Climate Change due to Global Warming – a hoax?

[forfismum]

I'm confused,was this item found before or after creation.Too much sex and drugs and rock and roll I s'pose, I get conflabulated a lot these times...........
http://www.friendsoftheirishenvironm...=view&id=11873

[icareforyou]

Somehow, I feel why everyone is pointing the finger at CO2 as the main culprit for the global warming. There are other GHGs which have many times more global warming potential than CO2.

Assuming CO2 as the reference GHG, the effect of other greenhouse gases can be expressed in the CO2 equivalents. This conversion factor is called Global Warming Potential (GWP). This is the ratio of the time integrated radiative forcing of the atmosphere due to an instantaneous release of 1 kg of a greenhouse gas relative to that of 1 kg of CO2. It is reported that for a time horizon of 20 years, the GWP for methane (CH4) is 35 times higher and for nitrous dioxide (N2O), it is 260 times higher than carbon dioxide (CO2).

Methane is released from landfills, coalmines and leaking gas pipelines has GWP of 35. The recent study shows that 30% of the Argentine's total GHG emissions is due to methane in the gas (farts) released from the cows! Nitrogen oxides (GWP=260) are released from various industrial processes in small amounts. The cumulative effect of these gases, though in smaller concentrations, but with much higher GWPs may be contributng to the global warming much more than the CO2.

FIRST OPINION

[prashamk]

Latest to the above list is NF3 which is about ummmm 17,000 times "deadlier" than same amount of CO2.

Almost half of the televisions sold around the globe so far this year have been plasma or LCD TVs & this boom could be coming at a huge environmental cost.

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming. It is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

SOURCE

[sandy winder]

Originally Posted by prashamk

Latest to the above list is NF3 which is about ummmm 17,000 times "deadlier" than same amount of CO2.



SOURCE

I'm sure that many other greenhouse gases do play a part as well in adding to the greenhouse effect.

Cows must add a fair bit, as well as chickens, pigs and sheep,etc.

However were it not for man would all these cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, etc be around? I don't think so. And would all the trees have been cut down but for man? I don't think so. So it still boils down to MAN-made global warming.

The problem is the number of humans on the planet. 6.5 billion of them. And likely to increase another 50% or so in the next fifty years or so if nothing is done. Until a solution from politicians includes tackling this problem by limiting the growth in population, they might as well not bother. What we really need is a recession in population.

[SwitchBlade]

Originally Posted by icareforyou

I have very many doubts in my mind:

1. Either all the concerned monitoring agencies were misreporting / underreporting the actual global warming status all these years when the developed countries were polluting the environment with the green house gases (GHGs). Today, the countries (example: USA at Bali) not willing to accept any commitment to cut down the GHG emissions!
2. The countries want to bring severe restrictions on the emissions on the developing countries like India and China. Unfair political deal!
3. In reality, how carbon credits are going to reduce the existing global warming scenario?
4. Is the small rise in the temperature is the real reason for the climate change which is being witnessed today?
5. Is this not a natural cyclic phenomenon, which is difficult to reverse?

"Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year...Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year...Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)!"

The above quote from the USGS site shows why one volcano (or all of them) aren't the significant problem. That is; volcanos - millions with a M, Humans - billions with a B!

The issue of countries making a commitment to reducing GH gases is complicated, however there are a few things happening that make the commitment less important. For example; While the GH gas emissions haven"t shown a steady decrease in the US, the rate of rise has slowed. It was actually negative from 2006-2007. But the behind the scenes stuff going on is pretty telling. There is a "pollution free" coal fired plant being started up in Texas. If the technology is successful, it will make coal a viable source of energy without putting CO2, sulfur or other GH gases into the atmosphere. There is a push on to change the permitting requirements in the US for nuclear plants that can replace many of the current polluting power plants.

The issue of India and China isn't going to go away, but if the clean coal plant is successful, and India and China can adopt the technology, they will become cleaner faster and without sacrificing economic advancement.

The "small rise in temperature" simply shows a trend. How long it will last and how fast we get the unnatural reasons under control will show how much the natural cycle of temperatures is contributing. Part of this could very well be a natural cycle and I don't believe the scientist have a good handle on everything that causes the natural cycle, much less how to influence it.

[prashamk]

I had read somewhere that if a giant volcane erupts, its possible that it may cover major part of our world under its dark cloud which would actually cause cooling of earth. Moreover if I remember well, there are reports that this kind of volcanic explosion happened in past.

Please correct if wrong.

So if regular volcanoes emits in millions while we (humans) are emitting in billions, can't it in a way compared to a huge volcanic erruption. Or does CO2's brain tell him the difference?

[SwitchBlade]

While I have read the same about large volcanoes, they tend to be infrequent. Krakatoa was a 19th century event, and as I recall it affected the global weather for 2 years. Mt. St. Helena in the US affected the global weather for 1 year, although on a smaller scale. However, I suspect the volcano CO2 is averaged for the total annual amount because of the various ups an downs of the event frequency. The large volcanic events may have something to do with the "normal" fluctuations in the world temperature. But, either way, the comparison between the volcanic events and human activity are telling.

And that leave out the Gigantic volcanoes which erupt every several thousand years. Yellowstone in the US is an example. It is in its eruption window and an eruption would destroy a large part of the central US and cover the earth with a dense cloud for several years. Talk about Global Cooling!

[prashamk]

What I meant to say is that if large amount of CO2 released by volcanoes or super volcanoes can cool earth, Why can't the human released CO2 cool earth?

[stephexeter]

whatever the case, being more environmentally concerned doesn't do us any harm and can benefit us in others ways - e.g. increasinging fitness by using nonfuel transport (cycling, walking), increasing social bonds (donating unwanted things, sharing things, shopping locally).

[prashamk]

I am doing all that but just imagine that after 25 years you are sitting on a rocking chair in your balcony and realise that almost nothing has changed in 25 years during which you tried to do all sorts of stuff from cycling, distributing leaflets for awareness, changing to hybrid cars, changing to cfl and lot more stuff.

How do your feel?