Carbon Emissions Quandary?

Question

If global warming is caused by the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by humans, how come is that when all homes in the UK were heated by coal and they all belched out tons of carbon ie smoke and soot(we had 7 fireplaces in our house when I was younger) and most of the manufacturing industry was defined as heavy (steel,shipbuilding etc) there was no global warming panic then. In fact in the 70's the scientists were predicting that we were heading for another ice age. Did they get that wrong or what. As for statistics anything can be proved with numbers for your own slant.

Answer 1

No, the world, in its natural course would be going into an ice age since its passed the midpoint of an orbital tilt called recession where it started receiving less solar flux. Better satellite technology in the 80s revealed that despite the cooling trend was covered up by a human induced warming trend.

Answer 2

There's a very good reason, I'll explain...

You're spot on in what you say about levels of pollutants being emitted in the past. By far the two biggest problems were the burning of gas (back then it was 'coal gas' or 'town gas' which was very dirty, in the 1970's the UK converted to the much cleaner 'natural gas'). The other major polluter was power generation, largelky because many of the power stations were fired by coal gas.

The resulting pollution was thick with sulphur dioxide, a gas which has serious health implications. Things came to a head with the London Smog of 1952 which killed thousands of people a day whilst it lasted, this prompted the government to pass the Clean Air Acts, other countries around the world followed the UK's lead.

Sulphur dioxide is a 'reflective' gas, rather than trapping heat in the way that carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases do it reflects sunlight back into space. The higher the levels of SO2 the cooler the planet becomes. All that pollution was insulating the planet and causing it to cool down, as levels of pollution rose during the 20th century the average global temperatures fell. After the Clean Air Acts were passed the temperatures began to rise again.

We see the same thing happen in nature. Volcanoes emit vast quantities of SO2 and after a major volcanic eruption the planet cools slightly. Most recently this happened in 1991 following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, for the next few years average global temperatures fell. As the SO2 dissipated (it has a short atmosphertic lifespan) temperatures climbed back up again.

As for global cooling in the 1970's. This is something that has been blown out of all proportion in recent months. Scientists were studying the effects of global cooling (as they did prior to the 70's and have done since) and quite accurately predicted that the natural cycles of the planet will ultimately bring about a period of global cooling if there were no other influencing factors. This was picked up by some sections of the media and Time, Newsweek and National Geographic each ran short articles about global cooling. These articles are easy enough to find on line and you'll see that at no time was an imminent ice age predicted. When you read the articles you'll see that what the scientists said was absolutely correct.

Answer 3

Very well put. In fact it is better than that. While CO2 levels have been increasing steadily between 1945 - 1980, the temperature was actually falling and as you said the environmentalists were predicting the next Ice Age.

Since this evidence was exposed they have been forced to look at it, agree with it and try and explain it away. Clutching at straws they jumped on the CFC problem and stated that this was the cause of the falling temperatures almost taking us to the next Ice Age.

So in a little over 20 years we have jumped from Ice Age to Global Warming nightmare. What a lot of BS in my view.

The interesting point is when you overlay a chart of global temperatures with a chart of CO2 for the last 100 years. They are way off. However, when you overlay a chart of global temperatures with a chart of Solar activity for the same period it is almost an exact match.

Answer 4

First let me say that climate scientists still do not know what causes ice ages. So all they can do is look at the temperature trend ans say it is getting warmer or cooler.

Now why did your coal not make it warmer? Maybe it did. Maybe that is why it is warmer now. It takes time after you turn on the heat until the house gets warm. We only started turning on the CO2 heat 200 years ago. 200 years is nothing in the time scale on which ice ages occur.

Now, can we say for sure CO2 is causing the present warming. Probably not. But it is at least a plausible idea, because CO2 is a green house gas. It must be having some effect, even if it is a small one.

So do I think global warming is a hoax? No. Do I agree with Al Gore that we have to take drastic action now. No. Do I think we better wake up and smell the CO2 (metaphorically speaking) and consider our future, especially since oil is running out anyway? Yes.

Answer 5

Global warming is caused both by more solar energy coming in during the day and less thermal radiation from the Earth escaping at night trapped by greenhouse gases. The dominant greenhouse gas is water vapour that is over 95% of the greenhouse gases by volume. The next is CO2 that is responsible for less than 5% of the greenhouse effect of about 33°C or 1.65°C. Surprisingly the next most important greenhouse gas is ozone that has about 1/5th the effect of CO2.
Each of these gasses only traps certain wavelengths of thermal radiation from the Earth and these "bands" become saturated requiring an exponential increase in atmospheric concentration of these gases to have the same increase in temperature as was achieved at lower concentrations.
The greenhouse effect is based on concentration not emissions and the bulk of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is from natural emissions and human emissions only contribute a small percentage to the overall concentration.
Since 2001 human CO2 emissions from fossil fuels has been increasing at a rate over 3 times anything previous but the atmospheric concentration has not shown this same increase indicating that human emissions are not the prime source for CO2 concentration increases.
The main culprit in global warming is the daytime heating by the sun. Current theory suggests that there is an interaction between solar activity and cloud formation and that the current warming is the result of both a warmer sun and less cloud cover, allowing more solar energy to heat the Earth. This theory predicts that the next solar cycle will be very weak and we will experience cooling by year 2022, regardless of what we do about emissions.

Answer 6

good points, and i wholeheartedly agree, and applaud you.
we had coal fires as well. the trains were run on coal. the factory near us was Huntley and Palmer's Biscuits, and I'm fairly sure they had smokestacks emitting smoke, from all the baking going on. i wonder why we all felt healthier living in that era than we do now. odd that.
did they get it wrong. probably was another con at the time.
used to scare people and keep them living in fear. keeps people in a state that makes them more easy, susceptible to brainwashing, more likely to do what they are told.

it's simply propaganda the politicians use.
i never trust statistics. unless it's a genuine research paper in a science journal. i'd question them still. that's part of the science community to keep questioning.
it isn't part of the science community to trust everything you're told by someone else, especially not by politicians.
of course, those politicians probably have put their own science stooges in place, to do the politician's, political party's, big cheese billionaires of the world's bidding.

by now, anyone disagreeing about global warming or questioning it will be called insane, especially scientists.

Answer 7

An ice age begins with global warming. It warms up the atmosphere, melts the ice caps, disrupts the sea level / salinity, and then causes an ice age.
That of course is just a rough explanation.
They did know about global warming in the 70s, and that was when the panic first started. They finally saw the consequences that were happening from years of industrialization.
Global warming is caused by many things, and carbon is just one of them. I would be happy to explain more if you want it.

Answer 8

After doing extensive research into studies on the topic, I personally have concluded that global warming is another scare tactic used by the governments of the world to get us to submit to more liberty robbing "reforms and regulations"!!

Just look up global warming on the web and you will get a slew of sites either agreeing or disagreeing with the concept. I have found that more and more people are speaking out against this ridiculous idea that "global warming" is caused by man. For example, when the industrialization of the modern world took place, around the 1940's, carbon emissions went through the roof and we entered a cooling period that lasted for almost 40 yrs. If you are old enough to remember, this is when governments across the planet started warning of the coming ice age or "global cooling" as they called it.
Just do the research and you will see the truth behind this scam and please don't listen to politicians and celebrities or scientists on the payroll of any government agency, period!!!
One of my favorite sources that condenses some of the material that I have studied is: http://video.google.com/videoplay?doicd=4499562022478442170&rq=label%3A%22global+warming+swindle%22.
Just check it out and go from there!

Answer 9

The coal that you were burning back then was raising CO2 levels, and we are paying the price now in increased temperatures caused by that increase in CO2. Global warming started years ago, but it takes us a while to understand what is happening. The global cooling theory in the 70's was posited by a few scientists, but they realized they were wrong. That is the way it is with science. You come up with a theory, you test it and you find out if it is valid. What makes you think you know better than the legions of climate scientists who have studied this issue?

And in response to putonyourflipflops above, what are you talking about when you say that anyone who disagrees with the global warming hypothesis is hushed? Please give one example. In fact, there are documented cases of scientists who have suggested that global warming is caused by human activity who have been asked by government or industry to tone down their statements. But there are no documented cases of someone saying global warming is not happening being asked to do so. Don't you know that ExxonMobil and others have offered big money to any scientists who can show that global warming is not occurring? But so far they haven't come up with any reputable studies suggesting that increases in CO2 levels caused by burning carbon do not contribute to climate change.

Answer 10

You didn't watch the great global warming swindle on channel 4 did you!.....carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas and it is not that that is causing the temperatures to rise , simply nature as it has done before.It is being used as an excuse by governments to raise taxation and control poorer countries by preventing them developing.You wont see the scientific evidence in the mainstream because anyone who disagrees with the "global warming charade" is quickly and quietly hushed! in fact many scientists believe it is the sun..a much more powerful influence than man....that controls the earths climate,ask your self is man really that arrogant to think we can raise the of the sea in a few years?(we are talking miles of water here!)look past the hype!