May 2011 to April 2012 warmest 12 months in U.S. history. You can't deny anymore.

Sure thing. I stopped flushing my toilet 3 weeks ago. I'm doin my part!

Dude, you are an obvious troll, but I'll respond anyway, so good show brother.I'm actually very much FOR reducing pollution, including carbon footprint, and I do agree there is evidence to support global warming due to pollution, but man, you aren't going to get much support behind you from any smart people by looking at 12 months brother.I will be living in Ohio for at least 6 more years, so if we're going to have global warming, then now's the time brother! This past winter was GREAT!

apples wrote:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2089

Please, take action to reduce your carbon footprint. Encourage others to do the same, too.

I get so tired of seeing these arguments to reduce CO2 as if your effort is going to make any difference.

Here are the facts from the EIA.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2

1. The US has reduced total CO2 emissions two years in a row and our production is essentially flat for the past decade.

2. China is the world's largest CO2 producer.

3. China is increasing CO2 production by 10% per year and has done so for the past decade.

Now... the part everyone seems to be missing. China's CO2 emission was 7.7 billion tons in this study. (It's 8.8 billion now, I think, but let's use 7.7 for this illustration.) Ten percent of 7.7 billion is 770 million. The average US citizen produces 28 tons of CO2. Now, let's do the math. In order to offset JUST THE ANNUAL INCREASE OF CO2 BY CHINA....

- 27.5 million Americans would have to cease to exist, or

- 110 million Americans would have to cease driving competely, or

- The US would have to replace 100% of gas-burning vehicle in the US with electric vehicles in one year.

That would buy ONLY ONE YEAR of reprieve from China's CO2 increases.

The bottom line is that if CO2 causes climate change, you need accept it and move on instead of wasting your time with futile efforts to reduce your carbon footprint.

The EIA is a U.S. federal organization. Not exactly unbiased. Nice try, though.

Stop farting too. A vegetarian diet contributes to global warming, apparently.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/08/dinosaur-farts-could-have-warmed-the-earth-150-million-years-ago/

I'm doing my part; I will stop farting.

... well, I tried.

apples wrote:

Please, take action to reduce your carbon footprint. Encourage others to do the same, too.

How about turning off your computer to help reduce your your footprint?

fisky wrote:

The bottom line is that if CO2 causes climate change, you need accept it and move on instead of wasting your time with futile efforts to reduce your carbon footprint.

By the way, I'm probably better than average when it comes to carbon footprint. Our household is 16.1 tons/year according to one of those online calculators, but I don't delude myself into thinking that if I and everyone else cut our emissions by half, that it would make any difference.

lol

apples wrote:

The EIA is a U.S. federal organization. Not exactly unbiased. Nice try, though.

You didn't even TRY to counter the argument. Instead, you claimed my source was biased. Okay, here is the data from the IEA,

The IEA is the United Nations' go-to source for emissions data headquartered in Paris. If anything, it's biased the OTHER WAY, because it seldom mentions total emissions in its press releases. I had to dig through several reports to find it, but the data is there if you look for it hard enough. That IEA data supports my previous assertions.

So, we shouldn't try to reduce our carbon footprint because we (the U.S.) aren't the largest polluter? That's rich!

"Figure 1. The ten warmest 12-month periods in the contiguous U.S. since record keeping began in 1895."

US history didn't begin until 1895?

Pretty sure these temps would fit pretty well on a "line of best fit" since the last ice age.

sigh

stubby wrote:

Pretty sure these temps would fit pretty well on a "line of best fit" since the last ice age.

Nope. Global temps were this high 1,000 years ago and warmer for most of the period from 8,000 to 2,000 years ago.

Why are you only looking at the contiguous United States data? Each year different areas of the world have fluctuations in temperatures. Did you know that it was one of the coldest winters in Alaskan history? Other areas of the world were very cold as well. Usually when one side of the world is having record cold, the other is the opposite. For any meaningful information, you need to look at global temperature trends over long periods of time and even then it does not mean changes are from human involvement.

When you say in U.S. history that just means since the late 1800s when records started being kept. The truth is that there have been fluctuations in global temperature from year to year, decade to decade, and century to century throughout the history of the world that did not involve human intervention. How do you know this is any different? During the 1920s and 1970s people were concerned with global cooling because of cooling trends. Then it started warming and they became concerned with global warming. The truth is that global temperatures go through cycles and no one knows for sure whether humans are having any effect at all. Global climate is extremely complex and I'm sure there is much that we don't know.

Besides, with the rate technology is advancing, we will have developed cheap clean energy in the near future, so there's no reason to hamper the world economies now based on a theory when we will be able to change very cheaply in the near future. I'm not against people reducing their own pollution just in case (and it does have other positives effects) or making low cost changes, but some of the regulations that people propose are ridiculous.

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

Nope. Global temps were this high 1,000 years ago and warmer for most of the period from 8,000 to 2,000 years ago.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

Why then does the plot have the little 2004 arrow at about +0.5C which is higher than the average for the periods you've cited?

Let me rephrase your question - Why is 1 data point in 2004 higher than the average that is comprised of tens of thousands of data points, some of which may be far higher than the point in 2004?

Because it's 1 data point.