Graeme,

I understand that you have an opinion and that you are skeptical.

The fact that you appear quite familiar with skeptic sites (not a criticism) and that you have referred to people who support the AGW explanation as "alarmists" tells me that your mind is a little more made up on this issue than you're inclined to let on.

Remember that this forum abounds with "skeptics" (like Hasbeen, for instance) who reckon it's all a con and resort to abuse when conversing about it. So if I'm a little trigger happy, perhaps you can understand why : )

Saltpetre,

qanda, as a scientist (along with a few other scientists) drops in here occasionally to offer a little information and clarification in layman's terms for those of us who are interested.

What he normally receives for his trouble is either ridicule or abuse.

If he sounds a little wary, it's understandable.

(actually, I'm a little peeved that these people, who really do understand science, are chased away by the abuse)

Yes Poirot, this is becoming rather tedious.

-

Graeme, you said to Poirot you have never before seen any mention of 'extra energy'.

Now, you really are being obtuse – you were the one who mentioned it:

“Where is this extra energy coming from?”

What I said was:

>> "If you add energy to a system (e.g. atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and terrestrial biosphere) it heats up. <<

Please, if you want to quote me, please do so accurately – don’t make stuff up.

Graeme, coal is a ‘store of energy’ – this energy has been “locked” up for millions of years. When it is burnt it ‘releases energy’ in the form you know as CO2. Over the last 2 hundred years, we have been releasing into the Earth System this ‘stored energy’ at an ever increasing rate.

You say you generally understand the (enhanced) greenhouse effect, but maybe you missed something. Yes, I think you have.

You may struggle with this, Albert Einstein over a hundred years ago postulated what was to become a very robust theory – the equivalence of mass and energy, generally known as E = mc^2

You say you don’t have any physics education – ok, that might explain a few things. However, you really can’t expect to be taken seriously when you want to engage with scientists when you haven’t even done some basic homework that even a high school student would be aware of.

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Saltpetre

Sometimes I wonder why too.

In the context of ‘global warming’, we can treat the planet as a ‘closed system’ (please don't abuse this simplicity). However, you are right, the universe is not warming. Look up entropy and where the Universe is heading – but that is hardly the point.

Errr, question;
Is a gas like co2 energy or is it a material ?
Heat I understand as energy, but not a substance.
Is a rock energy ?
Is a piece of steel energy ?
So in fact what is energy ?

Bazz! thought you knew that!
When smoke comes out of the wires on your ham radio, that is energy.
When it stops working, radio, you are out of energy.

Bazz,

qanda has already answered you question in reply to Graeme M...but here you go anyway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence

....Just thought I include this from the book I'm reading "The Goldilocks Planet":

"Within this long-term phase of geophysical turbulence, we as a human society have just happened to have found ourselves on the most stable climate plateau for at least four hundred thousand years. This precarious stability has allowed us as a species to expand tremendously, and to colonise and to grow our food on most of the habitable areas of the planet. Even within this interval of stability, the modest climate fluctuations that have occurred have proved catastrophic for some cultures.

In the last two hundred years, our numbers have expanded enormously; our energy use (and hence carbon emissions) have skyrocketed to the extent that the atmosphere now almost certainly holds more greenhouse gases than it has done since before the Quaternary, and there have been wholesale changes to the landscape and its reflective properties, and to the particulate properties of the atmosphere. We are vigorously rocking a boat that has shown a marked tendency to capsize..."

(Belly - thanks for your contributions:)

Interestingly, none of that deters Julia Gillard, her ministers and the Greens from laying down jet trails at every opportunity. Yes, the opposition too.

Likewise Julia, pollies and senior bureaucrats enjoy the large engined vehicles for status.

But Aussie taxpayers are up for another tax and a large slice of it will be going to a useless bureaucracy of the UN forever more.

The electorate will compare the rhetoric with behaviour. Like when Julia pares away at (say) pharmaceutical benefits, but rewards herself with a remuneration that outpaces the US President and the UK PM. Soon Julia will be on her rather grand ex-PM golden handshake, a large properly indexed superannuation for life and more jet travel. She will expect more gravy, maybe a guvvy appointment? Good if you can get it, while small business tries to survive the mess she left behind.