Where are we going Ozdoc? Well, the western world is going Muslim, and is probably headed for dozens of Lebanon style civil wars with the Muslims, but you could not care about that. And if the Muslims win and the west becomes part of the Caliphate, I could not care less if the Earth got ten degrees hotter.

Poirot

As I said in my previous post, most decision makers in most serious countries now accept the reality of global warming. Of course adding CO2 to the atmosphere, when combined with some well understood feedback effects, will cause temperature rises. Except to the scientifically illiterate that's fact.

To me the more interesting questions are these:

--How long will it take? It seems the ocean has a greater capacity to store heat than we thought. This may give us some breathing space.

--Do the benefits of SOME global warming outweigh the costs? This is a contentious issue.

I don't know the answers to these questions and I don’t think anyone can give definitive answers. There is no reason to believe that pre-industrial CO2 levels are in some sense optimal. It could be argued that the warming and CO2 additions to the atmosphere THUS FAR have been a net benefit.

On the other hand if we overshoot we're stuck with high atmospheric CO2 levels for decades. The trouble with the economists, like Richard Tol, who argue that we could do with a bit more global warming, is that they put no price on risk.

The prudent response is to slow down emissions and keep doing the science and keep developing the technology for carbon-free energy. The progress in the latter has been nothing short of astonishing.

"Slow down you're moving too fast" may not have the same resonance among wannabe eco-warriors as a call to arms but it has the advantage of being based on solid evidence.

When I said there is no point in engaging with the scientifically illiterate that also applies to greenies.

As I tell my right wing ex-friends:

Some things are true even if it's Comrade Senator Lee Rhiannon saying them.

And as I tell my left wing ex-friends

Some things are true even if they appear in the Spectator

And as I again urge our editor, get your information from real climate scientists. Avoid both the junk websites and the climate celebrity circuit.

Cohenite

Using your somewhat dubious site in the worst case a human produces 330 kg of co2 per year due to breathing.
The current world population is about 7.046 billion which is increasing at about 1.6% per year, so we are looking at an extra 0.0372 billion metric tonnes due more humans just breathing.

On the other hand we know that humans produced some 35.6 billion tons of CO2 from burning fossil fuels which is increasing at a rate of about 2.5 to 3 % a year. CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels is currently increasing by about 0.89 to 1.068 billion metric tonnes per year.

Emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning is about 0.97/0.0372 or some 26 times faster than that produced by the increase in exhaled CO2 by more humans. This proves your claim below is irrelevant.

“Given that the human population is increasing and emissions from the burning of fossil fuel declining in the West that proportion will be increasing.”

Further to this as I believe has been pointed out to you before, the premise of this argument is any event totally wrong, for the simple reason that the exhaled carbon originates from food, which has previously been removed from the atmosphere in the form of CO2 by the process of photosynthesis.

Oh, I agree warmair, humans are good for the planet; what a fool Ehrlich is.

Anyway the point is the increase in human CO2 emissions is not from the West but from the developing and 3rd world:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/08/the-durban-game/#more-50828

And that isn't going to change:

http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser/#release=IEO2013&subject=0-IEO2013&table=10-IEO2013&region=0-0&cases=Reference-d041117

For those interested in whether Typhoon Haiyan is linked to global warming, Nature sums up the current understanding.

See: http://www.nature.com/news/did-climate-change-cause-typhoon-haiyan-1.14139

NB: The Nature editorial is aimed at the scientifically literate and there would be an understanding that no single event can be linked to global warming. The question whether Haiyan is part of a pattern.

Cohenite

Your last post sounds like a schoolboy saying "It never happened and I didn't do it."

No matter where the emissions of CO2 originate, the effect is the same. The policy response may be different.

On the other hand, what could I expect from someone who thinks breathing has any net effect on atmospheric CO2 levels

How patronising of you steve; most alarmists sound as though they missed school all together and went straight to the indoctrination camp.

Warmair and you obviously think human contribution to CO2 levels is neutral because humans are simply putting back the CO2 which had been sequestered in plants previously; I used a similar argument when the alarmists accused cattle of producing greenhouse gases; see Tom Quirk:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8238

So, if humans and cattle, which most alarmists equate, are carbon neutral, why aren't fossil fuels also carbon neutral since we are merely reintroducing older carbon which had been previously sequestered? After all I'm sure the plants and the natural process today will be glad to see the re-emergence of that old CO2.