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Good News on Global Warming
TheSync writes "OK, CO2 levels are rising, but iAfrica has a report that atmospheric methane concentrations are leveling off. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas, accounting for one fifth of total warming. Researchers don't know why this is."
The problem with all this is that scientists are NOT united in accepting that man is responsible for the temperature going up. Small things like volanic emissions and the variability of the sun have MAJOR affect on our environment.
Things just aren't THAT simple!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
That's because global warming is junk science.
Is it happening? We don't know for sure.
Should it be happening? Maybe.
Was it even warmer last millenium? Could be.
If there is global climate change, is it our fault? Perhaps.
So what should be done? Throttle all industrial production for first-world nations, and leave third-world nations exempt.
Riiiiiiight...makes sense to me.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Researchers don't know why this is.
Right. And until they have a solid, convincing theory to account for this 'why', then we've only got (at best) a correlation between the two events - this does not necessarily mean there is a causal relationship between them.
Trouble is, this is such a politicized issue that I doubt we'll ever see any scientific evidence that everyone will consider convincing (for one side or the other).
You sound a bit like an automobile tycoon in the 70s saying: "There's no proof that exhaust emissions cause smog! And besides, cutting our cars' fuel consumption or cleaning up emissions is expensive and is going to hurt our competitive edge!"
Riiiiiiight...makes sense to me.
I'm not so concerned with the global warming/cooling. I think that all sane people will agree that it is now cooler than when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, warmer than the mini-ice age.
What I am concerned about, however, are things like mercury in fish, which acts as a neurotoxin in humans that eat it.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Actually, its both sides who are playing fast and loose with the facts. One of the things that still irks me to no end, is hearing some enviromentalist go off about how the global temperature has raised so much in the past century. While this is technically true, it ignores the fact that for the first part of the 20th century there was a slight decline in temperature, then the Global Pacific Occilation hit, circa mid-70's, and since then, there has only been a slight increse in global temperature. However, most envromentalists, don't see fit to inform people of this detail. Instead, they just smooth over this natural occurance, and use it to justify thier position.
Fact is, there has been some warming in the past century. Part of this is probably anthropogenic in nature, but you also have to keep in mind that we were comming out of a little ice age at the end of the 19th century, and that the GPO happened in the middle of the data set, which throws it all out of whack, and don't forget that recent studies have shown that solar output had been incresing slowly. While all of these factors together may not account for all of the warming seen in the 20th century, they do account for a good part of it.
This isn't to say that we should abandon all clean air policies. Quite the contrary, we should be working to make the air cleaner (have you ever seen LA in the summer, when the wind isn't blowing?) But, we should at least try and base the arguments on more than Global Warming, which is so poorly understood. Also, blaming one gas so heavily (CO2) is rather dumb, there is a lot more to it than that, but this is what gets center stage, and gets the research dollars.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Historic volcanic eruptions can't even compete with human emissions of sulfur dioxide. That's how important we are. (If you don't believe me, look at DOE and EPA figures for sulfur emissions vs. recent volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo or El Chicon. If you actually think rather than hold blindly to an ideology, you will find it sobering.)
And you use this as a reason to continue a vast, uncontrolled experiment with possibly dire consequences. Why?An analogy is to claim that you ought to glue yourself into a winter coat because it was cold last month. If it turns out to be hot tomorrow (solar activity continues to increase), the coat (extra greenhouse gases) could kill you from heatstroke. This is the kind of risk we're taking.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Yes, the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor.
The most important _anthropogenic_ greenhouse gases are (in order) CO2, CH4, N2O, then in lesser amounts HFCs, SF6, PFCs, etc. (And tropospheric O3, but we only indirectly produce that...)
Of course, the point is that increases of temperature due to the increased radiative forcing due to the increase in CO2 and CH4 will lead to more evaporation and therefore more water vapor in the air. Mmm, positive feedback loops.
Of course, it is more complicated than that, because more water vapor means more clouds. And more clouds sometimes means more cooling during the day, but more warming during the night. Depending on the altitude of the clouds. People disagree on the magnitude of this feedback (and sometimes even whether it is positive or negative).
And of course, particulate emissions can impact cloud formation. As well as having a direct climate impact through reflection/absorption (depending on whether they are sulfate based or black carbon based).
Complicated enough yet?