Global Warming experts, please address these claims

[greenman3610]

recently posted on HuffPo:

The world has been much warmer in the past, with three times the current levels of CO2, and the world didn't end.

Since the dawn of the industrial age co2 has increased by about 66 parts per million. It is now 377 ppm. It has been over a thousand and everything was fine. At the current rate of increase it will take longer to hit 600ppm than it will for the oil to run out, and our contribution to the problem will fix itself. So why worry? Sea levels? It will take 1000s of years for the sea level to go up the 23 feet that the total melt of the Greenland ice cap would cause at our current rate of warming. Tundra Methane? Show me. What's organic in the tundra thaws every year, what stays frozen is mud.

[Pathwalker]

1. You need to see An Inconvenient Truth,

all your answers are there. IOW, what was posted is complete bunk.

[hatrack]

2. Vague, maundering, misguided, almost totally lacking in content, context

Trying to "refute" something like this is like trying to climb a giant stick of melting butter.

http://www.realclimate.org

[pooja]

3. Everytime their has been major temperature changes, the earth

has experienced mass global extinction... Maybe humans will be the whooly mammoth that goes this time.

[havocmom]

5. BINGO! THE world won't end, but OUR world will

Say good-night, Gracie...

[XemaSab]

4. When the world had 3 times the current amount of CO2

The world was a giant swamp. Sort of like Florida, only hotter and more humid.

As far as the melting tundra goes, the organic matter in tundra soils is cold and wet and does not decompose. It's like having it in a giant fridge. When you either dry it out or warm it up, then it can start to decay and release large quantities of greenhouse gases.

The person who wrote this is a moran.

[northzax]

8. yes, everything was perfectly fine

for the people who were around then. but I thought the world was only 6000 years old?

wait a minute, I can't keep all this crap straight. which one is it again? 6000 year old world, or a million years ago, neandrathals lived in swamps? I can't figure it out.

[Webster Green]

6. I'll defer to the actual scientists rather than some asshat at huffpo

The debate is OVER as far as they are concerned.

The only reason the morans deny global warming is to lick the butthole of the anti-science/pro greed chimp.

[Imperialism Inc.]

7. I'm no expert but...

The world has been much warmer in the past, with three times the current levels of CO2, and the world didn't end.

Ok. First off. No one is talking about the world itself ending. The issue is about we humans and our civilizations. There could be mass migrations and weather refugees with drastic consequences for human society without the "end of the world".

Has it been "much warmer" during human history. I don't recall any data to that effect but I could be wrong. Besides, what is "much warmer". Whatever the exact quantification is (5 degrees?) I am doubtful that it has been "much warmer" during human history or pre-history.

As far as triple the CO2 that is definitely a false statement if talking about human history. I am doubtful of its accuracy at any point but , like I said, I'm not an expert.

The second paragraph is pretty bas as well. One example is the line about the Arctic methane. First it is not just methane being released but carbon dioxide as well. And it most certainly has already been measured. It is not speculation: http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/9697/Dec17_96/artcl17.htm

[skids]

9. Yeah it's been warmer...

...during periods of mass extinction.

What he's describing is the very scenario we are trying to avoid -- the way the world looks after the tipping point tips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Pre-human_global_warming

As far as his "three times the CO2" argument, ask him this rhetorical question:

"Just how long ago was that?"

Beause it's rather ridiculous to reach back to the times of a supercontinent (no land mass at the poles for glaciers to sit on) to find a "precedent." We know more accurately how CO2 has affected things recently than it did that far back when entire biospheres were completely different. Heck, those were back in the days of the supercontinent.

What's with this guy's obsession with 23 feet of sea level rise? 13 feet would submerge
most coastal cities on the planet. The 3 feet expected for this century, if it doesn't turn out to be more (estimates are always going up) will do plenty of damage in his lifetime.

And there are plenty of other reasons to worry, like ocean acidification killing off the food supply for a huge chunk of the world's population, more and bigger forest fires, drought, and severe weather. (Not to mention spontaneous clathrate release from the ocean floor like what is thought to have caused two of the largest extinction level events, but if he doesn't believe in melting permafrost methane despite the fact that you can go up there and see/smell it bubbling out, then in his fantasy-land he'll think the clathrates were put there by the great pollyanna in the sky for us to burn as fuel.)

(EDIT: the main point is it's not temperature, perse, but rapid change in temperature, that stress the biosphere. If you can get that one point through his thick skull chalk it up as a win and move on.)

[Johonny]

10. Yawn

What's organic in the tundra thaws every year, what stays frozen is mud.

Err what the heck does that mean?