BOG: "Is China communist? this is a yes or no question."

It's an interesting question. You can find plenty of discussion about it (link: https://www.quora.com/Is-China-a-communist-country). China *calls* itself communist, but in many ways its ideology is not. Would you expect a subscriber to Marx's ideals to say, "To get rich is glorious"? That's a Deng Xiaoping quote.

All that said, it remains irrelevant to the discussion. The fundamental dynamic driving pollution in China is rapid industrialization in a global economy.

kasimax: "citation?"

In this statement BOG is basically correct. More CO2 = more plant growth. Scientists have been working to this into their climate models, as plants have historically slowed the rise in CO2 concentration more than previous models would have expected. Google "Plants CO2 absorption."

But while plants serve as a stabilizing force for concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, that doesn't eliminate the problem of CO2 emissions. First, plant growth is also driven by other factors. Deforestation = less plants = less photosynthesis = more CO2. Second, even if plants were left alone from now on to take advantage of increased CO2 concentration, it's not clear that this would result in CO2 returning to previous levels or even reaching an equilibrium at all.

EDIT: Thinking about it, actually, I guess plants *would* eventually equilibriate CO2 concentration if left alone. What's not clear is what that equilibrium level would be.

It would only have an actual effect on plant growth if CO2 was the limiting factor for growth.

CO2 is *a* limiting factor for growth. Of the plants out there in the world, some are constrained by CO2, and some wouldn't be able to take advantage because of limited water/nutrients/sunlight/etc. However, it remains the case that (a) increased atmospheric CO2 will have some benefit for plants, (b) increased atmospheric CO2 leads to increased plant uptake of CO2, (c) the latter effect slows the increase in atmospheric CO2, and (d) scientists underestimated this effect up to about five years ago. I'm not sure how well they account for it now, though.

Leth - Good points. it is much more complicated than CO2 = Global warming. The climate models, which predict global warming, do not capture the complexity of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is why they are all wrong.

All models are wrong. They are wrong to different scales.

To clarify my above post, the percentages refer entirely to human CO2 emissions.

TrP - Show the relationship between CO2 and climate change. There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature.

Gobble "All models are wrong. " Exactly correct. But Climate Change exists only in those incorrect models.

Rather, man - made climate change exists only in those models.

Climate changes. It is not caused by man

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/400000yearslarge1.gif?w=720

"There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature." Yup, CO2 is not a GHG. GHGs are fake, duh.

TrP That was not the question. Show the relationship between man-made CO2 and temperature.

Man-made CO2 is still CO2...

And that was actually the exact statement (not question) posed to me. It's in your own words. You're caught now either contradicting facts or lying.

Always nice to come back to webdip and see conversations like this.

TrP Total BS. From the very first post I said climate changes. Show the relationship between what man does and any impact on climate.

Vas - "Always nice to come back to webdip and see conversations like this." Yes. Trying to separate facts versus beliefs.

So allow me to enter this debate with the following statement: I am not a climate scientist. Neither am I an engineer or a political scientist or a farmer. In other words, I am not an expert on this, so why do I have the burden of proving something in a field I know nothing about. Rather, it seems the people who are best to give this burden are in fact climate scientists and find out what they have decided, I mean you wouldn't ask a librarian how to fix your car, you would ask a mechanic. So regardless of whatever you say we personally need to prove I suggest we jsut look at the consensus on this among the people whose job it is to find out. And everytime I look up the consensus I find things like this: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ which tell me yes the climate is changing at an enormously rapid rate due to human activity, and even if you don't believe that let's look at the two world we have. In one world human beings have almost no impact on the climate, in this world trying to help the environment does not, no harm or risk, however in the case we do have a huge impact it is probably best to try and curtail the negative impacts, no matter what world we have the cost of agreeing climate change exists and is man made is far outweigh by the benefits.

TL;DR
Experts are smart. Experts say we do have a huge impact. Even if they are wrong it is safer to assume we do have an impact.

Guys seriously. You know BOG is just trolling you. Don't fall for it! Dont! He could google facts about climate change and get better answers than we can give him. Instead he says outrageous things that make no sense. No matter what you say... no matter how much fact you give him it's never enough. Don't let him troll! I know... I know... you feel you NEED to correct him. But it's a trick!

Vas "I suggest we just look at the consensus" With all due respect, we do not 'vote ' on matters of science. The consensus was that the sun revolved around the earth.

We need to look at the facts.

Shield - Show the relationship between mans activities and climate change.

That remains the question.

It should be easy.

"The consensus was that the sun revolved around the earth." This consensus was reached by ancient logicians, not scientists. They reached that conclusion by means that would be laughed at in scientific fields today. That example sucks.

TrP "That example sucks." k But show how man's activities changes the climate. Use facts.

There is more ice in the Antarctic than there has ever been before. Temperature has been flat for 2 decades, even with rising CO2.

How is man changing climate?

I still see posts and I urge folks to stop engaging with him on this! Save yourselves. No matter how much fact you give him he will find the one misplaced comma in your reply and say that obviously invalidates your entire argument. He takes pleasure in how angry he can make you he doesn't even care about the topic posted.

@BOG: You do realize you just straw manned the hell out of my argument. Like experts aren't always right, but they are right a lot more than random people on the internet.

Anyway, given the screen name and the posts from field. You probably just be trolling anyway, and if you aren't we won't change you mind so yeah...disengaged.

Shield - No facts have been provided. Only opinions.

Answer this - why is there more ice in Antarctica than has ever been measured before?