Should we tax people for breathing?

Question

Since human beings naturally produce CO2......

Interesting fact.... warming is occuring multiple planets in our solar system, including jupiter. This is due to increased activity from the sun. But people are buying this CO2 crap....

the_oracle-

sources like MIT, National Geographic.. etc....

http://seoblackhat.com/2007/03/04/global-warming-on-mars-pluto-triton-and-jupiter/

Answer 1

Please don't give them any ideas!

Answer 2

Besides Earth, warming is occuring on seven planets and moons in the solar system, the other 171 are either cooling or more or less static. If there was increased activity from the Sun then every planet and moon would be warming. There would also be a solar constant - there isn't.

The warming on each of the solar bodies is due to circumstances unique to that planet or moon - apart from one of Jupiter's moons Triton which is warming and we don't know for sure why.

In fact, the Sun's activity is currently at it's lowest level for some time and the longer term trend has been one of slight decline. We have precision instruments that measure the output from the Sun (called Total Solar Irradiance) so at any one time we know just what the Sun is doing.

As for people breathing, it produces 1.8 billion tons of CO2 a year, this is within the planet's natural capacity to remove CO2 from the atmopshere.

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EDIT: TO BEN O

We don't need weather stations on other planets to determine if the Sun is cooling or not, we have sophisticated instruments here on Earth that conmstantly monitor the Sun. These tell us the Sun has cooled slightly in recent decades. We also have satellites in space that tell us the same thing. These are the instrumental records, we have reconstructive records also, they correlate with the instrumental record. In short, however you measure it, the Sun's TSI is falling.

You raised the point about measuring the temp on other planets before and received a detailed answer (I beleive it was from Bob or Dana). I was reading a detailed report not so long back that went through each planet that was warming / cooling and explained the reasons why. If I find the page again I'll post the link, although I'm sure it would be easy enough to find via a search engine (maybe not the same report but a similar one).

Answer 3

Outerspace weather reporting is speculative in the extreme. To make difinitive statements about the long range climate on the outer planets is just dumb.

Bob is misinterpreting here.

If you actually read some research papers, it is 'plausible' (not probable) that the reduction in ice caps is caused by changes in the Albedo of Mars.

Also in the linked paper, the change in Albedo does not fully predict the observed changes in the ice caps.

I can't find anywhere what the total change in Albedo is, the researchers seem to be a bit shy about saying. Suposely some areas have gotten darker by up to 10% and others lighter (also by up to 10%) It seems to me the total change in albedo is very small and likely to be within the uncertainty of the approximations anyway. Who knows how accurate the Viking equipment was, global cooling was still science when it was built.

The before and after shots of Mars that you see in some articles which a light mars in the before shot and a dark Mars in the after shot are just rubbish that they've put in to sell more papers. You can't see a difference in albedo with the naked eye.

No serious researchers have botherd to rebuff Bob's other claim that the sun is cooling because even the IPCC is working on the assumption that it has been warming over the past 150 years (read their report).

I would have thought that the fact that we have measured the sun, for about 25 years, can't be used to definitavely prove anything. The ocean takes a lot longer than that to warm up. If you do a calculation, a 1 Watt per square metre heat source can heat a body of water 5000m deep by 1 degree celcius in 650 years if there are no losses.

Also Trevor,

There are no weather stations on the other planets, there is no way to directly measure the temperature. You can say that if the Sun is cooling, it's likely that most of the planets are cooling, but you can't then say that because most of the planets are cooling, this proves the sun is cooling.

Answer 4

In the future you might want to read full articles rather than snippets selected by people with who knows what agenda.

Warming on Mars due to dust storms darkening its surface:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070404-mars-warming.html

Jay Pasachoff, an astronomy professor at Williams College, said that Pluto's global warming was "likely not connected with that of the Earth. The major way they could be connected is if the warming was caused by a large increase in sunlight. But the solar constant--the amount of sunlight received each second--is carefully monitored by spacecraft, and we know the sun's output is much too steady to be changing the temperature of Pluto."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html

On top of that, more bodies in our solar system are cooling than warming (though the vast majority are experiencing no significant temperature change). If our warming is due to the Sun, then virtually every body should be warming, not just a couple.

Most importantly, direct observations have shown that solar activity has slightly DECREASED over the past 25 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm

And finally, we breathe CO2 that's part of the natural carbon cycle. It does not contribute to global warming. Carbon that has been trapped in fossil fuels which we release by burning them are the cause of the current warming.

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

Answer 5

The NASA scientists who did the work on Mars say it's due to giant dust storms unique to Mars.

We know it's not the Sun, because,....(wait for it).....
we MEASURE THE SUN.

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface
air temperature", Lockwood and Frolich (2007), Proc. R. Soc. A
doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

News article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm

The "people" who are "falling for it" include EVERY major scientific organization, and 99+% of all scientists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

More about the reasons some (not all) planets are warming here:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11642

But I suppose the "black hat forum" is a more credible source.

Answer 6

The carbon dioxide that you and I exhale is a part of the carbon cycle. That is, breathing adds no net contribution to the carbon dioxide that's all ready in the air. Thus it isn't a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The carbon dioxide produced from the combustion of fossil fuels, however, isn't. It's been sequestered underground for many millions of years. Releasing it results in a net increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere. Thus it contributes to global warming.

Answer 7

I think we should tax the people who don't want to take responsibility for their actions.

Answer 8

If there was a tax on intelligence,you'd get a rebate!

Answer 9

no! but with the way this world is changing and our governments are screwed it might happen.hope im dead by then.and have mercey on those who have to live with it.

Answer 10

may be tax the peoples in western countries who breath more air and send it to needy peoples in Africa!

Answer 11

And your source for said "interesting fact" is...?