Global warming - let's settle this once and for all!

[Rodion Romanovich]

A debate about global warming. Is it a fraud or not? Did humans cause it, and can we prevent/stop/reverse it? What are the scientifical proofs for and against it?

PART I - The undeniable facts
Why CO2, methane etc. in the atmosphere is bad

FACT No.1 - Different gases in the atmosphere have different abilities to reflect and absord different wavelenghts. Three centuries old scientifical experiments easily show that if you send light or any other electromagnetical wave into different gases, the intensity that passes THROUGH the gas differs for different gases. Only certain wavelengths can pass through. If we draw up the different wavelengths that go through and end up on the other side, we get a so-called absorption spectrum.

Why is this simple fact so important? Well, it tells us that the composition of gases in the atmosphere affects which wavelengths ENTER the atmosphere, and which wavelengths EXIT the atmosphere.

FACT No.2 - The light has another wavelength when it's on it's way out from earth, than when it's on it's way to earth. This has been proved by many experiments. It can also be proved theoretically. Incoming light is absorbed by various mechanisms, for instance plants extract energy from incoming light, and "binds" that energy so it isn't directly reflected and exits our atmosphere. This excess energy, which is now chemical energy is released again when the plant is burnt or rots. There are various other examples. If we for instance look at a field of grass, it looks green. Something that looks green reflects green light, which means it absorbs all other light, which means it absorbs much of the energy from the incoming light. Black asfalt, according to basic physics, absorbs all wavelengths of light and therefore absorbs more energy than the field of grass. Most of this energy is transformed into heat. As we have all experienced, asfalt in sunshine is a lot hotter than a grassy field in sunshine. The heat of asfalt and grassy fields becomes electromagnetic waves of a different wavelength - thermal radiation. So there's no scientific argument against this simple statement - the light which enters the atmosphere has a different wavelength than the electromagnetic radiation which tries to exit the atmosphere.

FACT No.1 and FACT No.2 immediately implies that:
FACT No.3 - it is POSSIBLE to change the atmosphere composition of gases and particles in a way so that there's different ability for energy to enter, and to exit, the atmosphere.
What happens when the atmosphere composition changes? Well, as more energy accumulates inside the atmosphere, there will be more "pressure" for energy to exit the atmosphere, so it'll push through the atmosphere faster, but not unless there is a huge accumulation of excess energy inside the atmosphere, so that there's enough waves trying again and again to exit the atmosphere. It's a simple random process - the more waves that are trying to pass the atmosphere, the more will get through it. But when some get through it, the "pressure" inside will decrease, and not increase again until more light enters the atmosphere and creates this excess of energy inside. What happens is therefore the following:

FACT No.4 - If we change the atmosphere composition in a way such that will create an excess of energy inside, we'll end up with a counter-effect, which increase the radiation out from the atmosphere, but the new steady state involves having MORE energy inside the atmosphere, which means more heat.
No scientific arguments can deny this either.

PART II - The subjects for debate

What remains to be debated, then, are the following points:
QUESTION No.1 - Is the atmospheric composition we have created through pollution etc. a composition that will create a new steady state with higher temperature?
QUESTION No.2 - Which will the biological consequences of global warming be?
QUESTION No.3 - Are the theories about positive feedback, i.e. global warming causing harm that will speed up future global warming, i.e. that the global warming is a process that reinforces itself, valid?
QUESTION No.4 - Will there be any negative feedback other than the one mentioned in fact 4 - a counter-effect that would not only create a new steady state with higher energy, but a counter-effect that would create a new steady state with the same energy?

So now we enter slightly less scientific ground, but the theories I'll mention below, IMO, those theories which have scientific substance.

PART III - My own contribution to this debate - an analysis of the theories I think have substance in them

THEORY No.1 - The extraction of materials from below the earth. When earth was created, these materials were moving freely in the atmosphere, and the temperature was several 100 degrees Celcius. These materials were of the same type as the materials we're now extracting and polluting into the atmosphere. World was a sulphur hell. However, thanks to the binding of these elements into the earth, another type of atmosphere was created, which had a different composition, and resulted in a steady state with lower temperature. Moving these elements back up to the surface again will create an almost exactly similar situation as the sulphur hell. How long it will take, and how much humans will have to pollute before that happens, is impossible to determine.

THEORY No.2 - All scientific calculations show that the types of gases we call "greenhouse gases" are the types of particles that are best at stopping the wavelengths of radiation LEAVING earth, while being lousy at stopping incoming wavelengths from the sun. The exact values of how malignant the different gases are can be debated, but we know for certain that some gases are extremely much worse than others.

THEORY No.3 - Fossile fuels are some of the worst causes of the greenhouse effect. For the same reason as in theory no.2, it's extremely difficult to determine exactly how dangerous the different types of pollution are. But we know that fossile fuels are extremely dangerous. The reason why it's so difficult to determine the relative malignancy of the different elements is, for instance, that every element can react with a number of other elements, and create new elements. A certain type of pollution results in a different composition of molecules depending on heat, location and similar properties of the chimney or similar polluting the elements. Secondly, the different particles have a different greenhouse effect on different heights in the atmosphere. This is because when light collides with particles in the atmosphere, it can excite the electrons. The electrons then fall back into their original positions and emit electromagnetic radiation. This radiation can be a mix of different wavelengths than the incoming sunlight, so the gases just below it in the atmosphere gets to deal with a slightly different mix of incoming light than the gases above. For instance, we've found that ozone is very effective at stopping ultraviolet light from entering the atmosphere high up in the atmosphere, but an effective greenhouse gas when ending up too low in the atmosphere. It's a naive, unscientific myth of many laymen that pollution of ozone and similar greenhouse gases at ground level would repair the ozone layer, for instance. However, sending up stratospherical balloons and polluting ozone has shown to be a fairly effective way of repairing the ozone layer. This can't be pointed out enough: different gases absorb different wavelengths! That's why all laymen theories about for example ozone layer destruction would be compensated by polluting CO2 is BS.

THEORY No. 4 - the answer to question 4 seems to be no. Nobody has afaik yet shown any proof of the opposite.

PART IV - How to solve the problems - what we have done so far

Scientists in the field of environmental problems divide the possible methods of solving environmental problems in three parts:
1. stopping overpopulation by usage of birth control
2. changing culture and living standards
3. improving technology to decrease requirements for materials, and replace dangerous materials with less dangerous ones and enforcing recyclement

No.1. is needed for a variety of other reasons.
No.2 is controversial, but may become necessary if global warming and increase of population continues for too long
No.3 is the easiest from a political point of view, but most everyday technology is getting so advanced now, that we've past the point of where we could make huge improvements in environment-friendliness of machines and electronics.

It seems like we soon have to face no.1 and no.2, even if it's politically difficult. However, most politicians today haven't gone to school and learnt about these discoveries. Many voters are also ignorant. Environmentalistic parties are often using too radical politics in other fields than the environmental field.

The big problem isn't to find ways of solving the global warming problem, it's simple. There are thousands of ways of using any of the 3 main methods of environmental problem solution presented above. The big problem is ignorance and denial.

Supposing I am wrong, let this debate prove me wrong. Supposing I am right, let's pursue this debate until nobody who entered it has any doubts, any questions, and any trace of denial left. If the problem is as serious as all science suggests, then let us together solve the ONE part of this problem, which prevents the people of the world from solving it entirely and live in safety - the ignorance and denial.

[Byzantine Mercenary]

I agree with most of what your saying, Its funny it is the same as what im being taught in enviromental sciences at the moment

[Franconicus]

1. stopping overpopulation by usage of birth control
2. changing culture and living standards
3. improving technology to decrease requirements for materials, and replace dangerous materials with less dangerous ones and enforcing recyclement

You are right (excellent summary) and I think that it is common sense for all scientists.

Just one comment:
1. This will be difficult due to political reasons and human rights
2. This will be easy. Global warming will do that for the politicians.
3. We are already working on it. But to accelerate it you need higher costs on energy. And that, again, is a political problem.

[Viking]

It all sounds nice, but unfortunately, the biggest sinner don`t want to play with you.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

"let's settle this once and for all!"

[Oaty]

Well what about the global warming of Mars, the polar caps there have been receding every year. Instead of water melting away at the polar caps it is frozen co2 that is melting away.

What about the increased solar winds that have been increasing every year. The increased solar winds are due to the fact that the sun is in a current state of expansion.

What about the Sahara wich use to be woodland ~6-10,000 bc It was even viable farmland at zero BC

I'm not saying man is not contributing to the problem, but a lot of journaist/scientists like to point thier fingers at man is 100 percent of the problem.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Well what about the global warming of Mars, the polar caps there have been receding every year. Instead of water melting away at the polar caps it is frozen co2 that is melting away.

Mars doesn't have much of an atmosphere pollution problems, so the effects on Mars are smaller than those on earth, because they're only caused by solar winds etc.

What about the Sahara wich use to be woodland ~6-10,000 bc It was even viable farmland at zero BC

Man has been largely responsible for the creation of Sahara. The primitive early methods for making iron, for instance, involved chopping down extreme amounts of trees. The Sahara region, and the rainforests, are extremely sensitive types of ground. Only a few acres of removed forest there has a huge impacts on deserts spreading, because wind speeds, erosion and many other processes are strengthened by it, and these effects result in nature responding with even more forest spreading, so called positive feedback (a process which reinforces itself until it reaches some new point of steady state). The pattern is the following: little action results in huge impact - and man has done much action, and thereby caused an extremely huge impact. So man is very responsible for the spreading of Sahara.

I'm not saying man is not contributing to the problem, but a lot of journaist/scientists like to point thier fingers at man is 100 percent of the problem.

What most scientists want to say is that now that we're in a period of solar winds and other outer effects, it's more critical than ever that we don't speed up the process. Also, scientists IMO are right in saying humans are responsible for positive feedback phenomenons from nature, because they initially changed the balance and launched the positive feedback cycle.

And one important point to make is that all these theories are in no way arguments against the fact that global warming is increased by pollution of greenhouse gases, they're just explanations of possible ways in which outer factors could cause global warming. The only sensible way to interpret such data is to want to be even more careful with human-caused global warming, as there already enough outer problem factors to deal with as it is. Do you in war, becase you can suffer huge casualties to disease, say that your enemy is harmless? Or do you arm youself better?

[Samurai Waki]

But wouldn't that be false? I don't think man had the capabilities at 6-10,000 BC to cut down that large of a forested area that quickly. Not to mention, the use of metallurgy, especially Iron, which couldn't have even been a factor considering the fact that it wasn't discovered and put into use by man until well after the Sahara had long been a desert. The Great Civilizations didn't even discover Bronze, until around 4,000BC, and at that time, The Sahara was as sandy and barren then, as it is today. So either somehow, nomadic hunter gatherers managed to strip away thousands and thousands of miles of rain forest with stone hand axes in a meager two thousand years, for no apparent reason, other than they were obsessed with cutting things down, and had a penchant for starving themselves, or Alien sandworms from a far off desert planet decided they wanted to go to a place on earth for a vacation. I really don't think that the opinion that humans were responsiblefor the destruction of an entire rainforest without the means to even do so, is viable, much less proveable.

I do however, agree that we probably are responsible, in some form, of accelerating the speed of global warming. However, let it be known, that at one time or another, earth was unbearably hot, muggy, and without much snow or ice, and it was called the Triassic, Jurassic, and Mesozoic eras, which all lasted millions of years.

[Rodion Romanovich]

@Wazikashi: fire, the red flower , can devastate forests quite fast. I think the wood used wasn't really wood but coal, so I should have clarified that I meant that these trees weren't necessarily chopped down, but sometimes also burnt down. Still, there's the same important phenomenon we get back to - sometimes a small action from humans alters a balance so that nature itself causes things to spiral away into much more than we had intended, or were responsible for.

The triassic jurassic and mesozoic eras were indeed hotter, there was very little ice etc. Since then, much of the coal and what later became fossile fuels was bound into the earth, allowing a lower temperature. The problem is that we are trying to take up more coal and fossile fuels from below ground than the amounts that were in the air during these periods.

[doc_bean]

I have my own theory about global warming, namely that it's caused by...warmth !

Surprising no ? Think about it, we all heat our homes, we all use refrigerators, we all burn fuel, we all use nuclear power (60% electricity, 40% pure warmth), etc.

Could it be possible, just maybe, that releasing all this energy in the form of warmth could somehow, mysteriously, affect the global average temperature and climate ?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

I have my own theory about global warming, namely that it's caused by...warmth

Well you almost have it right. The fact is that global warming is caused by the sun. It doesnt burn at a constant rate. When we can attach a thermostat to it we can control global warming, Untill then its a lost cause. There will be another Ice Age and theres nothing man can do about it. In fact we should be greatful for this long period of warm weather. This is like sending in a medical student to do a heart transplant. We dont know what the hell were doing. We could mess things up worse by trying to fix it. In fact many claim we already have. This has been going on long before the first man ever appeared on earth and will still be going on long after the last man has died.

[Oaty]

Easy Wazikashi, The Sahara took thousands of years to form. At about 10,000 BC it was all forest. At ~6000 BC their was a small desert growing in North Africa and trees were becoming less populous. This is when it started expanding at a rapid rate and conditions became worse. Most of the Sahara still had fertile farmland by the Roman era. The Sahara is still expanding to this day.

[Rodion Romanovich]

@Gawain: If too low temperature would be a problem in the future, we could just release many of the greenhouse chemicals bound below earth to counter it when we need it. However, we can't quickly cool the earth down in the same way. The sun has a small part in temperature changes, yes. But please show me some proof that the sun causes all of it, because nobody has proved that, and nobody will be able to because it's false. The scientists that presented the theories of solar winds causing climate changes were clear to point out that it meant the pollution wasn't the only cause to global warming, not that solar winds caused all of it. Their studies were good for calming down the overly hysteric, who claimed we had perhaps 10 years to fix the problem, or we're already doomed. Estimates today think that we have a chance if we deal with it in 50-80 years. The scientists supporting the solar wind theories have never said pollution was completely harmless.

[Viking]

Estimates today think that we have a chance if we deal with it in 50-80 years.

By that time, we`ll already have quite a few enviroment refugees.

[m52nickerson]

While CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases they may have a limited affect on warming. The biggest greenhouse gas is Water Vapor. The more H2O in the air the more warm the overall temp, the higher the overall temp the more H2O there can be in the air. Sounds like a natural cycle to me.

Then you have the ocean currents that carry warm water towards the poles. As the polar ice melts it starts to disrupt these current, the water is not cooled as fast and does not sink. This disruption when great enough stops the transfer of heat from the equator to the poles. That starts an ice age. Which in turn starts the whole process over again.

It seems to me that global warming is more a natural cycle then man made. I'm not saying that we should start polluting like mad, but I don't think we are "killing" the planet with global warming.

[The_Emperor]

The main problem with global warming debate is that we do not know how much of it is caused by man and how much of it is part of natural climate change.

Unfortunatley there is no way to measure it and different scientists have different opinions on it depending on who you seak to.

[Viking]

While CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases they may have a limited affect on warming. The biggest greenhouse gas is Water Vapor. The more H2O in the air the more warm the overall temp, the higher the overall temp the more H2O there can be in the air. Sounds like a natural cycle to me.

Then you have the ocean currents that carry warm water towards the poles. As the polar ice melts it starts to disrupt these current, the water is not cooled as fast and does not sink. This disruption when great enough stops the transfer of heat from the equator to the poles. That starts an ice age. Which in turn starts the whole process over again.

It seems to me that global warming is more a natural cycle then man made. I'm not saying that we should start polluting like mad, but I don't think we are "killing" the planet with global warming.

It sound convincing, but please take a look at Venus. With enough CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, an ice age would melt away.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

This is when it started expanding at a rapid rate and conditions became worse. Most of the Sahara still had fertile farmland by the Roman era. The Sahara is still expanding to this day.

Actually thanks to global warming its shrinking.

Africa's deserts are in "spectacular" retreat

[Kaiser of Arabia]

kinda chilly out today...

[Samurai Waki]

kinda chilly out today...

My Brother's in Montana were saying that last week the temperature got so cold it beat the previous cold weather record by 5 degrees fehrenheit (which was set in 1909). I think he said it got down to 26 degrees below zero. Certainly it hasn't been warming up all over the place.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Dont you guys realize that this cold in other palces is another result of global warming?

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Dont you guys realize that this cold in other palces is another result of global warming?

It was a joke

Get it, Global Warming?

Kinda like eating out in China, but watch out for the Crabs

[Gawain of Orkeny]

It was a joke

Get it, Global Warming?

Kinda like eating out in China, but watch out for the Crabs

ERMMMMMMMM you do realise I was being facicious dont you? Get it global warming is making it cold?

[Kaiser of Arabia]

ERMMMMMMMM you do realise I was being facicious dont you? Get it global warming is making it cold?

No, in fact, I didn't.

[Tachikaze]

I view the people who refuse to acknowledge the human-induced unnatural rate at which the Earth is heating up is akin to people who persistantly believed that the Earth was the center of the universe or even that the Earth was flat (and there are some who still do).

For the enlightened, which seems to be pretty universal outside the USA, there is little debate about global warming and its causes. It's only those who don't want to believe it that refuse to acknowledge it. They are bound by a world of comfortable fantasy.

It is so frustrating to see a nation with superb educational institutions and some extremely educated and creative people be dominated by ignorance.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

For the enlightened, which seems to be pretty universal outside the USA

You guys keep claiming this yet you have nothing to back it up. I can provide as many scientists who say its all BS as agree with you. The facts are we cant even predicted or control the weather for tommorow nevermind such a complicated system as our atmosphere. Imagine the polution if we still all used horses.

[Crazed Rabbit]

For the enlightened, which seems to be pretty universal outside the USA, there is little debate about global warming and its causes.

Hyu-uck! Why, you done gone and done nailed that ther nail wit dat ther hammer! We jus be a bunch o stopid rednecks!

Which is why, I suppose, America is reducing emissions, whereas Europe is not.

Huh. For all their 'enlightened' thought, they aren't much good at getting results.

Crazed Rabbit

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Huh. For all their 'enlightened' thought, they aren't much good at getting results.

Dont you realise its all americas fault?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yes. The Atmosphere can change composition. But temperature fluctuations have happened constantly throughout the earth's history.

Yes, but only once in earth's history have we had the atmosphere composition we're about to create now - and that was when earth was a sulphur hell, too hot for any living being except certain types of bacteria. My question is, do you deniers say that pollution should be totally unrestricted, or are you saying that "we don't believe the restrictions need to be that hard"? For instance, scientists have shoen that the biggest problem about fossile fuels isn't that there's too little of them, but that there's too much of them. If we use all coal and oil we can extract with today's technology, we'll push climate changes too far to be able to survive.

One more important point, is that while for instance the regeneration of some desert ground in southern Africa for instance might be good, there's a fundamental problem in raising the average temperature on earth. The hottest parts of earth are barely inhabitable. However, that part of earth has the greatest populations at the moment. Just a slight temperature increase would make this region uninhabitable, and mean huge streams of refugees that would have to move to Europe, China and the USA, for example. If you're afraid global warming restrictions will create economical chaos, then imagine what some billion refugees would create.

At the same time, global warming seems to cool down the coolest areas, so we don't get an overall warming effect. This means, in total, that we decrease the inhabitable areas enormously by global warming.

Your points and counter-examples are good, but scientifically one thing must be made clear: wrong atmospheric composition results in increase average temperature on earth. What exactly will happen, and how this increase in thermal energy will be distributed over earth, is impossible to tell. Any model for describing that would need millions of factors, and it's beyond the human intelligence. We could, in theory, as result of 1 degrees increase for instance get improved conditions in many parts of the world, perhaps more areas improved than we'd get hurt. However, if we get a too great increase in temperature, we pass a point where it's impossible to get improved conditions (by the mathematical Dirichlet principle). And the important thing is that global warming is a slow process, we don't see the effects of today's pollution until a hundred years later. We've already polluted enough for 6 degrees or so increase in average temperature, but today we only see one degree or so of increase.

[thrashaholic]

People who preach global warming and that it's all our fault and that it'll kill us all is just a modern version of the flaggellant doomsayer of days past who preached precisely the same thing except that they threw god in the equation.

"The end is nigh! You have all sinned! Mend your ways before it's troo late!"

The mantra is exactly the same, and their argument in both cases has precisely the same validity, non-whatsoever. Both are founded in intangible forces and both use whatever happens now (even if it contradicts what they were saying yesterday) as 'solid proof' for their message of self-inflicted doom. An example:

A couple of years ago, here in Britain, while we were having some of the hottest summers we'd had in a while, we were being bombarded by information on the news how global warming was going to make Britain like a mediterranean country in only a couple of decades. The telly programmes got lots of scientists to come on and go: "hmmmmm, yes", and environMENTALists to come on and go: "capitalism and our excessive life-styles are to blame, everyone must grow a beard and wear sandals, live in a mud hut or up a tree and whip themselves until mother-earth is happy again!" (well not exactly that, but near enough), and they interviewed lots of stupid people who believed all this, and everyone was convinced and terrified because this scientist had said so in the paper....

Recently though, now that we've been haviong some colder weather, global warming is to blame. The telly gets the same people on, who say exactly the same thing, and everyone had forgot that we were going to become a mediterranean country. Now we were going to become like Russia or something. *gasp* And everyone was terrified.

Not only is it monumentally stupid, it's also mid-numbingly boring.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a nice clean atmosphere, but I really don't buy into this "our planet will be like Venus in 5 minutes if we don't abolish McDonalds now!" stuff, because that's what it is essentially leftoids trying to find another angle from which they can attack global capitalism. It's got precious little to do with the weather: if they can say that capitalism's destroying the planet, then the unwashed masses will believe them.

In summary, what a load of bollocks.