We burn fossil fuels in an atmosphere that's 21% oxygen. We produce about 900 tonnes of CO2 every second and pump it into the sky. Now, unless people are claiming that natural processes can scrub that 900 tonnes from the sky before the next second elapses, then the additional CO2 we add must accumulate and mix with other gases in the atmosphere. And that means the atmosphere must trap additional heat.
That, to me, is nice and simple and makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that we can pump CO2 in massive quantities and have NO effect. What warped version of thermodynamics do denialists believe in?
Pat: I'm not sure where in my answer I claimed we are a 'disease'! I think it's pretty clear that our activities are going to cause the planet to warm. I'm pretty sure that in some regions that will be beneficial, in other areas not so much. It seems a ludicrous argument that, despite us beginning to be able to forecast the possible implications of that, we do nothing to mitigate against the potential negative effects. If you know there are people out there who want to steal your stuff, which will be advantageous for them when they flog it off, do you leave your windows and doors open at night? Or do you mitigate against the negative impact that possibility would have on you?
I always amazed by the chant that "CO2 is plant food" ............. ignoring the botanical silliness of this , i wonder why , if CO2 is stimulating the greening of the planet, is the level of atmospheric CO2 increasing?
Additionally , why are atmospheric carbon isotope ratios (ie C12:C13:C14 ratios in atmopheric CO2) changing in a way that would be perfectly in accordance with burning fossil fuels?
Does the denier industry have explanations for these?
EDIT : "CO2 is plant food" as much as "carbohydrates are human food" - CO2 will stimulate plant growth a long as water, fertiliser & other nutrients are increased. Some plants are stimulated more according to whether C3 or C4 photosynthesis - weeds will generally be stimulated more than grain crops so increased pesticides will be necessary (it is basic high school botany)
There is a denier industry , well paid , well rewarded - just in my country ,Australia, there are at least 7 columnists working for News Ltd cranking out a story denying climate change every day..................scientifically illiterate Monckton disciples the lot of then. They have well rewarded jobs in the denier industry
Operative word being "burn", whether in an internal combustion engine or actually burnt in a boiler.
What surprises me is that no-one ever asks the question, where does all the heat produced simply by the action of burning go?
CO2 aside, surely this must heat the earth up?
Consider this statement by Regerruged.
"CO2 is about 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere. CO2 is plant food."
If there is enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to support plant life, there is enough to affect temperature.
Then, there are the claims by Maxx and Portland/NW Jack that there was as much carbon dioixde in the atmosphere in the 19th century and in the 1940's as there is today. The basis for their claims is data taken from industrial locations. Carbon dioxide is higher today, in urban areas than in remote areas.
http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/anthropo...
One question that they have not been able to answer, nor has JimZ when he claims that plant stomata are a more reliable measure of carbon dioxide than ice cores is, where did that carbon dioxide come from and where did it go?
And there is Caliservative, quick to criticize "warmers" for logical falacies, while not applying the same standards to denialists. It is denialists who claim that hacked emails and Al Gore's lifestyle disprove global warming and that corrections to temperature data are proof of tampering, all examples of the ad hominem falacy.
Davy Boy
You got me Davy Boy. All life on Earth died when carbon dioxide dropped below 1% and we are all now ghosts.
So, carbon dioxide is a trace gas when its being a trace gas suits denialists and an abundant gas when that suits denialists.
If you act like a religious cultist shouting denier at people with legitimate facts about opposing views then you shouldn't be surprised if people consider you a nutter and disregard everything you say as nut-job ramblings.
EDIT If there is enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to support plant life, there is enough to affect temperature. What kind of rational animal would spout such unproven drivel, is this not a similar statement to ' if there are enough corn flakes to give a country breakfast there is enough to affect climate'. Think about it !
I always amazed by the chant that "CO2 is plant food" ............. ignoring the botanical silliness of this : - also ignoring at least a hundred years of main stream biological science supported by 100% of scientists and repeatable, provable experiments.
Warmons are a joke and a very bad one at that.
At the start of Earths history CO2 was a major gas in our atmosphere, until life came along and started to convert it, gradually over billions of years it has not only created our oxygen but it has sequestered it in carbonates (limestone chalk etc) to a point where it has life has began to suffer, at the end of some ice ages it became so low that plants began to die off and some plants evolved to cope with low CO2 the C4 plants which are mainly grasses and sedges, our planet was becoming a poor place with limited vegetation, grasslands and savannahs instead of forests and woodland.
Then along came man and started to repair the situation by burning CO2 and restoring the balance, this however is only temporary as only minor amounts are locked in fossil fuels most being locked up in carbonates.
Denialist and honest do not belong in the same paragraph. As I think you know very well. At least you managed to say denialist (only). :)
Ottawa's off-topic anti-science croc about CO2 residence time deserves a separate question to expose and debunk.
At the low wanna-be & copy-cat level that is most prominent here, the denialists have serious problems with basic logic. Many will argue, and at least in some cases actually believe that
stock = flow (that one is already in evidence on this page)
trend = variation
science = opinion
At the less brain-challenged level, Ottawa's croc is discussed here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-resi...
Edit: Maxx's "answer" is a good example of Gary's point here http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;... "the person making the claim is too stupid to answer the question."
Edit2: Being a hard-core anti-science denier, Caliserve of course denies it here. The resolved questions of YA document in spades the highly arrogant, ignorant and deliberately dishonest deceptions and disinformation about climate science that have flooded this category. It is inconceivable that a major public company such as Yahoo would ever tolerate anything remotely akin to that deluge of recycled lame trickery, were it anti-Semitic denial of the Holocaust rather than anti-science denial of the seriousness, scientific solidity, and well-established negative long term risks of AGW.
Edit3: Jungle Jim, suggesting that the denier-dupes here are part of the "denier industry," is an overstatement akin to calling homeless derelicts outside Yankee Stadium part of the team.
So What!? CO2 is good! Why are you criminalizing the manufacture of CO2? Nature has proven that CO2 does no harm to the Earth. Who cares if the rise in CO2 is by humans or a 0.1 degree rise in the oceans. No harm no foul.
You say you are curious. Why doesn't your curiosity make you wonder why Al Gore, Paul Ehrlich, James Hansen and that group chose CO2, less than 1% of the Earth's atmosphere, be considered a pollutant, when in fact it is a food.
EDIT: CR:
The hacked emails verified corruption in the data collection and storage of vital information regarding the making of laws and enacting of taxes. It just shows that greenies would rather live a life of crooked data than pure science. What have you got against honest data? Why would you not want honest data? Besides, we don't claim to disprove AGW by mere hacked emails. We are just pointing out the fallacies of your theory and that it takes crooked data to back up your claims.
As far as Al Gore is concerned, he doesn't disprove AGW by himself. But it shows, not only that he is a typical greenie full of lies, but lives a life of hypocrisy. If he was truly scared of the increase in the level of Earth's CO2, then why does he have a life style that adds to it many times more than the average person?
We don't base our rejection of the AGW theory on mere hacked emails and Al Gore, as you state, but on cold hard facts and science. Emails and Al Gore are just the icing on the cake.
dd+: "oil + fire -> $" Could you explain this so us slow learners can understand it? It seems to me that it is contradictory.
CR:
Pigs grow wings
"An accusation of “denial” is serious, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or self-deception. The thing being denied is, by implication, so obviously true that the denier must be driven by perversity, malice or wilful blindness. Few issues warrant such confidence. The Holocaust is perhaps one, though even here there is room for debate over the manner of its execution and the number of its victims. A charge of denial short-circuits this debate by stigmatising as dishonest any deviation from a preordained conclusion. It is a form of the argument ad hominem: the aim is not so much to refute your opponent as to discredit his motives. The extension of the “denier” tag to group after group is a development that should alarm all liberal-minded people. One of the great achievements of the Enlightenment―the liberation of historical and scientific enquiry from dogma―is quietly being reversed."
--Edward Sidelsky
If you had an ounce of scientific integrity, you would renounce the use of any form of the verb 'to deny'.
@Climate Revisionist
Ad hominem tu quoque. See also the last sentence, above.
A certain subset of denialists seem to think that humans have no, or at least no significant, effect on atmospheric CO2 levels.
I'm curious as to what they think *does* happen when we burn fossil fuels. I mean, they realize that burning fossil fuels releases CO2, right? And that the carbon in fossil fuels has been underground, and thus out of the atmosphere, for a minimum of several hundred to several thousand years?
I'd also like the realists to explain how they are deluded, or at least incorrect.
(Note, this question is *not* about what effect CO2 has, just whether or not human actions have raised atmospheric CO2)
Chem even if CO2 did in fact drive temperature, which it doesn't, humans could not control the amount of CO2 in the air anyway. The level of CO2 in the air is determined by temperature. Rising temperatures heat the oceans and cause a release of the CO2 gas and this far overwhelms human emissions.
We cannot control the amount of CO2 in the air anymore than we can control the Sun. And the increased levels of CO2 has shown enormous benefits to the environment. A recent study showed that we have had a foliage increase of 5% to 10%, based on the 14% hike in atmospheric CO2 from 1982 to 2010. That's a very good thing for humanity in general. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...
Here is another CO2 study that shows increased levels of CO2 makes plants more resistant to drought, that's also a good thing. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...
But finally and most importantly, human emissions simply DO NOT drive CO2 levels and here is a peer-reviewed study that shows that: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v...
So stop worrying about burning oil and gas, it does no harm and the above studies actually indicate it is of benefit to the environment.
-----------------------
I think I stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It is a strange illusion but I can live with it. If you were real environmentalists you would remove any source of heat or cooling from your house including stove and microwave. You would live in a cave and not make any waste either. You would actually cease to exist which would decrease all the energy and waste you make and save the environment.
Yes, when we burn stuff it puts CO2 into the air.
And he spake unto them in a parable saying:
Verily, I have placed a couple of ounces of food on my bird table every day for the last 30 years. By now the table should be heaving under the weight of bird food exceeding half a ton.
A Pharisee asked if the bird food tax was increased would I persist in this folly because the table would surely soon break.
A good Samaritan asked if, in fact, the birds were removing the food by eating it.
---------------------------------------...
EDIT: 'I always amazed by the chant that "CO2 is plant food ..." '
I am always amazed when people deny it!
Simply put: CO2 + Water + Sunlight = Oxygen + Plant Material
The process is called phosynthesis. Please check it out.
WOW!!! they actually finally admitted it!! C02 can only survive in the atmosphere for 5-10 years or so. I have been saying this for a long time. A lot of comments about how absurd this statement was, thumbs downs. even with sources. Of course, they have to explain it away as usual.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-resi...
What happened to the 50-200 year figure we had to hear for years?
Jungle Jim: It's Not. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...
Of course we are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels by burning it, but it is also enhancing our lives and helps in making us more efficient. The rise of CO2 levels is insignificant for several reasons:
1) Biomass has been greatly effected which means its a life creating substance in our atmosphere. Biomass has increased 5% to 10%from 1982 - 2010 according to recent studies. More plants means more food for all of life here on Earth. I'd say that means CO2 has a positive effect on all of life itself.
2) CO2 warming is insignificant. With all of the other variables driving the climate CO2 is a very small part of the warming process. Increasing levels of CO2 have an even lesser ability to heat due to saturation of IR radiation. This has been shown time and again to alarmists, but we have arrogant Global Warming Scientists (you noticed I didn't call them climate scientists) who perpetuate overstated claims of CO2's warming abilities.
3) CO2 is constantly cycling. It's part of the natural process. It always has been but people like you make it a villain. It definitely is not. Greenhouses use 3 and 4 times the amount of current atmospheric levels of CO2 for growing plants and it has no adverse effects on humans, animals or any other life.
4 If you don't like burning it and getting from one place to another in an efficient and timely manner, then walk or ride your bike. there is no eminent danger to the planet or it would have happened by now according to alarmists like Ted Danson (Mr. Doomsday himself said we had 10 years back in 1990) or Al Gore (flooding of 20 feet or more by now). We know that the planet is much more able to handle higher CO2 levels without affecting temperatures much. This is shown through the IP CC and its predicted temperature increases and how they are falling short of the expected rise.
---------------------------------------...
5) Everything on this Planet is natural. Even people and what they do. Either people want to be the "finder" of reasons that humans are a disease to the World, or people accept that all things are natural. You seem to be one who thinks we are a disease along with Hey Dook, Gary F, pegminer, Climate Realist, Dana, gcnp58, antarcticice, Elizabeth, Rolando Prico, Baccheus, Jungle Jim, by d/dx+d/d..., Gringo, Lynn Lyons, and very few others. It seems you are with a limited few who support AGW here at Y/A
Yes my little sex bomb, but it's a minute amount of co2 compared to whats released by nature (especially the oceans) and as this planet is in a co2 drought at the moment and has been for some time, it's all good stuff.
Deluded...denialists...How not to win friends and not influence people.
And don't forget about the IPCC claim of extended CO2 atmospheric residence time that deluded denialist geolgists say is incorrect.
Realist version of fossil fuel burning
2C8H18 + 25 O2 -> 16 CO2 + 18 H2O + heat
Denialist version of fossil fuel burning
oil + fire -> $
There is no man made global warming. CO2 is about 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere. CO2 is plant food.
we get places a lot faster and stay a lot warmer when it's cold and stay a lot cooler when it's hot, we get to eat cooked food,,,,,,I like it
You really are having are hard time trying to find some irrational views anti-warmonist realist have.
