'Carbon Overload' an additional term for global warming?

1. "Carbon overload" could be an excellent term to explain to people what is causing global warming as a substitute term to "greenhouse effect."

2. One tactic of denialists is to try to frighten people by thinking that alternate energy will remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Reminding people that CO2 levels are normally 280 ppm rather than the current 390 ppm should disarm that tactic.

3. Denialists love to call CO2 plant food. You know what happens when people eat to much food. Global warming is to plant food what obesity is to people food.

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"Present day CO2 is the same compound that CO2 was in the past"

But present day Earth is not the same that Earth was in the past. Rising sea levels were not a problem for dinosaurs because Earth of the dinosaurs did not have ice caps to melt.

● 1. Do you think use of the term 'carbon overload' would help people understand global warming?

Personally I don’t think it’s a particularly good term. Carbon dioxide is one of the gases that leads to global warming, use of the term ‘carbon’ would seem to imply that CO2 was the sole cause. ‘Overload’ isn’t really the right descriptor as the atmosphere isn’t being overloaded, it has the capacity to retain infinitely more CO2 than at present.

● 2. Would it help the public support action to stop 'carbon overload' if they remembered that 280 parts per million of CO2 is normal, and that the current level is 390 ppm, increasing 2 ppm/year?

For many millions of years the level of CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuated between 180 and 290 parts per million by volume. If you go back tens and hundreds of millions of years there have been times when CO2 levels were c20 times as high as they are now.

The headline figure is CO2 concentrations have sky rocketed in recent years, they’ve gone up more in the last 100 years than they did in the preceding 3 million years.

● 3. Some people hate numbers. What analogies could we use to help illustrate 'carbon overload' /global warming?'

Being a scientist I love numbers, they put things neatly into context and provide for quick and accurate analyses, comparisons and perspectives. But as you rightly say, some people hate numbers, many people also have difficulty putting numbers into context.

The majority of people who don’t accept the theory of global warming appear to do so for personal reasons more than anything else. Witness the number of times they talk about “I don’t want this” or “I don’t want that…” or “I won’t have anyone tell ME what to do with MY life”.

As such, if the objective were to encourage people to take action on global warming then it may be better to focus on how they, as individuals, would benefit as a result of reducing emissions and tackling the causes and effects of climate change.

The Earths climate is a result of quite a few different interactions the mix of gases in the atmosphere is just one of them. Some like David will try to use past CO2 level as a guide to try and prove something. They seem far less willing to talk about other factors like the position of the continents which also play a part, e.g. Antarctica didn't become the total glacial continent as it is today till it separated from S' America ~20 million years ago and the circumpolar current formed.

If deniers wish to try and use timescales of 100s of millions of years ago you also have the Sun, earlier in it's history it was putting out less energy and if you are talking about 'the Cambrian' I'm not sure what sort of comparison David is trying to draw yes CO2 was high but so was temperature 7-8c warmer than today long term changes in Co2 are affected by both volcanic activity and life itself and over the periods David lists there have been a number of mass extinctions and periods of far higher volcanic activity then we have seen in recent history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian#Climate

AGW is about what we are doing he and now, in the conditions we have at the moment not what the Trilobites were doing 500 million years ago, yes CO2 was more than 10 times what it is today (oxygen was almost half what it is today) if people are going to try to use 'Mockingtone science' they should be aware of the large pieces of information he simply leaves out.

I don't think there is a 'normal' carbon concentration dealing with the Earth as it has fluctuated pretty wildly in the past. stating, however, that the carbon concentration has been higher in the past says absolutely nothing about what effects that additional carbon has while it is in the atmosphere and what an adding to it today would have on todays wildlife who are adapted to living in the atmosphere of today. I think that if they do not already understand it and choose to be in denial they won't understand it regardless what it's called.

JimZ: I take ti you deny evolution then? Good to know. At least now I have some idea of who I'm dealing with. You must also deny mass extinctions as well then. I would go deeper into how creatures evolve to their slowly changing surroundings but this is the global warming forum. From your little blurb there your misunderstanding of the evolutionary process is about as deep as your misunderstanding of the greenhouse effect.

Are you sure 280 ppmV is normal. It isn't according to plant stomata proxies

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/stomata.html

Jeff said: carbon concentration has been higher in the past says absolutely nothing about what effects that additional carbon has while it is in the atmosphere and what an adding to it today would have on todays wildlife who are adapted to living in the atmosphere of today.

Excuse me. Present day CO2 is the same compound that CO2 was in the past. It isn't any more destructive than it was. At times when CO2 was 10 times the present concentration, life flourished.

The contention that present day life forms couldn't adapt to it is silly. The contention that present day life forms couldn't adapt to a slightly warmer climate is also silly. When you attempt to blame everything on global warming, you tend to confuse natural variation with catastrophe. It is just silly to put mildly.

I don't think anyone is going to get too upset if we run around screaming, we are increasing the CO2 0.0002 percent, particularly when there is very little confidence that is even true.

Note: We live in Pleistocene glaciation. The climate isn't the same as 5 million years ago. We are fortunate to be born at near climate optimum. There are only a few thousand years of the last 100 thousand that are nearly as warm and that isn't due to man.

1) good - like 'overshoot' but maybe a bit less scary.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/p...

i dont think this will catch on until the current crop of schoolkids grow up, who have grown used to the idea.

2) no. maths or even basic numeracy is not seen as important to many people. its time it was.

3) see link in 1)

Average Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations by Geologic Period

Cambrian 5,200 ppmv

Ordovician 4,500 ppmv

Silurian 4,000 ppmv

Devonian 3,000 ppmv

Mississippian 900 ppmv

Pennsylvanian 350 ppmv

Permian 600 ppmv

Triassic 1,600 ppmv

Jurassic 1,800 ppmv

Cretaceous 1,500 ppmv

Paleogene 600 ppmv

Neogene 300 ppmv

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Cli...

Yeah... "Carbon Overload" sounds like a real winner.