What percentage of GW is caused by humans?

I think that is one the question that neither the IPCC nor any other scientific body has been able to quantify. Yes, we are a contributor, but to what extent? Is it 90%, 50%, 20%, 5%? From what I have read in all of the reports, even if we were to cut the global man-made CO2 emmissions to zilch tomorrow we would be dealing with what has already begun for the next 100 years. Even the IPCC report says the same thing. So, the question is are we being too alarmist in our reactions to something that is out of our control?

With that said, I am not saying that we shouldn't be trying to address our impact in a dramatic way, but are we going about this in the right way by handing over tax penalties that are not necessarily going to be spent improving the environment? I see the desire to curb damaging behavior through taxes, but we need to make sure that money goes toward that effort and not towards feeding the general coffers.

And considering his parents it's safe to say no human caused him.

:evilgrin:

the visual of poppy and babs bumping uglies and getting it on is neausating to say the least. hey but your post made me have that visual so I am in that vein passing it on to everyone who reads this.:evilgrin:
peace

This message brought to you by Robots for a Better Tomorrow, reminding you that tomorrow will only be better without humans.

The stick is not going to work on this issue either.

Incentives work, it is the only thing that does.

That being said, I would do away with all federal income taxes on labor, replace it with increased taxes on corporations and investment profits, and provide tax breaks to those who lower emissions on a progressive scale.

A simple approach that will never happen.

My neighbor is part of a nationwide study by the federal government. His car was fitted with a GPS system that monitors his every mile driven. The per gallon tax is beoming increasingly less productive given the increasing fuel economy of vehicles. That will undoubtedly continue. That revenue has got to be replaced and it will very likely be added to by a per mile tax that will be sold under the idea of reducing anthopogenic global warming. Little of any of those dollars will ever be spent towards that cause.

yes that old coot, gave a very moving speech on the Senate floor in 1996, he told of how after all the years of collecting the taxes on fuel, none of it, not one single dollar, had been spent on roads repairs.

He shamed them into opening the coffers, that exceeded any other reserves including Social Security, and my company's paving business went through the roof. We exceeded all sales and production ever in the previous forty five years, nearly killed me keeping up.

This was nation wide, but was tapering down a bit as we approached 2000.

I did not do 25% of the business 2007 that I did 2000. That is how they will deal with it, your taxes are not going where they were alloted to go.

The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.

That's absolute nonsense...

http://www.artba.org/economics_research/reports/gas_tax_history.htm

Wacko RW talking points...

is a right wing wacko that would be news to me. (former clansman, etc would not be news, I'm grew up in WVA)

All I can say is this, I saw him give a lengthy speech on CSPAN where he iterated, with charts, that no federal gas tax monies had gone to state road construction, and that the monies collected exceeded the reserves for Social Security. This was many years ago, and the time frames he referenced are not something I could quote now. But I do remember him giving this speech. My business is road construction and a speech on this order sticks in one's mind.

I have never read this information anywhere else, and I did not make it up, so I may be repeating a right wing story you have heard somewhere else, but I am not repeating some Glen Beck shit just for jollies.

I do not spew right wing talking points, they disgust me.

would need a brilliant PR man, and a dumb-as-hell populace. Taxing the fuel is the tax that encourages less fuel use - punishing either high mileage, or inefficient vehicles. Taxing per mile instead would stop the incentive to get a more efficient car, and would thus increase CO2 emissions. If people fall for that, we're doomed. We'd be too stupid to live.

percentage matters not in the least to me. We broke it. It's our duty to fix it, or mitigate as much as humanly possible the terrible damage we have done.

You can parse it like some "trial attorney" all you like, but you cannot escape the simple fact that WE HUMANS have put all that excess CO2 into the atmosphere and now there's more there than in the past HOW MANY million years?????

Oh, and BTW. What's wrong with feeding the general coffers? You don't LIKE having driveable roads and running water and a fire department and universities and such?

It may be a good bit more than many millions of years ago, but what put it there those many millions of years ago? There are many contributors to CO2 in the atmosphere, and we aren't the biggest contributor. I liken it more to a tipping point. The earth is used to a given amount of naturally produced CO2, and our 5-10% have tipped the scales. But again that is a completey different aregument.

Each year, respiration releases 120 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere

and each year photosynthesis removes 120 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.

The net exchange of CO2 between biota and the atmosphere is balanced and very close to zero.

Each year, volcanic activity releases 0.1 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere

and each year crustal weathering and burial of carbon in marine sediments removes 0.1 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere

The net exchange of CO2 between geological sources and sinks and the atmosphere is balanced and very close to zero.

Each year, human activities release 7 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere

half of that is dissolved in the ocean or sequestered on the continents, half (~3 billion tonnes per year) remains in the atmosphere.

That is why CO2 concentrations are increasing - it is NOT due to natural phenomena.

FYI

for 15 years, and the Federal Department Of Transportation has never showed up to foot the bill.

Never heard of FDOT for that matter, unless we are talking about Florida DOT.

I have city water, most of my friends have wells and septic systems, the Fed hasn't installed any of this for anyone I know of.

I'm pretty sure my county property taxes pay for the fire department.

When did the Feds build a university? I must have missed that.

THE ONLY THING THAT THE FEDS MAY NOT PARTICIPATE IN IS URBAN COMPACT AREAS AND THEN YOU GET FEDERAL GRANTS.
IF YOUR TALKING # HIGHWAYS YOUR TALKING FEDERAL BUCKS. DEPENDING ON THE USAGE,THE CUT IS UASUALLY 10% UP TO 90% FEDERAL MONEY.
AIN'T YOU EVER SEEN THESE SIGNS-=YOUR HIGHWAY DOLLARS AT WORK.
NOW ABOUT THE GLOBAL WARMING: WE COULD STUDY IT TO DEATH,WE COULD DO NOTHING,OR WE COULD CUT
BACK ON OUR CO2 USE.

Maybe you live in an alternative universe where the only taxes you pay are federal income taxes.

Are you somehow under the impression that all taxes collected in America are pooled together and distributed from that pool?

I spent several years cleaning up the crap we drink every day, Chlorinated Solvents, and no amount of pollution of the mother by the child is acceptable to me.

We may adapt, we may evolve, we may change, too many maybes for me.

We need a way that works without debate.

Fight the good fight every day.

I just don't buy every attack plan coming down the pike, especially from a party who lets me down repeatedly with the woe is me BS.

n/t

off the the table.

My party, your party, those who do not uphold the standards they have been entrusted with.

People respect action, not unfulfilled promises.

BTW, a friend has been looking for some wind power info, I bookmarked some stuff from one of your posts yesterday. Good info, thanks.

It has to matter especially if we are selling our reponse as saving the planet.

I totally agree with what you say bout our polluting, and preserving the planet, but our response has to be measured with our impact, especially if it is going to exact a toll that coul dramatically impact lifestyles. Lifetsyles not the least of which is here, but abroad in the poorer countries. Are we going to deny electricity to billions Chinese people who today have no idea what electricity even means in the name of saving the planet? And who is to say denying them electricity will save the planet? Or of the planet itself is in the balance?

I think if you look at what has been forecast so far the planet itself is not in danger, it is our human choices that are in danger. As stated earlier, even by the IPCC, about the imminence of rising sea water, we should be focused on moving people away from the coasts. Yes, we can work on not making this last longer than it already will, or being as severe, but if what has been predicted is to come then we owe it to humanity to work on getting people away from know danger. That known danger is rising sea levels. Given the vast amounts of world populations at the coasts, we have our work cut out for us.

IF we have put enough CO2 into the atmosphere at THIS GIVEN POINT. IT will not change for the next 100 years. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 100+ years after it is generated. If we have generated enough at this point to dramatically affect the climate of the earth, that amount will not be changing for a long long time. Most of the accords we are looking at are holding CO2 emmisions to 1990 levels, like Kyoto. LONG after the barrier was broken. Any new accords will likely be more generous, and since China and India are not willing to agree to such accords it will go much higher.

I have not read ANY scientificially peer reviewed report that says that "all human life" is in danger. If you have that information I would be more than happy to review it.

I think to many of us are under that very impression, where nothing suggests that possibility.

If you agree that the CO2 that we have put into the atmosphere to date has caused dramatic climate change, you have to understand that that amount will not change for the next 100 years. It may be more, but it will not be less. We are not going to alter what is already in progress. I know there have been experiments of CO2 trapping, but every single day that goes by they are falling further and further behind the curve.

And if our true concern is about human life then we should be concentrating our efforts in moving people away from the problem areas we have identified.

I'm saying that we should make the most of our efforts/dollars spent.

If we are concerned with the loss of human life then we should start removing people from the known danger areas immediately!

Instead of just adding dollars to the general fund in the name of reducing anthropogenic global awarming, we should apply those dollars to actually making a difference. The problem is our politicians just want to act is if they are doing "something", but none of them know what to do, because there really is no idea even in the scientific community, "what to do". Look before you leap.

I don't have the time or education to read/understand peer-reviewed scientific journals, so I can't point you to them. Shame on me.

Well, I would say shame on you if you claim "all life" is as stake, because there is NOT ONE prediction that comes even remotely close to such a dire statement. It is far from that.

No, Ron Paul is not my cup of tea. He is far beyond my grasp. I will say though that I have absolutely no qualms with Obama's understanding, and my own on the issue.

It's quite unlikely that global warming will destroy all life on the planet. For example, it's almost certain that some single cellular life will survive.

On the other hand, mass extinction is a distinct possibility according to many predictions, based partly upon geological evidence of it happening in the past.


http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1130%2FG23858A.1

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025091047.htm

NOVA Science Now presented this well last year:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3318/01.html

http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/2007/11/12/mass_extinctions/

I tis hihgly unlikely that it will result in much of any human life. Humans will migrate from troubled areas, just like other life does. The important thing is that since we know where these problems are likely to occure that we get human life out of those areas. NOW!

In particular, check out the NOVA Science Now video.

We're not talking about just some warmer temperatures and some higher water here. We may be talking about events which lead to an atmosphere literally toxic to most life as you and I know it (including humanity.)

Thanks.

And in a big way. We need to start moving people away from the coastlines NOW! Especially in more poverty stricken areas. "We know the flood is coming".

"But initially you said you were more concerned with affecting people's lifestyle choices. Won't moving people do that in a big way... to say nothing of finding places to safely situate all those people, as well as impacting those who already live wherever they're moved to?"

Sure it will, but that is the more immediate concern if we are concerned about lives. What I was saying is that using taxation to affect lifestyles in hopes of reversing what we know is happening is wishful thinking, and delinquent in our obligations at best. The sea is going to rise. That we know. We do not know whether curbing carbon output at this point will change that. To me it seems we should be spending money on what we do know.

"Really? I've read dozens of ideas about what people can do. And those are only the ones that were allowed to make it to general publication. And many of those are derided as "impractical" or "too expensive" or "affecting lifestyle choices". Some people actually think doing nothing except preparing ourselves to deal the effects is okay until we have 100% consensus about one magic bullet answer. Pretty silly."

Nobody knows what to do. It hasn't been studied. We are taking stabs in the dark. One thing that will work is getting people away from what we know will be problem areas. People like to assume that the science of GW and the solutions are intertwined. That is not the case. There is scant nil science in the solutions compared to the evidence of warming. Like I said earlier, we could stop all human CO2 emmissions TODAY, and our current level would persist for over 100 years.

If it is the calamity that is predicted then we, as reponsible people should take action now to enure that we remove people from those recognized problem areas.

:shrug:

I sense a straw man here...

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48463

IPCC: Lawmakers Must Act Now

Now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made it clear that the solutions to climate change are available without hindering economic progress, U.S. lawmakers must act immediately to ensure a prosperous future based on sustainable development, say clean energy experts.

"What I think we've managed to do with the IPCC reports and all the rest of the climate change impacts work...is to point out the consequences for inaction. Now we have to make clear to policy makers that the solutions are at hand and they're not going to bankrupt the country."-- Marchant Wentworth, Union of Concerned Scientists, legislative representative for the Clean Energy Program

The latest IPCC report released last Friday titled "Mitigation of Climate Change," concludes that aggressive development of existing renewable energy technologies, increased energy efficiency requirements, and a global greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme are needed to combat global climate change. All of these solutions, stated the IPCC, are deployable in an economically feasible way with firm political support.

During a press conference in Bangkok last week, IPCC Chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachuari said the report is "stunning in its brilliance and razor sharp in its relevance. It's really a remarkable step forward.

<more>

The Earth is a super complex system of intricate cycles and feedbacks a homeostatic system that man took out of sync. That make it 99.9% a man induced effect.

Farts from cows, according to the U.N., has more of an impact than all forms of transportations put together.


"A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs. The world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together."

http://www.greendiary.com/entry/cow-emissions-far-more-responsible-than-co2-from-cars-in-global-warming/


Livestock a major threat to environment
Remedies urgently needed
- Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

Both dealing with cow stuff. You would surpass landfills.

Lanfills 131.2

Enteric Fermentation 115.0

Manure Management 39.1

EF+MM = 154.1

and a minor one at that...anthopogenic CO2 forcing is ~3 times that of methane (from all sources)...



Surprise!

Unfortunately, the Earth is so big and complex that we cannot know what exact percentage that is.

Climatology shows that, for whatever combination of causes, the Earth has cycled between ice age and wamring periods for at least the past 650,000 years and probably since the end of the Creataceous Period and the comet-strike.

Whatever exactly was going on is still going on. I read a fascinating article in the early 1980s that suggested that a new ice age was beginning in what is now called the Little Ice Age, but that humanity literally beat it back over hundreds of years with increased fires and industry, pumping out insulating CO2 and pushing back the next Ice Age and ensuring a warmer climate conducive to humanity's growth.

As the years have gone on and more data has appeared, I buy that explanation more and more. Perhaps we DID beat back the next ice age, and the only reason it took so long is because human populations were about 1/10th what they are today.

But think about it, we beat back the ice age, but the things we were doing to heat up the Earth, far from ceasing, were increasing. Had we remained at that population and techincal level (not exactly a desireable situation, considering life in the 1400s) perhaps the Earth might have re-quilibrated eventually, but we continued expanding by leaps and bounds.

Like a chemistry titration curve, we kept on "adding acid" and kept up the pressure on the climate until a "tipping point" which indiactes a major and rapid phase change.

I just have always found that article interesting and believable. Twenty years later, with twnty more years of data to look at, I now advance the corollary to this article's theory. We DID stop the Next Ice Age with our sooty, CO2-releasing fires, but kept going aqnd now the "titration curve" is reaching Equivalence Point.

Although, in truth and considering the length of geologic time, it may well be that we are wlel past the Equivalence Point and have been rapidly sliding for decades without even noticing we passed the Equivalence Point long ago.

Who knows? Time will tell.

From the IPCC 2007 report:

J. E. Harries, H. E. Brindley, P. J. Sagoo, R. J. Bantges (2001). Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature 410: 355 - 357

T. P. Barnett, D. W. Pierce, R. Schnur (2001). Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the World's Oceans. Science 292: 270-274.

S. Levitus, J. I. Antonov, J. Wang, T. L. Delworth, K. W. Dixon, and A. J. Broccoli (2001) Anthropogenic Warming of Earth's Climate System. Science 292: 267-270.

D. J. Karoly, K. Braganza, P. A. Stott, J. M. Arblaster, G. A. Meehl, A. J. Broccoli, and K. W. Dixon (2003) Detection of a Human Influence on North American Climate. Science. 302: 1200-1203

B. D. Santer, M. F. Wehner, T. M. L. Wigley, R. Sausen, G. A. Meehl, K. E. Taylor, C. Ammann, J. Arblaster, W. M. Washington, J. S. Boyle, and W. Brüggemann (2003) Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes. Science. 301: 479-483

P. A. Stott, D. A. Stone and M. R. Allen (2004) Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003. Nature 432: 610-614

J. Hansen, L. Nazarenko, R. Ruedy, M Sato, J. Willis, A. Del Genio, D. Koch, A. Lacis, K. Lo, S. Menon, T. Novakov, J. Perlwitz, G. Russell, G. A. Schmidt N. Tausnev (2005) Earth's Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications. Science. 308: 1431 – 1435

T. P. Barnett, D. W. Pierce, K. M. AchutaRao, P. J. Gleckler, B. D. Santer, J. M. Gregory, and W. M. Washington (2005) Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World's Oceans. Science. 309: 284-287

M. Lockwood and C. Frohlich (2007) Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proc. R. Soc.doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880 Published online

The recent rise in global mean temperatures cannot be attributed to natural climate forcings (changes in solar output, natural perturbations in the global carbon cycle and volcanism) - most (virtually all) is due to human activity.

Concerns over global warming should be "alarmist" as we are rapidly approaching tipping points that will result in long-term irreversible changes in climate.

WTF is this: "by handing over tax penalties that are not necessarily going to be spent improving the environment? I see the desire to curb damaging behavior through taxes, but we need to make sure that money goes toward that effort and not towards feeding the general coffers."

Sounds like RW claptrap to me.

Where are all these climate deniers/GOP talking points folks coming from these days????

Those are just the prelimary numbers, however. We should have a more precise figure on Thursday at 7:52 within the first 21.3455 seconds of that minute.

I can't imagine why we need to know this, by the way.

:shrug: