The first claim implies that CO2 levels are meaningful in either a positive or negative way.
Well that is the primary argument of global warming alarmists now isn't it?
And if you don't think carbon dioxide levels have any meaning then perhaps you can tell botanists to stop pumping their greenhouses full of carbon dioxide.
Again, don't worry, I know you are just disagreeing for the sake of being disagreeable.
The second claim is completely unfounded, lumps aerobic with anaerobic life forms, bastardizes evolution, ignores mass extinction events entirely, misrepresents the scale of measurement, and ignores current data and events.
In other words, you've decided to respond with a combination of straw man arguments and special pleading.
1. Greenhouse gases encompass far more than CO2, one of the least potent in terms of warming potential, though the most common.
Thank you for demonstrating that you can't even get the basic facts of the science right - the most common greenhouse gas, by far, is water vapor.
Water vapor is also a much more powerful greenhouse gas.
2.
Geocraft is a private website that does little more than take the few scientific studies it cites out of context (not even the original data, but data "adapted" by C. R. Scotese, which you didn't provide in the OP (wonder why)).
Because it is irrelevant. You are welcome to look at the raw data or other graphs created from the same dataset. They aren't substantially different.
3. That uncertainty cloud is just downright MASSIVE, which highlights a lack of triangulation.
The uncertainty is just as great on the graphs used by global warming alarmists to show "unprecedented" <insert whatever> (e.g. Mann's hockey stick graph).
If you don't believe in things based on large uncertainties then you shouldn't have any faith in global warming "science" at all.
4. "Life evolved under high levels of CO2. Nevermind all those vascular plants that proliferated and covered the planet at the end of the Devonian in
Fig. 5."
The C3 mechanism evolved before then. And if you don't like the pre-Devonian data then you can look at the data after that - average CO2 levels are still far above modern levels.
Any more cherry-picking/special pleading?
5. The increase in CO2 after the Carboniferous,
a low CO2 period as well as the first period during which vascular plants dominated the landscape, a condition which persists through the present,
culminated in the most severe mass extinction in the Earth's history as CO2 levels and temperature increased. The other area of CO2 increase signifies the end-Jurassic mass extinction.
There have been numerous mass extinction events - did you have some point to make? Or were you just trying to falsely imply that carbon dioxide caused the extinction?
Rather dishonest on your part no?
6. The image cites. Scotese's adaptation of "R.A. Berner. 2001." The first link in the Scholar search you linked is "Berner and Kothavala. 2001." I'm unsure if the screw-up is yours, or Geocraft's, though these may not be mutually exclusive.
The paper cited was the 1st one in the damn search results. Instead of acting like an adult and admitting you didn't even look, you've once again tried to obfuscate the subject and imply that it was someone else's fault.
Heaven forbid that the guy didn't list all the authors.
In summary: When someone refuses to cite and directly link their sources, they've usually got something to hide...
As I've demonstrated - you are projecting.
This is also false. Life thrives in areas of high primary productivity potential, which is a result of available moisture, macronutrients, and temperature. You're equating the Sahara with the Amazon. You're also either ignoring or are unaware of boreal productivity.
1. You are cherry-picking
2. The Sahara isn't along the equator
3. If you actually used these criteria to apply to "global warming" then your conclusion would logically be that it would be, on net, beneficial to life due to increasing the water cycle, increasing nutrients (carbon dioxide), reducing plants' need for water (carbon dioxide) and a thawing of large amounts of land near the poles that are currently too harsh for plant life (and thus most animal life).
This is unsourced, it's use is illogical, and it is tangential at best.
Sure, ignore it if you like, it isn't a main point anyway, but I provided it for those who actually have and wish to use their brains.
There used to be this thing called an ice age...
New flash: We are in an ice age.
The point of that was to show that "The seas are rising! The glaciers are melting!" is nothing new.
This is unsourced, it's use is illogical, and it is tangential at best.
Again, the point is that we've been dealing with rising seas for thousands of years.
What specific data do you find so compelling?
Again, carbon dioxide levels have been much higher for most of the history of life on this planet. Cherry-picking a bit of data with nothing good to compare it to doesn't help your case.
Ocean pH levels vary enormously over the ocean:
You would basically have me believe that a pH decrease of 8.25 to 8.14 over the course of 250 years is a greater concern to fish that swimming a couple hundred miles.
Not only that, but you said you don't like data with large uncertainties, but you seem to think "ocean acidification" data is okay even though it has massive uncertainty in it - which is obvious since they start their data well over hundred years prior to the pH scale (more like 200 with the modern scale).
You didn't think they were measuring it with litmus paper now did you?
And too bad the physiology of the life isn't largely still in place...
Prove it. Prove that we have substantially different biological mechanisms that would make CO2 dangerous to us.
You are just making a claim with no evidence for it at all. The evidence we do have, like greenhouses, shows that life thrives under higher levels of CO2.
The C4 pathway is an adaptation to higher light intensity and decreased moisture availability. It has nothing to do with CO2 levels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation#The_evolution_and_advantages_of_the_C4_pathway
C4 plants have a competitive advantage over plants possessing the more common C3 carbon fixation pathway under conditions of drought, high temperatures, and nitrogen or CO2 limitation.
and is also much more common than you think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation#The_evolution_and_advantages_of_the_C4_pathway
Today, C4 plants represent about 5% of Earth's plant biomass and 3% of its known plant species.
So that makes wrong on 2 of your 2 claims. Again, thanks for proving my point, you environmentalists don't care about facts - you'll say absolutely anything if you think it'll help your case - even if it isn't true.
Again, I repeat myself,
you aren't an honest player in this debate.
You act as if agriculture didn't exist prior to the widespread use of fossil fuels. You're attaching moralistic ideals to science, exposing inherent bias.
Nitrate fertilizers would not be produced without fossil fuels - and they feed an additional 1 billion people. This is a very basic fact. Of course, you've already demonstrated that you don't care about facts - you just care about perception.
1. Poverty is a synergistic enigma with multiple causes and solutions. A complex dynamical system, if you will.
Creating large inefficiencies in the economy due to regulatory bans and limitations creates poverty.
Using your logic I could say that, "Obesity is a synergistic enigma with multiple causes and solutions. A complex dynamical system, if you will," because I wanted to argue that eating pizza for every meal won't make people fat.
2. Attributing death to poverty is more moralistic bullshit.
Well since every epidemiological study on the planet recognizes that poverty is a major risk factor for just about every disease then I guess they are just being moralistic asshole.
This claim is entirely unfounded.
Not really, a lot of environmentalists want to completely ban fossil fuels. That means no nitrate fertilizers and that means an instant reduction in our crop output resulting in 1+ billion people starving.
That's just one example. I could give a dozen more.
If you can't do it right, is it worth doing at all?
