[tannerwaterbury]

Originally Posted by horatio

I have recently read something about certain US politicians who ridiculed the existance of Vulcan surveillance. So who knows, perhaps one day when they have run out of "ideas" they might indeed try to mothball firefighters.

I find it really sad that people who are labelled conservatives care little about conserving the planet or economic sound policies like reducing the costs of climate change via countermeasures and more about the money that comes in from certain interest groups.



Let's suppose you are correct. What is your point? That the extra CO2 emissions of man actually do something good for plants? I care little about plants, I care about humans.
That's why the only relevant question is how large the effect of CO2 upon average temperatures is. We already know that an increase of a few degrees in average temperatures will have devastating effects upon some ecosystems and if you wanna translate that into running costs, estimates are about 2-3% of GDP.

As I have already pointed out, if the quantitative effect of CO2 upon the climate is overestimated, efforts ro reduce man-made CO2 emissions have no negative effect. To address your point, ecological balance has existed before man emitted CO2, so plants should work fine without this tiny extra bit of man-made CO2 emissions.

To adress your other point, that man-made CO2 emissions are insignificant compared to the ones present in nature, that is irrelevant as the only question is to what degree that insignificant CO2 emissions cause climate heating.
I'd also like to add that your point is based on production of CO2 in nature. Yet plants also convert CO2 into oxygen, a big circle of life. We don't talk about the flow of CO2 in that circle, we talk about the stock of CO2 in the atmosphere which causes heating.
Flow and stock, big difference. If you need a picture, suppose you turn up the water for the bathtub such that the amount that flows in is the same as the amount that flows out. The stock of water in he tub remains constant. Add the water of a dripping tap which seems insignificant compared to the amounts that rush in and out of the tub, and earlier or later the tub will flow over.

Well lets put it this way, you say you care little for plants and more for humans, Well if there was an abundunt amount of CO2 within the atmosphere, AGRICULTURE WOULD FLOURISH, thereby creating more food for the human race to survive on. Also, what physical evidence is there that CO2 is causing heating? Even with EXCESSIVE amounts of CO2 in the air, we still wouldnt boil up. Matter of fact I believe that the planet MARS has a atmosphere made up of 95 PERCENT Carbon Dioxide, yet its average temperatures range somewhere close to -40 Degrees Celsius. There proves the point that CO2 has barely ANY effect whatsoever on ANY warming going on within our atmosphere. Also people tend to mistake that CO2 comes BEFORE temperature, when it should be the other way around. As a matter of fact, the CO2/Temperature charts show that the CO2 catches up to Present Temperature levels 800 YEARS later, not instantly. I believe that we need a good amount of CO2 in our air. Im not saying we should continue on Polluting EXCESSIVELY, but dont try and cut the emissions down when there is no need to at the present time. Hell there was even an blog in 2008 from one of my favorite websites, Watts up With That with information stating that the Biosphere is booming due to the amount of CO2 within our atmosphere. Matter of fact here it is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/0...co2-the-cause/