http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828090715.htm

The question then is, where else do you get reliable information on scientific matters? From un-reviewed blogs, speeches, congressional hearing, … where anyone could say more or less anything without the need to backup their findings?

This is the same scientific community that is giving us new medicines, new materials, new devices, etc etc that is positively changing our lives significantly. When you use their innovations for your benefits and then equate them to Bagdad Bob when you do not agree with them, it appears to be highly disingenuous.

I have read enough of this sort of manufactured, peer reviewed “science”, I have no more capacity for propaganda and false claims.

Bagdad Bob would be proud of our current scientists.

We are not talking about doing something so stupid to save just one species. We are talking about 30,000 species disappearing in a year. These are few comments from the American Museum of Natural History:

“Seven out of ten biologists believe that we are in the midst of a mass extinction of living things, and that this dramatic loss of species poses a major threat to human existence in the next century.”
“In strong contrast to the fears expressed by scientists, the general public is relatively unaware of the loss of species and the threats that it poses.”
“This mass extinction is the fastest in Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history and, unlike prior extinctions, is mainly the result of human activity and not of natural phenomena.” …..

Per instruction (appropriately so) I am not going into the details, but I do not agree with your “survival of the fittest” explanation.

CO2 is only one problem. There are many other problems that we have to deal with using appropriate priority – deforestation, climate change, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution, etc. Oxygen reduction may not hurt us immediately, but could wipe out other organisms (many scientists believe the rapid reduction in oxygen caused the extinction of dinosaurs). Ultimately we are talking about our own survival. With global warming, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum was associated with a minor mass extinction, when global temperature went up by about six degrees or so (of course, a rapid global cooling will do the same).

The AGW/climate catastrophe has been falsified. Referring to it as a ‘real danger’ is mendacious and makes a mockery of the Scientific Method, which relies on falsification.

Those hypothesizing AGW/climate catastrophe have failed to meet the burden of proof. Carbon dioxide does not lead to runaway global warming.

Smokey, since you mentioned Charles Darwin and evolution above, I should note that you can find plenty of people on the web, including some credentialed scientists, who would make the exact same claims about evolution that you make here about AGW.

While there may be a small number of scientists (only a few who are actively publishing in the field in reputable peer-reviewed journals) who believe this about AGW…and a larger number of people with various scientific (mainly unrelated to climate science), engineering, and non-scientific backgrounds who believe this, it is not the view of most of the scientists actively working in the field. Nor is it the view of the organizations such as the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, etc., etc. Rather, they believe that the evidence for AGW continues to grow stronger. Perhaps you might strive to learn why they believe this and why their belief is so different from your own.

[By the way, I would agree with you that "Carbon dioxide does not lead to runaway global warming" as the term is usually used by scientists, e.g., an instability such as what happened on Venus. However, I assume you are probably using it (incorrectly...or at least in a non-standard way) to refer to there being net positive feedbacks that amplify the warming to produce an equilibrium climate sensitivity somewhere in the range of the IPCC estimates (e.g., likely between 2 and 4.5 C and very unlikely less than 1.5 C), in which case, obviously I do not agree with you.]

Yep. Your link is propaganda. But nice try, and thanx for playing, John. In fact, species are naturally going extinct all the time, as Charles Darwin made clear. Survival of the fittest applies to species as well as individuals. New species are constantly evolving to take their place. No biological niche remains unfilled for long.

For instance, the snail darter is a small minnow that is almost extinct. It is not going extinct because of human actions, but because the world changes, and some species are not adapted well enough to cope. The snail darter was discovered in a few isolated locations. What cause do we have to commit really enormous financial resources to save an almost extinct minnow?

The billion-dollar flood control project and Auburn dam was stopped just short of completion, and right before a serious multi-year drought hit California. Why? Because the enviro lobby demanded that a species of minnow that was already going extinct must be saved at any cost.

Only those possessing extreme arrogance believe that humans know better than nature in cases like a minnow that is going extinct because it can’t compete.

Finally, deliberately or through ignorance, downplaying the likelihood of an asteroid impact is plain wrongheaded. Last century alone, two very small [as asteroids go] impacts hit Siberia, annihilating many square miles of forest and killed a large herd of reindeer. Had they hit any populated area like a city, millions would have been killed. Contrast this very real threat with the entirely bogus AGW/climate catastrophe scam.

We can do something about asteroids. We can do nothing worthwhile about the natural fluctuations of the climate.

REPLY: Ok we are all getting waaayy OT here, no more snail darters, Darwinsim, or asteroids. – Anthony

I was using the periodicity in relatively small mass extinctions (proposed by David Raup). Such extinctions, most of which are relatively minor, occur every 26 million years (thus Muller’s postulate of Nemesis, the companion start to Sun that is disturbing the orbital stability causing asteroid impacts on Earth).

Large extinctions (50 % extinction of all species) are far less frequent, last one 64 million years ago, before that 200, 201 (or 245?), 360, 444 and 488 millions of years ago. Apart from the two cases that occurred 200/201 or 245 million years ago, such events are pretty far apart. In that sense, the probability of mass extinction from any events including an asteroid impact (other than from lack of oxygen) in the next 10 million years or so is not greater than extinction from oxygen deprivation. But, as you know, I agree with you that we will not there to find out about this if AGW has its way.

Smaller asteroids have been coming here regularly – 10 m size objects hitting earth once a year, 50 m size once every 1000 years, one kM size every 50,000 years, five kM every 10 million years, etc. but no evidence that they caused massive extinctions (like about 50 % of all species). So, such more frequent asteroid impacts need not mean the end of the world.

However, one thing to note that people like E.O. Wilson believe that we are already in the middle of a massive extinction (Holocene extinction, losing 30,000 species a year), http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html even without an asteroid impact.

According to the survey by the American Museum of Natural History, 70 % of all biologists believe that we are in the middle of a mass extinction (primarily caused by the destruction of the biosphere). Please see:
http://www.amnh.org/museum/press/feature/biofact.html

I am sure our friend Smokey will dismiss it as a propaganda.

Ric,

Yes, I noticed x-axis caption, and yes we are fine for few million years unless a drastic reduction of oxygen occurs as 300 million years ago. So, it is good for us to keep a watch on it. But I agree, the original article was unjustifiable in its implication.

Evan,

Sure, it is not a crisis by any means. Just something to watch and see where it is going.

“…real dangers we need to face up to now, like AGW…”

The AGW/climate catastrophe has been falsified. Referring to it as a ‘real danger’ is mendacious and makes a mockery of the Scientific Method, which relies on falsification.

Those hypothesizing AGW/climate catastrophe have failed to meet the burden of proof. Carbon dioxide does not lead to runaway global warming.

However, I will agree that there is a serious concern regarding asteroids. On March 23, 1989 a thousand foot wide asteroid missed the Earth by only 400,000 miles. Had it arrived six hours earlier, it would have made a direct hit.

Six years ago another asteroid missed our planet by only 75,000 miles [a third of the distance to the Moon]. That near miss was not even discovered until three days after the asteroid had passed by.

Recall that in 1994 Jupiter was hit multiple times by a comet.

More than 100,000 asteroids lie between Mars and Jupiter, and many have extremely elliptical orbits that routinely take them across Earth’s path. With advance preparation, impact threats could be detected and averted. From far enough away, it requires little energy to divert an asteroid. No atomic bombs are necessary; a small ion engine wold suffice.

Unlike the falsified AGW/catastrophe hypothesis, the threat from asteroids is very real. The odds of a strike are not extremely high, but even a small impact would be catastrophic.

Unfortunately, the climate hype industry is sucking up most of the available increase in the science budget, starving astronomy and many other science programs that could be doing much more valuable work than alarming the populace over a non-existent AGW threat. [Note that NASA/GISS is now requesting an additional $10+ million over last year's budget in just one single area: to simply 'study' its inaccurate computer models.]

The AGW/climate scam continues to deprive every other branch of science adequate funding. GISS started it, NASA saw and followed the money, and now the NOAA has started the same alarmist money-grubbing behavior.

At this point, honest science is irrelevant; now it’s all about the money, which has thoroughly politicized and corrupted government climate-related agencies.

If/when an asteroid hits, how will diverting a big part of the U.S. science budget into one [repeatedly falsified] area be explained?

Smallpox? AFAIK, there are two countries with stockpiles, the US and Russia. GB got rid of theirs after a scientists accidentally got infected and died. Bird flu is worth worrying about, I’m amazed that it hasn’t evolved into a scourge like the 1918 flu.

“Where does our oxygen come from? Why, it comes from carbon dioxide, which plant life dutifully gives to us, keeping carbon for itself. More CO2 = more oxygen. Simple, no?”

“Oxygen level has been going down even without us producing CO2
(see: http://www.pnas.org/content/96/20/10955/F2.large.jpg ) although this probably is not going to affect us in the near future.”

Did you note the scale of the X-axis? Hint: “my” stands for “millions of years”. Perhaps you can extract just the last 100 years of data from it.

How many things do you stop and worry about before you cross a street? That’s such a risky endeavor that the US and its states keep statistics on those who don’t make it across.

Second of all, while I am not saying that scientists shouldn’t think at all about oxygen depletion, what I am saying is that writing a news story about it, particularly one like the Guardian story, is unnecessarily hyping something that the public doesn’t need to really be concerned about on any reasonable timescale (and which is not really tied in to the burning of fossil fuels since the amount of decrease in oxygen we are causing by doing this is not signficant). And, the danger we have is that people will have trouble distinguishing about real dangers we need to face up to now, like AGW, and things like this. In fact, we already see our friend Smokey doing just that and equating the two as if they are issues of similar concern…which is ridiculous.

Is that for me or the other John?

The article should have been written in a different way, rather than implying an imminent crisis. This I have to agree.

Yes, I read Anthony’s forward, but I disagree with him that it is a supermarket tabloid material. Asteroid impact on the Earth occurs roughly 26 million years apart, but we are concerned about that and we look to the sky’s to find anything coming towards us. We investigate whether a blackhole from CERN could eat up our Earth. We are concerned about bird flu, anthrax, small pox, etc. even though it may or may not affect us. Oxygen depletion is just another one of them, worth investigating. That is why I have to disagree with Anthony.

“Where does our oxygen come from? Why, it comes from carbon dioxide, which plant life dutifully gives to us, keeping carbon for itself. More CO2 = more oxygen. Simple, no?”

No, oxygen was produced by Cyanobacteria around two billion years ago – not from CO2. And they took a long time to produce oxygen. Oxygen to CO2 back to oxygen cycle through plants does not change the concentration of oxygen, if that is all what is happening. But when a part of CO2 is converted to carbonates, the atmospheric oxygen content will be reduced. Oxygen level has been going down even without us producing CO2
(see: http://www.pnas.org/content/96/20/10955/F2.large.jpg ) although this probably is not going to affect us in the near future. But that may be true about asteroids also, but we still investigate them (even though we cannot do much against a gigantic asteroid even if we know it is coming for us).

Health problems with low oxygen (simple version): http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/zoo00/zoo00755.htm

Nice touch. Brings this to mind.