Global warming receives a lot of press these days. In the past, will I acknowledge that most of the statements by the people who worry about global warming are true, I have said, "So what?"
That is, there is concern because of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, specifically, carbon dioxide that people have put there. This might be an annoyance, but could not be a problem seen in its own light.
That is, the carbon dioxide that people are seen as adding was, at one time, in the atmosphere. Coal is made from fossilized plants (and the plants can still be seen in at least some coal). The plants grew somewhere at some time, casually taking the carbon dioxide out of the air, and depositing it in their tissue, which eventually became the coal. Similarly, oil was once a living thing, taking carbon dioxide out of the air, and depositing it in their tissue, which became oil.
Therefore, all the carbon dioxide people are adding was once part of the atmosphere. I would have thought, the carbon came from the air, and is simply being put back. The Earth might get hotter, but so what. During at least some of the time when there were dinosaurs, the Earth did not have polar ice capes. Therefore, if people put all the carbon from the coal and oil into the air, one would expect the Earth to get warmer, but not unlivably so.
None-the-less, I supported the work of most of the people who were fighting global warming. The reason has to do with handling resources. Most, if not all, of the proposals by this crowd is simply good use of resources. That is, eventually the oil will run out - the question is when, not if. Therefore, an attempt to live with no oil usage is a good thing against the day when it is gone.
Also, oil is used for making plastics, etc., and it would be better to use this resource to make plastic than to burn it, or (as happens) use it to make children.
I think that one could make a serious case that global warming has already averted an ice age.
Recently, however, I was reading an article by someone who made the comment that global warming wasn't an issue. He cited statistics from a book I'd not read. The statistics seemed bogus (that is, he blamed natural sources, such as plants, for creating global warming). I decided I might want to write an article blasting the book as bing inaccurate, so I checked the book out from the library and read it.
The book was not bogus, the quotation was. That is, the author in the book was trying to point out the problem of global warming, and the quote that was taken out of context was part of his argument! He convinced me that my logic (expressed above) was faulty.
The way it was presented was that there is a carbon cycle. Just as water is recycled on the planet, so is carbon. In the short term cycle, some carbon is removed by living plants, which is then returned to the atmosphere when the plant dies, and is either burned or rots. Some is diverted through the animal kingdom, but it eventually all comes to the same thing, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere.
There is also a long term cycle. This is the one that coal and oil use messes with. That is, some of the carbon taken out by plants doesn't return to the atmosphere by rotting or burning. It eventually accumulates. I understand that this is what is going on in a peat bog, although I have not seen one. It is then covered up by dirt, mud, or something. Over time (eons) the land itself is pushed underground, with the carbon still in it. Over more eons, the carbon is stirred in with the other rocks, eventually coming into a volcano, or some such. This is accounts for the carbon which is seen coming from volcanoes.
With coal and oil use, this long term cycle is short circuited. That is, carbon destined to remain underground for eons more is brought to the surface and burned, releasing the carbon into the atmosphere.
All this was interesting, but not convincing. What convinced me that global warming is a real problem is when the book indicated the amount of carbon in these cycles. That is, for each ton of carbon in the atmosphere, there is at least a hundred tons caught in the long term cycle.
The significance of this is that it is quite possible for people to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than was in the atmosphere at any point in all the existence of the Earth. If this is true, then there could be warming on a scale the Earth has never seen in the past, even when it had not ice caps. This could be serious. Worrying about a few cities going under water is nothing.
(I wrote a program which took data from the United States government, and displays graphically what the world would look like if all the ice on the planet were melted. Perhaps I will display a screen shot of or two from that program.)
Therefore, what could be done? First, burn less oil, coal, etc. So called renewable resources take their carbon from the short term cycle, which really doesn't make much difference. The second is use more plastic. That is, any carbon used in plastic which does not decompose for a long time (thousands of years) is good for global warming because the carbon, whatever its source, is being placed into a long term cycle, and is, therefore, not being used for global warming. Third, use less energy, since the less energy used the more likely the short term cycle will supply enough carbon for our burning needs.
I am enclosing some screen shots of each of the contents indicating the effect global warming would have on the coastline. In each case, green is used to indicate land that will not be flooded. Black indicates land that is not flooded now, but will be if the ice caps melt. Blue indicates the current oceans. Each picture is a perspective projection taken from varying heights. I did not include Antarctica because the coastlines would be rather inaccurate. That is, I suspect the data I used probably measures the top of the ice sheet, and simply removing that would change things.
North America after global warming. The black areas are flooded.
Europe after global warming. The black areas are flooded.
Asia after global warming. The black areas are flooded.
Africa after global warming. The black areas are flooded.
Australia after global warming. The black areas are flooded.