For Jeff Fink who asked about the original climate "scare" of human activity
precipitating an ice age:-
The predominant reasoning behind this was that human use of fossil fuels at
the time produced lots of micro particulates (dust and soot) plus acid gases.
Acid and micro particles can act as nuclei for clouds and ice crystals to form
which would increase the albedo of Earth and end up reflecting more solar
radiation back into space, possibly leading to increased snow and ice
precipitation and then we would have a runaway feedback effect - hence we could
have precipitated the next ice age. Concern was increased as the thought at the
time was that as we were heading towards the next ice age, that the smoky/acid
pollution would be like adding ice to the glacier (not petrol to the fire...).
All of this human created effect would be on top of the normal pollution, of
that type, from volcanoes and forest fires. A more urgent concern at the time
was the threat to the ozone layer from CFC's - another threat that was warned
about by climate scientists and environmentalists a long time before anything
was done... Hell, I was at school then and I knew the potential dangers from
aerosols and it was then that I started to doubt the "real" intelligence of
those who appeared to be educated and sophisticated. I call them trained rather
than educated.
Ironically, although I have never seen it mentioned by anyone other than
me, the acid/particulate pollution, and therefore cooling effect, from the much
larger amount of coal burnt then may have masked the warming effect from the
increasing CO2. If someone wants to take a cheap shot against environmentalists
they could try saying that our campaigning for clean air (no smoke/no acid
gases) had the unintended consequence of removing a brake upon global warming.
I truly hope no-one seriously suggests burning a lot of coal in a dirty way to
get us out of our current fix!
For R. Macaulay at the Dime Box who said:-
<<some say the earth is warming.. some say it is a natural event.. some say its
caused by pollution.. others say its volcanoes. Which somebody is correct?
Nobody seems to know.
Does anyone have a ready solution.. nope! Is anyone working on it.. nope! Why
not? >>
All are correct inasmuch as the whole greenhouse/ warming effect has many
causes. To answer your questions - lots of people know. Most reputable climate
scientists know. Earth is warming. Volcanoes contribute to the natural
greenhouse effect by spewing out CO2 into the atmosphere. Simplifying a bit,
trees and plants and coccolithophores (chalky skeleton'ed plankton) sequester
the CO2 back down again. There is a natural balance. Humans have been digging
up the sequestered carbon as coal and oil (and peat) and burning it,
simultaneously deforesting the Amazon etc. Thus we are putting CO2 back into
the air, that otherwise would not be there, faster than the Planet can
sequester it - thus we are ADDING to a natural greenhouse effect at a rate
faster than the Planet can cope with. To me this looks terribly obvious but
past experience on this forum and many other places over the years suggests to
me that this concept appears to be tremendously difficult for many people to
grasp. Any solution will be functionally similar to trying not to be so stupid
as to put one's heating on during a heat wave - how hard is that to understand?
The concern is that humans are continuing to do something they could control,
and have been warned about, that almost certainly will lead to bad things
happening. The scientific consensus has been growing and getting stronger -
this suggests we should have growing faith in the science. The current
contribution from volcanoes has been wildly overstated by the deniers but it
exists, as it always has done. A sustained period of volcanism far beyond
"average" levels would precipitate devastating climate change, as it has done
in the past without the help of humans. Large numbers of Earth's species died
out at such times because of this and other natural climate disrupting forces
(such as meteors etc) . From the record it look like Earth's climate has many
stable states some of which may indeed be preferable to the one we are in now.
Some deniers use this to say we should embrace and even deliberately exacerbate
global warming to get to one of these states where there would be far more
vegetation and fertility etc. Disastrous thinking! They conveniently leave out
that climate change tends to be almost quantum like in nature inasmuch as the
climate seems to snap from one state to another rather quickly, not gradually
as many seem to think. To get from where we are now to the "fertile paradise"
that some deniers claim we should aim for involves going through a probably
horrendous period of instability and violent changes which, as it has done in
the past, may lead to mass extinctions and certainly to the effective ending of
our current "civilisation". Surely the mere possibility of this happening is so
serious that any action should be taken to avoid it?
The solutions have been out there for decades but the great mass of humanity
has been lulled into a false sense of security by oversimple economic theories
and those irresponsible types who preach rights without responsibilities to the
great mass of humanity who unfortunately, for any solution, are voters... I do
have faith that when the population is told the truth and the siren calls of
the irresponsible deniers are muted then people's innate sense will return. I
think that, certainly in Europe, we passed this watershed moment about a year
ago - now most here are more or less convinced of the dangers and most seem
quite eager to do the right thing.
Thomas Malloy wrote:- Big oil and coal are behind increased solar irradiance
and volcanoes? I
wonder whom they paid to make that happen?
Obviously no-one, but if you have read above you now know that the problem is
the ADDITIONAL effect of humans burning fossil fuels ON TOP of any natural
sources while we simultaneously stress or destroy the ecosystems that would
normally sequester the carbon back out of the atmosphere, thus leading to an
accumulating atmospheric amount and an increasing greenhouse effect. Is this
the very last time you will ask a rhetorical question like this again Thomas?
Nick Palmer
