Geo-engineering is increasingly looking like the only politically viable way of averting temperature rises above 2 degrees in the coming century. This is for three interlocking reasons: i) Any mayor country can try geo-engineering on its own without permission from anyone else, meaning one does not need a world coalition sustained for centuries to have an effect; ii) It holds the promise of immediate relief because ‘natural Solar Radiation Management’, ie volcanic eruptions that add lots of light-reflecting particles into the atmosphere, were found to cause immediate worldwide temperature drops, which compares favourably with the lags of decades and centuries that hold for CO2 emission reduction plans; and iii) It might be exceedingly cheap compared to any policy involving emission markets. For instance, according to a 2012 piece by McClellan and co-authors, we could keep the planet at current temperature levels at a cost of merely 10 billion dollars a year by having a fleet of planes deliver reflective particles high in the earth’s atmosphere.[1]
Given that continued global warming is predicted to happen in the next century no matter what emission policies are adopted, geo-engineering by some impatient large country is starting to look nigh inevitable. I reported in 2012 on the research efforts funded by the Royal Society, the Gates Foundation, and others. You now have dedicated institutes on this issue (eg. http://iagp.ac.uk ), and lots of new proposed experiments. With a large glut of published studies in recent years, it is time for an update: how far are we now in the world of geo-engineering?
The honest answer is that the scientific community is pussyfooting around when it comes to geo-engineering. Field experiments are largely stalled as scientists are awaiting regulatory frameworks that will protect them from criticisms of other scientists and environmental groups. Proposed regulatory frameworks designed to deliver this, such as by Nordhaus and colleagues, find it hard to get much political traction because politicians seen to support regulatory frameworks themselves become targets for criticism, both by those who pretend there is no climate change and by those who insist there is climate change but who also insist on emission reductions as the only way to return to our current climate some 300 years from now. Voters who agree the world is getting too hot and who would like it cooled down in their own lifetime rather than that of their great-great-great-great-grandchildren are still too rare to bother with for politicians.
This does not mean there is a lack of bright ideas. The engineers looking into this really are a very creative bunch, talking about whitening clouds, aerosol sprays, reflective shields, and artificial trees. One new idea that I hadn’t heard before is to genetically alter our crops so that they reflect sunlight better than the current crops. I don’t know whether this has any chance of getting serious traction, but one has to admire the ingenuity of the idea. Still, ominously, almost no field tests or large scale long-term testing is underway as scientists are waiting for societal approval to go ahead.
A good example of the ‘adverse climate for studies into geo-engineering’ is the reaction to the experiment with iron fertilisation off the coast of Canada in 2012: two businessmen/scientists dumped 100 tonnes of iron into the oceans in the hope of stimulating huge algae blooms that would capture a lot of carbon. The algae blooms failed to materialise, showing that iron fertilisation on its own was not as effective as once hoped for. Yet, these scientists were denounced as ‘rogue’ and there were widespread calls for legal action. This reaction was absurd once you think of the puny scale of the experiment: they only dumped 100 tonnes of iron ore into the oceans. Given a yearly world iron ore production by humans of around 3 billion tons per year, the experiment was insignificant compared to the amount of human-processed iron that flows to the oceans on a daily basis in terms of rust! You don’t hear equal amounts of complaints whenever an old ship is deliberately sunk to form an artificial reef, even though that is a similar amount of iron being ‘dumped’! The reactions hence were silly, vindictive, and essentially irresponsible. No wonder that the scientists looking at geo-engineering are waiting for official societal permission in the form of regulation that could sanctify their experiments and thus insulate them from the moral crusaders.
So at the moment, the scientific debates about feasibility and costs are mainly fought by means of computer simulation studies, with the usual claims and counter-claims that one gets when there is no real data. Typically, published reviews of this literature are critical of any form of geo-engineering that would have the potential to have immediate effects, usually saying the unknown risks are unacceptable. A good example is a recent paper by Cussack and others in 2014 that grudgingly admitted that Solar Radiation Management is indeed likely to be cost-effective at cooling the planet down quickly for relatively little money, but nevertheless says would entail unacceptable (but unknown) high risks, leading the authors to advocate broad-scale application of carbon-sequestration.
Carbon-sequestration is an oft-quoted darling in the literature critical of Solar Radiation Management, but is really a pretty hopeless technology as soon as you realise that coal is a beautifully compact form of sequestered carbon. To go from digging it up and burning it, which is what we do now in greater amounts than ever before, to re-creating it and then burying it seems rather costly, doesn’t it?
Re-sequestration would thus need to be done on a huge scale to have any effect, essentially undoing 2 centuries of digging up coal, oil, and gas, by putting similar substances back into the ground, preferably just as deep. The volumes involved would be such that we’d be talking decades of enormous industrial efforts to do it, which raises the question who would pay for it. Apart from the cost question though, the time-frame is off as it would not reduce the temperatures quickly but, once again, would only see its ‘benefits’ felt decades later. You might hence say that the world is still ‘unsequestering’ as fast as it can and ‘resequestering’ would only seem likely to happen if current populations were willing to expend huge efforts to aid their great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Not very likely, is it? This is typical of the studies critical of geo-engineering: they have little appreciation for the role of impatience and opportunism that are pervasive aspects of voters and their politicians.
We are thus a bit in scientific limbo-land at the moment, with moral crusaders preventing real progress: on the basis that the planet is hurtling towards disaster, we are asked to change our way life dramatically now, yet we should also accept that the damage takes centuries to undo and that we should just live with the climate change caused by our past sins. Solutions with immediate effect are seen as a form of cheating on our just deserts, and are said to involve unacceptable risks, with research designed to find out about those risks seen as unethical and already too risky. Why it is apparently more ethical to rejoice in the US-China announcement that they will keep increasing emissions for decades to come, is somewhat of a mystery: how can anyone truly fearing irreversible climate disaster see such non-binding agreements of sustained high emissions as real hope? It’s bizarre.
The stalemate that we see now in the science of geo-engineering would not seem sustainable though. Research funds keep being poured into this and the scientists involved will find ways to have real experiments in order to give the funders a real return. Also, at some point large groups of concerned voters will wake up to the absurd level of patience and altruism that the IPCC is currently asking of them, at which point they are going to force their politicians to cut through the fog of political correctness and experiment on a wide scale, moralising crusaders be damned. How far are we away from this? Hard to know, but I would be surprised if we need to wait more than 5 years for big experiments to see the light of day.
[1] Justin McClellan, David W Keith, and Jay Apt, “Cost Analysis of Stratospheric Albedo Modification Delivery Systems,” Environmental Research Letters 7 (2012).
Core Economics 
This is another instalment of ignorant nonsense and is based on a bunch of your well established prejudices and blind spots. Far too little is known about the functioning of ecosystems to launch into large scale crackpot geo-engineering – despite the fact that we are already doing it in an uncoordinated fashion. That a number of these overreaching loonies have schemes they want to hatch isn’t evidence of any real progress towards a solution or evidence that they are in control of their faculties. Compared to this – clean coal and waiting for the technology fairy seem positively sane. I love that your solution to obesity – equally ill-informed was anchored to moralising about the lack or willpower of fatties yet you don’t like moralising about unpriced pollution or resource misallocation.
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always nice to have a fan!
“overreaching loonies”? Wow. What a way to talk about scientists of the US, UK, and even Australia who are interested in the outcomes of fairly innocuous experiments!
As Conrad said at clubtroppo on this kind of opposition to experiments in geo-engineering:
“Yep, it’s crazy. You can fish out 90% of the fish, leak radioactive substances into the water, dump any amount of pollution you want, have runoff from fertilizer etc., but if you want to chuck a bit of iron in the water and do an experiment you need to go through 15 committees, 4 of which have moral crusaders on them, 2 with people that have OCD, and 1 which has someone in a very bad mood that just wants to stop everything.”
I am going to go out on a limb here and put you in the moral crusader basket.
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OK – perhaps my comment went a bit far. I’m not against the idea of research into it, but the scale and complexity of the proposals is where I find the overreach – and yes – loonies. You don’t have to go back very far to find proposals involving nuclear explosions by very serious people that would have been absolute irreverisble catastrophes, and in retrospect these people can fairly be described as dangerous loonies. I’m also not a economist so I don’t shy away from having morals or taste.
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apology accepted.
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“I, Paul Frijters, not only think that the government should have a policy spending billions of dollars intentionally dumping poison gas into the sky but I also want to be one of the nodding heads behind the president/prime minister/king when he announces the unilateral policy. I’m sure that none of the other countries will mind. What could possibly go wrong?”
So. This policy. of ‘Reflective Particles’. SO2? Something else? Nobody is going to be happy with the people who undertake this. People can’t even get over the idea of fluoride in their water.
1) My understanding of this policy is that it would have to continue in perpetuity, because the stuff dumped in the atmosphere would wash out.
2) The amount of reflective material would have to continuously increase.
That means that it will have to have complete bilateral support from every part of politics. Not just you (as strong an advocate I’ve seen of GeoEngineering) would have to be able to say that with a straight face, but every greenie, every libertarian, every business, every demagogue would have to agree. Forever. Even though there would be no perceived adverse effects in the climate if by miracle it works. Then we’d just have to take the government’s word that it was working. Because we’re good at that.
What is the cost of immediately building a whole bunch of nuclear power plants for every nation in the world? That’s politically impossible too. But it’s orders of magnitude easier than Geoengineering. Safer too.
An economics question: As an economist, how high would the median perceived cost of climate change be before Andrew Bolt and Christine Milne stand with you behind the PM, agreeing as he announces a plan for a government to take such drastic action? Why the hell would they agree to this and not nukes or a carbon tax? That’s the insanity. Anything is easy on paper.
How bad would things have to be that we would trust any government to do this, and at that point will geoengineering have any hope of success?
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Too late in the evening. I meant bipartisan, not bilateral.
Otherwise a change in government would mean that the geoengineering lapses, slowly.
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I think the term “overreaching loonie” is perfect. We are talking about very intelligent people, but do not let them out of the lab…Keep them in theory not practice. Get them to do smart things like smaller mobile phones, better aircraft, space exploration, life saving drugs, feeding the masses and other useful technology.
Please extend the term overreaching loonie to an otherwise smart person who believes in this AGW religion.
– The scientist who is ignoring all scientific principles to manipulate the data to get a scary outcome.
– The clever economist who just takes the scientist’s word for it then develops a cohesive scenario based on incoming nonsense
– The lawyer who knows in her heart the IPPC and AGW religion miserably fails the evidence test. Poor old AGW would be found not-guilty with a special apology on appeal, based on lack of evidence. The case would be thrown out by any proper court.
Temperatures have not increased for 19 of the 75 years since we have used carbon fuels at modern industrial levels. Climate changes in cycles anyway and every year that passes there is more reversion to the mean.
Interesting that only scientists are noticing climate change. Industries and businesses in them that either stand to lose from or gain from climate change are getting on with businesses and taking a “we’ll believe it when we see it” approach. Business has the resources and will to gather much greater volumes and far more useful data but there are no smoking guns emerging from that data. They are removing climate experts from their boards and terminating contracts with climate expert consultancies. “Climate change will pause longer than you can remain solvent…..” is the catch phrase. Climate change in business these days is a fourth order issue and only useful for lobbying or rent-seeking.
Lets just come to our senses and stop brainwashing our next generation of innovators and get them to look at real issues.
Support for geo-engineering is the only really scary outcome for the AGW religion.
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As a professional innovator I’m Interested to know how you came up with the 19 of 75 number. There’s a fair bit of brainwashing going on in your response. Usually contrarians try to hit the 1998 El Nino, which spiked out well above average, and is now apparently the new normal.
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Here’s your chance Paul. Can you build a consensus between me, an ‘overreaching loonie’ and Rick, who is happy to regurgitate somebody else’s conspiracy theory rhetoric?
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Geo-engineering looks easier than building a consensus between us three, Ben! You and I at least agree on the problem, but differ in our outlook on what is politically and bureaucratically feasible. I doubt there is anything we can say to convince Rick.
Is there, Rick? What for you would count as sufficient evidence for GHG-caused global warming? For me, the ice core data that found very close co-movement between CO2 levels and temperatures over the last 100,000 years, with CO2 increases followed by temperature increases (and vice versa), was just too convincing to dismiss as an accidental correlation.
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It’s a feedback loop – he’ll respond with a link to jonova, prolly. (There is a lag of Co2 on some of the peaks over the last 800,000 years – the initial forcing is Milankovitch cycles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles) with CO2/H20 amplification.
But the consensus is my point. For geoengineering to be feasible it will require a lasting and bipartisan commitment. You might think that one party could ‘go it alone’ but I struggle to see who that would be. The chinese? How will the american voters react to chinese sulphur dioxide intentionally being put in ‘their’ sky? The US? Good luck getting that past congress/senate/president.
For geoengineering to have any hope at all, almost everybody will have to vote for it forever. (Getting three people to agree on a graph say – http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif should be a walk in the park. )
So how much damage would a sustanable quorum of voters have to perceive to make the risks of Geoengineering palatable?
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And another economics question:- how much should such a scheme be insured for in terms of liability?
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Paul
I’m not sure we had fossil fuel generators and motor vehicles 99,900 of the 100,000 years. Ice cores find a correlation between atmospheric composition and temperature so what? There is a correlation between looking really hard for something and finding something – but ignoring the obvious. I heard some Christians found evidence of the arc recently Bwahaha!
Here are some inconvenient truths the AGW religion chooses to believe GAIA put them there to “test our faith”.
– The dams are full and will empty again in a drought.
– There is negligible sea level rise – even the most dire forecasts don’t suggest we will be inundated very soon.
– Summer is about as hot as its always been in Australia [its not an English country garden].
– Try this one – grab the monthly max temps for Melbourne for the last 150 years and spread sheet it. You will find the median date is 75 years ago.
– The beauty of technology these days is you can download data and produce your own graphs that haven’t been “cleaned” by experts – you can prove its BS to yourself
– Population is growing a pace and each year a greater proportion are not starving
Climate change is a fourth order issue these days. Not even discussed in business.
Here is a challenge in the area we have some expertise [clearly not climate change]. Get contributors to create a list of companies and industries actually making money or losing money in climate change.
I struggle to give points to be fair:
– Aircon companies as the a/c systems are getting cheaper faster than solar panels, even renters put them in these days.
– Insurance companies who have invested millions in climate change hysteria to inflate premiums and then pay about the same claims ratio because nothing is changing.
– Rent seekers getting government money for solar pv, wind and any other cc initiative.
– Anyone in the AGW industry
The world is not ending anytime soon, back in 2007 when hysteria hit its peak we thought we needed to get to high ground and build desalination plants. Now nearly 8 years later the only evidence is circumstantial ice core correlations.
Gimme a break – [I love taunting religious fanatics]
By the way Ben – this material is original – so who is regurgitating?
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Maurice Newman, is that you? (I can’t believe that embarrassing nutter gets so much airplay.Anyway.)
The interesting thing about using the ‘religious’ argument is that it only makes sense if your own position is a belief system. You’re trying to use what’s called the ‘spiral of silence’ calling people bad names until they come around to your way of thinking.
But it won’t work in this case because at the end of the day the argument is about physics, not belief. There is a correct answer, and that answer will become obvious, either way.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas (Same with water). It absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation, in a way Nitrogen and Oxygen don’t. That effect is measurable in a lab, with a light and a camera and a tube of gas. It was first discovered over a hundred years ago by measuring the IR from the moon.
When you do the maths on that, it leads to changes over the course of time.
Do you know how many computer models there are of climate? hundreds. From hundreds of teams all over the world. From simple to incredibly complex. Do you know how many of them lead to no warming when you increase the concentration of CO2?
Nada. Not. A. Single. One.
Surely somebody could make one work if it was the ‘Truth’. But nah. The maths doesn’t line up with your worldview, which probably means that your worldview is going to go bad.
As for getting your own ‘data’, sure you can have a look at whatever miniscule slice Anthony Watts shows off, but it will always miss the big picture, because he’s a con man.
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Interesting reading Ben
Let me quote you…>>>>>
QUOTE>>>>>”You’re trying to use what’s called the ‘spiral of silence’ calling people bad names until they come around to your way of thinking. ”
QUOTE>>>>>”Maurice Newman, is that you? (I can’t believe that embarrassing nutter gets so much airplay.Anyway.) ”
Pot calling the kettle black?
QUOTE>>>>>”Do you know how many computer models there are of climate? hundreds. From hundreds of teams all over the world. From simple to incredibly complex. Do you know how many of them lead to no warming when you increase the concentration of CO2?
QUOTE>>>>>”Nada. Not. A. Single. One.”
I think there are lot of scientists even Warmists who would doubt that – remember there is, as yet, no real evidence. The scientists trawl the data universe to even get a tiny shred of evidence to keep their jobs – it aint easy.
We are talking about miniscule data variations that you have to go to get ice cores to form a meaningful argument, albeit circumstantial
Ice cores are good because they are expensive and hard to get so only well funded overreachers can get them and research them.
Look what you are saying is you are going to put megatonnes of tinsel in the atmosphere and iron filings in the sea just because some ice cores hint at a correlation (maybe Noah did build an Arc)
I’d want a second and third opinion
And I would kind of hold off until there was some actual evidence – like temperature increase, sea level rise. Somebody actually getting sick because of it.
Remember Peak Oil? now we are freaking out because the price is heading to the lowest ever because the only thing keeping it scarce was a cartel
I am sure we heretics are really irritating but usually right
We are not denying your right to belief and worship but please don’t try to silence us
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Sure. Pot. Kettle. The man can’t put together an argument that doesn’t rely on calling people names and making conspiracy claims. He isn’t a critical thinker. It’s called ‘confirmation bias’.
The religious thing isn’t actually irritating me. It just makes me think you’re a tool, keep going if it floats your boat. Personally I’m always trying to find that evidence that disproves my opinion.
I even read the NIPCC. That thing was really bad – one example “At the current level of ~400 ppm we still live in a CO2-starved world. Atmospheric levels 15 times greater existed during the Cambrian Period (about 550 million years ago) without known adverse effects.”
Of course in the Cambrian the oxygen levels were far lower. The sea had wierd protofish, and the land was a blasted wasteland – the Cambrian was about 100 million years before any sort of land vertebrate or plant we’d recognise evolved. If we went back to that, it would far worse than any ‘alarmist’ vision of the world. But to the NIPCC it’s ‘no known adverse effects’. How you guys fall for that stuff is beyond me. Heartland is a glorified PR firm that’s made one side of politics its winged monkeys.
The tinsel is Paul’s idea. Except actually he’s (probably) talking about Sulphur Dioxide. I don’t think that’s a good idea either. Keep up.
I’m happy to be corrected on the ‘No mathematical models’ thing. Go on. Find one.
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“We are not denying your right to belief and worship but please don’t try to silence us”
Sorry dude. This is Physics, not Scripture. One side is right, and one side is wrong and the wrong side’s days are numbered. You don’t need religious tolerance for your beliefs if your beliefs aren’t religious. You need to bring the maths.
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Still no hard evidence here other than name calling
On the religious theme:
I took some photos of the water at St Michaels Church in Venice and compared them with a 16th century Caravaggio oil painting. Unless he was in on the anti AGW conspiracy he painted the water roughly at the level it is now. Incidentally Venice floods because it was designed for boats to slide cargo on off at high tide to save time and back injury. 900 years ago…
I like hard evidence – stuff you can see – not what a researcher has presented to get more funding
eg the Yarra water level goes out through the heads and south to Antarctica. There is a hydraulic mean so you don’t have to be an overreacher (rhymes with preacher) and go to south pole. just look at the river at home in CBD – same old boring level for a hundred and fifty years we know of..
These infallible models you talk of are the same ones used to forecast the stock market – and we know you only get rich selling the models
The end of the world is not yet nigh
I am just trying to save the planet from experts and fanatics – imagine finding a man snoozing on the beach and looks like imperceptible breathing (ice cores) so you apply CPR and Defibrilator (Geo Engineering) and kill him – please listen
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“Still no hard evidence here other than name calling”
The physics not scripture observation applies equally to me. Maybe I’m wrong, anybody can be. But I do like data.
I posted a link to the NASA GISTEMP before. Dunno, it didn’t seem to make it past moderation. Looks like rising temps to me.
Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It absorbs infrared and re-emits it. You can find its absorption spectra on the NASA website (google John Tyndall). CO2 isn’t alone in this – almost any molecule more complex than a diatom absorbs and re-emits infrared.
Earth absorbs light. It emits IR. (Basic blackbody radiation) some of that IR is absorbed by greenhouse gasses and reflected back to earth. The more GHG, the warmer the surface temperature. That’s why the desert is colder at night than the coast – water is a very powerful GHG, and it keeps the surface temperature warmer.
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It’s interesting that the evidence that you naturally seek though is all sea level related.
Paul, I think that helps answer the question about ‘how bad does it need to be that most people would vote for Geoengineering?
Sea level rises are expected to be about a meter this century then another 2-4 next. So by the middle of next century I expect people might be ready to support geoengineering.
Of course the thermal momentum will probably make any geoengineering too little too late by then. And it won’t help ocean acidification at all. And god knows what the world will be like by then, Hopefully with a gracefully declining population.
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I think you are missing the point
I am seeking evidence that there is anything to worry about
Sea level would be – if it is rising – no evidence of it
It only matters if there is a significant sea level rise – and as we move through the century the estimates keep going down – they started at 8m for end C21 now they are actually 0.5m (your 1m estimate is an earlier high percentile) many of the lower percentile estimates are in the zero range (the elusive Nada results you asked for perhaps?)
One would expect temperature to be changing faster which is stubbornly isn’t – and it is a bit easier to deal with if it were to rise
Interesting that the whole urgency seems to be that if – if -if and if (an unlikely linking of a chain of theoretical outcomes based on dubious data) there will be a catastrophic global warming apocalypse (God’s Wrath for out sins)
If the climate were so unstable we would have seen it go out of control in previous epochs
The world will end – but probably from a cosmic collision or simply running out of spin or energy a long time from now
Its a bit like the doomsday cults but AGW is a beauty as you can put the doomsday off as it approaches
I am going to sign off now – does anybody really take this stuff seriously anymore?
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IPCC AR5 has a likely range of between 1.2 and 0.8 meters above preindustrial in 2100 for the high emissions scenario, and a range of 0.5 to 0.8 above preindustrial for the low emissions scenario. (Chapter 13, Figure 27) I don’t see any zero range estimates.
The Eemian (the last interglacial, 100,000 years ago) was about 2 degrees warmer than preindustrial and had sea levels about 5-7 meters higher. That process is likely to take hundreds of years however.
“If the climate were so unstable we would have seen it go out of control in previous epochs”
The Permian-Triassic boundary is marked by a big drop in the ratio of Carbon 13 to Carbon 12. Generally Carbon 12 is preferentially taken up by organic matter, so this ratio change represents a huge release of organic carbon into the atmosphere, potentially via coal beds ignited by the siberian traps supervolcanos. There is strong evidence that the oceans became anoxic. 90 -95% of ocean species went extinct, and 70-80% of land species. It took 30 million years for diversity to recover. Which is a long time to wait.
I don’t want to overplay this, mind you. The PT was no overnight disaster – it probably took thousands of years for the CO2 to build and the oceans to slow (generally warming due to GHG is strongest at the poles, which means that there isn’t enough difference in temperature from equator to pole to drive the currents. It was a very different world. But think on this – the PT is also marked with a gap in coal. That means that during that time few to no trees grew in the swampy environs needed for coal generation. For millions of years.
So yes. There’s several examples of climate out of control in previous epochs. (also consider the PETM and the end Triassic extinction)
“Interesting that the whole urgency seems to be that if – if -if and if (an unlikely linking of a chain of theoretical outcomes based on dubious data) there will be a …”
I don’t have to prove my house is 100% going to burn down before it becomes prudent to buy insurance. All I have to prove is that the risk exists. I don’t understand why normally sensible people would invert normal risk management for this issue.
“I am going to sign off now – does anybody really take this stuff seriously anymore?” Only those of us with a math and science education and a critical mind.
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I think you have to read the appendices and the references to get the zero bounds estimates – buried along with other inconvenient truths.
Careful with IPCC high and low emissions scenarios they depend on poor countries achieving fabulous wealth and lifestyles – high quality problem
So it’s gonna take super volcanos eh – I knew AGW was innocent!
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“I think you have to read the appendices …” Sure. The dog ate your homework.
“Careful with IPCC high and low emissions scenarios …” My understanding of the RCPs is that they are based on total radiative forcing differences between 1750 and 2100. They’re non-specific about how those forcings are reached. Where did you get your information from?
“So it’s gonna take super volcanos eh – I knew AGW was innocent!” Yeah, well done rocket surgeon. You got me. There were no cars in the early Triassic. How did no one think of that? There are also none on Venus, and it too has a greenhouse effect. Is this what passes for logic in whatever mental cesspool you swim in? You guys are more screwed than I thought.
What exact physical difference in terms of IR absorption do you think there is between molecular carbon dioxide created by a volcano and the molecular carbon dioxide that comes from a tailpipe?
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After that little tirade I am entitled to a bit of name calling
With all respect, you are a religious nutcase…. AMEN
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Sure. You started with name calling, you name called in the middle and you ended with name calling. Why change when you’re on a roll. It’s all you brought. It’s all you have. That’s why your whole little movement is stuffed. You bring nothing to the table, and you expect people to put up with your logical fallacies.
At some point the “I don’t understand it, but it’s all a global conspiracy, and anyone who disagrees with me is a religious nut” schtick is going to be even staler than it is now. And it will get hot. Because CO2 absorbs heat and reemits it, like almost every other molecule, and we’re putting more CO2 in the air. And people will call you on your bollocks.
Maybe you need to rethink things. Maybe go and read a book. Something that doesn’t confirm your worldview.
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