The Great Global Warming Swindle

[Brian Ellis]

I'm still curious about the daily amount of solar energy our planet gets every day.
Aren't we a little vain, thinking we're so big and mighty that we're responsible for a natural cycle of warming up and cooling down of the planet?

To answer your first question, the first approximation answer is that the average solar radiation reaching the earth's surface at any moment is equivalent to about 1.92E16 watts so the daily energy dose is about 4.6E14 kWh. Does that get you anywhere without knowing the energy radiated from the earth's surface into space?

The answer to your second question is no. If you have a small stream running through your garden, full of nice fat trout, and you pour a little cyanide into it. Are you vain enough to think that, because the trout have been there for thousands of years, that their demise has nothing to do with your act of pouring the cyanide into the stream?

Do you think that man pouring nearly 20 billion tonnes of extra CO2 each year into the atmosphere, than would be the case without fossil fuels, is without effect? This has caused, and this is indisputable because of scientific measurements, the CO2 content of the global air to rise from ~280 ppm to almost 400 ppm. In addition, man has caused the methane level to rise from 800 ppt to 1800 ppt. Do you think that this will have no effect? The same goes for many other gases, such as NOxs, and some, such as CFCs and PFCs, have risen from a base level of zero as they don't even exist in nature.

If there is vanity in your remarks, it is in the implication that man can hide his head in the sand and ignore what he is doing to nature.

[TransformX]

To answer your first question, the first approximation answer is that the average solar radiation reaching the earth's surface at any moment is equivalent to about 1.92E16 watts so the daily energy dose is about 4.6E14 kWh. Does that get you anywhere without knowing the energy radiated from the earth's surface into space?

The answer to your second question is no. If you have a small stream running through your garden, full of nice fat trout, and you pour a little cyanide into it. Are you vain enough to think that, because the trout have been there for thousands of years, that their demise has nothing to do with your act of pouring the cyanide into the stream?

Do you think that man pouring nearly 20 billion tonnes of extra CO2 each year into the atmosphere, than would be the case without fossil fuels, is without effect? This has caused, and this is indisputable because of scientific measurements, the CO2 content of the global air to rise from ~280 ppm to almost 400 ppm. In addition, man has caused the methane level to rise from 800 ppt to 1800 ppt. Do you think that this will have no effect? The same goes for many other gases, such as NOxs, and some, such as CFCs and PFCs, have risen from a base level of zero as they don't even exist in nature.

If there is vanity in your remarks, it is in the implication that man can hide his head in the sand and ignore what he is doing to nature.

1. Well, yes, this means that the sun pours into the earth in a day far more heat than we can hope to produce in a month, no matter how much of it is radiated back.

2. That's more of an excuse for not answering my question, I'll ignore it for now.

3. Sure, there is more CO2 and other things out there, measurements are precise. But between being being able to measure the effect and pinpoint the cause. If you see a broken window, do you always immediately assume that the kid standing closest is to blame? Or maybe the one standing farthest? Or the kid who isn't there right now? Maybe it wasn't a kid at all? Maybe it broke NATURALLY?

4. When the asteroid comes, I suppose the EU/UN will send you with the special delegation to explain it the dangers awaiting us and our planet, in hope you'll be able to sort this problem out 'naturally', without killing trouts due to the pollution coming from the launch of nuclear missiles into space..

edit: 5. And speaking of vain and nature. Beavers are part of nature, so why the hell do you keep on ruining their dams? Oh, because nature sometimes go against its own self and ruins things, ha? If you're telling me to let nature take it's course, do it also when it takes a course you dislike, see who's having their head deep in the sand now?

[schmosef]

I don't think that Brian is saying about nature what you seem to think that he is saying about nature.

I also agree that we should be doing things that are within our power to improve our local environment, regardless of what we think are the global implications.

[Brian Ellis]

Sure, there is more CO2 and other things out there, measurements are precise. But between being being able to measure the effect and pinpoint the cause.

OK, you tell me what the cause is and show me the logic of your argument. AFAIK, no one, other than your goodself, has ever disputed the cause of the rise of CO2, CH4 etc. levels. That they dispute the effects of it is just human nature. When Neanderthal first rubbed two sticks together to master fire and one of their hens ran into it and got burnt to death, I'm sure the discussion whether roast meat was better or worse than raw meat became polemical.

If you take any of the discussions that occur regularly on this and other forums, where I have taken a strong stand, this is usually because of some experience (sometimes second-hand) that has caused me to formulate an opinion. In many cases, I have been open-minded enough to have changed my opinion over the wisdom of my 75 years. For example:

capital punishment (was for, now against under all circumstances)
strict gun control (was no opinion, now for)
strict recreational drug control (was no opinion, now for)
global disarmament (was no opinion, now for)
war (was no opinion, now totally against)
environment (was no opinion, now for)
globalisation (was no opinion, now for)
conservatism (was for, now against)

I won't add religion to the list, as my thoughts are now well-formed, but don't conform to any organised religion nor to perceived agnosticism or atheism.

So you can see that, with my scientific, engineering, conservative, Presbyterian middle-class background, I have been able to change a large chunk of my personal philosophy and this still changes as I observe man's inhumanity to man and man's oft-times stupidity.

While on the subject, please understand that I do not espouse every environmental cause, by any means. For example, I'm totally opposed to two EU environmental Directives (RoHS and REACH) and I'm not a member of any ecopolitical NGO, such as Greenpeace, FoE, etc. I don't say they don't do some good, but they also do harm.

Some of the younger members of this forum consistently take the opposite view to mine, but I see in them what I used to be 20 years or more ago. I pray that they, too, change to a more humanitarian outlook on life, as they become older, crankier, more knowledgeable and wiser, because belligerence hasn't got man anywhere in 30,000 years, except to develop more and more sophisticated weapons to knock the bejabers out of fellow-man.

[TransformX]

belligerence hasn't got man anywhere in 30,000 years, except to develop more and more sophisticated weapons to knock the bejabers out of fellow-man.

Well, thanks to that healthy(?) dose of hormones, short temper and will to gut each other, we did stumble across nuclear power, pace makers and many other wonderful things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. (The higher ends of the ranges quoted are for the gas alone; the lower ends, for the gas counting overlaps.)[2][3] Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons (see IPCC list of greenhouse gases).

The major atmospheric constituents (nitrogen, N2 and oxygen, O2) are not greenhouse gases. This is because homonuclear diatomic molecules such as N2 and O2 neither absorb nor emit infrared radiation, as there is no net change in the dipole moment of these molecules.

Water vapor is a naturally occurring greenhouse gas and accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor concentrations fluctuate regionally, but human activity does not directly affect water vapor concentrations except at very local scales.

Ban water, always thought we should simply ban water. DHMO is bad, there's even a site that says so!

http://earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm

. Whereas human sources of CO2 amount to just 3% of natural emissions, human sources produce one and a half times as much methane as all natural sources.

Wait, how much!? 3% that's it !?!?!??!!

[Brian Ellis]

I'm sorry, but why don't you just admit that you don't understand atmospheric physics and leave it at that.

If you want to argue further, please read carefully the IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. If you then have any specific questions, I'll try to answer them. As it is, you seem to know more than the world's 1500 top atmospheric scientists who are putting the final touches on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, as we speak.

I have already explained in this forum at least twice the role of water vapour and of CO2. Please don't make waste time doing it again.

[schmosef]

Brian, I still don't understand you!

You're answering these lame posts but you won't answer mine?

[Brian Ellis]

Brian, I still don't understand you!

You're answering these lame posts but you won't answer mine?

Schmo

Not sure which post you are referring to. Sorry if I've missed something. I agree with you that local pollution is as important as global pollution, but the two are so intertwined that it is often difficult to separate them. Air and water pollution know no political frontiers. I'm sure that I've mentioned this before but the role of pollution on public health is very important.

[schmosef]

I wasn't referring to these GW threads.

[Brian Ellis]

I don't usually like quoting from scientific magazines, but this article is worth looking at.

...the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise". The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue"

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.

...That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change".

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

...Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

[Marshmallowman]

hmm, currently we in Australia are being pressured by certain islands in the pacific to take "enviromental refugees" who are actually in the process of be submerged. Every year they have larger high tides than ever, virutally all subsistance agricultrue on the islands as halted becasue of the ocean/salt. They are literal putting bricks under there house to keep them above the ocean....REALLY

The curent atmosphereic levels of CO2 are at levels never recorded in any reasonable measure we have.(eg predate dinasaurs)

You are of course aware that CO2 DOES absorb a lot more heat the N2 & O2, so it might be quite reasonable to assume that the atmosphere MAY heat because of his.

And becaue we have decimated a large proportion of the earths own mechanisms for absorbing this CO2....eg the earth can't reverse this at reasonable rates on its own, as we have hamstrung a lot of the mechanisms for removing CO2.

And then lets add the millenia of CO2 from organic soucres(oil) we have just thrown into the atmosphere on top of the natural sources, ooh and volcanoes do just as much..that means double normal you....expletive

ooh...and while I am at it there is allway the frozen methane sinks that a certain temperature thresholds will start adding there own fluffy warming glow to the planet.

Hey but I am ok, Perth is to cold for me anyway and I bought a house on high land so I am alright Jack.

God we r F^$&ed if we have people willing to aplogise, excuse and justify being ripped of by large corporations run by individiuals who will have retired to wherever is still habitable before your realise it is to late. And they are NOT going to pay to fix Jack Schidt

But why listen to me , I am just hippy who likes to breath clean air. I wish some of you guys could be around when your grandchildren are wondering why the place sux so much.

[Marshmallowman]

ooh and we are(hopfully were) in the worst drought in our recorded history...yay

[Marshmallowman]

ahhh...

<\End of Rant>

[TransformX]

I think that by then, our gandchildren or later will be out there colonising other planets and restructuring this and those planets to their liking, either with eco-domes or something spiffier.

[Brian Ellis]

I think that by then, our gandchildren or later will be out there colonising other planets and restructuring this and those planets to their liking, either with eco-domes or something spiffier.

That is a pious hope or just plain ridiculous. If we can't make this planet habitable, what makes you think we can make any other, more hostile, one so? Even if this were the case, why are you so arrogant as to think your grandchildren would be the amongst the chosen few to pioneer it?

Surely it makes more sense to keep this one habitable?