A last chance for Civilization

my2handsmy2hands Posts: 17,117
edited May 2008 in A Moving Train
The World at 350: A Last Chance for Civilization
By Bill McKibben
TomDispatch.com

Sunday 11 May 2008

Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start - even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now.

It's not just the economy. We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it sends the price of a loaf of bread shooting upwards and starts food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so inextricably tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem? how best to put it, right.

All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth.

There's a number - a new number - that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA's Jim Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The abstract attached to it argued - and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper - "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points - massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them - that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.

In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas - hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year - two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.

And suddenly, the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. Apparently, we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.

And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car, and Americans are converting to TVs the size of windshields which suck juice ever faster.

Here's the thing. Hansen didn't just say that, if we didn't act, there was trouble coming; or, if we didn't yet know what was best for us, we'd certainly be better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His phrase was: "... if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.)

We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now, the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

And we have, at best, a few years to short-circuit them - to reverse course. Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

In the next two or three years, the nations of the world are supposed to be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Accord. When December 2009 rolls around, heads of state are supposed to converge on Copenhagen to sign a treaty - a treaty that would go into effect at the last plausible moment to heed the most basic and crucial of limits on atmospheric CO2.

If we did everything right, says Hansen, we could see carbon emissions start to fall fairly rapidly and the oceans begin to pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. Before the century was out we might even be on track back to 350. We might stop just short of some of those tipping points, like the Road Runner screeching to a halt at the very edge of the cliff.

More likely, though, we're the Coyote - because "doing everything right" means that political systems around the world would have to take enormous and painful steps right away. It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way we made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.

It means making every decision wisely because we have so little time and so little money, at least relative to the task at hand. And hardest of all, it means the rich countries of the world sharing resources and technology freely with the poorest ones, so that they can develop dignified lives without burning their cheap coal.

That's possible - we launched a Marshall Plan once, and we could do it again, this time in relation to carbon. But in a month when the President has, once more, urged us to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that seems unlikely. In a month when the alluring phrase "gas tax holiday" has danced into our vocabulary, it's hard to see (though it was encouraging to see that Clinton's gambit didn't sway many voters). And if it's hard to imagine sacrifice here, imagine China, where people produce a quarter as much carbon apiece as we do.

Still, as long as it's not impossible, we've got a duty to try. In fact, it's about the most obvious duty humans have ever faced.

A few of us have just launched a new campaign, 350.org. Its only goal is to spread this number around the world in the next 18 months, via art and music and ruckuses of all kinds, in the hope that it will push those post-Kyoto negotiations in the direction of reality.

After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can't do this one light bulb at a time. And if this 350.org campaign is a Hail Mary pass, well, sometimes those passes get caught.

We do have one thing going for us: This new tool, the Web which, at least, allows you to imagine something like a grassroots global effort. If the Internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that "350" stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.

Hansen's words were well-chosen: "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet that civilization may not.

Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won't exist, at least not for long, this side of 350. That's the limit we face.

Bill McKibben is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org. His most recent book is The Bill McKibben Reader.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174930
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Comments

  • Global Warming Hoax - video

    Understand some basic facts: C02 is not a pollutant. CO2 is how life functions on earth. All green things need CO2 to grow. Yet, CO2 accounts for only 0.054% of the earth's atmosphere.

    Now, get this. Volcanoes produce more CO2 every year than human activity. But animals produce way more CO2 than volcanoes.

    It gets better. Decaying plant matter produces more CO2 than animals. But guess what? The oceans produce more CO2 than all the humans, volcanoes, animals, plants, and vegetation combined.

    What humans produce is negligible.

    But the salient point is that CO2 does not warm the planet, regardless of all those volcanoes, animals, decaying vegetation and ocean life. There is simply not enough of it. So the idea that the microscopic percentage of CO2 that is caused by industry, is the cause of a warming planet, is so laughable as to be the product not of science, but of politics. Sure enough, the main proponent of this theory, is none other than a famous politician.

    But the global warming theory posits that you, or more accurately, American industry, is the cause of CO2, which in turn is the cause of global warming, which now means that in order to operate our society, we need to pay huge taxes called "CO2 offset credits".

    "The greatest scam in history".
    - John Coleman, Founder, The Weather Channel


    Don't get me wrong, human activity is having some very real effects on the global biosphere, but the whole C02 angle is nothing more than a horrible political ploy to get the industrialized world back in shackles. If they can scam America in to submission to a C02 tax, they can use this in perpetuity to redistribute wealth to the global elite, and to chokehold the US economy in to submission.

    You really want to start being taxed on the fundamental building block of life?
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    The entire premise of this article is foolish, even if it invokes many good facts and points. Its core thesis invokes climate stasis, something that has never and will never exist. Life on Earth may have certainly adapted to climate conditions in a given place and time, yet the entire concept of "adaptation" largely implies a different climate at a different time. Furthermore, civilization itself was born in climates wide and disparate. The extension of these arguments, however, is that civilization itself is impossible in Iceland or the Amazon and only possible in the Mediterranean. Civilization is a response to the threats of our natural environment, not a creation of times somehow absent those threats. To say that CO2 emissions will create a world in which "people will...be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet" is to imply that the core function of civilization is NOT coping with natural events in the first place. However, coping with natural threats is the precise purpose of and the primary motivator of civilization to begin with.

    There is a wonderful irony in this writing as well. The article cited claims that the world must return to atmospheric C02 of 350 ppm, roughly the level in 1989. Interestingly, the author of this piece, Bill McKibben, wrote a book in 1989 chastising the world for its excessive emissions that would bring about "The End of Nature". Is McKibben now saying, this time, that end is coming using data showing that his last prediction was somehow premature?

    McKibben has been for the last 20 years a leading thinker and ethicist in the fight against technology. He is most certainly entitled to his opinions and should be lauded for his insightful and fascinating work in his critiques of our modern civilizations. However, too often he abandons sound logic to prove his points and this article is no exception.
  • SundaySilenceSundaySilence Posts: 536
    Now, get this. Volcanoes produce more CO2 every year than human activity. But animals produce way more CO2 than volcanoes.

    I see why you think the way you do. You've been lied to and you don't seem to know it. Volcanic emmissions of C02 are around 1-2% of human C02 emmissions.
  • CollinCollin Posts: 4,931
    THANK YOU, LOSTDAWG!


    naděje umírá poslední
  • I see why you think the way you do. You've been lied to and you don't seem to know it. Volcanic emmissions of C02 are around 1-2% of human C02 emmissions.

    Well, you're right about that.
    But i'm still not worried:
    Graph Showing Average Temperature vs. Sun Activity -- Can you REFUTE THIS?

    Graph Showing Average Historic Temperature -- Note: We are BELOW Average Temperature for 3000 years.

    Sea Level Increase Starts Before Fuel Usage, Maintains Constant Slope

    source page, good stuff
    You tell ME what is going here.
    Doesn't look very conclusive to me.

    I'm open to any theories, and i certainly believe humans impact their environment, but i just don't see conclusive evidence of human causation of warming. Looks like we are rebounding from a cooling trend, and the sun is picking up its activity ... though it has dropped off in the last ten years, which is why the winter temperatures are starting to decrease globaly.

    ???
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Global Warming Hoax - video

    Understand some basic facts: C02 is not a pollutant. CO2 is how life functions on earth. All green things need CO2 to grow. Yet, CO2 accounts for only 0.054% of the earth's atmosphere.

    Now, get this. Volcanoes produce more CO2 every year than human activity. But animals produce way more CO2 than volcanoes.

    It gets better. Decaying plant matter produces more CO2 than animals. But guess what? The oceans produce more CO2 than all the humans, volcanoes, animals, plants, and vegetation combined.

    What humans produce is negligible.

    But the salient point is that CO2 does not warm the planet, regardless of all those volcanoes, animals, decaying vegetation and ocean life. There is simply not enough of it. So the idea that the microscopic percentage of CO2 that is caused by industry, is the cause of a warming planet, is so laughable as to be the product not of science, but of politics. Sure enough, the main proponent of this theory, is none other than a famous politician.

    But the global warming theory posits that you, or more accurately, American industry, is the cause of CO2, which in turn is the cause of global warming, which now means that in order to operate our society, we need to pay huge taxes called "CO2 offset credits".

    "The greatest scam in history".
    - John Coleman, Founder, The Weather Channel


    Don't get me wrong, human activity is having some very real effects on the global biosphere, but the whole C02 angle is nothing more than a horrible political ploy to get the industrialized world back in shackles. If they can scam America in to submission to a C02 tax, they can use this in perpetuity to redistribute wealth to the global elite, and to chokehold the US economy in to submission.

    You really want to start being taxed on the fundamental building block of life?


    with all politics aside do you agree that with the more co2 in and near the earths surface.. it makes it harder for sun rays to hit earth and reflect back out of the earths atmosphere?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Collin wrote:

    while im not disagreeing or agreeing with anything in this.. or with you

    this is not a credible source for anything and shouldnt be listed as one..

    i refuse to read wikipedia entries.. they can be changed by anyone.
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Global Warming Hoax - video

    Understand some basic facts: C02 is not a pollutant. CO2 is how life functions on earth. All green things need CO2 to grow. Yet, CO2 accounts for only 0.054% of the earth's atmosphere.

    Now, get this. Volcanoes produce more CO2 every year than human activity. But animals produce way more CO2 than volcanoes.

    It gets better. Decaying plant matter produces more CO2 than animals. But guess what? The oceans produce more CO2 than all the humans, volcanoes, animals, plants, and vegetation combined.

    What humans produce is negligible.

    But the salient point is that CO2 does not warm the planet, regardless of all those volcanoes, animals, decaying vegetation and ocean life. There is simply not enough of it. So the idea that the microscopic percentage of CO2 that is caused by industry, is the cause of a warming planet, is so laughable as to be the product not of science, but of politics. Sure enough, the main proponent of this theory, is none other than a famous politician.

    But the global warming theory posits that you, or more accurately, American industry, is the cause of CO2, which in turn is the cause of global warming, which now means that in order to operate our society, we need to pay huge taxes called "CO2 offset credits".

    "The greatest scam in history".
    - John Coleman, Founder, The Weather Channel


    Don't get me wrong, human activity is having some very real effects on the global biosphere, but the whole C02 angle is nothing more than a horrible political ploy to get the industrialized world back in shackles. If they can scam America in to submission to a C02 tax, they can use this in perpetuity to redistribute wealth to the global elite, and to chokehold the US economy in to submission.

    You really want to start being taxed on the fundamental building block of life?


    you are aware the problem is that heat is being trapped on the earths surfaces, its got no place to go.. carbon dioxides rising levels are trapping it. that an earth with a different climate may not be a a problem to some.. but it is for others... there is no hoax here that I see.. the fact is.. it is why you are seeing what you can see today day.. melting of ice caps or antartica looking like a checkerboard of water pockets.. what is so hard to grasp about reality... anyone can compare CO2 sources all day, but this doestn help the problem. The problem is that heat is BEING TRAPPED where as say 100 years ago 200 years ago it was no where near the rate it is today.. Im not sure what exactly these people are calling a hoax? where is the hoax??
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    you are aware the problem is that heat is being trapped on the earths surfaces, its got no place to go

    Would you characterize the oxygen on the earth's surfaces as having "no place to go"?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    here this talks about what you think is a hoax..

    THIS IS NOT A COMMERCIAL WEBSITE

    http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/globalchange/keeling_curve/01.html

    here is no money being made in this.. this is SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

    not an OPINION or a YOUTUBE VIDEO


    readers beware of what people try to pass as fact... it doesnt take a genius to bend words around to appear as fact.

    the SCIENCE IS THERE

    no need to listen to a scientists opinions on why

    THINK ABOUT FOR YOURSELF

    http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/globalchange/keeling_curve/01.html
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Would you characterize the oxygen on the earth's surfaces as having "no place to go"?


    you mean the oxygen we get from trees and the earths surface?
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    you mean the oxygen we get from trees and the earths surface?

    Absolutely. I mean the oxygen anywhere on this planet. Would you characterize it as having "no place to go"?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Absolutely. I mean the oxygen anywhere on this planet. Would you characterize it as having "no place to go"?


    yes it has somewhere to go.. is oxygen considered a ''greenhouse gas''

    i dont think Oxygen is directly related to adding to this effect.. you could say indirectly because we breathe oxygen and than exhale wastes of oxygen and carbon

    also im not sure what you are getting at or what you are questioning
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    yes it has somewhere to go.. is oxygen considered a ''greenhouse gas''

    i dont think Oxygen is directly related to adding to this effect.. you could say indirectly because we breathe oxygen and than exhale wastes of oxygen and carbon

    also im not sure what you are getting at or what you are questioning

    I'm fascinated by your word choice, which is why I'm asking.

    Why would you described only greenhouse gasses as having "no place to go" as opposed to gasses like oxygen?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    I'm fascinated by your word choice, which is why I'm asking.

    Why would you described only greenhouse gasses as having "no place to go" as opposed to gasses like oxygen?


    the idea that heat is being trapped... is the exact job of a greenhouse... if our planet starts behaving like a greenhouse things could get out of hand..

    1 example would be this:

    Europe could see a frozen climate all year round.
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    the idea that heat is being trapped...

    So you chose that wording not because the gas itself had "no place to go", but rather because the heat had "no place to go"?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    So you chose that wording not because the gas itself had "no place to go", but rather because the heat had "no place to go"?


    i think its a train effect :)


    when the sunlight with rays hits the earth its not necessarily supposed to hit and reflect (see: snow) but it is whats been happening since research has been done.. and the levels of CO2 have in fact increased ..which could have only really been expected... whats happening is the rays are hitting and staying... Now imagine this happening (scientific proof shows CO2 emissions have been on the rise, this is not debated) imagine a Glass wall being built around the earth so that its contents inside the walls will have one climate.. this is what is meant by greenhouse gases.. they are trapping heat/sunlight whatever you choose to call it..


    this is a problem to some

    others like sipping drinks on the beaches of the bahamas in the heat so its not a huge problem



    WRONG!


    those islands wont be there any more as a result of the greenhouse.. the ice caps are melting.

    so if we have these idiots coming into our courthouses and federal buildings saying its no big deal.. i sure hope they like the fucking mountains.
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    i think its a train effect :)

    when the sunlight with rays hits the earth its not necessarily supposed to hit and reflect (see: snow) but it is whats been happening since research has been done.. and the levels of CO2 have in fact increased ..which could have only really been expected... whats happening is the rays are hitting and staying... Now imagine this happening (scientific proof shows CO2 emissions have been on the rise, this is not debated) imagine a Glass wall being built around the earth so that its contents inside the walls will have one climate.. this is what is meant by greenhouse gases.. they are trapping heat/sunlight whatever you choose to call it..

    this is a problem to some

    others like sipping drinks on the beaches of the bahamas in the heat so its not a huge problem

    WRONG!

    those islands wont be there any more as a result of the greenhouse.. the ice caps are melting.

    so if we have these idiots coming into our courthouses and federal buildings saying its no big deal.. i sure hope they like the fucking mountains.

    Interesting. Now, obviously CO2 is not new and there are many things that have been producing CO2 for eons. For instance, if we look at the graph below, we see fluctuations in the CO2 levels over time, with our current period being on the very high side above any point in recent history:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

    Interestingly, this graph does show CO2 levels decreasing at certain points in our history. Therefore, it stands to reason that forces exist to reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, meaning that CO2 certainly may have "somewhere to go". Since you seem to know a lot about CO2, do you know what those forces are?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Interesting. Now, obviously CO2 is not new and there are many things that have been producing CO2 for eons. For instance, if we look at the graph below, we see fluctuations in the CO2 levels over time, with our current period being on the very high side above any point in recent history:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

    Interestingly, this graph does show CO2 levels decreasing at certain points in our history. Therefore, it stands to reason that forces exist to reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, meaning that CO2 certainly may have "somewhere to go". Since you seem to know a lot about CO2, do you know what those forces are?

    i cant look at that page you put up but i have seen graphs of the CO2 increases over the years.. and you are talking about the decreases.. and i can only assume you mean the short spikes followed by rises and that you can notice by these graphas it is steadily rising...despite the short spikes down.. if im correct in assuming this is what you are talking about.. the short spike down.. descreases this all I can share with y ou is one word and its an awesome song by Chris Cornell.

    SEASONS
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Interesting. Now, obviously CO2 is not new and there are many things that have been producing CO2 for eons. For instance, if we look at the graph below, we see fluctuations in the CO2 levels over time, with our current period being on the very high side above any point in recent history:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

    Interestingly, this graph does show CO2 levels decreasing at certain points in our history. Therefore, it stands to reason that forces exist to reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, meaning that CO2 certainly may have "somewhere to go". Since you seem to know a lot about CO2, do you know what those forces are?

    i dont know of any research that shows carbon dioxide levels in the ice age..

    I think you are considering ''god'' or some supernatural or perhaps natural that we dont know about force that sucks CO2 away in large amounts.. some sort of vaccum? and if you want to steer away from the very manageable problem of cutting back on CO2 emissions to ask why in tha past?

    perhaps extinctions come into play?
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    i cant look at that page you put up but i have seen graphs of the CO2 increases over the years.. and you are talking about the decreases.. and i can only assume you mean the short spikes followed by rises and that you can notice by these graphas it is steadily rising...despite the short spikes down.. if im correct in assuming this is what you are talking about.. the short spike down.. descreases this all I can share with y ou is one word and its an awesome song by Chris Cornell.

    SEASONS

    The graph displays atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. The increases and decreases on the graph happen over eons, not over seasons. For instance, CO2 levels 120,000 years ago stood at around 270 ppm, whereas CO2 levels 10,000 years ago stood at around 180 ppm. Today they stand at 370 ppm. So, judging from this data, CO2 levels aren't necessarily cumulative. If CO2 levels can decrease (as they did from -120,000 years to -10,000 years), and we're currently of the opinion that CO2 levels are too high, wouldn't it then be imperative to understand that CO2 in fact does have "someplace to go" and that those levels could be actively reduced?
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    The graph displays atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. The increases and decreases on the graph happen over eons, not over seasons. For instance, CO2 levels 120,000 years ago stood at around 270 ppm, whereas CO2 levels 10,000 years ago stood at around 180 ppm. Today they stand at 370 ppm. So, judging from this data, CO2 levels aren't necessarily cumulative. If CO2 levels can decrease (as they did from -120,000 years to -10,000 years), and we're currently of the opinion that CO2 levels are too high, wouldn't it then be imperative to understand that CO2 in fact does have "someplace to go" and that those levels could be actively reduced?


    so you are considering the more faith apporach... maybe thigs will work themselves out..

    I think you are right in the sense that things will work themselves out..

    but people should be aware that it doesnt have to happen abruptly and as disastourous..

    if we could find ways to lower our emissions.. should be ignore our own knowledge?
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    i dont know of any research that shows carbon dioxide levels in the ice age..

    Much research surrounds atomspheric conditions in pre-civilized times.
    I think you are considering ''god'' or some supernatural or perhaps natural that we dont know about force that sucks CO2 away in large amounts.. some sort of vaccum? and if you want to steer away from the very manageable problem of cutting back on CO2 emissions to ask why in tha past?

    I'm having trouble understanding why you believe cutting CO2 emissions to be "manageable" when you're having difficulty even addressing some of the fundamentals of CO2. If CO2 levels do fluctuate both up and down, then certainly CO2 levels are not simply a cumulative effect of a gas that has "no place to go". Obviously that gas both comes from somewhere and has someplace to go. You seem to have a good grip on where it comes from. I'm surprised to not hear a discussion on where it should then be going.
  • macgyver06 wrote:
    with all politics aside do you agree that with the more co2 in and near the earths surface.. it makes it harder for sun rays to hit earth and reflect back out of the earths atmosphere?

    Do you agree that the actual temperature of earth actualy decreased over a 20 year period while the metric tons of fossil fuel used doubled and then quadrupled?

    This decrease in temperature directly correlates to a decrease in solar irradiance.
    Well, you're right about that.
    But i'm still not worried:
    Graph Showing Average Temperature vs. Sun Activity -- Can you REFUTE THIS?

    Graph Showing Average Historic Temperature -- Note: We are BELOW Average Temperature for 3000 years.

    Sea Level Increase Starts Before Fuel Usage, Maintains Constant Slope

    source page, good stuff
    You tell ME what is going here.


    Do you dispute that the increase in sea level has been linear, begining BEFORE the era of fossil fuel usage, and maintaining a constant slope over 40 years, even in the face of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling human co2 output?

    Do you not agree that CO2 is a TRACE gas in the atmosphere, which at MOST has risen from .03-.04% of all atmospheric gas to maybe around .06% of all gas? Yet the graph clearly shows a direct correlation, again inspite of increasing human carbon dioxide output, between surface temperatures and solar activity? Again, the temperature went DOWN as carbon out put went UP.

    Do you not admit that the science behind "man made global warming" is, at BEST, speculative and inconclusive?

    If not, what is the basis for your dispute of this? Given the direct correlation of sun activity to surface temperature, specificaly.

    If fossil fuel is directly responsible for temperature increase, how could this "source of warming" double and quadruple all while temperatures DECREASED in direct correlation with solar activity?

    Do you think i am "on par with holocaust deniers"?

    ;)
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • farfromglorifiedfarfromglorified Posts: 5,696
    macgyver06 wrote:
    so you are considering the more faith apporach... maybe thigs will work themselves out..

    I think you are right in the sense that things will work themselves out..

    but people should be aware that it doesnt have to happen abruptly and as disastourous..

    if we could find ways to lower our emissions.. should be ignore our own knowledge?

    I'm certainly not suggesting we ignore our own knowledge or assume that things will "work themselves out". In fact, I'd suggest we use our knowledge and attack our ignorance. It seems terribly important, given the premises and data behind our distaste for global warming, to understand how CO2 has been reduced in the past, given the knowledge we have that CO2 levels have increased and decreased greatly over time.
  • If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

    Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
    -Oscar Wilde
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Do you agree that the actual temperature of earth actualy decreased over a 20 year period while the metric tons of fossil fuel used doubled and then quadrupled?

    This decrease in temperature directly correlates to a decrease in solar irradiance.




    Do you dispute that the increase in sea level has been linear, begining BEFORE the era of fossil fuel usage, and maintaining a constant slope over 40 years, even in the face of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling human co2 output?

    Do you not agree that CO2 is a TRACE gas in the atmosphere, which at MOST has risen from .03-.04% of all atmospheric gas to maybe around .06% of all gas? Yet the graph clearly shows a direct correlation, again inspite of increasing human carbon dioxide output, between surface temperatures and solar activity? Again, the temperature went DOWN as carbon out put went UP.

    Do you not admit that the science behind "man made global warming" is, at BEST, speculative and inconclusive?

    If not, what is the basis for your dispute of this? Given the direct correlation of sun activity to surface temperature, specificaly.

    If fossil fuel is directly responsible for temperature increase, how could this "source of warming" double and quadruple all while temperatures DECREASED in direct correlation with solar activity?

    Do you think i am "on par with holocaust deniers"?

    ;)



    I can answer one part of your post because the rest i am just not sure what you arguing and why are you arguing.. if you could make it more clear what you are trying to say than i could answer it... BUT I WILL ANSWER THIS

    the earths temperature going down while fossil fuel usage goes up.. using this information as a crutch to argue against global warming is really weak.. i will explain

    if the ocean conveyor belt were to shut down.. due to the ice caps melting (which is directly linked to the greenhouse effect) parts of Europe that experience seasons right now would FREEZE

    FREEZE

    FREEZE

    but it wouldnt stay frozen forever. IT COULDNT when the rest of the habitable earth is getting hotter and hotter and the oceans are rising to cool it off.



    i dont think you are going to grasp this until you study how the earth is.. what things mean and how it can heal itself.. and how it doesnt give a damn about you.
  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    Do you agree that the actual temperature of earth actualy decreased over a 20 year period while the metric tons of fossil fuel used doubled and then quadrupled?

    This decrease in temperature directly correlates to a decrease in solar irradiance.




    Do you dispute that the increase in sea level has been linear, begining BEFORE the era of fossil fuel usage, and maintaining a constant slope over 40 years, even in the face of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling human co2 output?

    Do you not agree that CO2 is a TRACE gas in the atmosphere, which at MOST has risen from .03-.04% of all atmospheric gas to maybe around .06% of all gas? Yet the graph clearly shows a direct correlation, again inspite of increasing human carbon dioxide output, between surface temperatures and solar activity? Again, the temperature went DOWN as carbon out put went UP.

    Do you not admit that the science behind "man made global warming" is, at BEST, speculative and inconclusive?

    If not, what is the basis for your dispute of this? Given the direct correlation of sun activity to surface temperature, specificaly.

    If fossil fuel is directly responsible for temperature increase, how could this "source of warming" double and quadruple all while temperatures DECREASED in direct correlation with solar activity?

    Do you think i am "on par with holocaust deniers"?

    ;)


    pretty soon these nonsense writings wont matter hopefully you will go outside and see the changes earth is going through... until you do.. keep watching your crazy you tube videos.

    people are looking for answers to what they see could be a problem for all of civilization..

    its one thing to question theories.... but to post this bullshit about hoaxes and schemes when YOU CAN VISIT THE PLACES THAT ARE BEING HIT HARD by our irresponsibility already is BLIND AND FUCKING STUPID.


    good riddance.
  • he still standshe still stands Posts: 2,835
    Seems like some fairly obvious questions to me and I apolgize if these issues have already been raised, but why would a group of unbiased scientists create a hoax or conspiracy and what is the aim of this hoax? What do they have to gain? Why would anyone believe the "evidence" brought forth by the nay-sayers, who are indeed biased (gov't and corporations)?

    IMO the goal of the nay-sayers is to simply plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the majority of people in western culture, not to win the argument. Because all it takes is a semblance of doubt for all of us to not drastically change our lives, stop the unnecessary production and consumption, and revolt against the traditional "comforts" of our capitalist economy that have caused the excess and waste that is destroying our planet.
    Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
  • macgyver06 wrote:
    you could make it more clear what you are trying to say than i could answer it

    http://www.oism.org/pproject/Slides/Presentation/Slide3.png

    thats what i'm saying.

    Got answers?
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
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