Is it possible that 'man' is NOT responsible for Global Warming after all?!

[xoxtammixox]

In fact, I was talking to my very smart neighbor the other day, and some how we had gotten on the topic of global warming. He said that global warming simply does not exist. He had watched an interview with a man a few weeks ago and this man had lived up in the North Pole since he graduated from college. He recently came back with news that there is a giant underwater volcano in the North Pole that, guess what, heated the ocean water. Hotter ocean water melts ice and warms the Earth's temperature, due to the fact that water is a heat resivoir. I learned about the whole ocean thing in freshman science and... the shoe simply fits.(;

Have a nice day, Global Warming is over. ((Though I will still enjoy being a modern-day hippie when it comes to gas and recylcing and satilites and bombs.)

[Union Of V]

Originally Posted by xoxtammixox

In fact, I was talking to my very smart neighbor the other day...

I have many very smart neighbours, one of which does deny global warming. In fact when I was working in a very smart company with a lot of very smart people working on very smart cutting-edge projects, we had a three-way split over what platform to use.

If you don't have evidence, no matter how smart you are, you're just speculating.

[DoesThisLookInfected?]

Originally Posted by CompassionateSoul

Very true, but it's not evidence that proves anything. If we can't explain it then it's just random events, right? Man cannot directly be blamed off the bat, that's nonsense, I'm no alarmist, people who say that are and don't understand fully the science behind it. This is a major flaw in the environmental movement of the last 20 years. Many people look at cause and effect with little regard to the basic science. I agree with you that some people are foolish enough to jump in head first and point the blame.



I don't see these events as hard evidence, the science behind what causes these events and how it was changed from the normal conditions is the hard evidence for me.
Hard evidence for me is that CO2 concentrations have risen to 387 ppm, when in 2007 the concentrations were at 384 parts per million. That's a small number, but when you consider it includes the entire atmosphere than surrounds our planet, that's a huge change in a very small amount of geological time. I cannot find any natural event happening on the planet so fast that would cause these increases. What is happening? Two countries are industrializing, with a total population of 2,504,692,185, as 38.6% of the world's total population now have available to them, cars and national and international air travel for cheaper than 10 years ago. I think that would be something to consider in the rises of CO2 concentrations, and the changes in arctic and antarctic sea ice, loss of glacial ice and global deforestation.
Those changes in human civilization cannot be ignored, they undeniably contribute to global warming purely due to the fact that the emissions of an industrializing country skyrocket until they plateau decades later. Increases in emissions, lead to more greenhouse gases such as Methane, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide (all anthropogenic greenhouse gases). This starts a vicious circle of positive feedback in the natural world, because the natural state has been altered too far beyond normal, over a short period of time, for Gaia to be able to re-balance it.




Consider this.
The Gaia Theory is an ecological theory proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and bio-geochemical conditions on Earth to create a preferred homeostasis. This now widely accepted theory implies the Earth is a living organism that is able to regulate itself.

Some examples of how it's been done in the past are the ice ages after warm periods.
For example, in the carboniferous period, atmospheric CO2 was at 800ppm, sea levels were between 80m and 120m above current sea levels.
The period of time after that, Permian, CO2 levels were at 900ppm and there was 115% more oxygen than present day.
CO2 concentrations rose to 1950 ppm by the Jurassic period and Oxygen was at 130% of modern levels.

This where the tipping point was. Gaia then started to reduce levels of CO2, by the next period - the Cretaceous - CO2 was at 1700ppm and Oxygen 150% of modern day. In 51 million years, by the Paleogene Period, CO2 levels dropped to 500ppm and oxygen levels dropped again to 130%. In the past it has also taken Gaia at least 183 million years to reduce CO2 concentrations from 4500 ppm to the 800ppm Carboniferous levels.
The current Neogene period has had a mean CO2 level of 280 parts per million. Now it's 110 to 120 parts per million higher than pre-industrial levels, when between the Carboniferous and Permian periods Gaia could only manage to change CO2 concentrations by 100 parts per million, over far longer than 300 years.

Current increases are beyond anything seen before in the natural world. Within the last 400,000 years CO2 concentrations have barely gone above 300ppm, and have been as low as 175-180 ppm. How do we know this? Ice cores, taken from thousands of meters down, bubbles of air trapped for hundreds of thousands of years give us a clear idea of atmospheric composition in the past.



For me, Ice cores are hard evidence from the past that when compared to today, and the recent changes (the last 300 years) point to industrialization, one can safely say, this isn't natural.

What's also interesting that in order to keep life balanced during the Carboniferous period, there was an ice age, small as it was, the ice caps were huge. Now that so much has been changed over a very short amount of geological time, Gaia has not had time to adjust, it's as though the composition has changed in the blink of an eye and Gaia's system has become unbalanced. It's likely that the Earth will now move to a hot state at a faster pace than in the past. Gaia has the added strain of 11.61% (as of 2005) of it's land surface used for arable farming and permanent crops, most of which was previously covered with forest (a huge carbon sink).


This is a tiny amount of the evidence that has me fairly convinced the current warming and climate events are not caused by any natural changes rooted in Gaia.

I hope anyone who reads understands it easily and enjoyed it. I may post something like this to my blog.... (PM me an opinion? :P)


@Elf Punk, I like that analogy! Well said.

You write all of this, but did not cite any sources, and, for all I know, you could've just made up all of that off the top of your head... I'm not saying I don't believe you necessarily, but I need some respectable sources...

[CompassionateSoul]

Originally Posted by DoesThisLookInfected?

You write all of this, but did not cite any sources, and, for all I know, you could've just made up all of that off the top of your head... I'm not saying I don't believe you necessarily, but I need some respectable sources...

If you think I'm clever enough to make that up off the top of my head, I'm flattered. Most of it I already know, having studied the subject.

For each period there are about 8 sources, I'm not about to list them all.
Gaia Theory is a part of science, it should be general knowledge, so that's easy to find yourself. A good source of my information are Dr James Lovelock's Books and an Environmental Science book I have on my bookshelf.
To find my sources you would likely have to go to a library, there's no such information online, unless you can access scientific journals.
I hope this satisfies your question as to where I got the information. If you want the book sources I have, pm me and I will add them to this post.

I use this site for sources of information often though: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_...s_and_data.htm
Worth a look if you're interested.

[xoxtammixox]

Originally Posted by Union Of V

I have many very smart neighbours, one of which does deny global warming. In fact when I was working in a very smart company with a lot of very smart people working on very smart cutting-edge projects, we had a three-way split over what platform to use.

If you don't have evidence, no matter how smart you are, you're just speculating.

Gosh, Mr. Grumpy Gills, I was merely saying that he's not like some person who dropped out of school in the 10th grade and works at a deli... I meant that he watches like those boring Discovery Channel things, and reads the Sunday Paper and reads long autobiographies on random events and debates.

[Union Of V]

Originally Posted by xoxtammixox

Gosh, Mr. Grumpy Gills, I was merely saying that he's not like some person who dropped out of school in the 10th grade and works at a deli... I meant that he watches like those boring Discovery Channel things, and reads the Sunday Paper and reads long autobiographies on random events and debates.

Yes, but that hardly makes him an expert. I'm pretty well-versed in technology, but I haven't the faintest idea how to use a Mac. You can't just plonk people into "smart/not smart" categories.

[LittleMiss]

Personally, I believe that, even though we may not have caused it, we're a major contributing factor.
The global warming car is rolling forwards, whoever pushed it into gear is irrelevant now. We're the ones who determine whether its path is steep or flat. At the moment, it's looking pretty steep.

[DoesThisLookInfected?]

Originally Posted by CompassionateSoul

If you think I'm clever enough to make that up off the top of my head, I'm flattered. Most of it I already know, having studied the subject.

For each period there are about 8 sources, I'm not about to list them all.
Gaia Theory is a part of science, it should be general knowledge, so that's easy to find yourself. A good source of my information are Dr James Lovelock's Books and an Environmental Science book I have on my bookshelf.
To find my sources you would likely have to go to a library, there's no such information online, unless you can access scientific journals.
I hope this satisfies your question as to where I got the information. If you want the book sources I have, pm me and I will add them to this post.

I use this site for sources of information often though: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_...s_and_data.htm
Worth a look if you're interested.

Thanks

I'm being a little bit selfish. I need this for one of my debate topics...