Today’s New York Times features a story that may not shock you, but should concern us all:
According to internal reports dating back to 1995, scientists working for the Global Climate Coalition, an industry-sponsored group set up to wage a lobbying and public relations war against global warming action, were telling their bosses that human-caused global warming could not be refuted. But, that didn’t stop industry lobbyists from waging a cynical campaign to undermine the science and cloud the debate.
Read the full story here.
Americans were outraged a decade ago when cigarette makers made similar claims about the evidence linking smoking and lung cancer. And then we discovered reams of damning research hidden away in tobacco company vaults.
The only real difference between then and now is that global warming stands to threaten more than just people — millions of species face extinction, entire ecosystems altered beyond recognition, the natural world as we know it today irreparably diminished.
13 Comments
There are many sources of atmospheric CO2 gas. Listed in descending order of volumn they are the following:
1. Volcanos.
2. Seismic activities on land and under the sea. As an example of this Yellowstone Park has more than 10,000 continuously active sources of CO2 and other gases.
3. Decomposition of vegetative materials both on land and in oceans, lakes, ponds and rivers.
4. Microscopic organisms in the soil and in oceans, lakes, ponds and rivers.
5. Every bird, animal and aquadic animal.
6. All the activities of mankind including breathing.
Mankind’s contribution to greenhouse gas production is MINISCULE! It is a fraction of one per cent. To think that a reduction of the CO2 produced by the activities of mankind could have a profound effect on the climate is simply absurd.
All mankind’s production of CO2 could stop tomorrow and the world would not notice any difference at all.
I agree with Michael66 above about the many sources of CO2. Also, nature has ways of healing when things go wrong or are not right.
An article in the April 22 issue of Nature has been quoted on many sites because it states that plants absorb CO2 better under atmospheric pollution that they do under clear sky sunlight. It seems that the gray skies help them absorb more CO2 than they do otherwise.
Since plants give off oxygen as well as absorb CO2, this might be a way of nature dealing with and correcting an abnormal condition. Anyway, this last sentence is just a thought that I had.
Nature article:
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090422/full/news.2009.384.html
I can’t believe the comments from Michael66 and K.C. Weber. Join the rest of the world and get informed. The effects of mankind’s activities have everything to do with the excessive warming that is melting out glaciers and ice caps. Nature cannot fix what nature did not cause. We need to take responsibility for our excess and throw away mentality and clean up our act. Burying your head in the sand will not make things better, unless you keep it there, in that case not contributing to excess CO2 production.
Michael66 – you have data to support your rather extraordinary list?
No, you don’t.
We’ve been collecting data on this for some time, and while it is a very complex subject there are things that we do know:
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas (known this for 100 years)
2) We have increased the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by 30% by burning billions of tons of oil and gas (surprise)
3) This is enough to warm the planet
4) To a 95% level of certainty (climate is complicated statistical stuff) we are ALREADY seeing this warming
5) Warming will continue and it will be a problem
Fortunately, fixing it will not be too difficult. We can do it.
Quentin
I find comments like the ones made by quentinp interesting. While claiming that people like Michael66 and myself are ignorant of data and facts, quentinp is showing ignorance.
Lets take volcanoes for instance. Science tells us that just one volcanic eruption spews more CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere than mankind has in the entire history of mankind. That’s more than 30 %. As quentinp says, “Surprise!”
As far as the Earth healing itself, in just a short time all of this CO2 from the volcanic eruption has been taken care of by things like rain and other cleansing ways that the Earth heals itself and cleans the atmosphere. In a short period of time this CO2 is gone, and also the once dead volcano is now teaming with life, plants and animals, where ash and death had been just after the eruption.
If you take each topic that Michael66 lists and look it up in science books, you will find what he says to be true.
Come on Michael66. Every time climate change doubters pop up they use totally inaccurate or false data. People emit 130 times more CO2 than a volcano. And I will show my source — The U.S. Geological Survey.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
OK. Politically I am mostly with the tree huggers. We need to get off oil, we need to reduce smog, we need to reduce the footprints we leave on the earth.
My trouble is that the tree huggers always point to the fact that the earth is getting warmer as the proof that it is man made.
The argument seems to be that: Man exists, the earth is getting warmer, ergo Man is the cause.
Call it what you will, but that is not science.
We need to become better stewards of the planet. But are folks really so dumb that we have to ignore scientific objectivity to justify those actions?
John Gray is quite right. While it is fine to take action to reduce the use of the finite fossil fuel resources and to reduce our dependence on countries that are not our friends, it is wrong to use bad science to justify it.
Correlation does not prove causation. In fact there is good evidence that historical increases in carbon dioxide FOLLOW (lag) periods of increasing temperature (e.g. Petit et.al. published in “Nature” in June 1999).
The global warming models are crude and limited. They claim to forecast climate while we cannot forecast weather. If climate forecasting is so much easier that weather forecasting, then where are the results from past forecasts that match present reality?
If, as is likely, some global warming is in our future, it will not be fixed by shutting down power plants. Since we can’t stop it, we should put our efforts into dealing with the potential consequences. Relocation from coastal areas, etc. This will require more energy, not less.
Volcanoes aren’t the problem (who told you that??)
http://www.grist.org/article/volcanoes-emit-more-co2-than-humans
Fixing it could save us money over today (and vast sums over letting the planet warm):
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/big_picture_solutions/knoblochtestimony.html
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/eia-analysis-shows-res-is-doable-affordable-0228.html
Logic doesn’t go it’s warming so it must be us, it goes from properties of CO2 that were discovered more than 100 years ago. Here is a great view of the relative impacts of different factors:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publications/brochures/COP6.pdf
Hope this helps
Quentin
“The global warming models are crude and limited. They claim to forecast climate while we cannot forecast weather. If climate forecasting is so much easier that weather forecasting, then where are the results from past forecasts that match present reality?”
This is one of the most basic mistakes that people new to the subject make. Climate is not weather and weather is not climate. I suspect that where ever you got this forecasting parallel from someone was trying to mislead you. Unfortunately there is a lot at stake and some people are unscrupulous.
Forecasting climate and weather is like trying to predict where the average of all baseballs hit in a season go, and where the NEXT ball will go. Weather is the next ball (very hard to predict), climate is the average over the season (much easier, though still tough).
The real question is can we find a way in which CO2 will NOT warm the planet? We know that it SHOULD because it is a greenhouse gas and we added 1/3 as much to the atmosphere, but can we get away with it for some reason? Unfortunately (inconveniently) there is no known mechanism for letting us off the hook. The denialists have tried (lenticular clouds!! cosmic rays!!) but the data isn’t there. CO2 is doing what we always (from 100 years ago) thought that it would do.
The good news is that fixing it will be very very cheap and may even be free. (and certainly an order of magnitude cheaper than sitting on our hands)
The bad news is that we need to move before the rest of the world fixes it for us and sends us the tab – by means of trade tariffs. Much better that we develop the jobs and savings ourselves, and sell the products and services to them.
Quentin
“As far as the Earth healing itself, in just a short time all of this CO2 from the volcanic eruption has been taken care of by things like rain and other cleansing ways that the Earth heals itself and cleans the atmosphere. In a short period of time this CO2 is gone, and also the once dead volcano is now teaming with life, plants and animals, where ash and death had been just after the eruption.”
CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades. Even if it rains.
Quentin
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