16. It seems to me that many of the experts who are worried about global warming were worried about a new ice age back in the late 70s and early 80s.

John Coleman used to be the lead weatherman at the ABC affiliate in Chicago in the 1970s. He then went to New York, was one of the founders of The Weather Channel, then came back to Chicago in the mid 80s at the NBC affiliate.

During the late 70s, Chicago had several brutally cold winters. You may recall that the winter of 78-79 dumped more than twice the normal snowfall and cost the incumbent mayor the election, due to poor snow removal and mass transit service.

John Coleman was predicting then that Chicago was going to have a climate more like the Twin Cities, that Dallas would start getting as much snow (40 inches) as Chicago, and that Key West and Hawaii would be the only two places in the U.S. that would not see snow every year.

So, how is it than in 30 years, we go from an ice age to global warming?

Remember too, that Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillippines erupted in 1992, throwing incredible amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere, causing one of the coolest summers around the globe. I went to a night game at Wrigley Field the day after Memorial Day dressed for a Bears playoff game in January, including long underwear and fur-lined gloves.

And if you watch documentaries on some of the cable channels (Discovery, History, etc.), you will learn that about 1000 years ago, Sweden had a thriving wine industry, until the climate change turned it into a frozen tundra.

Supposedly, the glaciers will return to the U.S. in about 10,000 years, covering New York City in several thousand feet of ice. Global warming may delay the return of the glaciers by 50 to 200 years.

It's one thing to encourage people to reduce energy consumption. After all, each dollar less spent on energy is a dollar that one can spend elsewhere, and one less dollar going to Middle Eastern terrorists.

But I just don't see how man's use of energy has the dire consequences, when it appears that the earth's climate simply goes through cycles, regardless of what we do.

Kent at 11:30PM on Oct 28th 2007

17. CO2 is not a pollutant; that word is part of the totalitarian newspeak. CO2 is part of the natural cycle and the major plant food.

Francis T. Manns at 4:28PM on Oct 28th 2007

18. The environmental degradation you seem to take on so easily is an optical illusion. The planet is fine. The human impacts are slight. Measurements are in the fractions of a percent of the global balance. Oil sands - the total impact to 100 metres economic cut-off depth could imact Alberta to the extent of 0.5% (1/2 of 1%) of the total land area of Alberta. That would be impossible because there is constant reclamation going on so the impact at any equilibrium time would be a fraction of that fraction. It's difficult arithmetic if you are against prosperity and resource leverage from the start. The greens want us to return to the trees and caves for an optical illusion because they cannot do arithmetic or proportions. CO2 is plant food.

Francis T. Manns at 4:32PM on Oct 28th 2007

19. "CO2 is not a pollutant; that word is part of the totalitarian newspeak. CO2 is part of the natural cycle and the major plant food."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

First, the 'totalitarians' are the republicans/conservatives/libertarians and they, not your political enemies (reasonable, prudent, adequately educated people) are the partisans who are attempting to spread scientific disinformation.

Here in the U.S. they have all but been absorbed by the chinese communists and their current political philosophy is more of an unholy synthesis of fascism, Stalinism and christian reconstructionism than anything that came before them in this country.

This ain't yer father's republican party. It's more like Mussolini's republican party.

In fact the captioned post is a favorite technique of totalitarian societies, the Big Lie.

A little about CO2 pollution.

An atmospheric concentration of CO2 of 9% for five minutes or longer will prove fatal to humans.

At lower levels for prolonged periods, the resulting anoxia produces numerous life shortening effects.

Either of the above would make it a pollutant.

Ammonia's (NH3) a plant food too, but breathe enough of it and you're dead.

But don't take my word for it. Any moron with a computer can vet this from dozens of reliable sources.

The problem with your propaganda is that you don't know the meaning of your buzzwords.

Just looking in a dictionary for the words 'pollution' and 'pollutant' will debunk what you wrote if you're truly interested in being on the side of truth and not just another transparent part of the Big Lie that is currently threatening humanity.

This is an area where scientific illiteracy and rationalization and/or dissociation to suit a politico-religious agenda can have mortal consequenses for every living human and their offspring.

You're part of the problem, as they say, not part of the solution.

Oh, here's another item you haven't factored in: there now are nearly seven billion people on this planet. Each successive billion takes less time to accrue. The next one will be about seven years, I believe.

The first one billion didn't happen until 1800.

Even christian reconstructionists would have to give that first billion 6,000 years to occur. Reasonably well-educated people would realize the number is much higher than that.

Pickin' up a theme?

Clif Kuplen at 7:54PM on Oct 28th 2007

20. Clif CO2 is about 350 PPM (parts per million) get a grip! 9% is 90,000 ppm. There is not enough fossil fuel to get there because of equilibrium in sea water. 95% would dissolve in the oceans given your nightmare.

Have you ever had a chemistry course?

Francis T. Manns at 11:43PM on Oct 28th 2007

21. It is sad to see that some people will not face that are actions do impact the world. I am only 19 years old and I can see a change in the climate.

Yes, CO2 is naturally occurring...but if you add to much of something, even if it already is there it is still harmful.
EX:/ You water a plant...it needs water. However, you over water the planet...the plant is harmed, is it not?

So, yes the humans might be producing a little bit of the CO2...but just a little bit over the natural amount can change the world significantly.
Ex:/ The water in the plant again…a little too much over time harms the plant.

Earth’s systems are delicately balanced. Change one thing, you change another.

I was watching a documentary on BBC and think that this is important
Take a look at the Permian period in history...
Volcanic eruptions in Siberia caused temperatures to raise 5 degrees...this warmed the oceans which made the vents in the ocean release Carbon12 and Methane. These caused temperatures around the world rise 5 more degrees...to a total of 10 degrees. This increase cause mass extinctions...those worst than the dinosaurs.

playonplayon1 at 12:12AM on Oct 29th 2007

22. "We now have evidence from the Earth's history that a similar event happened fifty-five million years ago when a geological accident released into the air more than a terraton of gaseous carbon compounds. As a consequence the temperature in the arctic and temperate regions rose eight degree Celsius and in tropical regions about five degrees, and it took over one hundred thousand years before normality was restored. We have already put more than half this quantity of carbon gas into the air and now the Earth is weakened by the loss of land we took to feed and house ourselves. In addition, the sun is now warmer, and as a consequence the Earth is now returning to the hot state it was in before, millions of years ago, and as it warms, most living things will die." (The Revenge of Gaia)

I suggest a low cost method of removing the carbon from the air called "biosequestration." I suggest seeding an extensively tested GMO into the ocean to remove vast amounts of carbon from the air, and putting it back into the ground where it came from.

Read my blog at http://www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod

Brad Arnold at 3:14AM on Oct 29th 2007

23. 20. Clif CO2 is about 350 PPM (parts per million) get a grip! 9% is 90,000 ppm. There is not enough fossil fuel to get there because of equilibrium in sea water. 95% would dissolve in the oceans given your nightmare.

Have you ever had a chemistry course?

***********

My nightmare? Nope, you ran that one the wrong way.

While I'm typing this the tv in the other room is talking about a small pacific island that's disappearing because the ocean is rising. Warm water expands.

Well, no matter, let's look at what you've said.

Present CO2 concentration is around 370 ppm, up, I might add from about 270 ppmv in the 1870's along with a dramatic increase in population and industry.

Unless something unexpected happens this will continue exponentially with attendant rise in greenhouse gas production and other atmospheric pollutants.

Your statement was merely that CO2 'is not a pollutant' and you failed to say anything further.

My statement illustrated that in sufficient concentration it could not just pollute but even be lethal.

However,If an increased concentration of atmospheric CO2 interferes with other physical phenomena to the detriment of the ecosystem at ANY concentration then it would certainly be seen as a pollutant, and as sure as the population goes up, CO2 concentrations will too.

My statement was made to debunk yours. You kind of went the rest of the distance by yourself.

The REAL issue with CO2 at least since I've been an adult has been greenhouse effect. I was certainly aware of this by the late sixties.

But you did identify 'environmental degradation' as an 'optical illusion'.

The logic of that statement escapes me. Optical?

Have you ever had a physics course?

There is no likelihood I could foresee of putting a lethal dose of CO2 into the atmosphere, but if something were to carbonate the ocean as you said, I doubt too many species would survive.

So just to prove how you don't really think things through even when constructing a superfluous straw man, I'll take your 'calculations' and assume that 95% dissolves in sea water at 90k ppmv to play your game.

That means the ocean's saturated with CO2.

At saturation, CO2 drops the detectable hydrogen ion concentration in distilled water to about the same order of magnitude as acetic acid and even though it's something of a stochiometric sophistry and other compounds are present, it would still manage to interfere with Michaelis parameters in seawater, I imagine.

This means that enzymes wouldn't work anymore and most if not all of the protoplasmic dudes and dudesses would succumb. Another mass extinction. But, hey, there'd be no atmospheric pollution.

I also ignored this gem:

"The greens want us to return to the trees and caves for an optical illusion because they cannot do arithmetic or proportions. CO2 is plant food."

By greens, I assume you mean people who are environmentally responsible, or to put it in republicanspeak they don't crap where they eat.

I was unaware that university math departments are now being shunned by environmentally responsible people and, what, being replaced by the libertarian/dominionist/royalist/neocon element?

Now there's a paradigm shift!

Return from trees and caves? Ah, a sort of Darwinian declaration!

Devolution? Most of your fellow travelers believe humanity came from a garden six thousand years ago, but argue about precisely which day this occurred.

Anyway your view of science and what you want to believe politically are joined at the hip and probably won't be assailable by reason.

People who can't quit smoking go through a lot of the same rationalizations, and often go on the offensive in an absurd and emotional fashion as was illustrated by your men in trees and similar remarks.

Yes, CO2 is plant food just like ammonia, phosporous and potassium, but your statement that it's not a pollutant is more like used food.

Clif Kuplen at 3:37AM on Oct 29th 2007

24. Climate change is a scientific phenomenon that has sadly been drawn into the political arena. Today we have every gadfly from Lubbock to Lisbon expounding upon the importance of solar flares, ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, and 1970s global cooling. What happened to trusting in the self-correcting system of international science? Most opposition to climate change draws from similar debunked scientific sources, or resorts to silly ad hominen attacks on Al Gore, Laurie David, and pointy-headed UN scientists.
Sure, Al Gore got a few facts wrong in "An Inconvenient Truth," like the snows of Kilimanjaro melting do to higher temperatures instead of sublimation. But science consistently corrects those inaccuracies, and moves on to new theories and explanations. Science cannot be boiled down to the stark black and white, good vs. evil that too many people demand to see in their news and opinions.
Climate change is like acid rain in 1980s or the hole in the ozone--a large-scale problem that demands a rationale, scientific approach free from political interference from both sides.

Jason Stevenson at 1:14PM on Oct 29th 2007

25. I'd rather die in an overheated free country than submit to the creeping progressive socialism anyway.

The government is by fat the biggest polluter, yet the left thinks the government should use unlimited force to gain control us us peons.

The government has done so well at developing the market for oil that it is the only substance known to man that goes up in price in contradiction to economic laws. But yet those mental giants think the government will give us alternative fuels? Pish - not until Halliburton makes one.

The land of the left is mentally devoid of any economic reality.

Alexia at 7:07PM on Nov 10th 2007