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| Re: Weather Channel Founder Blasts Gore, Blames Him for Economic Woes (327071) | |||
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Re: Weather Channel Founder Blasts Gore, Blames Him for Economic Woes |
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Posted by JPC on Fri Jun 13 16:36:49 2008, in response to Weather Channel Founder Blasts Gore, Blames Him for Economic Woes, posted by Mitch45 on Fri Jun 13 15:02:55 2008. The scientific claims made here are junk, absolute junk.The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. This is true, this is absolutely true. Let me illustrate. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000 only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t. Bullshit. I'll give you a glass of water. 38 out of 100,000 molecules will be of ricin, or dioxin, or arsenic trioxide, or any of several dozen other poisonous compounds I can name. Yes, trace quantities of any of them. As the above passage implies, what can trace quantities do? Nothing, of course, nothing at all. But trace quantities of any of these will surely kill you. FACT: during human history the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased enormously, from about 250 ppm before civilization to 380 ppm today. That's a significant difference. Nobody, nobody, nobody, disputes the fact that CO2 levels have increased significantly. FACT: Global temperatures today are somewhat higher (0.5-1 degree C) than they were in previous centuries (while the range of natural variation in temperature is significantly larger than this change, the rate at which this change has occurred, i.e. number of degrees shift per year) is alarming). Nobody disputes this fact, either. Now, the author is correct to point out that there is a difference between a correlation and a direct causation between the above two FACTS, he also makes it sound as if connecting the two were some great mystery, as if Al Gore just pulled two random facts out of his ass and said they were related. This is absolutely not the case. Simply put, there are a number of gases (the most important of which in the earth's case are water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane) which are largely transparent to the visible light received from the sun but less so to the infrared rays which are emitted back into space by the earth. It doesn't take an Einstein to realize that it is entirely plausible that an increase in atmospheric concentration of any of these gases makes it more difficult for the earth to radiate received solar energy back into space. Thus the earth's temperature (which is set by equilibrating the amount of energy received from the sun with the amount that the earth radiates into space) goes up. The problem is NOT that nobody understands this mechanism, or that any serious scientist doubts that it occurs. It does; the planet Venus is living (or nonliving) proof of this. The issue is that there are many competing factors playing off one another. Some of them result in negative feedback (i.e. increased water vapor in the atmosphere means more clouds, which reflect incident sunlight back into space, lowering the earth's temperature), some have positive feedback (increase in ocean temperature causes more CO2 dissolved in seawater to be released into the atmosphere, increasing the earth's temperature some more, which in turn causes more dissolved CO2 to be emitted...), and sorting all the factors out is a great endeavour. Do the negative feedback loops beat out the positive feedback loops? This is what is not obvious. However, most of the models currently indicate that at least some of the currently observed temperature increase is due to manmade factors. (Most models which correctly predict the earth's climate fail to do so when the manmade factors are omitted.) Long story short, even the most skeptical point of view is essentially this: ''We just don't know. There are too many variables to sort out. Maybe carbon emissions significantly affect our climate, perhaps they do not. There is a very plausible mechanism by which they can, although our data is not good enough to accurately determine whether it does or not.'' That is grounds, at the very least, for great caution. Even if we don't go the most radical extremes to curb carbon emissions, it should certainly give us great pause, and at least try to prevent future growth in emissions, and try to reasonably roll back emissions while researching alternatives. Imagine getting in your car, putting the key in the ignition, and then thinking that you may or may not have secured the seatbelt on the car seat for your baby. Nobody in their right mind would drive off and think, ''Well, I probably secured the seat, so it's okay for me to drive off.'' You would stop whatever you're doing, and make sure the baby is safely secured. That's what any sane person would do. |
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