To the deniers....what do you suppose happens when CO2 is released into the atmosphere? Does it simply go away with no effect? Surely the science and the knowledge is there to "prove" that CO2 will react with the atmosphere in a particulair way...right?
So if there is a reaction....and I think we are ALL in agreement that there is....but lets set aside man made CO2 releases...what do you deniers make of the increase in NATURALLY OCCURING releases of CO2? In other words, as the climate NATURALLY WARMS, and the tundra thaws and releases CO2...and the oceans release more CO2 than they can absorb, will this have a "snowball" effect on climate change?
We have had ice ages and serious climate warm ups....we know how they occured. CO2 has been involved with every warm up.
Again, enough of the "deniers" rubbish. It had clear, deliberate connotations with the Holocaust and I find it personally very offensive. I'm not denying climate change; change is, after all, the only constant. I find the notion that we think we can control and stabilise the temperature of the planet the very height of Mankind's arrogance.
If we are talking about a totally enclosed system, whereby every other factor was fully understood and stayed the same, then rising CO2 would cause a small amount of warming. Of course, the effect of CO2 is logarithmic, so the more that is added, the less the effect. However, it's not that simple in the real world. The other factors aren't all known. The other factors aren't all understood. It's a chaotic system, with so many variables, that it's utterly impossible to single out one factor and say it's responsible, especially given the poor data and the incredibly short period of time we're talking about. We're guessing. We've taken the one factor that we can monitor, and convinced ourselves that correlation equates to causation. Well it doesn't. Empirical proof is required, and there is absolutely none.
As for CO2 being involved in every warm up, it's generally accepted that an increase in temperature leads to more CO2 being released by the oceans (which hold the vast majority of CO2). The increase in CO2 lags temperature increases by approximately 600-800 years. So it's a delayed signal of a warming episode, but not the causal effect.
At the time when CO2 was rising most dramatically - 1940s to 1970s - the temperature fell. The models have predicted even greater warming as CO2 increased, yet this hasn't happened. It's plateaued. Same with tropical storms. They've actually fallen in number dramatically.
The overwhelming majority of CO2 in the atmosphere is from natural sources. Roughly 4% is Man's responsibility. Water vapour has by far the biggest greenhouse effect, around 95%. CO2 is next, again at around 4%. So Man is responsible for 4% of the 4%, or 0.016%. We could cease to exist and the climate would still change, just as it always has done, and always will do.
What really has changed is that we've started to look more into the matter, and we hate to feel powerless. It's always nice to have some big problem to worry about, especially one that can't actually be proven but can be used for any number of purposes.
Finally, a word of advice for those who do believe in man made global warming. Don't preach. Don't abuse others who don't share your view. Demand scientific honesty and integrity, and admit to the numerous unknowns. Admit just how little we know, and how uncertain a lot of it is. You're losing the battle for "hearts and minds" for all those reasons, and many others too.