Whilst on the subject of Climate change

[shaunbhoy]

If you, as an individual, or a parent, or a family, want to do something that might make a difference, then here's what you need to do:
1. Shop seasonally for food. This will reduce the amount of energy flying strawberries half way round the world so you can eat them in December. It will also give you a more varied diet, which is good for your health.
2. Shop locally for food. Again, less distance travelled also you are supporting local farmers by not buying food from "foreigners"
3. Grow your own food. Very cheap, gives you exercise planting it, tending it and harvesting it, also means you know what has gone into it.
4. Recycle your grey water. Recycling your water means you save money on the amount of water you use.


None of those are about tax. None are about supporting a particular government. None are about whether most scientists agree or disagree with you. They are simple steps that some people refuse to do, and their only reason is because the little snowflakes that they are want to blame someone else and have someone else deal with the problem because they are too lazy/scared/arrogant to do anything about it themselves.

I already do all of those things. Have done for a while. So have a great many others in the developed world.
Please do enlighten us as to just what difference that has made O Wise One! Is it getting any cooler on that soapbox of yours, way up in the foothills of the moral high ground, or is your head just up there in the clouds needlessly?

[WTFH]

I already do all of those things. Have done for a while. So have a great many others in the developed world.
Please do enlighten us as to just what difference that has made O Wise One! Is it getting any cooler on that soapbox of yours, way up in the foothills of the moral high ground, or is your head just up there in the clouds needlessly?

How can you know what is going on in the developed world, you don't even visit it.

[barrydidit]

OK, can you explain how rain "scrubs" CO2 from the atmosphere?
Also, if you come up with a theory into how it does it, can you tell us all what it produces by scrubbing?

If I remember my GCSE Geography correct, water droplets typically condense around a particle in the atmosphere known as a condensation nuclei. It's the principle behind manual cloud seeding. If those nuclei are CO2, then the rain which falls will scrub it from the atmosphere.

Of course, if the CO2 is right up in the Stratophere it won't be scrubbed by rain because there isn't any there.

[original PM]

But how can this be?

On the one hand it is global warming and we are all going to be living in a mad max like post apocalyptic wasteland before christmas...

and on the other hand it is a natural part of the way the world works and has been observed in the past prior to 'man made global warming' ever existing

So who to trust - well lets see who has a vested interest in which story being correct shall we...

oo...

[shaunbhoy]

How can you know what is going on in the developed world, you don't even visit it.

2/10 Must do better.

[pjclarke]

But how can this be?

On the one hand it is global warming and we are all going to be living in a mad max like post apocalyptic wasteland before christmas...

and on the other hand it is a natural part of the way the world works and has been observed in the past prior to 'man made global warming' ever existing

So who to trust - well lets see who has a vested interest in which story being correct shall we...

oo...

The quantity and rate of change are well outside historical natural variability, by some margin. In fact over the last half-century natural variability should have produced a mild cooling.

[pjclarke]

If I remember my GCSE Geography correct, water droplets typically condense around a particle in the atmosphere known as a condensation nuclei. It's the principle behind manual cloud seeding. If those nuclei are CO2, then the rain which falls will scrub it from the atmosphere.

Cloud seeding nuclei are a lot larger than CO2 molecules, the actual mechanism is a little more mundane, the CO2 simply dissolves in the rainwater to make H2CO3, carbonic acid. This along with nitrogen and sulphuric oxides are what makes acid rain.

[WTFH]

...and on the other hand it is a natural part of the way the world works and has been observed in the past prior to 'man made global warming' ever existing

You say it has been observed in the past, but you don't say how you know it has been observed in the past.

...as for who to trust, keep trusting the Daily Mail, you'll never get more right than them.

(Do I mean "more" or "further")

[WTFH]

Cloud seeding nuclei are a lot larger than CO2 molecules, the actual mechanism is a little more mundane, the CO2 simply dissolves in the rainwater to make H2CO3, carbonic acid. This along with nitrogen and sulphuric oxides are what makes acid rain.

This is what I was trying to hint towards. Someone with access to fallacies that back up his opinion sees the line "Rain gets rid of carbon dioxide" and rather than question how or why or the implications of it, just glibly accepts it.

Human pollution has impacts on nature. The unscientific claims of some are that the pollution humans produce today is exactly the same as 1000 years ago and look, nothing ha happened.
Back in the day when pollution was something you could see and taste in the air in the UK, some people actually listened and did something about it. Now that our air isn't full of smog and kids aren't getting lead poisoning, then the unscientific claim that there isn't a problem or that "mother nature" will take care of it.

[pjclarke]

You say it has been observed in the past, but you don't say how you know it has been observed in the past.

Since circa 1880 - thermometers
Since c400AD - high resolution proxies, mainly tree rings, also lake deposits, corals.
c800K years - Low resolution proxies - ice cores.

The long-dated proxies show that for at least 800K years CO2 and temperature have oscillated in a range, (between approx 180 and 280ppm for CO2) as the planet went through glacial / interglacial phases. CO2 is now approx 40% above that range.