Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
January 27, 2012
"The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant."
"CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle."
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208 comments:
1 – 200 of 208 Newer› Newest»Now cut that shit out.
The Science Is Settled.
Didn't you get the memo?
Just finished reading this.
And yet, you'll see articles and speeches everyday "denying" this common sense, and demonizing those of us who are skeptical.
Sad.
And disheartening.
I'm giddy with revenge fantasies against all the epic eco-douchebag, strident AGW screamers and true believers in my old neighborhood (an "eco community") who stomped and howled about my claims that AGW was 100% unadulterated bullshit and religious cult designed to raise money and increase prestige for its priests. I win. Bite me.
WV: "squall" awesome!
Nice article. That is precisely what I wrote here about CO2 3 years ago to the whoops and hollers of "Science defenders" who could not see what was in front of their faces. Affirmation is nice.
I hear they Warmists are now morphing directly into Species Savers . Either way, they have authority to rule the planet through the UN. Just ask Obama when his Lie-o-matic machine is off.
CO2 isn't a pollutant. The bullshit spread by the green-reds most certainly is.
[This is not a comment; I just want to follow the convo.]
Pollution is a pollutant. No whining from the left about pollution. Nah. Much easier to make money off of invisible boogey men.
If memory serves me, the commenters were instrumental in bringing Althouse to the skeptics' side, notably at the point she eventually took one of her sons (can't remember which) lovingly to the proverbial wood shed for his uncritical embrace of AGW.
Global warming fanaticism is mostly dead, but not all dead so don't start going through its pocket for loose change just yet.
You'd think these people missed 4th grade science or something.
Maybe that whole photosynthesis thing is a little too complicated for those Left wing minds.
Article seems totally reasonable.
HOWEVER...
The scientific theory behind AGW isn't based on CO2 being a pollutant; it is based on CO2 being a greenhouse gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect. (Remember back in the 70s and 80s when AGW was called the 'runaway greenhouse effect'?) Reducing pollution is fine but it's a red herring in this debate.
Considering this article is by scientists but doesn't even get the science behind AGW correct, I have a hard time trusting it. Show me an article by scientists that claims that CO2 is irrelevant to the greenhouse effect -- show me an article critical of AGW that gets the actual science RIGHT -- and then I'll listen.
Seems like more people trying to convince themselves of what they want to hear.
Did you ever notice how the Physics community is much nicer to the folks who are claiming that some neutrinos can travel faster than light than the Climatological community is towards AGW skeptics?
The Physics community sure seems to have much more at stake in the matter in the face of a determination that could upend modern physics. Yet, there's no vituperation in the press.
Maybe that's because the Physicists are doing Science, and the AGWites are selling very profitable snake-oil.
97% of all scientists beleive in global warming. So... why is this stuff even being published. 3% of the people (10 million in the U.S.) still believe that the world is flat and we don't publish those articles...
That is why you don't see these crazy and ridiculous stories in legitimate news sources such as the New York Times and Mother Jones.
Human global warming is obvious and it is obvious that it is leading to disaster. Prior to the major global warming that took place in the last 2000 years, there was no occurrence - 0% - of instances where tsunamis had caused a nuclear melt down anywhere. Yet just last year there was a tsunami that cause meltdowns in 4 reactors. Global warming will only cause more of this pain and suffering in the year to come unless we act now.
Imagine if someone were to say: "Hey, we've found a new source of fuel. It comes straight out of the ground. It's totally organic. Plentiful. Just needs a little refining and it can power the world!" It would be considered a miracle.
Guess what, it's called "oil." But, like CO2, it's been irrationally labeled a poison. The environmental movement (at least the wing that gets funding and political support) has essentially been taken over by desperate over-reachers.
It's too bad, because there are third world countries who could use some committed environmentalists to help them out. But that sort of work is not as fun as making feature films about armageddon or redecorating your house using "green" products.
Avoid people who make a statement and then expect you to say "I agree with you".
Seek out those who put out facts and let you ask questions based on those facts.
3% of the people (10 million in the U.S.) still believe that the world is flat and we don't publish those articles...
I wasn't aware that there is grant money, university positions, and government appointments tied up in deciding whether or not we live on a globe.
Sixteen Unsettled Scientists.
Guess what, it's called "oil." But, like CO2, it's been irrationally labeled a poison.
So you can drink it?
(Goes to look)
Less than a coffee cup won't kill you, apparently (according to the CDC), but you will vomit and have diarrhea.
Less than a coffee cup won't kill you, apparently (according to the CDC), but you will vomit and have diarrhea.
Are you suggesting that I can use the leftover potato salad I ate, then regretted...and regretted...and regretted, to run my car?
Knox said, "Human global warming is obvious and it is obvious that it is leading to disaster. Prior to the major global warming that took place in the last 2000 years, there was no occurrence - 0% - of instances where tsunamis had caused a nuclear melt down anywhere. Yet just last year there was a tsunami that cause meltdowns in 4 reactors. Global warming will only cause more of this pain and suffering in the year to come unless we act now."
Knox, I'm assuming that you forgot the sarcasm tag. If you actually mean what you've written here, please read this month's very detailed National Geographic article, which explains in simple diagrams that a child can follow that Tsunamis are caused by tectonic forces, not climate. If you don't know what tectonic forces are, read the word carefully so that you spell it right, and then look it up in Wikipedia. Have a dictionary handy for the big words.
"The scientific theory behind AGW isn't based on CO2 being a pollutant"
True as far as it goes. However, the political campaign to implement anti-AGW measures like cap and trade is based largely on scaring the shit out of people with pseudo-scientific buzzwords like "CO2 pollution" and "ocean acidification", so it's important to push back against that stuff.
What people don't get is that the models that were created are based on 100 years of data. So even if the data that comes in over the next ten years falls outside of the standard deviation of the existing model, that is not enough proof that global warming is not happening in a large scale. Ten years is not enough time to really test that the model is correct. We should stick to the original models because they were designed by the best and most equipped scientists. Because we cannot prove that there is not global warming then that is not a justification to sit back and do nothing about it. Did Galelio give up searching the stars merely because those that came before him couldn't find the moons of Jupiter. Did Newton give up on proving out the three laws of gravity because his first attempt failed. No. We should not give up on combating global warming for the same reasons.
show me an article critical of AGW that gets the actual science RIGHT
Show me an article promoting AGW that proves the science is settled.
Show me a campaign to combat AGW that gets the actual science right.
dpoyesac said...
The scientific theory behind AGW isn't based on CO2 being a pollutant; it is based on CO2 being a greenhouse gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect.
Please explain the mechanism that was in play when the Earth had 10 times the current levels of CO2?
1. Don't today's AGW models predict runaway heating in that scenario?
2. What decreased the CO2 then by a factor 10 now?
3. Has that law of thermodynamics been repealed and we didn't get the memo?
4. Maybe, just maybe the causatin between CO2 and temps is very very weak. "Tilts head up and looks at the big yellow ball in the sky"
Of course its not a pollutant but that doesn't prevent the EPA (doing the bidding of the politicians) from regulating it.
And the fact is those progressives emotionally invested in global warming don't like facts.
CO2 is a pollutant, just not the way it's described in media.
It's why boilers have stacks and suicides use car exhaust. CO2 is a natural gas.
c + o2 + heat = energy
Sloanasaurus said...
97% of all scientists beleive in global warming.
That was a funny parody post you came up with.
Meanwhile Nome Alaska is so iced in that a Russian tanker was only able to get to within 8 miles of the harbor and its delivery of oil and other supplies had to be piped in over the ice with the help of the Coast Guard, a huge operation.
Pollution from places like India and China will more than likely have a global cooling effect.
C being any carbon, oil gas, wood, corn. Pick a carbon storage.
asaurus said...
What people don't get is that the models that were created are based on 100 years of data
And that would be false.
The models have been fed data that was manipulated. And in spite of that fact, the accuracy of the models has been pretty far off.
PS, look what was said in 2008:
“Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,” says Gore
How's that working out for you?
"Global warming is real, and it is a real problem. However, the solutions to the problem don't allow graft, self-dealing, cronyism or control over other peoples' lives."
"OK, fuck it then. It's not a problem."
All this talk about scientific proof that global warming may not be happening is total bunk anyway. Not everyone can have the time or the understanding about the science. We need to have faith in what our scientists and leaders are telling us because the stakes are so great. As Al Gore said: "Accepting that Climate Change is real is the only road to salvation for both the people and our souls." See EIB, pg 316.
@dpoyesac -- From the Article:
...the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2..
This cuts to the heart of the matter -- and to your complaint about the missing "science."
True, it is only one sentence, but it encapsulates the argument. If the feedback effects are minimal than CO2 is harmless and all arguments against it are baseless.
So the point that CO2 is not a pollutant is important as a premise to the entire discussion. If you believe in global warming you need to prove not the existence of increasing carbon in the atmosphere (something easily measured) but the existence of a strong feedback mechanism.
And so far, outside of computer models, no one has done so. There is no experimental validation of the theory.
These people are obviously tools for big oil.
Anti global warming is clearly a conspiracy by the 1% and the big oil companies in this country. For example, in other countries where these influences are not as great, a clear majority of the people believe in AGW. One poll carried out in Iran showed that nearly 99% of the people believed that global warming was real and being caused by the western countries. And the people in these countries ar far less educated than people in the United States, yet they are able to reach the right answer.
"Considering this article is by scientists but doesn't even get the science behind AGW correct"
Wrong. They clearly state that one of the hallmarks of the models being used to predict AGW is a feedback mechanism which should have caused steady warming up to the present. Warming which they assert hasn't occurred. You can argue over whether warming did or didn't stop about 10 years ago (and people do), but their issues with the models show they clearly understand the science in question.
I have not done my homework on AGW, so I’ve maintained an open mind. I know what I don’t know. But as a scientist, I read this: “the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2" and my jaw drops. Is this true?
No Worries. We have a champion of the middle class looking out for us:
"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," Obama told the Chronicle . "Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."
BHO
wv: culti
I have Co2 bubbling away beside me as I type this. 8 feet away is my 75 gallon planted aquarium. It is full of living plants and without supplemental Co2 they will just not thrive. So I fill up a paint ball cannister with Co2 and put it into the water of the tank.
And it does not even make me a carbon slob! The plants respond by putting out so much oxygen that the tank glistens and glows! Little pearls of oxygen leave the plants and rise to the surface, all because of the Co2 levels I artificially inflate.
High dollar pot growers do the same thing I understand.
Co2 is not a pollutant, it is a fertilizer!
Trey
"The scientific theory behind AGW isn't based on CO2 being a pollutant;"
True, and I wish people would stop with the lame "CO2 is not a pollutant" argument, but you draw too strong a conclusion when you say:
"Considering this article is by scientists but doesn't even get the science behind AGW correct,".
The statement isn't incorrect "science". It's just irrelavant.
"Yet just last year there was a tsunami that cause meltdowns in 4 reactors."
You know, if it had only been one reactor we could dismiss it as a coincidence. But four!!!! How can you people deny the obvious?
"Is this true?"
I think so. In addition, the models predict warming that should be occurring at about 10 km altitude (IIRC). For nearly 30 years they have been looking for that effect, and have yet to observe it. Wish I had the link to the article written (recently) by the climate scientist who discussed this (and cited it as the reason why he thinks the models are wrong), but I don't. So take it with a grain of salt (but I'm certain I read it; I believe it was in a British newspaper).
Global Cooling has become an actual crisis, especially in the southern hemisphere.
Many of the earth's species are truly being threatened by freezing to death.
Now if the Progressive Conspiracy can get the memory hole fired up and eliminate the Global Warming baloney from ourcollective memory, we may yet be forced to give our wealth away to the Voodoo Weather controllers.
Meanwhile Nome Alaska is so iced in that a Russian tanker was only able to get to within 8 miles of the harbor and its delivery of oil and other supplies had to be piped in over the ice with the help of the Coast Guard, a huge operation.
If Nome's port wasn't iced in by now, would you finally believe that global warming is real?
For those of you who think carbon dioxide is completely benign, I challenge you to spend a couple hours in a room where the carbon dioxide level is 4%. To address the objections you may raise, I will keep the oxygen concentration at a normal 20.95%.
"...computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2"
How can they, in good conscience, be staking so much on a model that only gives them the answer they want by fiddling with a high gain variable?
I am geeking out on this article as I have been making these arguments for years. I am a scientist of sorts, and pretty basic at that...no way should my simple and rudimentary understanding of modelling, climate, and logic be able to completely unravel such a "incontrovertible" fact. What a waste of time. The backlash is coming, and it could be huge and worse than anyone expects.
Grandma Bee,
??
Did anyone point out to Jaske yet that car suicides are due to carbon MONOXIDE poisoning and not carbon dioxide?
From a public policy perspective, the key line in the piece is buried towards the end: "Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically."
Whether CO2 has an impact on climate, whether water vapor and clouds have the loop-back impacts that the IPCC claims, and all the rest, are (at most) topics for specialists to chew over. Not being one of them, I leave it to others to address.
To the extent those scientific disputes have public policy implications, the issues are purely economic -- whether there is any basis to make resource allocation decisions differently because of them. Study after study has shown that there is no economic case at all for taking significant public policy actions in this area. The article cites one academic study (Yale economics professor William Nordhaus, A Question of Balance), but there are many others reaching the same conclusion.
This is a form of alarmism that in terms of its impact on public policy going forward has, fortunately, has already run its course even if the alarmists-in-chief don't quite understand that yet. There are still some vestiges of the alarmism hanging around (the EPA's rule making proceedings focusing on CO2 being the main ones having a potential for really harmful economic consequences) but the election this year should put an end to those as well.
If Nome's port wasn't iced in by now, would you finally believe that global warming is real?
Of course not, but you then have to get from GW to AGW, and that implies a trust in computer models that appear to greatly overestimate the affect CO2 has on temperatures, and, notably that the affects increase as the concentration increases (and, hence, the predicted run-away feedback), instead of apparently decreasing with increases in concentration.
DUH
I've been preaching this for years, but people just don't' seem to get it. At one time all of the carbon that is sequestered in the earth was once in the atmosphere. And the earth was indeed a very green place.
A "Potent Feedback Mechanism" that leverages any increase of the trace gas co2 into an out of control heat trap is not science at all.
It is a total mythology supported by High Priests dressed as scientists waiving their Phds around their heads like scepters of authority and chanting victory songs for more grant money.
The jig is up and they know it.
"How can they, in good conscience, be staking so much on a model that only gives them the answer they want by fiddling with a high gain variable?"
That's one of the big problems I have with all of this. My suspicion is that the feedback mechanisms are not emergent properties of the models, but rather are programmed in. Anybody got anything solid on that (pro or con)?
This has been hinted at before in this thread, but should still make it explicit.
The reason that people have called CO2 a pollutant is in order to give the EPA the power to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act, after Congress refused to act as the proponents of AGW thought appropriate.
The absurdity of that has always been that CO2 is absolutely necessary for life, as we know it, that CO2 concentration levels were far higher in the past, and that plant growth tends to increase with CO2 levels (and, yes, with temperature increases too).
"From a public policy perspective, the key line in the piece is buried towards the end: "Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.""
As I've said, I'm agnostic on the science, but on this point I have a strong opinion. Everything I've read leads me to believe that to get to the CO2 levels they claim necessary would be economic disaster. Yet they stick their fingers in their ears and yell "Na na na, can't hear you."
For those of you who think carbon dioxide is completely benign, I challenge you to spend a couple hours in a room where the carbon dioxide level is 4%. To address the objections you may raise, I will keep the oxygen concentration at a normal 20.95%.
This post betrays the true face of the Global Warming religion. Filling rooms with non-believers and gassing them to death, in hopes of bringing about a Better Tomorrow(TM).
wv "nonfi" - 1970's hipster literati slang for Non-Fiction, later trumped and trimmed by the yet more hip to the current moniker of 'NF'
"My suspicion is that the feedback mechanisms are not emergent properties of the models, but rather are programmed in. Anybody got anything solid on that (pro or con)?"
Madison Man?
"How can they, in good conscience, be staking so much on a model that only gives them the answer they want by fiddling with a high gain variable?"
Judging from their email traffic, they seem to genuinely believe that the end justifies the means. It's for the good of the planet, you see.
Did anyone point out to Jaske yet that car suicides are due to carbon MONOXIDE poisoning and not carbon dioxide?
True, but carbon dioxide is also toxic at high levels--above 3%, although it can cause drowsiness and headaches at much lower levels (about 1%)
Have you ever seen a submarine movie where the submariners are stuck on the bottom of the ocean and running out of air? It is not the lack of oxygen that will kill you but the rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide.
This post betrays the true face of the Global Warming religion. Filling rooms with non-believers and gassing them to death, in hopes of bringing about a Better Tomorrow(TM).
No, I made the offer to those who think carbon dioxide is non-toxic. It is your own ignorance that is going to kill you.
CO2 has warming properties. Water has dissolving properties, but I still bathe in it.
It's .02% (.0002) of the atmosphere, yet it apparently overwhelms every other force and temperature determinative? Sorry, the only feedback loop I see are with proponents of Catastrophic AGW theory.
@Freder -- All the hopes and fears of the Global Warming Promoters are based on CO2 concentrations of magnitudes less than 1%. Spare us the hypotheticals.
Vitamin A can kill you too. Avoid polar bear liver.
@Freder- that is a specious argument. Many ordinarily healthy substances, including Oxygen, can be damaging at high concentrations. If your argument is that we need to curtail Co2 because we'll eventually asphyxiate at high enough concentrations, then you best stick to your coloring books. Sorry, I don't feel like playing nice nice today.
"We need to have faith in what our scientists and leaders are telling us because the stakes are so great."
Sure, because Scientists and Politicians are completely immune from the influences everybody else faces such as ideological points of view, desire for money (either for self or to fund their careers), and the need to excel in their chosen profession.
"the stakes are so great"
Yes, that's what they keep saying. And the solution is always: "give us your money and power and we will save you". Interesting.
There is another feedback suppressant, plants grow more and put more 02 back into the atmosphere. That is why I have to artificially inflate the aquarium's Co2 content, the plants keep using it up and pushing it out with all the oxygen they produce.
Trey
In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
And unfortunately for Gov Walker, Madison voters will buckle and yield under pressure.
You'd think these people missed 4th grade science or something.
Now now, ed. The EPA says it is a problem, so it must be, right? The government wouldn't be regulating it if it wasn't a problem, right?
True, but carbon dioxide is also toxic at high levels--above 3%, although it can cause drowsiness and headaches at much lower levels (about 1%)
Have you ever seen a submarine movie where the submariners are stuck on the bottom of the ocean and running out of air? It is not the lack of oxygen that will kill you but the rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide.
Not sure if I fully believe all that, but do think that you have some good points.
As I understand it, there are two different triggers for increasing breathing - one is too low O2, the other is too high CO2. I think that I am too insensitive to the first, and maybe too sensitive to some of the other effects of CO2, which is why I tend towards high altitude pulmonary edema, while also being narcoleptic. High concentrations of CO2 appear to put me to sleep far quicker than most, which is why I have problems in rooms with a lot of people and maybe insufficient ventilation (at least for me).
In any case, the question is probably not what higher concentrations of CO2 might do to us, but rather, could we adapt? And, the fact that life apparently evolved in much higher CO2 concentrations seems to auger well for that possibility.
Please tell me Sloansaurus is just yanking our chains. No one can possibly spout out that many warmed-over Goreisms and be serious.
From the article:
"This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today."
I love how their understanding of science thinks that evolution has stopped.
Unless we're living in the trees, it hasn't.
It really makes you wonder about their understanding of other parts of their hypothesis.
But hey ... no reason why the other non-scientists can't cheer them on.
I will take the CO2 challenge Having worked as a welder for a few years where CO2 is used as a shielding gas when mig welding I can tell you first hand that is has no ill effects, in fact OHSA has no concerns about it. Now if you're talking about CO (that's carbon monoxide) the story is much different the missing oxygen atom allows it to attach itself to red blood cells and build up in concentrations that prevent Oxygen from binding and you die. 78% of what you are breathing now is Nitrogen, If I raise that to 88% you will die, simply because the percentage of oxygen is now too low to support life.
C02 VS C0 Big difference
that is a specious argument. Many ordinarily healthy substances, including Oxygen, can be damaging at high concentrations.
You are the ones making the specious argument. It is continually claimed here (and you can find numerous examples in this very thread) that CO2 is not a poison and is benign because it helps plants grow. You could make the same argument about manure.
Workplace CO2 concentrations are regulated by OSHA because people are not meant to breathe high levels of it.
Freder-
So you were the one of the guys on the funny video I saw signing the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide...
Seriously, CO2 is ~350PPM today. 1% is 10,000 PPM. It's as much a pollutant as a milk spill is.
"Please tell me Sloansaurus is just yanking our chains."
Sloansaurus is just yanking our chains.
in fact OHSA has no concerns about it.
In fact OSHA does. You'll notice that the long term exposure limit (PEL)is 5000 ppm (.5%), and 4% is the short term exposure limit.
Re: Nome. My understanding is that there was quite a lot of shoreline erosion near Nome in -- was it November? -- because of a wicked once-every-couple-decades storm that blew through. There wasn't sea ice at the time (unusually so) so the effects of the waves blown up by the storm were exceptional. I think the lack of oil there now is related to the big storm and attendant damage then (that prevented delivery), but frankly, once the interesting meteorology was over, so too was my attention span :)
How old is climate science? 40 years? The field of study is too young to KNOW anything.
Recall what psychologists KNEW 40 years into that science? Anatomy is destiny? Penis envy? Phrenology anyone?
Trey
Q. How big of a block of dry ice (CO2) do you represent?
A. About 2/3 your body weight. Derivation: link
It's settled science.
My suspicion is that the feedback mechanisms are not emergent properties of the models, but rather are programmed in.
By definition? :)
Climate models are mostly solving the navier STokes equations, with heating supplied by any number of sources and approximations. Solar heating. Latent heat of vaporization. Radiative feedbacks. The list is quite long. Some parts are known quite well (the latent heat of condensation, for example, or solar forcing at the top of the atmosphere). Others are approximated to the best of a modeler's abilities.
Not sure if that answers your question, but it's late Friday and I'm prepping for an onslaught of high school kids at the house.
Mark-
Their point isn't about evolution per se-it's about chicken littleism.
The AGW hypothesis is: at CO2 levels above 350 PPM, the forcing functions will inexorably result in a Venus like uninhabitable planet. The article authors' point is that CO2 levels have been 10X what they are now, and yet the planet is indeed habitable. If the AGW models were right, we would not be here now, again because the planet would not be habitable. Ergo, the AGW models must be wrong, or the climate physics has changed considerably in that time span.
Everything I've read leads me to believe that to get to the CO2 levels they claim necessary would be economic disaster.
Worse, the rising population levels (and attendant support infrastructure for them) is wiping out whatever small painful gains we've made reducing carbon footprints.
Like using a thimble to bail out a swamped rowboat... underneath a waterfall.
But we already know its not about "saving" the climate. Its about redistribution of wealth via energy consumption and production.
/via Powerline:
"Warming, but not as much
The climate system may be less sensitive to greenhouse-gas warming than many models have predicted."
And this is from Nature, hardly a prop-mag supported by Evil Oil interests:
"Nature links to the original article in Geophysical Research Letters (subscription required unfortunately, though you can read the abstract), entitled “Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations.” It is a typically dense article filled with all of the usual qualifiers, but several things make this a bombshell and a blow to the catastrophist narrative. First, this study was conducted by the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis of Environment Canada, which is Canada’s EPA, so the climate campaigners can’t use their favorite talking point that this comes from a private, fossil-fuel funded skeptic outfit. Second, there is no disguising that the finding of this model, along with recent similar studies, that global warming is overestimated by roughly a factor of two in the usual models the IPCC uses."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/the-coup-de-grace-for-global-warming-catastrophe.php
The AGW hypothesis is: at CO2 levels above 350 PPM, the forcing functions will inexorably result in a Venus like uninhabitable planet.
Where on earth did you read this? I have never seen this contention. The concern is an overall rise of a few degrees C, not that the earth is going to become like Venus.
"Global warming fanaticism is mostly dead, but not all dead so don't start going through its pocket for loose change just yet."
The only thing better than global warming is a nice MLT - mutton lettuce tomato, when the mutton is lean and the tomatoes are ripe - they're so perky, I love that.
But we already know its not about "saving" the climate. Its about redistribution of wealth via energy consumption and production.
This is handy in virtually any political discussion. Blame liberals.
It's perfect feedback loop. Implement policies, policies fail, blame liberals, implement even dumber policies, blame liberals more. The end result will be Rush Limbaugh broadcasting from the Rockies blaming it all on Al Gore.
Freder...Why fear. The wind mills and the solar panels will soon replace carbon based energy at no cost to us and no co2 pollution.
Oops, that's a mythology too.
This is handy in virtually any political discussion. Blame liberals.
Someone's got to do it, GM. Liberals never admit when they are wrong about policy. This administration is a rabid blame-shifter. And when the overwhelming weight of reality forces them to admit they made a miscalculation, why, then their intentions were in the right place.
garage: This is handy in virtually any political discussion. Blame liberals.
Socialists, not liberals.
And of course, the climate "scientists" that fudged all the CRU data.
Sucks for you thats its true.
Federer,
Toxicity is all in the dose. Water can be toxic, Vitamin A, caffeine, etc. And all have safe doses as well. Things that we need to survive have a toxicity level as well.
"Implement policies, policies fail, blame liberals, implement even dumber policies, blame liberals more"
I do believe that you have described what began as the "War on Poverty" pretty near perfectly.
Those that want to tax carbon emissions are just Democrats trying to give the government the authority it needs to make them a relevant political party.
Their entire party premise is to make the government bigger regardless of facts, evidence or science.
"Climate models are mostly solving the navier STokes equations, with heating supplied by any number of sources and approximations."
"Others are approximated to the best of a modeler's abilities."
It's the part that doesn't fall under "mostly" where there could be problems (could be). I don't think I want to run with approximations made to the best of the modeler's abilities. And it's my understanding that they must assume an infinitely thick atmosphere as a boundary condition in order to solve the Navier-Stokes equations. It is also my understanding that such assumptions have been shown to be valid for some applications of the N-S eqns., but not all.
The reason that people have called CO2 a pollutant is in order to give the EPA the power to regulate CO2 emissions...
Indeed, while pollution is defined as an unwanted item in an unwanted space..the power grab was to try and make any substance fall under Federal EPA control as a pollutant if it is unwanted, politically.
So the same logic could be used to claim the EPA has jurisdiction over water or young black thugs..as pollutants.
Like CO2, water either fresh or salt, is toxic if consumed in execessive quantity. Water kills and influences the climate. And floods and blizzards are all about too much water in unwanted places, in excessive quantity.
Making water, along with CO2, a pollutant....is only something powerful, asinine lawyers would think of.
Same deal with black thugs..the presence of unwanted, violence and and crime prone gangs in places were they shouldn't be, in excessive quantity COULD be classified as a pollution problem if the Right Lawyer at the Right Federal Agency sought to do so to put the black thug pollution problem under EPA regs and enforcement. Perhaps EPA regs on the fertility of ghetto mommas and more abortion clinics and less food stamp money could help the EPA greatly reduce the generation of black thug pollution.
But it would be stupid.
Does this mean my carbon offsets (in the Caymans) are now worthless ;)
That con man Al Gore madoff big time.
From the textbook used in the Fluid Dynamics course I took: "Equations 11.51, 11.52, and 11.53 are the Navier-Stokes equations; they describe the behavior of many flow systems. Their use is limited to Newtonian fluids flowing under laminar flow conditions."
Perhaps they've been improved upon over the years, but if not then that whole "laminar flow" thing is a problem. I'm guessing applying the N-S eqns. to the atmosphere probably requires quite a few more assumptions than one.
CO2 is plant food. The breathing reflex is caused by the amount of CO2 in the blood. Which is why breathing into a bag with stop hyperventilation
"It's perfect feedback loop. Implement policies, policies fail, blame liberals, implement even dumber policies, blame liberals more."
Somebody should model that. We'll have to assume an infinitely large treasury to solve the equations, though.
MartyH wrote: Seriously, CO2 is ~350PPM today. 1% is 10,000 PPM. It's as much a pollutant as a milk spill is.
Milk is nothing compared to molasses. Molasses is a killer.
'An open marriage is not a pollutant'... says Newt.
One of the side benefits to fighting global warming is the joy that we will all get in joining together as a collective. America is at its best when we have joined together to fight poverty and inequality as we did during the great depression and the 1960s. Global Warming is no less of a threat. This sacrifice will bring us together. Without it we are doomed to the the facist individualism of cuba and the soviet union.
Well.. if my presidents logic is correct.. all we have to do is regulate volcanoes at a much higher rate than say milk spills..
Molasses are middle class.. don't touch the middle class.
Don't mean to single out volcanoes.. but they do spew more than their fare share of CO2.
Lem, LOL
Don't mean to single out volcanoes.. but they do spew more than their fare share of CO2.
I do think at a certain point you've made enough lava.
This is handy in virtually any political discussion. Blame liberals.
It's perfect feedback loop. Implement policies, policies fail, blame liberals, implement even dumber policies, blame liberals more. The end result will be Rush Limbaugh broadcasting from the Rockies blaming it all on Al Gore.
1/27/12 2:42 PM
You'd help a lot if you just quit farting.
BTW Most real climate scientists-called meteorologists- think AGW is a red herring.
I can understand some of the skepticism, regardless of what people on either side say, nobody is going to be able to prove the issue 100%. However, even so, the main point here is misplaced.
In fact, it isn't really even relevant. The premise that something can't be considered a "pollutant" because it is also naturally occurring and can have positive effects is debatable. But in the end, the issue is whether we are changing the planet's climate which isn't changed by whether you call it a "pollutant".
Sloanasaurus said: "Prior to the major global warming that took place in the last 2000 years, there was no occurrence - 0% - of instances where tsunamis had caused a nuclear melt down anywhere."
So explain to me again how global warming causes tsunamis.
And it is far less than 97% of scientists agree on AGW. Where did you get that number from, Al Gore?
I do think at a certain point you've made enough lava.
The ones sending lava overseas are the fat cats.
"Pollutant" only ever meant "something the speaker disapproves of the presence of".
(That said, it's ridiculous to consider CO2 to be one in any normal circumstance, with any assumptions you want other people to not laugh at.)
Anne said...
Sloanasaurus said: "Prior to the major global warming that took place in the last 2000 years, there was no occurrence - 0% - of instances where tsunamis had caused a nuclear melt down anywhere."
So explain to me again how global warming causes tsunamis.
---------------------------
The same way it causes oil rig fires.
I can see the denialists are out in full force today.
dposeyac said: The scientific theory behind AGW isn't based on CO2 being a pollutant
That is true. But the pollutant aspect is legally important, because it involves the EPA.
And the power of the state is the core of the AGW movement, such as it is.
Is excess CO2 levels toxic to humans or not?
"Pollutant" only ever meant "something the speaker disapproves of the presence of".
In the immortal words of president Ford..
'A pollutant is whatever the congress says it is'.
If it takes falsely declaring CO2 a pollutant so the EPA can save us, so be it. The ends justify the means, especially when it means punching back against the corporate polluters.
It's the part that doesn't fall under "mostly" where there could be problems (could be). I don't think I want to run with approximations made to the best of the modeler's abilities.
The thing is, people want answers, and the modelers give them. You can get paid for doing it, even make a living at it. If your predictions are better than someone else's, you are listened to.
That's what happens when you do things to the best of your abilities if your abilities are pretty good.
The fact that you don't want to run with those approximations means very very little if you don't have better approximations to show.
Freder-
Now we're talking "a few degrees C"? Humans live from the tropics to the Arctic; from sea level to the Andes mountains. We can easily adapt to a "few degrees C" without destroying our economy.
If your predictions are better than someone else's, you are listened to.
In terms of AGW modeling I'm waiting for that "better than someone else's" part. Then I'll listen.
Of course it's not a pollutant. I've been arguing with my brainwashed liberal education PHD candidate son for about 5 years over this 'scientific' hogwash. This is the biggest political scam in world history. It has nothing to do with science.
I can't believe anyone was confused about Sloanie for one second! The photo tipped me off right away.
Interesting, but a strange angle. Isn't CO2 the gas all plants need to survive? Isn't it toxic in large doses humans and don't we expel it?
We give humans in distress large amounts of oxygen, but doing the same to a plant would hurt it.
That's basic science, isn't it? Or have we set a new standard for pollution?
(setting aside, entirely, the global warming arguments)
Humans live from the tropics to the Arctic; from sea level to the Andes mountains. We can easily adapt to a "few degrees C" without destroying our economy.
Unfortunately, a good number of people live at or near sea level. A major rise in sea level caused by the melting of the ice caps would be an economic catastrophe (can you imagine trying to relocate London, New York and Tokyo?)
Humans live from the tropics to the Arctic; from sea level to the Andes mountains. We can easily adapt to a "few degrees C" without destroying our economy.
We can. Can our food sources? (preview: in the short term the arable land may increase as desert areas become arable, but in the long term, no.)
"can you imagine trying to relocate London, New York and Tokyo?"
Stimulus, baby!
So let's assume that CO2 is a poison (or greenhouse gas) why have we not regulated the soda pop industry, they add carbon dioxide to ALL their products, isn't this adding to the warming of the climate? Just open a can of soda and release the excess CO2, that is all it takes to be a polluter. Next thing will be a carbon tax on soda?
Alex, if you don't like the weather just wait a few minutes and you'll change.
" A major rise in sea level caused by the melting of the ice caps would be an economic catastrophe (can you imagine trying to relocate London, New York and Tokyo?)"
You can't relocate them in a week, or a year or 10 years. But that will not be necessary. The ice caps have been melting since the last ice age, raising sea levels by hundreds of feet. They will probably continue to melt until the next ice age, and oceans will continue to rise.
The process is slow (by human concepts of time), so humanity will adapt, because it must. There are large forces we can not control, but we can adapt to them.
And by the way, the next ice age, when it comes, will require a lot more adaptation than rising oceans.
"can you imagine trying to relocate London, New York and Tokyo?"
Cash for clunkers, writ large.
My CO2 and my good friend 501c3 finally met..
Love at first exhale.
"Sloanasaurus said...
One of the side benefits to fighting global warming is the joy that we will all get in joining together as a collective. America is at its best when we have joined together to fight poverty and inequality as we did during the great depression and the 1960s. Global Warming is no less of a threat. This sacrifice will bring us together. Without it we are doomed to the the facist individualism of cuba and the soviet union."
I have to say Sloan was so accurate I didn't realize it was mockery until this comment.
garage mahal said...
It's perfect feedback loop. Implement policies, policies fail, blame liberals, implement even dumber policies, blame liberals more.
Right. Because when liberal policies fail, we should blame.....SCOTT WALKER!
And then implement them again!
We can. Can our food sources? (preview: in the short term the arable land may increase as desert areas become arable, but in the long term, no.)
Don't know if you have ever looked at a globe, but if you have, you may have noticed that there is more land at higher latitudes than at lower ones in the northern hemisphere. It is purely an artifact of where the continental plates have moved over the last umpteen millions years, and in a couple umpteen million more, it may be different.
But, let me direct your attention to several countries, in particular, notably Russia (esp. Siberia) and Canada, and, to some lesser extent, the U.S. (esp. Alaska). Much of these countries is currently not arable, due to being permanently frozen. Move the frost line north by a hundred miles, and you will have billions of acres of newly available land that is potentially arable.
As for the oceans rising, except in AlGore's fevered imagination, the sea level isn't likely to even come close to rising rapidly enough that natural migration won't fully handle the problem. We are talking hundreds of years, when the relevant buildings don't have life expectancies of anywhere near that long.
This, of course, leaves the argument that maybe a warming will dry things up. Maybe. But, then, why does history seem to teach the opposite? Any case, those models are even more problematic.
Dose of Sanity said...
We can. Can our food sources? (preview: in the short term the arable land may increase as desert areas become arable, but in the long term, no.
That is hilarious.
I'm guessing you are unfamiliar with the term "geography"
Why are you posting on this topic? To prove to everyone how ignorant you are?
President Obama leaves event promoting clean energy in a motorcade of 22 fossil-fueled vehicles.
But its like a crisis!
" DavidPSummers said...
I can understand some of the skepticism, regardless of what people on either side say, nobody is going to be able to prove the issue 100%. However, even so, the main point here is misplaced.
In fact, it isn't really even relevant. The premise that something can't be considered a "pollutant" because it is also naturally occurring and can have positive effects is debatable. But in the end, the issue is whether we are changing the planet's climate which isn't changed by whether you call it a "pollutant"."
_______________________________
If CO2 isn't a pollutant the EPA doesn't have jurisdiction. It doesn't matter to the science, but practical effect is enormous.
Alarmists know they have not proven what subset of GW is AGW, nor can they show any realistic assessment of costs (hence their silly scaremongering). But mostly they know their recommended solutions have no relationship to slowing global warming. They have no chance of enforcing their agenda democratically until they can do this. Further they know if they wait it's likely the alarmism will dampen as more facts become known, and they'll miss their chance to establish government control of literally everything including the air we exhale.
Therefore their goal is to enact thei agenda incrementally through their apparatchiks at the EPA and elsewhere in government and the NGO/activist complex. This is quite recognizable by reviewing how much of the alarmist movement is made of non-scientists and how earnestly they prioritize agenda items which punish leftist bogeymen rather than controlling polution.
If CO2 is not under the jurisdiction of the EPA the alarmists agenda will lose the opportunity to enact these items.
"If your predictions are better than someone else's, you are listened to."
But the models didn't predict flatlining temps, did they? Did anybody have a model that did? If so, we should be listening to them. If not then, no matter how much "better than someone else's," they were still quite wrong. And in the real (non-modeled) world, wrong gets people killed. Good thing they weren't designing passenger jets.
"Al Gore expresses profound disappointment. Calls new results 'anti-climatic.'"
We can. Can our food sources?
Yes.
"But the models didn't predict flatlining temps, did they?"
Exactly. What I'm reading, and I ask for correction if I'm getting this wrong, is:
1) The models don't predict escalating temperature unless you dial it in with guesses about positive feedback,
2) So they dial in the feedback to produce scary results, but
3) The escalating temperatures aren't materializing.
Am I wrong?
suicides use car exhaust.
No, the carbon MONoxide kills them, because it's more easily absorbed into the blood than O2. Excess carbon dioxide has no effect, as long as enough oxygen is present.
Freder said...
True, but carbon dioxide is also toxic at high levels--above 3%, although it can cause drowsiness and headaches at much lower levels (about 1%)
By volume, CO2 makes up approximately .04% of Earth's atmosphere. To reach the toxic levels you're describing would require a 75-fold increase, well beyond the predictions of even the most alarmist models.
"Am I wrong?"
Hey, I'm just a gadfly here, not an expert. Then again, it did take a child to admit that the emperor had no clothes.
Here is Monckton's explanation of the nonwarming at 10 km altitude issue. About halfway down the page you'll see a graph headed "No overlap between theoretical modeling and real-world observations." That about sums it up.
Thanks, Crimso. Looks like I've got my homework.
Nope. Its why Mann admits he can reproduce his experiment - he tweaked the raw data and then his dog ate it.
And then there's the Harry Read Me file:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/hadley-hack-and-cru-crud/#comment-1
"We have here a stellar example of it in real life in the above example where a “squared” value (that theoretically can never become negative) goes negative due to poor programming practice."
In short, if you take out the corrupted CRU data and EVERY paper that draws on it (fruit from poisoned tree), there is nothing left.
Ralph L said...
suicides use car exhaust.
No, the carbon MONoxide kills them, because it's more easily absorbed into the blood than O2. Excess carbon dioxide has no effect, as long as enough oxygen is present.
Actually, CO (and other small molecules including cyanide and hydrogen sulfide) displace O2 in hemaglobin.
I'll extend my passenger jets remark so you'll understand where I'm coming from.
Suppose you have modelers whose models are the best there are, but the jets based on that model consistently crash. Just because nobody can come up with a better model doesn't mean you build the jets anyway.
What the alarmists are forgetting about a runaway greenhouse effect is that CO2 is nothing compared to CH4.
"Its why Mann admits he can reproduce his experiment - he tweaked the raw data and then his dog ate it."
This is something I do know about. The hockey stick argument is a stinking pile of horseshit, and it sure looks like it's proponents know it given the lengths to which they have gone to bully their critics.
I just finished watching a documentary about how our solar system was born and found out that eventually our sun will run out of fuel and expand into a red giant thereby engulfing the Earth.
So global warming is real. Just not the way Algore and his cultists think.
Alex said...
What the alarmists are forgetting about a runaway greenhouse effect is that CO2 is nothing compared to CH4.
Methane release is only problematic when garage mahal's avatar passes gas.
______________
wv = "litions" Small, highly charged works of fiction.
For those of you who think carbon dioxide is completely benign, I challenge you to spend a couple hours in a room where the carbon dioxide level is 4%. To address the objections you may raise, I will keep the oxygen concentration at a normal 20.95%.
Following this logic we should immediately implement tight regulation on urine
To the warmists posting here. Let's do the following thought experiment. Let's grant your global warming theories are right in every way.
What are you going to do about China and emerging economies, who already release more C02 than the US, and who are expected to increase C02 emissions to something like 10X that of the US by 2050.
It seems your only answer is to drive a Prius around, which won't do anything to help (if the models are right, cars are responsible for a tiny amount of warming, like .2 degrees c, and as China comes online, that number is going to decrease).
Dante - the leftists admit they can't do anything about China but it makes them feel good to drive a Prius and look all morally superior to the rest of the plebes.
Marshal said….
>>" DavidPSummers said...
>>I can understand some of the
>>skepticism, regardless of what
>>people on either
>>side say, nobody is going to be
>>able to prove the issue 100%.
>>However, even so,
>>the main point here is
>>misplaced.
>>In fact, it isn't really even
>>relevant. The premise that
>>something can't be
>>considered a "pollutant"
>>because it is also naturally
>>occurring and can have
>>positive effects is debatable.
>>But in the end, the issue is
>>whether we are
>>changing the planet's climate
>>which isn't changed by whether
>>you call it a "pollutant"."
_______________________________
>If CO2 isn't a pollutant the EPA
>doesn't have jurisdiction. It
>doesn't matter to the science,
>but practical effect is enormous.
>Alarmists know they have not
>proven what subset of GW is AGW,
>nor can they show any realistic
>assessment of costs (hence their
>silly scaremongering). But
>mostly they know their
>recommended
>solutions have no relationship
>to slowing global warming. They
>have no chance of enforcing >their agenda democratically
>until they can do this. Further
>they know if they wait it's
>likely the alarmism
>will dampen as more facts become
>known, and they'll miss their
>chance to establish government
>control
>of literally everything
>including the air we exhale.
>Therefore their goal is to enact
>thei agenda incrementally
>through their apparatchiks at
>the EPA and elsewhere in
>government and the NGO/activist
>complex. This is quite
>recognizable by reviewing how
>much of the alarmist movement is
>made of non-scientists and how
>earnestly they prioritize agenda
>items which
>punish leftist bogeymen rather
>than controlling pollution.
>If CO2 is not under the
>jurisdiction of the EPA the
>alarmists agenda will lose the
>opportunity to enact
>these items.
First, I didn't take the article to be discussing the fine points of the legality of the EPA acting to curb CO2. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seemed more to me to be about "CO2 is naturally occurring and even potentially beneficial, therefore it must be OK".
As the EPA acting, I am hardly a lawyer. I am scientist. There really is no way to have an real definition of "pollutant" based on the idea that it can't be naturally occurring or beneficial. For example, selenium is naturally occurring and is, in small amounts, a necessary nutrient. On the other hand, one would have a hard time arguing that it isn't pollution to be dumping it into a marsh. Similarly, oil is naturally occurring (bot underground and at places on the surface and beneficial (we use it economically and some microbes can live on it). OTOH, dumping into a ditch would be regarded as pollution.
Now I don't if any of the above actually matters legally. (I think defining a term in a way that just doesn't work would be bad law, but who am I to say?) I also don't know how wise it is to try and have the EPA act unilaterally (things like this are never effective unless you manage to get a consensus). But I really don't see it hinging on the term "pollutant".
MadisonMan said...
The fact that you don't want to run with those approximations means very very little if you don't have better approximations to show.
The point here is, the warming alarmists would have us institute policies that would be devastating to the world economy based on "the best of their abilities". Not good enough. I'm for taking what comes as it comes.
"Let me make this perfectly clear, I am not a pollutant!" -Richard Greenhaus Nixon. -cp
wv: "commime" Where mimes dwell.
@Tyrone: Exactly. As a scientist, I understand the academic exercise of "running with" the best estimate. But basing trillions upon trillions of dollars of expenditures on it? Are you kidding, MM???
Another question one might answer is "Why is the left so enamored with Global Warming?" Consider how wonderful it is to them.
First, to do anything about it governments have to become much more powerful.
Second, because everyone is responsible, we can all be guilted into allowing this arrogation of control over our lives.
Third, it is a world unifying thing, in the abstract. We are all in it together.
Fourth, people like Obama can pay off their friends, and the press doesn't say anything about it. After all, it isn't his friends he's paying off, he's saving the world.
Fifth, people who buy into this whole thing get to feel smug and smart. Yes, I BELIEVE in global warming! I am one of the smart people!
Sixth, it allows leftists deprived of religion to get it in a whole new way from their beliefs! I love the Al Gore old testament symbolism.
"The Seas will Rise!"
"Pestilence and plague will cover the earth!"
"War will rule the earth"
"Drought and famine will prevail"
For those who care, these are paraphrased, but that's what he said. Meanwhile, he bought waterfront property in SF and Florida with his AGW $.
For those of you who think carbon dioxide is completely benign, I challenge you to spend a couple hours in a room where the carbon dioxide level is 4%.
Nice straw man. Nothing is "completely benign"; distilled water can kill you if you drink too much of it. That doesn't mean a sane government regulates the stuff.
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant.
CO2 is a Lewis acid, debased and unfulfilled.
We don't talk about methane because you can't push favored economic and other changes by fussing about methane.
That's the fact, ok? Anything else that anyone else might say is NOT a fact! There's only ONE fact, and it is THIS article.
THE fact is, that arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium are not artificially produced, therefore found in nature, so THEY can't be pollutants, either!
The fact, is that life on this planet evolved billions of years ago in boiling hot seas surrounded by volcanoes, i.e. such conditions would be perfect for life as we know it today.
Presto bingo instant idiocy right-wing bullshit nothing to see here. Move on.
One fact - any reason = absolute knowledge/truth for these ignorance whores.
There are only good things and bad things. The dose no longer makes the poison in right-wing la la land. Black and white thinking is the coin of this fantasy realm.
Duh.
distilled water can kill you if you drink too much of it.
Forget the distilled -- water can kill you if you drink too much of it.
wiki Water intoxication, also known as water poisoning, is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain functions that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits (e.g., hyponatremia) by overhydration, i.e., over-consumption of water.
The FACT is, that temperature, photosynthesis and respiration are all separate phenomena.
THAT'S THE FACT. The one and only. There are no other facts. That's THE fact.
Looks like someone at Wall Street Journal got his hands on a high-school biology textbook for a change. I guess that's a start.
What I assume was the intended point of your post is negated in your first sentence: "Plants do so much better with more CO2..."
It's NOT that CO2 is a poison, it's that CO2 is a substance that has certain effects on this planet's atmosphere and organisms. It's getting to be a tired line, but it's true: we're not destroying the planet - the planet will be just fine. Humans, on the other hand...
But basing trillions upon trillions of dollars of expenditures on it? Are you kidding, MM???
I have not advocated that.
But that's what we're talking about. Acting upon models based upon the "best" approximations.
Calling CO2 a pollutant is an excellent example of the profound and never ending dishonesty by the left to achieve their political goals. It is common for lefties to call CO2 carbon and accompany the article about CO2 with a picture of a smoke stack spewing black smoke. The quotes from the lefties invariably talk about preserving air quality and reducing lung disease (especially for the children). These are all examples of propaganda that are completely contrary to reality.
CO2 is not a pollutant. Anybody who calls CO2 a pollutant is either ignorant and/or a cynical political propagandist.
Somebody mentioned that breathing air with 4% CO2 would make a person ill. CO2 concentration in the air is currently less than 400 ppm and goes up about 2 ppm per year. A 4% concentration is equal to 40,000 ppm, which is 100 times greater than current CO2 levels.
Increasing 2 ppm per year, it would take nearly 20,000 years to increase CO2 levels to 4%. Let that sink in. Almost certainly, in the next century (i.e. way, way, way before CO2 levels climb to unhealthy levels), we will have either:
* migrated off of fossil fuels
or
* destroyed our civilization
or
* your favorite science fiction option
well... someone's definitely missed the point.
Hey Ritmo,
Get rid of photo-synthesis and let's see what happens to temperatures.
"What people don't get is that the models that were created are based on 100 years of data."
Data that has been proven to have been altered, gathered from monitoring stations located next to A/C outvents and other heat sources, and otherwise rendered worthless.
In many cases, regathering it is impossible.
This makes it impossible to perform the basic scientific analysis to refute it. And you want to wreck what's left of the world economy based on it? Not while slavery is illegal.
Original Mike said...
"Exactly. As a scientist, I understand the academic exercise of "running with" the best estimate. But basing trillions upon trillions of dollars of expenditures on it? Are you kidding, MM???"
--------------------------------
Leaving aside whether we are talking about "trillions upon trillions" of dollars, lets be clear about one thing. No matter which side you take you are making a choice that involves a lot of money. If you go all out to limit global warming, its a lot of money. OTOH, if you ignore it, and the projections turn out to be right, it will be a lot of money (flooding many of the major cities will be expensive).
The idea that one choice is a gamble and the other is safe is an illusion. We have projections but by the time we are 100% sure of them, it will be too late. So either way, you making a decision.
"The FACT is, that temperature, photosynthesis and respiration are all separate phenomena."
So is RAM, hard drive, and CPU... except that they are all happening within the bounds of the same system....
I got all excited about that flooding thing. Some "blue state" community college dweeb was pontificating on the internet about the need to prepare for all the "red state" refugees that would be flooding (pun intended) into the "blue states" after all the low red-neck areas were flooded. Had to prepare to deny them the power to wreck their new homes, too.
In any case... I got all excited about the notion of a future science fiction story where the Louisiana Bayous covered a good deal of the southern gulf states and I found a website where you could put in the flood levels and it would dynamically show which coastal areas were flooded.
I was soooo pissed. Nothing flooded. Not at the highest levels. A bit of Manhattan, a bit of Tokyo, but not very much of either and only at the highest available setting. I could have written a pretty great story about the great Sacramento Basin Lake, but I couldn't even get more than the everglades or bottom half of Louisiana under water.
Bastiches... getting my hopes up.
Vast areas of warm shallow seas are a rather sweet biological environment as well as an awesome science fiction setting. And then it wasn't even true.
I'm still torqued about it, too.
Well by golly If humans don't change the climate, who will?
Personally I'm in favor of postponing the next Ice Age
"If you go all out to limit global warming, its a lot of money. OTOH, if you ignore it, and the projections turn out to be right, it will be a lot of money (flooding many of the major cities will be expensive)."
Notice that the first sentence is "if." The second is "if...and." The first possibility is definitely expensive. The second is expensive contigent upon the models being correct. And the models appear to have problems.
Sloanasaurus appears to have imbibed the hoaxers' AGW theories deeply. Are you aware that NONE of the computer models can hindcast the observed temps of the 20th Century? that is, you cannot start running the models in 1930 and produce the actual temps of the next 20, 30, and 40 years. further, the hoaxers have made predictions that have proved to be grossly false. leading hoaxer James Hansen predicted in 1988 that the West Side Hwy in Manhattan would be under water by 2008. there has been no observable ocean rise there. the models predicted steadily rising temps, but there have been no gains since 1998.
I was soooo pissed. Nothing flooded.
Yeah, same's true for San Diego. We lose the airport and some of the richer peoples' beachfront lots. And here I was hoping the hill I live on would become an island!
"What people don't get is that the models that were created are based on 100 years of data."
And, really, how accurate was that data of 100 years ago? Before we started monitoring temperature 24/7, but rather once or twice a day with a mercury thermometer that was rarely calibrated and accurate withing a degree or two? Maybe. And, was consistently located throughout that 100 years?
There is a saying in computers - GIGO - garbage in -> garbage out.
Heck, until we got satellites up that could measure global surface temperatures, most of the earth was not having its temperature recorded. Or, if it was, it was done fairly inaccurately, on a hit or miss basis - such as what was done by ships moving around on the oceans (which form the bulk of the surface of the Earth).
So, please don't insult our intelligence by talking about how those models are so great because they were built on 100 years of past temperature data.
The FACT is, that temperature, photosynthesis and respiration are all separate phenomena.
Are you claiming that there is no statistical relationship among them? That they are completely independent variables? Or, are you arguing something else entirely? If so, please be more explicit.
Calling CO2 a pollutant (as the EPA has), is akin to Congress' Tariff Act of 1883 declaring tomatoes to be vegetables. There's no science involved, just a desire to reach a particular political outcome.
100 years ago, it was January 1912. Consider that.
My Senator Lindsey Graham called CO2 a pollutant, I sent him a Diet Coke and didn't get arrested
100 years ago, it was January 1912. Consider that.
1/28/12 5:13 AM
And in 1912 the predominant fuel was coal.
When Mt Penatubo(?) erupted in the Philippines in 1992(?) It erupted for two weeks. In those two weeks that one volcano spewed more gaseous and particulate effluents into the atmosphere than all of mankind since we learned how to make fire.
Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make proud.
Get rid of photo-synthesis and let's see what happens to temperatures.
Well duh, no shit, and thanks for proving the opposite point of the one you wanted to make!
The real question is, when are we going to get the plants to submit to loyalty oaths?
Obviously their biology is just a political scheme.
I see that the concept of "separate but related" is eluding Bruce Hayden and Dante this morning.
By the illogic of this cockamamie WSJ hit-piece, there is now no dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico because all the nitrogenous run-off that feeds into the Mississippi was used to fertilize fields upstream.
When does the ignorance end?
Dude, shit is a fertilizer (a GOOD one, at that), so obviously the fertile minds busily commenting away at Althouse must be filled with it.
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