Conservative Libertarian Outpost

I received this email from a friend that works at NOAA. I hope the graphs and such come through.

Subject: FUN FACTS about CARBON DIOXIDE

  FUN 
  FACTS about 
  CARBON DIOXIDE
   Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's 
  atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human 
  activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's 
  oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying 
  land plants.
   At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of 
  earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths 
  of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's 
  current atmosphere is CO2- 
  impoverished.
   CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants 
  absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe 
  oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a 
  pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. 
  All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When 
  plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon 
  dioxide.
   CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there 
  but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the 
  great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

   If we are in a global 
  warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for 
  limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on 
  global climate!

The case for a "greenhouse problem" 
is made by environmentalists, news anchormen , and special interests who make 
inaccurate and misleading statements about global warming and climate change. 
Even though people may be skeptical of such rhetoric initially, after awhile 
people start believing it must be true because we hear it so often.

"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, 
dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of 
us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being 
honest."

Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming 
theory)(in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 
1989)

"In the United States...we have to first convince the 
American People and the Congress that the climate problem is real."

former 
President Bill Clinton in a 1997 address to the United Nations

Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think 
there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to 
have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global 
warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the 
solutions are...

former Vice President Al Gore(now, chairman and 
co-founder of Generation Investment Management--a 
London-based business that sells carbon credits)(in interview with 
Grist Magazine 
May 9, 2006, concerning his book, An 
Inconvenient Truth)

"In the long run, the replacement of the precise and disciplined 
language of science by the misleading language of litigation and advocacy may be 
one of the more important sources of damage to society incurred in the current 
debate over global warming."

Dr. Richard S. 
Lindzen(leading climate and atmospheric science expert- 
MIT) (3)

 "Researchers pound the global-warming drum because 
they know there is politics and, therefore, money behind it. . . I've been 
critical of global warming and am persona non grata."

Dr. William Gray(Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort 
Collins, Colorado and leading expert of hurricane prediction )(in 
an interview for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, November 28, 
1999)

"Scientists who want to attract attention to 
themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) 
way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things 
bigger and more dangerous than they really are."

Petr Chylek(Professor of Physics and Atmospheric 
Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia)Commenting on 
reports by other researchers that Greenland's glaciers are melting.(Halifax Chronicle-Herald, 
August 22, 2001) (8)

"Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will 
be doing the right thing -- in terms of economic policy and environmental 
policy."

Tim Wirth , while U.S. Senator, Colorado.After a 
short stint as United Nations Under-Secretary for Global Affairs (4)he now serves as President, 
U.N. Foundation, created by Ted Turner and his $1 billion 
"gift"

 "No matter if the science is all phony, there are 
collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest 
chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

    Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canadarecent quote from the Calgary Herald

Unraveling the Earth's Temperature Record

    photo by: Vin MorganPalaeo 
      Environment (Ice Cores) Field Work
    Because 
      accumulating layers of glacial ice display annual bands which can be 
      dated, similar to annual rings of a tree, the age of ice core samples can 
      be determined. Continuous ice cores from borings as much as two miles long 
      have been extracted from permanent glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, and 
      Siberia. Bubbles of entrapped air in the ice cores can be analyzed to 
      determine not only carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, but also 
      atmospheric temperatures can be determined from analysis of entrapped 
      hydrogen and oxygen.
Based on historical air temperatures inferred from ice core analyses from the 
Antarctic Vostok station in 1987, relative to the average global temperature in 
1900 it has been determined that from 160,000 years ago until about 18,000 years 
ago Earth temperatures were on average about 3° C cooler than today.
Except for two relatively brief interglacial episodes, one peaking about 
125,000 years ago (Eemian Interglacial), and the other beginning about 18,000 
years ago (Present Interglacial), the Earth has been under siege of ice for the 
last 160,000 years.

    Compiled by R.S. Bradley and J.A. Eddy based on J. 
    Jouzel et al., Nature vol. 329. pp. 403-408, 1987 and published in 
    EarthQuest, vol. 5, no. 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas 
    Crowley, Remembrance 
    of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic 
    Record

  As illustrated in this final graph, over the past 800,000 years the Earth 
  has undergone major swings in warming and cooling at approximately 100,000 
  year intervals, interrupted by minor warming cycles at shorter intervals. This 
  represents periods of glacial expansion, separated by distinct but relatively 
  short-lived periods of glacial retreat.

    Temperature data inferred from measurements of the 
    ratio of oxygen isotope ratios in fossil plankton that settled to the sea 
    floor, and assumes that changes in global temperature approximately tracks 
    changes in the global ice volume. Based on data from J. 
    Imbrie, J.D. Hays, D.G. Martinson, A. McIntyre, A.C. Mix, J.J. Morley, N.G. 
    Pisias, W.L. Prell, and N.J. Shackleton, in A. Berger, J. Imbrie, J. Hats, 
    G. Kukla, and B. Saltzman, eds., Milankovitch and Climate, Dordrecht, 
    Reidel, pp. 269-305, 1984.Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance 
    of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic 
    Record

  The Polar Ice Cap Effect
  As long as the continent of Antarctica 
  exists at the southern pole of our planet we probably will be repeatedly pulled back 
  into glacial ice ages. This occurs because ice caps, which cannot attain 
  great thickness over open ocean, can and do achieve great thickness over a 
  polar continent-- like Antarctica. Antarctica used to be located near the 
  equator, but over geologic time has moved by continental drift 
  to its present location at the south pole. Once established, continental polar 
  ice caps act like huge cold sinks, taking over the climate and growing bigger 
  during periods of reduced solar output. Part of the problem with shaking off 
  the effects of an ice age is once ice caps are established, they cause solar 
  radiation to be reflected back into space, which acts to perpetuate global 
  cooling. This increases the size of ice caps which results in reflection of 
  even more radiation, resulting in more cooling, and so on.
  Continental polar ice caps seem to play a particularly important role in 
  ice ages when the arrangement of continental land masses restrict the free 
  global circulation of equatorial ocean currents. This is the case with the 
  continents today, as it was during the Carboniferous 
  Ice Age when the supercontinent Pangea stretched from pole to pole 
  300 million years ago.

  Stopping Climate Change
  Putting things in perspective, 
  geologists tell us our present warm climate is a mere blip in the history of 
  an otherwise cold Earth. Frigid Ice Age temperatures have been the rule, not 
  the exception, for the last couple of million years. This kind of world is not 
  totally inhospitable, but not a very fun place to live, unless you are a polar 
  bear.
  Some say we are "nearing the end of 
  our minor interglacial period" , and may in fact be on the brink of 
  another Ice Age. If this is true, the last thing we should be doing is 
  limiting carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, just in case they may 
  have a positive effect in sustaining present temperatures. The smart money, 
  however, is betting that there is some momentum left in our present warming 
  cycle. Environmental advocates agree: resulting in a shift of tactics from the 
  "global cooling" scare of the 1970s to the "global warming" 
  threat of the 1980s and 1990s.
  Now, as we begin the 21st century the terminology is morphing 
  toward"climate change," whereby no matter the direction of temperature 
  trends-- up or down-- the headlines can universally blame humans while 
  avoiding the necessity of switching buzz-words with the periodicity of solar 
  cycles. Such tactics may, however, backfire as peoples' common sensibilities 
  are at last pushed over the brink.
  Global climate cycles of warming and cooling have been a natural phenomena 
  for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is unlikely that these cycles of 
  dramatic climate change will stop anytime soon. We currently enjoy a warm 
  Earth. Can we count on a warm Earth forever? The answer is most likely... 
  no.
  Since the climate has always been changing and will likely continue of its 
  own accord to change in the future, instead of crippling the U.S. economy in 
  order to achieve small reductions in global warming effects due to manmade 
  additions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, our resources may be better spent 
  making preparations to adapt to global cooling and global warming, and the 
  inevitable consequences of fluctuating ocean levels, temperatures, and 
  precipitation that accompany climatic change.
  Supporting this view is British scientist Jane 
  Francis, who maintains:

    " What we are seeing really is just another interglacial phase within 
    our big icehouse climate." Dismissing political calls for a global 
    effort to reverse climate change, she said, " It's really farcical 
    because the climate has been changing constantly... What we should do is be 
    more aware of the fact that it is changing and that we should be ready to 
    adapt to the change."

         THIS PAGE 
        BY:

Monte Hieb

        This site last updated October 5, 2007

        Previous

      Table of Contents

  ...EMAIL COMMENTS TO: mhieb@geocraft.com

  References
  (1) A scientific Discussion of 
  Climate Change, Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for 
  Astrophysics and Willie Soon, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for 
  Astrophysics.
  (2) The Effects of Proposals 
  for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction; Testimony of Dr. Patrick J. 
  Michaels, Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, before 
  the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science, United 
  States House of Representatives
  (3) Statement Concerning 
  Global Warming-- Presented to the Senate Committee on Environmental and 
  Public Works, June 10, 1997, by Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Massachusetts 
  Institute of Technology
  (4) Excerpts from,"Our 
  Global Future: Climate Change", Remarks by Under Secretary for Global 
  affairs, T. Wirth, 15 September 1997. Site maintained by The Globe - Climate 
  Change Campaign
  (5) Testimony of John R. 
  Christy to the Committee on Environmental and Public Works, Department of 
  Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Laboratory, University of Alabama 
  in Huntsville, July 10, 1997.
  (6) The Carbon Dioxide Thermometer and the Cause of Global 
  Warming; Nigel Calder,-- Presented at a seminar SPRU (Science and 
  Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, Brighton, England, October 
  6, 1998.
  (7) Variation in cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage: a missing 
  link in solar-climate relationships; H. Svensmark and E. 
  Friis-Christiansen, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar- Terrestrial Physics, 
  vol. 59, pp. 1225 - 1232 (1997).
  (8) First International Conference on Global Warming and the Next Ice 
  Age; Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, sponsored by the Canadian 
  Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Meteorological 
  Society, August 21-24, 2001.

  Additional Reading
  Understanding 
  Common Climate Claims: Dr. Richard S. Lindzen; Draft paper to appear in 
  the Proceedings of the 2005 Erice Meeting of the World Federation of 
  Scientists on Global Emergencies.
  Geological 
  Constraints on Global Climate Variability: Dr. Lee C. Gerhard-- A variety 
  of natural climate drivers constantly change our climate. A slide format 
  presentation. 8.5 MB.
  Thoughts of Global 
  Warming: "The bottom line is that climatic change is a given. It is 
  inescapable, it happens. There is no reason to be very concerned about it or 
  spend bazillions of dollars to try and even things out.
  NOAA 
  Paleoclimatology: An educational trip through earths distant and recent 
  past. Also contains useful information and illustrations relating to the 
  causes of climate change.
  Cracking the Ice Age: From the 
  PBS website-- NOVA online presents a brief tour of the causes of global 
  warming.
  Little 
  Ice Age (Solar Influence - Temperature): From the online magazine, "CO2 
  Science."
  Solar Variability and Climate 
  Change: by Willie Soon, January 10, 2000
  Earth's 
  Fidgeting Climate: NASA Science News "It may surprise many people that 
  science cannot deliver an unqualified, unanimous answer about something as 
  important as climate change"