[debate] global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job

[chris at blask.org]

Hi folks,
One way to frame the issue is to ask the question:  "Is the human species capable of impacting global climate?"
I would suggest the obvious answer is "yes", though I have met people who seem to support the opposite position.
In arguing for the "yes, we are capable" position the questions arise: "What would happen if mankind converted a large fraction/most/all living hydrocarbons (aka forests) into free gaseous hydrocarbons?" and it's twin; "What would happen if mankind converted a large fraction/most/all fossilized hydrocarbons into free gaseous hydrocarbons?"  Would these actions have any impact whatsoever on global climate or would there be no impact whatsoever?  Why?
The answers found in the "yes, there would be some impact" realm tend to live within the bounds of scientific consideration.  IOW, while a given conclusion about *what* would happen could turn out to be incorrect and/or to have left out significant factors, the conclusion itself is based on logical constructs founded on facts or information.
The answers I have had presented to me in support of the "no, mankind is completely incapable of having any impact on weather" argument have struck me (bias noted) as effectively neolithic supertition.  "Nature will balance it out" assumes some supernatural capability and actor which/who has a predetermined set of climactic paramaters in mind, and the will to maintain them.  There is no evidence whatsoever in current or historical data to indicate that Gaea/God/god/whomever has any preference for maintaining what we would describe as a "habitable" terran environment, and every indication that changes in the composition of the atmosphere and the systems contributing to it do have an effect.  The view that climate is too big for us to impact is just small thinking.
The only remaining questions fall into the realm of "are we currently and/or forecastably creating changes large enough to begin to impact the climate, and what the impact is of those changes?
So let me ask, is there anyone on this list who doesn't believe mankind is capable of impacting global climate?
-chris
--- On Sat, 7/11/09, Peter Jukes <pdjukes at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Peter Jukes <pdjukes at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [debate] global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job
To: "Anton Chuvakin" <anton at chuvakin.org>
Cc: debate at whitestar.linuxbox.org
Date: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 8:21 PM

One antidote to the opposing conspiracy theories of 'Global Warming denial' versus 'Global Warming Scam' would be to assess the scientific research, don't you all think?

Ultimately, global warming itself must be a matter of record. The problem of course is choosing the time span and slicing the data, but there are various simple statistical. 


As for the causality ('man made' against 'natural cycles'), that's a tricky as actually finding the causation behind the correlation between smoking and cancer.  Just because you only hypothesise doesn't mean you don't act on the correlation. 



On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Anton Chuvakin <anton at chuvakin.org> wrote:

> wow, just... wow. Even if this is real it is a master-piece of how to

> discredit, write fake and unsubstantiated:

> http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/162241/17_200_Scientists_Dispute_Global_Warming



Global warming sure is a good debate subject. I'd like to share my own

weird perspective on it and thus add to this debate. So, the funny

thing is that I remember from my school years (80s in the Soviet

Union) that a CO2-induced global warning was presented as a proven

scientific fact. However, it was not at all positioned as anything to

fear or fight, just as an ongoing evolution of the Earth's climate

that humans will adapt to as they adapted to all past climate changes.

Kind of like "average temperature rises - move along, nothing to see

here." As a result, I never thought for a second that climate change

can be such a hot controversial subject pretty much until Al Gore.



And now the weird thing perceptual happened: the more I hear screams

"It is a fact! Fact! FACT!" the more I doubt it. After hearing all the

noise about it in recent 2-3 years, I am on the verge of being

convinced that it is a sham invented by politicians to grab some

taxpayer megabucks...



--

    Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D

   http://www.chuvakin.org

http://chuvakin.blogspot.com

  http://www.info-secure.org

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