BS: Science under attack.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:44 PM

Again, the encyclopedia.

There is so much peer-reviewed science that goes so far beyond the encyclopedia, that it is plain silly to be arguing using that. It's like trying to build your own spaceship from plans you got from a comic book. The information may not be incorrect, but it is so simplistic and non-comprehensive of other critical factors that it is just not meaningful.

The "if some is good, more is better" argument is unscientific. If we were to argue in aphorisms, I would reply with "Too much of a good thing can be harmful".

If you are sick and taking medicine to make you well, will you get better three times faster by taking three times the medicine?

Yes, it is possible to increase plant growth with increased CO2 under controlled conditions. It also requires increased water and increased nutrients, and increased organic matter, and protection from invasive insect or other predators and parasites.

Where will the extra water come from?
Where will the extra nutrients and organic matter come from?
Might a slight change in climate invite migration of new predators and diseases?

There is solid historical evidence of a sudden rise in CO2 causing widespread significant plant damage. Read here:

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1960.full.pdf+html

There are many many more examples of humans altering ecosystems to "improve" them (based on an encyclopedia level understanding of complex interactions) that result in ecosystem collapse. Plenty more original sources where that came from. So, are you a skeptic or a denier? We shall see.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:47 PM

Sorry...clicky

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 06:29 PM

Increasing the level of carbon dioxide in greenhouses produces a perdictable increase in yield, up to 40% more depending on the crop and other coditions. This technique has been used in practice for decades.

Here, get a system for your...

                                                                                                               greenhouse

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 06:42 PM

People who have been around agriculture known about carbon dioxide augmentation in greenhouses. Since others seen not to have heard of it, I said we must get "back to basisc" in a previous post.

Here is a fine article from our Canadian friends, courtesy of the...

                                                                            Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 06:57 PM

I get it now PDQ, You think that since CO2 in the atmosphere causes a "greenhouse effect" that it would be like pumping more CO2, into the greenhouse. Two words "closed system." A green house is, from the point of view of individual plants. The whole outdoors is not.

The limitations on plant growth and agriculture OUTDOORS are nutrients and water. I have no doubt that increasing CO2, where water and nutrients are optimized will increase plant production. But assuming that in entire Earth's ecosystem, water and nutrients ARE optimized, it frankly, ignorant and not worthy of a man of your obvious educational attainment.

Here is something to consider. Clearly your interpretation of "the carbon cycle" is not working because the amount of atmospheric CO2 is increasing. If what you are saying was true, wouldn't we have the same amount of atmospheric CO2 and more plants?

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 07:26 PM

A small, closed greenhouse is a lot simpler than the entire Earth.
Did you read the science?
What if we add bugs to the greenhouse?
Increasing the CO2 increases the carbon/nitrogen ratio in the plant matter, making it less nutritious for herbivorous predators, which then must eat more, and it is detrimental to the plants.
The record for the PETM is very clear.
Your "CO2 is plant food argument is a nice example of the "fallacy of exclusion" in which a *single* cause and effect relationship is presented as the only cause and effect relationship amongst *many* that may be at work in a system. This is a rhetorical trick, not a scientific argument.
If you want to talk science above a comic book level, please read the original sources.
One is posted above.
A person with your obvious education and intelligence (and as attested by others) should be perfectly capable of reading and understanding this.
Then we can discuss the original sources as skeptic to skeptic.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 07:36 PM

And, it is not just bugs.
Perhaps you could take the time to read this one also...

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/298/5600/1987.short

Here's the abstract if you can't get to the full article:

"Simulated global changes, including warming, increased precipitation, and nitrogen deposition, alone and in concert, increased net primary production (NPP) in the third year of ecosystem-scale manipulations in a California annual grassland. Elevated carbon dioxide also increased NPP, **but only as a single-factor treatment**. Across all multifactor manipulations, elevated carbon dioxide suppressed root allocation, decreasing the positive effects of increased temperature, precipitation, and nitrogen deposition on NPP. The NPP responses to interacting global changes differed greatly from simple combinations of single-factor responses. These findings indicate the importance of a **multifactor** experimental approach to understanding ecosystem responses to global change."

(emphasis by TIA)

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 07:38 PM

People can't be expected to rid themselves of all misconceptions about a complex subject in a single day.

Perhaps we can settle for replacing one misconception each day until they are all gone.

Here is the one for today: "carbon dioxide is a pollutant" and was declared so by the totally politicized director of the EPA.

Fact is CO₂ is the key ingrediant in all life on Earth. It is made into carbohydrates by plant. Animals cannot produce their own food so they are dependant on plants for food, or on animals that have eaten plants. Yes, carbon dioxide is the key ingrediant in all life, not just plants.

When you here someone state that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, please correct the mistake. It's the least you can do.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 08:01 PM

Potassium is not a poison. It is absolutely essential to brain and heart function.

Yet they use it to kill people on death row.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: bobad
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 08:14 PM

Biologically speaking any substance given in high enough doses can be poisonous.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 08:20 PM

People drown in water.

BAN WATER!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 09:12 PM

Bobad, PDQ, I am glad we have all reached the same conclusion.

Water cooling a Nuclear Reactor: Good
Water breaching a Nuclear Reactor: Bad

CO2 in the carbon cycle: Nurishment and Good
CO2 increasing beyond the carbon cycle's capacity to absorb it: Pollution and Bad

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Ringer
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 09:53 AM

"...the "fallacy of exclusion" in which a *single* cause and effect relationship is presented as the only cause and effect relationship amongst *many* that may be at work in a system. This is a rhetorical trick, not a scientific argument."

A bit like attributing global warming solely to CO2, in fact.

"All the sub-systems within the planet-wide ecosystem are interconnected; change one and they all change. Problem is, we don't know to what degree and how."

Agreed; but one consequence of that logic is that it is dangerous to reduce (as if we could!) atmospheric CO2. Since "we don't know to what degree and how" that change will affect all other variables we could be doing more harm than good. It is the nature of a chaotic system (such as the planetary atmospheric-system) to be unpredictable; but all you warmistas seem so confident in your predictions of doom. Shome mishtake, surely.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 10:29 AM

A bit like attributing global warming solely to CO2, in fact.

Yeah who would have thought a green house gas would ad heat.

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 07:34 PM

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/28-12

Willy gives me the willies. It's easy to bribe some scientists to deny
global warming or climate change.

New physics by the Koch Brothers.

Creationism on clay tablets delivered by the descending emissary of Mount Texas.

(Endorsed by Bachmann and Perry)

Subject: RE: BS: Science under attack.
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 08:04 PM

There is always a market for people to shill for vested interests.