ripdog, define "greenhouse gas" already

You listed about a jillion gases as fitting your definition of "greenhouse gases"...


"CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, CFC’s, HFC’s, PFC’s,"


"CCl4, MeCCl3, a couple of fluoro-carbons and ozone"


Now, what on Earth do all these gases have in common with each other - but not with H or O2 or He, for instance?


eLROY

You didn't ask me to define greenhouse gas, you asked me to list them. I did. So what's up with this "Answer the question already" bullshit?


Greenhouse gases allow visable and UV light from the sun into our atmosphere without resistance. When it hits the earth's surface some of it gets radiated back towards space. The greenhouse gases absorb the heat and trap it in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the biggest worry.


The greenhouse gases are variable in their concentration in the atmosphere, while gases like oxygen, helium and hydrogen are fixed in concentration.

And the percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere has been increasing for millions of years and is now being further increased by pollution and by vast clearing of rain forests (and perhaps by so many people). Likewise, the percentage of oxygen has been decreasing. As oxygen breathing creatures, this is not a good thing for us.


I got the impression from another thread that eLROY thinks environmental concerns don't matter. I suspect this is what he is leading up to.

First of all, "forestation" of the Earth has risen - unless you use a contrived definition of "forestation" - in which case you can say anything you want. You can either a) show me "information" to the contrary - which would be impossible to collect at any practical cost - or b) offer this as proof there must be more carbon dioxide, since plant health would presumably increase on the margins if there were. But, in reality, anything you would say would be unmeasurable conjecture - nonsense - in the face of ongoing climate variation and species redistribution in all regions.


Of course I think environmental concerns "matter" in an abstract sense. Where I disagree with you is 1) that the "lever to move the moon" - in terms of mankind altering environmental progression - exists, and 2) that all the garbage so-called "stats" you swallow hook-line-and-sinker are anything more than a lot of propaganda, put out by feel-good hustlers in international communism so that ignorant suburbanites will foot the bill for them to sail around the world with their 22-year-old girlfriends and "count" birds.


What a hustle. What suckers you are to read these tables and pamphlets mailed around by "people who care" to keep them in business practicing pop-science. Environmentalism is the Thursday-night sitcom of the science world - designed to be just stupid enough for the zombies who pay any attention.


Now, so far as ripdog's statements,


"The greenhouse gases are variable in their concentration in the atmosphere, while gases like oxygen, helium and hydrogen are fixed in concentration."


"Greenhouse gases allow visable and UV light from the sun into our atmosphere without resistance. When it hits the earth's surface some of it gets radiated back towards space. The greenhouse gases absorb the heat and trap it in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the biggest worry."


Do I even have to point out the flaws in this?


Have you even read what you've written?


Is even part of this partly accurate for even a tiny fraction of the gases you listed, which are an irrelevant part of our atmosphere anyway?


Has what you've written ever been run by somebody above Baywatch level before, to see if it sticks?


Come on, you can feel good about yourself without having to rely on other people being dumb when you push this nonsense. You just have to think - instead of parrot - for once. This stuff was aimed way below you, and I can't understand how people of your intelligence get caught in the net and become carriers.


eLROY

A few years ago a Russian icebreaker found its way to the geographic spot known as the North Pole--and looked down and around at: water, not ice. Yes, it found water instead of ice at the North Pole.


Winters keep getting milder, and as for larger "variations" the average winter in the last few decades has been WAY warmer than a century or so ago. In the 1800's people knew what Winter meant.


So what's real and what's propaganda...when I see winters far milder than any in the 60's or 70's (or even 80's), I know something's going on.


Hey, maybe it was just a fluke that there was no ice at the North Pole. Maybe all that pollution is really good for us, and maybe a little less oxygen is no big deal.

Our models are currently insufficient to make a determination one way or the other on this important question, so all these strident statements...one way or the other...are talking far out of school. Back to class, boys.

Do I even have to point out the flaws in this?


Yes, please do. You make all of these accusations and don't defend them. Maybe I'm one of those sub-Baywatch people you're talking about, but please point out the flaws. Also include your credentials as an expert in this subject, as it would lend credence to your arguments.

Thanks

I could sense that this was where you were heading, only I thought you'd actually know something about the subject. Scientific theory does not make any statement that I've made 100% true. I realize that there is a question of whether or not global warming is happening or we're just going through another normal fluctuation in temperature. Where you choose to take your information from is critical to wheter or not we're going to agree on this subject. I'll believe my biology text before I'll take the word of some oil company shill. Judging from your forestation comment, I'd guess that you're a huge Rush Limbaugh fan. Do you refer to yourself as a "dittohead", eLROY? The only sure thing that I can say is that we're screwing up the earth big time. So, I admit that I don't have solid proof that global warming is happening. Where are you getting your facts, that you're so damned sure that its not? Can you link it to an oil or coal company?

And surely it was just a coincidence that there was no ice at the North Pole.


Somehow these 'prove it' arguments reminds me of the decades of cigarette companies crying 'it hasn't been proved!' Well, I always thought it was just a coincidence that smokers had more health problems. Right.

That North-Pole-no-ice story was reported as if this was a unique event. And about a billion eager suckers bought it. It was later clarified that, quite often, to our knowledge, there has been no ice at a single, random spot known as the North Pole.


Of course, saying the fact that there is not ice at every single spot means anything, is like seeing the seven seat get pocket aces on a particular hand and extrapolating it to mean anything. Furthermore, that statistical "measurement" is no measurement at all, it is just a byrpoduct of people suddenly starting buying tours to the north Pole. Of course, before people could buy such icebreaker tours on equipment left over from the Cold War, nobody could have taken such a measurement. So what has changed is not the climate, but tourists, who on one day "had nowhere to stand and get their pictures taken."


But there is an even subtler statistical trick ging on here. In truth, out of a collection of potential news "stories," the subset selected to be written - and then to be printed - is a statistical reflection of 1) what people would be likley to believe, and 2) what people would be likley to get riled up about. Of course newspapers have evolved to read their suckers like clockwork. If you have a bunch of idiots running around shouting "dog bites man - give us money to stop it," then of course the newspapers are going to find some flexible tale about a slobbering cat to dance along.


Now, so far as this ridiculous silliness about people in the 1800's "knowing winter," they did not "know" satellites, weather stations, or Gore Tex. I do not, however, deny that some places must be getting colder or warmer, and that the whole planet must be getting colder or warmer. I'm just saying that you have as much chance predicting which as predicting the stock market, and there is even less you can do about it.


Now, when you say,


"So what's real and what's propaganda...when I see winters far milder than any in the 60's or 70's (or even 80's), I know something's going on."


you sound like on of these idiots who "knows" there's cheating going on on Paradise. Or you sound like old lady who goes to the Stardust and sees the slot machine on her left is always paying off, she "knows" something is going on.


Now, frankly, the world is full of idiots, and I have nothing against you being stupid. Society is built out of stupid people. But when some stupid idiot with a theory about slot machines, essentially, starts telling me what size car I can drive, it's time to start throwing punches. Confine your stupidness to your own slot-playing system, leave me out of it.


eLROY

Is that a statistical measurement?


Or a scientific model?


Or is it just an example of a person who doesn't own all the property in the world disliking, in an aesthetic sense, what other people are doing with theirs?


What is this "purpose" of the Earth that we're missing it? Because most of the other living things - and there are more of them than ever before - seem to be happier than ever.


eLROY

eLROY: "So what has changed is not the climate, but tourists, who on one day "had nowhere to stand and get their pictures taken.""


M: Agreed the tourists have changed, but how do you know the climate hasn't changed too, and that there isn't a non-random overall trend towards a warmer atmosphere, caused by greenhouse gases?


eLROY: "Now, frankly, the world is full of idiots, and I have nothing against you being stupid. Society is built out of stupid people. But when some stupid idiot with a theory about slot machines, essentially..."


M: My slot-machine system was obviously better than your slot-machine system;-)


PS eLROY. What money oodds would you be willing to offer me on a Stanford-Binet IQ test competition? Please offfer me good odds I need them.

"The greenhouse gases are variable in their concentration in the atmosphere,"


fair enough...


"while gases like oxygen, helium and hydrogen are fixed in concentration."


huh? so the total ratio of "greenhouse" to non is fixed?


"Greenhouse gases allow visable and UV light from the sun into our atmosphere without resistance."


Ozone was on your list, though I would bet this is false for ALL of the ones on your list.


"When it hits the earth's surface some of it gets radiated back towards space."


true, and some of it at a changed wavelength...


"The greenhouse gases absorb the heat and trap it in our atmosphere."


all gases have a temperature above absolute zero, do they not?


"Carbon dioxide is the biggest worry."


fair enough, but what the heck are all those other "greenhouse" gases? please tell me about them...


I think you need to do a better job of defining the exact cutoff properties where a gas becomes a "greenhouse" gas.


eLROY

eLROY: "Because most of the other living things - and there are more of them than ever before - seem to be happier than ever."


Is that a statistical measurement?


Or a scientific model?

What I'm curious is how you "know" there was always ice at the North Pole before these tourists showed up with nowhere to stand?


eLROY

No IQ test needed, I'll tell you right up front I'm an idiot. Now, do you want me voting on what size car you can drive, and on how much gasoline you can use?


eLROY

What do you think, Santa lived on the water in a houseboat? C'mon if that was the case the myth would have been different, and the reindeer would have been walruses.

Probably not, but I do think the automakers should have to spend more R&D on pollution-reduction technologies and be forced to implement it as fully as possible and that it would be just fine if that cost were passed along to consumers. When you look at (and smell) the smog in LA and New York I think this is a no-brainer. So drive whatever you care to if you can afford it but put the crunch on Big Auto for more smog-tech and on the smokestack industries along the same lines. I'd be happy to pay more for a car if it meant saving the environment.

Every calaculus of costs is a calculus of lives.


Last time I heard, none of these Third-World nations was asking us to send them love.


eLROY

"so the total ratio of "greenhouse" to non is fixed?"

Not precisely, but Oxygen, Helium, et al are such large components of our atmosphere that they can be considered fixed in concentration.


"Ozone was on your list, though I would bet this is false for ALL of the ones on your list."

what does this have to do with the statement that preceeds it?


"true, and some of it at a changed wavelength..."

so you understand why visible and UV can get in but IR can't get out...again, where's your argument?


all gases have a temperature above absolute zero, do they not?

You can even expand this argument to all matter, but it still doesn't show me anything about your position.


"Carbon dioxide is the biggest worry."


fair enough, but what the heck are all those other "greenhouse" gases? please tell me about them...


Ok, I'm guessing that the fluoro carbons are what you're not familiar with. Basically they're the byproduct of our (human) presence on earth. They are not naturally occuring, and have been increasing in concentration in our atmosphere throughout the past century. the rate at which they've been accumulating has increased in the past few decades. While there isn't any absolute, 100% sure, no holds barred proof that they're harmful, most evidence points that way.

'So, I admit that I don't have solid proof that global warming is happening. Where are you getting your facts, that you're so damned sure that its not? Can you link it to an oil or coal company? '


the environmental movement is a bunch of land grabbers. the onus should be on them to prove they have a need to take land, restrict uses of things, etc.


(oh, by the way, can you prove that youre not harming the earth?; i thought not, thats it, give me your house and cars, you can live in a mud hut like in mexico, its for the environment)


brad

Their effect (lets UV and Vis light in, but keeps heat from escaping) mimics what greenhouses do.

Why do I bite here? Just don't want to do my paper tonight, I guess


Yes, of course Oxygen and all the other gasses that make up our atmosphere do exhibit this effect to some extent. That's why we have life on our planet. Our atmosphere allows the sun's energy in, but traps some of it, thereby providing the energy to sustain life.

The gasses of concern do this a bit too much, though. Too much of a good thing and all that, I guess. Also, many of them are man made and not naturally occuring, so we're responsible for their effects in a way.

Tell you what. I'm done with it. back to poker for me. no sense being your personal google. next time you want an answer for an environmental question, look it up.

cant get him to show simple causal relationship since not even scientists can come close to that.


brad


p.s. your not for the terrorists, are you? a la andy roony, if we dont start paying a pollution tax to china, the bastards win.

Alger talking to himself again.