Conversation on Saidit with a climate change denier.

submitted by ActuallyNot from saidit.net

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[–]Questionable 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Nobody on Saidit believes the grift that is climate change. In fact, I doubt even you believe this. But you will claim to for the right price. ˑ

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nobody on Saidit believes the grift that is climate change.

You're mistaken about that.

I do find it difficult to believe that anyone believes that all the scientists from every country, independently of how they are funded are all lying about climate change.

It's obviously impossible.

In fact, I doubt even you believe this. But you will claim to for the right price. ˑ

Oh the irony.

Above you make the claim that if we stop releasing fossil carbon, then the other carbon available for life will disappear.

I don't think that you believe that, but if you do, could you elaborate on the mechanism?

And how life has existed on the planet for over nearly 4 billion years without any use of fossil fuels?

I'm also interested in how you think a conspiracy of scientists can span countries, state and private research institutions, and impact fields from ecology, physics, computer modelling, planetary science, geology and palaeontology? As well as impacting economics, epidemiology, actuarial studies and development?

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Tom_Bombadil's key argument seems to be that CO2 absorption only occurs in band that are too narrow to cause global warming.

The third time I linked to the same graph of how significant the 600-750 waves per centimeter band is with respect to blocking the earth's radiative emissions, he noped out without addressing the comment.

Other arguments he tried:

  • CO2 is only 480 ppm, so it can't have a greenhouse effect.

I've heard this argument before. I pointed out that it was 3 trillion tonnes of the stuff, and he didn't go back to that argument.

  • CO2 gives off the same energy that it absorbs, for a zero-sum change.

I didn't pull him up for it being untrue, because I thought that it was mostly true at the time. It turns out that the excited CO2 molecule in the atmosphere will have interactions with several other molecules before emitting the photon, and so often passes the energy to the surrounding air. See Carbon Dioxide Absorbs and Re-emits Infrared Radiation

But in any case it slows the rate of propagation of those frequencies to the upper atmosphere where they have to get to to get to space. Here's the old realclimate post on the topic

And he mentioned some irrelevancies.

  • It was important to him that clouds act as a greenhouse gas.

While this is wrong (The net effect of clouds is to cool Earth by 18 Wm−2 in the global mean), I don't understand why this falsehood was important to him.

There have always been clouds, so it's not clear how global warming denial is supported by whatever their impact is on the climate.

One argument I have seen in the past is that Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) seed cloud formation, and perhaps he was going to head for the (incorrect) claim that there has been a trend in GCRs, causing an increase in cloud cover. And if you believed that and the incorrect claim that clouds cause warming you would have an alternative cause of some of the warming.

  • He asked what % of the absorption bands for gaseous CO2 inside the total visible bandwidth.

This would have been quite the research project for some ranges of frequencies. But in the visible, it's close enough as makes not difference to 0, which I told him.

And he never brought it up again.

This post is to keep a record of denier arguments that I have interacted with here, so that I can find them quickly.

[–]Questionable 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

All life on Earth is carbon based. to deny this, is to advocate for the death of the human race. We are the carbon you wish to eliminate. ˑ

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

All life on Earth is carbon based.

True, but irrelevant to the discussion about CO2 being a greenhouse gas, the physics behind that, and how significant the increase in the concentration of CO2 is in the observed increase in global mean surface temperature.

to deny this, is to advocate for the death of the human race.

No one is denying that. And yet increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increases the temperature, and that has many impacts on the biosphere and human infrastructure.

We are the carbon you wish to eliminate. ˑ

Not at all. Fossil fuels are the carbon we should eliminate for the most cost effective way to deal with global warming. The carbon already in the biosphere (or, at least, that was already in the biosphere prior to the industrial revolution) does not cause additional warming.

It's is additional warming that it is sensible and economic to limit.

[–]Questionable 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

We are the carbon you wish to eliminate.

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

You're trying to argue that without fossil fuels, all the carbon in the biosphere would disappear and all life would therefore be removed from the earth?

And you think a link to a journalist's write up of a paper looking at the greenhouse gasses in human breath makes that point?

The paper discusses methane and nitrous oxide, not carbon dioxide.

I'm inclined to assume that you know you're wrong.

Or do you think that for the past 4 billion years life has only been able to exist because some civilisation has been combusting fossil fuels?

[–]Questionable 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Yes. The blame is put on the humans, to inflict guilt and shame. The humans are the carbon. But You already knew that, which is why I'm inclined to assume that you are playing dumb. '

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes. The blame is put on the humans, to inflict guilt and shame.

You don't think the increase in greenhouse gasses related to human combustion of fossil fuels, and we're merely scapegoats?

What do you think is burning the fossil fuels?

The humans are the carbon.

The carbon is fossil fuels. You know humans aren't fossil fuels, right? The carbon in the biosphere doesn't need fossil fuel carbon to supplement it in any way. It goes through the carbon cycle perfectly fine, and nothing dies from lack of carbon.

But You already knew that, which is why I'm inclined to assume that you are playing dumb.

One of us seems to be.

Life got along fine for well over 3 billion years without supplementing the carbon in the biosphere by burning fossil fuels. Neither the carbon in our bodies nor that of our domestic cows and plants will be extracted and eliminated if we stop burning fossil fuels.

But surely you do know that? Climate science denial arguments are so dumb.