[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

That’s nice. What does it have to do with climate change?

We can do all kinds of things to be better stewards of our environment and mitigate our carbon footprint but way to many other countries are not doing much to help. I think you will understand now.

[mtdjed]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

We can do all kinds of things to be better stewards of our environment and mitigate our carbon footprint but way to many other countries are not doing much to help. I think you will understand now.

Remember the days when LA was covered by a yellow smog, Pittsburgh a smoky haze as did numerous other US cities. Thanks to a massive program to reduce contaminants, these cities and others have helped clean up the air. So what has happened to temperatures? They have gone up according to the "stewards" . So if that happened here, and we encourage, help other countries do the same, what results might we expect? I am not a scientist, but my thoughts would suggest some more warming. Why? Perhaps clearer skies allow more heat absorption. Less reflection of the Sun's rays.

An example of global temperature impact by air pollution is the 1883 explosion of Krakatau volcano in what is now Indonesia. Not a huge Volcano in height but an extremely large emission of airborne pollutants. Reportedly impacted global temperature by about 1 degree F for 5 years.

The earth has undergone glacial and interglacial cycles forever. Some suggest every 100,000 years, Mostly glacial 90000 years vs 10000 years interglacial. We are interglacial now. Perhaps the cause is something out of our control. Like tilt of the earth? Higher tilt, higher temperatures. Something out of human control. Some say Milankovitch cycles. Beyond me.

So, some speculate that global warming is not caused by use of fossil fuels. You should not assume that we all understand and agree with your stewardship comment.
Lots of theories and unanswered questions.

Not saying clean air is bad for our health, but not a sure case to claim that we will solve global warning by improving carbon footprint.

[sounding]

India announced they are re-opening 100 coal mines, plus China continues to build new coal plants. Both understand climate science, and that CO2 is not a problem.

[MartinSE]

Imagine, 99% of the world's scientists are just in a big conspiracy to milk money from your pockets. Of course, they are. Who else could possibly have a horse in this race?

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by MartinSE

Imagine, 99% of the world's scientists are just in a big conspiracy to milk money from your pockets. Of course, they are. Who else could possibly have a horse in this race?

It's not "99%"

It's 90+% of those that are dependent on government grants, a government that has set their agenda.

So who really has a horse in this race?

[sounding]

Please provide source data for the 99% value.

[retiredguy123]

Climate change is a global topic, not a United States topic. But, if you take away all of the research studies and articles done by US scientists and US companies and universities, what research would you have left? I think it's mostly about getting money from the US Government.

[sounding]

Ditto. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) did a member survey in 2016. Results show that 67% believe climate change is mostly human-caused -- but -- only 53% of members responded. Since responses where not secret and since most members directly or indirectly work for government (such as academic government funding), many did not respond. Personal contact with some National Weather Service members confirms this.

[sounding]

True. It is easy to get grants to study man-made climate change, but not natural climate change.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by sounding

India announced they are re-opening 100 coal mines, plus China continues to build new coal plants. Both understand climate science, and that CO2 is not a problem.

Or perhaps they do not care. China is rather incredibly polluted where water must be filtered to be safe to drink.

[sounding]

CO2 is not pollution. CO2 is invisible, odorless, and tasteless. Pollution (such as trash mountains) can be seen, smelled, and I hear don't taste very good.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by sounding

CO2 is not pollution. CO2 is invisible, odorless, and tasteless. Pollution (such as trash mountains) can be seen, smelled, and I hear don't taste very good.

That's a pretty narrow definition of pollution. A better definition of pollutant would consider detrimental effects.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by sounding

India announced they are re-opening 100 coal mines, plus China continues to build new coal plants. Both understand climate science, and that CO2 is not a problem.

India and China are your measure of good science and decision making???

I don't know how those countries feel about CO2 in particular but they have a very poor track record on environmental issues. I'm sure there was no consideration given to climate change and pollution when they made the decision to increase coal consumption.

[MartinSE]

Originally Posted by sounding

Please provide source data for the 99% value.

[URL="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/10/more-999-studies-agree-humans-caused-climate-

"More than 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to a new survey of 88,125 climate-related studies.

The research updates a similar 2013 paper revealing that 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate. The current survey examines the literature published from 2012 to November 2020 to explore whether the consensus has changed."

[biker1]

There is no 99% or even 97%. That number gets tossed around from a much criticized paper by John Cook, IIRC. The question being asked is not what you think and the manipulation of the numbers to achieve the oft quoted percentage is laughable. Those who break out that number are typically clueless. Human activities have been altering the climate for a long time. You need to look no further than the urban heat island effect. There are, however, two actually important questions to ask: How much of recent temperature increases are anthropogenic and are we facing a dire situation in the future? The answer to both questions is "we don't know". Increasing CO2 does yield temperature increases because it changes the radiative transfer balance in the atmosphere. By itself, however, this is not enough to create the catastrophic effects that some claim are just around the corner. There would need to be positive feedbacks in the atmospheric/oceanic system from CO2 related temperature increases in order to create a dire situation. These are the types of climate dynamics that are not well understood and therefore difficult to numerically model. The catastrophic predictions for the future are based on numerical modeling. This is still an area of research. We are about 12,000 years into an interglacial period and temperature and sea levels can be expected to continue to rise. Anthropogenic warming is likely to be a positive perturbation on this trend.

Full disclosure: I am a retired research meteorologist who developed numerical atmospheric models for NASA and the National Weather Service.

Originally Posted by MartinSE

Imagine, 99% of the world's scientists are just in a big conspiracy to milk money from your pockets. Of course, they are. Who else could possibly have a horse in this race?