True, but H2O is a given. While its concentration is constantly changing in the air at a given point, that concentration is driven largely by temperature, not human activity.
In contrast, people really have significantly increased the concentration of CO2. We can argue about what that means, but not that it has happened.
“In contrast, people really have significantly increased the concentration of CO2. We can argue about what that means, but not that it has happened.”
I agree. CO2 has gone from about 280 PPM to right around 400 PPM right now, and will likely hit 600 PPM at least before it begins a slow decline. Regardless of warming, it is affecting the acidity of the oceans.
This proposal is low-risk, cheap, and makes sense. It can’t possibly harm anything, unlike depriving folks of energy.
I advocate replacing coal electric production with nuclear as well. Not because of CO2, but because coal is a dirty fuel that pollutes the air badly and is the main source of mercury in the ocean. Current and next-gen nuclear are extremely safe and the cleanest form of reliable energy production we have.
The question is what CO2 level is normal? The earth has had periods of much higher CO2 levels and gone through temperature cycles independent of any human activity, or CO2 level.
Don’t know if recent changes are significant or abnormal in the long term history of the world. Nobody knowa, and we can’t change the numbers anyway.
Sorry, I can not agree “people really have significantly increased the concentration of CO2”! The change in rate of increase of CO2 compared to change in temperature may be more telling.
The climate change lunatics, the ones that know math, realize that CO2 alone cannot significantly raise the temperature to threatening levels. They state that a water vapor feedback amplifies the increase CO2 effect. So water vapor is not a given. It is the primary mechanism for even the climate change lunatics.
Water vapor is a vastly more effective green-house gas than is carbon-dioxide. But the feedback effects are very complex. For example, water vapor should have a green-house effect, but it also condenses, forming clouds, which give an earth-shading effect, and water freezes to form snow, which is another great reflector. These processes swamp any CO2 effect. It is clear that the models cannot handle this complexity accurately, and that the predictive value of the models for several decades has been unimpressive to useless, and certainly not sufficient for making policy decisions.
The final reason for abandoning the global warming hysteria is that the countries of the world will not obey a regimen which, at tremendous cost to themselves, will yield a barely noticeable result. Beijing, capital of the country which soon will have the biggest economy in the world, will not even clean up its own air pollution!
Will countries which stumble when trying to control obvious problems like malaria, Ebola, the Russians, restraint of Islamic terrorism, merely balancing national budgets — will these countries, I say, suddenly unite to fight a dubious climate problem? We are speaking of governments which are largely corrupt, cannot control crime, cannot protect their borders, are either threatening or threatened by their neighbors, &c., &c., are they going to be competent to control the thermostat of the Earth’s climate? Even presuming that they knew what they were doing?
Of course not.