QUOTE(Somey @ Fri 23rd July 2010, 12:38pm)
Besides, that quote above argues from a false premiss - what the scientists are actually saying is that humans contribute to the CO2 increase and therefore climate change, not "cause" it.
Depends on who you are asking - the general message has been that "climate change" is caused by humans, which, I agree, is ridiculous if you look at the historical records. It is even more ridiculous when you look at how they have environmental activists like Hansen in charge of the historical temps who have after-the-fact
"adjusted" temp records to be cooler in order to create a "warming" trend.
QUOTE
Humans only "cause" a significant increase in the rate of CO2 increase that's been observed in the last few decades...
At best we contribute about 4% of the CO2 emissions - CO2 has been going down for a very long time, IIRC mostly due to the enormous length of time it is sequestered in the oceans. This is not a good thing - most creatures on the planet have evolved at higher levels of CO2 and the levels were (apparently) getting close to the point that plant growth would've been severely retarded or stopped.
QUOTE
Moreover, if you can prove that a rise in CO2 causes a greenhouse effect (and therefore rising temps) in a micro-environment, you should be able to fairly infer such an effect in the global environment (though this is still considered debatable by skeptics, etc., possibly for good reason). So correlation is at least relevant to the problem, if not crucial.
That isn't the problem. I agree that CO2 could theoretically cause some warming, but all the catastrophic models are based entirely on theoretical positive feedbacks. Also, CO2 is masked by water vapor which means its effects should be most noticeable at the poles due to low/nil concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere and during winter and while the arctic appears to be warming, the antarctic has been cooling - the theory does not seem to stand up to the test of time (just like it hasn't warmed for 15 years).
Also, CO2's heating effects are supposed to be logarithmic, no linear increase in heat is predicted through CO2 alone, which is again why they must rely on computer models and theoretical positive feedbacks.
QUOTE
Regardless, good people don't gamble with the future of humanity by quibbling over semantics, or fiddling while Rome burns, to use the closest historical analogy; bad people (like me, apparently) do that. There's definitely something to be said for the argument that fears of global warming are used as a means of holding back progress in the underdeveloped world, though, but that's short-term (or at best, medium-term) thinking, and I personally try to do as little of that as possible.
As I said in my essay, this is similar to arguments used by the religious to con people into converting - be very afraid of the consequences because you could go to hell and burn for all eternity. The difference, of course, is that being religious (these days) isn't generally that malevolent, but the actions proposed by global warming enthusiasts will and are causing harm - millions of people are starving because the US has converted some of its food producing capacity into making biofuels.
People need to realize that theoretical lives are not worth more than actual lives.
William Connolley (and Polargeo) vs Lar, Global warming wars
