Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

UPDATE - Pope Affirms Anthropogenic Global Warming

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the from-his-lips-to-gods-ears dept.

aristarchus writes:

Despite the santorum splattered about, the Pontiff of the Church Universal and Triumphant [EDIT: This is actually referring to the Roman Catholic Church, not the Church Universal and Triumphant] is going to agree with the climate change consensus in an encyclical to be released on Thursday. Early leaks give some idea of the content.

Pope Francis is preparing to declare humans as primarily responsible for climate change, call for fossil fuels to be replaced by renewable energy and decry the culture of consumerism, a leaked draft of his much anticipated statement on the environment suggests.

The source for this somehow concerns Australians, but we will take any indication of infallibility where we can get it.

So the humble submitter has to wonder, does this mean that climate-change deniers are now to be considered heretics, rather than just Petro shills or anti-environmental conservative conspiracy theorists? It does add a entirely new dimension to the debate, and I hope that God will forgive your Conservative asses for screwing up Her creation in the quest for profit.

UPDATE - janrinok 18 Jun 12:36UTC

fritsd writes:

is it possible to update/append aristarchus' post "Pope Affirms Anthropogenic Global Warming" (https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/06/17/0317256), as follows:

Update: The encyclical can be read and downloaded here.

I am not affiliated with the submitter, aristarchus, or the pope. I have a slightly paranoid reason for asking for this update; it is my experience that, whenever politically important documents are published, the actual document often gets overshadowed by an enormous load of blog commentary, providing a bit of "damage control" and "spin". It is my fervent opinion that the readership of Soylentnews deserves to read the actual source documents. (It's only 82 pages long, in this case, anyway).

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
UPDATE - Pope Affirms Anthropogenic Global Warming | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 165 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:49PM (#198038)

    It is true that there are other factors (such as volcanic activity, variations in the earth’s orbit and axis, the solar cycle), yet a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity. Concentrated in the atmosphere, these gases do not allow the warmth of the sun’s rays reflected by the earth to be dispersed in space.

    Any comments on this definition? Not even whether it is true, but whether that is a good definition.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   1  

  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Friday June 19 2015, @02:21AM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Friday June 19 2015, @02:21AM (#198071) Journal
    It is reasonably accurate. The earth receives energy in the form of solar radiation, about 30% is reflected immediately back into space, while the remainder is absorbed by the planet and eventually is reradiated as thermal infrared radiation. Without taking into account the greenhouse effect, simple calculations show that the earth's temperature would be a frigid -18°C. The greenhouse gases the Pope mentions in the encyclical absorb some of the outbound thermal radiation and reradiate it in all directions, sending some of it back to the earth, which is why we have liquid oceans and reasonably comfortable climates. The actual average temperature of the earth is something like 15°C, and 22°C of the total 33°C difference is due to water vapour in the atmosphere, 7°C due to CO2, and the remainder from the other gases like methane, nitrogen oxides, and such. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would thus necessarily lead to an increase in the amount of solar radiation that doesn't escape into space. Here's a good article [ucsd.edu] that uses some simple maths to show that the Pope's statement that "most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases" is more than reasonable.
    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @03:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @03:08AM (#198089)

      Without taking into account the greenhouse effect, simple calculations show that the earth's temperature would be a frigid -18°C.

      What would it be for Venus?

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Friday June 19 2015, @03:48AM

        by stormwyrm (717) on Friday June 19 2015, @03:48AM (#198105) Journal
        Venus gets a mean solar irradiance of 2611 W/m2, about twice that of the Earth's at 1370 W/m2. Its radius is about 6052 km, so the half of it that faces the sun absorbs about 3×1011 W of solar power. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law: P = AσT4 where P is the radiated power, A is the surface area, σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and T is the temperature, we can get T = (P/(Aσ))¼. Plugging in the values, we get T = 327 K, or 54°C, assuming Venus to be a perfect blackbody. If it reflected 30% of the solar radiation it received immediately the way the Earth does, its temperature would be about 27°C. It's not hard to imagine (although it's a bit harder to actually calculate) given these figures that even a modest amount of greenhouse gases would have a tremendous effect on Venus.
        --
        Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @04:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @04:36AM (#198113)

          So the ratio between the two "no greenhouse temperatures" at the surface would be ~1.176 correct? I'm using 300/255 (in Kelvins)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @04:46AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @04:46AM (#198116)

          I'm getting at this:
          https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7856&cid=194580#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

          I think you guys/girls are missing something big. Most likely there is an equilibrium that is not considered.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2015, @07:37AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2015, @07:37AM (#198985)

            Second time no response on this site. This is consistent with everywhere else.