EXXON Contradicts its Own Scientists

[_Some Schmo]

You could do the world a service and take one of those one-way trips to Mars.

Will that bring me closer to the Space God, Warrior?

[_Tobin]

Will that bring me closer to the Space God?

There is no space God. However, if you survive the trip you'll suffocate and die a most painful death after a few weeks. But hey, you'll be a famous dead asshole.

[_Some Schmo]

There is no space God.

Don't let your space god hear your thoughts on that. He may ask you to stop thinking about jerking off when you see a crying baby, and then where will you be?

However, if you survive the trip you'll suffocate and die a most painful death after a few weeks. But hey, you'll be a famous dead asshole.

..said the insignificant live asshole.

This is better than a movie.

[_Tobin]

This is better than a movie.

Hey, there you go. So what are you waiting for? Get signed up and head to Mars already. I'm sure for you, nothing compares to screwing your grandma each night, but even a sick “F” like you would love to be most famous grandma idiot ever.

[_Some Schmo]

I'm not sure what's more alarming, your obsession with grandma damned or sheep damned.

You know, maybe it's time to drop the space god's sexual mandate on you. It doesn't seem to be making you very happy. Just a suggestion.

[_Gadianton]

Tobin,

From what I gather, supervolcanos don't erupt often enough to compete with man-made CO2 even if a single eruption (of a small one) produces more CO2 than a couple of years of human activity. The consensus seems to be that man-made CO2 produces about 100 times what volcanoes do over time, including what you refer to as supervolcanoes. If Yellow Stone erupted then sure, we'd be toast, but there is no good reason to believe any supervolcano will erupt in the near future to dwarf all man-made CO2.

[_EAllusion]

Tobin's Krakatoa numbers were inaccurate. I'm surprised no one called him on it.

The gist of what's wrong with his argument is that that man-made carbon emissions simply dwarf the total contribution of volcanic activity when it comes to driving change in the constitution of the atmosphere. The atmosphere had been in relative equilibrium with the natural carbon cycle for thousands of years until the dawn of the industrial age. That is to say, sans human contribution, the amount of carbon being pumped in and out of the atmosphere from natural causes has and would leave the overall concentration relatively stable in comparison to recent trends. We both can measure the relative output of human-caused carbon emissions and its total % of the atmosphere and virtually all of the increase is directly attributable to human activity. Fluctuations in volcanic activity can and do affect climate (both through particulates causing cooling and greenhouse gases causing warming), but they are too small and fleeting to compare against the persistent anthropogenic forcing going on for the long-term trend.

Moreover, this is such a common argument in global warming skeptic circles that basically any website that addresses those myths could've easily disabused Tobin of his argument. This is an issue of misplaced trust and overconfidence.

[_Gadianton]

So EA, what you're saying is that all dumping of CO2 in the atmosphere isn't equal in long-term CO2 concentration? In other words, a blast of CO2 from a volcano five times what man makes in a year, wouldn't necessarily leave five times the CO2 in the atmosphere?

[_Gunnar]

I suggest that we stop responding to anything else Tobin has to say. He has long ago lost any credibility and demonstrated that he is merely an incorrigible troll who gets off on pushing people's buttons and getting a reaction. He has nothing of real value to contribute to this or (probably) any other discussion, and I suspect that no one realizes that better than Tobin himself. He has not the least bit of interest in civil, rational and respectful discussion.

[_EAllusion]

So EA, what you're saying is that all dumping of CO2 in the atmosphere isn't equal in long-term CO2 concentration? In other words, a blast of CO2 from a volcano five times what man makes in a year, wouldn't necessarily leave five times the CO2 in the atmosphere?

Tobin's CO2 numbers were wildly inaccurate. Who knows what denialist website he got those from. I tried to trace his claim and couldn't even find a single source. My best guess is he is either working off an obscure blog or he himself confused total ejecta with CO2 numbers. Or he's making it up for kicks. Estimates on total volcanic emissions into the atmosphere on average is around .15 gt of carbon / year according to the literature I saw. Human activity is currently around 7 for comparison. Tobin's Kraktatoa claim is way off that. His number represents something like a 1/5th the total atmospheric concentration of CO2 at the time. The only estimate I could find on Krakatoa was hilariously smaller than this. I would encourage Tobin to reveal his source for his claim.

Krakatoa didn't appreciably change atmospheric CO2 levels in the ice-core data.

It's possible for vulcanism to move the needle on CO2 levels in drastic ways. That has happened in the history of Earth to catastrophic outcome, in fact. It's just that nothing like what we've seen has done that and the current CO2 increase is a steady incline caused by human emissions.