Are we killing ourselves? Or just our Children?

[BAC5.2]

Spin doctoring happens. They never said smoking was good for you, they said it wasn't bad for you. There is a difference. It's all about perspective. Bad would be killing you in one drag. So, smoking isn't bad for you. A quick clinical test of 10,000 people taking one drag of a cigarette and not dying is proof.

True scientific research can be trusted with a grain of salt. Always read the fine print.

Splinter is absolutely right though. There are a LOT worse things out there than automobiles. His facts about 95% of greenhouse gases being emitted from natural sources is also correct (and plays into my ideas about global warming).

But isn't the issue more about overall clenliness? It IS true, that today we are producing more pollution than has ever been produced by humans before. Has it had an impact, well it depends on who you ask. Compared to the global trends of pollution, it's not a significant portion, but it's effects are noticeable. Look at Los Angeles in the summer.

Plus, it's just annoying. Seeing bigass tractor trailers spew ridiculous amounts of exhaust in front of your car is annoying.

The EPA needs to step up and help clean up the loopholes. Luckily, more strict diesel emissions regulations are in the works.

I'm more concerned with the effect of pollution on aquatic wildlife. Not so much the ocean, but areas like the Chesapeake Bay. I've actually seen the effects of pollution on the bay first hand. When the 2-stroke motor goes away, I'll be a bit happier.

Still, what's wrong with keeping a cat on the car?

[thefultonhow]

Splinter is absolutely right though. There are a LOT worse things out there than automobiles. His facts about 95% of greenhouse gases being emitted from natural sources is also correct (and plays into my ideas about global warming).

The Earth's temperature is maintained by that 95% -- so if there is 5% more, the earth's temperature goes up. The 95% has always been there, so it stands to reason that if we add more greenhouse gases the current (or past, at this point) balance gets upset.

As to Splinter and Subtle: you are basically armchair philosophers with very little scientific knowledge. I will believe the people who study this kind of thing for a living, thank you very much.

[Subtle]

The theory about anthropomorphic warming doesn't hold in the face of temps being as warm now as they were in the late 1200s. Very few people around then and no cars.

Pollution then in towns was severe with open sewers, tanneries, and slaughter houses all doing a number on the quality of life.

Nor does the theory explain warming of the Martian climate.

[evolutionmovement]

I think we all need to do our part whether we believe global warming is caused by us or not, the fact remains that airborne pollutants have a negative effect on health and structures. Go to an ancient site and look at the accelerated aging effects of acid rain on monuments that have otherwise stood for thousands of years. Most of the sculptures on the Acropolis have been removed and put indoors for protection and substituted with reproductions.

Cars are drfinitely the easiest scapegoat and only one of the biggest problems due to the sheer number, not due to their specific pollutant output. Aircraft, especially jet engines, the space program, coal burning power plants (we have one near me and they pay the nearby residents car wash credits as well as pressure cleaning their houses every year and years ago they bought up and razed the closest houses), marine engines, and lawn equipment. I used to do landscaping in high school and the emissions from the lawn mowers and weed wackers would give me massive migraines and nausea.

The Coast Guard won't allow cats on marine engines due to the extreme heat being a risk of fire. Thankfully, though, there are some standards and 2-strokes are pretty much being legislated out of existance which is great as the 4-stroke marine engines also happen to be a hell of a lot quieter. You can't even hear a 4-stroke outboard at speed. I heard California was going to ban all 2-strokes, but I don't know what happened with that.

Too bad it would be too impractical to equip large freighters with nuclear powerplants like our carriers and they'd only have to refuel it about every 20 or 30 years.

Here in MA that drunk POS Kennedy defeated a large offshore wind farm that would've supplied the whole Cape Cod's electricity (over the coal plants they use now), but he didn't want to have to see them from his mansion on the island ... those little specs he would've just been able to make out through his blurry double vision from miles away. The excuse was migrating birds, but the Canadian geese and sea gulls we have millions of that are too stupid not to fly into the slow moving fan blades of modern wind turbines are no loss. Besides, their bodies could feed the depleting fish population.

[thefultonhow]

The theory about anthropomorphic warming doesn't hold in the face of temps being as warm now as they were in the late 1200s. Very few people around then and no cars.

Pollution then in towns was severe with open sewers, tanneries, and slaughter houses all doing a number on the quality of life.

Nor does the theory explain warming of the Martian climate.

Nobody is arguing that there are not climatic cycles, but the question is whether humans are affecting them, and the overwhelming consensus is we are. If you would like to continue to ignore science, then go right ahead, but don't expect to be able to defend your opinion with simple rhetoric when presented with facts.

There is no question that other human activities besides driving passenger cars contribute much more to greenhouse gas (primarily CO2) output, but hey, every little bit counts.

[Splinter]

Well then, I advice you to shut off your computer now. Its not strictly necessary to be using it, and the electricity is being generated through non-green power plants!

While you're at it, stop eating meat. Cows are a huge producer of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Do you really NEED a burger? No.

Buy a bike, and bike to work. You might have to leave a little earlier for work but hey, every little bit counts, right?

[thefultonhow]

If I was actually an extremist, then yeah, I might already have been doing what you just suggested. Luckily I'm not. There are plenty of ways to maintain our standard of living while using a bit or a lot less in the way of resources. We can drive smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; build better public transportation; build more nuclear and renewable-energy power plants; crack down on industrial emissions; the list goes on.

The point is that we're hardly trying now, and if we tried harder to prevent global warming, even if only incrementally harder, we might keep Manhattan, New Orleans, and most of Florida (to say nothing of, oh, the entire country of Bangladesh) from going underwater.

[Splinter]

So it'd be too extreme for you not to eat beef, but its not too extreme for me to want a fast car?

If you want to preach to people, you should try setting an example yourself, and cutting something out of your lifestyle thats important to YOU.

I do lots of conservative (environmentally speaking) things, and running a catless car will be clear on my conscience.

[thefultonhow]

There's no reason to outlaw fast cars, but steps should be taken to discourage their use and/or to make them more efficient. A higher gas tax and higher CAFE standards with fewer loopholes would go a long way towards this goal. More importantly, carpooling and use of public transit should be encouraged -- because if you drive a 30-mpg car 3000 miles a month, you're still using more gas and producing more emissions than if you drive a 20-mpg car 1500 miles a month.

And there is nothing wrong with a catless car as long as it still runs fairly clean. Even then, you're producing the same amount of greenhouse gas with or without a cat.

[Murphy]

what about huge ocean going vessels? those things burn hundreds of gallons per hour of the lowest grade fuel oil and from what I have heard, have no emissions equipment whatsoever.

i just wanted to say something about that
yes they do use a hell of a lot of fuel, but thats what it takes to move a ship, there are bad ships, but oil tankers are the fuel efficient vehicles on earth, the dont have good mpg (or gpm) but they have the best fuel consumption/weitgh ratio of any motor vehicle on earth, because once your ship displaces so much water, it doesnt take a bigger engine to push it, they can make the boat as long as they want and it will use the same motor, they all use a single small(for a ship) engine, if you compared it to a car, it would be like running a semi on a lawnmower engine

.....saw that on the discovery channel

coal fired power plants produce much more emmission than a 1000 cars could dream about, they also put out sulfur, mercury, and other polutants that come off the coal, very few have the new filters on them (proven to make them 95% cleaner), most of are coal plants were built before they had restrictions to go by

[Splinter]

higher gas tax

All higher taxes do is promote the idea that rich people can get away with whatever they like. I make $12 an hour, should that mean that Im not allowed to drive a car as inefficient as someone who makes $50 an hour and wont care about the cost of fuel?

[Subtle]

David talks about more rules and regulations. This has been one of my main points, which is that "global warming" is being used to transfer enormous and unending power to the governing classes.

In the 1980s with the obvious collapse of centrally planned socialism in the totalitarian countries of Eastern Europe the control freaks could no longer work their way in promoting socialism.

With no reward there the control freaks gradually pushed into the enviromental movement. I used to have the article that documented this --name by name.

In the Sixteenth Century legions of Jesuit priests went out to conquer the world in order to save otherwise doomed souls. In the late 1800s and early 1900s thousands of Christian missionaries went around the world to save souls. These were voluntarily funded through charity.

Now legions of the new missionaries are out there seriously convinced that they can do much more than save souls--they can save the planet
Largely this is being funded coercively from the taxpayer.

Incredible egos with profound delusions.

[know1]

I agree with splinter. Higher taxes would only help the elitest screw over the middle class more. As for pollutants, I think it's funnt that a bunch of 4 cylinder engine owners are arguing with each other over this. I think we are all doing the world a favor by having turbo charged 4 cylinder engines. I bet they are a lot less polluting than an 8 cylinder engine putting out the same hp. I think some of the biggest polluters are coal plants, iron smelting plants, the popularity of 2 stroke engines in vehicles in asia (mainly southeast asia) and the military (because they don't have to answer to anyone). Where I live (British Columbia) we use a lot of hydro electric plants, but ever since an American company bought our provincial power company now we are having a bunch of coal plants opening up, THAT is the problem. A few rich people who to the best of my deducting skills seem to want to destroy the planet when there are obvious other opportunities for clean energy.

[BAC5.2]

The Earth's temperature is maintained by that 95% -- so if there is 5% more, the earth's temperature goes up. The 95% has always been there, so it stands to reason that if we add more greenhouse gases the current (or past, at this point) balance gets upset.

As to Splinter and Subtle: you are basically armchair philosophers with very little scientific knowledge. I will believe the people who study this kind of thing for a living, thank you very much.

Um.... before there were cars and people, 100% of the greenhouse gases were produced by nature. Saying that only 5% of the current greenhouse gas production is from cars and humans, is TOTALLY different than saying there is 5% MORE greenhouse gas emissions. Simple semantics here.

Actually, I'd almost imagine that net greenhouse gas emissions are almost what they were several thousand years ago. I remember from AP environmental and a few bio and envi-sci classes in college, and having discussions about this sort of thing. How lots of "OMG LOOK" charts of the spike in greenhouse gases and global climate are very narrow banded, showing stupid dates like from 1800 to 1970. But looking at the grand scheme, back in and around 1200BCE, the global climate looked the same, and if you zoom in on any 200 year period, it looks about the same as it did in the 1800-1970 picture. Kind of interesting.

If you compared net greenhouse gas emissions of today to 1000BCE, I bet they'd be comprable. Why? Because back then, nature spewed a lot of greenhouse gas into the environment. I could assign some arbitrary number to that, but it'd be pointless because I can't back it up. But think this through with me.

Currently, they say there's a problem with greenhouse gas emissions. 95% of current emissions are due to nature. We can play around and say that for every cubic meter of air there is 100ppm of greenhouse gas. 95ppm is due to nature.

Flash back 3,000 years. 100% of gas emissions were from nature, but how much was nature producing back then? Well, there were a lot more trees, a lot more animals, and, presumably at least an equal or even greater amount of greenhouse gas emitted. I mean, global deforestation of today has certainly cut down on the amount of nature left to emit greenhouse gas, right? So, have we balanced history out? Is the world emitting the same amount of gas that it was 3 milennia ago?

I have no idea. But that's not the point. The point is, at least make an effort to keep a cat on your car. It's not going to do you any harm. You might lose a few horsepower, but you won't have to deal with the smell of hydrocarbons.

I could probably go digging through my notes and such from those classes and provide real examples, but I'm lazy and it's not worth it.

BUT, if you search, it should be fairly easy to find lots of information about global, cyclic, climatic variations through history. If you look at trends which span more than 200 years time, you'll see that it's not as bad as it seems. Every year, it does get warmer. But it's been happening for several thousand years. Periods of increasing temperature, then a decline, then increasing temperature, then a decline.

Have we hurt the environment by the simple process of human existance? As a global community, we probably haven't made a concious effort to improve nature, no. As a well developed nation, we should take it upon ourselves to try and better then environment as best we can, to at least minimize our impact. It's a responsibility shared by all developed nations. Developing nations produce gross amounts of pollution because they don't have the technology to clean up their act. Should the UN begin donating technology to these countries to help clean up?

The little things, on a global scale, can make a difference. Get rid of nasty 2-stroke engines. Increase emissions regulations for work trucks and diesels. Start holding companies responsible for the negative impacts they have on the environment as a whole (stop looking the other way). That last one might not happen, because there's apparently a lot of money in looking the other way regarding illegal activity. Things need to be done, and it's not hard. I'm glad there are communities and orginizations out there tying to do their part with their local community. Communities that stand up against building a highway to connect two highways that connect 3 miles down the road. Communities that don't look the other way when something uncouth goes down.

I'll tell you one thing though, I am impressed with Subaru's. It's been documented that, through no special means, a modified Sport Sedan can pass an emissions sniffer test without any emissions devices in place. My catless 94SS was cleaner on the sniffer than my 93 Ford Ranger was on the dyno. And with a cat, I made a good bit of power (more than enough to beat up on WRX's). It's no excuse to run no cats, but at least we aren't as bad as other cars. Look at Nascar!

End rant. Continue with your lives. This is all pointless bickering anyway, the topic was about catalytic converters on our cars. In that, I agree with Frank. I no longer see a point in not doing that. In hindsight, if I could do it over, I never would have taken the cat off of my old car.

[Splinter]

Its entirely a matter of scale.

I could pretty easily throw together a simple report that 'proves' human beings have actually massively reduced greenhouse gasses. A meagar 100 million years ago there was millions of tons of deadly nitrates, sulphides, and heavy metals being released into the atmosphere on a daily basis. In the last few decades though, there has been a significant reduction.

[entirelyturbo]

I'm going to sound like a dumbass who doesn't want to do research or just has an overall negative opinion, but here's what I'm going to say:

We are doomed. Period. How? I'm not sure.

Could it be that we'll run out of fossil fuel before we find an energy source that will meet the demand, and then the complete shutdown of industry will cause society at large to collapse? Possibly.

Could we indeed be polluting this planet to the point where we are going to make it inhabitable, and we all die of asphyxiation or some other horrific malaise? Maybe.

However, I give a lot of credit to the law of physics that states that nothing can be created or destroyed. That said, I don't think we have enough resources to destroy this planet. We haven't taken anything substantial from any other planet, we've only done the damage we have with stuff that was already on this planet. Maybe we'll run out of fossil fuel long before we actually cause any permanent damage to the planet. Eventually, even if it's tens of thousands of years later, what has been done will be undone.

Or could we simply overpopulate the earth and could the shortage of food and living space all other resources cause worldwide decimation of the human population, and send us back to the primal survival-of-the-fittest Dark Ages? It could happen.

Yes, I know, I have no evidence to back any of this up, and I'm not saying it's gospel truth anyway. It's just some possibilities of what will happen.

The only thing I'm sure of is that it will happen. And honestly, that is the number-one reason why I do not want to have children, because I fear that they will be around to see it happen.

[Splinter]

Far more destructive things have happened to this planet than we could ever accomplish

The worry isnt so much that we'll 'destroy the planet' as destroy our ecosystem. Basically make it uninhabitable by mankind... Or at least massively reduce our population.

In the overall grand scheme of things, its doesnt really matter. One day the human race will be gone and replaced by something different. In the lesser scheme of things, it'd be nice to delay that for as long as possible.

[Subtle]

David
I took a degree in Geophysics before science became corrupted by political expedience. What you have been caught up in should rightly be called "political science".

Splinter
Parson Malthus in the late 1700s promoted his personal convictions that the population was growing faster than the farmers could expand food production. At regularly recurring highs in commodities and inflation someone from the intellectual side will make the same personal discovery and promote it as if it was a new idea. The concept has never happened.

Subyluvr
There was a joking way of looking at the Laws of Thermodynamics. One dealt with Entropy, which describes that the whole of the universe ultimately is going to become homogeneous. In so many words, "It is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better".

Another law is Entropy, which essentially states that some processes are irreversible. In so many words "Who says it's going to get any better".

'Nuff said.

[rallysam]

Subtle, Splinter,

There is now a consensus in the scientific community (literally thousands of scientists from around the world, who did more than just get a geophysics degree). Even Bush and the oil companies have now admitted there is abnormal global warming caused by human activity, and we're headed for the badness.

This is not a matter of scientists being bought. Yes, there were a lot of scientists being bought by the oil lobby and other scientists being gagged by the white house. But, both the oil lobby and white house have very quietly given up on that strategy in the past few years and changed their story significantly. Now, they admit we must fight global warming, but lobby to make the fixes as painless and self-serving as possible (i.e. choose solutions that benefit midwestern farmers).

[rallysam]

On the topic of "what can we do?"

No one can be perfect, but everyone can try things here or there. For example, we want to have fun by playing with a car that uses more gas and is not tuned quite as earth-friendly as a Prius. So, why not save it for the weekend only? Walk, bike, bus, train to work and to the store. Or, you could get a cheap little crapbox and drive it to work.

Getting to work without emitting lots of carbon IS possible for some of us (not everyone of course). Especially if we keep it in the back of your mind when we switch jobs or houses... maybe it makes sense to get a place that is close to stores, or close to public transportation, or close to our jobs.

It's not nearly as impossible as most people think.

[Tleg93]

Gases: Man versus the Volcanoes
Do we add more gases to the atmosphere or do volcanoes? It's a simple question with a complicated answer. Reaching a good estimate is important in guiding global policy for standards to reduce emissions from man-made sources of gases.

Carbon Dioxide

Present-day carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from subaerial and submarine volcanoes are uncertain at the present time. Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 10E12 mol/yr from volcanoes. This is a conservative estimate. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times.

Sulfur Emissions

Andres and Kasgnoc (1997) estimated the time-averaged inventory of subaerial volcanic sulfur emissions. There inventory was based upon the 25 year history of making sulfur measurements, primarily sulfur dioxide (SO2), at volcanoes. Actual measurements of subaerial volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions indicate a time-averaged flux of 13 Tg/yr sulfur dioxide from early 1970 to 1997. [Note: a Tg is equal to 10E12 grams]. About 4 Tg come from explosive eruptions and 9 Tg is released by passivedegassing, in an average year. When considering the other sulfur species also present in volcanic emissions, a time-averaged inventory of subaerial volcanic sulfur emissions is 10.4 Tg/yr sulfur.

Volcanoes and other natural processes release approximately 24 Tg of sulfur to the atmosphere each year. Thus, volcanoes are responsible for 43% of the total natural S flux each year. Man's activities add about 79 Tg sulfur to the atmosphere each year. In an average year, volcanoes release only 13% of the sulfur added to the atmosphere compared to anthropogenic sources. Andres and Kasgnoc (1997) noted that the bulk of the anthropogenic flux is located in the northern hemisphere while volcanic fluxes occur in much more focused belts around the world.

Gases from Kilauea provides a comparison of a man-made sulfur dioxide gas leaked at a refinery to the gas released by a volcano.



Data compiled by Cadle (1980). Most of the gases emitted by the ocean return to the oceans.

Heavy Metals

Volcanoes also release heavy metal elements as particulate matter. Buat-Menard and Arnold (1978) looked at heavy metals released by Etna. Compared to anthropogenic (man-made) sources, the amount of lead released by Etna is insignificant, the amounts of cadmium, mercury, copper, and zinc are comparable; and the amount of selenium is greater than other sources in the Mediterranean atmospheric environment.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources of Information:

Andreae M.O., 1990, Ocean-atmosphere interaction in the global biogeochemical sulfur cycle: Marine Chemistry, v. 30: 1-29.

Andres, R.J., and Kasgnoc, A.D., Global Emissions Inventory Activity, 1997, Global Emissions Inventory Activity: Time-Averaged Inventory of Volcanic Sulfur Emissions.

Barnes, Ivan, Irwin, W.P., and White, D.E., 1978, Global distribution of carbon dioxide discrages, and major zones of seismicity: U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Investigation 78-79, Open-File Report, 12 p.

Bates, T.S., Lamb, B.K., Guenther, A., Dignon, J., Stoiber, R.E., 1992, Sulfur emissions to the atmosphere from natural sources. Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry 14:315-337.

Buat-Menard, P., and Arnold, M., 1978, The heavy metal chemistry of atmospheric particulate matter emitted by Mount Etna volcano: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 5, p. 245.

Cadle, R.D., 1980, A comparison of volcanic with other fluxes of atmospheric trace gas constituents: Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics, v. 18, p. 746-752.

Tamar Elias, written communication, , 28 May 1997.

Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (EOS), v. 72, p. 249, and 254-255.

Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Etna's Greenhouse Pump: Nature, 351, p. 352-353.

Gerlach, T.M., 1990, Natural Sources of Greenhouse gases: CO2 emissions from volcanoes. Geothermal Resources Council Transactions, vol. 14, part I, pp. 639-641,



http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html

[evolutionmovement]

$50/hr isn't a lot of money if you throw it away (at least not in this part of the country). I still care a lot about mileage as does my boss who makes triple what I do. I'm not crying about what I make now and I'm not so accustomed to money that I have no perspective. I was working at Pep Boys just a couple years ago for $8.50 and got $15 as a boat mechanic. I never made more than 40k prior to that either, but if I have the misfortune of living long I'd like to be able to enjoy it.

I refinish old furniture for my house and recycle building material wherever I can in remodelling. I throw out so little I put out a bag about every three weeks to trash and almost all of that is food packaging and junk mail.

[rallysam]

What do conservative media outlets and oil companies say about global warming?

Fox
"The report blamed man-made emissions of greenhouse gases for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts, and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean...
The 21-page report represents the most authoritative science on global warming as the panel comprises hundreds of scientists and representatives."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,249659,00.html

Shell
"We share the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) from human activities is leading to changes in global climate. Action is needed now to lay the foundation for stabilising GHG levels in the atmosphere"
http://www.shell.com/static/envandsoc-e ... t_2005.pdf


So, "deniers" have found themselves in a pretty small club, now.

[BAC5.2]

I found this image pretty interesting...



Global warming is an issue, because we could, ultimately, die. But it's nothing that hasn't happened before. It's definately warmer now than it was 100 years ago, but in the days of the dinosaurs, it was HOT. Really hot.

I hope the USGOV doesn't mind me borrowing this image:



I also like this one



In those last two, the dashed line is the current world average temperature (15C).

Ice core samples show that when the temperature was higher, CO2 was also higher. So driving around, our cars producing a lot of CO2, our power plants doing the same, it's not helping. But is the current climate a sign of impending doom? I'm not entirely sure. Looking at history, it's been MUCH warmer than it is now, but it's also been a lot colder. In the span of Human existance (modern existance), the global temperature has definately increased. What's the breaking point? Is it only going to get hotter? It probably will only continue to get warmer for the rest of our lives and the lives of our children. Sometime down the line, will the earth's global temperature recover? Yea, it probably will, and there will probably be another Ice Age (which looks to happen about every 100,000 years. It's been 20,000 years since the last one. Are we doomed? We are all going to die. That's unavoidable. Are we ruining the earth? Is that the question we should be asking? If you eat on a clean plate everytime you eat, and you have a seemingly endless supply of plates, does that mean you should never do the dishes? It's just good morals to take car of the earth. EVEN if it makes no difference, how is it going to hurt you to have a cat on the car, or to pick up trash when you see it, or walk when you can?

It's taking care of yourself, as well as the environment, if you think about it. Does it really matter if we are ruining the earth. If we aren't, does it make unnecessary polluting "alright"?

I'm with Sam on the "what we can do" stuff. It's why I stopped daily driving the Legacy after it broke. I envy those who can ride a bike to work or school every day. Unfortunately, I have a long commute to school.

[Subtle]

Scott

Volcanic activity has been unusually low since the 1960s which activitly has a definate cooling influence. One outstanding example was the surge in activity in the early 1300s that was part of the events that ended that prolonged warming trend.

Eruptions in Iceland essentially wiped out a few years of crops in Europe at, if memory serves, 1310 such that the famine caused some 10 % depopulation.

Also the huge out put of sulfur compounds not only screened a lot of the sun's energy it dumped a lot of acid rain.

The cooling trend weakened the population making it more vulnerable to the plague when it arrived in 1346 - 1347.

The Hawaiian Islands are examples of Shield Volcanoes which mainly s spew out lava. The climate-altering action comes from the dramatic blow ups of the volcanoes rising out of the subduction zones, such as St. Helens in 1980, which was modest to the big ones such as Santorini in 1450 BC or Tambora in 1815 that forced 1816 to be called the "year with no summer". In NY state, for example, three attempts at planting were killed by frost and then it was Fall.

As noted in earier posts, the theory of anthropogenic climate warming does not explain the warming trend that ran from the Sixth Century until 1300, when it got as warm as it is now.

The argument is also an example of a primitive syllogism.

As mentioned in a earlier post, the other contributor to the Little Ice Age was diminished solar out put.

Now the opposite has prevailed--diminished volcanic aerosols and increased solar out put.

For more fun we could discuss the popular superstitions about "depleting the ozone layer".