Does the natural earth respond to conceit or arrogance?

Here’s some basic facts…

6.9 billion people live on the planet, 83 billion have gone before us. Between us we emit some 42 billion tons of greenhouse gases each year (31 billion tons of CO2 and the equivalent of a further 13 billion tons by way of the other greenhouse gases).

There was 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, this was the natural level before the onset of industrialisation. Today there’s 2.1 trillion tons, the additional 0.6 trillion tons has the human isotopic fingerprint all over it, there’s no disputing that we put it there.

The notion that adding 40% more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere can’t possibly affect the climate is quite bizarre. Not only is it conceited and arrogant as you said, but it shows a distinct absence of even the most fundamental comprehension of the workings of the climate systems.

The natural greenhouse gases provide our planet with 33°C of warming, without them Earth would be a lifeless ball of ice orbiting the Sun; they’re effectively our insulation. It shouldn’t be hard to grasp the concept that 40% more ‘insulation’ is going to retain more heat, especially when you consider that the mechanism involved invokes the most powerful of all scientific laws. Like it or not, if there’s more greenhouse gases then more heat will be retained.

I always find it amazing that people who so obviously know nothing about the climate elevate themselves to a status where they think they are some sort of authority on the subject. It’s actually quite amusing listening to some of the comments that people make.

Ask a skeptic to explain how natural warming differs from human induced warming, given that the components involved are identical, and you get an eerie silence.

Your question actually hit the nail on the head with the problem of most of the climate change deniers on yahoo answers. They don't use scientific argument they use ideological arguments instead. A lot of people don't understand the scale of human civilization and more than 6 billion of us is just a number to them they don't understand. There are far to many of us on the planet to be supported by its natural resources and we are polluting the planet on an enormous scale. We pump trillions of tonnes of damaging chemicals into the environment (I am not saying CO2 is a damaging chemical I am speaking generally) and this has a huge impact on ecosystems.

Now when it comes to global climate change we have been affecting our climate for far longer than the last few hundred years its just the scale at which we are affecting it has increased dramatically. Cultivation of crops, keeping of live stock, changing land uses, deforestation and many other things affect climate and we have been doing these for a few thousand years. However we only started pumping CO2 into the atmosphere fairly recently and its CO2 that is the biggest problem when it comes to natural climate change. CO2 fluxes in the atmosphere naturally but 99.99% of the CO2 that is put into the atmosphere naturally it taken out naturally over climatic time frames. Now there are a lot of numbers thrown around to how much we have an affect but I will use 7% as it was the last number a denier through at me.

There arguement was we only add in 7% more CO2 how can 7% have such a huge impact ? Well the 7% has such a huge impact because around half of it is taken back up by natural processes (mostly by the oceans) but around 3.5% of it will accumulate in the atmosphere PER YEAR. So you get 3.5% more in year 1, 3.5% in year 2 etc and this accumulates at a rate far quicker than it should naturally.

I have also seen a lot of people saying that people who believe in global warming/global climate change have been brain washed by Al gore or with things like "A quick and easy replacement for thinking. A great way to influence the weak-minded." (taken from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Atd._... ). What they don't understand is that people saying climate change is true are going with the scientific consensus and people who are not are going with a politically motivated view. Now who would you believe about climate science. A climate scientist or a politician? Personally I would go with the scientist seeing as I am a scientist myself but too many people believe what politicians and the media say. There are also too many people who deny global warming because they think the people who believe in it are stupid and that by denying it they are superior to them and better informed and not believing "liberal propaganda" the problem is they themselves are believing propaganda and not looking at the science.

"How's that for a scientific argument against global warming?"

It's one deniers try to use all the time, "it is arrogance to think we can control the climate" etc etc

I am not aware any scientist have ever suggested we are controlling anything, we have set in motion a series of events by releasing large amounts of Co2 for more than a century, if we took solid action on AGW tomorrow it would take centuries to get the system back to something like it was before we did this, how is that 'control'

Of course the entire point (even if they won't admit it) of denial is to delay action on AGW for as long as possible, not really a surprise given the funding sources of the information they are using.

The earth's ecosystem is fragile. When humans burn all the oil and coal they can find, the smoke produced has to go somewhere. It rises into the upper atmosphere and stays there. Over time, this gas starts to act like a blanket. It holds in the heat produced by sunlight hitting the earth. Normally, this heat would escape into space. But the blanket of gas made by burning fossil fuels won't let it escape. Over a period of decades, the average temperature of the earth slowly warms. This is how we can affect the climate.

I can't believe that whoever said that could be so conceited as to believe that he/she could know more than the scientists who have spent their careers studying climate. Global warming is happening

http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-key-climate-ind...

And we are causing it

http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a...

Lares

No one is trying to get rid of all of the CO2, just the harmful excess that humans are adding.

Obviously we affect it. A termite affects it. The question is, do we affect it significantly or harmfully. Those who pretend that any affect is equal to a significant or harmful threat aren't exactly providing a scientific argument either.

Note: I guess you like Vince's answer better. Smoke doesn't stay in the atmosphere long. Precipitation forms on particles removing them rather quickly. Smoke would probably tend to cause cooling anyway. Some people obviously believe just to believe and don't understand the first thing about it. There are certainly skeptics that aren't informed either but they should be skeptical if they don't understand it. Believing something you don't understand is just being gullible.

Trevor toys with an interesting antithesis, I would respond right back to your (person) that it would be an even more obtuse display of conceit to think that humans are infallible and can't possibly harm the planet.

Of course, these are all word games, and as you alluded to they're not really arguments for or against - hence the facts some are citing. I think it's always a bit of fun though, seeing who has the greater sense of wit :-)

unfortunate that the USA and 1st worlders are the only ones doing anything about it,,,if we could get India and china populations down,,and get 3rd worlde countrys to stop breeding like rats,,maybe we could save the planet,,,But i really dont care,,ill be dead long before we run out of gas/oil,,,theres still plenty for me

7Billion people and 30Billion tons of CO2 dumped every year are not small numbers either.

Belief has nothing to do with it. most people would never believe time actually slows down with very high speeds either. Those same people use GPS that have to compensate for this time.

Science works from evidence and testing, not belief.

There is no conceit, just the laws of physics.

Without co2 all plant life would die. Why are ecco terrorist green peace die hards trying to kill off all our plant life? I tend to see them on par with Osama Bin Laden.