Why do people believe in Global Warming due to C02?

Question

There is no evidence that levels of C02 affect the warming of the planet, the fact is that it changes constantly throughout the planets lifecycle. But humoring the gullable and the sheep out there that believe what ever the government tells them, the following will explain the major contributors of C02.

As said above the oceans are the greatest contributor, due to the trillions of algae/ plankton that produce 15 times of what all the human produce. Next is the decaying matter and dead animals that produce almost the same as the oceans. So thats 30 times more than what we produce.

The next is trees, many believe that trees suck up C02 and prodcue oxygen for life, but this is WRONG, growing trees do do this but mature trees actually stop this and produce more C02 than oxygen. Maybe we should cut down all mature trees to save the planet.

Next animals which includes us humans just releasing greenhouse gases produce way more than all the factories cars etc.

Also volcanoes, it is estimated that 1 eruption from a large volcane releases what we produce in 6 months. Of course there are other things that produce C02. So humans maybe produce about a hundreth of the planets C02 do you still think by turning your TV to standby or using energy saving lightbulbs makes any difference?

The fact is the theory of Global warming due to C02 outputs from humans is just a political policy that is used to TAX people, they employ their own scientists to give credit to there arguments, and select the only ones that agree with them to show to the public.

When will the world stop believing exactly what is told to them, without any evidence and make up their own minds. The government lies that is fact!

'100 million years ago, there was six times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is now, yet the temperature then was marginally cooler than it is today. Many scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide doesn't even affect climate'

Check out this website http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/prog1.htm#suspend try with an open mind and not just believe what you are told

to Nostradamus ( with that name its hardly suprising you believe the world will end ) im not a republic or even an american, so sorry to burst the american bubble but theres other countries out there, im actually from England and the reason i have come to the conclusion i do above is because i do look at all the information for both sides and then agree with one, lets get this right i do believe the world is warming as its to do with the warming/ cooling cycle but i do not believe us humans can change this by burning fuels. More to do with sunspots and the galaxy.

to trevor - you must have too much time on your hands. You dont answer the point about the earth being cooler 100million years ago what your opinion on this? Personally i think its arrogant of anyone to think that what we do affects the planet. And what about in the following"According to the Greens, during the post-war boom global warming should have pushed temperatures up. But the opposite happened. "As a matter of the fact, the decrease in temperature, which was very noticeable in the 60s and 70s, led many people to fear that we would be going into another ice age

Ive asked another question
type in

Do you believe the global warming scare stories?

and see what you guys think of my reasoning now!

Answer 1

It's part religion, part altruism. The religious side states that man is guilty of sins for just being born, the altruist states that mans well being comes from self sacrifice.

These are very powerful emotions of mans psyche. This is why objective science must be strictly adhered to.

Answer 2

There is a great deal of evidence that changes in the level atmospheric CO2 affects the planet's temperature. The physical properties of CO2 and other gases can be directly measured under controlled conditions in laboratory experiments. We also have a solid understanding of the physical behavior of the atmosphere, and how it responds to different forcings.

One key element of this understanding, which you seem to have overlooked, is that CO2 is not the only driver of the climate system. There are many factors, natural and otherwise, that can and have overwhelmed the forcing signal from the greenhouse effect. Variations in the earth's orbit and ash and dust released from volcanic explosions are good examples of this. This is why the climate has occasionally cooled while CO2 levels remained constant.

You also seem to have overlooked the carbon cycle. It's true that there are many natural sources of CO2, as well as anthropogenic ones. But there are natural sinks as well, and these sinks "soak up" the excess CO2 from the air. The oceans, for example, absorb =more= CO2 each year than they release, so the oceans actually result in a net loss of atmospheric CO2. Humans, however, do nothing to absorb the greenhouse gases we release, and so our emissions result in a net increase in atmospheric concentrations.

The fact of the matter is that global warming is a very solid
theory based upon well understood physical laws, which is backed up by a great deal of evidence. Politics has nothing to do with it.

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Edit: as to your question of why the post war economic boom actually saw a cooling trend, instead of a warming one, see above. CO2 is not the only driver of the climate. It is believed that the cooling trend from the 40's through the 70's was caused by, among other things, aerosol pollution from industry.

Not a single scientist at the time was worried that Earth was going to plunge into an ice age. That is nothing more than a myth propagated by the media.

Answer 3

I'm not a scientist so I don't have any of the facts. I am fairly well informed so I think that it's possible that we are affecting the global temperature.

My point of view on the whole global issue is that I'd rather change than stay the same even if we don't have anything to do with it.

I'd rather have a society that runs on renewable energy systems, and doesn't polute our environment.

What's the cost of changing? There is no cost to change, as a society. The new technology brings with it new jobs, and high paying jobs. Almost every new technology is better in the long run, even when it costs more up front so for once we're doing something that will give our kids a better world.

So, it's not even an important question to me. Either way you look at it, we're better off changing.

Answer 4

There IS evidence that levels of C02 affect the warming of the planet. If Earth had no natural CO2 it would be locked in an ice age it would be so cold. This fact is not disputed by anybody. So it is only reasonable to think that more CO2 will cause more warming. The only question is how much more. That is where the argument is. How much warming, not if there will be warming.

Answer 5

You are wrong.

If you look at the cycle of CO2 in the atmosphere (collected from arctic ice drillings), you will see that our current levels are absolutely off of that parabolic cycle (sky rocketing). Secondly, algae does not produce CO2 as a byproduct, it produces O2, it uses CO2. In fact, Algae and other water based plants make well over the majority of O2, not trees.

I am assuming you are an angry Republican who can't look at all the information before making a decision that might affect big business. It's not a conspiracy. I don't want global warming to be true and I hope that I'm wrong. But, the facts and trends say differently.

Answer 6

Ok, so the government lies. I agree with you on that. But I can not agree that we do not influence the state of the world around us.

Check this out: 1 gallon of gas is roughly 6 pounds (U.S. Dept. of Energy. Fuel From Farms: a Guide to Small Scale Ethanol Production. May 1980. Page D-3). It is also about 85% carbon, by mass not by shear number (http://science.howstuffworks.com/gasoline5.htm). When you burn one carbon molecule it combines with two oxygen molecules from the air. Carbon has an atomic mass of 12 and oxygen 16 (See any periodic table of elements). that means 12 pound of carbon gets combined with 32 pounds of oxygen to produce 44 pounds of CO2 (carbon dioxide). In other words, one gallon of gas is almost 20 pounds of carbon dioxide.

There is some carbon monoxide produced in gas combustion but it is not a very stable molecule and will eventually combine with another oxygen (http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/MITJPSPGC_Rpt_35.pdf). So you can assume over 95% of the carbon in gas turns to CO2.

So, if you get 20 miles per gallon in your car then every one mile you drive you create one pound of CO2.

I would like you to do the next math. How many cars are there on the road? how many miles does each person drive each day? And all that CO2 goes where? How much coal or natural gas is burned each day so we can sit here typing and chatting back and forth to each other arguing over our own contribution to the amount of CO2 in the air.

Each of our carbon footprints is huge.

What are your sources for arguing that oceans are not a carbon sink? What is your source for trees not sucking up a net amount of CO2 over their life time? What are your sources? Where did you get your information? or is it all just something you have heard?

Answer 7

I agree with you, but although you said is true we are still contributing to an increase in CO2 concentration and thus polluting more our environments. But the earth has also been going through different climate cycles. first the earth was hot than it cooled and now it is warming again. I think this issue has been politicised...although we cannot deny the scientific facts. but scientists also disagree between on the same information and can interpret the same piece of data differently. on thi particular issue one may say that the co2 concentration is increasing or else that the world is undergoing another climate change. throughout history the climate has always been changing

Answer 8

Your misunderstanding is based on the omission of a key point - the natural carbon cycle.

Yes the oceans and other natural carbon sources dwarf human emissions, but the natural sources are in balance with eachother:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_cycle_diagram.jpg

Human fossil fuel emissions are more than the cycle can absorb, so our CO2 simply accumulates in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and thus global warming.

Also, volcanoes emit 1% the carbon dioxide that humans emit annually.

http://www.gaspig.com/volcano.htm

People believe that human greenhouse gas emisisons are the primary cause of the current global warming because that's what the scientific evidence indicates. Just because you're not aware of the evidence doesn't mean it does not exist.

*edited to addd* 100 million years ago the temperature was significantly warmer than today:

http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/variations_of_the_earth_s_surface_temperature_for_the_past_100_millions_years

and climate models have explained why there was a minor global cooling from 1940-1970

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

If you don't get all the scientific facts then it's easy to distort the truth.

Oh, and sunspots don't correlate with the current global warming:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png

Answer 9

It is not a belief. It is a scientific theory.

And contrary to your Belief...there exists much evidence for global climate change. It is in the scientific literature. And the gov't isnt saying much on climate change. That is the problem. But scientist are. Maybe you should listen to all of them, instead of the few that say what you want to hear. you might learn something.

You can decide to ignore it, but it wont go away.

Answer 10

So you have studied climate science? Science in general? At what school? What research have to done to support this?
I'm guessing you aren't educated or if you are you were a psychology or liberal arts major.
I'm guessing all of your points were found on the internet and were put forth by non scientists or by people who claim a scientist said it.

Answer 11

Most people don't. That belief is somewhat restricted to people who have taken a four years of physics and chemistry in college, then went on to do graduate work in things like atmospheric physics, oceanography, etc. Clearly you aren't fettered by being brainwashed through training in the physical sciences and can reason these issues through in a coherent fashion.