Global Warming....Man-made or Natural Occurence

[gregorach]

Yeah, the sulphate aerosol idea is still kicking around, and gaining traction... Funnily enough, it doesn't seem that popular in places that suffered from acid rain back in the '70s and '80s though.

The oceans are a much more significant carbon sink than forests. But if you chop down the forest, then all the carbon stored in the soil (which is vastly more than that in the actual trees) gets released. Chopping it down is a really bad idea, but protecting it and extending it probably won't actively help that much (not that it isn't a really good idea for other reasons). It's one of those situations where the only way is down.

 

[Pict]

I try to live as green as possible. Even though our electricity in Brazil is hydroelectric my house has solar hot water. It just made economic sense to install it when we built. The system paid for itself in one year.

Fossil fuels are like crack cocaine, we need to get off of them but I don't see it happening until it is economically too painful to continue. We used to burn whale oil for lighting, it won't be the first time the world has had to switch to a new fuel.

I think it is much more likely to account for the rise in temps by looking at the sun. The same warming trend we are experiencing here is also happening elsewhere in the solar system outside of mans influence. That being the case we have do our part to stop messing up a good thing, Earth.

Mars Polar Caps Melting

SUV's On Jupiter

Mac

 

[gregorach]

I think it is much more likely to account for the rise in temps by looking at the sun. The same warming trend we are experiencing here is also happening elsewhere in the solar system outside of mans influence. That being the case we have do our part to stop messing up a good thing, Earth.

Arrgghhh!

OK, Pluto, Mars, Jupiter and Triton are warming. None of the other bodies in the solar system are (that I'm aware of), and many others are cooling. Given that the temperature in any dynamic system is always going to be changing in one direction or another and there's only two possibilities, it's hardly surprising or conclusive that some other bodies are warming. If it's a solar-system wide phenomenon, why aren't all the other bodies in the system also warming?

There are alternative explanations for all of these effects. See, for example, http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html, http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html, and http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070404-mars-warming.html.

The final clincher is that we do actually have very good satellite observations of solar output (it's not particularly hard to do) and there is no trend which could account for any of these observations. (That's not to say that solar output isn't changing, just that's it's not changing anywhere near fast enough to explain these observations.) For data on solar irradiance, see here - for example, this chart.

 

[Pict]

and many others are cooling...

Citation needed. Just becuase you ask for them from others. Mac

 

[gregorach]

Uranus for one. Having trouble finding other good refs, so I'll happily withdraw the "many".

So, out of 100+ major bodies in the solar system, we have 5 warming (including the Earth) and at least 1 cooling. And still no trend in the solar irradiance data.

 

[mace242]

Current anthropogenic CO2 emissions are approximately 22.5 billion (with a B) tons per year.

Citation needed.....

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Not had time to read all the posts - but

If a man was to smoke all his life with no ill affects until he dies do we say
"all that smoke did him no harm?" or do we think he was lucky to get away with it?

All scientific data withholding imo - we are not helping - and I'm quite shore the effects of stuff we did in the past would take time to manifest. (omo)

 

[crazydave]

I think blame can be laid on our door but I also like the gaia theories that assume the planet is trying to balance us out like daisyworld.

if the planet does kill us then it serves us right for all the polution we are inflicting on it.

 

[philaw]

Here's an idea; why don't we assume that it's not safe to change the makeup of our atmosphere and err on the side of caution, because air is very important to us, we need to breath it, etc.

From there:
Why would anybody think that it's okay to change the composition of our air?
What evidence have they got?

Make your case, Bush! I'm waiting.

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Here's an idea; why don't we assume that it's not safe to change the makeup of our atmosphere and err on the side of caution, because air is very important to us, we need to breath it, etc.

That is a good starting point,

 

[gregorach]

Citation needed.....

My mistake... The latest UN Millennium Development Goals Indicators data set shows 27.2 billion for 2004, the most recent year for which data is available. I must've been looking at out-of-date data when I said 22.5.

 

[leon-1]

Not had time to read all the posts - but

If a man was to smoke all his life with no ill affects until he dies do we say
"all that smoke did him no harm?" or do we think he was lucky to get away with it?

All scientific data withholding imo - we are not helping - and I'm quite shore the effects of stuff we did in the past would take time to manifest. (omo)

Totally off topic, but a bit of fun.

If a man were to inhale from a cigarette for 10 minutes most people wouldn't bat an eyelid, but he would still get blamed for polluting the air around him.

If a man was to suck on the end of a car exhaust for ten minutes it would be a bloody miracle that he was alive for that long and nobody bats an eyelid.

 

[andy_e]

Here's an idea; why don't we assume that it's not safe to change the makeup of our atmosphere and err on the side of caution, because air is very important to us, we need to breath it, etc.

From there:
Why would anybody think that it's okay to change the composition of our air?
What evidence have they got?

Make your case, Bush! I'm waiting.

Let's stop lighting woodfires and every time you practice fire-by-friction a pixie dies

 

[gregorach]

Let's stop lighting woodfires and every time you practice fire-by-friction a pixie dies

Wood fires are more-or-less carbon-neutral over a fairly short time-scale. It's fossil fuels, land-use changes and cement manufacture that are the problems, because they release carbon that's in long-term sequestration.

 

[andy_e]

Cement manufacture?

 

[Chainsaw]

Lot of CO2 produced when it's made. High temps required to change the ingredients so that when it gets wet again it makes insoluble bonds and this high temp drives off the CO2. I seem to recall lime mortar works differently and absorbs CO2, not sure why this is as both lime based. I'm sure a scientist with a vastly superior intellect to mine will come along and explain properly, I just had a mate that worked in the Uddingston Blue Circle

Cheers,

Alan

 

[gregorach]

The manufacture of lime mortar also releases CO2, and modern Portland cement also absorbs CO2 during its (rather long) curing process. Both involve heating limestone (or more accurately, calcite, which is the mineral form of calcium carbonate - CaCO3) to drive off CO2 and form lime (calcium oxide - CaO).