Comments on: SHOW ME THE SCIENCE!

By: John Leroy Bis-Bal

John Leroy Bis-Bal — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:22:08 +0000

I am curious to know if anyone has done research on what it would take for the Earths atmosphere to become similar to the atmosphere of venus? Does anyone think that this is possible. Could a Super Volcano, like the one in Yellowstone, or a series of them cause a dramatic change in our greenhouse effect. If so, how much? I would like it if someone could email me information about this toppic. I recently have been wondering what would happen if our carbon dioxide levels were raised dramatically by a super volcano? What does anyone out there think is possible in scenarios like this; viz. a super volcano increases our CO2 to the point that the polar caps melt. The North American Continent becomes mostly uninhabitable due to volcanic activity and toxic gasses, then to top it off, our coastal cities are flooded when the ice caps melt. Do you think that the rest of the world would take us in, in a situation like that?

By: Nothing » OK, some more science.

Nothing » OK, some more science. — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 23:02:55 +0000

[...] RightWingNutHouse has yet another excellent post on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. [...]

By: joe-6-pack

joe-6-pack — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 01:48:16 +0000

Amid all the worry about the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, has anyone stopped to think about “just how big” 380 ppm is? Or just how small it is?

On my blog, I use the analogy of reducing atmospheric components to 10,000 pennies ($100). Carbon dioxide would represent 4 (actually 3.8) pennies out of 10,000. Before the Industrial Revolution, it is estimated to have been 280 ppm - 2.8 pennies out of 10,000.

Water vapor (humidity) and water droplets (clouds) account for approximately 90 to 95% of the Greenhouse Effect.

I think human activities that are more likely to cause global warming would be the growth of Urban Heat Islands and deforestation.

By: Michael L. Cook

Michael L. Cook — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 15:48:02 +0000

Forget pie-in-the-sky agreements on limiting CO2. The quick way to de-fuse the problem is to grind iron ore into a fine powder and sprinkle it over the southern Pacific Ocean. Iron-starved plankton will bloom crazily and suck CO2 like the atmospheric fertilizer it is. A fleet of 100 ore tankers pumping slurry would work best.
The only real consequences will be a vast increase in the entire southern hemisphere food chain, remembering that the southern hemisphere is mostly ocean. One ultimate consequence will be more penguins. This means more penguin poop. On land, the penguin droppings will be frozen, but perhaps an international conference should be called to deal with the potential hazards of floating penguin poop on the oceans. I am ready to be a full-time consultant on this for the right six-figure fee.

By: mac

mac — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:10:17 +0000

Well, I came here via Pharyngula. I started reading th comments, and discovered that ‘Right wing nut house’ is aptly named.

Anyone referring to John Daly for basic facts on Global Warming is pissing up a rope.

Nobody, but nobody, denies that the Greenhouse Effect is what makes the planet Earth habitable. Nobody, but nobody, denies that the Greenhouse Effect is what makes the planet Venus an uninhabitable Hell, hot enough to melt lead, except it would first incinerate in the sulfuric acid atmosphere.

Why is it so @#$)(& hard to believe that screwing around with this is something that might have unpredictable consquences? And that those consequences just might turn out to be bad?

If you ask me, Al Gore is the conservative on this issue, and John Daly is a wild-eyed radical of the worst ilk.

Now, I’ve got nothing fundamentally against Nuclear power, and if you ask many serious environmentalists, they will agree. But that doesn’t mean a blank check on burning carbon like the Rapture is around the corner.

By: Doug Purdie

Doug Purdie — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:24:09 +0000

Per Michael Critton, in his novel, “State of Fear”, the debate about humans causing increasing green house gases ended a while ago. He and other scientists never argued about the increasing levels but about how that phenomena affects the climate. Does a massive increase in CO2 or CO4 cause a slight change in climate, a massive change or no change at all? Would the cost to prevent a greenhouse gas increase eclipse the possible downside of not acting?

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:47:15 +0000

The ice core does not really show anything. Look at it this way 650K years is the blink of an eye in geological time and climate cycles for instance 600 million years ago the earth was a snowball then it warmed up over the course of ten million years due to CO2 warming with that said were is the CO2 now it was scrubbed from the atmosphere by rain. What has been found in Antarctica may be evidence of a natural upswing in CO2 levels due the climate getting dryer or some other factor than human activity. Here is a link to http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp
in addition physicists have proven the sun is getting hotter that is why the polar caps on Mars have been observed to be shrinking. The bottom line is the earths climate is very complex and we don’t have enough data yet to make any judgments.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:36:41 +0000

I guess the question is, how do we best bring about the political change? If we accept that the current atmosphere precludes discussion, then we will end up like Europe, where controversial issues are verboten by common consent. We have not yet descended to that level of discourse.

By: Rick Moran

Rick Moran — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:26:40 +0000

Chris:

I agree 100%. I was only pointing out the political reality not my personal opinion. The fact is that the economics of building a nuclear power plant - something like $2 billion - along with the inevitable avalanche of litigation against the power companies is what is putting the kibosh on nuclear power at the moment.

By all means, lets build them and build them as fast as we can. But there must be a titanic change in the political culture before that can occurr.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:22:57 +0000

And declaring that nuclear power is off the table helps in what way? This is part of the problem, that certain technologies have been deemed out of bounds without a debate. We need to start at the beginning and consider all our options, not just the ones that feel good or are easy to implement.