Global Warming/Climate Change Discussion Thread

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Which of the following statements best reflects your views on Global Warming?


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The main reason people in less developed nations have so many kids is to make sure they are cared for in their old age.

They will perforce have fewer offspring when they are wealthy and have pensions like Euros and gringos. Since our system of wealth generation and pensions seems to be collapsing under a pile of debt, it seems most unlikely that less developed nations will ever secure the blessings we have enjoyed, however briefly.

Of course this fails to answer your question, but as Famine and others have alluded, there may be no "right way" available. Further, I do not think we westerners should be in the business of imposing anything at all on other people. Best to let them do their own thing, and let Nature take its course.
 
And who is most likely to go increase our totall pollution, developing countries. For example Mexico and China.

And what country has the highest CO2 production per capita?

If you really want to completely stop the contribution of industry to global warming, you can always have everyone live in grass huts....

The main reason people in less developed nations have so many kids is to make sure they are cared for in their old age.

And middle age. Poor health care and rampant unemployment and underemployment mean that kids are income earners at an early age.

But let's not forget the biggest reason: Sex is fun.

What is the right way to impose population control, dare I ask. Tax credits?

100% Tax break for the first kid... 50% tax break for the second... third kid removes all tax breaks. Fourth incurs a 150% tax penalty. Fifth incurs a 300% penalty.

If your net income is over $2,000,000 a year, the having more than three kids gives you a 100% tax break.

Should balance out the population nicely.
 
Niels, I used to be of the same opinion. I thought that high rates of population growth in the developing world were a problem. Then I found out that most of the world's pollution comes from the developed world, e.g. USA, Germany, even though I think China has no overtaken the US as the world's #1 polluter (but not per capita, China still has around 4 times the population of the US).
No amount of education and sweet talk will stop this family:
alg_dugger_family.jpg
Personally I don't understand how anyone would want that amount of children, especially if they live in the developed world where they have some security in old age.
 
Personally I don't understand how anyone would want that amount of children, especially if they live in the developed world where they have some security in old age.
It got them their own TV show?
 
Niels, I used to be of the same opinion. I thought that high rates of population growth in the developing world were a problem. Then I found out that most of the world's pollution comes from the developed world, e.g. USA, Germany, even though I think China has no overtaken the US as the world's #1 polluter (but not per capita, China still has around 4 times the population of the US).

Personally I don't understand how anyone would want that amount of children, especially if they live in the developed world where they have some security in old age.

They're very rich and think their children are the greatest gifts in the world. And they're very religious and don't use contraception. Sounds like a recipe for a large family to me. Besides, it's not like they're living off the government will all their babies and whatnot. Are you upset because there are 14 unnecessary bodies expelling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? :lol:
 
Are you upset because there are 14 unnecessary bodies expelling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? :lol:
They got their wealth by selling cars.
 
And they're very religious and don't use contraception. Sounds like a recipe for a large family to me.
I kinda figured that bit out. Here in Ireland the majority of those that have large families are the kind who think that using a condom will send you to that oven that doubles as a torture chamber named Hell.
Are you upset because there are 14 unnecessary bodies expelling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? :lol:
No, not really. The amount of people who have large families in developed countries usually make up a very tiny minority.
 
Preventing natural behavior can be done without the kinds of human rights violations we see in China? I mean, as Famine pointed out it can be punishable by torture and death and people still violate the law. You probably don't have an answer, but what kind of friendly and humane way would make people not have children?

That's right I have no answer. I still do think it's the problem though.
And that cán be possible.

Just to point out, you think it's all said and done with natural behavior.
Famine said he was primarily a biologist. But natural behavior only came to be natural behavior because it worked out for us as a species before.
It's the first time we threaten to actually hit a population limit on earth here at all. It provides even more reason to suspect that while it might not be possible for us to stop reproducing (with or without population controll), it still doesn't mean we're going to get away with it at all.
Because it would be the first time a species would have to stop (or more like.. limit) reproduction in order for use to substain ourselves.
So there's no realistic scenario imaginable to think that we have enough discipline for that. It was never needed in the first place in the history of evolution.

Actually, it'll keep on killing species if we can't get this urge to reproduce out of our systems at some critical stage in time. It'll happen all over and over again. If species will keep on becoming anywhere near as succesfull at all.
Because there's no denying the limits of our own earth.

Don't ask me if it's possible. It's necesarry IMO.
Could be all dependant on how population numbers are going to change. But if increasing it has to be done anyway. Whether it be natural or unnatural.

It's the only example we have of any state attempting to bulldoze human rights and legislate childbirth.

Of course, bulldozing human rights isn't really a problem for the Chinese state - they're quite hot on denying any and every human right they think helps the Party. But even when they lock up, torture and execute people for breaking the rules - even when they have people aborting female foetuses so their one child is male and will carry their name to the next generation - they still have a population growth three times higher than the entire G7 put together.


I just want to repeat that. The Chinese state imprisons, tortures and kills people who break the law and yet they have a net population growth of 6.4 million people a year.

It. Doesn't. Work.

Though I understand the things you describe, I still don't think this excludes it from being possible at all. It can only show.
And if proven necesarry we're just going to have to máke it possible.
It's based on the same things I said to FoolKiller. Because if it's necesarry, we will have to. Doesn't matter in "what way" or whatever.
Unless we make it worse than the actual consequences caused by global warming itsself.

It's irrelevant.

The right answer is the right answer. A wrong answer is a wrong answer, no matter how urgent or pressing it is. The bigger the problem and the larger the consequences, the more important it is to have the right answer, rather than any. If you accept that global warming is a massive problem with the entire human race at stake, then you have to agree that getting the answer right is absolutely crucial.

Is in some way true, but only to a certain extend.
First of all, there's a difference between answers and solutions.
Answers are for human-created questions. Often with "right" or "wrong" answers. Solutions have got to do with reality.

It might sound real good and safe while actually preventing all kinds of risks.
Reality/nature works even móre complicated than that though, still featuring the possibility of not finding a perfect solution at all, and featuring solutions with a low probability and with a high probability.

You can't take that away and stamp it off like it's "irrelevant". That's why there's a danger in thinking you can come up with a right or perfect solution.
There is no question, nor will there probably be a perfect answer.
And while being in search of that we'll still have more time ticking away, whatever the limit might be.

It seems somehow that this perfect or right solution of yours requires it to have no consequences at all. How can you know for sure that this solution will come?


Implementing a wrong answer could well reduce the amount of time available to us. We'd also be wasting time trying to implement it that we could spend getting it right.

There is no convincing argument you can come up with to advance the notion that, in the case of a planet-changing problem that we don't really understand, we must try anything, right this very second rather than being patient and getting it right.

Time could be convincing enough. Should be at least. Just merely by itsself. No, I don't know it what it is at the moment or how much time we can still have. But if I did, it should be able to be enough for me to convince you of a so called "wrong solution" now rather than a "right solution" later.

Because the way you describe it, this wrong solution is a solution simply with a low(or, lower) chance of succes. In your opinion at least, after comparing it with the succes China has had so far.

Humans for example could prove to be very willing to limit some of this "freedom to reproduce". It could be introduced globally to such extend that people will start realising the reasons for this to be done.

Offcourse, that's a 1 in a billion lottery ticket. But if I was going to be shot down right now without any chance, or with still a chance of 1 in a billion, I'd still take the 1 in a billion.

There is also another thing. You think the entire population on earth is only capable of doing one thing at a time. If you introduce measures to reduce the global population steadily now, you can still always in the meantime try to come up with different and better solutions anyway. But don't risk ending up with no possible solution anymore at all after the time runs out.

Who can say?

If it's so urgent, we must get it right, rather than risking everything and wasting time on answers that we cannot know are correct. Especially when the answer you propose is considerably more likely to harm the human race if it was successful (when the only example we have of it is not) because it has been proposed with no understanding of the mechanisms involved.

There's a difference again between time urgency, and solutions that "listen carefully(I believe it was called)" if that's what you're after. If so, you are talking about a different sence of urgency than the one that really applies. The urgency to get it right has not been proven yet. It could be that there are actually all kinds of possible solutions for it, as long as CO2 emmisions decreases to some certain value or number).

But the urgency of time is very likely to exist, seeing some of the possible symptoms of this global warming effect are still worsening though as we speak.

You have no reason to believe that any change in population numbers will do anything. Luckily, science is not carried out based on "belief". There is no research that says 6.8 billion people is worse for global warming than 6.7 billion people was. We don't have to kill those 100,000,000 people now.

As long as CO2 is proven to be caused by factories, it's the science of economy wich is all you need. Decrease in population decreases the demand for cars and luxury.

I shouldn't have to explain that.
Unless you can imagine people to be born who naturally don't have the need of food, water, shelter, jobs, money etc etc etc. This is not a crime, to have those needs. But to keep "producing" those needs in the end can be considered as such IMO.

I pretty much think it's criminal for an almost starving African women to produce 10 more children to support their mother.
It's obviously not working.

Now, some news on our news channel appeared mentioning the forest and land burning down in russia wich has caused russia to stop export of grain and other certain products.
They say that that will cause the grain price to go up in the rest of the world because of that, but that it was already rising at the moment because of the increasing world population and increasing world demand. The prices will rise even further now because of Russia though.

This is not science at all, you just have to be aware a bit and look around to already see the signals of overpopulation. Offcourse it would only be overpopulation in terms of grain if the price would rise too much in the end.

nikki
And what country has the highest CO2 production per capita
Can I just point out that whatever country that may be, it probably is because it's supporting the western habbits at the moment.
Judging from driftkings comments, it's still the US. Per capita.
So if all this global warming is happening just because we're maintaining this lifestyle for merely 2 of the 6,8 billion people at the moment, I have enough reason to be worried about developing nations at the moment.

I don't know why you're asking this though. As it doesn't even matter who or what country decreases in population IMO. It would be obvious that the most high polluters decrease first. I think living in wooden huts is less of a possibility than population controll is, if you are thinking about the "succes rate" of a solution actually being able to work. Wooden huts is definately not going to work. Again don't come with this "show me proof" story all over again. It's just not realistic. It involves way more than actually just trying to decrease the population through some kind of birth controll system as no country will ever voluntarily drop all of their technology without the neighbours at least doing the same thing. It would create a lot of tention to say the least.
 
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It would be obvious that the most high polluters decrease first. I think living in wooden huts is less of a possibility than population controll is, if you are thinking about the "succes rate" of a solution actually being able to work.

Again, you're not thinking this through. If I think about what my life without 3 kids is like and compare it to my life with 3 kids, I can tell you for certain that I'm going to have a LARGER carbon footprint without the kids.

Why?

Extra funds. I've got more money to spend on big engines, flying around the world, running my air conditioner, and shipping exotic foods from around the world. Here's another question... am I allowed to adopt?

Because without the ability to have my own kids I'd be happy to import a few from China or Africa and give them the life of a carbon pumping American.

Let's also look at the financial house-of-cards that is America. Without a new generation to pass our pyramid scheme known as social security onto, we're in for a major economic struggle of either technological stagnation (no more improvements in green technology) or potentially complete financial collapse which would result in MUCH more pollution.

You've still put absolutely zero thought into how this is supposed to actually work and whether it's possible - let alone the moral implications.

Your best bet is to ENCOURAGE Americans to reproduce and raise intelligent motivated scientists and engineers who will better understand the problem and develop the solution.
 
Again, you're not thinking this through. If I think about what my life without 3 kids is like and compare it to my life with 3 kids, I can tell you for certain that I'm going to have a LARGER carbon footprint without the kids.

Why?

Extra funds. I've got more money to spend on big engines, flying around the world, running my air conditioner, and shipping exotic foods from around the world. Here's another question... am I allowed to adopt?

Because without the ability to have my own kids I'd be happy to import a few from China or Africa and give them the life of a carbon pumping American.

Let's also look at the financial house-of-cards that is America. Without a new generation to pass our pyramid scheme known as social security onto, we're in for a major economic struggle of either technological stagnation (no more improvements in green technology) or potentially complete financial collapse which would result in MUCH more pollution.

You've still put absolutely zero thought into how this is supposed to actually work and whether it's possible - let alone the moral implications.

Your best bet is to ENCOURAGE Americans to reproduce and raise intelligent motivated scientists and engineers who will better understand the problem and develop the solution.

You could also get water toxication if you drink too much water.
Doesn't mean water is bad.

I think it should have to get pretty bad for you to really run into a problem with social security. These are all extremely minor more easily solvable/preventable problems you can solve.

And you haven't listened much to what I've said, I'm mainly just pointing out that I don't see any real possible solution without some kind of population controll doing some of the work too.
I don't necesarily disagree with you on the fact that it's probably very difficult to implement anyway.

But in terms of effectiveness I do disagree.
 
I think it should have to get pretty bad for you to really run into a problem with social security. These are all extremely minor more easily solvable/preventable problems you can solve.

uh.... we have that problem RIGHT NOW!! And we haven't been able to solve it.

And you haven't listened much to what I've said, I'm mainly just pointing out that I don't see any real possible solution without some kind of population controll doing some of the work too.

Doing what? Reducing CO2? Explain to me how it does that.
 
Uggh.

:banghead:


I'm going to say this one more time. Who pollutes the most? Developed nations. Who has the least children? Developed nations.
In contrast, who pollutes the least? Developing nations. Who has the most children? Ditto.


So, we have roughly 1-2 billion people living in the developed, western world, who are pumping out carbon. The remaining 4-5 billion people's lifestyles vary from near developed, to living in grass huts. All in all, the developed nations are doing exponentially more polluting, with a fraction of the population. Here's the kicker. These 1-2 billion people in the developed world are already limiting themselves to 2 or 3 children (or less), on their own. So what's the point? All you're going to be doing is keeping people who live in grass huts from being born. You won't stop carbon guzzling people from the west from being born. And from a risk-reward point of view, that's sure as hell not enough reward for a blatant disregard of human rights.
 
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Can I just point out that whatever country that may be, it probably is because it's supporting the western habbits at the moment.
Judging from driftkings comments, it's still the US. Per capita.
So if all this global warming is happening just because we're maintaining this lifestyle for merely 2 of the 6,8 billion people at the moment, I have enough reason to be worried about developing nations at the moment.

No, you don't.

Why are Americans big polluters? Because of prosperity. An abundance of natural resources and land, a huge transport infrastructure system that allows them to live spread out on a landmass that could support several times their number and the education (in general) to not have more kids than they can support.

Thus, as Danoff states, they get richer and richer, and pollute more because they have a lfiestyle that takes advantage of their prosperity.

---

As prosperity grows, population growth slows down. The same thing will happen to China and India. The higher the cost-of-living and the more modern the lifestyle, the less opportunities and inclination people will have to reproduce.

And while people can be swayed towards adapting a more cost-effective (read: less polluting) lifestyle by economic constraints (witness 08-09 again), relatively wealthy, modern populations are hard to sway when it comes to either limiting kids or having more. In other words, once they've learned to like not having kids, and as they live in a modern society where it's expensive to have kids, they'll stop having them. Even in the depths of a recession, Japan's population decline is a real problem for them.

I don't know why you're asking this though. As it doesn't even matter who or what country decreases in population IMO.

Why doesn't it matter? If you advocate CO2 control, shouldn't we get rid of the biggest contributors first? (which also means cargo shipping should be banned... :D )

It would be obvious that the most high polluters decrease first.

No. It isn't.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1661031_1661028,00.html
The World's Most Polluted Places

Linfen, China
linfen.jpg


Number of people potentially affected: 3,000,000
Type of pollutant: Coal and particulates
Source of pollution: Automobile and industrial emissions

Sukinda, India
sukinda.jpg


Number of people potentially affected: 2,600,000
Type of pollutant: Hexavalent chromium and other metals
Source of pollution: Chromite mines and processing

Not a single US city on the list. While one or two US cities make other lists, in general, the air quality and pollution in the third-world is worse (Mexico City, Beijing, etcetera).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution
Most Polluted World Cities by PM[54]
Particulate
matter,
μg/m³ (2004) City
169 Cairo, Egypt
150 Delhi, India
128 Kolkata, India (Calcutta)
125 Tianjin, China
123 Chongqing, China
109 Kanpur, India
109 Lucknow, India
104 Jakarta, Indonesia
101 Shenyang, China


The difference is: rich countries can actually force their citizens to adopt less polluting habits through regulation. Poor countries have no financial incentive to, and, in fact, view climate change politics as just another lever in which first-world countries are trying to maintain a competitive advantage over them in trade.

I think living in wooden huts is less of a possibility than population controll is, if you are thinking about the "succes rate" of a solution actually being able to work. Wooden huts is definately not going to work. Again don't come with this "show me proof" story all over again.

Why won't it work? What's the difference between asking couples to give up heating and air-conditioning and asking them to stop having babies? You're asking them to do something they don't want to do. They will be perfectly fine if they do either of these things. And if they perform the same job, they'll be wealthier in monetary terms due to the savings. Except if they're poor. The fewer hands to beg with, the less earnings you see per day.

"Show me proof": any solution that doesn't work under testing has to be discarded to free up resources (money, research, time, manpower) to find a better one. That's just the way the world works.

Now you're saying: "You can convince people not to have babies, but you can't convince them to stop polluting." Which, I guess, is why some otherwise sane people take up walking and cycling... convert to vegetarianism... buy only locally produced produce... and buy solar panels to go "off-grid".

It's just not realistic. It involves way more than actually just trying to decrease the population through some kind of birth controll system as no country will ever voluntarily drop all of their technology without the neighbours at least doing the same thing. It would create a lot of tention to say the least.

No couple will ever voluntarily limit the number of their additional income units without their neighbours at least doing the same and without their Church's blessings and without ligation or vasectomy. It would create a lot of tension to say the least.

Again: If I tell you you'll be better off financially not owning a car, a computer (unless your work depends on it), a television or your own house (move into a cheap student dorm), I'll be telling the truth. But do you, personally, want to give up all of that? That's exactly the same thing as population control. Except you're telling married couples not to reproduce... which is... uhhh... kind of the reason why they wanted to get married in the first place.

---

In the end, I actually support sex education and the ready availability of condoms (not for free, but for those who want them, they should be available). But while this works on the prosperous middle class, it's not going to stop the lower classes from having more babies.

And I support grass huts. They're biodegradable, and the net carbon emissions from building one are zero. :D
 
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Niels... You're missing several points. So let me give you an ordered list - each point is a deal-breaker for "population control to solve global warming" on its own, but they also get more important and less wildly speculative as they progress. For the sake of clarity I've missed off number one on the list - that any laws telling people how they may breed are wholly immoral - because you refuse to see it and it won't help you.

*Global warming may not exist
It's generally accepted that the world is slightly warmer currently than it was in the 1800s, but there is evidence that it may not be - and our confidence levels measuring global temperature are lower the further back in time we go. I wouldn't say it's particularly likely, but it's a possibility and needs mentioning.

*Global warming may be wholly natural
As above, it's generally accepted that there is some kind of forcing from human activities, but the forcing requires carbon dioxide as a vector and humanity doesn't even come close to the carbon dioxide emissions that nature can manage - we chuck out about 3% of the entire planet's carbon dioxide emissions. That aside, the mechanism of global warming requires a source of heat and the only one we have on the crust is the Sun. The Sun reached a maximum on its 11 year cycle in 1999-2000 - coinciding with the warmest year on record - and has since declined to a minimum - coinciding with reducing global temperatures. It's on course to reach a maximum again shortly but it's slated to be a lower maximum than the previous one. We'll find that out soon. There are also longer-term cycles.

*Global warming may be temporary
As part of natural cycles, the Earth has always warmed and cooled - the melting of Greenland's ice sheets and glaciers are often cited by Anthropogenic Climate Change advocates as evidence of global warming, but Greenland being covered by ice is the exception in geological history rather than the rule. It is, after all, called Greenland. We are emerging from an ice age which peaked (nadired?) in the 1800s.

There's also the issue of what nature does with the 97% of carbon dioxide caused by itself. It swallows it back again - our oceans act as huge carbon dioxide sinks, as does plant life on the surface. Everything the Earth can produce, plus 40% of what we can produce, is eaten right back up again. One of the proposed consequences of global warming is sea level rises due to melting ice caps. More sea = larger carbon dioxide sinks. Nature has a history of adapting.

*Global warming may not be a problem at all
What, exactly, are the consequences to the planet of global warming? People dying? 90% of every human who has ever lived is, currently, dead - and yet look at all the people alive right now. Animal and plant species dying? 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are also, currently, dead - and yet look at the diverse array of life the planet currently supports. Nature will out.

*There is no link between human population and global warming
The existence of one person does not confer a global warming effect. The existence of twelve billion people does not confer a larger global warming effect than the existence of two billion people. It's what they do that is more important. I don't create global warming by existing any more than Al Gore does - but my carbon footprint is one twenty-fifth of Al Gore's, because I live in a sensible house, turning on equipment only when I need it and walking/cycling/driving only when I need to, rather than a mansion with multiple computers and LCDs permanently turned on and my own private jet to proselytise to others about how they're killing the Earth.

*There is no immediate danger of the human population of the planet exceeding the human population the planet can sustain.
Western countries alone currently produce sufficient necessities (food, clean water, clothing) for the entire population of the planet. In terms of available land for agriculture and technology used to produce food, we can supply a diet sufficient to sustain an average American's normal calorie intake twelve billion times over. This will only increase as technology improves. Not to mention power requirements - we're only a couple of decades from fusion...

*Legislating population control has no track record of success
Even with such major deterrants as torture, imprisonment and execution for exceeding legislated family size, the population of China grows by 6.4 million people per year. Because we don't ignore human rights at the level China does, we don't have the same kind of weaponry available to us to enforce it and we stand even less chance of succeeding. And even if we did succeed, China's population increases per year by more than three times as much as the G7's does anyway.


So, to get from "algae dying" to "cull people", you need to assume that global warming exists, isn't natural, isn't temporary, is a problem, is caused by people, is caused by too many people (rather than what they do) and that we can make a person cull work despite no track-record of success and ignore that you're thinking of a fundamentally abhorrent, evil act. If you don't make all of these assumptions, your solution cannot work and even the first assumption on the list has its problems.


Now, I've no problem with people accepting that global warming exists (the numbers suggest that to be the case - it'd take a pretty sceptical person to state otherwise) or that it's not wholly natural (there's evidence to suggest that there is a natural element and an "anthropogenic" element, though there is disagreement on the strength of each). I'm not particularly sold on arguments about its permanence (sea level projections for 2050 and such like) as it's quite a complex system and depends on many positive and negative feedback mechanisms - for example if we increase sea levels by a metre, we increase the ocean's carbon dioxide sink ability by 100 million tons per year (a negative feedback mechanism) - though some are. I'm not hugely convinced that it's a problem at all, but then I live in a country and environment where even another 3 degrees in summer and/or a loss of 3 degrees in winter wouldn't affect me even slightly. I'm sure that if my life depended on the temperature I might have a different point of view, but my life and the life of any progeny of mine (or of theirs) won't be changed much by global warming (assuming the first three points), but again, some are sure that it is a problem.

From that point on, even amongst hardcore ACC zealots, I suspect you're very much on your own.
 
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As above, it's generally accepted that there is some kind of forcing from human activities, but the forcing requires carbon dioxide as a vector and humanity doesn't even come close to the carbon dioxide emissions that nature can manage - we chuck out about 3% of the entire planet's carbon dioxide emissions. That aside, the mechanism of global warming requires a source of heat and the only one we have on the crust is the Sun. The Sun reached a maximum on its 11 year cycle in 1999-2000 - coinciding with the warmest year on record - and has since declined to a minimum - coinciding with reducing global temperatures. It's on course to reach a maximum again shortly but it's slated to be a lower maximum than the previous one. We'll find that out soon. There are also longer-term cycles.
This is very misleading indeed. For one thing, you neglect to mention the fact that, while GHG emissions related to human activity represent only a small fraction of the total, human activity is having a drastic effect on the amount of GHGs that remain the atmosphere. Of this there is no serious doubt (within the legitimate scientific literature anyway - and not counting the blogosphere). Human activity is the only serious contender when it comes to explaining why is it that CO2 levels are substantially higher now than they have been for atleast 800,000 years, and possibly millions of years. The rate and magnitude of increase of CO2 in the last century cannot be explained without factoring in CO2 emissions from human activity.

While solar activity will always be the major factor in determining our climate, it is extremely misleading indeed to suggest that recent warming trends can be sufficiently explained by solar activity alone. While 1998 was the warmest year on record, the decade 2000-2010 was the warmest on record and 2010 is set to surpass 1998, despite the fact that the sun has been at a minimum for longer than in recent recorded history.

I agree with the rest of your post, however.
 
Well... I did simplify it a lot and didn't ascribe any effect to any single cause - and merely said it "coincided" rather than caused. And I covered the anthropogenic forcing elsewhere:

Famine
It swallows it back again - our oceans act as huge carbon dioxide sinks, as does plant life on the surface. Everything the Earth can produce, plus 40% of what we can produce, is eaten right back up again.

(the implication being that 60% of what we can produce isn't eaten right back up again).

And of course the point wasn't to say that Global Warming is/isn't any of those things - merely that there's possibilities that Niels hasn't even begun considering. But then he did state earlier that carbon dioxide "shouldn't be in the sky"...
 
We're always a couple of decades from fusion though :D

That said, we've almost cracked break-even - the current generation of reactors under construction ought to be capable of it. We're certainly a couple of decades closer than we were a couple of decades ago when it was coming in a couple of decades... :lol:
 
Well I hope someone gets to it within our lifetimes. That would be a big headache resolved. :lol:
 
While 1998 was the warmest year on record, the decade 2000-2010 was the warmest on record and 2010 is set to surpass 1998, despite the fact that the sun has been at a minimum for longer than in recent recorded history.

Do you have an up-to-date temperature chart that you like? It seems like people stopped making them somewhere in the mid-2000's. I'd like to see what's been going on as reported by source that you like.
 
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2010_03_15/

For informational purposes, I post this recent NASA press release regarding sunspot cycles and energetic plasma flows within the sun.


Key Quotes:
"One of the outstanding questions facing solar physicists is the origin of the solar magnetic cycle: What drives the 11-year sunspot cycle? We have just passed an extended and deep minimum, unlike any in the past 100 years. The late onset of the new solar cycle (#24) and the unusually deep minimum between cycles 23 and 24 took all experts by surprise, which suggests that there is a fundamental lack in our understanding of the origin of the solar activity cycle.

The Sun's meridional circulation is a massive flow pattern within the Sun that transports hot plasma near the surface from the solar equator to the poles and back to the equator in the deeper layers of the convection zone, similar to a "conveyor belt".

One class of dynamo models predicts that a stronger meridional flow produces weaker polar fields, whereas another class of models predicts stronger polar fields (and a shorter sunspot cycle) for the same flow.

Analyzing more than 60,000 full disk magnetograms registered by the MDI instrument on SOHO between May 1996 and June 2009...they also found that the flow was faster at sunspot cycle minimum than at maximum and substantially faster on the approach to the current minimum than it was at the last solar minimum. This finding poses new constraints on solar dynamo models and may help to explain why the last solar minimum was so peculiar."
 
I'm absolutely staggered that this hype train has been allowed to continue all these years. The theory of anthropogenic global warming is complete and utter bogus. The planet's average temperature has followed the same pattern of rising then falling for millennia.
 
*There is no immediate danger of the human population of the planet exceeding the human population the planet can sustain.
Western countries alone currently produce sufficient necessities (food, clean water, clothing) for the entire population of the planet. In terms of available land for agriculture and technology used to produce food, we can supply a diet sufficient to sustain an average American's normal calorie intake twelve billion times over. This will only increase as technology improves. Not to mention power requirements - we're only a couple of decades from fusion...

Of course, there remains the pesky problem of finding ways for the rest of the world to pay for that food...

Then again, if we don't actively feed the poor, that helps solve the overpopulation problem.

We're always a couple of decades from fusion though :D

That said, we've almost cracked break-even - the current generation of reactors under construction ought to be capable of it. We're certainly a couple of decades closer than we were a couple of decades ago when it was coming in a couple of decades... :lol:

I was wondering where you were going to go with that. Fusion is always, always fifty years into the future. In fifty years, they'll be past break even and actually making power. In another fifty, they'll be making power continuously[/n]... then in another fifty, they'll finally have commercial fusion.

Should live to see it. We're going to have practical immortality in just twenty years. :D
 
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