>> The greenhouse effect is a load of nonsense. There's no sea level rise. CO2 is good. Hooray for George Bush telling the Kyoto Krowd to take a hike. <<
Sure there is a sea level rise. Thoughout the world, where ever there are accurate long term records of tides, the sea is rising. Consider the following long term plot of Mean Sea Level Trend for Baltimore.
140.90.78.170
The absolute global sea level rise is believed to be between 1.0 and 2.4 millimeters/year. The rate of apparent sea level change at a station is also affected by land movements.
140.90.78.170
The sea has been rising, on and off for the last 18,000 years. The rise of mean sealevel by some 300 meters in the last 18,000 years has been a major factor in the shaping of
coastal areas such as Chesapeake Bay.
pubs.usgs.gov
The real questions are whether it is happening any faster than before, whether changes are primarily due to natural variations or man made, and whether there is anything we can do to influence it. Our data records are too short to tell whether or not the trend is simply part of a very low-frequency, global-scale natural variability and not really a trend at all. The problems of measuring mean sea level trends are discussed in this paper.
co-ops.nos.noaa.gov
The problem with the Kyoto treaty isn't whether CO2 is good or bad, it is in its inconsistancy in treating CO2 from different countries differently. The Kyoto Krowd denounce US CO2 and turn a blind eye towards the CO2 from the second and fifth largest CO2 emitters, China,
eia.doe.gov
and India,
eia.doe.gov
With China'a C02 emissions growing at 3.9% a year and India's at 3.2% a year, whatever could be gained by America turning it back on its most abundant fossil fuel source would be swamped out the the combined increase of China and India emissions. Even if you could prove that man made CO2 emissions are causing dangerious climate changes. Kyoto doesn't fix it. The greenhouse effect doesn't care whether the CO2 comes from China or the US.
Considering the relatively short period of time that climate has been accurately measured and the great uncertainty in climate models and theory, the Kyoto treaty is more an exercise in extreme hubris. They claim to know what exactly what the worlds climate is doing, they claim that they know that man is the primary agent of change and that they know how to control climate change. |
