The Last Frost

So Called "Myth" #7: CO2 is a pollutant.

Their Argument In A Nutshell: CO2 naturally occurs in our atmosphere therefore it is not a pollutant. They then go on to complain that the Canadian government included CO2 on it's list of pollutants in the Environmental Protection Act. [Read their original argument here - Myth #7]

The Truth: This argument makes me sick, just like large quantities of CO2 would. It's been made by several global warming skeptics and is probably one of most short sighted and naive positions took by these clowns. The CEI made a series of ads several months ago that took the same position. The tagline was, "They call it pollution… we call it life", I would love to see the executives who green-lighted that ad put a plastic bag over their heads until they were woozy and then repeat that tagline. 

According to the Merriam Webster's definition of the word pollution, it's, "the action of polluting especially by environmental contamination with man-made waste; also : the condition of being polluted". The CO2 that environmentalists want to regulate is the stuff that is created by man, auto-emissions, industrial emissions, that kind of stuff. No self respecting environmentalist would call for the removal of all CO2 from our atmosphere, what we are calling for is for humans to stop increasing the natural proportions of it.

The whole argument over CO2 not being a pollutant is just meant to distract, and it's complete bullshit. Ever wonder why NASA has atmospheric scrubbers on their spacecraft? It's to remove excess CO2 which can kill the spacecraft's occupants… don't believe me? Look what happened to Apollo 13. So I would consider anything that can potentially kill you, or any animal, a pollutant. Yet these fools suggest CO2 isn't toxic.

CO2 is a man-made waste product, we create it by driving, we create it anytime we use electricity and we create it by simply existing and breathing. Sure it's good for plants, but that doesn't mean it's good for us or the environment in huge quantities. The atmospheric levels of CO2 are increasing every year, the major cause of that atmospheric increase is the burning of fossil fuels. Our lives depend on the stability of our planet and when you mess with the chemical balance of the atmosphere it will have an effect. That effect is what climate scientists call global warming and it means our climate is changing; the full effects of which are not yet fully understood. 

We may not be in any danger of suffocating ourselves with atmospheric CO2, but the gas does trap heat in our atmosphere and that has an effect on many many things we rely on in our daily lives. To argue otherwise is fine, but make sure your argument isn't completely ignorant like these self proclaimed 'Friends of Science'.

CO2 in large quantities qualifies as a natural pollutant if it exists in sufficient quantities to cause harm, it's common sense.

Common misconceptions about global warming - [Friends of Science]

So Called "Myth" #6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

Their Argument In A Nutshell: In 1996, some lines were deleted from the final draft of a report on global warming released by the UN. The lines were as follows:

1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute  the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”

2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

They then say that there is no proof man causes significant global warming. [Read their original argument here - Myth #6]

The Truth: Who ever argued that the proof of anthropogenic warming was in this report? The real proof will be when our major cities are under 200 feet of water. In the meantime, we can do our best to look at the data and draw on our trusted scientists to make educated guesses about the future.

Seriously though, whether or not those two lines were deleted from the final report or not, it's an 11 year old report they're talking about. We have learned a lot in the last 11 years and it's a fallacy to assume the scientific doubts from 11 years ago supersede the discoveries made since.

In 1996, there was a backlash against these deleted lines made by climate change skeptics, the most vocal had ties to oil companies of course. What these folks don't mention though, is who put the lines in the report to begin with and why they were deleted. Do I know? Hell no, but I wouldn't go so far as to discount an entire report based on some omitted sentences when I have no clue why they were deleted in the first place.

Speculation is fine, but it's just that… speculation. I'd like to see some proof that these lines were deleted deliberately by the leaders of 180 nations just to manipulate the public and other governments into accepting that climate change is real. I mean what's more likely? That the UN is trying to secretly manipulate the world down a path of global economic change for no good reason? Or is it really just that there might be some weight to the work of thousands of scientists who say our current system is unsustainable? WTF people?

As for there being no scientific "proof" that man-made global warming exists… there will never be perfect proof until man stops pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or the effects manifest; whichever comes first. Hell, if the Earth's temperature jumped up 20 degrees tomorrow, there would still be people who would say humans weren't responsible.

So for posterity, here are a few articles all published in the last 4 years, that suggest proof of anthropogenic warming. For god's sake, even George W. Bush can admit to anthropogenic global warming, just check out #3.

1) Scientists claim final proof of global warming - [www.mng.org.uk]

2) New proof that man has caused global warming - [www.timesonline.co.uk]

3) Humans cause global warming, US admits - [news.bbc.co.uk]

The folks over at Discover Magazine have an interesting compilation of the top 8 stories in earth science in 2006. It's a good read… check it out.

The Top 8 Earth Science Stories of 2006 - [Discover Magazine]

Fuel from water is not a new idea. Simply add electricity and it's easy to split water into it's elemental components, hydrogen and oxygen. Get those gases near a flame and boom, the energy you just added gets suddenly released through an explosion which turns the two gases back into nothing but water again. It's called electrolysis and you can do it in your living room if you're not afraid of a little water and electricity. 

So where does the conspiracy come in? Well, there have been several people who have claimed to have figured out a way to split water so efficiently that they get more power from the burning of the resultant gases than what was put in. Stan Meyer was just one of those people, except he actually has some evidence to back up his claims. 

Imagine powering a car from L.A. to NY on nothing but 22 gallons of water. Stan had a working prototype of a dune buggy that could do just that, or so he claimed. In fact he had plans to mass-market the invention. Too bad he was murdered in 1998 and the dune buggy and all his technology was stolen.

So again, where does the conspiracy theory come in?  Well, nowhere except that he had complained about receiving death threats from oil companies. It's an interesting story, true or not, but I'm not going to go into what I think. The evidence is out there… check it out, it definitely makes for some good reading.

Inventor Of Water Powered Car Murdered? - [Growing Growing Gone via Digg.com]

Nobel laureate Steven Chu has turned his attention to Termite guts in order to find a carbon neutral fuel source. Termites have a knack for converting cellulose into liquid ethanol. Most of the matter that makes up plants is cellulose, so this would mean we could tap nearly unlimited sources of ethanol by simply feeding a bio-reactor of some sort, rubbish plant matter. Imagine turning Fall leaves, lawn clippings, downed trees or even organic household rubbish into liquid fuel. It would be pretty revolutionary.

Chu left his current job to work for Lawrence Berkeley Livermore Labs to kick start an inquiry into the possibility.

'Termite guts can save the planet', says Nobel laureate - [Physorg.com]

So Called "Myth" #5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

Their Argument In It's Entirety: Normally I try to summarize their arguments but this one is too dense, I didn't want you to miss a bit.

"Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove"anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover." [12/21/2006, Myth #5, FriendsofScience.org]

The Truth: Half of their argument might actually be based in fact amazingly… but I'll get to that later. They start off by saying that computer models can be made to verify anything based on the input parameters. This is true, computers can be made to play Quake or Doom, they can be made to surf the web for porn and even run scientific simulations. Computers can do just about anything if you tweak the input parameters enough. It's a ridiculous argument to make.

Seriously though, computer models are incredibly difficult to create, because it involves taking an analog world with an infinite number of variables, slicing it up in any multitude of subjective ways and then tweaking it until it's thought to be accurate enough to predict the future.

What they conveniently don't mention, is that scientists don't just guess at their variables run the simulation and hope for the best. They use this new thing called the scientific method, that these guys are obviously such fans of, to determine how to setup the simulations properly. Also any good climate model will be tested against the past so that the model's results can be reality-checked and tweaked accordingly. If the model can't predict the past accurately then it's pretty much assumed it won't predict the future accurately either.

Although it's true that they don't necessarily prove anything, they are the best method we have for predicting the future and are a hell of a lot more accurate than a crystal ball.

These guys really put their foot in their mouths when they argue that computer models cannot predict the effect of solar radiation on our climate, which they admit is cyclical. If it's cyclical then by it's very nature it can be predicted and modeled. Not that that matters, since the effect of the sun's natural radiation cycles has been shown to have a miniscule effect on global climate changes on its own.

Tom Wigley, a co-author of a scientific review published in Nature in September 2006, "Our results imply that, over the past century, climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun's brightness". [TerraDaily, 2006]

Let's be fair now though, there is recent scientific evidence that suggests solar radiation fluctuations may affect the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth. The studies suggest that cosmic rays may play a part in upper-atmosphere cloud formation which could affect the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. It is possible that an increase in solar intensity could disrupt these rays and thus disrupt upper atmosphere cloud formation which could in-turn warm the Earth. Congrats Friends of Science you've got one partially correct this time. 1 out of 20+ ain't bad, you've won the lottery of scientific fact… congratulations. 

Of course they did forget to mention a few things about the whole cosmic ray disturbance thing. First of all, it is much more inconclusive science than the whole CO2 causes global warming thing that they think is full of scientific holes. It's a relatively new idea and hasn't been substantially tested or verified yet, so the jury is still out. Also even if it's 100% true that the sun contributes to global warming we still have the problem of human produced CO2 which is still heating the globe. One of these things we can't control, that's kind of the point of this whole climate crisis thing. Fix what you can control, not what you can't.

Common misconceptions about global warming - [Friends of Science]

Record breaking temperatures in the Netherlands this Autumn has resulted in a strange phenomenon. Hundreds of wild and cultivated species of flowers have begun blooming months later than normal. Also noted was that leaf fall occured two-three weeks later than normal this year as compared with the average during the first half of the 20th Century.

So not all global warming effects are bad, but it is a disturbing sign of the current state of affairs. 

Extreme autumn temperatures cause unseasonable flowering in the Netherlands - [Physorg.com]

So Called "Myth" #4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

Their Argument In A Nutshell: There are more greenhouse gases in our atmosphere than CO2. There's water vapor and clouds (Clouds a greenhouse gas? WTF?), methane, ozone and many others. CO2 constitutes just .037% of our atmosphere and water vapor and clouds alone are responsible for an estimated 60% of the greenhouse effect thus overpowering the effect of the other gases. I quote right off their site, "Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact".[Read their original argument here - Myth #4]

The Truth: No shit Watson! Climate scientists don't mention it when discussing anthropogenic climate change because it's irrelevant. The burning of fossil fuels isn't pumping vast quantities of methane, ozone and water vapor into our atmosphere, it's pumping in CO2. No one is arguing whether CO2 is the most common or not. If you want to talk about atmospheric composition, save it for a high school level Earth Studies course, that's where it's relevant. 

The main point that climate change experts are trying to make is that humans as a species are outputting vast amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere which is disrupting the balance of naturally occurring greenhouse gases in our environment. We are overwhelming our planets carbon cycle, producing more CO2 than our planet's currently known systems can cope with. This CO2 is output in vast quantities, which warms the Earth, acidifies the oceans which is killing ocean life and makes some plants grow better which is actually good. But in general the gas has an impact on most every living thing across the globe and for us, the impacts have a huge potential for harm.

This so called "myth" was invented to cloud the real issue and was never a part of the debate on climate change. Speaking of clouds, they actually list clouds as a greenhouse gas. Clouds reflect sunlight away from the Earth and actually have a cooling effect, water vapor is a greenhouse gas and there's a big difference. This is a glaring example of how these "Friends of Science" really don't pay attention to the whole science thing.

Lastly their whole thing about the other gases overpowering the impact of CO2 misses the point entirely. All these gases contribute to the greenhouse effect which they confuse with global warming. The greenhouse effect is a wonderful thing that keeps our Earth's climate very comfortable, without it, our globe would be colder than a Minnesota winter. It doesn't mean that increasing the quantity of one gas, whether it's in the minority or not, won't have a significant effect. If you want to hear more about this check out, "Why Do Human Made Greenhouse Gases Matter When Water Vapor Is The Most Potent Greenhouse Gas?"

Onto the next myth!

Common misconceptions about global warming - [Friends of Science]

So Called "Myth" #3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

Their Argument In A Nutshell: Yes, human produced CO2 has increased over the last 100 years but there is no proof CO2 causes global warming. Actually, global warming which is caused by the sun, results in increased CO2 levels. So CO2 is the result of warming not the cause, and there's a lot of evidence to prove it. [Read their original argument here - Myth #3]

The Truth: There are only two things these guys got right on this one. First, they admit CO2 levels have been rising an average of .4% annually for the last 100 years or so. Although I would bet they chose that statistic deliberately because it sounds like such a small number. Here's the same statistic from a slightly different perspective; since 1958, atmospheric CO2 levels have risen by more than 20%. It's the same amount, .4% annually and it's also true, but 20% in 49 years has a lot more impact than .4% annually in my opinion.

Second, global warming can in fact lead to increased atmospheric CO2 by a process known as a positive feedback loop, which you can read about in a previous post of mine if like. CO2 leads to warming, which leads to more CO2, which leads to more warming until some other counter balancing process takes off (hopefully) and counteracts the trend. When they talk about a lot of evidence to back up their claim that CO2 is the result of temperature increase, they must have been talking about these loops.

Anyway, you might have noticed how in their argument, they actually admit that humans have produced this .4% annual rise in atmospheric CO2. Yet if you read part 1 of 10 in this series of posts, you'll notice that they say they don't believe that humans cause global warming. So it seems like their whole argument is based on one thing, CO2 does not warm the planet. Because if CO2 did cause global warming, then their whole premise that humans don't cause climate change would be false by their own admission. Moving on…

Does CO2 cause global warming? That seems to be their big hang-up. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, not the only greenhouse gas, but one none-the-less. That is a known fact and you will never hear a self-respecting skeptic tell you otherwise. Greenhouse gases have a property that allows solar energy to pass through to the Earth's surface which is then warmed, but then they also trap some of the heat that would otherwise be radiated back out to space. Thus acting like a global greenhouse or a global blanket. By burning fossil fuels we are pumping huge amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere which makes that blanket of greenhouse gases thicker. Thicker blanket = warmer temperatures.

Using the "Friends of Science" own statements, humans have made our global blanket 20% thicker since 1958 when we started measuring atmospheric CO2. If you count all the way back to the industrial revolution, that blanket has been made even thicker by human produced CO2. Yet they still argue that humans don't cause global warming… am I missing something here?  

Common misconceptions about global warming - [Friends of Science]

So Called "Myth" #2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

Their Argument In A Nutshell: The hockey stick graph is incorrect because it failed to record several known dips and spikes in temperature. Also that it's a flawed 'computer construct'. [Read their original argument here - Myth #2]

The Truth: This argument is so completely incorrect I'm not sure they're even talking about the same 'hockey stick' graph. The hockey stick is a temperature graph covering the past 1,000 years in the Northern Hemisphere. It's also one of the key compilations of scientific data that shows recent temperature increases.

They give examples of several periods of known climate variation that are left off the graph. The Medieval Warm Period they say was left off which I see as clearly marked, they also mention the Little Ice Age, which I also see clearly marked.

Hold on a second now, they also mention a 30 year period from 1940-1970 when the globe was actually cooling, which then resulted in a global cooling scare. I don't know about you guys, but I see a clear dip during the period they were talking about and that part of the graph is based on actual temperature readings… so it damn well better be accurate.

As for the whole global cooling scare, keep in mind this was before we knew jack about the complexities of the environment we live in. In the early 40's we didn't even know that radiation was bad for you. Environmentalism didn't exist, environmental science was practically unheard of. So arguing that a global cooling scare some 35 -65 years ago has some bearing on current global warming trends, which are based on hard scientific data, is just plain irresponsible. 

But is the graph inaccurate?
The data is estimated, yes. But inaccurate to the point of irrelevancy like they want you think? Absolutely not.

Since accurate temperature records don't really exist before the mid 19th century, scientists have to use other methods to estimate the average temperature across the globe during these periods. Using what are known as proxy methods, climate scientists study things that have a correlation with temperature to then estimate actual temperatures. For instance, the width of tree rings has a correlation with temperature, as do the composition of trapped air bubbles in ice core samples. By studying these things, scientists can indirectly measure temperature where that data would otherwise not exist. That's how we end up with 1,000 years of temperature data and hence the hockey stick graph. It's simple scientific method, it's how we know about the dinosaurs and the concept of evolution.

The graph is not the result of a computer model like they suggest when they refer to the graph as a 'faulty computer construct'. They are miss-informed or they are lying, probably the later. 

Common misconceptions about global warming - [Friends of Science]