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These people are making fools of themselves.

In case you wing nuts haven't been reading up on "real" current events (not imagined current events) it has been acknowledged that global warming is a misnomer. Global climate change is more accurate.

Finally the Gorebull warming assholes have found a way to make their precious biofuel without destroying food.

I thought Obama put a stop to that months ago.

...it has been acknowledged that global warming is a misnomer.

No, it's been shown to be an outright lie. When observed data refused to line up with model projections, you had to call it a "misnomer" so you could then say...

Global climate change is more accurate.

Of course, this statement is true, because it is tautology. Climate, by definition, changes. It always has, and we have no reason to suspect that it won't continue to do so. It wasn't until you intellectually vapid leftists came along that it became news-worthy.

Global climate change is more accurate.

Because left-wing idiots believe the Earth's climate was static prior to the invention of the SUV.

My name for climate change: The seasons.

The more things CHANGE, the more they stay the same. Climate Change? The climate changes every year. Coldest in Winter, warmer in Spring, Hot in the Summer and cooler in the Fall.

In the 1930s, the plains became a Dust Bowl - now THAT was climate change. The last time I checked the plains were producing bountiful harvests being exported worldwide.

[...]and the Amazon rainforest is doomed unless urgent action is taken.

Yes, all plant life will be doomed by choking to death on... CO2?

I seem to recall from elementary school science that plants inspire CO2, and expire O2.

Embrace scum? What do they think we did last November?

Embrace scum? LIKE HECK WILL I WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH A BUNCH OF GRONOLA MUNCHING TREE HUGGERS,TRILA LAWYERS OR ANY OF OBAMAS CABNET

It is always the polar ice caps or some remote area, show me local change.

The atmosphere is 0.04% CO2. How is that enough to cause a greenhouse effect?
A greenhouse effect would seem to have to depend on an exponential increase in CO2 and we would have to be somewhere on the accelerating curve.
But at less than 1%? Humbug.

And could someone point to some kind of CO2-based global warming effect that we can see? Like maybe some new species of plants, or just out-of-control weed growth, or any indication consistent with an increase in CO2 levels of some kind, somewhere? I mean shouldn't we be seeing enormous grass weeds growing out of every piece of cracked concrete and rock crevice on the planet? I thought plants feed on this CO2 stuff, BTW.

Even just a little plant evidence would be more convincing to make the case for GW than this so-called decrease in global ice or yearly temperature records which we know liberals are lying about.

More bad news for the Climate Chicken Littles.

Seriously, though, what is it with leftists and "saving the world?" It's peculiarly solipsistic, because it implies that the speaker has sufficient impact to affect the world one way or the other. In fact that individual's existence is completely irrelevant to the world, and to almost everyone else for that matter. Humans on earth are like the bacteria growing on a billiard ball. Maybe leftist bacteria are organizing campaigns to make sure the billiard ball rolls true.

Fiberal, that information is useful as part of reality therapy for liberals. Just ask them what proportion of the atmosphere is CO2. I've never yet encountered one who knew. (Usual guess: 5% - not even close.) Then ask what fraction of that is anthropogenic. (Ans.: ca. 3% of the 0.05%).

To put it context, if the atmosphere were the population of the US, CO2 would amount to 150,000 people, and anthropogenic CO2 would correspond to adding 4500 people. And not 4500 terrorists, or anything extraordinary; 4500 people who were absolutely identical in every respect with 150,000 people who were already here.

Kinda hard to believe that they'd make much difference, isn't it?

Jay,
The other problem that liberals have with their GW mantra is that there is some evidence that solar radiation is heating up the surfaces of other planets (e.g., tight correlation between solar activity and neptune's rising surface temp/A third atmospheric storm spot on jupiter).

The dull responsiveness by the GW community to address these issues head on speaks to their lack of scientific rigour or objectivity and points directly to their commitment to fraudulent scaremongering.

SAVE A PENGUIN EAT A MOONBAT

Fiberal, I absolutely agree.

I like drawing the parallel to the population, though. It's less abstract than the solar radiation data, and really brings the point home: how plausible is it that adding 4500 more people in the American population would change things qualitiatively?

(For the more technically minded, I point out that water is several percent of the atmosphere (i.e., hundreds of times more abundant than CO2), and has two big broad bands in the IR that absorb lots of radiation. That of CO2, by contrast, consists of two narrow spikes, with minimal oscillator strength, even on a molar basis, and still less on a population-weighted basis.)

seas are rising faster than predicted

What data set shows seas rising at all, let alone faster than predicted?

Jay,

Good point about the atmospheric water content. With massive CO2 levels increasing under ionizing conditions you might expect to see increasing carbonic acid (H2C03)/acid rain production.

But almost anyway you cut it, the current CO2 levels are just too low to be boosting the kind of atmospheric temperature levels needed to melt ice caps in regions of the globe with the lowest temperatures before seeing other local effects.

Hey! PARKER posted without insulting me! What's the matter, lie-obsessed boy? Are you sick, or just forgetfull?

Fiberal, again, spot on.

The other amusing one is the notion that increasing CO2 partial pressure is causing molluscs' shells to dissolve. Priceless. As if a) the ocean isn't buffered, and b) increasing pCO2 at constant (buffered) pH wouldn't lead to more carbonate deposition, by LeChatelier's Principle.

Put another way, if the the oceans were becoming more acidic, they would be releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere, right? (The reason a seashell bubbles when dropped into an acidic solution.) An increase in CO2 partial pressure in the atmosphere could hardly cause more CO2 to be evolved from the oceans, because then one could set up a perpetual motion machine based on CO2 evolution. (Put in some CO2, it releases more, which causes still more to be released, etc. Put a piston over that and voila! Energy problems solved!) That is, unless Obama & Co. have repealed the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a Republican plot.)

The problem is that the brain trust has failed to grasp that CO2 dissolves not only to produce a weak acid, but also a participant in the equilibrium they're considering. Their reasoning, if you'll pardon the exaggeration, would be correct if the acid were, e.g., HCl, or other strong acid that does not participate in the CO2(carbonic acid)/bicarbonate equilibrium.

Jay,

I hadn't actually heard of dissolving mollusc shells, but after a cursory check it looks like pretty fringe stuff.

I don't know if you are familiar with the work on culture, race and IQ done before Murray and Herrnstein's The Bell Curve which generally put the issue to rest, but the work done previously was pretty thin.
Most of the GW junk is along the same weak lines: i.e., a variety of hypotheses with anecdotal hand-waving arguments, enormous speculation and a smattering of data patched in here and there generated by cranks.

In any event, you are completely correct about the tremendous buffering capacity of the seas. For molluscs (and which kind?-Wikipedia states that they constitute 23% of all named marine organisms -that's huge by any count) to lose shell mass due to changes in pH, they would conceivably have to be literally bathed in CO2-rich water. But animals adapt to new environments. So even if you were convinced of the implausible cellular changes that would have to take place in the organism(s), that amount of CO2 should lead all sorts of observable changes, the least of which should be recent adaptations of sea molluscs to new CO2-rich environments. And with such a high proportion of molluscs to any other sea organism, we should be able to detect something..anything. I would expect to see shell-less (sic) clams walking on the beach.

BTW ever notice how quickly you get into la-la land when discussing the sacred cows of liberals? (perpetual motion machines notwithstanding.)

BTW ever notice how quickly you get into la-la land when discussing the sacred cows of liberals? (perpetual motion machines notwithstanding.)

Indeed I have. Those babbling about "politicization of science" re stem cells for some reason appear not to consider GW as falling into that class.

But my very favorite is the suggestion by some that we can solve our energy crisis and/or GW by using batteries. Apparently how to charge those batteries is a trifling detail, far beneath the towering intellects that liberals seem to think they have.

towering intellects that liberals seem to think they have.
It is a mystery.

Good chat.

Embrace scum? LIKE HECK WILL I WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH A BUNCH OF GRONOLA MUNCHING TREE HUGGERS,TRILA LAWYERS OR ANY OF OBAMAS CABNET

Posted by: SPURWING PLOVER at March 16, 2009 11:26 AM

But I LIKE granola...

Damn it.