New Scientist Crushes Daily Express Denialist List With 50 Referenced Reasons For Climate Breakdown

[hatrack]

Hyperlinks at N.S. website.

A British newspaper today published a list of "100 reasons why global warming is natural". Here we take a quick look at the first 50 of their claims - and debunk each one.

1) There is "no real scientific proof" that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man's activity.

Technically, proof exists only in mathematics, not in science. Whatever terminology you choose to use, however, there is overwhelming evidence that the current warming is caused by the rise in greenhouse gases due to human activities.

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 per cent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the Earth during geological history.

Misleading comparison. Since the industrial age began human emissions are far higher than volcanic emissions.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

In the past 3 million years changing levels of sunshine triggered and ended the ice ages. Carbon dioxide was a feedback that increased warming, rather than the initial cause. In the more distant past, several warming episodes were directly triggered by CO2.

EDIT

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html

[trotsky]

1. Excellent article. K&R n/t

[Kali]

2. ...

5 4 3 2 1 and enter the "skeptics"

[Jim__]

3. Great post! Thanks for the reference - n/t

[Gregorian]

4. We're spewing more than the volcanoes. That's news to me.

That points directly back to multiplicity.

I'll be damned. I honestly hadn't learned about this one.

[GliderGuider]

5. I posted about that a couple of years ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=129285&mesg_id=129362

We produce 130 times as much CO2 as all the volcanoes now active on Earth. Even if you go back to the Deccan or Siberian traps you may not find an equivalent. According to this page a flood basalt eruption of 2000 km^3 emits as much CO2 as we do from one year's worth of fossil fuels. The Deccan traps were up to 1000 times that big, but the various duration estimates I've seen point to the highest rate of vulcanism happening over at least 10,000 years, out of a total duration of perhaps a million years.

So we are emitting CO2 at least ten times faster than the Deccan traps, an eruption that is implicated in the K/T extinction.

We're spewing a metric assload of CO2.

[Gregorian]

6. Jesus that's hard to believe.

So this explains the extent of the global dimming, which I thought could not be as significant a factor in diminished rains in Africa as I thought. Sunlight radiation was decreasing nearly fifty years ago.

We are seeing the chronic symptoms of global warming, not just something we can turn around by all producing and driving Priuses.

Now if only I could find a way of preserving my self. I'm in a state of mild to high rage all of the time. And have been for decades. I live in a small town, and am absolutely stunned and appalled by the crazy number of cars all of the time. It's just too much for me. I want 1940 back. And that's a really difficult mentality to hold all of the time. I actually shouted out at some shreaking jet noise yesterday, and was totally embarrassed when I realized someone was standing next to me. I suddenly felt like that crazy man on the park bench. And now I've told you more than you wanted to hear. Haha.

[joshcryer]

10. 30 billion tonnes annually. And rising.

It is incomprehensible.

[bergie321]

7. "metric assload"

How many pounds is that? We don't use the metric system here...

[Delphinus]

8. I laughed aloud to

the answer on question 29!

[Nihil]

11. The comments are pretty depressing though ...

One of the best responses was far too accurate at describing
most of the rest:

> Predictably, most comments are from the usual american rightwing
> creationist cretins, who clog up every online forum or discussion
> with their ignorant flaming. As well as being semi-literate in
> most cases, their insistence that it's a 'debate' is negated by
> trying to drown out any semblance of scientific, rational,
> discussion - the same tactics used in denying evolution

:-(

[niyad]

9. k and r