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jewunit said:
I'm kind of surprised to see so many against global warming being true. I've always just kind of accepted that it is and gone on with my life. Call me ignorant for not looking into it more, but I never even realized until lately that it was such a split topic.

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Viveka said:
The whole point is that it's not "pretty simple stuff". Remember "Global Warming" isn't simply about the planet warming or not. The Global Warming debate has to do with determining causes and deciding what protocols should be enacted to control those causes. The problem is that any solution assumes that an untestable hypothesis is correct. Look at Kyoto for instance. Kyoto dictates that Annex I countries, such as the US, must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% below their 1990 levels sometime between 2008 and 2012. Since CO2 is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas, we'll consider that specifically. Realize that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only about 3% of the total produced on Earth, and then calculate what 5% of 3% is and you'll see that even if Kyoto were fully implemented by every nation, it would only have an incredibly minimal impact on total CO2 present in the atmosphere. And this would all be done to minimally reduce a predicted 1.4 degree C rise in temperature in the next 100 years. But that's not even the biggest problem with Kyoto. The biggest problem is that Kyoto makes plenty of assumptions that cannot be tested, for instance that increased CO2 is the cause of warming. This cannot be proven or even tested. There are lots of other problems with the Kyoto protocol "solution", but I won't get into those right now.

Do you realize that in order to believe the Global Warming argument is "pretty simple stuff", you have to make a tremendous amount of assumptions and not even consider a multitude of things that could potentially affect climate? A fact by itself, such as the global average temperature in 2007 (assuming it's measured accurately), means nothing.

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Ok. When lots of facts are put together, one can draw interpretations. Facts do mean things.

I'm not going to bother explaining why everything you've written is wrong. But I've heard this 3% it regurgitated from another shroomery member, so I decided to search for it.

Then I found this site. http://reasic.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/global-warming-myths-exposed-part-three/
Scroll to the bottom. It will show you why you're wrong. Read it.

The lies originate here. http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html While some of the figures are possibly right, the conclusions drawn from the are wrong and downright misleading. It's easy to just look at a specific set of numbers, draw conclusions to promote your personal agenda, and publish them in a crappy website for people like you to read.

Here's a legit site, explaining the truth. The Department of Energy.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

I got this image from the DOE site.

Sure, the amount of C02 released by plants, the soil, and the ocean dwarfs the amount released by humans. But, by every study ever done, the amount of C02 removed from the atmosphere by the ocean, plants, and the soil exceeds the amount they produce - only by a small margin though. It's not enough to offset the amount of C02 produced by humans.

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Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are naturally regulated by numerous processes collectively known as the “carbon cycle” (Figure 2). The movement (“flux”) of carbon between the atmosphere and the land and oceans is dominated by natural processes, such as plant photosynthesis. While these natural processes can absorb some of the net 6.1 billion metric tons of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions produced each year (measured in carbon equivalent terms), an estimated 3.2 billion metric tons is added to the atmosphere annually. The Earth’s positive imbalance between emissions and absorption results in the continuing growth in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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What you skeptics don't seem to understand, is that C02 concentrations are cumulative. Every year we are putting more and more C02 in the atmosphere that can't processed by the natural ecosystem. Even if anthropogenic C02 emissions are only 3% of the total produced on earth, the atmospheric concentration grows and becomes huge when it is compounded yearly. And that is just C02, only one of the greenhouse gases we produce.

If you quit being so gullible and do some research, this whole global warming thing would be a lot simpler than you think.

The fact is that I have the experts on my side. If an overwhelming majority of auto mechanics have an intuition that I have a bad wheel bearing on my car, then I sure-as-shit would believe them. When an overwhelming majority of scientists and meteorologists believe we are warming the earth, then I sure-as-shit believe them. They've heard every counter argument you can give, and still stand firm that we are the cause of warming. Does that say anything to you?

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The Earth’s positive imbalance between emissions and absorption results in the continuing growth in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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No way! You must be a hippie or something. You can't fool me I watch FoxNews.

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For the sake of making you job easier, we'll just assume that the warming we are seeing, regardless of whether humans are largely to blame or not, is a bad thing, or something that humans should attempt to stave off by intervening somehow.

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I want you to understand that I can't "prove" anything to you. I can show you why something is logically true, but that doesn't necessarily suffice as a proof.

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I will show why global warming is a bad thing -- not now. What bothers me here, is that you make global warming sound like it's not caused by humans at all.

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We aren't collectively "intervening" -- we are halting activities, which we are the direct cause of global warming.

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Next week I'll continue where we left off.

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Viveka said:

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I will show why global warming is a bad thing -- not now. What bothers me here, is that you make global warming sound like it's not caused by humans at all.

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I'm simply saying we don't know. Logic might suggest that we are, but logic is far from infallible. In this case, it is not even possible for logic to encompass the scope of the problem and all of the factors involved.

And what's good for planet Earth anyway? Aren't we really talking about what's good for us? The two go hand, that is, the closer the Earth remains to it's current relative stasis, the better for us, or so we assume. And attempting to alter the current flow of human behavior, such as restricting GHG emissions, is clearly done with the assumption that we know not only what that relative stasis is, but also exactly what must be done to maintain it. Massive assumptions.

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Truthiness, sir. I'm fighting for truthiness.

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Kickle said:

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Viveka said:

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I will show why global warming is a bad thing -- not now. What bothers me here, is that you make global warming sound like it's not caused by humans at all.

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I'm simply saying we don't know. Logic might suggest that we are, but logic is far from infallible. In this case, it is not even possible for logic to encompass the scope of the problem and all of the factors involved.

And what's good for planet Earth anyway? Aren't we really talking about what's good for us? The two go hand, that is, the closer the Earth remains to it's current relative stasis, the better for us, or so we assume. And attempting to alter the current flow of human behavior, such as restricting GHG emissions, is clearly done with the assumption that we know not only what that relative stasis is, but also exactly what must be done to maintain it. Massive assumptions.

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Well said. I'm of the opinion that the world will survive with or without us. This is more about preserving humans, than the world. I'm just afraid that the way things are currently going, we'll only make it worse for ourselves.

We have a lot of problems aside from global warming.

And Joker, aren't we all after the truth? But I certainly don't presume to know it.

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