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A Convenient False?

A Convenient False?. Kyoto Protocol. International Treaty signed by170 countries to reduce GH gases (countries who signed in green). Yes, global warming is happening…. BUT Is it because of CO 2 ?. H 2 0 most important greenhouse gas, not CO 2 !.

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A Convenient False?

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  1. A Convenient False?

  2. Kyoto Protocol • International Treaty signed by170 countries to reduce GH gases (countries who signed in green)

  3. Yes, global warming is happening…. BUT Is it because of CO2 ?

  4. H20 most important greenhouse gas, not CO2! http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

  5. Man-made greenhouse gases

  6. Natural sources? http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

  7. Carbon Cycle

  8. Carbon dioxide (CO2): a “pollutant”? • AIT introduces CO2 with a picture like this (pp. 24-25). The black stuff is steam, not smoke, and CO2 is as invisible as oxygen. • AIT never mentions that CO2 is plant • food, an aerial fertilizer. • Rising CO2 levels help trees, crops, and green things generally grow faster and larger, produce more fruit, use water more efficiently, and resist pollution stress. • Experimental data indicate that the 100-ppm increase in CO2 levels since pre-industrial times has increased average yields by 60% for wheat, 33% for fruits and melons, and 51% for vegetables. An extraordinary positive externality, courtesy of the Industrial Revolution! Source: Idso et al. (2003)

  9. Look at Earth’s History • CO2 and temperature increase have never been related in the past • What has? • Solar activity • Volcanic eruptions

  10. Solar activity • When solar wind is high, more cosmic rays; less clouds; hot • Is this enough to create global warming?

  11. Opposite relationship? • Warm temperatures create more CO2 being released from oceans • Climate affects CO2 ( not CO2 affects climate) • CO2 increases after temp increases • CO2 lags behind 800 years • Seen in ice cores

  12. Scientists’ “Statement on the Hurricane Problem” • Ten hurricane scientists including Kerry Emanuel and Peter Webster issued this statement, available at. Key points: • Don’t let debate over the “possible” influence of global warming on hurricanes distract us from the “main” problem: subsidized development in high risk areas. • Policymakers should reform building practices, land use policies, and insurance and disaster relief policies that promote “lemming like” behavior.

  13. “A new scientific study shows that, for the first time, polar bears have been drowning in significant numbers.” (AIT) • “Have been drowning” suggests an ongoing problem. “Significant numbers” suggests lots of dead bears—enough to affect population dynamics. • Actually, the study reports that four polar bears were seen floating offshore in Sep. 04, apparently drowned after “an abrupt windstorm.” Source: Monnett et al. (2005)

  14. “Some scientists are now seriously worried about the possibility of this phenomenon [a shut down of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation] recurring.” (AIT) • AIT refers to a cooling event that took place 8,200 years ago after an ice dam in North America broke, allowing lakes Agassiz and Ojibway to drain swiftly through the Hudson Strait to the Labrador Sea. • However, that event injected more than 100,000 km3 of fresh water into the ocean, compared to about 240 km3/yr from Greenland ice melt. Sources: Barber et al. (1999); Rignot and Kanagaratnam. (2006)

  15. “Global warming is disrupting millions of delicately balanced ecological relationships among species in just this way.” (AIT, p. 153) • AIT cites a study showing that, in the Netherlands, caterpillar hatching season now arrives two weeks earlier than it did 25 years ago, making it harder for migratory birds to find food for their chicks. • “As a result,” says Gore, “the chicks are in trouble.” • But, the study says: “The gap between the schedules of the caterpillars and the birds has had no demonstrable effect so far on [bird] numbers.” Source: D. Grossman, “Spring Forward,” Scientific American, January 2004. • Robins today are thriving in areas of Alaska and Canada where no robins were seen only a few decades ago. Global warming is for the birds!

  16. “If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea—or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet.” (AIT, p. 196) • “TheGreenland ice sheet cannot slip into the sea, since it is resting in a bowl-shaped depression produced by its own weight, surrounded by mountains which permit only limited glacier outflow to the sea.” Source: Wm. Robert Johnston, “Falsehoods in Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth,” 11 August 2006. • To melt half the Greenland ice sheet and raise sea level by 3 meters, would require additional “sustained” warmth of 5.5°C “over a thousand years.” Source: IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, p. 678.

  17. sources • http://www.cei.org/pages/ait_response.cfm • http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=411 • http://www.abc.net.au/tv/swindle/ • http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/programme.html • http://www.ipcc.ch/

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