Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

[Rajiv]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

There are factors in addition to CO2, for example, particulates and aerosols, that contribute to Global Warming. However they are mostly emitted in conjunction with CO2 emmision. If emmisions are controlled, they are short lived in the atmosphere -- and their impact on GW will rapidly reduce. However, without CO2 capture, CO2 will have an effect on GW for a much longer time.

See "Impact Study - The Atmospheric Brown Cloud : Climate and other Environmental Impacts"

[Guest]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

What do we think might be the bottom line as far as we can see forward today?

Is Global Warming bunk? Is our Government once again on the wrong side of the issues, and as contrarians are we moving closer to the truth by debunking the US Government's now embracing the global warming thesis along with half the other nations in the world?

One thing is for sure, if they are all wrong, there must be a great number of dupes in the top echelons of all the major industrialized nations all acting as dupes with remarkable synchronicity, for them to all have chosen the false conclusions rather than the true conclusions?

Is there a risk we might fall foul of mere conceit, to be seeing the majority of government's consensus of views on this topic that way?

In my book, humans do have a certain rudimentary ingelligence. The top echelons of Government, although many of them may be venal, also represent a certain distillation of that intelligence as they bring in specialists from all quarters to derive their national policy.

So what does that say about a consensus of 20 or 30 of the world's top industrialized nations, now including the US, all convening for a summit on Global Warming where CO2 is squarely ast the top of the agenda?

That means all the best (or at very least, the most widely accepted) science, in all these 30 countries, contributed through an arduous (long) process to the point where all 30 nations agree this CO2 is the most likely area to investigate the cause of GW?

Who are we as contrarians, to believe that mere "rugged individualist's" contrarian spirit provides us with a better insight?

I'm just wondering about the value of contrarianism for it's own sake - Is merely being contrarian sometimes more a societal reflex than it is a genuine move towards uncovering hidden truths where lots of specialists worldwide are agreeing on the opposite?

It's counterintuitive, but sometimes consensus, or the distilling of many senior specialists thoughts on a subject from around the world, can provide some real intelligence on any matter. It seems the collective intelligence is pointing towards CO2, as that is what they are meeting to talk about.

When you see Governments like that of the US, which has historically resisted this idea, moving towards it, that would at least suggest a reason to re-examine any conclusions to the contrary?

To merely deride "populism" and smiley faced "pro-green idiots" in this globally emerging discussion seems a fairly thin answer to the wide consensus now emerging at government levels?

[medved]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

What do we think might be the bottom line as far as we can see forward today?

Is Global Warming bunk? Is our Government once again on the wrong side of the issues, and as contrarians are we moving closer to the truth by debunking the US Government's now embracing the global warming thesis along with half the other nations in the world?


One thing is for sure, if they are all wrong, there must be a great number of dupes in the top echelons of all the major industrialized nations all acting as dupes with remarkable synchronicity, for them to all have chosen the false conclusions rather than the true conclusions?


Is there a risk we might fall foul of mere conceit, to be seeing the majority of government's consensus of views on this topic that way?

We should not oppose *every* government consensus, only the most doubtful ones. GW (30 years ago it was global cooling) is exactlythe case. I don't even want to make the judgement whether GW is real or not. I would leave it to the experts and give them more time (and, maybe, more resources for research). What is veruy suspicios, is the magnitude of the GW propaganda and its acceptance by the political establishment. This has nothing to do with science.

In my book, humans do have a certain rudimentary ingelligence. The top echelons of Government, although many of them may be venal, also represent a certain distillation of that intelligence as they bring in specialists from all quarters to derive their national policy.

They also represent distillation of power-hungry partisan interests. Somehow, everybody is quick to recognize influence of the military-industrial complex and the 'evil' oil companies. Nobody pays attention to the bureacracy/media/academia complex, and this is a real force. There are a lot of people and organizations in this complex, benefitting from GW hysteria.

So what does that say about a consensus of 20 or 30 of the world's top industrialized nations, now including the US, all convening for a summit on Global Warming where CO2 is squarely ast the top of the agenda?

It says about the same, that any "globalization" does. By going "global"you can avoid scrutiny of your voters. The same way the "global" companies avoid local laws and responsibility to their shareholders.

That means all the best (or at very least, the most widely accepted) science, in all these 30 countries, contributed through an arduous (long) process to the point where all 30 nations agree this CO2 is the most likely area to investigate the cause of GW?

Who are we as contrarians, to believe that mere "rugged individualist's" contrarian spirit provides us with a better insight?

We cannot provide a better insight, but we can do some DD and give different issues the right priorities. In my view the dangers of global economic turmoil are much higher, than the dangers of GW (in spite of the gov't, media and academia telling me goldilocks tales). And most of this problem is created by excessive gov't control. They will get even more control to fight against GW, that's why they like it so much (just like military contractors like war).

I'm just wondering about the value of contrarianism for it's own sake - Is merely being contrarian sometimes more a societal reflex than it is a genuine move towards uncovering hidden truths where lots of specialists worldwide are agreeing on the opposite?

It's counterintuitive, but sometimes consensus, or the distilling of many senior specialists thoughts on a subject from around the world, can provide some real intelligence on any matter. It seems the collective intelligence is pointing towards CO2, as that is what they are meeting to talk about.


When you see Governments like that of the US, which has historically resisted this idea, moving towards it, that would at least suggest a reason to re-examine any conclusions to the contrary?

Again, it is not the specialists, that are the problem. They should argue with each other, not with us. It is the noise, that surrounds them in media and politics, that bothers me.

To merely deride "populism" and smiley faced "pro-green idiots" in this globally emerging discussion seems a fairly thin answer to the wide consensus now emerging at government levels?

I did not find any derision on this board (maybe, missed some messages). However, I have observed politization of the environmental movement for quite some time. We would be very wise to listen to Patrick Moore, one of the cofounders of Greenpeace (he was shown in the video). He left this movement long ago precisely because it became too political. Now that the "political environmentalism" went mainstream we should be even more cautious.

m.

[Guest]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

Medved -

The stakes are high.

Can we afford to keep speculating past the eleventh hour with the number of cars globally set to double in another 15 years as the exponential industrialisation of Asia and other parts of the world really gear up?

I am with you 100% on not triggering economic collapse with stupid hastily thought out conclusions. But the Europeans, burdened with much higher taxes than us are forging ahead with sizable moves into alternative energy and emissions caps yet the paradox is their economies are strengthening while ours weakens?

Evidently the non-business savvy of the eco-fascists (if that is what skeptics wish to call them) has not put a significant dent into EU growth, while they follow these emissions cuts much more determinedly than we do? US does not, yet it's economy lags EU? So much for the theory that cutting emissions represents economic suicide?

I also think economic collapse is a walk in the park compared to a true runaway global warming. One is man-made, the other is beyond our subsequent tinkering if it occurs! Big, and critical distinction in "risk management"!

I am most emphatically not a smiley faced eco-guy. I drive a really smelly diesel car (that likes to fart black soot at traffic lights) and I delight in it's 50 MPG but what's spewing out of my tailpipe hardly is friendly to the environment, and frankly I don't care enough to qualify me as ecologically correct. Bad on me, as I think it's a real issue.

Having said that, I think the earth really has all the equilibrium of a giant spinning top. Our conceit says it does not, but we may get our comeuppance yet. Give it a nudge and pretty soon the even spin has turned into a really nasty wobble, and all us little conceited ants will get flung into something hot, dry and dusty - and very much harsher than what we've had.

I asked Fox to come back here and provide us with a few more of his excellent charts, but I think he's so numbed out by the eco-cowboys in this old boy's club of a community he's just wandered off to look for more measured opinions elsewhere.

Appreciate your balanced input.

[Guest]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

This was also posted on Tet's "biofuel scam " thread. It is relevant here :

____________


Found this post by Richard Russel on Ethanol. The EROEI number seems a bit of an eye opener? If Prof. Pimentel of Cornell's numbers are right, this is the most colossal energy scam of the decade?

It's easy enough to have iTulipers buy the notion ethanol is a scam, because many are tuned into the idea that there's a scam at every corner - what's harder is to get them on board for some other issues, where there is no scam theory to orient them into the same familiar scam discovery methodology.

The scam logic always wants to open the left door (the contrarian read) to discover the bottom line, while the right door remains unopened, because it's "too obvious".

Examples might be things like climate change, where we are reading new headlines every day, or dwindling oil, where we are reading new headlines every day, all being developments that might even be real, let alone urgent.

At that point the political stereotypes step in unfortunately, and kick up a lot of dust so people can't see each other any more.

August 1, 2007
By Richard Russell

The idea of using corn to make ethanol is one of the stupidest ideas of the last 50 years. Farmers dropped other crops and turned to corn, which the government subsidized to the tune of over one billion dollars. Corn shot up to its highest price in a decade, but farmers over-planted. Then more recently, the price of corn collapsed. In the meantime, the price of other crops surged, running up the price of food in the US. In all, a new high in government stupidity.

The real problem with ethanol from corn is that it requires fuel to make the corn. David Pimentel a professor from Cornell has done the analysis. An acre of U.S. corn can be processed into about 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel. That is $1.05 per gallon of ethanol before the corn even moves off the farm.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps and other treatments are needed to separate the ethanol from the water. All these need energy.

Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTU's are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol which has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."



News clips from a recent James Dines newsletter.

> 3. The world is facing an oil supply "crunch" within five years that
> will force up prices to record levels and increase the west’s
> dependence on oil cartel Opec. In its starkest warning yet on the
> world’s fuel outlook, the International Energy Agency said "oil
> looks extremely tight in five years’ time" and there are "prospects
> of even tighter natural gas markets at the turn of the decade." The
> IEA said that supply was falling faster than expected in mature
> areas, such as the North Sea or Mexico, while projects in new
> provinces such as the Russian Far East, faced long delays.
> Meanwhile consumption is accelerating on strong economic
> growth in emerging countries.
> Javier Blas, Financial Times (London), 10 Jul 07
>
> 6. Warnings about global warming may not be dire enough,
> according to a climate study that describes a runaway-train
> acceleration of industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Fueled by rapid
> growth in coal-reliant China, rates of carbon dioxide emission from
> industrial sources increased from 2000 to 2004 at a rate that is over
> three times the rate during the 1990s."If you wonder what side of
> global warming’s effects – droughts, warming and others – we are
> going to get, a little or a lot, we are going to get a lot," says Angela
> Anderson of the Washington, DC-based National Environmental
> Trust. Countries are using more energy, and "no region is
> decarbonizing its energy supply," the study says.
> Dan Vergano, USA Today, 22 May 07
>
> 7. Solar power has captured the public imagination. Panels that
> convert sunlight to electricity are winning supporters around the
> world. But even a quarter century from now, says the Energy
> Department official in charge of renewable energy, solar power
> might account for, at best, 2% or 3% of the grid electricity in the
> United States. In the meantime, coal-burning power plants, the
> main source of smokestack emissions linked to global warming, are
> being built around the world at a rate of more than one a week.
> Andrew C Revkin & Matthew L Wald, Front Page,
> New York Times, 16 Jul 07
>
> 11. With the country punished by record heat waves, floods and
> droughts this summer, it is no wonder that Beijing, which has
> long viewed global warming as a problem that rich nations
> should solve, is waking up to the fact that China may be
> especially at risk. The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau is warming up
> faster than anywhere else in the world, Chinese scientists said.
> Threatening to melt glaciers, dry up the 3,395-mile Yellow River
> and cause more droughts, sandstorms and desertification. The
> nationwide economic boom has propelled China into overtaking
> the United States as the world’s No 1 source of greenhouse gas
> emissions. That far outstrips the cutbacks wealthy nations are
> committed to make under the Kyoto Protocol.
> Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle, 1 Aug 07
>
>

[DemonD]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

Found this post by Richard Russel on Ethanol. The EROEI number seems a bit of an eye opener? If Prof. Pimentel of Cornell's numbers are right, this is the most colossal energy scam of the decade?

It's easy enough to have iTulipers buy the notion ethanol is a scam, because many are tuned into the idea that there's a scam at every corner - what's harder is to get them on board for some other issues, where there is no scam theory to orient them into the same familiar scam discovery methodology.

The scam logic always wants to open the left door (the contrarian read) to discover the bottom line, while the right door remains unopened, because it's "too obvious".

Examples might be things like climate change, where we are reading new headlines every day, or dwindling oil, where we are reading new headlines every day, all being developments that might even be real, let alone urgent.

At that point the political stereotypes step in unfortunately, and kick up a lot of dust so people can't see each other any more.

August 1, 2007
By Richard Russell

The idea of using corn to make ethanol is one of the stupidest ideas of the last 50 years. Farmers dropped other crops and turned to corn, which the government subsidized to the tune of over one billion dollars. Corn shot up to its highest price in a decade, but farmers over-planted. Then more recently, the price of corn collapsed. In the meantime, the price of other crops surged, running up the price of food in the US. In all, a new high in government stupidity.

The real problem with ethanol from corn is that it requires fuel to make the corn. David Pimentel a professor from Cornell has done the analysis. An acre of U.S. corn can be processed into about 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel. That is $1.05 per gallon of ethanol before the corn even moves off the farm.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps and other treatments are needed to separate the ethanol from the water. All these need energy.

Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTU's are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol which has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."

I will agree it's pointless to argue a popular opinion because it's popular.


Since Russell's article isn't available free to the online world, I went straight to the source and googled "pimontel cornell ethanol" and found an article directly about his findings.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...ostly.ssl.html

From there I found the exact scientific publication which is free for the online public (unlike Russell's all-too familiar "alternative energy sucks!" refrain that everyone and their brother is shouting at this point.)

Here is a link to the article (pdf)
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers...hanol.2005.pdf

Anyone who wants to a have a serious debate on the "con" side of the ethanol debate, I implore you to refrain from the words "boondoggle" and "swindle" as they will be tuned out by any rational person. However, if you would like to successfully influence someone, use the facts from that article. The only arguments i can posit against that article is that he did not mention EROEI's of either rapeseed to diesel or sugar cane ethanol (just stated that sugar cane ethanol is negative and costs brazil too much money). Also that article is 2 years old which means the data are probably 4 years old - might there have been advances in agri-tech improving the ratios?

Finally I would like to see a "pro" side arguing against Pimentel but someone not from a government office. One very good argument he makes is that the main proponents of positive EROEI's of corn ethanol are from government offices that likely have a link to big agri business.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

I will agree it's pointless to argue a popular opinion because it's popular.


Since Russell's article isn't available free to the online world, I went straight to the source and googled "pimontel cornell ethanol" and found an article directly about his findings.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...ostly.ssl.html

From there I found the exact scientific publication which is free for the online public (unlike Russell's all-too familiar "alternative energy sucks!" refrain that everyone and their brother is shouting at this point.)

Here is a link to the article (pdf)
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers...hanol.2005.pdf

Anyone who wants to a have a serious debate on the "con" side of the ethanol debate, I implore you to refrain from the words "boondoggle" and "swindle" as they will be tuned out by any rational person. However, if you would like to successfully influence someone, use the facts from that article. The only arguments i can posit against that article is that he did not mention EROEI's of either rapeseed to diesel or sugar cane ethanol (just stated that sugar cane ethanol is negative and costs brazil too much money). Also that article is 2 years old which means the data are probably 4 years old - might there have been advances in agri-tech improving the ratios?

Finally I would like to see a "pro" side arguing against Pimentel but someone not from a government office. One very good argument he makes is that the main proponents of positive EROEI's of corn ethanol are from government offices that likely have a link to big agri business.

Nice research, DemonD, to come up with Pimentel and Patzek's paper. I did not read the entire paper.

In that paper page 69, last paragraph, Food Versus Fuel Issue, they get into the issue of using corn a human food resourse vs. using it to produce ethanol and say this "raises ethical and moral issues." To me all things are relative as is the concern of the authors on this issue. I will argue that the ethical and moral issues arise when humans are producing children willy-nilly without apparent forethought as to how the possible product of their copulation--another human--will be fed, clothed, sheltered and possibly educated. Worrying about how the child will be fed, given healthcare, etc. after the deed of "getting some," as we said down South, is as closing the barn door after the horse is out. What happens is people fuck to get their "jollies" and the not infrequent happenstance outcome is another human on the planet for which all the do-gooders and hand-wringers are to worry, take up collections, send supplies, etc.

Life to me in all forms from the lowest up to us, if we are the highest form, is an incredible phenomenom. I truly despise flies, and just as truly I hate to kill them, though I will and do. Of all forms of life, it is only humans who can exercise some possible forethought before "doing it" in a manner that might or might not result in another human on the planet. It also seems that it is humans rather than any other life-form that may be working toward the destruction of Earth as a place fit for life. The moral and ethical dilemma I believe is not what others on the planet should do to look after every blasted new human that gets spat out of a uterus, but what individuals should take upon themselves as the responsibility of serious forethought before producing more and more babies. I aver the immoral and unethical behavior is in those who produce new humans without recognizing the responsibilities of their actions.

I have no idea as to the level of ignorance that may exist today in some societies with regard to what makes babies, but if there is a moral and ethical dilemma that faces those who are fortunate enough to be educated on this planet, then it would be to aid those who aren't educated in reproductive physiology obtain some control over what may result from their sexual appetites. That will be the appropriate attempt, as I see it, to close the barn door before the horse is out.

Pimentel and Petzek state 3.7 billion of the expanding 6.5B on earth are malnourished, and that more than 250,000 people--babies--are added to the Earth's population daily. This behavior cannot go on unchecked indefinitely in my opinion.

It seems to me, and admittedly I have only a superficial interest in the long-term energy problems facing the planet, that what appears to be the idiocy with regard to EROEI from the current US policy in promoting corn-based ethanol, there can be a "brighter side" with regard to population control--lack of which I believe is a very dire problem for the planet. If my opinion appears dispicable, my only suggestion is "get over it." It's said here on iTulip with regard to the Fed, "watch what it does, rather than listening to what it says." The same can be considered as sage advice perhaps with the corn for ethanol vs. corn for food for the starving. Watch what the US does, rather than what it says.

There is all this commotion in the hallowed halls where our elected officals hangout to gather their salaries and other compensations about not providing foreign aid without strings attached when it comes to issues where anything would produce measures of birth control are not to be supported. Then on the other hand, this country appears on track to waste corn in ETOH production, support corn producers, and ethanol producers while in effect setting up those in the world whose survival might depend upon our exports of corn or even other grain products for starvation.

I am as reluctant as anyone can be regarding giving our US government credit for doing much good in the world, but if there were to be any conscious effort on the part of those who actually control what goes on politically in the US to be working to reducing the Earth's population, then, by Jove, I might be moved to admit they are not totally worthless humans running the government, or at least controlling it.

Somewhere above I should have worked it in that despite my perception that life is a wondrous biological phenomenon, when evolution has resulted in humans having a level of mentation that allows conscious decisions, one of which is whether or not to produce children, and whether because of ignorance, religious doctrine and fear of hell or whatever other religious may fear, there is no thought given to production of new humans, then to me human life become quite cheap as I choose to see things.

[Guest]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

Yet another signpost that the little band of iTulip skeptics are now situated in a rearguard action against the CO2 "global warming myth".

They will now have to deny and debunk the UN's considered opinion on the matter as well as that of the Federal Administration (now on board also), the G8, and most of the industrialized nations in the world.

As the number of skeptics within governments and major international bodies dwindles, and the world's largest bodies increasingly sign onto the idea, iTulip's small band of skeptics will find themselves increasingly at the margins of the debate - motivated primarily by the fear of being co-opted by other (more pedestrian?) communities' celebrity causes, and in so doing, losing their cherished contrarian identity and sense of splended isolation in the midst of an imagined vast and ignorant public.

Counter intuitively, the "vast and ignorant public" with it's populist notions on the matter will have been proved correct.

__________________


Heat Waves, Storms Foreshadow Next 50 Years, UN Says (Update2)

By Brian K. Sullivan

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- This year's record global temperatures and rain, heat waves and storms are a preview of the weather extremes that will become more frequent in the next 50 years, the United Nations said.

The global surface temperature was 1.89 degrees Celsius (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average in January and 1.37 degrees warmer in April, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said today in a statement.
The warming is ``unequivocal,'' with 11 of the past 12 years ranking among the hottest since temperatures have been measured, the statement said. The changing climate is also responsible for unusual weather around the world, from flooding in England and Wales to rare snowfall in South America, said the UN agency, which studies weather, climate and water.

``Climate change projections indicate it to be very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent,'' the organization said. ``The average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely the highest during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in the past 1,300 years.''

A heat wave in India produced temperatures as high as 45 to 50 degrees Celsius, the agency said. The Netherlands and Germany reported the warmest January since 1706. Last month Bulgaria recorded its highest temperature, 45 degrees Celsius.

Harvard Economist

In June, heavy rains and flooding across southern China affected more than 13.5 million people and killed 120. About the same time, the first documented cyclone in the Arabian Sea hit Oman, killing more than 50.

The findings add to evidence the world needs to address the causes of climate change, said Robert Stavins, a Harvard University economics professor, in an interview. Stavins is leading a two-year effort at Harvard to develop a plan for a successor to the Kyoto Protocols, limiting emission of greenhouse gases, when they expire in 2012.

``It is important that the nations of the world -- including the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, such as the United States and China, the European Union and others -- begin working seriously on a meaningful international agreement on global climate change,'' Stavins said in an e-mail interview.
The meteorological organization, along with its 188 members, is working to monitor and observe changes so that countries that will bear the brunt of climate change will know how to adapt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at
bsullivan10@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 7, 2007 17:00 EDT

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Does science prove CO2 causes global warming?

I am as reluctant as anyone can be regarding giving our US government credit for doing much good in the world, but if there were to be any conscious effort on the part of those who actually control what goes on politically in the US to be working to reducing the Earth's population, then, by Jove, I might be moved to admit they are not totally worthless humans running the government, or at least controlling it.

Despite the loathing I have for most elected officials in this country, reluctantly I must again acknowledge that perhaps there is real thoughtfulness to the contrary behind what superficially appears to be callous disregard for the future of the planet. Specifically, it seems our government and most others except for China have no orientation toward population control; however, if one properly interprets the news, then one may begin to believe that the elected buffoons have taken it upon themselves to help curb the earth's population starting right here in the USA.

US slipping in life expectancy rankings By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer 8/12/08

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070812/...0Qs0RkZkxkM3wV