[quote=DWCAP]
[quote=felix]
CO2 is needed to sustain life on the planet as it is what green plants take in to produce the oxygen we need to breath[/quote]
This is true, but it doesnt necessary mean that more C02 is better for them than less. Plants ‘respire’ in the oppoist way we do, taking in CO2 and releasing Oxygen, in the process using water. But they are often limited by other factors like water or nitrogen. Constantly increasing levels of CO2 will not corrolate to constantly increasing plant growth, and may actually reduce growth in some areas (50% DECREASE in tree growth in the tropics).
[quote=felix]There was much more CO2 in the atmosphere during the ice age than there is now[/quote]
Actually, not true.
“Since the Industrial Revolution, circa 1900, the burning of fossil fuels has caused a dramatic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, reaching levels unprecedented in the last 400 thousand years.”
[quote=felix]Global levels of CO2 have increased yet the world temps have been actually declining the past decade[/quote]
Totally misleading. A decade in Geological time is absolutly nothing. Like the housing market, or unemployment, global temps can take temporary dips on the trajectory upwards. Same as your link about global warming not being true because global temp’s fell last year. 1 year. This isnt a sigmoidal function, it isnt smooth. And you are correct about solar activity affecting things, but if your timeframe of reference is only a decade, you will miss alot.
“Comparison of measured sea surface temperatures
in the Western Pacific with paleoclimate data suggests that this critical ocean region, and probably the planet as a whole, is approximately as warm now as at the Holocene maximum and within 1°C of the maximum temperature of the past million years.”
[quote=felix]So what is it is global warming causing the warmer temps or the colder temps, the rainier weather or the dryer weather or is it just that the alarmists want to claim it is causing any weather event?[/quote]
All of the above. Global warming will change the climate as we know it. Some areas will get warmer, and more usable. Some will get wetter, some dryer. Some will submerge under increasing ocean levels. Some may even get COLDER as ocean currents change heat flow. The point is that things will be different, and that will hurt some people, while helping others.
And the fact we dont know exactly what will happen is a terrible argument about why we shouldnt worry about it. Shouldnt we try to find out and limit the potential negative consequences?
[quote=felix] Oh and as to the poor plight of humans if the temps did increase. Those claims are also bogus. Warming would actually net more of the northern hemisphere temperate and usable as farmland as much of it is now unusable in Siberia and Canada.[/quote]
National boundries and immigration restrictions limit the amount of movement from areas where warming hurts to areas where it helps. Canda, US, Russia, Nordic countries helped, everyone else hurt.
[quote=felix]Also the Canadians recently did a study on the poster boys of global warming, the polar bears.
No only did they find that polar bear groups were increasing but that those in the warmer areas of their habitats were increasing at the highest rates.[/quote]
Again misleading, SOME populations are increasing, while others are decreasing.
“Five of the 13 populations in Canada appear to be on the decline. At least one – the Baffin Bay population – is the victim of severe overhunting on the Greenland side of the polar bear’s range. Of the three that are increasing, the Viscount Melville and McClintock Channel populations are on the rebound only because of the Canadian Inuit’s voluntary decision to severely reduce their harvest.” http://www.thestar.com/arcticinperil/article/279817
Reducing our hunting and then saying the population isnt suffering is just bad science. All the long term studies I have seen say things are not going well for the polar bear, but I would like to read your sources that say that things are looking up for the polar bear in any long term sense.
[quote=felix]So the big lies are that not only isn’t the entire truth being told but research by very competent scientists is being chilled by the rush to judgment by the global warming crowd that doesn’t want scrutiny of their theories. There are 100s if not thousands of climatologists and meteorologists that flatly disagree with not only the conclusions of the global warming cabal but their methodology.
Those links suck. One is an opnion piece that says the entire reason we paid $4.5/gallon gas was because of AL Gore and his politics. Bull. That was due to a bubble in the price of oil, driven by speculators and an investment furvor.
Then it goes on to abunch of ad home attacks that have no proof what so ever. I especially like part about how 38 parts per million cant raise temps because it cant, cause I said so. I just couldnt read any farther, it was all so much political crap. The high price of gas is not an Al Gore conspiracy.
As for you second link, dont you think that it would be worrysome to see “the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down”? Increasing temperature swings with an overall temperature increase (in centuries) is exactly what a non-political global warming scientist would predict.
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I didn’t say more CO2 was better than less. And I won’t say less is better than more. Frankly, we just don’t know what is better. What we do know is that CO2 levels have fluctuated over time as have temps. We also know that the Earth has demonstrated an ability to moderate both these levels over time. Also it might be interesting to know that higher CO2 levels have not lead to higher temps but vice versa, higher temps have lead to higher CO2 levels.
And of course there was more CO2 in the atmosphere thousands of years ago and the geological data proves this. We aren’t just looking at the time from the Industrial revolution. We have had, over the Earth’s history, eruptions and other cataclysmic events that have caused more CO2 to enter the atmosphere than man has created since the beginning of time.
I do agree a decade is not significant but neither is a hundred or a thousand years. Temps on the Earth have had normal fluctuations generally moderated by the Earth’s own atmosphere and probably caused by solar activity.
And I do agree we should do what we can. I am for conservation and against polluting the atmosphere but part of doing what we can is to continue to study and to continue to debate what is actually happening. It is the zealots who want to end the debate and close the door to more understanding of global temps.
As to polar bears I said pops were increasing and mostly in the warmer climates. That isn’t incongruous with what you wrote. My statement didn’t conclude that all pops were increasing just that overall pop growth was increasing. And as to hunting the polar bear being the cause of the turnaround, it begs the question that perhaps hunting was the cause of the decline too. And that global warming has had nothing to do with the so called decline in pops.
As to the link from the founder of the weather channel, first, higher gas prices were due to rampant speculation but some of that speculation was due to the global warming debate in this country which was holding up off shore drilling and/or opening up other areas to drilling. When W said we would contemplate opening more areas to drilling, both on and off shore, leaving that up to the states, oil prices started their tumble.
Next, you seem to have little or no problem with the chilling effect on research his paper speaks about. You seem to have little or no problem with scientists being wrongly claimed to be in the alarmist camp when they aren’t. You have little or no problem with the alarmist ducking debate over such an important subject. Global warming to some means no less than the survival of man-kind and to others cap and trade means a severe blow to our economy which can hardly be expected to survive another major blow.
According to Global Warming poster boy, Al Gore, the one ducking debate, the debate is over. He doesn’t want any scrutiny of any of his claims. I’ll take the weather channel guy over Al Gore any time.
Oh, and I know Al got a Nobel prize but did you know so did the guy who invented the lobotomy? Maybe Al should get a lobotomy or maybe he already has.
Anyway this shouldn’t be a debate over doing nothing or something. It is over what is prudent to do, what we can afford to do and what is necessary to do.