Greenhouse effect

[Peter Ward]

Regardless of where you might sit on the climate change debate, it irks me no end, when I get emailed utter drivel that spruiks:

"The greenhouse effect is a proven myth" and

"Venus, because it is now in eqilibrium has not suffererd from runaway greenhouse"

Haggling about the degree of an effect is one thing, but telling bald faced lies about established science for a political end (I take no sides here) is really offensive IMHO.

[CraigS]

I'm not sure if anyone can do much with your post, Peter. Do you have any references or link to discuss ?

The greenhouse effect is real.

Venus has one.

Cheers

[Rob_K]

Originally Posted by CraigS

I'm not sure if anyone can do much with your post, Peter. Do you have any references or link to discuss ?

The greenhouse effect is real.

Venus has one.

Cheers

I think you should re-read Peter's post Craig. He's saying he gets emails that include those quotes. There are no references or links.

It's the emails that need references or links! I'd hate to think that lies are told for political ends (insert three wise monkeys smilie here).

Cheers -

[Barrykgerdes]

Off course we have a "green house" Without it we would not be here. It is mainly supported by water vapour but all the atmospheric gasses help and the variations in temperature keep the atmosphere moving.

It keeps us from frying in the sun and freezing at night. Our orbit around the sun keeps the average temperatures within a range of two or three degrees. We can get hot periods and cold periods depending on many things but mostly due to activity in our own solar furnace.

All the rest is politics and personal opinions of people wanting to make names for themselves. You can believe what you like it won't change the overall mechanics of our ecosystem.

Thems thar fighting words for ya!

Barry

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Regardless of where you might sit on the climate change debate, it irks me no end, when I get emailed utter drivel that spruiks:

"The greenhouse effect is a proven myth" and

"Venus, because it is now in eqilibrium has not suffererd from runaway greenhouse"

Haggling about the degree of an effect is one thing, but telling bald faced lies about established science for a political end (I take no sides here) is really offensive IMHO.

Hi Peter ...unfortunately there is little that can be done ...folk believe what they believe such that evidence is often only selected to support the position taken.

It would seem that greenhouse effect is a given however that may not be the case, however the position is more likely to be one of degree as you point out. I do think when someone is emphatic it sounds alarm bells for me... of course I think a good argument never needs an ending

The point is dont let it upset you ... and pride youself in the knowledge that they have not pulled any wool over your eyes

alex

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by Rob_K

I think you should re-read Peter's post Craig. He's saying he gets emails that include those quotes. There are no references or links.

No … this is the Science forum … presentation of some from of scientific dimensionality to a thread, is expected. [EDIT: Please note this thread was originally raised in the Science Forum and has now been moved to General Chat].

All I see is a rant about some bogus emails !

Geez .. I get them all the time !

Cheers

[Rob_K]

Originally Posted by CraigS

No … this is the Science forum … presentation of some from of scientific dimensionality to a thread, is expected.

All I see is a rant about some bogus emails !

Geez .. I get them all the time !

Cheers

Sincere apologies Craig, I hadn't reckoned on your moderator status. Keep up the good work.

Cheers -

[sjastro]

This is Peter's latest round of trying to stir the pot.

Steven

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by sjastro

This is Peter's latest round of trying to stir the pot.

Steven

Steven... this was not my intention.

Just to clarify my position, I had received an email from a climate change naysayer who used bogus "proofs"
(e.g. greenhouse...period... was a myth) to support his position.

The fact that very established science that says otherwise, made it clear to me that science (teaching/awareness) must be at a new low if these people can sucker a significant population into believing a patent falsehood.

....begging the question, how does one lift the national science IQ ?

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Steven... this was not my intention.

Just to clarify my position, I had received an email from a climate change naysayer who used bogus "proofs"
(e.g. greenhouse...period... was a myth) to support his position.

The fact that very established science that says otherwise, made it clear to me that science (teaching/awareness) must be at a new low if these people can sucker a significant population into believing a patent falsehood.

....begging the question, how does one lift the national science IQ ?

Peter,
I don't think it's going to happen, take a look at this site the level of scientific illiteracy is quite astounding at times. On top of the widely held mistrust of science (yes even on this site) by the far left and the right in general then there is little hope..

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by KenGee

Peter,
I don't think it's going to happen....

Perhaps, but when the elephant in the room is Venus with a surface temp of around 900F degrees, thanks to greenhouse , I am mystified as to how fundamental physics can be distorted by some to the extent of "your head will be in an oven, and feet in a deep freeze, but, on average, you'll feel OK" is still accepted as realistic by, apparently, many.

[allan gould]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Steven... this was not my ".............

....begging the question, how does one lift the national science IQ ?

Peter
You are in a no win situation because the general population believe in astrology, iridology, homeopathy, etc etc.
Its too hard for the general population to devote any time to really understand the basic tenants of science, it's operation or how it comes to testable conclusions or ideas.
Forget it, really all they want to do it's be entertained by their TVs and talking heads.
Just my 2c.

[casstony]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

....begging the question, how does one lift the national science IQ ?

....... by avoiding science elitism and making the average person feel included. There have been too few people involved in popularising science, such as Julius Sumner Miller and his modern day equivalent Dr Karl.

As a child I enjoyed watching the eccentric Sumner Miller pose questions to a panel of school kids and walk them (and I) through scientific discoveries. The enthusiasm of the presenter is key to getting kids interested. See how exciting the Bernoulli principle can be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCcZyW-6-5o

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

....begging the question, how does one lift the national science IQ ?

One answer is to make it pay at least as well as being a bean counter, doctor or lawyer. Whose parents permit their children take up a career which pays peanuts when with fewer years of education you can earn lots more?

Andrew

[casstony]

Insurance companies offer us a clue as to where climate is heading in the near to medium term. They make financial decisions based on correlation long before scientists can offer proof.

For many years they've been charging higher premiums for drivers under 25 based on the correlation between age and likelyhood of an accident. More recently scientists have found that the brain does not properly mature until age 25; risk taking is greater and judgement not so good until 25.

[Paul Haese]

The green house effect is a certainty. It is the recent causation claims that I have some trouble accepting. Three or four drying out periods and glaciation in the last million or so years and no human influence during that time. Now it is a political football for politicians to use as a means to being elected.

I don't get the emails but would just put them in the junk mail anyway. There is so much mis-information getting around that most people think the climate is changing rapidly when if you take a good look back over the records you will see that not much has changed on a 1000 year scale or even in the last 10,000 years. Funny how you can make things look bad by only using the last 100 years on a graph.

Just put those emails in the junk mail Peter.

[casstony]

I don't know whether we're causing the planet to warm or not - the graphs, claims and counterclaims get confusing.

I did a quick search for Dr Karls views and he seems to think we are contributing to warming - he seems like a trustworthy guy?

Does it hurt to reduce our use of fossil fuels and stop tearing down forest, just to play it safe?

[Paul Haese]

I don't have a problem with reducing our polluting in general, but let's face it. If this was as huge a problem as they say it is going to be; solar, wind and hot rocks power would be a lot cheaper and coal fired power stations would be getting shut down in this country right now. I presently see a lot of lip service and no real action. The technologies exist and economy of scale is upon these technologies. I don't want to see this issue being used as a taxation base and nothing being done about the supposed issue. Even David Suzuki says, "We think humans are increasing the rate of climate change". He did not say, "We are sure".

I don't want to feel like the bad person all the time because we are using power. We don't supply it, we simply use it. We are so miserly with our power now and yet on the power bill it says you have used X tonne of carbon. It implies we are at fault. How can the end user be at fault when we don't supply? It's not like we have a choice where our power comes from really. Now we the end user will pay the tax and not the supplier. How screwed up is that?

Sorry for the digression.

[casstony]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

. I don't want to see this issue being used as a taxation base and nothing being done about the supposed issue. Even David Suzuki says, "We think humans are increasing the rate of climate change". He did not say, "We are sure".
.

Like you Paul, I don't support the carbon tax - I see it as unnecessary complication and something the government is sure to abuse. They'll probably build us some great big new shiny thing with the taxes.

[Barrykgerdes]

We live in an environment that is surrounded by an atmosphere consisting of water vapour, Nitrogen, oxygen and minor gasses of which CO2 is one. CO2 makes up only .04% of these gases

These gases stabilise the environment and make it habitable for Humans (and all animal life for that matter). Many of us refer to it as a green house.

Animals breath in oxygen to convert fuel, mainly carbon compounds, into energy and give out CO2. We have a solar furnace 300000000 KM away (nice safe distance for nuclear energy) that allows vegetable life to extract the carbon from the CO2 and return the oxygen to the atmosphere with the help of a catalyst called chlorophyl. Other forms of energy producers also convert carbon and oxygen into CO2 to produce energy but vegetable life is very greedy. As a result it uses all the CO2 it can get to produce its "body". That is why CO2 does not rise to a level that would give any problems.

As for the so called green house being greatly inflenced by a gas that only constitutes .04% of its volume I have yet to see anyone actually provide proof that so little can do so much.

Of course there are two sides of the story both sides based on statistics. The believers say global warming is caused by CO2 and the other side says CO2 increases as the planet warms. Statisics support both views but statiscs is not science only a tool to aid in research.

There now take sides and we can battle it out.

Barry