Why You Should Embrace Carbon Dioxide
The scientific facts clearly show carbon dioxide is a good thing, not something we should fear.
CO2 is not a pollutant.
On
the contrary, carbon dioxide makes crops and forests grow faster.
Satellite mapping shows the Earth has become about 6 percent greener
overall in the past two decades, with forests expanding into arid
regions. The Amazon rain forest was the biggest gainer, with two tons
of additional biomass per acre per year.
Certainly climate change
does not help every region equally, but careful studies predict overall
benefits—fewer storms, more rain, better crop yields, longer growing
seasons, milder winters, and lower heating costs in colder climates.
The news is certainly not bad and on balance may be rather good.
CO2 is merely a trace atmospheric gas.
The
world will laugh when we finally understand the pursuit of economic
ruin in the name of saving the planet from carbon dioxide has been a
terrible joke. It is an unarguable fact that the portion of the Earth’s
greenhouse gas envelope contributed by man is barely one-tenth of 1
percent of the total.
Do the numbers yourself. Carbon dioxide is
no more than 4 percent of the total atmosphere—with water vapor being
more than 90 percent, followed by methane and sulfur and nitrous
oxides. Of that 4 percent, man contributes a little more than 3
percent. Three percent of 4 percent is .12 percent, and for that we are
sentencing people to numerous damaging economic impacts.
Added CO2 increments have less effect.
The
effect of additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is limited
because CO2 absorbs only certain wavelengths of radiant energy. As the
radiation in that particular wavelength band is used up, the amount
left for absorption by more of the gas is reduced.
A simple
analogy is to consider drawing a curtain across a window. Much of the
light will be shut out, but some will still get through. Add a second
curtain to the first, and most of the remaining light will be excluded.
A point will quickly be reached however, where adding more curtains has
a negligible effect, because there is no light left to stop.
This is the case with the absorption of energy as more carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere.
Anthropogenic warming hasn’t happened.
If
greenhouse gases were responsible for global temperature increases in
recent decades, atmospheric physics require that higher levels of our
atmosphere would show greater warming than lower levels. This did not
happen during the 1978-1998 period of 0.3 degrees Celsius warming.
Warming precedes CO2 increases.
A
full 900,000 years of ice core temperature records and carbon dioxide
content records show CO2 increases follow increases in Earth’s
temperature instead of leading them. This makes sense because the
oceans are the primary source of CO2, and they hold more CO2 when cool
than when warm. Warming causes the oceans to release more CO2.
Read the Opposing Views debate, Is Global Warming a Crisis?
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I am unsure as to where Heartlands is getting their info... but they seem to have a great deal of exaggerations and flat out bad Science here...
"CO2 is not a pollutant."
Yes, from a certain point of view. Virtually every element (except the larger trans-uranium elements) is present in our environment , what makes it pollution is the amounts released by industry.
The Amazon does act as a carbon sink... a counterbalance to carbon emission sources. However this cannot continue indefinitely. It's ability to absorb CO2 is threatened not only by logging / agriculture but also by drought ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090305141625.htm )
"CO2 is merely a trace atmospheric gas."
Yes, but it is the second most important greenhouse gas ... responsible for 9-26% of the total greenhouse effect. Thus increasing the CO2 levels has a greater impact then just looking at the proportion
They are also incorrect in stating that water vapor is 90% of the atmosphere... it is estimated at ~0.4% of the total atmosphere (the largest component in nitrogen).
"Added CO2 increments have less effect."
This analogy is terrible! CO2 does not make up a distinct layer of the atmosphere, it is distribute throughout at the lower layers. It absorbs energy in the infrared frequency, and thus heats up. There is a point where more CO2 added would not contribute to the greenhouse effect, but we would be long dead at that point.
"Anthropogenic warming hasn’t happened."
Wait... What? This bit is another outright lie. If the cause of global warming was solar output then we would be seeing increases in temperature at all levels of the atmosphere. If it was caused by CO2 then the warming would be somewhat confined to the lower levels where CO2 is concentrated (which is what we have observed)
"Warming precedes CO2 increases."
Yes, that is the natural process... but we are not dealing with a natural process, we are dealing with anthropogenic warming. The recent temperature change rises following the increase in CO2 production, not ahead of it.
Just maybe the earth goes through many climatic cycles, natually. Maybe the earth has 30 year cycle, 100 year cycle, 100 year cycle etc, etc.
In respect to the age of the earth, whether you believe it to be old or young, we as the human race are young. We haven't collected nearly enough data to make an educated decision on whether " global warming " or " climate change " is fact or not. Futhermore, I find it audacious to assert that we, mere man, can destroy the earth and our climate. How arrogant can we get? No one is out there advocatoing for pollution, no one is out there advocating for poisoned air. The argument against "global warming" and "climate change" is simply that there isn't enough data in proportion to the age of the earth to declare beyond any doubt that we, man, are causing the change in the climate.
We learn more and more about the earth and our environment every day. Every day we gather more data. I for one do not buy into the "global warming" "climate change" religion . I find it complete and utter nonsense.
Maybe this is too simplistic but, I remember being in elementary school and learning that plants absorb CO2 and turn it into oxygen. The plants absorb CO2 through the stromata, pores on the epidermis of the photosynthesizing parts of plants. Then through photosynthesis, they create oxygen, oxygen that we breath. A 5th grader could take that information and determine that we need CO2 in order to grow the forrests so the loggers can stay in business, to grow our agricultural industry to put food on our tables, etc etc.
Of course if there are cycles on that scale then they should be visible in the climate record.
We also have climate data going back to long before humanity evolved, let alone taken direct observations, and it all points ti an unprecedented change in temperature.
Global warming will not destroy the planet or the climate... It will just lead to a mass die off among larger animals , a category in which we humans find ourselves.
Yes CO2 is used by plants, but plants can only process so much CO2 at a time. We have already released more then enough to change the atmosphere in a measurable manner... And the consequences of that change are far reaching.
how long have we been collecting data?
The data collection has been going on for decades, and the period of time it covers spans hundreds of millions of years.
Based on my research and readings; I still find it to be inconclusive. One website that I like is; http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content /grand-view-4-billion-years-climate-change
It really lays it all out.
Summary
Earth’s temperature is always changing.
Over time there have been periods when it has been colder than it is today.
For most of the Phanerozoic it has been much warmer than it is today.
Life has persisted during periods both hot and cold.
There is no one “right” temperature.
Carbon dioxide has always been present in Earth’s atmosphere.
Over time there have been periods when CO2 has increased and decreased naturally.
For most of the Phanerozoic it has been much higher than it is today.
Life has persisted during periods with high CO2 and low CO2.
CO2 levels will change with or without human contributions.
Over time there have been a number of ice ages—Life has endured multiple ice ages.
For most of the Phanerozoic there have been no persistent polar ice caps.
The earths temperature has always been changing... and that change is not always good for the species living on the earth. Shifts in climate change the local environment , leading to habitat destruction.
Which is the greatest danger that climate change poses to us. We rely on wide stretches of land to supply our food needs. Changing the climate is highly likely to render those areas we use for food production to become untenable. Could our civilization maintain itself if food production began dropping? There were food riots when the price of grain spiked a comparatively little bit back a few years ago. Imagine what would happen if our food production dropped by a significant amount?
There is also the supply of potable water to consider. Much of our population relies on water sources that are tied to the current climate conditions (rivers, lakes, and even glaciers that need to be refreshed in order to keep supplying our needs).
Couple that with the loss of agricultural production due to change in temperature and the outlook becomes quite grim.
Life will endure, but that does not mean that our civilization or our species will survive.
it should read 100 year cycle, 1000 year cycle, etc etc.