Global Warming, Pollution, and Politics

The evidence is before anyone who is interested in the truth. If you are not, very well. I have nothing else to say, and no I have no interest in participating in a debate about how exactly we should radically change our society and reduce our living standards in order to combat a purely imaginary, propoganda fueled threat.

I don't mean to steal your thunder T., but the first thing needed to solve these problems is the realization that anthropogenic global warming is not occuring and that the natural climatic changes that are occuring do not present nearly the threat which Al Gore's animation of Miami underwater would suggest.

Basic evidence of this claim, which I will detail later (its a bit late on the east coast):

1. While there is a correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and atmospheric temperature, it is not as it appears on cursory examination: as we got in Al Gore's propoganda. Increases in temperature have always preceded increases in CO2; likely because sea water contains more dissolved CO2 than is in the atmosphere and releases more when warmer. This explanation also accounts for the delay between rising temperature and rising CO2 that's evident in the record; i.e. oceans take centuries to warm or cool in response to changing atmospheric temperatures, as water has a very high specific heat.

2. CO2 is a very insignificant greenhouse gas. Water vapor accounts for well over 90% of all greenhouse warming. Moreover, human emmited CO2 accounts for a tiny fraction, well under 10%, of CO2 produced on earth and released into the atmosphere, which comes mainly from geothermal activity and micro-organisms.

3. The 'incredible' and 'unprecedented' rise in atmospheric temperature over the last century and a half is fictional. That data begins around the Monder minimum, one of the coldest periods in the last 10,000 years. In other words, the increase is more of a return to norality than a exceptional event.

4. Even this increase is suspect, because these measurements are based on ground temperature, in many cases at urban sites where there is a definite and well documented 'heat island' effect. In the last 25 years, satellite imagery shows virtually no increase in atmospheric temperature, as woukld be the case in there were greenhouse warming.

5. Finally, there is no a consenses amoung relavent scientists in the field. According to recent polls, almost 40% were either not sure about anthropogenic global warming, or were convinced that it did not exist.

More to come...night

Carbon Emissions Linked To Global Warming In Simple Linear Relationship

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2009) - Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment has found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. Matthews, together with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K., used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change.

These findings will be published in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009.

Until now, it has been difficult to estimate how much climate will warm in response to a given carbon dioxide emissions scenario because of the complex interactions between human emissions, carbon sinks, atmospheric concentrations and temperature change. Matthews and colleagues show that despite these uncertainties, each emission of carbon dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, regardless of when or over what period of time the emission occurs.

These findings mean that we can now say: if you emit that tonne of carbon dioxide, it will lead to 0.0000000000015 degrees of global temperature change. If we want to restrict global warming to no more than 2 degrees, we must restrict total carbon emissions - from now until forever - to little more than half a trillion tonnes of carbon, or about as much again as we have emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
"Most people understand that carbon dioxide emissions lead to global warming," says Matthews, "but it is much harder to grasp the complexities of what goes on in between these two end points. Our findings allow people to make a robust estimate of their contribution to global warming based simply on total carbon dioxide emissions."

In light of this study and other recent research, Matthews and a group of international climate scientists have written an open letter calling on participants of December's Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to acknowledge the need to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide so as to avoid dangerous climate change.

What's curious Khethil is the uniquely American-aspect of this. American conservatives dispute global warming science as a hoax and yet it was Britain's Conservative "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher who first raised the call to tackle the problem. One of the strongest advocates in Europe today is Germany's conservative (Christian Democrat) Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She also happens to hold a PhD in physics. The Right does get it, just not in America. What's happened is that the climate change issue has been transformed into the latest front of America's "culture wars." It's a political football, more than anything else, in the United States.

This is why the state is becoming too influential. If you have come to your decision about global warming because of one scientist over another, then so be it. Most people dont really care enough yet because "Government" is arguing over it. God I hate authority. Its getting very counterproductive. Getting? lol, nevermind.

I know what you mean Joe. We need science to operate without the influence of government.

I'd bet less than 60% of our citizens know the capital of New York State, so we're doing pretty well if 60% believe that global warming is manmade

It does and it doesnt at the same time. Depends on what people like to hear. I feel like im just ranting against authority again but I cant help but notice more and more what is happening socially because of it.

Isn't it New York City (I am only joking). I am sure that if you asked anyone what the capital of Pennsylvania was, 99% would get it wrong. And I am sure at least 75% get the NY capital wrong.