CO2 - Dumb question

Isn't one of the problems that people care about themselves and not the planet. the 2 are interlinked. The planet, our environment and life in general has always been in a state of flux. Probably the best thing that we could do for the continuation of our species would be to rapidly reduce our numbers, but this is not going to happen. There may be an end in sight for us that no one has seen so far. I doubt that our ancestor cousins foresaw that we would outbreed them, although they to a large extent still exist in our DNA. Possibly in the future our species won't exist, but our DNA, or much of it, might. It is what DNA does, survive.
saying that our planet will survive any rise in temperature is being factual, not pedantic. Although maybe its future isn't as long as we might imagine, we don't really know. But the one thing that we can be sure of is that it will change.

Isn't one of the problems that people care about themselves and not the planet. the 2 are interlinked. The planet, our environment and life in general has always been in a state of flux. Probably the best thing that we could do for the continuation of our species would be to rapidly reduce our numbers, but this is not going to happen. There may be an end in sight for us that no one has seen so far. I doubt that our ancestor cousins foresaw that we would outbreed them, although they to a large extent still exist in our DNA. Possibly in the future our species won't exist, but our DNA, or much of it, might. It is what DNA does, survive.
saying that our planet will survive any rise in temperature is being factual, not pedantic. Although maybe its future isn't as long as we might imagine, we don't really know. But the one thing that we can be sure of is that it will change.

"Isn't one of the problems that people care about themselves and not the planet.?"

I think it would be more accurate to say they care about themselves and not their grandchildren.

regards Martin

Strangely, some people believe that to be their right and never consider the consequences.

Conserving the planet is not just about principles and science but also about economics. A design solution for insulation in a building is affected by the prevailing interest rates more than just the energy to be saved vs the energy costs of the manufacture and installation of the materials. High interest rates wil discourage investment in energy saving measures as the future returns must be subject to greater discount. Hence the accountants can have significant influence in investment decisions unless regulation forces the pace.

An appeal to authority is a perfectly valid argument when the authority is accepted as an expert(s) in the field and has presented a valid array of data, evidence and reasoning to support their assertion, as Dunning and Kruger have done.

You are confusing it with an appeal to false authority, which would be, for example, citing Albert Einstein on a matter of religion, an area in which he was no kind of expert.

So perhaps you don't know quite as much about appeals to authority as you thought you did. A classic case of the Dunning Kruger effect.

Sorry Hopper you seem not to understood my point.

Richard Feynman tells us, "It doesn't matter who you are, how clever you are, how beautiful your idea is, if it disagrees with nature, with experiment, then it is wrong.

Climate experts have made many predictions and not one has passed this test so they are wrong.

Simples

Robin

s/not one has/almost all have/

s/wrong/right/

There. Fixed that for you.

Global warming: Another view.

It is a fact that many climate scientists have made many predictions that the empirical evidence has later agreed with. Just one example, out of many:

A 2019 study led by Zeke Hausfather evaluated 17 global surface temperature projections from climate models in studies published between 1970 and 2007. The authors found "14 out of the 17 model projections indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

Source: LINK to Skeptical Science debunking

You should take the time to read every article on that site carefully. It will debunk the misinformation you have been reading on fossil-fuel funded pseudo-scientific websites and other ideologically driven sites with their own agenda.

No, it is not "Simples " , at all. That is the Dunning-Kruger effect making you think a very complex matter is so simple that you know more about it than thousands of the world's leading scientists when the proof is readily available to verify their findings.

Edited By Hopper on 12/08/2022 04:54:00

Climate science isn't Simples, it is bogus. What is Simples is a Richard Feynman explanation when he comes down to your level.

Okay, all the climate predictions are true and I missed the poles being ice-free, tropical islands disappearing under the sea, numerous extinctions, crop failures etc. There is a list if you want it.

Obviously switching from BBC to GB News means I am being fed the wrong propaganda

Well, polar ice caps are dwindling, with already serious effects LINK

Tropical islands are steadily being overtaken by rising sea levels LINK

Current extinction rate is over 100 times the norm of geological timescales LINK

Impacts on crops are not expected by scientists (NASA) to become serious for another 10 years yet LINK

If you have missed all this, you have not been paying attention.

Edited By Hopper on 12/08/2022 11:06:14

Saying it might have happened a bit more than we thought it should, is not exactly the "prediction come true" scientific clincher you seem to think it is.

However, we don't need to argue. Science can be mistaken temporarily but it always sorts itself out in the end.

Robin

I hold not strong views on the general debate. I have already accepted that man must contribute to the ever changing climate.

I do despair at absolutists in either extreme, especially if their views are expressed in an unpleasant or disparaging way.

We must accept that motivated reasoning colours much of this forum’s content. That said I welcome members such as Hopper putting links before us. It is just a pity that his offerings are uncritical. One example,as I have not read through all on offer, is the correct comment on Antarctic ice reduction ,but no observation on the artic ice being at a 3 decade high.This is like a criminal prosecutor suppressing exculpatory information to secure conviction/ win an argument . No mention of the Norwegian Geological survey concluding from mapping sea ice ledges that the artic ocean was periodically ice free. I do not know what this means but surely it must intrigue anyone with an enquiring mind? Or, we are like medieval peasants chanting the liturgy in Latin, a language we neither speak nor understand.

Just as a parting shot…..why do these internet back and forth always talk of the “ world’s leading scientists”? What happened to the vast mass of non- leading scientists? Are they dismissed as they hold a differing view and have failed some undeclared purity test?

Off to lie in the sun now………

That is not what they are saying.

Err no.

"We lose Arctic sea ice at a rate of almost 13% per decade, and over the past 30 years, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95%.

If emissions continue to rise unchecked, the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer by 2040."

source: LINK

Following the science, I'm more inclined to be guided by the details in the document I linked to a few posts ago, which states that CO2 levels are an effect of climate change, not a cause.

Martin.

I find it hard to understand Robin's logic. Evidence has been building in favour of climate change for over 30 years and - so far - no new evidence has contradicted the theory. And weather patterns are changing as predicted by the theory - more unusual weather more often.

The scientific foundations aren't controversial. Weather is caused by heat and there is no doubt it comes from the sun.

This is true even though no-one has physically visited the sun and taken samples. By other means, science has a good understanding of the sun's thermonuclear reactions and how much energy it radiates into space. On the ground it's trivially easy to measure how much heat arrives at the earth's surface: it averages about 1kW per square metre.

1kW per square metre hitting an area of half 510,000,000 square kilometres is a lot!!! Fortunately most of the energy reflects or radiates back out into space overnight.

Life is possible because a small proportion of the sun's energy is captured by the plants and microorganisms sitting at the bottom of the food chain. Much larger quantities of energy drive the planet's weather: between the tropics air and moisture rise from sea level into the upper atmosphere and are replaced by cool air from towards the poles causing a rotation, twisted as the earth spins. Warm and cool water in the oceans rotate in the same way.  The amount of energy being stored is enormous.

The thermodynamics driving weather is well understood. The same sums lie behind car engines and power stations. We know what causes deserts, rain, hurricanes, blizzards, water-spouts, ice at the poles, and why Britain is warmer than Chicago despite being further north. Although air-flows and sea-currents interact in complex ways when they collide, it's even possible to predict European weather fairly accurately a few months in advance by measuring what's going on in the Atlantic and crunching the numbers.

Here's the bad news: the amount of heat accumulating at the planet's surface has been slowly increasing for at least 50 years. Not obvious to the casual observer, but instruments can see it. The effects become more obvious with every passing year. Thermodynamic theory, which is well understood by science, predicts more heat will cause the weather to become more turbulent everywhere. And that's what's happening.

What's causing heat to accumulate? Measurements confirm the sun isn't putting out any extra heat and volcanos and industry don't produce enough heat to explain the rise either. Something else is causing the planet to warm up.

In the laboratory it's easy to identify gases that have a 'green-house' effect. Several have this effect, and two of the strongest are increasing in the air because of human activity. Adding tiny quantities of Methane or Carbon Dioxide to air in the lab show they both make air a much better heat insulator. The experiment can be done by anyone and the results are repeatable.

Different measurements show the rising temperatures around the world are consistent with the increasing amount of Methane and Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. The extra insulation is keeping heat on earth that previously escaped into space.  

Methane and Carbon Dioxide look very much like a smoking gun, and there are no other serious suspects. Water vapour is also a green-house gas, but the correlation with temperature increase is weak.

Climate might be defined as the average weather effecting a whole region. A likely outcome of more turbulent weather is that it will shift the average enough to amount to climate change everywhere. Major change to agriculture and where people can live. Population shifts are likely. May be off-the-scale hard to imagine, but that's where the consensus suggests we're heading.

That the planet is warming up isn't something individuals can choose to believe in or not. The consequence of allowing a system to overheat isn't the gift of politicians. If you don't believe me, go for a long drive with no water in the radiator or put a couple of extra blankets on the bed tonight. (Stinking hot in the UK today!)

Floods predicted here because the ground has dried out and a burst of heavy rain is approaching. Heavy rain hitting dry ground often runs off rather than soaks in: flash floods are dangerous in many desert regions.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 12/08/2022 14:30:35

How does CO2 trap the heat?

Martin.