On Dec 23, 12:51 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > I seem to remember there was a lot more CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere > once, and isn't the oxygen only there in sufficient quantities for us > because of very long-term build-up?
It seems it was mostly CO2, until nature invented algae. I'm not sure what limits the O2, but if concentration becomes too high fire breaks out simultaneously in forests. Maybe Lovelock was always right. There is a scary logic though. Gaia only exists via necessity, and has only happened because living things happen to be here, rarely, unusually in the universe - but there is no wilful force that will somehow work it all out to preserve us to preserve the best of all possible worlds - we are temporary. It is, of course, because of the > ppm scale that the system may be at some threshold. We piss-ants, as > Lovelock reminds us, are unlikely to screw the planet, only our place > on it. I think it's likely the system is more complex than any of the > models and these are not adequate. We haven't examined the IPCC > reports, which are easily available, found what is being said about > the saturation argument and tested our understandings (not much) and > now have someone aboard who has thrown in an old Dilbert joke on > expansion into the fray. > If you ain't careful Chaz, you'll sound like one of those dreadful ex- > commies who write 'Darkness at Noon' whilst raping friends' wives, or > the child who has just realised Santa Claus is an abuser. I know just > what you mean though - pretty much everything put in front of us to > believe in turns to rat shit, yet we seem to queue up for more. I had a lot of respect and sympathy for an idealised version of Marxian politics when I was younger, but that was due to the fact I was so deprived. Despite me denying the numerous warnings that I would loose my left leanings when I got older - here I am, an ex-commie. I don't do rape though, but I always knew that Santa was dubious. As for writing, my style and interest would be closer to "The Sleepwalkers". > The IPCC should have opened the case up for world-wide public scrutiny > and put together some decent opportunities for pro and sceptic to get > their arguments out so we didn't end up with loads of old wives' tales > and Newsnight ninnies getting in the way of what was really being > said. It has failed completely, which I say with complete certainty > having only scanned most of the documentation! But it has - it hasn't > made the arguments plain, open and understandable. Nuclear, of > course, is little to put up with in comparison with a frying planet if > the small increases in ppm are actually so dangerous. Of course, if > the IPCC is right there are very traditional ways to sort it out. A > cull would work 'nicely'. I don't share your optimism for nukes though. We might have great safety standards in the west but there is no way we are going to be able to control standards in , say, Romania, where they can't even run a fucking orphanage despite being given 10 billion to sort that shit out. There was an interesting calculation done in the 1980 that instead of looking at the financial benefits of nuclear power looked at an energy use equation. It looked at the total energy consumed in extraction, refinement and transport of ore; energy used in the construction of the power station right down to the bricks and nails; the cost of maintenance; energy usage of the workers getting to and from work; decommissioning at the end of the station's life; and the safe disposal of the spent fuel. It concluded that the financial benefits relied on increasing energy costs, but that the energy used as compared to the station's output was negative. Even-though modern design cost and new standardised methods have put the calculation into the positive I still wonder how much of a solution nuclear power represents? > > On 22 Dec, 21:10, garshagu <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > what about philosophising on the ozone layer perforations, in terms of > > holding responsible the great wobbling of the earth thus sometimes > > making the poles assume relative positions that resemble the imaginary > > equator thus making the poles to get hotter. What are the comparative > > temperatures of the poles at any point in time? Have they > > simulteneously gone hotter? Has the realtive ratio remained constant? > > Now, the earth, as other planetary bodies, have been spinning for > > millions of years and generating heat of some sort (or the entire > > atmospheric thing cascadding earth for instance), i stand to ber > > corrected: don't this cummulative effect make the pannets grow or > > expand and in expanding wont gases respectively contained there-in > > increase in quantity thus lending claim to the so called CO2 increase? > > After all physicists still believe in the big bang theory - which > > implies that things are getting bigger or larger or more volumnous. We > > need more experiments to prove or disprove that earth's size, or even > > sun's size, for instance is still what it was half a million years > > ago. > > Atovigba. > > > On Dec 20, 2:44 am, chazwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I have searched in vain for any evidence that CO2 is a significant > > > greenhouse gas. > > > According to radiometric dating of Carbon isotopes it is thought the > > > the amount of CO2 has increased from 0.028% - 0,038% in the last 100 > > > years. > > > Unless Carbon has some magical properties is seems unlikely that such > > > tiny concentrations should cause any significant increase in > > > temperature, even-though it is a greenhouse gas. > > > Can any one help me find the scientific evidence? > > > I don't want to the political answer, nor the circumstantial answer, > > > nor any sceptic/denier/doubter information as I have heard it all. > > > What I want is the basic physical science of carbon that suggests that > > > a 0,01% increase can be held responsible for a proposed 1 degree > > > increase in temperature. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. 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