So the earth

DOES revolve around the Sun. This much must be obvious to everyone because it was the consensus once upon a time until one man dared to disagree. As of now there is no definitive proff about global warming as to causes, there is only conjecture, by both sides. But for some people to plainly state that the discussion is over is rather silly don't you think? AS for anthropamorphic global warming(spelling) it probably is, just not in the way Al Gore and his cronies suggest. Has anyone thought of the fact that there are about 3 Billion more human furnaces running around now than there was 100 years ago. That's something that we all should think about. I really believe that with 3 billion additional humans on the planet, all giving off a body heat of 98 degrees, that might be responsible for pushing the temp of the planet up by a degree, which is what we have. Just something to think about.

GalienEvil - Actually, I’m pretty sure our sun’s temperature has been increasing since life started 2-3B odd years ago. During this time the Earth’s atmospheric temperature has been more or less stable, or at least stable enough to maintain life – kind of a life-centered feedback loop, where CO2 and the greenhouse effect are a vital factor. Eventually as the sun becomes elderly its outer fringes and energy output will crispy fry Earth, but that singular event is billions of years away.

This environmental stability is what started Lovelock off on his touchy-feely Gaia idea, by the way, in the 1970s. But that’s another discussion.

PitSnipe – your idea is an interesting one, and it relates to biomass. I’m not sure that it is the critical factor here since humans are good at eliminating unwanted biomass (as in ecosystems) when we take over. Simply put, our numbers replace the biomass that used to be there. What is more likely to be key factor is that humans derive energy to maintain our numbers and life style by burning fossil fuel (coal, oil) that has been entombed for hundreds of millions of years, thereby releasing prestigious amounts of formerly sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere.

tetleytea – you are quite correct that the key factor is our atmosphere. The radiation of heat out of our atmosphere is inhibited by gasses like CO2 and methane – hence, the greenhouse effect: more CO2, less heat reflected into space, and a steady increase in atmospheric temperature. As you say, melting the highly reflective ice caps will definitely not help.

Hydro

What we need is Al Gore telling us that pollution is bad for our health. Then everyone will believe pollution is good for us, just to spite him.

I believe that the climate is changing. I will accept that it is possible that humans have something to do with it, but I haven't seen a provable link to anything we do and global warming. Computer models don't count. I can make a model say anything I want it to.

Now, for all the "icecaps are melting and polar bears are dying" worriers out there -

Just exactly how do you plan to reduce global CO2 emissions? Ban fossil fuels? Tell China they can't build coal-fired electric plants? Make air-conditioning illegal? How many lives will be lost through those actions? What happens if we cripple the global economy, trigger the second Great Depression, send millions out of work and watch thousands starve because Al Gore is worried about the penquins, and find out we were wrong and the planet gets warmer anyway?

Then I put Al Gore on an ice floe and feed him to the last two polar bears...

f*ck all this hands-off naturalist approach. the planet's climate does change, and sometimes the planet's life has something to do with it. when life first evolved, our atmosphere was primarily CO2, and photosynthesis from micro organisms eventually raised the O2 levels enough to support respirating life.

i believe the thoery of evolution is accurate for the most part, and i see human beings as a very complex animal. but what makes us different from other animals is out ability to greatly affect our own future.

fact: the climate is changing. not perfectly known: why is it changing? unknown: what is it changing into? likely fact: if the climate changes too much, human civilization could be severely screwed, and we could possibly go extinct in the worst case.

i say if we have the means to try and keep the climate change under control, we should use them. screw all this romanticist BS about the sanctity of nature.

Oz,

You have it the nail on the head: even if anthropogenic global warming is true, are we willing to pay the price to stop it? Right now China is bringing on line enough coal fired power plants to power Britain EVERY TWO YEARS. By 2010 China will emit more CO2 than the USA (who is the Bad Boy poster child for most of the world), and China’s CO2 growth rate is exponential at this point. And this doesn’t even consider India, which is also developing rapidly (growth rate last year was ~10%, just behind China’s).

With this in mind, incremental savings of CO2 emissions in Europe and the USA are almost irrelevant – exponential growth in emissions in the developing world blow them away (if you’ll forgive the pun). Kyoto is irrelevant and obsolete since it tags Russia at 1990 levels before its industrial collapse as the old USSR imploded and China and India before they’re growth rate and energy consumption skyrocketed. As the USA and Europe see their standard of living decrease in real teams (as is happening to their middle classes now) there will be little political appetite for sacrificing more treasure to benefit someone else, or for nebulous return.

Another truism is that with wealth you have the ability and resources to address pollution. Starving populations will happily cut down the last tree or pee in their water to survive the day, whereas with a surplus and wealth you have the luxury of being environmentally conscious. It’s a catch 22 since wealth results in polution, but perhaps there is a happy medium.

There are no easy answers and certainly no quick fixes. All we do know is that doing nothing will cost a fortune even in the most conservative scenarios (imagine forced migration of hundreds of millions of people due to desertification and swamping of coastal cities), while trying to address the global warming problem is politically problematic and also costly – with no prospect of a definable return.

Lastly, there is the Tragedy of the Commons: everyone takes because no one is responsible, until the resource is gone or destroyed. It is free to spew CO2 into the atmosphere; no one can regulate it (unless parties agree to be regulated), and no one can enforce restrictions anyway.

My guess is that we’ll see half measures and CO2 programs that end up doing very little. That is politically expedient. Politicians and the public they serve like it that way.

Hydro

Thank you Hydro! I was just spouting from memory what I was told some 5-7 years ago by one of my teachers somewhere between 7th and 9th grade. Glad to know that my memory is, by popular opinion, faulty or that my teachers gave me generally bad information. But, mef, it was a public school. What is to be expected!

Everyone keep well and stay grounded in reality, or in the GalCiv reality, whichever you prefer most

GalenEvil

Most of the global warming climate model results I've seen (summaries of, anyway) show the USA Midwest getting drier to much drier: think Oklahoma (fairly dry, hot) or West Texas (hot, arid to desert).

Florida is a largely former coral reef that is just above sea level, so it doesn't take much of an imagination to think it will return from whence it came...

Hydro