Is global warming really caused by co2 ??

Question

is climate change really caused by co2 or is this just a excuse to bring a world taxation system??

Answer 1

CO2 is responsible for a minute amount of global warming, so small it is not even measurable.

I do not think that many people are actually trying to enact a socialist world government, but I'm positive there are some and they are in disturbing positions of power. Problem is, CO2 production is directly correlated to energy consumption which in turn is directly correlated to GDP, so effectively a cap and tax on CO2 is a cap and tax on the entire economy.

I think that most of the people wrapped up in the Global Warming myth are there for personal gain, mainly in reputation and money. The myth will fall apart within the next few years because the Sun (the primary driver of our climate of course) is dropping activity recently. It will be hard to maintain the crackpot myth as CO2 continues rising (praise China) and the temperatures start falling, although I guarantee you there will be some dishonest attempts to keep the impression temperatures are still rising.

Answer 2

I think there is increasingly compelling evidence that the immense amounts of CO2 artificially emitted by human activity over the last century or more is contibuting to global warming.

I don't subscribe to the head in the sand denial approach. The consequences doing nothing and human activity actually being responsible for global warming/climate change are catastrophic. Alternatively if we strive to reduce CO2 emissions etc and ultimately discover that human emissions are not responsible for global warming, we will still be living in a cleaner and less polluted world as a result, hardly an undesirable or negative situation.

I think that taxation as a means of disuading people from continuing with current polluting/emitting activites is one of the greatest mistakes governments have made on this issue. It just creates resentment and resistance by making people associate environmental issues with punitive taxation. Bad move!

Answer 3

confused :P - you hit the nail on the head. All previous GW was caused by the sun and so too this time. The sun is not doing it right now according to the pro-GW scientists, so they take the politically prudent path dictated by Leftist politicians who control the purses and blame CO2.

Now if the sun, our only source of heat, is not putting out enough heat to cause GW, then the only thing preventing an Ice Age is our production of CO2. So lets stop all CO2 emissions and see if we cause an Ice Age. Which is more of a catastrophe, a mile of ice atop London, or having orange groves in Cornwall?

The only way the Left can force an economy-destroying reduction in CO2 emissions is through laws for industry, behaviour control and taxes, which will give them the money to buy votes. If temperatures continue to rise despite drastic reductions in CO2, do you think the Left will admit they were wrong or do you think they will pass more restrictions and taxes? You emit CO2 when you breathe, so have a breathing tax and those who can't pay must stop breathing in order to "Save the Planet". How many Leftist environmental groups already say Man is the greatest danger to the planet, to wildlife, to Nature, and would be happy to have fewer people. How many millions would die so they could "Save the Planet", "Protect Wilderness" or "save the Animals? And they would feel no guilt because it would be done for "A Good Cause".

If they start an Ice Age, they won't admit being wrong either, but they will be living near the equator, unlike the masses of ordinary people.

Answer 4

No. The proof is the lag in the time between temperature change and CO2. That is not to say that CO2 doesn't affect the temperature. It probably does. It does say the CO2 was not the causal factor which caused the warming that has been happening for nearly 10,000 years. Clearly, the increasing temperature has resulted in increased CO2. Has man added some? Sure. Has this affected the climate. Probably but minisculely. Should we panic and attack our way of life, industry, and free markets. No. That would be a rediculous price to pay for the fantasy of those who pretend to know things that they cannot know.

Answer 5

CO2 is the primary cause of the recent acceleration in global warming.

We know from ice core samples that historically when global warming occurred, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations also increased, but not until about 800 years later.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

Many global warming deniers think this is evidence that CO2 can’t cause global warming. In fact, that’s the very first argument in the terrible Great Global Warming Swindle. On the contrary, this is actually evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are currently causing global warming. Compare the following global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration plots from 1960-Present:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

As you can see they’re both rising – not with an 800 year delay, but at the same time. If CO2 wasn’t causing global warming as was the case in the past, then why is there no 800 year delay?

This only proves a correlation between CO2 and global warming and not a causality. The reason we’ve concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming (or more accurately, accelerating it) is because natural causes can’t account for the increase in global warming over the past 40-50 years. They account for most of the warming prior to that, but climate models have determined that greenhouse gases are responsible for about 80-90% of the recent global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

The very first inputs into climate models were solar, volcanic, and sunspot contributions, but they simply couldn’t account for the recent acceleration in global warming. Thus climate scientists have concluded that humans are the primary cause.

Answer 6

Global warming is a product of a change in the energy output of the sun. Ask any astronomer and they will tell you that global warming is occuring on every planet in our solar system. What is the single factor common to them all? The sun. Look at the data on Carbon Dioxide concentration vs temperature and you will find very little correlation. compare the same data to the changes in solar output and you have a match. During the jurassic carbon dioxide levels were 30 times higher, life went on and plant and animal life flourished. Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991 in the philippines releasing more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than all of mankind has since before the industrial revolution. After 5 years there was no discernable impact on regional or global temperature. Even the scientist who proposed the global warming hypothesis has since backed off of the idea. People need to start doing some research on global warming and quit listening to the talking heads on tv telling them we're all gonna die unless we move back into caves. I and a lot of other scientist believe in conservation and taking care of our environment, but I do not support panic science. Wake up america, educate yourselves!

Answer 7

Partly. Actually global warming is caused mostly by the heating of the internal layer of the Earth, the mant. It happens periodically, and cannot be stopped. Last time it happened during dinosaur extinction. After this increase in temperature, volcanoes erupt and the ashes cover the sun partially, decreasing temperature, which causes an ice age. It has happened before, but now mankind is accelerating the process.

Answer 8

Archive of Spotlight Feature Articles

The Detection and Attribution
of Climate Change
by Chris Miller

By themselves, droplets of sulfuric acid resulting from the burning of fossil fuels are of little consequence. But vast numbers of them form an aerosol haze that moderates and obscures the "greenhouse effect" caused by heat-trapping gases. In 1995, Benjamin Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was the first to quantify and explain the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, including the role of greenhouse gases and aerosol particles. Using a statistical pattern detection method, Santer and colleagues reviewed records of the past century and identified the anthropogenic "fingerprint" of climate change that took into account the confounding effects of natural variations. This work explored the implications of earlier research by Karl Taylor and Joyce Penner of Lawrence Livermore, who showed that sulfate aerosols have strong local cooling effects and significantly modify the climate change pattern associated with greenhouse gases alone. Santer's studies demonstrated that the inclusion of sulfate aerosol effects helped to bring model simulations in closer statistical agreement with observations, and that this correlation is improved further by the inclusion of other relevant factors, such as ozone depletion and the effects of volcanic eruptions.

Answer 9

I think there is significant evidence that co2 is a greenhouse gas and aggravates global warming.
Climate change is, and always has been, a fact of life.
The true extent of the effect of human activity as regards current climate change has yet to be proven.
I think it is wise to not waste resources. It is also a good idea to conserve (not preserve) the environment.
When it comes to the politics of the issue...
Have you ever seen a tyrant that doesn't want to grab more power and control ?

Answer 10

Yes, it's caused by CO2, and what's more, it's caused by CO2 emitted by humans. We know this because the isotope ratios of the excess atmospheric CO2 in recent decades indicates that it comes from fossil fuels and not a natural source. We know the physical action of CO2, because it can be calculated from laboratory measurements of its infrared spectrum.

Learn the science. Many of the answers above are simply a repetition of petroleum industry propaganda, and are irresponsibly putting the whole world at risk.