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Will carbon dioxide really destroy the world?

Anthony Cox

by Anthony Cox

09 Feb 05:35am

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Filed under: Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Environment, Epa

80 comments

Having arranged the Newcastle leg of Lord Monckton’s Australian tour and listened to his exposition of the failings of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change [IPCC] science it astounds me that carbon dioxide is still being described as a pollutant by the increasingly shrill advocates of anthropogenic global warming [AGW].

Ridiculing Lord Monckton avoids the dubious science behind climate change.

As well as the litany of mistakes, subterfuges and potential corruption by the IPCC two new peer reviewed papers show that the carbon cycle has only negligible sensitivity to temperature change [Frank et al, 2009 Nature 463] and that the human emissions of CO2 have negligible effect on the climate as measured by the fraction of human emissions of CO2 staying in the atmosphere which has not changed since 1850 [Knorr, W; 2009 GRL 36]

The American Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] has recently declared Carbon Dioxide is a poison ranking it up there with arsenic and nitrous oxide.

This effectively by-passes the need for President Obama to negotiate any emissions trading scheme through the US congress, because with Carbon Dioxide officially a poison regulations can be made limiting and controlling emissions without recourse to the Congress.

In Australia green groups like Beyond Zero Emissions want to reduce atmospheric concentrations of Carbon Dioxide to levels that existed before the industrial revolution.

All this demonization of Carbon Dioxide is occurring with doubt about whether human activity is entirely or partially responsible for the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

The connection between levels of carbon Dioxide and climate is also problematic, but most importantly there has been no attempt made by the proponents of man-made global warming [AGW] to consider how important Carbon Dioxide is for human survival.

In a seminal study in 1995 professor Rowan Sage considered the development of agriculture and the role increased levels of Carbon Dioxide played in that development. According to Sage agriculture began about 12000 years ago at a time when the level of carbon dioxide increased from 200 parts per million [ppm] to 270ppm.

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels directly affect photosynthesis and plant productivity generally but at levels above 200ppm the benefit to what are known as C3 plants, which include all the major food crops, is proportionally greater and allows these plant types to compete against C4 plants which include weeds and other non-editable plant types. At levels below 200ppm plants of any type cannot grow.

Many subsequent studies by eminent biologists have confirmed that increases in Carbon Dioxide greatly increase crop yields. Studies by Dr Richard Norby and Dr Stephen Long have shown that crop yield from all the major food crops, grains, vegetables and fruits, increases by 30 to 40 per cent with a doubling of Carbon Dioxide.

As well as dramatically increased crop yields, extra Carbon Dioxide also increases plant resistance to drought, damage from real pollutants and a range of other environmental stresses.

About the only down-side to the benefits of increased Carbon Dioxide is a need for extra nitrogen which can be readily supplied as a fertilizer.

Last year Norman Borlaug died. Borlaug was the man chiefly responsible for the green revolution that was based on great increases in crop yields. One of the ways in which plant yields can be increased is through glasshouses or greenhouses.

It is a popular myth that it is the Carbon Dioxide in greenhouses which increases the heat inside them and it is from this misunderstanding that the term “Greenhouse’ warming or AGW has been derived.

In fact glasshouses or greenhouses do not warm from Carbon Dioxide ‘trapping’ the solar rays as they come in through the glass walls and roof of the greenhouse. What warms the inside of the greenhouse is the lack of air movement.

The internal temperature of the greenhouse can be regulated by opening doors and screens. The Carbon Dioxide contributes nothing to the heating inside the greenhouse.

What the Carbon Dioxide does do in the greenhouse is greatly increase crop yield.

Norman Borlaug realised this and, along with other innovative methods he introduced to impoverished countries to increase agricultural yields, the use of the greenhouse and supplements of Carbon Dioxide has enabled humanity to feed its growing population.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation [FAO] the world’s forests have increased over the past 15 years in almost half of the World’s most forested nations.

This is despite ongoing deforestation. FAO now uses the biomass of a forested region when it makes its appraisal of the size of the forests.

The biomass is a measure of the size of the trees and plants; simply they are growing bigger and lusher. This is arguably due to the increase in Carbon Dioxide levels over those 15 years.

Currently the atmospheric level of Carbon Dioxide is 385ppm. In the past the level has been up to 20 times the current level.

Some of those periods were warmer than today, many were colder. In addition the historical records of Carbon Dioxide and temperature show movements in Carbon Dioxide FOLLOW movements in temperature.

While the relationship between Carbon Dioxide and temperature is at worst negligible, what is certain is that Carbon Dioxide is not a poison but a boon to plant growth and to humanity who depend on successful agriculture.

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80 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Joe says:

      05:37am | 09/02/10

      Good article. If you listened to some warmists in the media (who don’t seem to want to debate on the facts) you had to be kind of mad or something to listen to Lord Monkton. I think not.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      07:19am | 09/02/10

      Light that enters greenhouses (light includes heat) comes in at relatively short wavelengths.  Light that is re-radiated from the earth is radiated at relatively longer wavelengths.

      Light that enters the atmosphere (light includes heat) comes in at relatively short wavelengths.  Light that is re-radiated from the earth is radiated at relatively longer wavelengths.

      Glass in greenhouses restricts the radiation of the longer wavelengths which are trapped as heat.  Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere restricts the radiation of the longer wavelengths which are trapped as heat.

      Now I have corrected your physics do you want to try again? 

      And if you want to be taken seriously you should add links to at least the abstracts of the papers you cite.

      Reply

    • Realist says:

      08:11am | 09/02/10

      Your argument is false, CO2 absorbs infra-red radiation, therefore it will heat the same if it is in the atmosphere or if it is behind glass (which only cuts out UV rays).  Therefore the difference is not due to the CO2 but due to the lack of air movement and the thermal capacity of the glass. 

      The increased growth of the plants due to CO2 supplementation and temperature increases PROVE that increases in both are a GOOD THING when it comes to plant growth.  That is observable science, unlike climate modelling, which is akin to reading tea leaves, except it costs billions of dollars.

    • iansand says:

      08:37am | 09/02/10

      Realist.  I think you do not understand the significance of the words “relatively longer” and “relatively short”.  They are quite important.

    • Eric says:

      07:41am | 09/02/10

      Let’s here it for Co2!!!

      Reply

    • Martin G says:

      09:28am | 09/02/10

      Hooray! CO2!!

      Without it, we would not be able to grow food. Now, just think of how many more people we could feed around the world if arable land was not taken up for growing bio-fuels.

    • persephone says:

      10:48am | 09/02/10

      Just to remind you, the shift to biofuels was not in response to climate change but to the rising costs of petrol.

    • Martin G says:

      12:48pm | 09/02/10

      I don’t really care what the intention was, persephone, you seem to have missed the point - that there is not enough food to go around because arable land is being used up for bio-fuel production.

    • persephone says:

      01:22pm | 09/02/10

      There’s enough food to go round, Martin G, and has been for many decades.

      It’s how its distributed that is the problem.

    • Ads says:

      04:38pm | 23/02/10

      @persephone

      OK then if we need to be totally pedantic:

      The poor are unable to afford food because arable land is being used up for bio-fuel production, doubling and tripling the price of basic staples such as corn/maize.

      And in the US it was definitely touted as a response to climate change

    • Sick of the lies says:

      07:47am | 09/02/10

      If CO2 not a poison how about you go out to your car and breathe the exhaust for a few hours in a closed space.

      Reply

    • Adam says:

      08:20am | 09/02/10

      How about you breathe the air?

    • Macca says:

      09:07am | 09/02/10

      That would be CO… carbon Monoxide would be what kills you, not CO2.

      but thanks for playing

    • COF says:

      10:31am | 09/02/10

      Actually Macca, lack of Oxygen kills you (asphyxiation). CO2 isn’t necessarily a poisonous gas, it just isn’t Oxygen. CO does act differently in that it restricts the ability of the lungs to use oxygen, but in the end when there is no oxygen, it doesn’t matter so much. So therefore, both CO2 and CO can and will cause your death quite effectively.

      Please feel free to read facts before you post.

    • persephone says:

      10:54am | 09/02/10

      Google:

      16,200,000 for co2 poisoning symptoms

      So, yes, it is a poison and yes, it can kill you.

    • Liberace says:

      11:43am | 09/02/10

      ...a piano can also kill you if it falls on you….....

    • Matt Stewart says:

      12:21pm | 09/02/10

      Alcohol is poinsonous too, but it is present in about 400,000ppm in almost everything I drink.  Pretty much everything is poisonous, it’s the toxicity that really matters.

    • Grumbles says:

      01:00pm | 09/02/10

      Ahh persephone, I oftened wondered your sources, but google results? Did you look at any of the results? The first 10 were all links to Carbon Monoxide poisoning or CO poisoning. CO2 is not a poison any more than H2O (which if you tried to breathe pure H2O you would also die… duh) Provided their is sufficient oxygen CO2 concentration does not affect our ability to breathe and does not affect our skin.

    • persephone says:

      01:24pm | 09/02/10

      Of course I did.

      As people are more likely to cark it from carbon monoxide poisoning than CO2 poisoning, of course those sites have more hits and therefore head the page of searches.

      I read quite a few of the articles too (on CO2 poisoning).

    • Grumbles says:

      03:29pm | 09/02/10

      If you had read the articles about carbon dioxide poisoning you would see that it all relates to lack of oxygen.

    • VinceOZ says:

      04:45pm | 09/02/10

      CO2 killed the Blob, so obviously those that are afraid of it have seen the movie. I have actually had people quote this to me. Its sad isn’t it.

    • Trolldoll says:

      01:49pm | 12/02/10

      All I want to know is when the people rrom EPA are goint to arrest themselves for producing a poison, every breath every living thing expells (except Plants during the day, the do contribute CO2 during th night) contains CO2, so by their own laws surely theEPA would have to arrest themselves for producing a poisonous substance without a licence

    • trent says:

      10:30pm | 03/03/10

      Carbon monoxide (CO) actually stops the gas exchange into the lungs (virtually) altogether.

      CO binds to the ferrous ion of haemoglobin forming carboxyhaemoglobin. It not only competes with Oxygen (O2) for the same binding site but also binds 210 times as tightly as oxygen. The end result as mentioned is asphyxiation.

    • tunneleye says:

      08:04am | 09/02/10

      More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.
      These included 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.
      At what point will society truly respond to this growing crisis?
      Professor Jonathan Baillie,
      Zoological Society of London.
      This is caused ENTIRELY by the increase in Human Population!
      It cannot go on.  Spreading people around the world is NOT the answer.
      Neither is the argument: more people are needed to finance seniors.  We seniors must learn to manage with less.  It will balance out in two generations.
      We do not wish to be a dumping ground for overpopulated Countries.

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      08:25am | 09/02/10

      inb4 shitstorm.

      Enjoy wasting your day debating this guys. Make sure you forward your comments to Monckton / Gore so they know what brave soliders for the cause you are.

      Reply

    • Grumbles says:

      01:03pm | 09/02/10

      You could ignore the argument right up until they start taxing you left right and centre, then you will wish that more people fought them

    • Steve Smith says:

      08:34am | 09/02/10

      I can’t believe this.. the majority of scientists have been lying to us all this time!! Fortunately, truth prevails and now we can see the light with the help of the ever powerful Lord Monckton.

      Tthe truth is everyone abuses statistics to their own benefit..
      EXAMPLE FROM MR. COX..
      “According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation [FAO] the world’s forests have increased over the past 15 years in ALMOST HALF of the World’s MOST FORESTED nations. “
      WOW.. now I’m convinced we aren’t ruining the enviornment. Almost half is good, I mean it’s not a pass mark but who’s aiming high? Would world’s most forested nations be anywhere specific or is ballpark figures okay?

      Reply

    • Charles says:

      08:41am | 09/02/10

      At last some balance on the attributes of CO2.  It is most telling as you have mentioned, that over the last 140 years the ratio of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere has not changed at all, and this is from the IPCC own figures.  Which means that the ratio is slightly less than 4% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere is of anthropogenic origin.

      It subsesquently follows that unless we can stop the land, plants and oceans discharging CO2 then we can do nothing to affect CO2 levels in the atmosphere. 

      It is also telling that the level of 388 ppm (current level) of CO2 in the atmosphere is not as quite as high as it was in the 1940’s (415-420 ppm) and in the 1870’s (400-405ppm), although these were mostly Northern hemisphere readings (Beck, 2007) . 

      So, for those like the Goracle and his adherents (Rudd and W(r)ong and the Greens), this is all mostly about some serious rent seeking and profit motive courtesy of the tax-payer.

      Reply

    • Sherlock says:

      08:44am | 09/02/10

      Attention all climate change believers.

      Forget all this science nonsense here’s what you need to do. To promote the cause you need to post this link

      http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Jan_10.jpg

      To every blog and opinion site you can.

      People around the world are of the mistaken impression that they nearly froze to death during January and climate change believers have a duty to make sure they know how wrong they are and in fact January 2010 was dangerously warm.

      Come on climate change believers, promote the cause and show the world just how dangerous the global warming situation is.

      You have a responsibility to the world. Please take it seriously.

      Reply

    • John A Neve says:

      09:00am | 09/02/10

      To all bloggers,
      Unless you have some thing new to contribute, save time and just cut & paste for yeterday, the day before that and the day before that.

      Reply

    • Carl Palmer says:

      09:35am | 09/02/10

      Years ago I watched the science show on Ch 7 hosted by Dr Julius Somdemiller. He was an old bald guy who used to ask a ? & then say WHY IS THIS SO? That used to crack me up.

      WHY IS THIS SO?

      Dr Julius, please come back and sort out these fools.

      Reply

    • Tim says:

      09:56am | 09/02/10

      Sigh. The usual cherry-picking (I’ll pick a few stats I like, and ignore the mountain of stats I don’t like), evasion (let’s talk about how plants need CO2… but not water… or climate…) and logical FAIL (low CO2 is bad for crops, so it must be impossible to have too much CO2!). Thanks Punch, for piling some more mediocre crap into this already sewer-quality debate.

      Reply

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      10:00am | 09/02/10

      Carbon Dioxide might not destroy the world, but overpopulation and unrestricted consumption might.

      Reply

    • COF says:

      10:24am | 09/02/10

      Overpopulation again! So effectively you are stopping people from being born so that they don’t die. Fascinating logic.

    • Steve Smith says:

      10:35am | 09/02/10

      @Shane From Melbourne: please do not bring logic into this debate. It is for one sided banter using statistics only. 85% people of bloggers under 45 from NSW know that!

    • Darren says:

      10:39am | 09/02/10

      Sadly CO2 is not the primary contributing ‘greenhouse’ gas, it is infact methane. The Positives of CO2 for humanity and global ecosystems lies in the amount of CO2 to Oxygen conversion, the more CO2 the more plants grow and the more Oxygen to go around. This being said, without plants as facilitators of this conversion we are just thinning our Oxygen out. If you want the positives of a CO2 rich atmosphere you need X amount of plant coverage on the Earth’s surface. That being said, most of CO2 to Oxygen conversion is thanks to plankton.

      The Earth is a very complex machine of %‘s and ratios and equilibrium’s, if you really want to reduce global warming, reduce methane. If you want to return the world to an equilibrium where a large majority of species survive, reduce humanity.

      Just think; there is X amount of carbon for Y amount of carbon based life-forms on our planet; the more you increase X, the more room for increases in Y.

      Reply

    • Steve says:

      11:05am | 09/02/10

      Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas. Methane is just the most significant anthropogenic greenhouse gas.

    • iansand says:

      11:25am | 09/02/10

      The problem is that we are digging carbon out of the ground and burning it.  That carbon has been safely tucked away for about 100,000,000 years.  Quite a long time.

      There was a balanced carbon cycle then.  There is a carbon cycle now.  But dumping a huge amount of carbon into the system inside 200 years, which is what we have done, has quite likely disrupted the existing carbon cycle and has done so too quickly for balance to be re-established.

    • Ella says:

      01:32pm | 09/02/10

      Methane is often considered less of a worry than CO2 because it takes less time to break down in the atmosphere that CO2. If I remember correctly methane released now will only be in the atmosphere about 12 years, where CO2 will be there about 50. Thus the CO2 has a larger effect because of its longer life cycle.

    • E says:

      11:16am | 09/02/10

      I think that recent revelations about the lack of quality reasearch and fact checking at the IPCC shows that the evidence for CATASTROPHIC AGW has been ‘sexed up’.
      We just went throught the same process with Iraq, remember how Saddam could have nukes in 45 minutes or something? Thats the same quality of work which led to ‘the glaciers will melt by 2035’. The IPCC is a sales organisation.

      And just like Iraq and WMD, the AGW crusade will kill a lot of people and make a few very very rich (Al Gore is the owner of carbon exchanges and the worlds first carbon billioniare).

      The IPCC report was sexed up, same as WMD,  therefore what basis does any government have in getting us all to pay for a War On Carbon?

      AGW crusaders will kill millions through increased food prices, lack of food, lack of access to high technology medicine, all of which require lots of energy, and who knows what else.

      Also please note the increasingly obvious ‘population reduction’ theme in AGW crusaders arguments. If we are going to talk about reducing the global population al la the Club of Rome then fine, lets talk about that. Its increasingly look like AGW is just a trojan horse for population reduction.

      Reply

    • E says:

      11:22am | 09/02/10

      Re Persephone and CO2 poisioning, I did the research…

      Carbon dioxide (CO2) forms approximately 0.04% of the nominal 5000000 gigatonnes of gas and aerosols that comprise the Earth’s atmosphere.

      CO2 poisoning occurs at 50,000 PPM, or 5% concentration.

      So we can increase the CO2 in the atmosphere by 125 times (thats 12500%) before we reach a toxic level. CO2 as a toxin is not relevent to AGW crusaders.

      Also interesting to note that we contribute about 26 GT to CO2 per year, to the 5000000 GT of the total atmosphere, thats a change of 0.00052% of atmospheric composition. Gee its amazing we survived this long on such a fragile planet!

      Reply

    • Mick In The Hills says:

      01:15pm | 09/02/10

      I liken the infintesmal increase in CO2 in the atmosphere to saying that a full jumbo will fall from the sky because 1 passenger’s baggage is 1kg overweight.  Just nonsense.

    • persephone says:

      01:27pm | 09/02/10

      E

      I wish people would deal with posts in their contexts.

      I was not suggesting that we’re in danger of dying from CO2 poisoning, but pointing out to another poster that CO2 is, in fact, something which can poison you.

      But I’m proud of you - research, hey? Have a gold star.

    • Ads says:

      04:45pm | 23/02/10

      @persephone

      As someone pointed out earlier CO2 doesn’t kill people - lack of oxygen does.  If I put someone in a tank full of 100% methane they’d die too, but not from the methane.

    • Tom says:

      11:42am | 09/02/10

      CO2 isn’t inherently poisonous, but your argument that ‘some good, more better’ is fallacious. Water isn’t poisonous either, but try telling that to someone who is drowning. Most systems on planet earth, including the atmosphere, have equilibrium levels of constituent components, and changes to those levels will have dire consequences. The same applies for rapid increases in CO2 levels.

      At least you have the decency to reference proper peer reviewed material; I always get a laugh when sceptics attempt to point out the issues with the IPCC report etc, and then go onto reference Monckton and Plimer. If we were to go through the utter lies and fabrications perpetuated by those two, we would be here all day.

      Reply

    • Matt Stewart says:

      05:06pm | 09/02/10

      Actually, water IS poisonous, as is pretty much everything else.  The LD50 of water is approximately 90ml/Kg.  Facts are just awesome.

    • Malone says:

      12:19pm | 09/02/10

      Anthony! That is the most ridiculous comparison regarding an explanation of how a greenhouse works and how carbon dioxide (by the way it is regular noun, not a proper noun so capitalisation is not required) contributes to it.

      A green house traps heat because the sunlight heats the air inside the greenhouse, or glasshouse as both work in this manner. Heat is unable to dissipate as the walls of the glass house act to insulate the air on the inside from that on the outside. The lack of air movement is not the primary reason a green/glasshouse works.

      Secondly,  in the atmosphere CO2 acts as an insulator, as do other gases such as methane, and with more of these gases put into the atmosphere more gas accumulates and thus heat that may have escaped into the upper reaches of the atmosphere and space 250 years ago, now does not.

      However, another aspect of climate change that is not often popularly addressed is the increasing acidity of the oceans, as the oceans form act to absord a large proportion of the eaths co2. This has wider effects on breeding cycles of marine life, especially in places like the Great Barrier Reef.

      Is the book on climate change closed? Not at all. However giving the oxygen to these unscientific, climate change deniers, does not help. Genuine questions reagrding wanting to know more about what we do definitely know, and what is still open for debate IS not only desired, but essential for scientific progress.

      Finally, Anthony could you please give us a list of your financial contributors accounting for your operations. I would hate your organisation to be tarnished because of, perhaps funding from the mining industry which has a long history of ruthlessly protecting profits at the expense of those who may threaten those profits, no matter the method…

      Reply

    • Mikko says:

      12:23pm | 09/02/10

      There is a really simple solution for all those who think CO2 will be our planet’s downfall. Take a really deep breath and hold it for the greater good (especially the politicians who think taxing it is the answer).

      Reply

    • persephone says:

      12:43pm | 09/02/10

      ....and it will be the build up of CO2 in your system that will make you want to take a deep breath…

    • E says:

      12:50pm | 09/02/10

      Malone, the typical Ph of sea water is around 8.1. Adding CO2 does decrease the pH, but since pH & is neutral (aka clean water), describing a reduction in pH as ‘acidifying’ is in this context somewhat convenient for you, given the publics perception that acid = melting fish. A more neutral (pun intended) term might be that CO2 reduces the alkalinity of sea water, or perhaps you could just say that it reduced the pH.
      Also there is reaseach to show that increased CO2 increases the amount of the most common forms of plankton in the ocean, which would in turn absorb more CO2, while the slight change in alkalinity (of pH to be scientific) has no effect on their breeding.
      This is an example of the self regulating mechanisms Gaia has to prevent us from stuffing things up too much on a grand scale. As CO2 increases, plankton breeding increases, and so CO2 reduces. Isnt Gaia wonderful? Pity the AGW crusaders seem to think the Earth is a basket case which can be upset by tiny perturbations.
      Also please note that CO2 has, in the pastm been several times higher than it is currently without any ‘Venusian Greenhouse’ effects. The time of the dinosaurs, when Earth was covered in lush rainforests, included periods of much higher CO2 concetrations than we see now.
      See the climate changes, always has, always will, and nothing is different this time in a meaningful way.

      Reply

    • Timbo says:

      04:58pm | 09/02/10

      E, there weren’t any humans when dinosaurs were around (the Flinrstones was a cartoon not a documentary) wink

      Also do you have a timespan on how long it would take for the plankton to absorb the CO2 and how their increase will upset the equilibrium?

    • Adam MacLeod says:

      01:03pm | 09/02/10

      The earth can self regulate (i.e. turn CO2 back into O2), but only up to a certain point….we don’t know what that point is….and we don’t know what happens when we go past that point.    Now the bulk composition of earth is much like that of young Venus.  The problem with living on Venus nowadays is that it has too much CO2 in the atmosphere.  Hence the 450 degree temperatures.  I’m not saying that we’ll end up like Venus…..but just that the environment is a closed system which self regulates, and where feedback and interdependencies are extremely complex and delecate.  BTW Monkton has got quals in Classics, and is a failed board game designer.

      Reply

    • E says:

      02:48pm | 09/02/10

      Ridiculous comparison with Venus.
      Earths CO2 has been waaaay higher in the past and didnt lead to catastrophe.
      The Earths climate is not delicate, its a highly adaptable and resilient system with multiple feedback corrective mechanisms.
      So far we have altered the atmospheric composition by less than 0.01%, to suggest that the Earths viability as a home for humanity is compromised by such tiny changes is just stupid.

    • Jason says:

      03:07pm | 09/02/10

      Adam - I am no more qualified than Monckton (at least in this field) but I am aware that Venus is hot/CO2 rich because:

      1. It is 30% closer to the sun than earth and absorbs double the solar radiation.
      2. It is too hot on venus to form oceans, thus no way to absorb the CO2 in the atmosphere.

      The simple fact that periods exist when it has been both hotter, and had higher CO2 levels (on earth) in the past but no runaway greenhouse effect implies that earth’s natural feedback mechanisms and orbital variations will ultimately limit the effects of human released CO2.  Venus really isn’t a good comparison here due to proximity to the sun.

      Saying that the earth is a complex, closed (what? it ain’t closed dude, what about the sun, orbital variations, magnetic flux?) system with multiple interdependencies and feedback mechanisms is probably why we shouldn’t be identifying a single gas as the cause of climate change and should be doing better research.

      CO2 is just the bogeyman, there is so much other stuff for us to fix (heavy metal, corrosive chemical and electromagnetic pollution) that focusing on the one substance which will make Al Gore richer and solve nothing for humanity is kind of stupid.  How did/does the earth usually recover from major (rare) volcanic eruptions which pump CO2 and sulfur into the atmosphere?  If we don’t know the answer to this (we can’t even measure this accurately yet) then i suspect we are jumping to a convenient conclusion with some seriously suspect financial connections.

    • Nick says:

      01:24pm | 09/02/10

      Any article that claims to address whether Carbon dioxide will destroy the world is remiss in not addressing the effects of elevated atmospheric C)2 concentrations on ocean acidification. Oceans make up the bulk of the earth and when they absorb atmospheric CO2 carbonic acid is produced. This leads to acidification, which when high enough, can impact on the ability of many marine organisms to build thier shells and skeletal structures. Whilst the effects of this on marine ecosystems are unpredictable, they are likely to be dramatic.
      In the ninth paragraph it is stated that C4 plants include non-editable types.  Do you mean non-edible, or was this a non-editable paragraph?

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      02:35pm | 09/02/10

      So now we can’t agree how a Greenhouse works. God help us.

      Reply

    • E says:

      03:01pm | 09/02/10

      Nick,
      CO2 has been faaar higher in the past few million years, shell fish and plankton are much older than that. Therefore reducing the pH of the oceans (which you term acidification which is misleading) will not compromise the ability of plankton, shellfish or any other marine animals to reproduce.
      In fact since CO2 is plankton food as well, it will increase the abundence of sea life.
      Thanks for playing, you lose.

      Same goes for you Adam, since CO2 has been waaaay higher in the past few million years, and the Earth didnt turn into Venus, we can be certain that adding a few % of CO2 into the mix will not cause a ‘runaway’ event now.

      Both these arguments are false by the evidence of the planets history. They are examples of the ‘sexing up’ of AGW in order to attract grant money and mislead the public. Just like the evidence which led people into the Iraq war, the IPCC and other AGW Crusaders have been ‘sexing up’ the evidence to terrorise people into adhering to a political and financial adgenda. This is a repeat…geeze wake up.

      Reply

    • Nick says:

      04:44pm | 09/02/10

      E,
      In answer the charge that I was being misleading. The pH of a solution is a measure of its acidity or basicity. A pH of between 1 to less than 7 is acidic, 7 is neutral and > 7 is basic. The process by which pH is reduced is termed acidification. Whilst seawater is currently alkaline pH~8.2 the generation of carbonic acid through the addition of pH will reduce its pH, although the water will not necessarily become acidic, it is undergoing the process of acidification.
      Your other comments flippantly dismiss the concerns over ocean acidification and claim that it will have a positive impact. This is at odds with a rather more in depth analysis conducted by the Royal Society (London) in 2005, Ocean acidifcation due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, policy document 12/05.

    • Zeta says:

      03:35pm | 09/02/10

      So just checking back in 10 hours later, and in conclusion this thread has managed to confirm:

      a) Light enters greenhouses. No further consensus.

      b) Carbon definetly exists. It may occassionaly combine with oxygen molecules to form Carbon Dioxide. No further concensus on what happens then.

      c) CO2 can kill you, but so can pianos. Therefore CO2 is either more, or less dangerous than a musical instrument. I’m assuming @Liberace meant pianos falling from great heights. Because sedentry pianos are more or less agreed to be harmless unless wielded by Delta Goodrem.

      d) I can at least correct Adam McLeod who wrongly asserted that Monckton is a failed board game designer. This is not the case. He’s a failed designer of puzzles.

      Well done team. You’re an embarrasment to society, but at least you did better than Coppenhagen!

      Reply

    • Tim says:

      04:04pm | 09/02/10

      Just remember Zeta, these people’s vote counts just as much as yours.
      Scary, huh?

    • Mark says:

      04:21pm | 09/02/10

      embarrassment has 2 s’s (an embarrassment of s’s?)

      definetly is definitely spelt definitely

      Good post but

    • Matt Stewart says:

      04:55pm | 09/02/10

      Is he a failed designer of puzzles, or were his puzzle designs a commercial failure?  I find it hard to believe that he couldn’t come up with some puzzles.

    • persephone says:

      05:37pm | 09/02/10

      I’m glad you apparently hold the same fear of Delta Goodrems that I do.

      Especially ones armed with pianos.

    • TB says:

      03:38pm | 09/02/10

      CO2 may or may not kill us - but our throwaway society most certainly will.

      Reply

    • E says:

      03:52pm | 09/02/10

      Zeta, I am offended by your characterisation of all the participants of this thread as ‘embaressments to society’. Consensus is over rated since fools seldom differ.

      Sigh light enters greenhouse, heat only travels by radiation, convection or transmission. The glass prevents convection of the air in the greenhouse with the cooler outside air… yawn thats year 10.

      CO2 exists, it is plant food, it is plankton food, it is a fundemental building block in the chain of life. 50000 PPM of CO2 will kill you, this is 125 times the concentration currently in the atmosphere.
      Some people have been bamboozled into believing that changing the composition of the atmosphere by 0.00052% per year will cause catastrophe, but its increasingly clear that the leaders of that particular crusade are well paid to ‘sex up’ the arguments and terrorise the population.

      Anyone who turns their back on a sedentary piano is a fool asking for trouble, havent you ever seen ‘When String Instruments Attack’?

      Quick question: Would it have made a difference is he had been a more sucessfull designer of puzzles?

      Reply

    • mid says:

      04:50pm | 09/02/10

      E says: “The glass prevents convection of the air in the greenhouse with the cooler outside air… yawn thats year 10.”

      Think you might have meant conduction.

    • mid says:

      04:23pm | 09/02/10

      Anthony Cox: “I am a lawyer by trade”

      Nuff said

      Reply

    • E says:

      08:24pm | 09/02/10

      no mid, conduction continues through the glass, it convection which is prevented, allowing the warmer air inside the green house to stay there and continue to absorb heat from the Sun

      Reply

    • E says:

      08:41pm | 09/02/10

      “There are also other processes acting on the air inside a greenhouse. The sun’s energy can travel through greenhouse glass easily, but the radiation emitted by the plants and soil that have absorbed the heat doesn’t get out as easily, helping to trap heat inside.” - http://home.howstuffworks.com/greenhouse2.htm

      Yeah, I’ll assume you are talking about an actual greenhouse and not AGW, which is theoretically a fairly different process than what actually warms a greenhouse, they just gave it a catchy name to feed it to school children. Typical PR bait and switch.

      This paragraph says that the radiation from the plants and soil doesnt get out. It doesnt explain why. The reason is that the IR light is absorbed by the air surrounding the plants and soil, which is warmed. This warmer air is prevented from mixing with the external cooler air by… you guessed it ... the glass. The process by which warmer air rises and cooler air sinks, providing a mixing through which, in a closed system, all the air reaches the same temperature, is called convection. The glass prevents this mixing.

      It is also possible that glass is more opaque to IR than it is to visible light, so possibly the glass does slow the radiation of heat from soil. However this would likely be a smaller effect since IR radiation does warm air and so some proportion of the IR would be absorbed by the air before it could reach the glass.

      I really dont know off the top of my head how well normal glass reflects IR radiation, is it possible to look through a window with IR goggles? If so then glass doesnt reflect IR particularly well and prevention of convection with the outside air is the main driver of a greenhouse.

      AGW physics rests on the idea that CO2 is less likely to emit a photon at IR wavelengths than other components of the air, such as nitrogen (70ish% of air) or Oxygen (20%?) and so increasing the CO2 means the molecules of the air stay warmer longer due to the CO2 soaking up the heat and not radiating it into space.

      Of course the heat would still be transmitted to other particles in the air by conduction (thanks to Mir, I called it transmission before which was incorrect terminology .. give me a break im doing this off the top of my head from yr12 physics 10 years ago) and given an opportunity to radiate then.
      I think the idea is that as the proportion of CO2 (or other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere increases, more heat will be retained than would otherwise be, leading to a higher overall temperature.

      I havent seen any experimental evidence of this, and I think the higher energy GG would have and increased likelyhood of collision with other atmospheric components in the first case, leading to a greater efficiency of radiation from them, meaning little or no change to teh dynamics of the system. That is to say that the warmer GG components will warm the non-GG components causing them to emit MORE IR wavelenght photons than they otherwise would.

      Thats the totally simple model, as soon as you figure in cloud cover and the oceans, well its beyond current physical computer models to analyse.

      Im pretty confident that the problem, however small, will dissapear in the form of increased plant growth.

      The catastrophic claims of AGW have been ‘sexed up’ like WMD or swine flu, just more BS to separate us from our freedom, money and lives, in that order..

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      08:03am | 10/02/10

      With which other atmosphere do you suggest Earth’s would mix?

    • Chris says:

      08:58pm | 09/02/10

      Both sides of this argument are probably right in some respects. Time will tell, and we simply need more time to get more good science in on this.
      This is the most disturbing thing, to me: after some 20 years, thousands of scientists have failed to bring their findings to a satisfactory conclusion in the public domain. (Imagine if they were still trying to establish a link between smoking and lung cancer after 40 years. That’s the magnitude of the failure here.)
      It’s not even a failure of science, really, but rather a failure of communication.
      The science has to be CONVINCING, CREDIBLE, and CONSISTENT (the 3 ‘C’s). Credible goes to qualifications and method; consistent goes to organisation (difficult); convincing goes to communication—something which might just be beyond the ablities of many scientists. In the absence of such a broad narrative, well, pretty much anything goes.
      Honestly, environmental macro-policy, on a world-wide scale, is a madhouse at the moment.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      08:08am | 10/02/10

      I hate to be the one that breaks this to you, but there is remarkable consistency among scientists about the existence of a problem.  There is disagreement about the extent of that problem.

      A vanishingly small proportion of climate scientists think that there is no problem, but they get disproportionate attention.  The sceptics are well funded.

      I wonder if the sceptics would be prepared to release THEIR emails?  That would be quite a ...gate, I think.

    • Chris says:

      01:31pm | 10/02/10

      Is there, Iansand? Is there “remarkable consistency”? Or do you just feel the need to launch yourself into what was an entirely reasonable post (inoffensive to anybody), and be the attack dog?
      Consistency? Sure they disagree on the extent of the problem, but that disagreement ranges from: sea levels rising a few centimetres to two metres over a century; island nations being inundated or just mildly inconvenienced; temperatures rising by half a degree or two degrees; half of Greenland melting or the whole lot; half the Arctic ice melting or the whole lot.
      The predictions are so wildly variable, by hundreds percent, that one wonders if there is any science going on at all. Consistency in this? No. There is none. You are wrong.

      The sceptics don’t have to prove anything. The scientists doing the research have to communicate their findings in a more convincing manner. The onus of proof is on them. They are scientists, after all, and are in the business of observing, drawing rational conclusions and reporting on their findings. The average person in the street faces no such obligation, as they are not purporting to be scientists. Many, if not most, sceptics would believe it if it were believable. If it were PROVEN, in other words.
      As for the emails: well, that’s just moronic supposition on your part. Where is your evidence of manipulation and collusion on such a grand scale as that perpetrated by the IPCC and others in the “scientific” community?
      As for funding: You know, I heard just yesterday, on ABC radio, this estimate: the scientific community has spent, perhaps, 200 billion dollars on research over twenty years. And after all that time and money, they cannot come up with a convincing argument.
      It is a dereliction of their duty, on a massive scale. In most other fields of endeavour, they would be sacked.

    • iansand says:

      06:06pm | 10/02/10

      If you read what I wrote and what you wrote there is ... dare I say it ... remarkable consistency.

      Of course the issues should be communicated better.  If there was better communication the sceptics would look remarkably foolish.  That has certainly been a failure.  However, failing to communicate conclusions adequately has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the conclusions.  After all, the PR skills are weighted very much on the side of the sceptics.

    • trig says:

      02:48am | 10/02/10

      and the elevated carbon levels combined with elevated temperatures will increase the rate of growth in plants and more importantly ocean algae (where 93% of the worlds carbon is stored). Thereby controlling the carbon levels in the atmosphere.
      The increased biomass will eventually become fossil fuels and the cycle will continue.

      People always underestimate the ability of nature to adapt. species will always adapt to take advantage to changes. Certain bacteria can survive in boiling volcanoes, on meteorites and inside radioactive waste tanks.

      The earth has been hit by meteorite showers equivalent to a hundred thousand Hiroshima bombs, 25% of species survived and within a few years it was business as usual.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      08:13am | 10/02/10

      Of course nature will adapt.  The question is whether our species will be part of that adaptation and what role it will play in the adapted world.

      This debate has nothing to do with saving the world.  It is all about preserving our lifestyle, as much as possible, within that world.  If you regard our species as completely dispensable (as it is in evolutionary theory) do nothing.  We may survive.  We may survive in an altered role within Earth’s ecosystem.  We may not survive at all.  So it goes.  Them’s the breaks.  The only entities that will care are us.

    • Joe Blow says:

      02:57am | 17/09/10

      Except for the poor individuals underneath the meteors.  By analogy, that will be a fair few of us.  Nobody is claiming that life will be extinguished - just a pity about the droughts, famines, wars, lifestyle, forests, reefs and so on.

 
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