Re: A Quora - Can we really stop global warming at this point?

In alt.astronomy a425couple <[email protected]> wrote:
> Interesting enough views, with some facts and opinions.
> The really long time periods, fit best
> with astronomy.
> Go to the original Quora for charts and graphs
> David Miller
> Former Former Faculty, Department Chair and Advisor at Various Colleges 
> and Universities (1982-2015) Updated Oct 31
> Can we really stop global warming at this point, after all of the damage 
> we've done?
> Remember back when we were in an ice age and most of the upper US and 
> Canada were covered with ice? Well, granted it was before your time, but 
> it really wasn't that long ago, only 20,000 years ago. Do you want to 
...

I'm sorry. This is a mish-mash and pretty much just a reiteration
of all the illiterate climate denial talking points of the past 50y.

"I cain hab kilt my wif yer honna! Ladies was dying befour eye was
eben born. How kin I be responsibl?"

"Ifn G*d had wanted us to stop punchin ourselbs inna face, He
wood had showd us how to stop dooin it!".

And similar.

Gas molecules with more than 2 atoms have the ability to
interact with IR radiation. So-called greenhouse gases in the atm
reflect back some tiny persent of the IR radiation coming up from
the earth. The sun is at 5000K and by radiation rules everyone in
alt.astro should know must therefore radiate EM around the visible
spectrum. The earth is at 300K and therefore must radiate EM
around the infrared.

At the earth sunlight is hitting us at around 1000 W/m2 of the.
Left to itself Earth would radiate 1000 W/m2 back to space and
stabilize at less than 0C. Luckily for us the small amount of GHG in
the atm fold back some of that so the planet is actually around 30C
warmer.

Natural processes have maintained this setup for at least the last 10 
million years modulo orbital changes winning out every now and then
to drop the avg temp 5K and put the earth in a major glaciation
around every 100ky.

Around 150y ago the Industrial Revolution started pump another GHG
into the atm in increasing quantities. CO2 started at 280 ppmv
150y back and had been at that level for 100s of 1000s of years prior.
(Air samples are trapped in polar ice and we have a record
going back ~1 mn years at present).

Currently CO2 is at around 420 ppmv and headed higher around 2-3 ppmv
per year. We're putting around 40 Gt of CO2 into the air and water
with our various activities.

If the previous level of GHG resulted in a non-frozen earth around
15K above freezing, we can calculate double that should raise
the temp around another 3K. We can measure it's up around 1K over
the past 150y.

We can tell it's not termite breath or volcanic CO2 because it
has the isotopic fingerprint of fossil carbon. Carbon
out of termites or other animals is high in C13 because biological 
processes prefer slightly to latch onto C12. CO2 out of volcanoes
is low in C14 because radio cabon decays over time, but it has
normal levels of C13 (about 1% of the total). Fossil fuels were
made from dead plants and animals and is low in C14 and low in C13.
When we look at the ratios of C13/C12 and C14/C12 we see both
have been declining in the past 150y (those trapped air bubbles in ice
again) and the curve exactly corresponds with the levels of
emitted CO2 from fossil burning that have grown from near 0
in the mid 19th cent to around 40 Gt CO2 now.

The case is pretty much wrapped up who is responsible and how.

The only question is are we smart enough to stop punching ourselves in
the face or will some small percent of the species that has benefitted
financially from the current status quo bamboozle the rest enough
to prevent anyone figuring out how to stop it.

It would have been easier 30y ago to hit the brakes and stop the
car hitting the wall. Having left it until the last possible second --
like usual -- to do anything means we can not avoid hitting the wall
but at least have the ability to hit it at a sub-lethal speed.

The current climate denial talking points try to convince us
there is no point to hit the brakes. Hitting the wall at 100 mph
is the same as hitting it at 50 mph they say.