Someone has asked me on another forum why scientists don't go on
global warming denier forums: in his words, "What are they scared of?"
The answer is that they are not scared. They don't go to these forums
for the same reason that scientists aren't usually seen addressing
ridiculous statements of Pat Robertson, Ayatollah or Glenn Beck. Most
scientists see it their role to achieve knowledge, not bang heads with
people who don't want it. Further, most legitimate scientists, unlike
global warming deniers, don't have much time on their hands and don't
want to waste it talking to people who are not interested in the truth
and would use any bit of knowledge that they get to make more
convincing rackets.
I'm not a scientist, but I know enough about science to know what
happens when one raises carbon emissions while cutting down the trees
that absorb carbon dioxide. Nor am I affiliated with UN, Obama, Al Gore
or the "liberal media," but I know how much each party is
superior in its values and conduct to those who want them dead. I also
know enough about politics to know the extent to which right-wing
conmen like to deceive people and how many people believe their
rackets. So I will do is address some of the most common denier claims
here and let the chips fall where they may.
Claim: The volume of the Antarctic ice has grown bigger.
Answer: Density of ice increases the colder it gets and decreases the
warmer it gets. Increase in temperature in the Antarctic, where
temperatures are extremely low, reduces the density of the ice and
thus increases its volume. Not only is this consistent with global
warming; it confirms it.
Claim: There is no ocean acidification/adding carbon dioxide to water
does not make water acidic.
Answer: Yes it does. The reaction is CO2 + H2O -> H(+) + HCO3(-) .
Water is split up and creates unattached hydrogen ions and carbonic
acid. Ocean acidity has increased by 30% over pre-industrial levels,
with over one third of that change in the last decade and a half.
Claim: It's the sun.
Answer: If it had been the sun or anything to do with the sun, the
entire atmosphere would have gotten hotter. Instead, lower atmosphere
has warmed and upper atmosphere has cooled. This can only be explained
by carbon dioxide and methane accumulating in middle atmosphere to
reflect sun's rays bouncing off Earth's surface back to the Earth,
causing the lower atmosphere to warm, while allowing fewer rays back
into the upper atmosphere, causing the upper atmosphere to cool.
Claim: There is no noticeable accumulation of atmospheric CO2.
Answer: Atmospheric CO2 has increased from 315 parts per million to
420 parts per million from 1960 to present. That's around 30% during the
last six decades.
Claim: There have been cyclical fluctuations in temperature across
decades.
Answer: The amplitude of these fluctuations is much smaller than the
consistent upward trend that has taken place over the last century. It
is much like watching the Standard & Poors' index since 1940 and
observing cyclical risk fluctuation around a consistent upward trend.
Over the last century, the increase has been 0.9 Celsius. Over the
last two decades, it has been 0.3 Celsius.
Claim: Since most temperature stations are in the cities, urban heat
effect is responsible for these measurements.
Answer: Urban heat effect has been calculated to comprise 0.002
Celsius per decade, or 0.02 Celsius over the last century. This is a
minuscule fraction of the temperature rise that has occurred,
accounting for less than 3% of the total temperature rise.
Claim: Global warming is not global / is only significant in some
areas.
Answer: This conclusion is based on inadequate data. In measurements
1950-present, global warming is in fact global, with warming areas
covering a majority of the Earth's surface and both hemispheres
(http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/).
Claim: Sun spot cycles are responsible for the climate change.
Answer: Over the last 50 years, sun spot activity has decreased.
Claim: The temperature has been rising since the last Ice Age.
Answer: The total rise in temperature since its bottom during the last
Ice Age, over a period of 18,000 years, has been 15 Celsius. That
amounts an average rise of 0.09 Celsius per century. That compares
with the rise of 0.9 Celsius over the last century, or a rise ten
times faster than the average rise in temperatures since the last Ice
Age.
Claim: Changes in solar radiation are responsible for the climate
change.
Answer: No sustained changes in solar radiation have been detected in
60 years. What has been observed is ten-year cycles around a constant
base rate.
Claim: Most heat winds up in the oceans.
Answer: That it does as well. The heat content of oceans has been
shown to be rising dramatically, and at a rate confirming the
predictions.
Claim: The temperature rises have nothing to do with the greenhouse
effect.
Answer: The analysis of the heat content of different ocean basins has
revealed changes in heat content consistent precisely with the
predicted greenhouse effects and excluding any other possible source.
Claim: A small change in the gases in the atmosphere cannot affect the
climate.
Answer: Nothing is small about a 25% rise in atmospheric CO2.
Claim: Oceans are not rising.
Answer: Oceans have been rising by 1.8 mm a year for the last century
and 3 mm a year in the last decade. Many low-lying areas are
experiencing constant flooding, and some islands in the Pacific have
already been submerged.
Claim: Sea level rise is at the same rate as over the last 2000 years.
Answer: The average rate of sea level rise for the 3000 years
preceding last century was 0.1 to 0.2 mm a year. That is in contrast
to 1.8 mm per year since 1900 and 3 mm per year since 1990. This rate
is 9 to 10 times the 3000 year average for the last century and 15 to
30 times the 3000 year averate in the last two decades.
Claim: El Nino of 1997-1998 contributed most of the recent rise in sea
level.
Answer: If that were true, then every El Nino would do the same thing.
The rise from satellite measurements shows a rise of 50 mm since 1995,
or approximately 3 mm per year, with no significant deviation for the
El Nino years (http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/).
Claim: Temperature trend at Mauna Loa shows no correspondence with CO2
trend.
Answer: Actually it does, as does global temperature. Both show a
consistent upward trend.
Claim: CO2 concentration rises and falls all the time.
Answer: Never this fast. A 25% rise in 50 years is unprecedented.
Claim: The increase in CO2 is natural.
Answer: No natural causes have been found for a 25% rise in CO2 over
50 years - not now, not in the past. Manmade CO2 emissions have been
increasing consistently as has manmade deforestation, creating an
obvious source.
Claim: CO2 is not a major factor in temperature.
Answer: In analysis of ice cores revealing global temperature and CO2
concentration, it was shown that temperature and CO2 concentrations
move in tandem with each other, with changes in temperature preceding
changes in CO2.
Claim: What we are seeing is similar to previous times of changing
temperatures.
Answer: In the past temperature changes, changes in temperature
preceded changes in CO2. Presently, the opposite is the case.
Atmospheric CO2 has risen by 25% over the last five decades. If this
was a normal climate change, there would have been a corresponding
temperature rise sometime between 1500 and 1800 AD. There has not
been.
Claim: Previous temperature cycles were caused by natural changes in
CO2.
Answer: Previous temperature cycles - known as Milankovitch Cycles -
were caused by changes in the earth's orbit amplified through a
feedback loop. A small shift would take the earth slightly closer to
the sun, the temperatures would rise slightly; as a result of which
rise snow and glaciers would melt to reflect less sunlight into the
sky while oceans would release more gas, and bogs and tundra would
melt, releasing methane and CO2 to reflect more sunlight back to the
earth. All of these factors in feedback mechanism would make the
earth warmer. A small shift would make the earth slightly away from
the sun, more snow and glaciers would accumulate to reflect more
sunlight into the sky, less gas would be released by tundra and bogs
to reflect less sunlight back to the earth. All of these factors in
feedback mechanism would make the earth colder. In all cases, changes
in CO2 took place after, not before, changes in temperature.
Claim: CO2 is only a minor factor in global warming.
Answer: On Planet Venus, where the atmosphere is 97% carbon dioxide,
the surface temperature is 464 Celsius and the surface pressure is 92
times that of Earth. It became that way, from an original state much
similar to that of Planet Earth, because carbon produced was not being
absorbed and accumulated in the atmosphere to result in present
conditions. On the Earth, CO2 composes 0.04% of the atmosphere.
Doubling the CO2 concentrationhas been computed to cause, by itself, a
3 Celsius rise in temperature - a rate which corresponds with the 0.7
Celsius rise we have seen from the 25% rise in atmospheric CO2 since
1960. This rise in temperature, if sustained, has the capacity to lead
to a feedback cycle in which rising temperatures result in melting of
glaciers and snow, reducing the reflection of light away from the
Earth and further heating up the planet.
Claim: The Earth has been colder and hotter before.
Answer: These changes were accompanied by vast changes in ocean levels
and in ecosystems. For people living now, most of whom live in low-
lying areas, these changes mean vast loss of life and property. And if
the feedback mechanism were to activate, the result would be
disastrous.
Claim: Some places in the world are having cold spells.
Answer: Erratic weather events are very much a predicted effect of the
destabilization of climate accompanying global warming. Cross-world
averages show a consistent upward trend in the world's temperatures.
Claim: Carbon dioxide increase has positive effects, such as making
trees and plants grow. This ameliorates the effects of carbon
emissions.
Answer: This claim is based on reforestation of American Northeast
over the last few decades, which has taken place because the region
has had a reprieve from logging since early 20th century and has
nothing to do with CO2. The forest growth in US Northeast is offset by
deforestation of tropical regions. In fact carbon dioxide levels in
the atmosphere continue to rise at a consistent rate. For the
situation to ameliorate significantly through the mechanism of trees
and plants growing and absorbing CO2, areas that are desert, such as
the Sahara, would need to become forests, and slash-and-burn
agriculture in the rainforest would have to stop. Both are feasible at
current level of technology, but it actually has to be done.
Claim: People cannot affect something as vast as planet Earth.
Answer: Yes they can. Amazon rainforest alone loses the area the size
of Greece every six years, and half the world's animal and plant
species have been lost in the last two centuries. We are in the middle
of the fastest extinction in the history of the planet, all due to
human activity. The same is true for global warming.
Claim: Mammoths, termites, etc., have produced lots of methane.
Answer: Nothing coming from mammoths or termites begins to compare to
the deadly double-punch of uncontrolled carbon emissions and
deforestation of rainforests that people have been doing to cause
global warming.
Claim: Trees absorb carbon dioxide.
Answer: Which is why raising carbon dioxide emissions while cutting
down the rainforest creates carbon dioxide with no trees to absorb it.
The deforestation is making the problem worse.
Claim: The predictions of global warming are inconsistent with one
another.
Answer: The 25% rise in atmospheric CO2 by 2000, along with
accompanying warming of the planet, was predicted in 1950s by both
American and Soviet scientists. It has come true. The change in the
heat content of the oceans, and the amount of the change in the heat
content of the oceans, has been confirmed precisely matching the
original predictions. As to the seeming difference between other
predictions, in fact there is none. There simply are many variables.
Glaciers melt, ocean levels rise. Glaciers melt and re-route ocean
currents, climate changes take place in areas affected by these
currents. The first has happened already.
Claim: Hackers revealed that two scientists at UN were fudging data /
NASA's James Hansen revised data.
Answer: That two people at UN and one person at NASA were doing wrong
says nothing about a fact that was known long before these three had
anything to do with it and that is affirmed not only by thousands of
legitimate scientists who have nothing to do with UN or NASA but also
by industry leaders who have opposed environmental agenda for decades.
Claim: Scientists have written peer-reviewed papers against global
warming.
Answer: None of these scientists have been major contributors to
climate science. The 700 or so papers written represent less than 5%
of papers written on the subject. They have about the same credibility
in the field as Richard Gardner does in psychology and Karl Marx does
in economics.
Claim: Global warming is a ploy to create one world government or to
create big government.
Answer: Neither is require to solve the problem. Solutions to global
warming can be put into place by private sector as easily as by public
sector, and with different entities doing it in different parts of the
world.
Claim: Scientists at UN have made up global warming to pursue global
domination by a Satanic New World Order conspiracy.
Answer: Scientists knew about global warming since 1980s. The right-
wing government of the time wanted nothing to do with it, denying
creation of clean-energy solutions that would have cheaply and easily
solved the problem. Now, solutions will be that much more difficult,
and much irreversible damage has already been done. All thanks to the
American Right that denied the truth in the first place and many of
whose adherents are continuing to deny it now.
Claim: Global warming is a giant hoax.
Answer: In fact, it is denial of global warming that has been a vast
hoax perpetrated by Republican governments, Texas Oil, and conmen who
deny the validity of science while benefiting from it daily as does
everyone in the West. This problem was first predicted in 1938,
gathered more evidence and predictive ability in 1950s, and was common
knowledge in 1980s, when it should have been solved, cheaply and
easily, through creation of high-intelligence, high-technology clean
energy solutions. Instead it was denied, and now because it has been
denied the world is facing great loss of life, great loss of property,
and irreversible damage, none of which had to be if this problem had
not been denied and been acted upon when it was discovered.
Claim: God will fix this.
Answer: People created this problem, people must solve this problem.
It is not fair to ask God to clean up our mess.
Claim: There is no global warming. These are the end times.
Answer: People have choice as to what world to have, and for how long
to have it. It is only the end times if you make these the end times
by destroying life on earth. The stance of destroying the planet will
not earn you any favor with God or with any power with any concept of
righteousness. And if you continue this stance, you have everything to
fear for your soul if the end times ever are to arrive.
Claim: It would be expensive to do anything about it / people would
have to lose what they have.
Answer: There are technically and economically sound technologies that
can provide all of people's present and much more energy needs through
processes that are not destructive to the environment or are much less
destructive than current technologies. Some of these technologies
carry vast economic benefit, both short-term and long-term, along with
their environmental benefit, while delivering greater convenience and
utility than technologies of today. And these technologies can be put
into place by the private sector as easily as they can be put into
place by the government, resulting both in job and prosperity growth
in the present and significant economic gains over the long term. This
can be done without even involving the government for anything except
this:
Refusing to give into lobbying by Texas Oil.