Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joe Burke on August 27, 2010 at 6:18am

actually the scientists in question refuse to give the data they used and the email (which the scientist admit are genuine) say that the data was changed. When data all data is used (instead of just the data in urban areas) it shows a different picture, it shows that temperatures haven't risen as drastically and in fact have been dropping since the early part of this century.

Permalink Reply by Parallax on August 27, 2010 at 2:51am

Can you fill me in? I haven't heard too much about that.

Permalink Reply by Parallax on October 3, 2010 at 3:44am

Nevermind... I finally had time to concentrate on what was written.

Permalink Reply by Tonya Wynn on December 1, 2010 at 12:22pm

Don't trees and other plants need carbon dioxide? So why not plant more plants? And if China and other large 3rd wold countries won't sign on, neither should we. There have been 5 mass extenctions, before homo sapiens, according to one Nova/PBS show, so perhaps gloabal warming is a natural occurence. However, all humans need to treat the earth with more respect and to recycle, reuse, and use less crap.
I love nature and fresh air and hate seeing trash along highways. I see a middle ground. Higher regulations on safety and quality will help both the consumer and the environment and perhaps, even the American worker. I personally don't think any of the major countries should allow either India or China to sell products for children or pets.

Permalink Reply by Louis on December 1, 2010 at 12:48pm

Trees won't work because plants also need other things to grow that are in woefully short supply like phosphates, organic nitrogens, and water.

They've already tested this in an experimental forest where they artificially increased the amount of CO2 and found that growth simply doesn't scale. Whichever material is in the shortest supply will determine the maximum growth of plants and unfortunately CO2 is not that limiting material.


Case in point, most of us is made up of carbohydrates but we wouldn't get very far eating carbs alone.

In any case, even if extinction is a natural occurrence, why should that stop us from wanting to prevent our extinction?

Permalink Reply by Craigart14 on January 20, 2011 at 9:21am

Trees do need carbon dioxide, but an excess of carbon dioxide thickens the layer of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, meaning less of the heat radiating from the earth can escape into space.  It works like a car parked in the sun; the sun's energy streams through the glass windows, heating up all the mass of the car's interior (seats, dash, etc.), and then the heat radiating from all this mass warms the air in the car.  Very little of the heat can escape because the windows and doors are closed.  If you left your windows open, the car would be much cooler when you returned.  The upper atmosphere acts like a permeable tinted window.  It deflects a lot of the sun's energy into space, which prevents the earth from overheating.  It also allows radiant heat to escape, thereby regulating the earth's temperature within a viable range.

 

More trees would actually help, but because of other limiting factors, such as soil nutrients, planting more trees would require returning some cleared land--maybe a lot--to forest.  Much of the world has been deforested, and deforestation continues at a tremendous pace, partly because of greed and partly because of increased population pressure.  It's unlikely we can control either of these any time soon.

Permalink Reply by Aaron S. (USA) on December 1, 2010 at 1:42pm

From what I've read, it's largely a manufactured scandal produced by some leaked e-mails which were released to the public out-of-context. The organization that owned the e-mails added to the controversy by responding slowly and not putting out a statement for about 2 weeks, but they did eventually, and subsequent investigations cleared the researchers of all wrongdoing. The only people who keep pressing on the issue are climate skeptics who really don't give a crap about reality, along with some better-intentioned but ill-informed people who get confused by the controversy.

Read the article from Wikipedia

Permalink Reply by Joe Burke on January 21, 2011 at 9:32pm

actually the scientists involved admitted that all the leaked emails were authentic.