Justus For All

Yeah Dave!!

The greatest delight of all in the global warming debate is that the extremes in both ends of the argument can find plenty to satisfy their own confirmation biases.

The only truth is that we do not know for certain, do not have a decent handle on likely theory to explain, either the cause nor the long term effects of the current increases in CO2 and global average tempertures.

Yeah, I read the article and was going to post on it.

It’s really a back and forth argument. My take on it is to simply look at what we do know:

1) C02 Gas, and Carbon in the atmosphere retains heat. We know this, it’s a scientific Fact.

2) There is a lot of it in the air right now. Possibly the most in the last 800,000 years. But a lot non the less.

3) More and more is being pumped into the atmosphere every day by irresponsible over-use of resources. All you have to do is hook up the tail pipe of an average car, and multiply it by the number of cars in the world to see just how much we are putting out. Again, no room for argument here.

4) By destroying huge amounts of plant life, we are damaging the ecosystem’s ability to remove C02. Again, I have not seen any argument on this.

Is the warming trend caused by us, or natural occurrences? Dunno, don’t really care. If we can regulate the amount of C02 in the air, we might have a chance of at least keeping our climate similar longer, giving us more time to plan for the ‘big change’.

I don’t disagree with most of those facts, but they are not sufficient to tell us what to do.

For example:

1) We don’t know how much this heat retention will be, or whether it continues to go up, or quickly plateaus in heat retention capability. The difference in the two scenarios is extreme.

2) There is a lot now, but if we go back millions of years it isn’t so high. There seem to be times when C02 has been higher and the earth was cooler.

3) Cars produce C02. Whether that is irresponsible overuse of resources is questionable.

4) This fact I am questionable on. Certainly there is deforestation in some parts of the earth, but there is an increase in forestation and other plant life in other areas. I am not familiar with any analysis of the total plant life on earth and if it is increasing or decreasing, let alone its ability to absorb carbon. Indeed, some things I have read seem to hint that the higher C02 levels, are helping plants grow faster (and absorb more) indicating that the feedback loop is functioning and might well be able to deal with human activities just fine. Of course a longer growing season would also benefit plant life. Certain industial activities, decried by environmentalists may in fact provide a signifigant carbon sink, for example when trees are logged and treated with perservatives for construction that locks in that carbon for a long time, while at the same time clearing the ground for new growth.

If regulating C02 was a costless activity I would agree with your final summary. It isn’t though. As for the ‘big change’ if it isn’t so big, then it is quite likely that extreme measures to confront it now will result in far more death and suffering. It also may be that regulation of C02, especially to a reletively inconsequencial degree such a Kyoto would provide, has such a small effect that it is unnoticable. If the more time to plan is quite modest, but the resources that can be devoted to the plan greatly reduced as a result of C02 regulation, that obviously would not be a ‘win.’