So I have a question for those that believe that the rise in CO2 levels over the last several decades is man made?

First, lets gather some numbers

According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, The total mean mass of the atmosphere is 1.777*10^20 mole.

According to Earth System Research Laboratory (which is government run, you know, the one that is supposedly denying CC), CO2 levels rose by more than 2 ppm in 98', 02', 03', 05', and 07' (of the last 10 years), with the highest being 98' of 2.94 ppm increase that year.

In 1998 (of which there was a 2.94 ppm increase) the world produced 1.001*10^13 kg of CO2 which is 2.275*10^14 mole of CO2.


So now lets crunch some numbers. A 2.94 ppm increase of CO2 translates to 5.2244*10^14 moles of CO2 increase in the atmosphere that year. However, this is over twice the amount of CO2 that the entire world has put up in the atmosphere. So even if man didn't put a single atom of, there was still around 2.95*10^14 moles of CO2 (or 1.66 ppm of CO2) that entered our atmosphere.

So it is a simple question of where is that CO2 comeing from? It is not man made.


I hear from each side of the isle either that they're deniers or fear mongerers shouting off a list of names of important people that agree with them, but when it comes down to the numbers what do you know about what is accuring in the enviroment?


Trends in Carbon Dioxide
NationMaster - CO2 Emissions (most recent) by country
CARMA - Carbon Monitoring for Action

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

So did anyone want to have a go at this?

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

The numbers take away the rhetoric and must be dismissed out of hand. Both sides have an agenda and they're not going to let facts get in the way.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Well, you know I am on the fence on this stuff. I trust the scientists more so than journalists who can barely read the teleprompter.....

For me, the bottom line is, the rising CO2 is going to be bad for us. That's not very disputable. If things continue, and icecaps melt, blahblahblah, it isn't going to be pretty. Again, that isn't disputable.

So, assuming that we simply cannot control the CO2 levels if it should prove to be completely natural, perhaps we can counteract that by reducing what man-made CO2 we can. Rather than throw up our hands and do nothing, at least. Perhaps, it'll buy us time to figure out a way to manipulate the Earth even more, and moderate natural fluctuations for our own comfort.

Every day we bicker about who's responsible for what, it'll be that much harder to rouse ourselves to fix it. Because the Earth doesn't give a crap if we're here or not. If it's moving into a warmer phase, why help it?

The supreme height of idiocy would be to possess the tech and the means to fix this and elect not to do it, for purely political reasons.

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"All those in favor of referring a study of leadership feasibility to the political viability subcommittee to consider forming a task group, signify by saying aye!" -- Congress

I think that sums it up pretty well. It's not that humans are the only force in increasing global weather instability. But the human population has tripled in my lifetime - but the atmosphere has not. More humans mean more meat animals, more factories, more autos, more sources of pollution needed to support more lives.

We can't do squat about the natural cycles - but we do need to do what we're able to do about our contribution as a species.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

Thanks.

And yet for this suggestion, I will likely get raked over the coals as some hyper-enviro nutjob.

But, I suppose it's true to our history that we won't do jack until the 11th hour, when it's exponentially more difficult. We'll whine about saving a few bucks to put controls on ourselves, only to end up spending trillions later on. Better safe than sorry isn't a common credo, unfortunately.

I'm not radically pro-environment, but I'd never thought I'd see the day where people where actively anti, as the GW deniers appear to be.

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"All those in favor of referring a study of leadership feasibility to the political viability subcommittee to consider forming a task group, signify by saying aye!" -- Congress

Gee, most people who don't believe the GW hype are willing to err on the side of caution, so also advocate for nuclear power. And, many people who do believe the GW hype are also against nuclear power. The latter must have a hidden agenda.

The mole is not a unit of mass, though, so that invalidates this entire thing.

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An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

That's a typo, forgive me. It should be amount of mass.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

It's not really a problem when you realize not all CO2 is man-made. Some is, and it acted (acts) as a catalyst for the release of natural CO2, creating a feedback loop.

The Co2 increase, however is partially due to human intervention.

I do think it's amusing how internet google scholars who spend a few minutes "number crunching" think they have discovered some devastating problem that has eluded the best scientific minds on Earth and that no one in peer reviewed literature has come up with before.

Chalk it up to the Holiday Inn Express view on expertise.

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