Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptic’s Position

[Hacp]

Carbon neutral means not adding additional carbon to the biosphere. Now, the human biological food cycle isn't quite carbon neutral because in the initial phase we clear land and the agricultural growth doesn't replace what was there before, but after that agricultural products do take in what we put out.
What there isn't a cycle for is fossil fuels, such as what we use in the transport and storage of such food. That's outside of the biological cycle. What we that dumps in adds to the overall carbon load and it is NOT adjusted for by having additional plants take up the additional carbon. This is why the carbon in the atmosphere increases.



Definition fail.

Well no because if humans didn't exist, then the plants would have died off without being eaten and all their sugars would have been buried in the earth. So no, we are not carbon neutral.

 

[Codewiz]

The earth's CO2 concentration has been changing for a long time. It has bounced up and down like a sine wave and so far, we haven't seen any of the dire predictions come true(like the earth would turn to venus). People like to play scare tactics with the melting of ice, but heck we melted a lot of ice after the ice age so that couldn't have been it. Until scientists can prove global warming by experiment(I.E. test it using the scientific method), we shouldn't put too much weight into their computer models. Otherwise, their predictions are about as accurate as those of other "scientists" that rely solely on models, I.E. economists.

WOW, just wow....

I assume you would have told people in New Orleans to ignore the warning to evacuate prior to Katrina. I mean they are just using computer models that predict a general idea of landfall. Until they can get it exact or reproduce it in a lab, there is no reason to listen.

Wow, I can't believe you are so naive.

 

[Hacp]

WOW, just wow....

I assume you would have told people in New Orleans to ignore the warning to evacuate prior to Katrina. I mean they are just using computer models that predict a general idea of landfall. Until they can get it exact or reproduce it in a lab, there is no reason to listen.

Wow, I can't believe you are so naive.

Extrapolation over a short period of time like a few days is risky but way less risky than extrapolation over a period of 20 years.

 

[Throckmorton]

We aren't talking about the fact that the atmospheric CO2 concentration significantly increases because we burn fossil fuel (That is the point of GW, but not what we were talking about.) We are talking about humans being CO2 Neutral. They are not. You exhale CO2, The fact that it was create from plants today doesn't matter, you create a net increase in CO2 just by being alive. Every animal (that I know of) does. For something to be CO2 neutral, it would have to have a stable level of CO2 production and consumption. Humans don't do this. No living organism (that I know of) does this.

You said biking was "CO2 Neutral" it isn't. When you bike, you produce more CO2 than you consume. You may not produce more CO2 than can be absorbed by global flora. But if that is your definition of neutrality, then a single car doesn't produce more CO2 than surrounding flora can absorb, thus it would also be "CO2 Neutral". Do you see the point I'm making? No matter how you slice the term "CO2 Neutral" it doesn't apply to biking.

I am making no argument for or against global climate change.

You are missing the point. We are part of a system that is carbon neutral. Plants take carbon out of the atmosphere to grow, then we or our livestock eat those plants, and eventually it gets released again when we respirate.

Burning fossil fuel is different because we're quickly releasing carbon that was sequestered over millions of years.

 

[Cogman]

Carbon neutral means not adding additional carbon to the biosphere. Now, the human biological food cycle isn't quite carbon neutral because in the initial phase we clear land and the agricultural growth doesn't replace what was there before, but after that agricultural products do take in what we put out.

Humans aren't plants... One more time for the slow, Humans aren't plants. The fact that we plant and cultivate things does not mean that somehow our biologic processes consume less CO2. The most we can say is that "Humans attempt to offset their CO2 production by planting more plants". Even then, if you want to talk about a broader scale then just the human biological system, then you have to realize that the population of humans has been steadily increasing for more than 1000 years. We have not been offsetting our carbon output for a long time.

What there isn't a cycle for is fossil fuels, such as what we use in the transport and storage of such food. That's outside of the biological cycle. What we that dumps in adds to the overall carbon load and it is NOT adjusted for by having additional plants take up the additional carbon. This is why the carbon in the atmosphere increases.

Definition fail.

No, it isn't. The fail comes from trying to define "neutral" as something it isn't. Look it up in any dictionary, something that is neutral to something means that it neither contributes nor removes. To be CO2 neutral would mean, as I said before, to consume as much CO2 as we produce. Humans do not do that.

If you put a human into a sealed room, what will happen to the CO2 levels? Will they increase, decrease, or remain the same? For a human to be CO2 neutral means they would stay the same. We produce more CO2 than we consume. That is not being carbon neutral. The fact that the biosphere can handle it, or is built to handle it doesn't matter when you are talking about CO2 neutrality. What matters is "Does the thing produce, consume, or not affect the concentration of X" when talking about the neutrality of any object.

Again, think of being trapped in a completely closed room. What happens to the CO2 levels?

 

[Cogman]

You are missing the point. We are part of a system that is carbon neutral. Plants take carbon out of the atmosphere to grow, then we or our livestock eat those plants, and eventually it gets released again when we respirate.

Burning fossil fuel is different because we're quickly releasing carbon that was sequestered over millions of years.

I'm really not. I'm saying "Human beings aren't CO2 neutral". A perfectly true statement. We produce CO2 because we live. The fact that the system can (potentially) take care of the CO2 we produce without burning fossil fuels is irrelavent to the fact that humans produce more CO2 than they consume.

Now, if you want to say say that "The current biosphere is carbon neutral without fossil fuels" (which is semi-true. If we stopped burning fuels completely, I could easily imagine the current biosphere becoming CO2 negative for a while till it reaches some equilibrium point) I could agree with that. If you wanted to say "By biking, I'm keeping the biosphere CO2 neutral." I could accept that. What I can't accept is "Biking is a CO2 neutral activity" because it is not. More carbon comes out of biking than is consumed by biking.

Get the picture yet?

 

[Throckmorton]

Look dude, everybody knows that a human being apart from the rest of his system releases CO2 through respiration that other organisms took out of the atmosphere. That's beside the point and has no relevance whatsoever to climate change. Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing?

 

[DominionSeraph]

I'm really not. I'm saying "Human beings aren't CO2 neutral". A perfectly true statement.

Comprehension fail of, "Definition fail."


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[DominionSeraph]

:thumbsup:

Unfortunately you just wasted your Time.

Well it was fun.
Dealing with people like Cogman who can't even look up a definition in Wikipedia, though...

It's been a few years since I've had to deal with a Fundie of the caliber of, "Evolution means a butterfly coming out of a frog's butt."
And that's a direct quote.

Of course, I'm at a point where I just pass by anyone below the level of an average European. So with your average American, I'll just sit there and watch the monkey dance.

 

[Hacp]

Comprehension fail of, "Definition fail."


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I fail to see how humans are carbon neutral. Again, if humans were not there, then the plants would die off and all the sugars would be stored in the ground. Humans are carbon positive while plants are carbon negative. If you're carbon positive, you can't be carbon neutral. Its called carbon neutral, not carbon equilibrium.

 

[Taejin]

PJABBER if you ever find anything relevant and/or valid to a particular topic you believe strongly, don't bring it up. I say this because anything you begin to trot out as evidence is irreversibly tainted by your name. Not that it invalidates true statements or facts, but you're just hurting your own team.

 

[Throckmorton]

I fail to see how humans are carbon neutral. Again, if humans were not there, then the plants would die off and all the sugars would be stored in the ground. Humans are carbon positive while plants are carbon negative. If you're carbon positive, you can't be carbon neutral. Its called carbon neutral, not carbon equilibrium.

Plants dying and carbon being locked into dead plant matter is known as sequestration. That's not carbon neutral, that's taking carbon out of the atmosphere. That is how all those fossil fuels got to be in the ground in the first place.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I fail to see how humans are carbon neutral.

Then LOOK IT UP. You are using the wrong definition and I am not going to carry you so far as to be your dictionary.

I don't mind people sponging off my brainpower when the topic is too complex for a mere mortal to work through, but with this you're not even trying to stand on your own two feet -- you're collapsed in a pile saying, "Help me! Help me! Do my work for me!"
I could tell you where you went wrong in five words, but that wouldn't be doing you any favors. By figuring things out for yourself you not only learn, you learn how to learn.

 

[Hacp]

Plants dying and carbon being locked into dead plant matter is known as sequestration. That's not carbon neutral, that's taking carbon out of the atmosphere. That is how all those fossil fuels got to be in the ground in the first place.

Exactly. When humans eat the plants and convert it into energy and CO2, then we are preventing that process AND adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Therefore, we are not carbon neutral. We are carbon positive. I say anyone who believes in AGW should walk the talk and stop eating! You're killing the world!

 

[Hacp]

Then LOOK IT UP. You are using the wrong definition and I am not going to carry you so far as to be your dictionary.

I don't mind people sponging off my brainpower when the topic is too complex for a mere mortal to work through, but with this you're not even trying to stand on your own two feet -- you're collapsed in a pile saying, "Help me! Help me! Do my work for me!"
I could tell you where you went wrong in five words, but that wouldn't be doing you any favors. By figuring things out for yourself you not only learn, you learn how to learn.

You are using the wrong definition. Neutral implies neutral. Humans are carbon positive. Plants are carbon negative. A hunk of iron is carbon neutral.

 

[DominionSeraph]

You are using the wrong definition.

Ah yes, and everything violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, too.

Try again, Einstein. And you can stop repeating yourself. Saying the same stupid thing over and over again isn't going to fix it. This isn't a problem of me comprehending your tiny little model -- I know exactly what you're talking about; it's just you're using a useless framework.

So stop boring me.

 

[Cogman]

Comprehension fail of, "Definition fail."


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Comprehensions of a logical argument fail.


Seriously, Point out the flaw in my argument. Just saying "Oh, you so fail!" is retarded.

 

[Cogman]

Look dude, everybody knows that a human being apart from the rest of his system releases CO2 through respiration that other organisms took out of the atmosphere. That's beside the point and has no relevance whatsoever to climate change. Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing?

Great. I'm glad you see that humans are CO2 Positive. Thanks. That was my only point. Someone said "biking is CO2 Neutral" which I disagreed with so I argued.

When we say things like that, it obfuscates the real problem. Humans simply living creates a positive CO2 increase. As more and more humans are born, we will see an increase in the CO2 concentration. (what is worse is that the more people are born, the less vegetation there will be).

To truly live a lifestyle that maintains a CO2 neutral biosphere involves more than just "I biked up a hill." It involves "I planted a tree" and "I only had 2 kids" and "I only ate the amount of food I needed to survive" etc.

Mislabeling activities for a public feel good (and believe me, that is exactly what this is) is, IMO, harmful. We need clear explanations of what CO2 neutrality truly is, not random feel goody activities that have no consistent definition.

For example, I could EASILY see someone saying "I drive an electric car, it is carbon neutral!" or worse "I drive a hybrid, it is carbon neutral!" Both are completely wrong since the power still comes from fossil fuels for both. Now saying that both have a lower CO2 impact is true, but saying that they are carbon neutral is retarded.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Seriously, Point out the flaw in my argument.

Is combustion exothermic? Does it violate the First Law of Thermodynamics?
Why or why not?

 

[DominionSeraph]

Someone said "biking is CO2 Neutral" which I disagreed with

And you are wrong.

When we say things like that, it obfuscates the real problem. Humans simply living creates a positive CO2 increase.

No, what we eat is replaced. We are carbon neutral.

Life has been on Earth for billions of years and it isn't magically creating carbon all the while.

 

[Cogman]

Is combustion exothermic? Does it violate the First Law of Thermodynamics?
Why or why not?

Is combustion exothermic? yes.
Does it violate the First law? no.

And you know the why the energy level hasn't increased as a result of the combustion, even at a very local level.

The same can't be said for CO2 neutrality. With CO2 neutrality, at a very local level the CO2 level DOES increase when you isolate your system to a human (and oxygen to keep said human alive).

 

[Cogman]

And you are wrong.



No, what we eat is replaced. We are carbon neutral.

Life has been on Earth for billions of years and it isn't magically creating carbon all the while.

Just because life has been around for "A really long time" doesn't mean that all the sudden people areCO2 neutral. You could argue that the life cycle is CO2 neutral, but not the lifeforms themselves.

 

[Throckmorton]

The same can't be said for CO2 neutrality. With CO2 neutrality, at a very local level the CO2 level DOES increase when you isolate your system to a human (and oxygen to keep said human alive).

Exactly.... which is completely irrelevant.

You're arguing that the statement "respiration is carbon neutral" is wrong, but it's NOT wrong at the system level and you know that.

 

[desy]

I like how a guy in the comments column provides a nice counter point

"Warren,

First off, let me start by saying that I earned a Ph.D. in environmental science at large cost to myself, including going to a lot of night school classes, so that I could understand scientific literature and learn enough to let me get into the nuts and bolts of some of these important issues. I believe I can read and understand the arguments pro and con pretty well.

I agree with a couple points you make in Catastrophe Denied presentation, that a carbon tax is a much better approach than cap and trade, and that subsidizing ethanol production is a bad idea. If only we could agree on these points and move on.

However, the rest of your presentation about the current state of the science on global warming doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, and contains many misinterpretations and statements that are virtually certainly wrong.

The first 7 slides are OK. You agree with the basics. But, in my view, you start to veer off on slide 8, where you imply that because “CO2 has a diminishing effect as its ability to absorb radiation becomes saturated in certain frequency bands” that further increases aren’t of much concern. That it has a diminishing effect is well known. That’s why climate scientists talk of the effects of a doubling of CO2. A doubling of the pre-industrial level will very likely lead to 3 degrees C of warming, another doubling (which is a bigger absolute increase) would to lead to 6 degrees of warming, etc.

Next you talk about how small an amount 385 ppm is. Yes. But small amounts can present big problems, for example if the small amount happens to be a poison. CO2 isn’t a poison, but it has a big effect on the radiative balance of the earth. You seem to be implying that CO2 couldn’t be a problem because it’s concentration is so tiny. This seems to be a misleading detour.

Your discussion about positive and negative feedback and tipping points is good. But it seems to me you go awry after that. First of all, Gore was not at all talking about “feedbacks so high that they go to infinity” Feedbacks of the order of factors or two or three times the basic warming are what climate scientists are talking about insofar as CO2 is concerned. Some feedbacks are poorly understood, and are clearly positive, e.g. melting of arctic sea ice (an ice-free ocean is much darker and absorbs more radiation from the sun, leading to further warming). Climate models aren’t “built from the assumption” that there are tremendous positive feedbacks lurking out there. In fact, most of the climate models seem to have underestimated not only the temperature increase so far, but also sea level rise and the rate of arctic ice melt. The suspicion is that the models haven’t in fact done a very good job of accounting for non-linear positive feedbacks – i.e., things that kick in much more strongly than you’d predict from assuming a 1:1 relationship. Also, the understanding of the sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 relies more on the paleoclimate record than it does on models. Ice core data going back over 600,000 years now show that when CO2 has doubled, the temperature has gone up by about 3 degrees C. through several glacial cycles. Why should the earth behave any differently now?

In slide #20 you claim that CO2 is a “very weak” greenhouse gas. You are correct that water vapor is stronger, and so is methane. (And so are exotic chemicals like sulfur hexaflouride). But this is not the point. It’s virtually certain that CO2 is the key driver of glacial and inter-glacial cycles, and earlier periods of warming and cooling. It seems to me that you are missing the point that the secondary effects that rising CO2 levels trigger are big, even though in the immediately previous slides you went through a discussion about secondary effects and positive feedback.

In slides 24 through 32 you spend a lot of time trying to debunk the hockey stick graph, claiming that the ocean isn’t warming, the earth’s temperature has been “flat” for the past 10 or so years, etc. etc. You are just wrong about all of this. The leaked email thing is really irrelevant to the earth’s temperature record; it has been blown out of all proportion and doesn’t change any of the science or the data. The hockey stick graph, showing proxy temperatures going back 1200 years has been hashed and rehashed, and it is stronger than ever. For more info on this, see http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/28/climategate-michael-mann-hockey-stick-copenhagen-diagnosis/ and http://climateprogress.org/2008/09/...ger-earth-hotter-now-than-in-past-2000-years/

Your information about the urban heat island effect is presented as if it’s something new. This is old hat. There definitely is an urban heat island effect. But it’s been thoroughly dismissed through numerous studies as being a significant factor in the measurement of the recent heating of the planet. The ocean chart you show is too short in terms of time. If it were longer it would clearly show the warming trend over the last 50 years. There are all sorts of fluctuations in the ocean and the atmosphere due to the chaotic effects of weather, but the long-term records of the ocean and that atmosphere and the earth, and glaciers, and time of snow melt, river thaw, changing ranges of species, and more all show the same picture. The earth is warming, virtually certainly more than at any time during the past 1200 years. 2009 was a cool summer for much of the U.S. But the U.S. represents 1.5% of the surface of the entire planet. Globally, 2009 was the second warmest year since thermometer-based records began to be kept in 1880. The last three years have seen more arctic ice melting than at any time since records started in 1979. See http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/ for some data on this. Sea level rise is in fact accelerating, and it’s probably the most robust measure of global warming.

In slide 36, you make a point about the time lag between the onset of temperature rise and the increase of CO2. This is also old hat. Contrary to your assertion, it doesn’t present a causality problem. It’s widely accepted that wobbles in the earth’s orbit bring on the warming, because these changes expose northern hemisphere areas that are important to glaciation or the lack of it to more solar energy. When the earth starts to warm slightly due to these orbital changes, it causes CO2 to come out of solution in the oceans, and the CO2 then contributes to more warming, which then kicks in some of the other feedbacks (e.g. more water vapor, more methane, ice cap melting) which amplify the warming. You mention this at the end of your discussion on slide 36, but don’t connect the dots.

There’s a lot more discussion up to and including slide 45 in which you talk about “upside down” data, etc. etc. It’s all trying to make the case that there’s no warming. It doesn’t fly. These critiques of the hockey stick chart, etc. have been gone over and over and found to be without merit. Again, see the web sites that discuss Michael Mann’s data, etc. noted above, and see the actual data on the warming from NASA or NOAA, e.g. website on the arctic above.

I’m not sure where you are trying to go with slides 46 and 47. The chart in slide 47 is a good one. It shows that indeed, without human forcings (i.e. emissions of greenhouse gases and land use change such as deforestation in the tropics) the climate would have likely cooled over the last 50 years. With human forcings, the climate has warmed. In other words, only the emissions of greenhouse gases, etc. can explain the recent warming. Changes in the luminosity of the sun, volcanoes, and other natural happenings can’t explain it. In fact, the models nail the actual temperature record when they include all that they should. This is not the result of “tweaking”. I fear you do not get the implications of this. It means that there’s no other explanation for the recent warming. And it also means that the models are very likely correct in the projections, which are that the earth will warm considerably unless we drastically cut emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases soon.

In slides 47 thru 51 there is more criticism of the models which seems to include some confusions. The flat period after WW II is actually quite well explained by the models as being due to aerosols from what was mostly uncontrolled coal combustion at the time, which released sulfates that exert a cooling effect. Also, there’s ample evidence that human emissions of greenhouse gases actually were quite significant as far back as the 1800s and earlier; in those earlier times it was probably mostly caused by methane from rice paddies, which expanded greatly as human population grew.

In slide 52 you say it’s “frankly hilarious watching climate alarmists try to deny the sun has anything to do with climate variability.” You have evidently read very little of what has actually been written about this. It’s widely agreed that the sun has an effect. It’s been well-measured for the past 50 years or so. It’s not a big enough effect to account for more than a small fraction of the warming.

In slides 53 to 55 you even get into the modeling act yourself with a combo of a “linear increase” that you attribute to “the rebound from the little ice age” and a sine wave factor that you hypothesize resembles ocean cycles. There’s no evidence offered why either of these factors are based on anything factual and therefore worthy of inclusion into a model, and this part of his presentation just seems silly.

The next few slides are mostly rehashing things you’ve already said. Slide 59 however is interesting. Thanks for including references on this page (and throughout!) I was able to track down the Paltridge paper. It is interesting. But this humidity issue is not at all settled. As Paltridge himself notes, measuring humidity at altitude is not simple, and is potentially fraught with inaccuracies. Also, it should be pointed out that a drop in relative humidity by itself doesn’t mean that water doesn’t still exert a positive feedback effect. But such a drop might mean that the positive feedback isn’t as strong. Let’s hope that’s the case! But it would be unwise to count on it. Again, the paleoclimate data very strongly argues that the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is on the order of 3 degrees C, which means water almost certainly plays a role.

Slide 60 again shows misunderstanding. It’s definitely true that methane seems to be leveling off. This is probably because sources of it, which include cows, rice paddies, landfills, are being better controlled and/or not increasing as fast as they once did, and methane has a short lifetime in the atmosphere, which means that its concentrations will stabilize because it will reach steady state. But this doesn’t negate methane as a contributor to positive feedback. The big positive feedback from methane that is worrisome wouldn’t kick in unless arctic permafrost starts to melt significantly or methane hydrates start to decompose. If the latter happens we’d see dramatically positive feedback.

Slides from there up to 84 repeat and rehash previous incorrect statements about there being no warming, sea level not increasing, etc. You make a big deal about a prediction Hansen evidently made in 1988 that hasn’t materialized. Other predictions made around then predicting warming have pretty much come true. Take a look in James Lovelock’s book The Revenge of Gaia for a chart showing 1988 predictions by climate models. The warming we’ve seen so far is on the high side of many predictions of that time.

I agree with you in slides 86 and 87! Carbon tax is a much better idea than cap and trade – as long as it is revenue neutral. I also agree with what you say about ethanol in slide 88! Subsidizing its production seems quite foolish.

But we part company again with the rest of what you conclude. Sure, there are other environmental problems. But in my view, global warming is THE environmental issue we face if we want to see our grandchildren’s children have anything like the life we’ve enjoyed. The chief impacts of the warming for most people will probably be sea level rise and drying of the centers of the continents. Going back millions of years, the earth was much warmer than today during several periods. And the sea level was much higher, as much as 250 feet higher. It’s also clear from the geological record that sea level can change rapidly. It is easy to become very upset by these predictions, and I think that’s why some people are starting to argue so loudly that global warming cannot be. Denial is kicking into high gear.

Thanks for reading through all of this. I hate to criticize anything that obviously represents a lot of sincere work. I just am virtually certain that you are off base on a lot of what you say. I recommend to you and anyone else who wants to better understand the current science on global warming a book that recently came out. It’s called The Long Thaw, by David Archer."

 

[IGBT]

the eco-KOOK agenda to stop all human activity has been around a long time. Alarmist political hacks masquerading as white coat scientists is no surprise when you realize liberalism is a emotional pursuit not intellectual. They also realize if weather can be politicized it can be taxed. That's the road the eco-KOOKS want to go down. Follow the money. Financial strangulation will greatly limit human activity and freedom.