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Old 07-05-2019, 03:52 PM  
Idigmygirls
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Vancouver, BC
Posts: 498
Here's the thing about all of this: It is absolutely trivial to prove that CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming. Countless experiments can prove this. It is uncontested that CO2 is a greenhouse gas - which means it creates a greenhouse effect.

Knowing that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, deniers can only be left with these arguments:

1- The CO2 produced by humans is being removed from the atmosphere through some mechanism; or

2- The earth is naturally cooling, and the CO2 being produced is slowing that cooling, so even though it is causing warming, the warming isn't harmful.

As to point #1, it is true that CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by natural balancing of the earth's systems; however, that removal (such as dissolution into the oceans) creates massive problems apart from warming. And those systems have been swamped to the point that they are no longer functioning to remove a sufficient amount of CO2 (you can google atmospheric increase in CO2 to find mountains of proof of this point).

As to point #2, there is actual debate about whether the interglacial period of the current ice-age is coming to an end, and there is debate about whether the solar minimum will be a major minimum, which might result in some natural cooling for a brief period. Personally, I don't believe either of these to be true, but I can't say it's impossible. Nonetheless, whenever the cooling cycle (if there is one) ends, or if the warming is greater than the cooling, warming will end human life on earth. That's not acceptable, even if there were to be a short reprieve.

Knowing that natural climate change is almost always (not always, but almost) measured in geological timeframes - not years but eons - the base case is that humans are impacting climate much more than nature is at the present time, and since the risk of inaction is extinction, why bet on the 1/1,000,000 chance that #2 is happening and doing so in rapid order? It's just denial and suicide.
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