Ok im confused about "facts" regarding global warming

[surftheiop]

Just to Clarify

I am in no way attacking global warming, just trying to understand the facts.
I dont want people to say i agree with Al Gore b/c thats what everyone else is doing.
I dont want people to say Al Gore is a jackbooted politician its all lies.

What i want is someone to address the two videos (gore and the link) that claim different conclusions based on what appears to be the same data. Dont address the messengers, address the numbers (graphs). If you dont want to do that I completly understand but please dont lecture me on politics, i dont care about global warming, i do my best to protect the enviroment regardless so not gonna effect me either way.

[ApeAttack]

[ QUOTE ]
Just to Clarify

I am in no way attacking global warming, just trying to understand the facts.
I dont want people to say i agree with Al Gore b/c thats what everyone else is doing.
I dont want people to say Al Gore is a jackbooted politician its all lies.

What i want is someone to address the two videos (gore and the link) that claim different conclusions based on what appears to be the same data. Dont address the messengers, address the numbers (graphs). If you dont want to do that I completly understand but please dont lecture me on politics, i dont care about global warming, i do my best to protect the enviroment regardless so not gonna effect me either way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand this. I put a link up that refuted the 'lag' importance.

[surftheiop]

thanks man!
Seems logical enough

[surftheiop]

I didnt see until now,
great link - clears it up a fair amount

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Watch the video. The OP wants you to refute the facts presented in the video, not give us your thesis on the correlation between science and politics. In fact that video is the video that says that the global warming crowd is tainted by politics, and by money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Woolygimp, your tactics may be crude but you do deserve an answer.

The video's NASA scientist is Roy Spencer. He doesn't believe in evolution. The Harvard Fred Singer doesn't believe tobacco causes cancer. Are you really going to believe those two on global warming? The claim that volcanoes release more CO2 than humans in the movie is plain wrong. Goto the USGS website for info.

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

Several of the graphs in that video are doctored/edited. At least one of the scientists in the movie claims he was tricked and they are taking his statements out of context.

This video is a good test of how easily one can be fooled by a handful of scientists and fancy editing more than anything else. There are are over 10,000 (possibly 20,000) scientists in the AGU. If only 1% of them are corrupt/mentally insane you have at least 100 mad and unreliable scientists. This video doesn't even have 20 members of the AGU. Think about that.

[surftheiop]

thanks for the responce

[arahant]

I just wanted to say that I had a thought about this that I didn't post because I 'figured it out' and didn't want to look silly, but maybe it is a question for discussion.

Anyway, my first thought (along the lines of an earlier post) was "i see that co2 would increase warming, but how does warming increase co2". Well, I think the video was cut off a bit early, and I sort of filled in the extra. I assume the argument about to made was that the solubility of CO2 in the oceans decreases as temperatures rise (seems obvious, really), so this would release excess CO2. I haven't looked at the graphs or whatever, but I at least understand the mechanism they are suggesting, and depending on the lag I can see how it could work either way.

That said, I don't see any way that CO2 can NOT contribute to global warming. I just don't see it. I mean, it's very clear that it 'traps' radiation and re-emits it in the infrared spectrum back to earth. I assume it's a bit of a self-reinforcing cycle, and humans are just tipping it into a cycle that may have occured anyway...

Either way, if we don't want a warmer earth, I don't see how drastic reduction in CO2 isn't a big part of the solution.

[Silent A]

Summary of the counter argument to the clip for those who don't want to read ApeAttack's link:

The 800 year lag is part of a 5000 year warming trend. The lag only suggests that CO2 was not the initial cause (first 800 years) of the warming of that particular warming trend. It says nothing about whether or not increasing CO2 concentrations cause temperatures to rise.

Also, the clip makes some rather dangerously misleading points in the last few seconds before it ends about the relative ammounts of human made CO2 and vegetation CO2. What they don't mention is that all that vegetation CO2 was pulled out of the atmosphere, mostly in the same year, before it was put back, so the net contribution of plants is close to zero.

Most of the CO2 we produce comes from fossil fuels which haven't been part of the CO2 cycle for millions of years so it truly is "new" CO2, not simply re-cycled CO2 as in the case of plants and, indirectly, animals.

This argument they're using is as bad as saying that you won $1 million playing poker this year when you only count the pots you won but ignore the pots you lost.

That they would even try to make this argument proves the film makers are either committed to propaganda over truth or simply have no idea what they're talking about.

[ApeAttack]

[ QUOTE ]

This argument they're using is as bad as saying that you won $1 million playing poker this year when you only count the pots you won but ignore the pots you lost.


[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo! I see the whole problem of global climate change as being a huge carbon inbalance. The carbon that was in the ground in the form of oil/coal/natural gas for millions of years has been removed and released into the atmosphere.

We are responsible for releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere that would otherwise be 'safely' locked up underground and are doing nothing to reabsorb it. That is why there has recently been research in the area of carbon sequestration, to put carbon back into the ground (although this is still a long way off from being practical).

[Woolygimp]

Ok, these are fine arguments. I was crude, I admit, at the beginning of the post because those were not the answers that I and hopefully the OP were looking for.

These are much better, thanks.