No Smoking Hot Spot

[AEGeneral]

No smoking hot spot | The Australian

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.


The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.


But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"


There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts: (more)

h/t: Tom Nelson

[mcclane]

Even though I'm not that familiar with how co2 can warm up the earth, using logic I can't piece any connection between co2 and global warming.

If that were the case, wouldn't global warming have begun since the first mammal made its appearance on earth (and we all know that there has been cycles of warm/cool trends thruout history) ? If co2 did contribute to global warming, wouldn't sticking a can of pop into the fridge remain 'warm', as pop contains co2 ?

Found an interesting article on co2 :

Universal Industrial Gases, Inc...CO2 Carbon Dioxide Properties, Uses, Applications* -* Recovery from Industrial Sources - Concentration in Air

"Carbon dioxide plays a major role as a component of the carbon cycle in which carbon is exchanged between the atmosphere, the terrestrial biosphere (which includes freshwater systems and soil), the oceans, and sediments (including fossil fuels). These interactions are complex and widespread. They undoubtedly can be, and are, influenced by many types of human activities, but the extent to which humans have impacted these processes, and will impact them in the future, remains the subject of much research and debate."

My next question is, if we do reduce our co2 output, will that even make a difference if nature itself releases co2 ?