03-10-2017, 07:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-10-2017, 07:35 PM by Eric the Green.)
(03-09-2017, 10:24 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(03-09-2017, 09:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(03-09-2017, 05:00 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(03-09-2017, 03:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CBS: EPA chief says carbon dioxide not a primary cause of global warming
I briefly considered if this belonged over on the environmental section, but it seems to me that it belongs here.
I'm a luke warmer my self, and even .... gasp! ..... post on Climate Audit and Wattsupwiththat.
Nonetheless, the most I am willing to concede to non-GHG causal factors is 40%. Probably more like 30%.
It's really a question of science, and should not be politics. More like 90% at least of today's global warming is human caused. Probably more like 110%, since we might have been getting colder without humans. Of course, it is political, because government is needed to help solve the problem, and today's neo-liberal Republicans can't approve of that.
Eric your own statement is rather unscientific. Actual, real scientists have identified other causal factors leading to AGW, in addition to GHGs.
A good start is an understanding of albedo modifications. There are others.
I am not a climate scientist, but I've looked into this question quite a lot. I don't know what you mean by "albedo modifications."
What is clear is the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are not the only impact on the Earth and its life of burning carbon-based fuels. Acidification and carbon in the oceans in a major factor contributing to the death of coral and other species there, and the warming of the ocean is even more significant than the warming of the air in its danger to civilization and living species.
Besides burning fossil fuels, deforestation is a major cause of AGW, and emissions and pollution from agribusiness is another major source.
Politics is the heart of the problem, because if it were not for neo-liberals claiming that regulation is oppression of free enterprise by force, and that deregulation causes economic growth (trickle-down economics), much more would have been done by 2020 to curb emissions and other human causes of global warming.
By no means is government the only solution, and innovation in the free market is playing a primary role. But at a time when global warming is on the edge of causing severe catastrophe, the change in energy use and other changes that we need are too huge to depend on the market alone. Right-wing libertarian-economics free market ideology is not what we need now. But right now, it rules the roost. Only the progressive regeneracy opposing Trump and advocating solutions can save our civilization now.
Global warming in the distant pre-human past has had other causes. The climate can shift over thousands or millions of years; sometimes faster. But there's no basis for either denying the fact of global warming today, or for saying "the climate always changes" as if that could explain what is happening today. Such arguments are merely made by those blinded by neo-liberal ideology, or whose greed and profit depends on continuing business as usual.