This type of technology should be used to help power street lights, stop lights and the like.

Could someone please tell me how much humans are contributing to GW? I'm not talking about atmospheric CO2 levels either. Barring all other factors ie; nature, cycles, solar output, animals, carbon dioxide sinks, etc, etc, etc, how much GW are humans solely responsible for? What percentage of global warming is directly attributed to mankind? Saying that we are contributing alot isn't going to cut it. Numbers anyone?

In all fairness, if we are to impose taxes and credits for human induced global warming, don't we need a base figure to assess this amount?

Rich,

That is the $64K question. The metrics pertaining to this discussion are subjective since there was no baseline metric possible on CO2 in the atmosphere before manmade emissions. If we knew what CO2 levels were before the industrial revolution and what they are now, we could make a determination as to the impact. Keep in mind that CO2 is just one of the contributors to the greenhouse effect, so metrics on CO2 would not tell the entire story on manmade contributions to the greenhouse effect. Global warming is, in my opinion, a convenient political term.

SM:

It is already being commonly used in low powered traffic warning systems and remote weather monitoring stations.

Rich:

While a logical person might presume that having a base upon which to establish a fair tax makes sense, to certain segments of the population, a base is not required. It must be merely shown that having additional monies will further their specific causee in some manner. This can be clearly seen in the present distribution of tax burden. Therefore, establishing a base CO2 amount, impossible as Bill mentioned, is a moot point.

Bill, the baseline used is 280 ppm, which was the CO2 concentration before the Industrial Revolution. Currently we are at 383 ppm and continuing to rise annually.

And to answer your question, Rich, we are responsible for virtually all of the extra 103 ppm in our atmosphere. Thankfully, some of nature's carbon sinks have absorbed about half of our CO2 emissions; otherwise, we'd be looking at around 450 ppm at this point.

Rich,

Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a variety of sources, and over 95% percent of these emissions would occur even if human beings were not present on Earth. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.

Dave

Mark,

Where can you base the actual proof we are responsible for all the extra ppm? I mean aside from that gobbledy-gook that "scientists" fluff out?

Mark,

The baseline to which you refer is an "accepted" baseline derived from air bubbles trapped in ice in Antarctica. Samples of air bubbles taken from Greenland during the same time period show higher CO2 levels, which makes sense since Antarctica is rather isolated from vegetation. Barring an apples to apples comparison, the metrics on CO2 are still subjective, in my opinion. Given that, however, you'd have to be daft to believe that CO2 levels are not higher now than prior to the industrial age, aside from periods with volcanic activity. The question lies in the impact of this increase. Causation models would suggest a linear increase in temperature along with the higher levels of CO2, but instead we still have cycles.

I mean aside from that gobbledy-gook that "scientists" fluff out?

Oh, you mean that "gobbledy-gook" with all those silly numbers and things?

Science is hard. Math is hard. Both require discipline. Each requires that we pay rather more attention to what we observe, measure, predict, and test -- and rather less attention to what we "believe."

Somebody better pay attention to all that "gobbledy-gook that 'scientists' fluff out" if Rose's children are to continue to be protected from, for example, dying of strep throat or being deafened by untreatable bacterial otitis media.

Given that, however, you'd have to be daft to believe that CO2 levels are not higher now than prior to the industrial age, aside from periods with volcanic activity.

"Daft"? Or perhaps in a delusional state of denial.

There are all sorts of "causation models" that do not suggest a "linear increase in temperature". I am under the impression that most of the climate models, in fact, are chaotic in nature. The effect of the increased heat (not temperature) is to push the non-linear system that is our atmosphere out the relative equilibrium it has been in and into a region of chaos (in the technical and mathematical sense).

For example, we know that measles are caused by a virus and we know that vaccines do stop that virus from propagating. Researchers thought it was a no-brainer that rising vaccination rates should result in declining measles infection rates. When they did the science, they discovered that the real world is far more complex than that. The early studies have become a textbook example of nonlinear system dynamics.

Surely a system as complex as the atmosphere is more likely to exhibit complex behavior than a system as relatively simple (in comparison) as a common virus and its vaccine.

25 trillion tons of CO2 taken out of the Earth and placed into the atmosphere. Do you think the Earth magically absorbs all of this like a sponge, Rose? You have quite a far-fetched imagination.

And almost all of the things you enjoy in life are thanks to the "gobbledy-gook" those evil scientists have conjured up over the years, Rose. Don't forget that.