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Carbon Belch Day

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Anyway, the Carbon Belch Day campaign is could certainly be much worse. However, as intellectual activists, I think we can find a much better campaign to throw our weight behind.

It's just a harmless way of thumbing one's nose at the dirt-people. Intellectuals need to have a little fun too. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as the saying goes.

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The more I read this thread, the more ridiculous I find it to be. Firstly, because so many people in here seem to think they know something about atmospheric sciences.

It dosen't take an environmental scientist to realise that CO2 is an integral part of the natural cycle. We breathe it out, plants absorb it, photosynthesis occurs and they give off Oxygen. Both parties benifit (kind of Objectivist, is it not?).

Take into consideration the fact that one volcanic eruption puts into the atmpsphere more so-called "greenhouse gases" than man has emmitted since the dawn of the industrial age. What are we supposed to do about that?

Now, we hear that the 0.6 degree increase in mean global temperature has gone the other way, decreasing 0.7 degrees, and we are now to expect a thirty year cooling phase. DOH! :wacko:

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David, the issue of global warming has been in the oven for a very long time. Anyone who is interested in it has had ample time to look at the evidence and draw a conclusion. I'm with Inspector and the science on this one - ice core data, solar cycle/temperature correlation, recent temperatures, the anthropogenic CO2 vs. natural CO2 ratio and the law of diminishing returns all point to the coming Anthroclimatapocolypse being as likely as the sky falling.

On a simply psychological note, take a look at whether or not researchers stand to benefit monetarily from greenhouse hysteria. Then, think about if researchers have the same stake in the greenhouse effect being an uninteresting non-problem.

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What Inspector is doing is no better than what Al Gore does. Both are scientifically untrained and both make blanket statements that they profess to know as fact, when they couldn't possibly know.

Then you write:

Obviously, most scientists think that it is well within our capability to create this much CO2.

May I ask what your scientific training is?

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It dosen't take an environmental scientist to realise that CO2 is an integral part of the natural cycle. We breathe it out, plants absorb it, photosynthesis occurs and they give off Oxygen. Both parties benifit (kind of Objectivist, is it not?).

I don't think anyone claims that CO2 is always bad. But I don't doubt that there is such a thing as too much of it.

Take into consideration the fact that one volcanic eruption puts into the atmpsphere more so-called "greenhouse gases" than man has emmitted since the dawn of the industrial age. What are we supposed to do about that?

Now, we hear that the 0.6 degree increase in mean global temperature has gone the other way, decreasing 0.7 degrees, and we are now to expect a thirty year cooling phase. DOH! :wacko:

I don't know how to respond to these points....because I'm not an atmospheric scientist.

Then you write:

May I ask what your scientific training is?

I don't have any, and I don't see what's wrong with either of those statements. I didn't make a scientific claim there. I was just pointing out that most scientists seem to agree on that point.

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I was just pointing out that most scientists seem to agree on that point.

To quote Greg Graffin, ironically, "Consensus is not a fact based exercise." Especially in this case. Since you seem to be interested, why don't you explore the debate? Seriously, you don't need to be a scientist, let alone an atmospheric one.

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Actually, some have voiced concern about the negative non-greenhouse effects of CO2. Whether this is another crackpot attempt at industrial collapse is beyond me. At the moment, I am not concerned.

From that article:

As a result of the industrial and agricultural activities of humans, current atmospheric CO2 concentrations are around 380 ppm, increasing at about 1% per year.

CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing (for centruries - not just since industrial revolution) at a rate of about 1 ppm per year - which is 0.0001% per year (not 1% per year as stated here).

Human are not big players in the global carbon cycle. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions (human made) are only about 3% of the natural carbon cycle and less than 1% of the atmospheric reservoir of carbon. Scientist consider the increase in the air's CO2 content over the past few centuries as likely a result of earth's oceans giving off the gas in response to the planet's recovery from the Little Ice Age.

Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change statement (IPCC):

Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:

1985–2003

Old ice core data led us to strongly suspect that C02 causes global warming.

2003–2007

New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting C02. No evidence to suspect or exonerate C02.

From Aug 2007

Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming. C02 no longer a suspect.

This should not be a subject of debate anymore.

I found this amuzing: Global warming debunked - by KIDS!

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Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change

“Global warming” is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently-observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation, and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend –

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth”.

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

International Climate Science Coalition

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Regardless of whether or not CO2 is going to cause a catastrophe for the planet earth, large amounts of it are bad

Do you mean in terms of air quality?

It takes 10,000 ppm of C02 to make some people feel drowsy. Toxicity is 50,000 ppm. Again, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only about 3% of the natural carbon cycle and less than 1% of the atmospheric carbon (<1% of the currently reported 380 ppm).

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change statement (IPCC):

Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:

1985–2003

Old ice core data led us to strongly suspect that C02 causes global warming.

2003–2007

New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting C02. No evidence to suspect or exonerate C02.

From Aug 2007

Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming. C02 no longer a suspect.

I think I miss-read the source I took it from (I went to IPCC site and could not find it). This is factual - it is a general progression of the understanding on this issue, but it was not an IPCC statement. Sorry for the miss-reporting.

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It is beyond asinine for a non-scientist (i.e. Inspector) to sit here and claim that it isn't even "remotely possible" for man to produce enough CO2 to have adverse effects on the atmosphere.

You have an obvious reading comprehension problem as several people have noted already. I have already repeatedly highlighted your claim which was that mankind's production of CO2 would have adverse effects other than global warming. This is a scientific claim - one which you are not qualified to make and one for which you have yet to provide any evidence or scientific studies for. As Sophia noted, one look at the ppm concentrations of CO2 in order to cause harm, the current ppm concentrations, and mankind's rate of CO2 production proves my statement quite correct, scientifically. This is basic science.

You continue to frame this discussion in terms of global warming vs not, whereas your statement clearly was making a claim that CO2 was harmful apart from global warming (i.e. in terms of toxic concentrations), and this is clearly what I was addressing with my statement that it wasn't even "remotely possible" to produce enough CO2 to be harmful on a non-greenhouse-effect level.

Go ahead and keep making your ridiculously inaccurate criticisms of my posts. You are only making it clear to everyone how wrong you are.

To the others: While I appreciate the support of my position on the Global Warming Lie, that is not in fact what the debate with Moose is about at all. That's just him moving the goalposts. Go ahead and read my statement and his and see what he is actually claiming.

Edited by Inspector
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I think it's you that has a reading comprehension problem. I have not made any scientific claims in here. I am not prepared to argue either side. I have only pointed out that many actual scientists would think you are full of shit and, as such, it is completely absurd for you to sit here and utter your ultimately uninformed opinions as if they are the obvious and uncontroversial truth.

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I think it's you that has a reading comprehension problem. I have not made any scientific claims in here. I am not prepared to argue either side. I have only pointed out that many actual scientists would think you are full of shit and, as such, it is completely absurd for you to sit here and utter your ultimately uninformed opinions as if they are the obvious and uncontroversial truth.

Moose clearly will not read, but for everyone else's benefit, please see this post here which is itself a repeat of where I previously pointed out Moose's claim. Now I will post it up a third time, since Moose clearly does have a problem in either reading or responding to this point:

(bold mine)

Moose, this is the claim you made. That even if CO2 is not causing global warming, it is still "bad for the air." To my knowledge no scientist or publication - not even global warming believers - has made the claim that CO2 is harmful apart from the so-called "greenhouse effect."

Here, Moose is making the scientific claim that CO2 is a harmful "pollutant" apart from any greenhouse effects on global warming. When I opposed this claim of his, he saw fit to evade that and instead make an argument on the issue of global warming. Well, not so much an argument as an appeal to authority and various profanities, but this is nevertheless beside the point: he is in fact evading the actual point of discussion which I have now directly pointed out three times.

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Moose clearly will not read, but for everyone else's benefit,

I don't understand your motivation, Inspector. Moose indicated that he finds this topic overwhelming enough that it maybe difficult for him to make a conclusive judgment which side has it right, considering that there are contradictory reports comming from scientific community. He said more than once that he did not intend to make any claims but rather, from my understanding, he was just giving us his thinking on the issue (fairly scientifically uninformed by his own admission). I know plenty of people who are in the exact spot Moose is in.

So, I do not see the reason for aggressiveness in your responses, Inspector. If education is your goal, why not just give someone the facts?

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I don't want to speak for Inspector, Sophia, but I think part of the reason for the "aggressive" answers is that Moose seems to think that non-scientists do not possess the rational faculty to correctly evaluate scientific issues. While in general this may be true it is not necessarily true especially when people base their evaluations based on a rational philosophy and are critical thinkers such as many people on this forum including Inspector. It's almost like he is advocating intellectual agnosticism.

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Sophia, but I think part of the reason for the "aggressive" answers is that Moose seems to think that non-scientists do not possess the rational faculty to correctly evaluate scientific issues.

Inspector responses have been in regard to his statement that CO2 is bad for the air.

And I don't think Moose meant (and he can correct me if I am mistaken) lack of rational faculty but rather lack of sufficient specialized knowledge. You can argue that that is not necessarily true but why would you be attacking him about it? What does that accomplish?

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Moose indicated that he finds this topic overwhelming enough that it maybe difficult for him to make a conclusive judgment which side has it right, considering that there are contradictory reports comming from scientific community.

Did you and I read the same Moose? He was saying that "many actual scientists would think [we] are full of shit"--the clear implication being that we are wrong, and he is right; that any increase in CO2 concentration (say, from 380 ppm to 381 ppm?) constitutes an "adverse effect on the atmosphere." He may present himself as an "agnostic," but it is clear to me that he is here to argue for and represent the environmentalist position.

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Sophia is right. My problem with what Inspector et al are doing is not that they are taking sides. It's fine for them to hold an opinion. My problem is with the way that he presents his opinion as though it is the obvious, uncontroversial truth about the subject. If it were that cut and dried, then the debate would look more or less like the Creation/Evolution debate, in which one side is routinely laughed at by the other. This debate isn't resolved to nearly that level. If anything, it is Inspector's side that is the subject of ridicule more often than not.

As to my statement that large amounts of CO2 can harm the environment...that's somewhat akin to saying the earth is round. Sure, it's a scientific claim, but one that is generally accepted. I would be out of my league if I tried to assign a specific value where CO2 becomes toxic, but I didn't do that. It's pretty uncontroversial to say that there exists a level of CO2 that would have bad consequences for the environment. Where exactly that level is, is a question I leave to experts. And Inspector is not one of them.

Did you and I read the same Moose? He was saying that "many actual scientists would think [we] are full of shit"--the clear implication being that we are wrong, and he is right;

Not at all, because many scientists also fully agree with you. My implication is that the debate is not resolved enough for Inspector to claim, categorically, that "there is no way man can produce enough CO2" etc, etc. The language he used makes it sound like it an incontravertible, proven fact.

I am not even arguing against the scientific claims made by anyone in this thread. All I'm saying is that Inspector does not have the specialized knowledge on this topic to be as firm in his opinion as he seems to be. And this criticism is directed pretty much exclusively at him...even if others have made the same mistake, I pretty much only noticed it when he did it because he tends to irritate me more than anyone else on this board. So, sorry if I'm being inconsistent in my criticisms.

Edited by Moose
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He may present himself as an "agnostic," but it is clear to me that he is here to argue for and represent the environmentalist position.

Is this an accusation of dishonesty in terms of his intensions? Where are you getting that from? I see no evidence of dishonesty.

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As to my statement that large amounts of CO2 can harm the environment...that's somewhat akin to saying the earth is round. Sure, it's a scientific claim, but one that is generally accepted.

Generally accepted does not make it true. Look how radical Objectivism is in comparison to "generally accepted".

It's pretty uncontroversial to say that there exists a level of CO2 that would have bad consequences for the environment.

I have answered that.

"there is no way man can produce enough CO2" etc, etc. The language he used makes it sound like it an incontravertible, proven fact.

I tried to illlustrate this point in one of my previous posts - our current C02 emissions are a small fraction in world's carbon cycle. Even if we produce ten times as much - it is still very far from anything even remotely approaching toxic levels.

All I'm saying is that Inspector does not have the specialized knowledge on this topic to be as firm in his opinion as he seems to be.

How do you know? Are you judging him by your own level of ability to understand certain scientific issues? Inspector would have been much more effective if he included in his posts some relevant facts but you have no reason to assume that he did not know or understood them. The fact that you are not ceratain does not mean that it is not possible for others to be.

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So, I do not see the reason for aggressiveness in your responses, Inspector. If education is your goal, why not just give someone the facts?

I'm happy to explain this, and all such cases if my response seems unusually aggressive.

In this case it is the fact that Moose has made a specific claim - not related to global warming - about CO2 which he will neither address nor retract. He keeps ignoring it and/or changing the subject. He keeps insisting on shifting the discussion to global warming when that is not in fact what my supposedly "full of shit" claim was about. He keeps conflating the widespread claims in the scientific and journalistic communities about CO2 as a greenhouse gas with his, entirely different claim that mankind's CO2 production can create toxic or harmful concentrations from a non-greenhouse perspective.

This, Moose's, claim is an entirely different animal from global warming claims and anyone with a basic understanding of the relevant science very much can dismiss it as laughable. Furthermore, it is in fact a scientific claim - and also one which, unlike the separate issue of the greenhouse effect, has zero support from scientists. Moose for some reason won't see the difference between his claim and the one made by the global warming crowd. But they are very different claims.

Further, my responses have made this point more than clear, yet he continues to ignore, evade, or fail to comprehend them. It's like he wants to pretend that his statement and my response, which I have now highlighted three times, never happened.

The whole thing is dirty pool and I will not let him get away with it.

Edited by Inspector
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In this case it is the fact that Moose has made a specific claim - not related to global warming - about CO2 which he will neither address nor retract. He keeps ignoring it and/or changing the subject.

Are you blind?

As to my statement that large amounts of CO2 can harm the environment...that's somewhat akin to saying the earth is round. Sure, it's a scientific claim, but one that is generally accepted. I would be out of my league if I tried to assign a specific value where CO2 becomes toxic, but I didn't do that. It's pretty uncontroversial to say that there exists a level of CO2 that would have bad consequences for the environment. Where exactly that level is, is a question I leave to experts. And Inspector is not one of them.

And how many times to I have to point out that my problem with your posts is that you are claiming an unjustified amount of certainty. I have the same problem with your posts as I do with a Creationist who thinks that Evolution has been proven wrong. The difference is only in degree. Your opinion obviously isn't utterly ridiculous like the opinion of a Creationist. It's your claims of certainty that I find ridiculous.

Because of this thread, I have been accused of being a "progressive liberal," which I find amusing considering that I am the most right-wing person that I personally know. I actually tend to side with the anti-Environmentalists...I just think it's hypocritical and unjustified for anyone to dismiss, with a wave of the hand, the arguments of a large portion of the scientific community...especially if that person does not have the specialized knowledge of an atmospheric scientist.

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To appease Inspector (lol, appeasement, I'm such a progressive hippie now), I will address the CO2 thing a little deeper.

Surely you won't deny that there exists a potential level of CO2 that would be quite harmful to life on this planet. This isn't really even a scientific claim so much as it's common sense. Anything can be harmful in extremely high levels. Even O2 would ultimately have harmful effects if there were too much of it in the atmosphere. If you want to argue this point, then I ask you to consider what would happen if every O2 molecule were suddenly replaced with CO2. That's obviously stretching it, but I doubt that reality would need to be that extreme in order for it to become harmful.

Maybe it is in our current capability to produce this level...maybe not. I don't know. I just don't think you know either and would ask that you not present your views as though you are certain that you've got it right.

Edited by Moose
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Surely you won't deny that there exists a potential level of CO2 that would be quite harmful to life on this planet. This isn't really even a scientific claim so much as it's common sense.

Of course. An atmosphere of 90% CO2 for example would by definition contain less oxygen and therefore would be unbreathable. Not because the CO2 itself would be a harmful or toxic "pollutant" as you claimed, but simply because there wouldn't be enough of a concentration of oxygen - the molecules of which having presumably been converted to CO2.

Maybe it is in our current capability to produce this level...maybe not.

No, not "maybe." I know with certainty that it is not in our current or even anywhere-remotely-in-the-future capability to produce this level of CO2. I can make that statement with the certainty that irritates you so much. Sophia gave the relevant facts already by which this might be known.

But none of this should distract from the fact that Moose attempted several times throughout the thread to conflate the important differences between his claim and those of the global warmingists. (i.e. saying that because of the ubiquity of the GW claims, that therefore I have no business denouncing his, entirely different claim so summarily) Since it is clear now that he knows the difference between his claim and theirs, then he is clearly responsible for the fact that he conflated the two. Whether this is deliberate dishonesty or simply gross intellectual sloppiness I leave to the reader, but that should give an idea of why I responded in the manner that I did.

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