itsDK wrote:

Making the distinction between carbon dioxide and methane.

I see. Methane is much more dangerous but it contains the same number of carbon atoms (1). I'll do some reading on this subject.

A meteor impact or volcano eruption would have caused the opposite form of climate change - global cooling. The soot would have obstructed the solar heat.

I can't find the point in the Fox News article. Is it supposed to disprove evolution or global warming?

Lysholm wrote:

Methane is much more dangerous

What do you mean by much more dangerous? Methane, despite some urban legends, is not toxic, it displaces oxygen but that shouldn't really be an issue since Earth's atmosphere is not a closed system. As for its greenhouse effect you should consider that Earth's atmosphere hasn't been uniform through out its history, so its impact may not have been as profound as we'd like to imagine, especially since life would've been adapted to the conditions at the time etc.

Dolorosa wrote:

What do you mean by much more dangerous? Methane, despite some urban legends, is not toxic, it displaces oxygen but that shouldn't really be an issue since Earth's atmosphere is not a closed system. As for its greenhouse effect you should consider that Earth's atmosphere hasn't been uniform through out its history, so its impact may not have been as profound as we'd like to imagine, especially since life would've been adapted to the conditions at the time etc.

Methane is indeed not toxic but it contributes more than 20 times more to global warming per released ton than carbon dioxide does.

There's however 200 times more carbon dioxide than methane in the atmosphere so carbon dioxide is still the main culprit to global warming. Methane reacts with other gases and vanishes from the atmosphere much quicker than carbon dioxide.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/methane-and-global-warming.htm
http://www.epa.gov/methane/

Global warming is immensely dangerous and it has already started to amplify itself because methane which has been frozen into the tundras is now leaking into the atmosphere.

Lysholm wrote:

so carbon dioxide is still the main culprit to global warming.

I know you like to gloss over facts to pursue your own personal politics, but that is a fallacy of gigantic proportions. Reading your posts just in this article I realize how little you know about the greenhouse effect. Yet you're a huge proponent of global warming hysteria. That doesn't lend much credence to your position.

Escutcheon wrote:

I know you like to gloss over facts to pursue your own personal politics, but that is a fallacy of gigantic proportions. Reading your posts just in this article I realize how little you know about the greenhouse effect. Yet you're a huge proponent of global warming hysteria. That doesn't lend much credence to your position.

I am not politically engaged on a professional level on this subject. I am just interested.

I have shown sources to support my stance on this issue. I am not an expert but the EPA people are. When I wrote my first post on this thread I didn't know much about the contribution of methane so I did some reading on the subject.

Are the EPA scientists in your opinion as flawed as you regard me? http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentcc.html

I am a proponent of renewable energy, but not of hysteria. I don't believe in dismantling the modern society. I am interested in cars and I run mine on biofuel.

catnip wrote:

Never let a non scientist write an article on your scientific theories. If you have ever known anyone whose works got quoted in at the very least the local paper, you will know exactly what I mean.

I agree on that. A few years ago a Swedish businessman named PO Eriksson wrote a climate change denying article which was published in our country's leading financial newspaper Dagens Industri. There was a huge scandal and many scientists wrote articles debunking the flawed arguments.

First, the term Global Warming is misleading, it's called Climate Change. It doesn't mean that everyone will sit in the sun the whole year. Dry areas become maybe more dry, cold areas more cold, weather will become more extreme.

To think that blowing billions of tons carbon into air, which needed millions of year to store into earth has no side negative side effects is a bit naive.

Seriously, even if the climate change theory is wrong, you really want to risk the future of your kids?

Fox News... enough said.

Askger wrote:

First, the term Global Warming is misleading, it's called Climate Change. It doesn't mean that everyone will sit in the sun the whole year. Dry areas become maybe more dry, cold areas more cold, weather will become more extreme. To think that blowing billions of tons carbon into air, which needed millions of year to store into earth has no side negative side effects is a bit naive.

I agree with much of your conclusions but the climate is mostly warming so in this context I think that anthropogenic global warming is the most descriptive term. The climate has changed before by natural causes but currently it is warming because of human activity.

Animals discharging methane may be a contributing cause but carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation makes a much bigger difference. I don't really get what Fox News is trying to prove with the article.

Lysholm wrote:

Askger wrote: First, the term Global Warming is misleading, it's called Climate Change. It doesn't mean that everyone will sit in the sun the whole year. Dry areas become maybe more dry, cold areas more cold, weather will become more extreme. To think that blowing billions of tons carbon into air, which needed millions of year to store into earth has no side negative side effects is a bit naive. I agree with much of your conclusions but the climate is mostly warming so in this context I think that anthropogenic global warming is the most descriptive term. The climate has changed before by natural causes but currently it is warming because of human activity. Animals discharging methane may be a contributing cause but carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation makes a much bigger difference. I don't really get what Fox News is trying to prove with the article.

That's true, I just have the experience that most people who hear "Global Warming" think they will have only warmer weather in the future.

Anyway, to think that the growing pollution of the nature and population won't have a negative effect for the humanity is naive.

I think when enough people realize that we dig our own grave, it will be too late.

Askger wrote:

I think when enough people realize that we dig our own grave, it will be too late.

Don't be too sure about that - the ozone layer depletion problem has largely been solved. Several tropical countries have managed to decrease or even completely stop rainforest depletion. Other environmental problems have been solved in the past. There might come a point when humanity has pushed the climate so far that the temperature will continue to rise by itself and then it will be too late. I do however think that the problem can be solved before this happens.

Oh... Wait,,, it wasn't dinosaur farting that caused the extinction. Perhaps it was a global flood, the "mother of all mass extinctions".
Science Daily has a story where researchers are trying to determine what once caused a mass extinction...even killing 90% of all marine creatures. The researchers found that something in the past caused a sudden and drastic oxygenation change in the oceans. (sudden change in the ratio of thorium and uranium isotopes). The sudden change suggests a catastrophic event in the oceans. The researchers suggest this event happened 250 million years ago. Creationists suggest that this event happened 4500 years ago..... Causing the rapid burial and fossilization, of billions of sea creatures around the world....and causing the sudden change of oxygen in the oceans.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111011112915.htm