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[Phmcw]

Hu? No CO2 is one of the most harmless substance on earth. You're mistaking it for CO, which is a poison. The only way to get killed by CO2 is by breathing it without any oxygen (O2) around.

EDIT : well not totaly hamless but you got to have more than one percent around to make it toxic, apparently. Usually there is about 0.04% of it in the air.

[Soadreqm]

CO₂ is pretty much harmless to humans in concentrations that we have the capacity to release it into the atmosphere. If you're on a spaceship or a submarine or something, you might have problems, but outside? Not really plausible. An environmental problem, sure, but not "poison".

Mercury, now, that will mess you up. Don't breathe mercury. Carbon monoxide is pretty nasty too.

I think the current plan for disposing of nuclear waste is to find a stable slab of bedrock and bury it deep, which sounds pretty okay to me. As does using it to produce more energy, and they're getting better at that.

[Shinziril]

There's another non-global warming consequence of dumping CO₂ into the atmosphere: ocean acidification.  With more CO₂ in the atmosphere, more dissolves into the ocean, decreasing the pH of the ocean.  This is mostly a problem because all sorts of marine life uses shells derived from calcium carbonate in the water, and if the ocean gets acidic enough they can stop forming shells entirely (or even begin slowly dissolving pre-existing structures i.e. coral reefs).  How bad this is depends on how much you depend on seafood. 

[Urist is dead tome]

EDIT : well not totaly hamless but you got to have more than one percent around to make it toxic, apparently. Usually there is about 0.04% of it in the air.

Nothing's completely hamless these days. Its those damn coal companies.

[Nikov]

From the 18th century to today, pH levels in the ocean went from 8.179 to 8.104. It is a little misleading to suggest the seas are becoming acidic, because an acid is below 7. They are in fact neutralizing. But aside from the hyperbole, even the worst IPCC models pale in comparison to the geological record. 120 million years ago, the air's CO2 content was about twice today's level due to a series of volcanic events. That's right, in a few massive CO2 dumpings, our atmosphere was twice as rich in CO2 as it is today. And in 160,000 years, the atmosphere was back to normal thanks to "ocean acidification" causing plankton to thrive. The planet is a self-regulating system and this notion that moving 5.5 gigatons of carbon (we exhale 2.5 gigatons, and 250 gigatons are released from decaying plants) into the atmosphere will throw off balance the whole planet is nonsense. If you look at the past we are freakishly low on carbon dioxide. Levels haven't been so low in 300-400 million years, plants struggle to survive compared to the Jurassic. In fact, plants grow 50 times faster at 1000 ppmv, one of the reasons why CO2 levels never run away no matter how many supervolcanoes go off.

So if you ask me to take a chance on curbing CO2 emission to prevent global warming, I'd rather go green by fertilizing the atmosphere with CO2 to improve crop yields in Somalia. Now we both have a position based on belief, but I have the emotional appeal.

[Criptfeind]

But Nikov! Some might say, this 120 million years ago you are talking about was also marked by not having huge bunches of ice on the poles. Just theoretically, if we did not have these big honking sheets of ice, would that not flood the area that millions of people live in?

I don't think the question is is a increase in tempters survivable, so much as is it not going to cause a huge upset in the lives of a large amount of people?

Sure, in (to use such a easy for me to understand hyperbole) fallout people were still alive, but is that way of life preferable to what we have now?

The crop yields is a good point though, although I suspect it would not really help the situation as far as global starvation what with politics and desertification, I don’t really know enough to challenge it.

[Fayrik]

So if you ask me to take a chance on curbing CO2 emission to prevent global warming, I'd rather go green by fertilizing the atmosphere with CO2 to improve crop yields in Somalia. Now we both have a position based on belief, but I have the emotional appeal.

Actually, you've not taken into account soil nutrient levels, which are also lower than they where in the Jurassic Era. The main problem there, however, is that plants have changed since the Jurassic Era, and probably won't be capable of absorbing that much CO2. So, they'll grow as fast as they are now, except with more CO2 around them.

The planet is a self-regulating system and this notion that moving 5.5 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere will throw off balance the whole planet is nonsense.

Firstly, lets get my opinion out of the way here. Pretty much every breath we make throws the planet off balance, because it's not in balance. Ever. Everything that happens to this "balance" only ever happens in one direction. It may sway left, it may sway right. In the end it's always travelling forwards, so you're essentially screwed either way.

Now that's out of the way, I can get on to the main point. The thing about global warming isn't about throwing the planet "off balance". We can't throw the planet off of this balance, because we as a civilization do not have the technology to do so. No matter how hard we try, we will not kill the planet. (Yes, this includes a combined effort of nuclear technology. We really are that weak.)
The thing is, however, we as a balance, are no where near as strong. We live in a very delicate situation that's already on a steep decline. To put it simply, our way of life, and our bodies, cannot handle a large ^{(relative to what? who knows)} increase in atmospheric CO2.

Basically, to put my point into perspective: Large numbers of the world's population ^{(of humans)} are going die because of food shortages and skin-cancer. These will have, in turn, been caused by climate change. Of course, going mad to try and stop it isn't going to help now, we've already hit the trigger, stopping now will only limit the later damage.
Though, if you're not concerned about Humans, you have nothing to worry about. As stated earlier, we could nuke the planet with all we have (as far as I know) and we still wouldn't be able to stop life from returning in the future.

So yeah, climate change, "global warming"... As with everything, it's not about the planet, it's about us.

[Nikov]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is positively no reason to suspect sea levels which are rising at about a milimeter a year now will lead to catastrophic flooding, since we have already hit the same level as the last peak in sea level 120 thousand years ago.

Fayrik, my 50x figure came from a study that only adjusted carbon dioxide levels to 1000 ppmv. The rate of growth increased 50x. Same soil, same water, same sunlight, only the plants actually used less water as it exchanged gasses less often, conserving water vapor. Current plants thrive in a CO2 enriched enviroment, and while I'm certainly not suggesting they would survive in pure CO2, it would be nonsense to assume things would ever get to that point. The rest of your post is more appealing to the consequences of a belief, consequences which I can't even logically work out from a belief I think I've demonstrated to be deserving healthy skepticism at best. But if we've already pulled the trigger by burning fossil fuels, or if the natural cycle was already going to ruin the planet, there are far less expensive ways to engineer the world climate than enormous tax and subsidize programs to destroy fossil fuel industries in the Western world. Iron fertilization is the one that springs to mind the most for me.

[Fayrik]

and while I'm certainly not suggesting they would survive in pure CO2

I cut this from the rest of the sentence just to highlight, I'd never imply such a thing. Plants need Oxygen to survive too, and like you said, we'd never get there.

Current plants thrive in a CO2 enriched enviroment

Alright, I thought they didn't, but I'll assume you've got the more accurate data there.
Even so, the increased heat and UV light may also have a detrimental effect. Lab tests are unfortunately closed when it comes to this sort of testing.
Regardless of how well it would effect plants even, I really don't like hot places. (Probably the only Brit who doesn't complain about the weather! Ha.)

But if we've already pulled the trigger by burning fossil fuels, or if the natural cycle was already going to ruin the planet, there are far less expensive ways to engineer the world climate than enormous tax and subsidize programs to destroy fossil fuel industries in the Western world.

Yeah, my previous post was pretty assured on the whole "We've passed the threshold!" thing, while, even at the time, I wasn't 100% sure about it.
And, I wholeheartedly agree that we should investigate other ways to engineer the world climate. I'm not against deliberate global polluting in order to stabilize an atmosphere that we would do better surviving in.
As for the fossil fuel industries, I feel that actually, they shouldn't be down-scaled for the good of the climate, but for the good of technology. Other fuels have been emerging now for awhile, and they're being held back by Oil, Coal and Gas. I'd ideally like to see a situation where by other fuels are used in a more reasonable percentage in the market.

[Siquo]

I'm not really sure what Nikov's actual point is, here. To me it sounds like "Burn everything that can burn and then some", as if it's an alternative to "Let's come up with a way that we can sustain for more than 100 years". Could you elaborate, there, Nikov?

[Shinziril]

Wait, increasing CO₂ percentage to 1000 ppmv increased plant growth rates fifty times?  Please link to this study, I want to see this.  That sounds like something that would be worth investigating solely as super-fertilizer. 

[Phmcw]

Belief, belief, well I know we won't come to an agreement on this notion but still... I use the last finding of the scientific community, while you trust... what?

Beside as said the others, while I'm fairly sure that we won't manage to turn earth into Venus, I'm not sure we can handle the changes to come (because yeah, they are coming) without a major crisis.

Anyway, global warming isn't my main concern, but if you calculate the cost of coal energy, please include the cost of adapting from the subsequent climate change.

[Urist is dead tome]

Belief, belief, well I know we won't come to an agreement on this notion but still... I use the last finding of the scientific community, while you trust... what?

Beside as said the others, while I'm fairly sure that we won't manage to turn earth into Venus, I'm not sure we can handle the changes to come (because yeah, they are coming) without a major crisis.

Anyway, global warming isn't my main concern, but if you calculate the cost of coal energy, please include the cost of adapting from the subsequent climate change.

Do you have any evidence of this "subsequent climate change"?

[Phmcw]

Yeah, and I have too a simple formula to make a superconductor at ambient temperature.
Do you want my unified force theory, too? 

Hey, seriously we only have strong hint, because the reproducibility on this situation is a unsolvable problem, but enough to consider it as the most likely scenario.

[Urist is dead tome]

Yeah, and I have too a simple formula to make a superconductor at ambient temperature.
Do you want my unified force theory, too? 

Hey, seriously we only have strong hint, because the reproducibility on this situation is a unsolvable problem, but enough to consider it as the most likely scenario.

A more likely scenario is that the earth does this occasionally. Akham's razor, man.