Thread: Global Warming causing other problems...

Has anyone noticed how Global Warming and particularly the media aspect is causing a complete breakdown in basic common sense. It is significantly effecting scientific discussion because of the large influx of individuals straight off their couches after hearing on the news that we are all in huge trouble if we don't switch our lightbulbs and other nonsensical things that have little or no effect on the problem yet people are so easily influenced by these things and it is becoming more of a trend than a science nowadays.
In certain ways it is good to finally see concentrated effort from governments to be put into alternative energies but in others there is a vast wasting of money but more importantly time and brainpower being put into in layman's terms downright stupid ideas, I'm sure you can think of many in day to day life.
What really ticks me off is how the media read credible scientific literature, cut it out of context and exaggerate exponentially after that to create a good story...

Any comments?

Barry

downright stupid ideas

Why don't you list a few so we have something to discuss, instead of inviting comments on an empty rant?

But I love ranting! Anyhow, there are many to chose from. For example this whole business of cutting down your carbon footprint is complete rubbish considering the fact that 1. General people only account for a miniscule amount of the carbon emission when compared to for example power generation 2. Mankind itself only accounts for a fractional amount when compared to natural sources like volcanoes, methane being released from the ground...etc.

1-Advocates of MMGW, would say 6.5 Billion Footprints (what each person does from breathing to driving to work etc) would make a difference.

2-Yes natural emissions of GW elements are over 95% from causes mankind cannot control and something less than 5% are from all mankind's activities.

IMO; Nature or natural reactions to what ever exist on the planet will take care of the problem. At least it has for the past 50 million years, which we call cycles and probably will for a million or more years. There are plenty of other potential problems, which neither man or nature could prevent and could end human existence. To alter or deny people the benefits of the achievements, seems an over reaction to an assumption based on very questionable evidence...

You're wrong about volcanoes. This has been discussed here before, more than once. Human CO2 emissions are many times greater (on average) than CO2 from volcanoes. Don't have time to answer more , there's a pie in the oven. Maybe later.

When I say volcanoes I mean all forms of gas emanating from the planet such as methane, carbon dioxide...etc.

Barry

The statistics are rubbish, too. Ex: the manmade v natural sources, does not take into account deforestation (ie loss of major planetary sinks) which is an anthropogenic process.

The problem is anthropogenic in nature. We cut down swaths upon swaths of forests to convert to a less capable carbon sink (such as pasture or cropland), unearth incredible amounts of sunken carbon and pump it into the atmosphere, and engage in other basic population-scale activities that any sensible person, looking at the situation, would conclude likely to lead to an increase in trapped heat. It seems that people, as much as they are willing to buy into the hysteria, are also prone to live in denial of responsibility.

There is a disconnect between primary research and the media, however, and it upsets me as well.

1. General people only account for a miniscule amount of the carbon emission when compared to for example power generation

Where exactly do you think the generated power goes? General people tend to buy it and run it through their washing machines and light bulbs. Industry tends to buy it to make cars, houses, petrol, candy bars, sausages and computers that general people tend to plug into wall outlets. Perhaps you're right; there is a "complete breakdown in common sense", but it's not where you seem to think it is.

2. Mankind itself only accounts for a fractional amount when compared to natural sources like volcanoes, methane being released from the ground...etc.

What FR said, plus what I said before about volcanoes, plus the fact that it's the balance that's being upset, and it only takes a small relative addition to upset the balance, and that's what is happening.

Although the natural emissions overwhelm anthropogenic emissions, the carbon cycle makes the implication that "our emissions are therefore negligible" wrong. In fact, if you take 30x units of CO2 as being input from natural sources per year, and x units of CO2 from humans per year, then it would look like

30x, but you have natural sinks, so remove 30x = 0
add humans: 30x -30x + x = 1
next year: 30x -30x +x + x = 2
and so on...
throw in deforestation, and carbon sink saturation and other feedbacks, and you reduce the ability of sinks, so
30x - 29x + x + x + x = 4

This results in a net accumulation, and a steady rise in the atmospheric CO2 concentration (it is concentration that matters, not emissions) which has been observed, and just about all of the *extra* CO2 from pre-industrial to now is from us (i.e. the 100 ppmv rise, as we went from 280 to 380 ppmv is anthropogenic). And that rise is occurring at faster rates.

What's more, "breathing" does not contribute to atmospheric rise in CO2 levels.

FYI, here's another problem that may be attributable to climate change combined with other factors. No, it's not proven. The evidence is circumstantial, but fairly compelling. The results are ugly.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7972146

Beetle scourge goes from bad to worse
The beetle infestation that is expected to kill all of Colorado's mature lodgepole forest within five years is moving into Wyoming and the Front Range.

The reason for the infestation, according to Jeff Jahnke, Colorado state forester, is an "unprecedented combination of drought, warm winters . . . and poor conditions that have caused an extensive, unprecedented infestation of the beetle."

Gray and Bob Cain, a U.S. Forest Service entomologist, said that a lack of cold winters has allowed pine beetles to thrive.

Cain said that normally in the middle of winter, temperatures need to fall to minus 40 degrees to kill the bark-residing beetles.
"Those are the temperatures that used to shut these outbreaks down," he said. "We used to routinely get into the minus 40s in the mountains. And we just haven't been."

How large a part of CO2 is processed by oceanic plant life in comparison to terrestrial plants? How large an impact does pollution have on oceanic plant life?