more substantial than a mix of GCSE level climate science and a bag of ragged observations about previous warm or cool cycles that have been debunked time and time again by scientists far more qualified than you to comment - if anything is arrogant and niave, then it is that.

 

Dismiss the science out of hand if you want, but these repeated attempts to outright disprove it by elementary means and, just for good measure, insinuate that climate scientists are nothing more than paid stooges have gone from quixotic to farcical, and finally to pantomime. It's not so much the opinion that I have a problem with, since at the end day this all comes down to trust in the scientific establishment and all any of us can really do is place our chips on the table and await the outcome, but this circus of parading shreds of already debunked evidence, wild assertions, and accusations about the motives of professional scientists really is beyond the pale.

[Chinahand]

Actually I have a suspicion that levels will probably rise back to the levels where they were over a million years ago (before the ice-ages of the past million years or so) before levelling off again.

 

Adding to VinnieK's comments - where apart from your own fevered imagination are you getting the above from?

 

Are you really doubting that CO2 levels are changing due to human activity? Why should levels rise to some prehistoric level? Are you claiming there is some strange teology occuring here? What is causing these huge and dramatic changes to CO2 levels to make them return to prehistoric levels - what evidence is there that some huge new carbon source has suddenly appeared?

 

Why will these levels go back to a level a million years ago when the climate and earth's ecology was totally different from what it is today? You do understand that one of the reasons things were different then was that because of continental drift the continents were in different positions and the ocean currents etc different. Guess what South America hasn't suddenly moved and lodged itself back onto Africa. There are reasons why the present is different from the past!

 

Are you saying that if we stopped producing fossil CO2 levels would continue to rise? Where from? And what if we can use technology to scrub, or bury CO2 - wouldn't this stop levels rising?

 

And why do you assume it is impossible for us to do this and the only solutions are economic and social collapse - I thought you had faith in engineering and human ingenuity! 5% of GDP is the current estimate - that is a huge amount of money, but its a hell of a lot cheaper than killing a significant proportion of the planet which seems to be the only solution to have appeared in your imagination - shit you sound as bad a Rog!

[Cambon]

Cambon is claiming there is a natural cycle which will reduce CO2 levels - I'm asking him to justify his opinion - I don't think he can, hence my quip about gut feelings and hot air!

 

No Chinahand. I said there is a natural cycle of climate change which is well documented throughout the history of the planet, even the history of mankind. I sid nothing to do with CO2 at that time.

 

However, I did say that there is no proof that cutting CO2 output will help the current warming trend, and there isn't.

 

There's no proof that you won't get run over by a bus tomorrow, but I bet you're still making plans for the weekend?

 

Yes, but in this case if they banned all buses, there would be no buses. With CO2, they can cut emissions but the damage is done.

 

It is like banning fishing when there are no fish left to save.

[Chinahand]

Yes, but in this case if they banned all buses, there would be no buses. With CO2, they can cut emissions but the damage is done.

 

It is like banning fishing when there are no fish left to save.

 

How much is 570 Gton C? We have already released about 300 Gton C, and the business-as-usual scenario projects 1600 Gton C total release by the year 2100. Avoiding dangerous climate change requires very deep cuts in CO2 emissions in the long term, something like 85% of business-as-usual averaged over the coming century. Put it this way and it sounds impossible. Another way to look at it, which doesn't seem quite as intractable, is to say that the 200 Gton C that can still be "safely" emitted is roughly equivalent to the remaining traditional reserves of oil and natural gas. We could burn those until they're gone, but declare an immediate moratorium on coal, and that would be OK, according to our defined danger limit of 2°C. A third perspective is that if we could limit emissions to 5 Gton C per year starting now, we could continue doing that for 250/5 = 50 years.

 

This quote is from the article on RealClimate I linked to above - human activities have released 300 Gigatons of Carbon into the atmosphere - if it goes over 570 Gitatons the risk of serious consequences increases massively - if we keep emissions going at their current levels with economic development and population change it will be at 1600 Gigatons by 2100.

 

Obviously these figures can be nuanced a thousand fold, but they are representative of the problems we are facing - the past is an issue, but when you compare 300 gigatons with 1600 gigatons, I know what we should be concentrating on - technological and social change to reduce future C02 emissions.

 

The pasts 300 Gigatons have been released - they'll effect us, but your analogy is seriously flawed: to say there are no fish left to save is in my mind to miss the point.

 

Any arsenic in Silverburn river is a problem for the fish - over [made up figure] 23.4 the fish stocks catastophically collapse. At the moment its at 20.1. Should we put in measures to stop an additonal 15 being added to the river or not?

[Cambon]

Chinahand, my analogy may be flawed, but the point I was trying to get across was that the scientists admit that they dont know how long it will take the CO2 that is currently in our atmosphere to break down. They are predict more than a century. Other greenhouse gases like hydrocarbons can break down in 10-12 years or less, so they can predict that. But CO2 is a different kettle of fish.

 

That said, I predict that if I was to invent some sort of photosynthesiser machine that could realistically break down CO2 that is would be snapped up by governments and I would be a millionaire, but I bet it would not go into production for years as the governments would have too much to lose on income from exploitation of the greenhouse situation.

[Slim]

Chinahand, my analogy may be flawed, but the point I was trying to get across was that the scientists admit that they dont know how long it will take the CO2 that is currently in our atmosphere to break down. They are predict more than a century. Other greenhouse gases like hydrocarbons can break down in 10-12 years or less, so they can predict that. But CO2 is a different kettle of fish.

 

That said, I predict that if I was to invent some sort of photosynthesiser machine that could realistically break down CO2 that is would be snapped up by governments and I would be a millionaire, but I bet it would not go into production for years as the governments would have too much to lose on income from exploitation of the greenhouse situation.

 

Break down? How do you break down carbon, it's a fucking element!

 

You're suggesting there's no such thing as a carbon sink? You're wrong, and obviously clueless.