<<Pythonesque>> Poirot says.

And she’s right --What could be more Pythonesque than this?

It’s starts with a rather tame question to Warmair: “what percentage of atmospheric CO2 --does THE SCIENCE tell us-- is derived from human activities?"

Getting a straight answer was like getting blood from a stone.

Warmair didn’t know. He cited “29%”!
Poirot did her level best to avoided the question providing three links –and an equal number of put downs –none of which addressed the questions:
ONCE: <<Further reading - http://www.skepticalscience...>>
TWICE: <<http://www.realclimate.org/index...>>
THREE TIMES: <<http://www.skepticalscience.com...>>

And when finally cornered, she made this admission:

<<SPQR,
You're not going to suck me into playing little games.
We know that the amount of anthropogenic CO2 is only a tiny percentage of the overall CO2 emitted(reabsorbed, etc).>>

For God sake are we NOT trying to extract the secret formula to Coca Cola!

Two pertinent points--in response to her admission:
1) “WE” didn't know --because Warmair (above) was talking of 29% (hardly tiny!)-- and Al Gore is on record as implying it was at least 50% --and further, I'd hazard a guess that most members of the public reading the various Green/Climate/lefty group press releases and studies would never know it was a “TINY PERCENTAGE”
2) Secondly –it(now) seems that Poirot knew all along what I was seeking but she studious avoided (she wasn't going to rat on her fellow parishioners!) –and even when it was out in the open SHE COULD NOT --COULD NOT--BRING HERSELF UTTER the percentage/figure involved!
(And through it all Qanda swaggered about in the background making condescending noises –but offering nothing)

To which I ask: WHY?

It had all the hallmarks of someone defending a religious faith—not science!

SPQR,

Well whoopy doo!

Exactly what have we derived from your song and dance?

As I said..."The issue here is how much extra CO2 remains in the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources outside the natural carbon cycle."

Quite a bit it seems.

(Thanks for the reprise of the religious theme...I find it's never really a kosher debate with you guys unless one of you raises it every few posts....I can almost set my clock to that one:)

The thing is, Poirot, that, in your case, calling your attitude to AGW religious is simply accurate.

You've already all but admitted that there is actually no evidence that you could even conceive of that would shake your belief in the theory. Nothing will cause you to ever believe that AGW isn't happening.

That means that, for you, AGW has moved beyond the realm of a scientific theory and into the realm of an article of faith. The very definition of a scientific theory is that it must be falsifiable. but you have declared that, for you, AGW is not falsifiable. QED.

You may not like the description, but it IS apt.

Oh, are we still arguing about the wrong problem ?
If you want to worry about a real problem go read this;

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5640

Thanks, mhaze,

Religious reference right on time (ding!)

SQR

Your figure of 3.2% for the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dervided from human activity is just is just plain wrong, no ifs, no buts ,no ands. Your figure has been simply plucked out of thin air. It has no support whatever from any reputable source.
In fact it is typical example of the sort nonsense that can be found on the Internet.
The correct figures for anthropogenic CO2 is around 30%.

According to the IPCC we are currently emitting 26.4 gig tones of co2 annually which works out to about at 13,333 cubic kilometres of CO2 at normal atmospheric pressure.

http://oto2.wustl.edu/bbears/trajcom/carbon3.htm

Quoted above Gary W. Harding

Scn. Human (+) _Natural_ (+) Subtotal (+) Natural (-) Net (+&-)

A 270 (100%)_____ 0 ( 0%)___ 270__________ 110 (41%)__ 160
B 270 ( 95%)____ 14 ( 5%)____284__________ 124 (44%)__ 160
C 270 ( 50%)___ 270 (50%)___ 540__________ 380 (70%)__ 160
D 270 ( 5%) ___5400 (95%)__ 5670_________ 5510 (97%)__ 160

One of the basic principles of science is the simplicity hypothesis. . Scenario A in Table 1 satisfies the simplicity hypothesis.

Scenario B accounts for the possibility that there could be a minor amount of natural emissions.

Scenario C, advanced by the IPCC, leaves considerable wiggle room for adaptation to the, as yet, incompletely understood carbon cycle; including the mystery of the missing carbon.

Scenario D, put forth by the climate-change skeptics, is preposterous on its face. Here, a 5.4 trillion ton, undetected natural source (emitting 95%) as well as a 5.5 trillion ton natural sink (absorbing 97%) are required to explain the observations. Further, in accordance with the data in Fig. 2, this hypothetical net source and sink must have grown over the past 200 years almost exactly in parallel with human carbon emissions.
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