Long-term cycles are involved, not short-term trends, and many respected scientists think that a cooling cycle is really coming...
...and global cooling puts humanity more at risk than does global warming - food crops, not rising oceans, will be the big issue.
Even without our influence, climate and geography are never fixed. A beneficial climate may last for generations, but our Earth (and it's atmosphere) never stands still.
How Much CO2 is in Our Air?
The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and warming the surface through heat retention ("greenhouse effect", which we need to protect us from the freezing temperatures of space).
Currently our air contains approximately 77% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.
The remaining 2% of gases often are referred to as "trace gases," among which are the greenhouse gases such as water vapor (up to 1% on wet days), argon (0.93%), and carbon dioxide (only 0.038%) - - - and a much lesser amount of methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
Also natural substances in very tiny amounts include dust, pollen & spores, sea spray, volcanic ash, and meteoroids. Various pollutants also may be present, such as chlorine, mercury, and sulfur - such as sulfur dioxide.
CO2 in Earth's Atmosphere in Scale to Human Population over Historical Time
Mitochondrial DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans (bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo-Sapiens) originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
The Last Big Ice Age
There had been not one Ice Age but several. The stupendous ice sheets (several miles thick) had slowly ground south and retreated, time and again. The series of glacial periods had alternated with times of warmer climate, each cycle lasting many tens of thousands of years, and these cycles existed over millions.
10,000 BC - An estimated 1 million people was the world's total human population - The last major ice age, the "Wisconsinan", reached it peak around 18,000 years ago. By 12,000 years ago, glacial melting (due to natural global warming) was in full effect. Glacial Lake Missoula and the Missoula floods can be seen in parts of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
Noah's Flood? - Glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes which were draining into the Aegean Sea. As glaciers retreated, some of the rivers emptying into the Black Sea declined in volume and changed course to drain into the North Sea. There has been sustained fresh water outflow from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for at least 10,000 years.
The Recent Little Ice Age
In 1750 an estimated 800 million people were on the planet earth when global warming was first recorded by Royal Navy ship's logbooks. This also corresponds to the time of "The Little Ice Age". Some sources confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th century to the mid-19th century. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) minimizes this and claims "... the "Little Ice Age" can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere."
Debunking the IPCC - More recent evidence for the time frame of the "Little Ice Age" occurred at several locations in the Southern Hemisphere as well, and is described in documents provided by Spanish and Chilean explorers from the late seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries (from 1675 to 1875). The historical data show that the cooling period at San Rafael glacier in southern Chile was within the temporal window of the European "Little Ice Age".
The Global Population and CO2 in Perspective
The "Late Carboniferous" to "Early Permian" time (315 to 270 million years ago) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (in the "Quaternary Period" ).
Click on Chart Below to Enlarge (very interesting)
Recent Human Population and CO2 Parts-Per-Million
Pre-industrial levels of CO2 are "said to have been" around 280 parts per million (remember, CO2 is 0.038% of our atmosphere).
1960 - World population - 3 billion people - 315 parts-per-million CO2 saturation levels.
2000 - World population - 6 billion people - 368.27 parts-per-million CO2 saturation levels. The world population DOUBLED in the last 40 years during the most man-made polluted time in human history, yet CO2 levels only went up 54 parts-per-million (or 14.5%).
2009 - The world population is almost 7 billion people - 385.99 parts-per-million CO2 saturation levels . We've been using automobiles and airplanes and burning coal to make electricity for about 100 years. During that time over the last 100 years, CO2 levels went up 105 parts-per-million (or less than 0.012%) from 0.026% to 0.038% of the earth's atmosphere. This includes all natural disasters, volcanoes, forest fires, space shuttles, and atomic bombs!
2050 - Forty years from now it's estimated that 9 billion people (tripling in 90 years since 1960) will be competing for global resources (predicted at current birth rates)
*As an aside: The estimate of the total number of people (modern humans) who have ever lived - prepared by Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau - was approximately 106 billion people...about 7 billion presently living and 99 billion who have already died, and who once inhaled oxygen and exhaled CO2.
Everything you need to know about the current climate debate:
Hydrogen - American Energy in 2010 and Beyond
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog3.php/2010/01/08/hydrogen-american-energy-in-2010-and-bey
What If All the Ice Melts? - Myths and Realities
http://tobuds.com/blogs/full-story/myth.htm
Kill the Polar Bears! - They're Destroying Our Planet!
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/01/03/kill-the-polar-bears-they-re-destroying
Cooling Down the Cassandras - By George F. Will - Washington Post
http://tobuds.com/blogs/full-story/myth2.htm
Carbon Emissions, Human Population, and Ice Ages - What it Really Means
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/20/carbon-emissions-human-population-and-ic
Evidence Surfaces from 1782 Disputing Global Warming
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/19/more-evidence-surfaces-disputing-global
New York Times Reports Global Cooling!
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/18/new-york-times-reports-global-cooling
Copenhagen: Scamming the American Taxpayers with "Climate Change"
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/12/copenhagen-scamming-the-american-taxpaye
Climategate Scandal - "Harry Read Me" File - Cap and Trade Farce
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog5.php/2009/12/01/climategate-s-harry-read-me-file-is-a-mu
Al Gore's Fear Mongering on "Climate Change" - Cap and Trade Scam
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/11/10/obama-s-and-al-gore-s-fear-mongering-on
Obama - Intergovernmental Panel on "Climate Change" (IPCC) - Climategate
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/06/obama-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate
DETAILED HISTORICAL DATA (from other posts)
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1806245/posts
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm#L_0252
http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-dioxide-levels.htm
http:// www.climateaudit.org
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