Rick Monteverde wrote: > I'm sorry, I'll respond from now on only when spoken to directly. My bad.
Sorry if it sounded like I thought you shouldn't have replied; I wasn't trying to shush you! I was just saying those remarks were not directed specifically at what you said. It was nothing more than an attempt at defending myself against the accusation that I had not read your message before I disagreed with it. > There is significant evidence pointing away from the warming cause being > related to the "huge" (what, 4 tenths of a percent is it?) CO2 output we're > responsible for. Hmmm. 0.4% ... yeah, that's how much we've been boosting the CO2 level in the air ... EVERY YEAR for the last 50 years. To estimate how much CO2 will increase in the coming years, though, you need to *integrate* that value; you're looking at the derivative of the measured total level and calling it the anthropogenic change in the total CO2 generation rate. That's, at best, misleading, and at worst it's just wrong. Total CO2 level in the atmosphere is currently around 0.04%. This is 35% higher than historic levels determined from ice cores in the 1800's. So says Wikipedia; I'd guess that they're not grossly far off. They also show a chart of measurements made at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii indicating CO2 levels have risen smoothly from about 315 ppm in 1960 to about 380 ppm in 2007, which is a rise of about 20% in the last 48 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_Earth%27s_atmosphere A 20% increase in the atmospheric CO2 level in the last half-century seems pretty substantial to me. > In addition, computer models used to support it as a cause > are inherently flawed in a way that matters critically to the use of such > models to tell us anything useful about its contribution in the real world. > Additionally, we do not have the understanding needed to steer the car back > where we want it if in fact it's going off the road See above. With a 20% rise in total atmospheric CO2 in 50 years, and with the rate of increase continuing to increase (curve is concave up), we've essentially got our foot jammed all the way to the floor on the accelerator. Yes, I agree, we're lost in the weeds, but maybe it would make sense to try slowing down a little -- *before* we careen over a cliff, eh? Nobody's suggesting seeding the ocean or other pro-active things that might really whack the climate -- we're just suggesting that it would make good sense at this point to slow down the rate at which we're changing the atmosphere. We like stability, in climates at least, and whacking a climate that's obviously already warming up with a big hammer which everyone(?) agrees is likely to warm it up even more, whether "just a little" or "a whole lot", does not seem sensible. > , whether or not we > caused it to go off the road in the first place. Heck, we don't even know if > where we want it to go is the "right" place anyway. It may seem right for > us, sure, but... ? Our time and treasure, as I've pointed out before, should > not be wasted trying to comandeer that over which we have no effective > control, and instead should be directed towards planning for just being > off-road for a while. I don't understand why you seem to feel humans have no control over human-generated carbon dioxide. A beaker full of bacteria have no control over the waste products they produce, which may eventually strangle the whole colony, but humans are hopefully a little better at self-management than bacteria. > Trying to mitigate climate changes with light bulbs > and stuff is the experiment we need to scale back on. What's "experimental" about trying to reduce energy consumption? It's continuing to boost carbon dioxide levels at a rate of 0.4% per year which seems like the "big experiment" here to me. > But alternative > energy? Great idea under any circumstance for many reasons, chief among them > *real* deadly pollution (ask Jed how many die from lung disease from ICEs > every year) and political reasons of course. CO2 reduction along for the > ride? Hey, if it makes you happy then I'm happy. But there's no scientific > evidence for it deserving a significant place on the list, and I object > stongly to it being hijacked by unprincipled hacks like Al Gore as a means > to consolidate their own wealth and political power. > > - Rick
