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The denial of climate change generally centers around two main arguments. First, it isn’t happening. Scientists are innocently or willfully misreading the data, as proved conclusively by Climategate. (Their words, not mine.) Second, even if climate change is happening, the cause is natural cycles not human activity.
They seem to be arguing that the addition of tens of billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last 200 years – enough to push the concentration of atmospheric CO2 up to 384 parts per million (ppm) from 280 ppm – doesn’t really matter. The atmosphere does what comes naturally without taking note of all that extra carbon.
Really? Let’s put that to the test of common sense. One analogy would be smoking. Is there a difference to your health if you smoke one cigarette a day or one pack of cigarettes a day? Common sense tells you that if smoking one cigarette is a tiny bit bad for your health than smoking an entire pack is just that much more harmful.
I like this analogy better. Eating food is a natural thing. Combine the right amount of food and the right amount of exercise and your body stays healthy. Eat too much or exercise too little and your body’s equilibrium is altered. You start gaining weight, which in turn has deleterious effects on your overall health in the long run.
Thus, you can eat a cookie every now and then and that is not a bad thing. In fact, cookies make a pretty good snack. Start chomping down a box of cookies a day and you are heading for trouble. And let’s not even consider the social consequences of hogging all the cookies for yourself.
In essence, we have been feeding our atmosphere more and more cookies starting about 200 years ago. The rate of growth of carbon dioxide emissions between 2000 and 2006 is twice the rate of growth of the 1990′s. That’s a lot of anything. And what makes it worse is that we have done so in some measure not because we need more but because we want more.
Now you can sit there all day and tell me that none of this matters, that all that CO2 isn’t affecting things, but I ain’t buying that for one second. We need to put our atmosphere on a CO2 diet and we need to start now. Come to think of it, that’s not such a bad New Year’s resolution.
This essay first appeared in PlanetRestart.org
3 Comments
CO2 output has increased exponentially over the last decade. No one disputes that. There is plenty of reasoned scientific, not political, debate however over it’s effect on Global Warming. Should we reduce our CO2 output, of course. But how and by how much are the real questions. The other obvious fact is that U.S. Americans can only effect so much. Developing nations like China and India will only continue to increase their CO2 output during the next century. What do we tell these developing nations.
Two solutions I will offer. 1. Drill here and now, it will reduce out dependence on foreign oil, generate jobs, revitalize the economy and provide capitol for “green” energy. 2. Build Nuclear power plants.
Real solutions no rhetoric.
There is a tiny problem with your article. It assumes that higher Co2 levels drives temperature higher. Fact is that since 1998, while Co2 is at all time record highs, the satellite measured temperature, which has an accuracy of 3/100 degree, has trended DOWN. Even the “manipulated” CRU thermometer dataset shows a flat trend since 1998. Given these facts, it could be deduced that Co2 has either little or a cooling effect on temperatures.
I also agree with heavyg on the second paragraph.
So to recap heavyg and dougetit, it isn’t happening and even if it is it isn’t something we are doing. Hmmm.
In fairness, heavyg makes good points, particularly about China and India. That said, I don’t think the answer is more of the same as in dig, dig, dig. We need to stop eating so many cookies (i.e., conserve). No one can stop us from doing that. As for nuclear, aside from the still unresolved questions about disposal of waste, who will build the plants and by when. I ask these as fair questions from someone willing to be persuaded about nuclear power as an option.