h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, just came across your cunning disguise on Ed' Thread.

Skimming your Space I see you don't believe in global warming.

Would you like to recommend a cite?

I recommend NASA for one. They publish a gigantic amount of research on it; and they offer a layperson's introduction at http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/warming.html

I don't tend to cite other sources in this case. I have a good working knowledge of chaos theory, Le Chatelier's theorem, the shortcomings of climatology and the philosophy of the Earth in terms of global history and human beings' place on it. All of which are contradictory, or certainly capable of providing strong evidence against, so-called global warming.

B

Have you written your own version into an Entry?

I'm slightly bothered by the wording "so-called global warming". It's one thing if you argue that the ecosystem can handle it, but another to assert that it's not happening.

Please reassure me.

An Entry would be a fine idea, actually. Perhaps a provocative one for the Post.

OK, I will grant you that the global temperature has risen by something like 2C in the last 20 years, or whatever. But this has not been connected with any certainty to human activities; there was a massive heatwave in the Middle Ages, when average temperate temperatures are estimated as being around 25C; and the surface temperature of the Earth goes up and down all the time anyway.

B

Yes, but . . . pardon me for being a bore, but do you refute the Nasa article at http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/warming2.html

"What has many people worried now is that over the past 250 years humans have been artificially raising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Our factories, power plants, and cars burn coal and gasoline and spit out a seemingly endless stream of carbon dioxide. We produce millions of pounds of methane by allowing our trash to decompose in landfills and by breeding large herds of methane-belching cattle. Nitrogen-based fertilizers, which we use on nearly all our crops, release unnatural amounts of nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere.

"Once these carbon-based greenhouse gases get into the atmosphere, they stay there for decades or longer. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels have increased 31 percent and methane levels have increased 151 percent. Paleoclimate readings taken from ice cores and fossil records show that these gases, two of the most abundant greenhouse gases, are at their highest levels in the past 420,000 years. Many scientists fear that the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases have prevented additional thermal radiation from leaving the Earth. In essence, these gases are trapping excess heat in the Earth’s atmosphere in much the same way that a windshield traps solar energy that enters a car."

. . . [some figures]

"At first glance, these numbers probably do not seem threatening. After all, temperatures typically change a few degrees whenever a storm front moves through. Such temperature changes, however, represent day-to-day regional fluctuations. When surface temperatures are averaged over the entire globe for extended periods of time, it turns out that the average is remarkably stable. Rarely in the Earth’s history has the average surface temperature changed as dramatically as the changes that scientists are predicting for the next century. During the last ice age 20,000 years ago, for instance, the Earth was roughly 5°C cooler than it is today. Since then it has warmed up, although not steadily, to present levels. That’s an increase of roughly 1°C every 4,000 years. Current global warming scenarios predict, at the bare minimum, a 1°C increase over the next century."

?

"Many scientists fear that the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases have prevented additional thermal radiation from leaving the Earth"

Translation: "nobody has been able to prove."

It is quite possible [I would say probable] that the whole cause-and-effect thing works in reverse. Sure we are producing more carbon dioxide than ever before (I discount methane, because it rises quickly to the statosphere where it is broken down by radical attack). The vast majority of this dissolves in the oceans (by the by, no-one has conclusively proved which that which remains in the atmosphere will contribute to the greenhouse effect). If the temperature arises - perhaps through a completely natural global or astronomical cycle (which we KNOW has happened before), it will cause the equilibrium position between the dissolved CO2 in the oceans and the gaseous CO2 to change. Less CO2 will be dissolved in the oceans and will be removed to the atmosphere. In effect, global warming is causing more atmospheric CO2. This is a well documented phenomenon - for example when you open a fizzy drink. Cold drinks contain more bubbles than warm ones.

B

Thank you. That is very clear, and I wish I could be reassured by it. But at the moment that word "many" seem to me (I don't read Scientific American but my brother does) an understatement for "the overwelming majority" of the more peer-respected scientists currently working on the data.

What bothers me is the question, which will come first: the conclusive proof or the irreversible destruction? Dare we risk it?

One of the things that does concern me is the human race's feeling of superiority over all this. Why should it be our fault? We are just a tiny blip on geological and global timescales, and if we all go together, then why should I worry about it?

You're right - I really must compile all this into an Entry.

B

"if we all go together, then why should I worry about it?"

Now that is the attitude that really scares me.

Sh*tless, if you want to know.

I don't want to be in the position of approving the untimely death of one person, let alone the decimation of the human race, let alone its extinction.

Anyone in a position of power who acts from a "Bring on Armageddon" attitude commits crimes against humanity, in my opinion.

Species are not wiped out by temperature and environmental changes. Certainly the human race has enough technology and safeguards to make a reasonable amount of insurance against that.

What _does_ provenly kill out species are gigantic natural disasters - volcanic eruptions, meteors, tsuniamis and the like. We have NO safeguards against these. If we all have to move to the middle of continents in the meantime because we've increased the ocean depth, so what? It'll mean that there's a hell of a lot more fertile land on this planet for starters.

B

You certainly are unflappable. Waiting for proof seems to have done for the cod though (a zoologist friend tells me).

Interesting. A Countryside Industries friend of mine told me that the cod was thriving and that my decision to stop eating it was pointless.

B

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/842087.stm

That's 5 years old and seems to be largely unsubstantiated.

B

http://www.ices.dk/search-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=2&EXTRA_ARG=IMAGE%2EX%3D9%00%26IMAGE%2EY%3D8&CFGNAME=MssFind%2Ecfg&host_id=42&page_id=1769472

OK, granted. But I am making my own stand on cod, anyhow.

How did we get off global warming and onto fish?

B

I was recommending the principle of caution; not to wait until the proof is absolute, if there is a serious danger that the time when proof becomes absolute will be past the time when reversal is possible.