Climate change?

Question

What has caused all the other climate changes for over thousands of years?

For the first time in the history of the earth, the ability to change the worlds climate, (which has been changing all by itself for thousands of years) has now been accredited to man

where do we get the idea that climates are static and they don't change

why over 5000 years of recorded human history is co2 now considered a pollutant?

Do plants consider it to be polluting

i would like to know what affects a plant seeing as they are mostly responsible for all the oxygen on this earth

do plants find extra co2 polluting ?

would plants grow bigger in the presence of extra co2

do you see plants bigger than normal, do you?
or more fruit being yielded?

evidence with your eyes vs the "it's all our fault guilt trip" off CNN

but i guess we all prefer the sugar coated answers off the tv

Answers to the above please

Answer 1

What would guilt ridden altruist do if they discovered that the climate always changes?

Answer 2

There are many causes for climate change. They have been extensively studied and can be extremely complex.
Relative to the history of the earth man has only very recently had the ability to affect climate.
Who has the idea that climates are static and do not change, not the scientific community?
CO2 was not produced in large quantities by man until the industrial revolution. Science itself is not static it is alway building on itself. At one time DDT, cigarettes, and many other chemicals that we now know to be deadly were considered safe. A lack of knowledge about something in the past does not mean that new knowledge is incorrect.
The increased CO2 is in the atmosphere not at ground level, the greenhouse effect is caused by a buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Increased CO2 can help plant growth, too much co2 can hinder plant growth. Too much of anything can be harmful. We do not commonly see plant growing larger or increased crop yields due to excess CO2. This is because CO2 is not the limiting factor in plant growth or crop yields. Nutrients in the soil and water are the limiting factors.
I do not like the television answers, I prefer the answers from the scientific community.
As a note Global warming is not new, I remember a professor coming to my 4th grade class and lecturing us about global warming. That was 19 years ago.
One of the problems with the television version of global warming is that they let on that it is something that is debateable, or maybe not occuring. Global warming and the science behind it has been accepted in the scientific community for years.

Answer 3

Your big question here is about plants and CO2 as a pollutant. In fact, the increased CO2 levels aren't really affecting us directly, and there are some studies that show it helps plant growth. Unfortunately, there are accompanying climate change effcets of increased CO2 which are very harmful to plants. Many plants have very specific precipitation and temperature ranges.. change those drastically, and the plants die.

As far as your tv comments: CNN is not the primary source of climate change evidience. This theory is based on scientific study, not network tv documentaries. Also, I wouldn't call claims that we're severly hurting our environment and could drastically decrease our quality of life in the future "sugar coated answers." I think we'd all rather believe that everything's fine.

Answer 4

You have several questions just sort of thrown out there, so I'll just answer them all in a numbered list, starting with the first.

1. Changes in Earth's energy budget, and thus Earth's temperature, have been responsible for all of Earth's past climate changes. Earth's energy budget is the ratio of outgoing terrestrial radiation to incoming solar radiation. It can be affected in three primary ways: Changes in the amount of solar radiation that reaches the planet's surface (by changes in solar irradiance or by changes in Earth's orbit around the sun), change the albedo (reflectivity) of the planet (by, say, adding large amounts of aerosols to the atmosphere), or changes in the greenhouse effect.

Most past climate changes are believed to have been triggered by the first–changes in Earth's orbit around the sun. Tiny changes in Earth's orbit (called the Milankovitch cycles) affect the seasonality of the radiation reaching Earth's surface. When, for example, less radiation reaches the northern latitudes during the Summer months, ice melt will be reduced, allowing ice sheets to form, thus increasing the albedo of the planet's surface, and cooling it.

2. We don't. No modern climate scientist believe the planet's climate is static and unchanging.

3. A pollutant is any substance in the environment that is harmful to life. Thus, anything can be a pollutant in the right amount. Since the warming resulting from the carbon dioxide humans have been pumping into the air for the past century will be harmful to our well being, it is considered a pollutant. By this definition, natural carbon dioxide, that is, carbon dioxide that forms part of Earth's natural carbon cycle, is not considered a pollutant.

4. No. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as a part of photosynthesis. They need it to survive.

5. Erasing all other limiting factors, such as precipitation, and soil quality, yes, adding, more carbon dioxide to the air would in effect cause plants to grow better.

6. No and no. There are many, many other factors limiting plant growth aside from carbon dioxide levels.

I hope this helps. More detailed responses to the majority of your questions can be found in the FAQ section of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which you can read for free here:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Answer 5

1) Natural cycles - variations in the Sun and orbital (Milankovitch) cycles.

2) Nobody claims that "climates are static and they don't change."

3) Because CO2 is the primary cause of the current global warming.

4) No. Are you a plant? I'm not.

5) No idea what you're asking.

6) No. Are you a plant? I'm not.

7) Some.

8) I haven't conducted a plant survey.

9) The evidence seen by my eyes is a clear as crystal that CO2 levels have been rising dramatically:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png
http://www.mongabay.com/images/external/2005/co2_var.jpg

Answer 6

Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’

By John Coleman

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmentally conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minute documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party. However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.