Egon
Epic Contributor
Speaking of Volcanoes one blew a few years ago on the west coast. This year there was one of the biggest Salmon runs in history.
HOLY-COW-COLD-IN-FL
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Larry Caldwell
Elite Member
Thousands is just a little low. Coal production worldwide is now over 12 billion metric tons a year. A metric ton is 2200 lbs. The average is lower, since back in 1980 the world was only producing 6.5 billion metric tons of coal a year. In the last 30 years, we have burned 230.8 billion metric tons of coal.
Bituminous coal, the most common type, is about 10% ash by weight. The other 90% is carbon, which burns to CO2. The atomic weight of carbon is 13 and the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, so 207 billion metric tons of carbon burns to 718 billion metric tons of CO2. With the world's new industrial development, we are dumping over 40 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. You can see it won't take long to get to over a trillion metric tons of emissions.
It seems to me that if someone wants to claim that level of emissions has no effect on the planet, the burden of proof is on them.
You may have noticed I didn't mention oil. Oil production is currently running over 5 billion metric tons a year, so I suppose you could say it is an important factor, but oil is a combination of carbon and hydrogen. Burning hydrogen just yields water. About 3/4 of CO2 emissions come from burning coal.
Burning oil has a much more serious and immediate consequence for the USA. We spend over $700 billion a year importing crude oil, and most of that ends up as a trade deficit. If it weren't for importing crude, we would actually have a trade surplus, but we can't stop importing oil. We are addicted.
Unfortunately, most of the oil exporting countries are not our friends. If it were not for China propping up the value of the dollar, it would already have collapsed. Last year, China bought our entire world trade deficit to keep the dollar up. There is a lot of doubt about how long they will keep doing that.
When the dollar drops, the price of oil will rise. Someone mentioned $5 a gallon gas. A decade from now,that will look cheap. We could easily see $10 to $15 a gallon gasoline in our lifetimes. People will abandon automobiles for mass transit, and freight will go back onto rail lines where it belongs, with trucking limited to local deliveries. I don't see any reason to invest in reducing our oil consumption. Simple economics will do it for us.
It is not agreed to by 90% of those who study it, not even close. And even if it was 100%, a consensus is NOT proof, it is opinion. This is not an election, and it is not a contest. The reason environmentalists keep bringing the consensus argument up is, that is all they have.
There was once a consensus that the earth was flat, did that make it flat? I can list lots of occasions there was a consensus, even in modern times, and they were totally wrong.
How about stomach ulcers? Science was conclusive, everyone had studied them, and it was considered long settled science, they were caused by stress. Then, In 1982, a physician in Australia, Barry Marshall, who was literally laughed at by his contemporaries, when he announced during a medical convention, that he had found they were caused by bacteria. OOOPPS!!! He was right. So much for consensus. Don't like this example, there are many others.
How about the two things happen at the same time, so they must be related argument? Man releases CO2, and the CO2 level is rising, well they have to be related. So, an airplane flies over my house, and the doorbell rings, because they both happened at the same time, the airplane must have caused the doorbell to ring. I guess if I never open the door to see if something else caused it to ring, I can call it conclusive. It had to have caused the bell to ring, I head it with my own ears.
There are standards that have been accepted by science for a very long time, that have been thrown out the window in this debate, in a effort to avoid the facts getting in the way of their argument. Controls have been non existent, data has been refused to be shared, pier reviews have been performed by people with conflicts of interest, and people with political agendas have been involved in funding.
It has been long established that for something to be considered a scientific fact, it must be testable with the scientific method.
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative explanation, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
From: Is man caused Global Warming a Scientific fact?
To infer a connection between mans emissions of CO2 and warming is not an easy jump for the scientifically minded
* First, you have to prove that the increase in CO2 is caused by humans - the venting of CO2 by volcanoes (including those under the ocean) and geysers and other natural sources (and also the natural absorption or sinking of CO2) is a estimate that defies error analysis. To what error band are we certain of the amount of emission of CO2 by natural causes?
* Second, the elevation of CO2 needs to be shown to be historically real, but there were no analytical tools to measure even crudely thousands of years ago - the best work has been done with ice samples, but there is a great problem with how to calibrate such measurements. What size should the error bands be? I believe that man is responsible for a small increase in CO2 - this is supported by a lot of historical data.
* Third, there has to be a hypothesis that can predict the past (only then can we start guessing about the future) including the temperatures in the upper atmosphere. Any model that can't fit past data has to be called wrong.
* Fourth, as this is an open system where we can't build several earths and vary only one constant, any conclusion at best is still just a theory - a educated guess - it is not scientific fact. Science is more than looking scientific; just because things are measured to several decimal points means naught when there is no control or false logic.
* Fifth, to look at the past temperatures honestly, one would have to show no past periods of higher temperature. The idea that we 'know' the inferred data - is simply wrong. We only have accurate records of solar output from the recent past and we are ignorant of the magnitude of long term historic variations that are possible. Explaining the small drift (less than what appears to be the noise in the system) can be accomplished with confounding variables. It might help to remember that 10,000 years ago Milwaukee was under 40' of ice, so we really do know that temperature can vary on its own. See Dpace Weather at DMI We also have reason to believe that glaciers world wide have been shrinking for the last 300 years - this means that things other than CO2 change our climate.
>END<
Lauren if your going to convince me that man is causing the climate to change, call me when you can actually supply me with some scientific evidence to answer at least some of these questions.
In the mean time, I am sorry. But, I will, and many of us will, live our lives as we see fit, and we will resist any attempts for our lives, and our country, to be hijacked, and altered, by a radical, unproven agenda.
Happy Holidays.
gerard
Veteran Member
It's been a few years since I took physics and chemistry back in college but i'm not sure about your math. You seem to say burning 1 lb of coal produces 90% of one 1lb of Co2 (- the 10% of the ash). Doesn't seem to account for all the heat that's removed in the process. I burn coal in my house and see very little smoke. I put in probably 10 lbs every 12 hours and get maybe a lb of ash and a lot of heat. Are you saying the other 9 lbs is converted to Co2? Doesn't seem to account for the heat. I only have a BA in biology but took chem and physics so I'll defer to your contention if you have the creds to back it up. If you don't I'm sure there are others here with more letters after there name than me that can weight in
Larry Caldwell
Elite Member
The flat earth thing is a myth invented by 19th century American school teachers and was never true. Everyone has known the Earth was a sphere since very ancient times. In 240BC, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth to within 1% of its true value. The opposition to Columbus was not based on a flat earth theory, but on the fact that everyone knew quite well how large the Earth was. They knew Columbus would run out of food and water and die long before he got to Asia. They were right. What they didn't know was that there were two large continents in the way. Columbus died thinking he had discovered a long archipelago extending east from Asia. That didn't change the size of the Earth.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 is well known. It can be measured directly or calculated from theory. The amount of CO2 we are venting into the atmosphere is well known. It can be measured directly. The volume of the atmosphere is well known, and the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere can be measured directly. If you are going to oppose anthropogenic global warming, the burden is on you to demonstrate how your position is tenable. Doing anything else puts you in the position of those 19th century school teachers who claimed everyone thought the Earth was flat.
Larry Caldwell
Elite Member
It's been a few years since I took physics and chemistry back in college but i'm not sure about your math. You seem to say burning 1 lb of coal produces 90% of one 1lb of Co2 (- the 10% of the ash). Doesn't seem to account for all the heat that's removed in the process. I burn coal in my house and see very little smoke. I put in probably 10 lbs every 12 hours and get maybe a lb of ash and a lot of heat. Are you saying the other 9 lbs is converted to Co2? Doesn't seem to account for the heat. I only have a BA in biology but took chem and physics so I'll defer to your contention if you have the creds to back it up. If you don't I'm sure there are others here with more letters after there name than me that can weight in
The heat removed in combustion doesn't weigh enough to be measurable. The energy released in a megaton thermonuclear explosion only amounts to a few grams of matter.
Loren49
Platinum Member
ray66v - as I noted in an earlier post, my name is Loren - that is a fact that I can prove unless you claim my birth certificate has been altered. :laughing: just a little lame humor.
You keep using "prove" - could define what you mean?
I reject most of your argument - so we both agree that the other is wrong.
This site exposes the distortions of the created episode if you care to read.
"Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus | Media Matters for America
"Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus"
Climategate Scandal - Debunked | Howard Kurtz | CNN - Video | Mediaite
"Last week, five independent investigations cleared the scientists involved in the Climategate scandal from allegations that they had tampered with their research in order to prove global warming."
Was this ever reported by networks claiming to be "fair and balanced"?
97% of climatologists say global warming is occurring and caused by humans
"A new poll among 3,146 earth scientists found that 90 percent believe global warming is real.......
The survey, conducted among researchers listed in the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments*, "found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role". The biggest doubters were petroleum geologists (47 percent)"
You're on the opposite side of science.
Loren
You keep using "prove" - could define what you mean?
I reject most of your argument - so we both agree that the other is wrong.
This site exposes the distortions of the created episode if you care to read.
"Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus | Media Matters for America
"Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus"
Climategate Scandal - Debunked | Howard Kurtz | CNN - Video | Mediaite
"Last week, five independent investigations cleared the scientists involved in the Climategate scandal from allegations that they had tampered with their research in order to prove global warming."
Was this ever reported by networks claiming to be "fair and balanced"?
97% of climatologists say global warming is occurring and caused by humans
"A new poll among 3,146 earth scientists found that 90 percent believe global warming is real.......
The survey, conducted among researchers listed in the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments*, "found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role". The biggest doubters were petroleum geologists (47 percent)"
You're on the opposite side of science.
Loren
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I could not possibly be more specific than I was, as to what it means to "prove" scientifically. These are not my standards, but the ones that are used by scientists. And they are not being used here. Yet, you ask this question? If I answer it again, you will just ignore it again.
You keep presenting consensus as science, it is not, and never will be anything other than opinion. I have shown this repeatedly has resulted in an incorrect position, and it's another point, you keep ignoring.
I will add, that I am happy to stand on the side of this argument that has not been impetuously duped by a political agenda, disguised as science.
Credible science includes releasing of data, releasing of how data was collected, releasing of evidence used to collect the data, releasing of proper paperwork showing that proper peer reviews were done along the way, and results being verified by other totally independent people doing the same work, "proving" the results. None of which is being done properly so far, by your "scientists".
When science actually begins to be applied to this study, I will be happy to consider the results.
czechsonofagun
Elite Member
I admire your patience, Ray:thumbsup:
Merry Christmas Prokop.