Motives behind global warming skepticism

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there is no "time lag."  The reason it looks like it on the chart is that temperature marks are measured at different points in time than CO2 marks.

The time lag is noted frequently throughout the literature. The following comes from The National Climatic Data Center. I assume it can be regarded as authoritative. It notes that CO2 increased 600+/-400 years (i.e. 200 to 1000yrs) after the warming. It also notes that high CO2 concentrations can be maintained for thousands of years during glaciations, Meaning that the CO2 is still high after cooling occurs.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/vostokco2.html
Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations
Abstract:
Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 +/- 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere.

Water vapor is the main green house gas in our atmosphere - during glacial periods a notable amount is removed from the atmosphere to form ice. Thus the CO2 concentrations become almost meaningless.

Temperature increases do cause CO2 increases - rising temperatures thaw more permafrost and release the soil gasses into the air. This in no way means that CO2 doesn't cause higher temperatures. That's like suggesting that because fire is used to create buring coals that burning coals can not be hot.

Rising temperature produce more CO2 at the same time rising CO2 level increase temperatures. That's why temperatures and CO2 have spiked together at an alarming rate.

CO2 is a green house gas because of its molecular properties. Radation from the sun reaches the Earth at about a wavelength to 10nm, it reflects of the Earth at wave length of about 500nm. 10nm wavelength radiation can pass through CO2, 500nm wave length radiation can not.

Concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere have increased by over 75% since the industrial revolution. The planet is warming. Artic and glacial ice is melting at a rate that, if sustained, will likey cause disaster. The exact amount that the CO2 man is putting into the atmosphere is effecting that climate change is unknown. We do know that we are adding to the green house gasses in our atmosphere, we do know we are not helping to solve the problem, and we do know that if something doesn't change mother nature is going to change our society for us.

It's great to argue that mans contrubution to global warming is small - that may even be true. But that does nothing to solve the problem of global warming. We still have to live on this planet and so do our children and grandchildren. The arguement that global warming isn't our fault (and the evidence suggests it is partially our fault) so let's do nothing amounts to giving up on future generations.

You are very fast to jump on what ever the latest piece of junk science or misdirection that gets thrown out there (like this little piece about temperature causing CO2 rises so CO2 rises must not cause temperatures rises - even though nothing in the data suggests the 2nd of those two concepts - though GOP members of congress have been throwing it around like it is absolute proof of something). So what would you do David? Kick back and watch the ice melt? I don't mean to be disrespectful here - seriously (I admire a lot of what you post - but you are flat wrong on this, and holding on like a pit bull), what would you do?

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What can be done is the only question that really matters. To answer that fully a series of other questions need to be asked and answered - one of those being what is mans contribution to global warming.

But as time tick away that's going to become less and less of an important question because natural increases in temperature are self reinforcing. The amount of CO2 and other green house gasses put into our atmosphere increase naturally as permafrost melts, this increases temperature and as such increases the amount of permafrost that is melting. Our permafrost is already melting at an alarming rate. Surface ice reflects solar radiation back at a low enough wavelength that it can re-emit into space through green house gasses. Solar radiation re-emitting off the balance of the planet increases its wavelength to the point that it can not pass through green house gasses. As surface ice melts, more and more radiation is trapped by green house gasses - which cause temperatures to rise and melts more surface ice. Our surface ice is already melting at an alarming rate, and the current sub glacial water flows indicate that it's going to get much worse in the relatively near future.

As these and other natural causes of global warming spike - what mankind does or fails to do will become less and less meaningful. We are on the clock - the problem is that we don't know how much time is left on the clock, if any.

Neither of us wants to see our society reduced back to the Stone Age - nobody does. Global warming itself has the potential to do that. The challenge is finding a cure that will not do the same - but there isn't going to be a cure that doesn't demand some sacrifice. It's also important to recognize that a cure may be beyond us - but I put a great deal of faith in our abilities as a species if we bend our will towards solving a problem.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need to put together some kind of serious opening salvo to the problem - start showing a political will to do something. China announced this morning that they would participate in the next round of Kyoto talks. The US needs to start having a serious dialogue without the junk science being thrown in. The misrepresentations being made in our own Congress and Senate are beyond the pale. There are still Senators claiming - as our permafrost’s melts away - that there in no warming trend, there are Congressmen using junk science (like that bit about temperature rises causing CO2 rises to conclude that CO2 rises don't cause temperature rises) to defend against taking any action.

The US needs to look at our fossil fuel consumption from a lot of different direction - global warming is just one of those directions. Certainly a 90% decrease in CO2 emissions by 2050 seems overly sharp if new technology isn't put in place to offset that. But there are a host of alternate ideas out there - from carbon scrubbing (which most likely can not be implemented in a time frame in which it would be useful) to alternate re-remittance of solar radiation.

Not increasing the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere seems like the first step we need to take. That may buy us some time to figure out how to deal with other causes of global warming that nature is propagating with or without our help.

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Long story short, warming can actually result in eventual cooling.

That's part of the larger point. The cooling that follows the warming can be very destructive as well. That is, and has been, natures method of dealing with past warming cycles, and it is reasonable to conclude that it will happen again.

The more immediate concern is sea level rise. What happens when a couple of billion Chinamen are looking for a new home - and the like. Current sub glacial water flows indicate that will become a problem for us long before temperature change in North America becomes any sort of issue.

There are a host of concerns that will be felt before any sort of notable temperature change occurs in North America. We are seeing the expansion of arrid regions right now. We are seeing a pattern shift in ocean temperatures already. Disease carrying pests are not being wiped out in some regions by the winters that once did kill of significant portion of the population.

The main concern about the additional CO2 man has placed in the atmosphere is that it may be rapidly accelerating the natural warming cycle - that it will not be as gradual process as has occured when nature is left to its own devises. Given that man has never pumped an additional 27 billion tons a year of CO2 into the atmosphere before, there is no historical model that can be referenced.

The long term concern is what do we (as a civilization) have to go through to get to the other side of both the warming and the cooloing and can we do anything to reverse or mitigate the process. The answer to that is yes - but the cost seems to be beyond us at the moment.

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Long story short, warming can actually result in eventual cooling.

The more immediate concern is sea level rise. What happens when a couple of billion Chinamen are looking for a new home - and the like.

Nim you're doing a bit of fear mongering.  The UN says sea levels might rise something like 1 or 2 feet. Most of China is well above  sea level. And there aren't a couple billion Chinamen in all of China let alone in low areas that might be affected by a 2' rise.

No, no. The UN projections are based on current melt rates. They do not account for the possible lose of a major ice sheet. If we lose the Greenland ice sheet or the Lawance ice shelf sea levels will increrase by over 21 feet, if we lose them both sea levels will increase by over 42 feet. I'm not saying we are going to - but the sub glacial water flows beneath both make it an mmediate concern.

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Long story short, warming can actually result in eventual cooling.

The more immediate concern is sea level rise. What happens when a couple of billion Chinamen are looking for a new home - and the like.

Nim you're doing a bit of fear mongering.  The UN says sea levels might rise something like 1 or 2 feet. Most of China is well above  sea level. And there aren't a couple billion Chinamen in all of China let alone in low areas that might be affected by a 2' rise.

No, no. The UN projections are based on current melt rates. They do not account for the possible lose of a major ice sheet. If we lose the Greenland ice sheet or the Lawance ice shelf sea levels will increrase by over 21 feet, if we lose them both sea levels will increase by over 42 feet. I'm not saying we are going to - but the sub glacial water flows beneath both make it an mmediate concern.

"If we lose the Greenland ice sheet ..."    That's speculation. Who said those things are going to happen?

Read a bit about sub glacial water flow under the greenland ice sheet - how those flows affect the ice above them and how they are increasing. Those flows and the changes in them are not a matter of speculation. the ice sheet is already moving at a rate of 1.6 meters an hour into the sea - which is 3 times faster than it was moving just a few years ago.

I would also note that the UN projection doesn't account for any major ice break up - regardless of if we lose an entire shelf or sheet, those shelves and sheets are currently breaking up.

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If the greenland ice sheet continue to accelerate at it's current rate - it will be gone by 2060, 100% chance. The IF here is if it continues to accelerate at its present rate. The concerning thing is that there is no evidence that suggests it will not.

If you want economic hardships - that will provide them in spades. The lose of infastructure alone would bring the global economy to its knees.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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If the greenland ice sheet continue to accelerate at it's current rate - it will be gone by 2060, 100% chance. The IF here is if it continues to accelerate at its present rate. The concerning thing is that there is no evidence that suggests it will not.

If you want economic hardships - that will provide them in spades. The lose of infastructure alone would bring the global economy to its knees.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Oh is it?  We don't know how much of global warming is due to human activity and how much is natural.  Even if we assume the 2060 number is correct, curtailing human contributions to it much drive the date back to 2085.

It wasn't that long ago that people thought they could throw raw sewage into their streets without paying a price. It took 100% conclusive evidence for them to stop - that evidence came in the form of wide spread disease and plague. I suspect history will repeat itself due to willful ignorance again.

You are correct in saying that we don't know what cutting man made CO2 will do. But the bottom line on this is that we have a government filled with people that don't even want to look at the problem - it's kind of difficult to find a solution to a problem that isn't even being looked at. The resources of the government are not even being brought to bear on this problem at an intellectual level - that's just disgraceful.

But then, if a person belives it is in their best interest to not understand an issue, they will not understand it - which seems to be the case with some of our GOP Senators and Congressmen.

We either have all the answers today or we give up? That's BS if you ask me.

So again -

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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If the greenland ice sheet continue to accelerate at it's current rate - it will be gone by 2060, 100% chance. The IF here is if it continues to accelerate at its present rate. The concerning thing is that there is no evidence that suggests it will not.

If you want economic hardships - that will provide them in spades. The lose of infastructure alone would bring the global economy to its knees.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. That's why everything depends on what you plan to do. If it results in shortages of electricity, natural gas or gasoline then it will cause great hardships and in some cases will cause loss of life. Rationing or extreme taxes might do the same. They will also piss off the people so much that Al Gore will go from being a celebrity to a persona non grata.

So what is your proposed solution?

What I'm willing to do doesn't really matter. The point I made to JJ above is the critical point in this entire debate - is our government even willing to look at the problem? Are they willing to put the best and brightest minds to work looking for a solution (I hardly consider myself the best and the brightest) or are they going to keep the EPA putting out ridiculous reports on the topic? Are we going to have a Senate loaded with individuals that don't even recognize global warming as a reality - man made or otherwise - or are we going to get serious about it?

That's really all I ask at this point - let's be serious about it as a nation and a government. Let's take an an honest look at the problem and the possible solutions. By 2060 I'll be long dead - but my kids and grandkids will not be. I owe it to them to at least make the case that our government should be looking at this in a much more serious fashion than they are currently. The drivel the EPA is putting out on the topic is beyond unacceptable.