Well, "no evidence" can also mean "not enough evidence," since inconclusive evidence isn't really evidence at all. Terminology.

Originally posted by spanishcaravan
Just for arguments sake,say it's not real,and there's no threat. Why should we still continue with our ways? Why not do something good for a change.

Because it hurts the economy, and people lose money. Basically, it's like this...

Clean air, or more people dying of starvation? It's unfair, but it's how you have to look at things, realistically.

Originally posted by Johnmike
Clean air, or more people dying of starvation? It's unfair, but it's how you have to look at things, realistically.

Er, what? I doubt that instituting enivonmental regulations in industries is really going to take food out of mouths.
Also aren't the pollutants being pumped into the air going to be almost as bad as starvation?

Originally posted by loam
................
Funny, I often think the same about those who are so keen on refuting the evidence with nothing more than a summary unscientific proclamation to the contrary.

Really? could you tell us how is it that the geological record has shown us that CO2 levels could be high during warm and cold events, appart from the fact that CO2 levels always lag temperatures?



There were times in the past when CO2 levels were much higher than today, yet temperatures were similar to today.

There are quite a few exmaples in Earth's history that CO2 levels increased from 4,500 ppm to 7,000 ppm, yet temperatures neither increased nor decreased.

If anything the geological record has shown us that CO2 levels are an effect of climate changes, and the changes have not always been the same.

[edit on 3-4-2007 by Muaddib]

Question. Its been repeatedly mentioned that the oceans are a huge contributor to CO2. Can someone elaborate here a bit, specifically what is the theory involved? Are the oceans being heated more or is there just large volumes of water vapor collecting that is trapping existing greenhouse gases or something else completely different.

brill

Originally posted by TheAvenger
The link below is a lecture that disagrees with anthropogenic global warming, as do I. This lecture is by Dr. Art Robinson at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. I am a scientist and a signer of the Oregon Petition.

Presumably you do agree though that Anthropogenic Climate Change is happening?

Whilst the physics tells me that increasing amounts of atmospheric CO2 should have an effect on climates (how much is open to debate), there are other human activities which we know are undoubtably having an effect, but which are conveniently overlooked or ignored ....

Originally posted by Muaddib

Really? could you tell us how is it that the geological record has shown us that CO2 levels could be high during warm and cold events

Can you tell me how you know that to be the case?

Anyway, as you well know, the sun used to be much weaker, therefore necessitating more CO2 to act as a greenhouse effect. Then of course, plants appeared and poisoned the atmosphere, completely changing its chemical composition. Meanwhile the continents kept shifting around like they were playing musical chairs, greatly changing the efficiency of the ocean/atmospheric systems to regulate global heat, causing ice caps to appear and disappear and mountains to rise and fall .... Oh and on top of that we kept getting spells of volcanicity and clathrate guns would go off or meteors hit us and ...... well you get the drift. Circumstances are always changing. Current circumstances are usnique. You can't compare like with unlike.

Besides which, on the scale of that graph you keep posting, we're currently still in the Pleistocene with CO2 levels at 180ppm and average global temp is nearer 6c than the 14c which it's supposed to be ....

[edit on 3-4-2007 by Essan]

Originally posted by brill
Question. Its been repeatedly mentioned that the oceans are a huge contributor to CO2. Can someone elaborate here a bit, specifically what is the theory involved? Are the oceans being heated more or is there just large volumes of water vapor collecting that is trapping existing greenhouse gases or something else completely different.

brill

Hi Brill,

The oceans are warming and becoming more acidic.

the oceans act as a sink for CO2, the amount dissolved in the oceans is related to temperature (as well as atmospheric concentration). Higher temperatures reduce solubility. Thus the sink has less ability to hold the dissolved CO2.

CO2 is part of a carbon cycle, CO2 is removed by certain parts of the biosphere, and emitted by others. It is usually a fair balance, but it can be affected by external variables. But overall, the oceans are a sink for CO2 - they currently absorb more than they emit, but this could change...

Another problem with the oceans and CO2 is that higher concentrations also affect pH, and pH affects the organisms in the oceans and may destroy certain ecosystems (particularly corals and other calcifying organisms).

[edit on 3-4-2007 by melatonin]

Originally posted by Essan

Originally posted by Muaddib

Really? could you tell us how is it that the geological record has shown us that CO2 levels could be high during warm and cold events

Can you tell me how you know that to be the case?

Muaddib:

I have much to say about your graph. But first, what is the source please?

I totally agree with reducing energy consumption, improving the efficiency of internal combustion engines and reducing industrial emissions to the best achieveable levels. We must also clean up toxic waste dumps.

While I don't believe that human-created CO2 emissions have had much of an effect on global warming, I don't believe in reckless disregard for the environment. Hell, At my lab I work towards improving it every day.

I am aware of many forms of pollution, and public health risks that gravely concern me. Many are not known to the general public. Some are government related. I may write a paper on one or more of these concerns one day soon. Some have very far reaching implications. I digress from my own topic however.

The legitimacy of the argument aside, can anyone tell me how a tax is going to stop global warming? Really.

Originally posted by truthseeka
The legitimacy of the argument aside, can anyone tell me how a tax is going to stop global warming? Really.

A tax isn't, changing our behaviour could have some effect.

As homo economicus, affecting our financial state can readily change behaviour. If these behaviours are related to those that the evidence suggests are contributing to current climate change, then a carbon tax is obviously one way to have an indirect effect on climate.

Originally posted by Chaoticar

Er, what? I doubt that instituting enivonmental regulations in industries is really going to take food out of mouths.
Also aren't the pollutants being pumped into the air going to be almost as bad as starvation?

wrt food: it's happening, burning foodcrops for fuel, with questionable efficiency and total distregard for ferilizer energy expenditure and side effects like land use and its effect on natural habitats.


wrt pollutants: yeah, ban mercury, ban coal fired plants without god filters, ban perflourudes, they stay in the environment forever (including your PTFE aka. Teflon), ban bottom trawling pretect the environment, but...

....what has all of this got to do with carbon dioxide??? it's harmless, for all we know, and its effect as a greenhouse gas is limited by saturation, so why focus on it?

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by truthseeka
The legitimacy of the argument aside, can anyone tell me how a tax is going to stop global warming? Really.

A tax isn't, changing our behaviour could have some effect.

As homo economicus, affecting our financial state can readily change behaviour. If these behaviours are related to those that the evidence suggests are contributing to current climate change, then a carbon tax is obviously one way to have an indirect effect on climate.

Notice you keep saying "maybe," basically. A carbon tax WILL suck more money out of people and make those imposing the tax richer. No MAYBE there.

Originally posted by truthseeka
The legitimacy of the argument aside, can anyone tell me how a tax is going to stop global warming? Really.

A tax isnt going to do anything except take money away from me and you and put in the governments hands. That is if anyone actually pays the tax in the first place. Big manufacturers and corps wont care since Washington is bought and paid for. Even if the big corps had to pay it would hardly stop their activities. If thats what all the eco-nuts are worried about. Im sure on the individual level it would hurt each of us pretty bad. We'd pay more at the pump, registration fees would go up, emissions fees would go up, auto tax would go up, the cost of public transportation would go up.

Any of these carbon taxes would only serve to limit individual freedoms as simple as mobility and the right to retain what is earned through our labor and would, on the global scale, redistribute wealth from one nation to the other.

Its global socialism with the added bonus of limiting the citizens wealth, property and mobility. Total totalitarianism right out of the NWO playbook.

Hell, in Belgium you cant even BBQ anymore without paying the man your BBQ tax. Which coincidentally they enforce with helicoptors and thermal goggles. Nope, not totalitarian control at all.

Originally posted by TheAvenger

You may say that many of these links are sponsored by big oil or whoever, but that makes the opinions of the scientists writing them no less valid.\

No actually, it does...

Think about it for a second.

Originally posted by truthseeka
Notice you keep saying "maybe," basically. A carbon tax WILL suck more money out of people and make those imposing the tax richer. No MAYBE there.

I tend not to go for 100% certainty in most things. I know from my own experience of tobacco duty that such approaches do not always have the desired effect on everyone

As for making those imposing taxes richer, I would think such approaches will be a government system, so it would put money in public coffers. I would hope such money would be fed into developing new more environmentally sound technology.

Originally posted by TheAvenger
You may say that many of these links are sponsored by big oil or whoever, but that makes the opinions of the scientists writing them no less valid. Those who write opposite opinions and views also have sponsors, and have been significantly more financially backed than those of us who are skeptics.

Given that both sides are backed by what we could easily term 'agenda driven entities', how can we trust what either side says. The fact that these entities seem to be pumping enormous volumes of cash into 'proving' their point of view also, to me at least, makes it unlikely that a concensus will be reached at any time soon. Too much has been invested already, by both parties.

In the meantime we go round and round.

Originally posted by selfless
No actually, it does...

Think about it for a second.

Especially when they are nothing more than opinions. Science happens in scientific journals, pity none of these dudes actually publish anything of note on this issue. Industry actually funds a lot of research, yet these guys seem to fail to follow the normal scientific process, and when they do, they produce tripe.

No better than biblical creationists, which I gather one of them is, heh.