turkdc

If global warming is indeed caused by the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting CO2 that is produced won't those levels of CO2 eventually disappear after we run out of oil? If we have truly reached the pinnacle of oil production and use then as we burn less oil ('cause there's less of it to burn) and the carbon dioxide is eaten up by trees and other green leafy plants it seems to me that we will soon run into a period of global cooling. Any thoughts on this or should I wait for Al Gore's next video?

JT52

I don't think so...according to Carl Sagan (I don't recall which book it was in, sorry), the effects are cumulative and will take an estimated 30 years(!) to reverse, if we start now. He wrote that many years ago (maybe, 10-12, again I'm not sure), and instead in that time we've done nothing but make matters worse. Even though we've probably peaked consumption hasn't caught up with that fact and we're still somehow managing to increase demand and usage. How long this can continue is questionable, maybe two or three years more or less. The danger is creating sort of a chain reaction where we reach a point of no return and the atmosphere becomes so toxic that it's self-perpetuating. Then we become Venus.

And of course, we have the burgeoning use of coal to contribute its toxins into the atmosphere, and that'll probably more than make up for reduced burning of gasoline.

Criminy. I think I'll stop now.

acroy

I've gotta ask, likely someone here has info -
All the fossil fuels are composed of degraded plants and animals from soemtime in Earth's prehistric past, correct?
So when they are burned, aren't those chemicals just being re-released into the biosphere?
i.e. all that carbon used to be walking around or growing as carbon-based life forms.
We're releasing it in the form of (mostly) co2, which is (drum roll please) PLANT FOOD

with more plant food in the air, won't plants grow faster? use it more? I understand atmospheric co2 levels have gone up ~15% last century (depends who's talking) - I would expect plants to be trying to use it up 15% faster.

In addiditon, since co2 is a greenhouse gas, it (in theory) makes the earth retain more heat absobed from the sun (global warming....). A hotter planet would evaporate more water into the air, the hotter air can hold more water, I would expect the overall circulation rate of water out of oceans into clouds and back down in the form of precipitaion to increase proportionatly as well. And plants need: warmth, c02, and water! it would appear on the face of it to be largely self-regulating.

What caused previous global warming and cooling? ya know, before we were busy messing things up driving our suv's, air-conditioning our mcmansions...

anyone have a source of info & research on the above which is fair & balanced?a big issue i have with a lot of the info currently disseminated is it comes from folks with social axes to grind... I'd like the skinny.
Cheers

Roody

Read up on the carbon cycle in a good geography, ecology or geology book. But I'll give a little shortcut vesion here.

Many millenia ago, there was a lot more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there is now, and the earth was much warmer. This earth was not a good place for most animals to live, but plants did very well. These plants, through photosynthesis, removed much of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combined the carbon with hydrogen and other elements to create their own cells, so to speak.

Most of that cabon in the plants' cells usually returns to the atmosphere after the plant dies, either because an animal eats it, or it rots, or it burns in a fire. However, sometimes plants get buried after they die and some of the carbon is thus removed from the atmosphere. Some of the plants that died millions of years ago got buried under conditions where their carbon and hydrogen were chemically transformed into petroleum and coal. This removed the carbon from the atmosphere and safely buried it. Then, sometime in the last 200 years or so, people dug up the coal, or pumped up the petroleum -- unburied it. We then burned this fossil fuel, and released the carbon that had been safely buried for all those millions of years.

That new CO2 will be removed from the atmosphere very slowly, if at all. Some CO2 will dissolve into the oceans, where it will make the water more acidic and poorly suited for most animal life. Some carbon is removed from the air by marine animals that combine it with calcium to make their shells, but they might be unable to do this when the water is more acidic. Plants do remove CO2 from the air in photosynthesis, but as I said before, much of the carbon is returned to the atmosphere again afte the plant dies. Therefore, it is very unlikely, according to almost all atmospherice scientists, that the carbon we have pumped out of the ground and into the air will return to the ground any time soon.

This is a great time to be a plant, but a lousy time to be an animal!

Roody

It would be nice if the scientists who are predicting more global warming (you don't have to be a scientist to know that it's already started) were exaggerating for political reasons. Very unlikely! Social factors can influence science, but at this level of acceptance -- by scientists of many political and social backgrounds, from all over the world -- the evidence is pretty convincing.

Check out some unbiased sources:

United Nations

More "biased" but good explainers:

realclimate.org

turkdc

Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is actually used up quite readily by trees. Trees use sunlight in a process called photosynthesis to turn CO2 into O2 and C(arbon). We call this wood and trees are quite good at making it.

Our real issue is not whether we are destroying the earth or not. We are not. We may be making it more unhospitable to life, but the earth will be spinning long after humankind has died off.

One of the problems with the global warming agenda is that it is a political agenda. It is pretty well established that weather and climate changes are cyclical. Problem is we only have about 200 years of historical weather data and a lot of it is not all that sophisticated. If you imagine that global temperature change is a sine wave and we have no idea how many years occur between peaks of the temperature you can see the futility of trying to figure out where we are in the pattern. We may have a better handle on things once scientists are able to collect another thousand years worth of data.

HoustonB

See my signature.

turkdc

Which part do you disagree with? That trees turn Carbon Dioxide into wood, that we don't have enough data to prove global warming exists or that there is an agenda behind global warming? Don't attack me, discuss it instead.

HoustonB

Mostly the temporal aspect - trees take a long long long time to turn that CO2 into wood. Lets say 100 years. Even if all of the world's deforestation was reversed, it would be orders of magnitude shy of what is required.

Your reference to 200 years of data is irrelevant - if data acquisition started only 50 years ago, and you see the polar ice caps maintain a steady state for 48 years and then suddenly start to melt at an alarming rate. I would choose not to wait another 1000 years to see what the outcome is.

Regarding "political agenda" - who cares? There is consensus in the scientific community. The Thames Barrier in London is not a mirage. Lloyd's of London insurance rates and actuaries world wide are all cognizant of the repercussions of global warming. Yet you still deny its existence.

Global warming is not about beliefs - it is a fact.

thimblescratch

We need a lot more trees. The life on earth is all about keeping a balance. We have not only disrupted this balance by pulling out the C02, like Roody explained, but we are simultaneously cutting down trees. Shooting ourselves in both feet.
The rainforest is being cleared at the rate of one football field per second.
And it's true what Turkdc says - the Earth, this big spinning rock, won't flinch at what we are doing. But it will shake us off like a bad case of the fleas, so it can start all over again. The Earth will continue to spin. We don't need to save the earth - we need to save the inhabitants (or the parasites, however you see it)

thimblescratch

As for political agendas... everything may have an agenda so one must realize there is always a lesser of two evils.. Oil companies have an agenda. Environmentalists have an agenda. Which one is more evil? Oil companies.

joeprim

The question in my mind is how much s us. What is the ratio of what we do burning coal and petro to say the current crop of wild fires? I heat my house with wood. Is that better or worse?

Global warming may be a fact, but the solution doesn't seem clear.

JOe

turkdc

You win HoustonB. My original post was meant to poke fun at people who carry on about peak oil and global warming and think that by getting rid of their car and riding a bicycle they are going to have any sort of impact. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with not having a car. I have a car, a motorcycle, 3 bicycles and several pairs of shoes. I ride my bike for short trips and exercise. I use my motorcycle when I am going somewhere alone and I drive a car if I am taking my family with me. My car gets 32 mpg and is driven about 6000 miles a year.

Further more I don't fly on airplanes but once every 5 years or so. I keep my thermostat at 63 in the winter and only run the A/C when it is too hot to sleep. I believe that we should conserve resources because being wasteful is, well, wasteful. I take quick showers and have a water saving showerhead and I let urine sit in the toilet until someone has to take a crap.

As for global warming not being a political issue, please! Al Gore had no intentions of running for president until everyone got a hard on for his global warming movie. Now he has a following of people who will vote for him. I am sure he will do a lot to help conserve resources with his $400 electric bills. Scientists are just as bad a creationists when it comes to these types of issues. Hmm, I wonder who is paying for their research??? As for the good people at Lloyds, insurance companies love any reason, scientific or not, to raise premiums. I think that is how they make money.

HoustonB

I completely agree. Though if you plant as many trees as you burn then the nett change (over time) is zero.

The problem is that the cat is out of the bag and there is no way to get it back in. Short of a virus that takes out 90% of the human race. As distasteful as it may be, when half of Africa dies from starvation and dehydration that will simply be a reflection of life (sic) on Earth - that we have made.

ModoVincere

Wether the theory is right or wrong, it is still a theory. There is very little in the world of science that is called a fact.

turkdc

Are you suggestion genocide in Africa? That is the sickest thing I have ever seen posted on bikeforums.net. You should be ashamed.

turkdc

People who like to make fun of people of faith love to talk about the absolute truth of science. It is as much of a religion as Christianity and probably requires even more faith. Amen to a theory is just a theory.

Roody

A sientific theory is the BEST explanation that fits the observed facts.

A religious theory is the BEST explanation that fits a book written by a desert tribe 2500 years ago.

You decide which is more believable.

Roody

Actually, with tree ring and ice core sampling, scientists have a record of both temperature and atmosphere composition that goes back many thousands of years. IIRC, aout 30,000 years. So you really don't have to "imagine" a sine wave, if you actually know something about the topic. Which you obviously do not.

Roody

What is the meaning of a "theory" in science?

Roody

Scientists never talk about "absolute truth." That is the specialty of religion, not science.

You are absolutely right that trees do remove carbon from the air in the process of photosynthesis. They combine it with hydrogen to make carbohydrates, the main component of the plant. At this point, the carbon is "locked up" in the plant's body.

But what happens to the carbon after the plant dies? There are four possibilities that account for the fate of most plants:
So looking at the first three options, they are called "carbon neutral." There is little or no change in the net amount of atmospheric CO2. The plant will remove and lock up some CO2 during its lifetime, but then release it again after it dies. These options would include things like heating with wood and biofuels. Little net change in CO2, little net effect on climate change.

The fourth option is what we're looking at with global warming. The plants that lived millions of years ago died and their carbon was locked up and buried. The atmosphere and the climate were both greatly modified by this process over very long time peiods. Now we're digging up all that locked carbon and pumping it into the atmosphere. The carbon that plants took millions of years to remove from the atmosphere is now being pumped back into the atmosphere in the period of just a couple hundred years.

If you can't see how this process would have a profound effect on the planet, I have no hopes of convincing you. A certain level of education is required to understand this concept, so keep studying.

ModoVincere

A theory is: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

This is the 5th definition in meriam-webster's online dictionary. It is the closest definition to what I was taught in the science classes I have had. It does not use the word fact, it states that a theory is an attempt to explain observations.

JT52

I don't see how you can say it takes more faith to believe in science. Religion is based on a single idea, that there's some...well, omnipotent being out there that's created everything. Everything that flows from that single idea is based on faith (not to mention the idea itself). Science follows established guidelines that can be tested and re-tested for its veracity. Nothing in religion can be tested, confirmed, verified or in any way shape or being be proved.

If you look at religion from a strictly neutral standpoint it's laughable that someone would believe it. May as well believe in Santa Claus...

acroy

Gore's next film, currently in production, is titled
"Politically Convenient Theories" and will clear all this confusion up.

Not sure I believe in an all-powerful Lord, but if He does exist, thank Him (Her?) for Gore!

Roody

If you don't accept the current theory of climate change, I imagine that you have a better theory to take it's place. How about sharing your theory with us (if you're able), and any supportive evidence you have for it?

If you're unable to do this, my suggestion for eveyody on this forum would be to ignore your unsupported conjectures.

BTW, hating Gore and loving God do not count as supportive evidence.