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Wow. Talk about crazy biases in the news you read. Only about 7% of coal is used to make steel. We could bankrupt a majority of the coal producers and still have plenty of coal to make steel. Only in your twisted little head is anyone trying to eliminate all coal production.

Oh, shoot, you're right, I "just" inverted China and India :)
http://www.manicore.com/anglai...
China is already way above the allowed emission per capita (compared to existing CO2 sinks), India is just a the correct level.

Also, why "forget" about electric vehicles for [lots of people]? Just some hand-waving to avoid thinking about obvious solutions?
Perhaps nobody told you that France is a world leader in nuclear power?

Nuclear power doesn't look too good in France : the new EPR plant is a botched job in 3 different countries, old unsecure powerplants are still running, young engineers aren't interested to work in this field and Areva probably will have to layoff many employees.
Cars need a fuckton of energy, and if you want to provide it via electricity, you'd need twice the amount of nuclear powerplants that France has.
Forget about it.
Sure, cars could be half as big, have less power and be used more efficiently. It might make sense then, but only then, to have some electric cars. But it also won't magically save Paris from a shitload of environmental and social problems.
If you want some more information :
http://www.manicore.com/anglai...

I would like to see a calculation of how much CO2 is emitted by uploading a photo compared to, say, driving to the grocery store.

The calculation would take the CO2 emitted by powering the servers, divided by the number of users of the servers, divided by the number of photos a user is expected to upload over a given time period.

I would imagine that heating your home or driving would be much worse, and the time spent uploading the photos would be better for the environment than driving to the movies. But this is speculation until someone does the calculations.

This link may help:
http://www.manicore.com/anglai...

The Meadows & al. report is probably, just like the IPCC report on climate change today, among these documents that 99% of the people that quote them never read, given the quantity of conclusions supposedly included in this paper that are not found once it is read. ... In short, this "famous" report, that some accuse today of having all possible flaws because no disaster happened yet (!), is nothing else than a scientific paper a little long, presenting the research work that was done to build a model, use it, and the results obtained.

Why doesn't anyone want to talk about the known increase in solar radiation over the last 30 years?

Because there isn't one. See here. Solar irradiance has been on average flat since 1960, although there were some ups and down until the mid-1980s, after which it's definitely been quite flat on average. (By flat I mean the trend; there's the usual 11-year solar cycle oscillation too.) If anything there's been a very slight decrease over the last 30 years.

AFAIK, we don't have numbers going back any further, but it seems fairly obvious that if there is more solar radiation entering the earths atmosphere, the climate will change.

We do have numbers going back further, although they're pre-satellite, and if you go even further back they become indirect (inferred from counting sunspots and such).

The fact is, the average amount of solar radiation entering the Earth's atmosphere has changed very little over the last 30 years. Even if you ignore the greenhouse effect, increases in solar irradiance are far too small to produce the observed warming.

Maybe we won't run out of oil because it isn't really made from dead trees and dinosaurs.

Ok, not only is that a totally crackpot theory, but it's also irrelevant. Our estimates of how much oil there is aren't based on adding up how many dead trees and dinosaurs we think there used to be. They're based on going all over the world and digging for oil and seeing how often we find it. How the oil got there doesn't matter to our measurements of how much is there now.

The oil companies have a massive financial interest in how much oil is left. I can assure you, they have studied this question thoroughly from every angle, even more than the scientific community has.

All the problems with non-biogenic oil formation theories aside, it's possible to tell the difference between organic and non-organic carbon sources by looking at isotopic ratios. Oil is made of organic carbon. (That's one of the several lines of evidence which tell us that the excess carbon now in the atmosphere is due to our burning of fossil fuels, by the way.)

I've been meaning to find some numbers, but I have a hard time understanding the amount of decaying organic matter necessary to create the 80+ million barrels/day of oil pumped from the ground in 2005. I know were talking about geologic time scales here, so I'd be interested in seeing some numbers about how many trees and dinos that adds up to.

This overview has some numbers.

I'd also be interested to find out how trees and dinos ended up 10k+ feet below the surface of the earth. Some of these are 35k+ feet (7+miles) deep.

You can build up a lot of material on top of it over 500 million years. Also, rock is porous. Oil sinks.

I doubt there were many trees or dinosaurs on Hyperion or Titan, 2 of Saturns moons. Yet, they have pools of hydrocarbons,

"Hydrocarbons" aren't always oil; the pools on Titan are things like methane and ethane, which are formed by chemical reactions in Titan's atmosphere. Hydrocarbons exist even in comets and interstellar dust, but they're not oil.

I'm just concerned that global warming is really another scam to take more of my money in the form of taxes to "save the earth".

Sheesh, lay off the conspiracy theories. Scientists don't get together in a back room and decide what scam to cook up next. There is plenty of legitimate scientific evidence, starting from basic atom-light physics and conservation of energy, and working up to our understanding of atmospheric and ocean circulation.

If I remember correctly, when I was a kid, the big fear was we we

This is where we start to understand that our species has performed a fantastic "power breakthrough" when domesticating fossil fuels : with 1 euro (which is about 1 dollar, Wall Street specialist will excuse me to concentrate on magnitudes), I can buy 1 litre of petrol (or gas), that contains about 10 kWh of energy, which is about the equivalent of two "slaves" working for a full day. And oil would be expensive ?

This is where we start to understand that our species has performed a fantastic "power breakthrough" when domesticating fossil fuels : with 1 euro (which is about 1 dollar, Wall Street specialist will excuse me to concentrate on magnitudes), I can buy 1 litre of petrol (or gas), that contains about 10 kWh of energy, which is about the equivalent of two "slaves" working for a full day. And oil would be expensive ?

http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/plate.html I eat good organic meat from the neighbourhood once a week, just because I was fed up to eat bad chicken/pork in every salad/sandwich/meal I had.

Sounds you didn't take time to read those articles. I'll put them once again: http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/plate.html http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/quota_GHG.html

Sounds you didn't take time to read those articles. I'll put them once again: http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/plate.html http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/quota_GHG.html

No offense meant, but I think you should read some more articles!

http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/plate.html
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/quota_GHG.html

Those are a good start ;)

BTW, neither nuclear, nor solar nor wind power are *carbon neutral*.

You think technology will save us and prevent us from changing our lifestyle?
Nope, (at least if we hear you), because consuming better will give us the impression that we can consume more!

No offense meant, but I think you should read some more articles!

http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/plate.html
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/quota_GHG.html

Those are a good start ;)

BTW, neither nuclear, nor solar nor wind power are *carbon neutral*.

You think technology will save us and prevent us from changing our lifestyle?
Nope, (at least if we hear you), because consuming better will give us the impression that we can consume more!

Guys, please don't mod up factually incorrect statements:
The problem is that the US is NOT the biggest CO2 emissions maker in the world, that title belongs to China, and India is right behind it. Yet they were exempted from almost ALL the restrictions that would have been placed on us!

See here: The first google hit I found, with nice graphs and everything.

Choice quote: "The "big bad boys" regarding greenhouse gases are without any doubt the Americans : not only their country is the first emitter in the world, but they are also on the podium for the emissions per person, and the latter is still rising!"

First on the models and greedy scientists : How can we know what will happen later on ? (is this the link you were searching ?) :

Sorry, this wasn't the link I was looking at, although I'd have to say they are all very interesting.
And I don't think I made a generalization about scientists being greedy.
I know what they are doing has benefit, but when claims are made that are IMO, and alot of other peoples opinions, unjustified and self serving, I'll certainly say so.
I do this at work to (on a much smaller scale :)). I'm confident I'll have a certain programming problem resolved, and all of a sudden the evil Testing Department will prove to me otherwise.
On the subject of trusting climat models http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/trust_model.html
I think they are very honest about what could be problems with their models, and I think even you will have to admit that these could radically affect the accuracy of current models.
I'll try to thoroughly read everything on that site, but there's a lot of it, and other responsibilities get in the way. :)
BTW, my choice is never permanently made, it's always subject to my own and other's criticism and as such get's continually refined.
And I wouldn't have it any other way... :)

But even If carbon emissions are as bad as the IPCC says they are, I don't think there is a chance that we can appreciably cut them.

But even If carbon emissions are as bad as the IPCC says they are, I don't think there is a chance that we can appreciably cut them.

But even If carbon emissions are as bad as the IPCC says they are, I don't think there is a chance that we can appreciably cut them.

But even If carbon emissions are as bad as the IPCC says they are, I don't think there is a chance that we can appreciably cut them.

Well. If it's so easy to stretch a model, why the "honests" scientists haven't be able to show us a model that correctly simulate past observations, and yet doesn't come to the same conclusions ?

And while we're at it, where are those "honests" scientists ? What actual knowledge do they have on this subject ?
Here's a hint :
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/scientists.html

Yeah, I'm quoting this site a lot, but it's because all your "arguments" are already answered there. It's a pity the english translation is a little rushed, but it's still understandable.

Now if you don't care, just say it, we'll both gain time. Enjoy the nice weather while it's here, just make sure your children don't get too accustomed to it.

As for your book suggestion, it seems very interesting and I very well could read it, so I thank you for it. But I fail to see the connection with this discussion, except that by bringing Ice Age into it you make a really good job at giving the impression you didn't read the link.

You obviously didn't read the fucking link. Here it is again : http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/gr eenhouse/only_action.html Go to the end and look at the "model" and "observations" figures. Wow, the right one reproduce the real observations. Theses figures comes from the IPCC :http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/g reenhouse/IPCC.html Could you explain me how sensationalism is supposed to help them ? And before giving any answer, take into account that even the USA is a member of the IPCC. And do read at least this quote from the link : Before being published and declared "official reports" of the IPCC, these assessment reports are explicitely approved by the full assembly of the member countries, where representatives are generally competent - but not always - in science. Up to this day, all the assessment reports of the IPCC have been unanimously approved by the member countries, including by the USA, or by Saudi Arabia.

So what I'm saying is: I'm willing to be convinced, but it'll take a lot of work.

  When are people going to accept the fact that the Earth goes in cycles? There have been and will be ice ages and warming cycles regardless of what humans do.

Hopefully by that time we will have established self sustaining colonies in space and on the Moon and other planets. Only by getting humans off the planet will survival be better assured.

Okey, the Kyoto protocol is about the CO2 balance, but of course only the part that human behaviour can affect. It is a human decision to burn oil and coal, or to plant new trees. The natural part of the carbon cycle which was already there before mankind started burning dinosaurs doesn't count for the political decisions that have to be made now.

But what about Methane which is a much more potent greenhouse gas?

Methane contributes strongly to the greenhouse effect; but the difference with CO2 is that it has a residence time of 12 years. So once you figure out how to stop cows from burping, its greenhouse contribution will disappear in a couple of years.

On the other hand, CO2 has a residence time of around 100 years. That means that you have to work much harder to lower its greenhouse contribution. Instead of undoing the last 12 years of production as with methane, you have to compensate for the CO2 production in the last 100 years!

Reference: What are greenhouse gases? (I googled for "residence time co2 climate" )

Considering that we didn't start measuring the biggest hole, over Antartica, until 1970, that's a huge jump to say that we know for certain the hole was man-made.

We also have excellent models for the mechanisms of ozone destruction, including laboratory verification of catalysis on the surfaces of droplets and ice crystals. If you don't think that this meets the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, let alone a preponderance of the evidence, is there anything that could possibly convince you? Anything?

I accept something as a fact when the evidence in its favor is such that it is unreasonable not to. Ozone depletion is one of those things.

I suggest you read this page first.

He may even write to mislead. Looking at that page, I notice a hugely incorrect graph about halfway down. It's titled "Atmospheric sources of chlorine", which is misleading for two reasons:

1. What gets into the atmosphere is irrelevant; what matters is what gets to the stratosphere.
2. Most of those sources emit chloride, not CFCs or even elemental chlorine.

Don't believe me? Here's the graph of CFC-11 concentration, (see the bottom of the page) and this page (tables 4, 5 and 6) details the reasons why the statements made by Hogan are wrong.

But hey, if you want to follow an ozone-depletion denialist or a platygean I can't stop you. But I will point at you and laugh at every opportunity.

I don't own a car, I make a point of not owning one but how do you convince Mr Tinyknob in his suv-sports-environment killer to drive something fuel efficient?
It's nice to see I'm not the only one! But judging by how many people keep telling me I should get one, I can understand how hard it would be to convince other people to care.
By the way, for people who can read French, this site has a lot of interesting information and numbers about the subjet.

... but Danmark is one of the biggest European greenhouse gas emitter per inhabitant (4 tons CO2 equiv.). See Greenhouse gas emission per inhabitant 1990-1998.

Of course, winds don't blow constantly, so you have to rely on additional energy source when there is no sufficient wind. This additional energy source cannot be nuclear since you can't increase nuclear production on short notice. So you end up using fossile energy plants which release a lot of greenhouse gas :-(