Reply To: Cap and Trade

[Breakable]

Brian H wrote:
That “97%” is false. Climatologists and physicists and hydrologists all have different knowledge sets that need to be plugged in here, and climatology knows nothing other than what the very limited modeling is saying about CO2’s effects.

Do you believe its not being done already, do climatologists just ignore every other specialists when they go about their business?

Brian H wrote:
So we know no such thing as “it will go crazy in the future if something is not done.” CO2 absorption is now and has long been near its maximum. It’s an asymptotic function. Even multiplying concentrations by several orders of magnitude would only add fractions of 1% to its effects. It is irrelevant.

Take a look at this chart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
What do you think is the result in 20, 50 or 100 years? Plants are surely going to love it, what about mammals?
How can you say what is or is not irrelevant, if you are not a scientist and don’t have a model that shows that this 1% is irrelevant when accounting for all the factors? I would like to point out that all those minor percentages do add up. In a bank with 4% savings rate you can double your funds in 20 years. And earth is a closed system – heat that is not radiated back to cosmos stays here. If you are saying that co2 absorption is maxed out and its the only factor that matters, then you should prove it. I don’t have any research in this area, but I would think that there are indirect ways that co2 can affect absorption.
Edit:20 years

Brian H wrote:
Consider that CO2 has been climbing for a couple of hundred years, and human contributions have only been measurable for about 60 years, and during that time temperature has trended down, and up, and down, and up, and down again. That is impossible under the “CO2” driver hypothesis. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE TEMPERATURE GO DOWN IF CO2 IS CONSTANTLY RISING? CO2 is NOT the driver.
The temperature patterns DO, however, match solar sunspot activity almost precisely. A much more plausible hypothesis, which is ARTIFICIALLY EXCLUDED from the IPCC models. Because the modelers were told by the IPCC managers to exclude it.
These are video games, not actual emulations of the climate system. Worthless.

I am not a scientist, I don’t have a model that shows how Co2/clouds/storms/humidity/solar cycles/earth rotation/planetary position/core nuclear reactions/ice coverage/industrialization/atmospheric_absorption is affecting earths climate. It seems you believe that we can safely exclude all the other factors except for sunspot activity. This is all a speculation, but lets say that sunspot activity (99%) is a driver and co2 is a contributor (1%). Now if we don’t have a contributing factor (co2) the temperature will rise and fall as it done for millions of years. If we do have a contributing factor it will additionally increase by 0.1 degree each year. So the question is here if we can afford the contributing factor and whether it is profitable to fix it (Cap & Trade).
In my opinion it does not matter weather Co2 is a driver or not. If it is a contributor and one we can profitably affect it is enough.

I would suggest that for the sake of this thread we do agree that Co2 is a problem, because if we don’t – it means that any discussion about Cap & Trade does not make any sense.

A discussion about Co2 link to climate change, might be better continued in a different thread, and preferentially in a forum where there are Climate scientist present which can point out and explain their models and any resent research that could be of interest.