I've argued the trace point before, back on the Wordpress blog we used to have. In short, CO2, despite it's increase, is a tiny fraction of the atmosphere. It is so tiny in fact that seeing it as a major cause of global warming becomes hard to swallow when you see the zeros.
I don't often write a piece simply to raise a subject somewhere else, but over at the Libertarian Alliance blog they have an article that I found to be excellent on this subject and where the whole CO2 thing even came from. I'm a bit slow and it was done back in January, but still it's worth a read.
Article here
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Global Warming - A Good Argument
Posted by Kevin Boatang at 14:50
Labels: global waming, libertarianism
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3 comments:
You culd add, if you want:-
(1) the atmosphere weighs about 5,200 trillion tonnes (that's 5.2 x 1E15 in standard form.)
(2) The best estimate of CO2 mass at present is 1.54 trillion tonnes (1.54E12) This is 0.03% give or take a tiny bit.
What the IPCC are trying to put over is that a /tiny/ mass change of CO2 can cause a /statistically large/ and therefore causated change in the global temperature overall.
They are /not taking into account methane or water vapour, which are much "stronger" greenhouse gases.
I have never disputed that rises in methane, water gas or CO2 would cause general rises in the mean atmospheric temperature. Nobody, not even me, has ever disputed it.
But to pick on CO2 looks like a proxy for taxation-rises.
@David Davis
I agree methane needs taking into account - it's a very potent greenhouse gas - water on the other hand has a self-regulatory feedback system. CO2 gets picked on mainly because we can do more about that, and its a much easier target to tax/deal with.
As for the article... I found more than a couple of inaccuracies. This appears to be the order of day for any GW article, for or against, which is why I generally keep my own counsel on it.
Anything that includes "there is no evidence CO2 is a greenhouse gas" fails at the first hurdle and displays its own bias off the bat. CO2's properties regarding the infra-red bands of the EM spectrum have been known for over a century, indeed it led to the very first GW argument in the early 1900's between Angstrom and Arrhenius.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, "I've read a great argument against the prevailing view on GW, unfortunately this wasn't it"
It's true water will dissipate according to temperature, but its effect over time increases as CO2 accumulates, raising the temperature.
Water in the atmosphere may well increase, but if the CO2 increase is tiny, then so is the water.
But that's just the way it is.
More interestingly statements such "Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s,Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s", can be found. And who provides this? The IPPC.
Then they base the burning of fossil fuels on Carbon 14, of which they have none. But this was ruined by all the nuclear testing. Ahhhh!
It's one thing after the other, every time. There is always another thing that causes that thing, but another thing means this thing must be that.
We produce an estimated 4% of CO2, not a lot. The defence is always that this is the tiny bit that tips it over. Of course it is...Even tinier when you realise that half that gets absorbed straight back.
Then you have the Lindzen calculations that state a doubling of CO2 from 300 to 600 parts etc would only cause a .5c increase.
The main reason I don't trust it though is the constant shifting. One minute we're all going to bake in 2001, then it's 21 then 2020 then 2030....Yet nothing happens.
There is also the obvious political gain. The green hippy groupings were getting nowhere then all of a sudden we are all going to die from the sun. This tied in very nicely with social democracy, as we have witnessed by the rush to tax and control.
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