Even if climate change caused by humans is a myth the world will still be a whole lot better with cleaner energy sources. I for one want to live in a cleaner world.

Well CO2 then, trace elements is what I meant.  Also for the people who are oblivious to the Little Ice Age and how scientists leave it out b/c they want to model the future I have one thing to say: the scientists have an agenda b/c you take into acct historical data and future models when you are doing a study of this magnititude.  To ignore the past is to be a damn hypocrite. 

Additionally, OSHA has been known to measure heat and CO2 data in and around parking lots for ctying out loud!

I completely agree actually. I support moving towards renewable resources for our energy requirements, and I support green technologies in general but I don't support a government mandate of these things to the private sector. If the government wants to fund projects like this thats one thing, but demanding that private companies do the government's bidding based on their policy is something else entirely.

Sqrl:

Fantastic evidence for non man made global warming, and I agree.  However, the Earth is warming, which happens periodically with or without us.  Unfortunately we as a species are not well prepared for it.  We are over populated, have high population densities near oceans, and spend more money on figuring out inventive new ways to kill one another en masse than on how to improve world wide standard of living. 

My problem with CO2 emissions rising so drastically isn't the warming/cooling effect.  It's what it is doing to the oceans.  The world's oceans act as a huge buffer for the atmosphere.  They take alot of the CO2 out and put alot of O2 in.  In doing this they are becoming more and more acidic due to absorbing higher concentrations of CO2.  High acidity in the worlds oceans is a very bad thing.  This leads to massive "dead zones" where animals cannot survive.  If the oceans become too acidic to support aquatic life as we know it now, the human race doesn't have much chance of continuing on. 

I'm afraid "the oceans are becoming acidic!" is another mostly invented story to scare people about global warming without having to do the hard work of convincing them with facts.  If you want to know, the oceans are naturally basic (the opposite of acidic).  There has been a measured decrease of about 0.0075 pH in the oceans (lower means more acidic, higher more basic), from around 8.2 to 8.1 (7 is neutral, so these numbers mean the oceans are somewhat basic).  But some other relevant information here: the measuring margin of error is...+/- 0.01, a larger number than the measured decrease.

And there is no evidence sea life has been damaged by this very small change (if indeed it actually is a change and not just an error in measurement).  Coral reefs and other aquatic plants and animals have far more to fear from land use changes, pollution and speedboats than they do from this kind of insignificant pH change.

To bring in all points, there are those who do predict that oceanic pH will change by up to 0.4-0.5 by 2050 due to greater oceanic absorption of CO2.  As with all predictions and models, it's a very difficult proposition with all the variables, known unknowns, and especially unknown unknowns involved.

Developed countries have made huge strides in this regard.  Check the numbers as to how much pollution has been decreased in places like the United States and Europe.  You'll find that, despite the extreme environmentalist rhetoric, we've managed a much cleaner environment and much cleaner energy production than our forefathers.

Everyone wants clean energy sources.  The problem is that some people want to give up our current energy sources before a cleaner replacement is found.  This foolish and self-defeating thinking would stop us from ever developing the clean energy they seek.

Also realize that the greatest mechanism for reducing pollution, rainforest destruction, etc. is development.  Richer countries can afford cleaner environments.  If you're dirt poor and you can put bread on the table by slashing and burning the rainforest, you're going to do that.  Nobody is going to let his family go hungry instead of cutting down a tree.  The sooner we realize this the sooner we can forget about the naive vision of half-naked "one with nature" hunter-gatherers as the ideal of mankind.

It is worth pointing out that the earth has actually been cooling since circa 2006, whether or not this trend will continue is of course anyone's guess but given the extreme inactivity on the solar front recently I personally think it will (I mean *extreme* inactivity as in not seen in recorded history extreme).

The issue of overpopulation and research into technologies built for killing I must defer on because it is not an area I've looked into much at all.  These issues may well be very serious but aren't quite relavent to the discussion if I'm being bluntly honest.  Worthy topic, but I'd rather not dilute another worthy topic.

Ocean acidity as a result of anthropogenic C02 emissions is something I've never actually come across solid data for.  My impression thus far is that it isn't a very serious concern simply because of the enormous amount of C02 already known to be sequestered in the oceans.  With that said most of this is deep below the surface and I can't honestly say I'm sure what kind of impact the C02 would have at more shallow depths to species not yet acclimated to it. So I'm open to data supporting your position if you have some available (I'm accustomed to reading very long very dry research papers, no worries).

From what I can recall of my breif reading on the topic the ocean PH as of 1994 was ~8.1 and had dropped to that point from ~8.18 in the span of about 250 years.  Checking some of the models cited by Wikiepedia (which is in my experience a fairly alarmist dominated/controlled site) I saw some predictions for us to hit an ocean PH of 7.824 by 2100.  This doesn't exactly inspire fear in me but I'll keep an open mind until I can see a study on it.

Now, perusing through the Wiki page on ocean acidification to see what the claimed side-effects are I saw that the concern(s) (seemed like just the one which sounds off to me) mentioned was that certain calcifying species would have reduced rates of calcification. Essentially it would be harder for certain creatures to form their protective shells.  This is certainly bad news for them, but this alone is part of living on planet earth where things can, will, and do change.  Adapting to that change is their evolutionary test and failing to pass it is going to mean they join a very long list of extinct species and another creature will take over that niche to try and improve on the performance of its predecessor.  I don't see this as a problem because it is a very natural process of environments changing and creatures being able to cope. Even when it is one creature changing the environment of another.

I followed some of the wikipedia sources/links and sent a request off for them to send me the study regarding calcification reduction in the tested species (it was supposed to email me a link but hasn't thus far).  They say that it is ocean acidity that causes the problem but we are hundreds of years away from hitting an acidic ocean PH even at the most alarming model predictions (unless there is some catalyst factor(s) I'm unaware of) This makes me wonder what kind of coping was allowed for in the testing since the ocean life is going to have many many numerous generations to adjust to the changing PH and if this ability to adapt has not even been taken into account in at least some basic form I don't know how representative it will truly be.  Particularly if they simply tossed them into a 6.5 PH water from a 8.1 PH water I'm going to have a hard time finding any reason to find it credible. It may simply be that the study cited was only trying to test tolerance and was not specifically testing for impact of ocean acidification which would mean the study is intellectually honest but the people citing it at wikipedia were not quite thinking about all of the variables involved.

I just heard about the great shitpile in the middle of the pacific. I can't believe there's a floating trash island twice the size of texas. Wow!

It's not actually an island of collected trash or anything, its an area of the ocean where currents deposit debri, especially plastics apparently.  The area that these currents surround and deposit trash into is twice the size of texas, not an actual solid floating island that big.

Basically the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces and there isn't actually a bunch of trash you can see collected but a big expanse of ocean with plastic particles floating in it. Apparently there was a study done in 2001 that found concentrations of plastic particles can get as high as 1 million particles per square mile near the surface of the water (not nearly as much as is often indicated by descriptions).  Testing deeper waters apparently indicated that concentrations decreased quickly which makes sense given the relatively low density of plastics.

In short the name given to this thing is very alarmist in nature and the image given by many descriptions is fairly misleading. 

With the clarification out of the way I still think it indicates that there is a problem here obviously, even if it is not the mindboggling giant trash island advertised. Fortunately there is a very easy solution to this problem:  the west coast of the US and the East coast of Asia as well as Japan need to stop throwing their garbage into the ocean. The tough part is of course implementing that plan in any reasonably effective way =P

OMFG, this thread needs to die, I'm sick of seeing it red in my sidebar >_