I'll start by stating that I've been a denier and sort of an agnostic to the issue because of my religious beliefs, "if its what God desires to happen, it will happen", but I started thinking about it more from a non-religious angle and I think I'm changing my mind on this issue. Why the sudden deep thought? Well, this might sound silly, but I watched Interstellar last night and even though the main theme of the movie was not global warming/climate change, it still was a subplot. I usually don't like my movies to be a vehicle of ideology in my life, but it did get me thinking. I've read countless of forum post where Denny tries to disprove the link between Global Warming and CO2 levels, but I just can't disagree with the majority of scientists who believe it. This article is fairly new, and touches on this subject. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/02/27/surprise-co2-directly-linked-to-global-warming/ So, can anyone still refute this is going on? Shouldn't we all be joining together to fight this issue? For the record, I'm a conservative, but it looks like my party is completely dropping the ball on this.
If the CO2 levels graph out like this over the last half million years; Why get in a sweat over a graph only showing the last few hundred years? It is rising but...? It has before. More than likely, it will again.
For me it comes down to this, we can change and alter our planet intentionally. We do it all the time, we will continue to do it. We will modify the weather and climate intentionally. If we can do these intentionally why is it so hard to believe that we can't do them unintentionally or by accident? Some will have you believe that we are just passengers on this big blue marble. What ever happens, happens. Climates change, climates come and go. To deny climate change is to deny the greatness that humankind can achieve and has achieve.
Out of curiosity, what do you make of this part of the article? The data indicate statistically-significant energy additions of 0.2 ± 0.07 Watts per square meter per decade. This may not seem like much compared to the average solar input of about 1,100 Watts per square meter , but the researchers linked this trend to the 22 part-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 over the eleven-year span of this study. (In 100 years, 1100 + 2 watts/sq meter. Doom or not?)
Heh? I don't know where the deny comes from but I am lost in finding a connection with the greatness of humankind?
No. Not dire at all. The effect of that much CO2 has a negligible effect on the planet's warming. The 1102 watts/square meter isn't scary at all. I'd be interested in seeing if the energy reaching the surface would be 1102 watts/sq meter even without adding more CO2 to the mix. I bet it is increasing no matter what. Anyhow, for comparison, the earth's CO2 levels have been as high as 7000 ppm and we didn't turn into Venus. It's been as high as 4000 during the time of the dinos - plants and very large animals thrived. At the time we had 7000 ppm, there was an explosion in the number of different life forms/species on the planet.
The planet has froze and warmed for billions of years. Humankind has only been around for 100,000 years. And you could even put that to 1,000 years of technology to actually have the slightest of impact. I believe we should be responsible "top of the food chain" animals and do our best to save it, but the planet will still do its thing. Our evolution is on our ability to evolve enugh to adapt to the rapid climate changes. We are the only animals on this planet that has successfully migrated to all parts of the world, through all climates. We adapt and with further technology, we can reach technology to actually control our fate.
I was just at the ocean. It was plenty alive. The pacific anyway. Birds dive bombing for fish. There are dolphins even.
"I saw a fish, the ocean is fine." - Denny Crane Overfished and under-protected: Oceans on the brink of catastrophic collapse http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/oceans-overfishing-climate-change/
That article is one of many that shows that we have killed 90% of the big fish in the ocean. I would say that killing 90% of something is pretty damn close to being dead while you say as long as you can see a bird eating a fish everything is just fine.
Well, aside from being Monsanto-polluted cesspools of waaaay more toxicity than will ever be consumed by the denizens surrounding Fukushima, yeah.