Joined: May 2006
Jesus Tapdancing Christ, Barry is either incredibly dishonest, incredibly stupid, or both. He links to a 1971 Science article that shows the supposed scientific consensus on global cooling. The abstract of that article reads:
|Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 ° K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age. |
So, to summarize: Carbon dioxide increases temperatures, aerosols work to decrease temperatures. The government took action on aerosols by banning flourocarbons in 1978. And what action has been taken on that temperature increasing carbon dioxide, Barry? What's that, none? He really ought to be ashamed of his poor scholarship, but I doubt he is.
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)