Global Warming/Climate Change

[cheeseburger]

Yes or no? I'd like to hear your opinion before I disagree.

[TheDeSade]

GLobal warming - a naturally occuring event that may or may not be affected negatively or positively by human activities and the effects of which will, in my opinion, ulitmately self correct. The question to be answered is whether the human race will survive the correction.

[cadence]

My sister in law's best freind just recently wrapped up a documentary on global warming. I am on the fence and am waiting to view her tape first before I make any definate comments on it.

She has done three years worth of research and has traveled all over the world for it. I am anxious to see what her results are as she would not divulge any information as to what she has uncovered.

I will view her documentary shortly I hope, and will share her observations and give my opinions when I see it.

But so far all I have is this, China uses coal to run 70% of its energy and cannot find a cheaper alternative route to changing to a more positve energy source. India I believe runs a close second to that. China refuses to acknowledege that they are in the running of countries that emit greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. Other countries are trying to acknowledge that fact but really, how can you control it? In my opinion Global warming is just something that is going to happen, we are just helping it along a little faster than normal. But don't ask for my concrete opinion until I find some concrete evidence.

[DungeonMaster6]

Basicly I agree with Cadence. Global warming I think is a natural occurrence, but we could be helping it along by releasing an excessive amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. I believe I read somewhere that the U.S. is the largest contributor emitting greenhouse gases. But like she says, I think we should wait until all the evidence is in before passing judgement.

[OttifantSir]

I am 26 years old. That means, in scientific terms, I have lived close to a generation (30 years). In that span of years, I have witnessed first-hand that the world is changing climatically. When I was going to kindergarten and elementary school, the snow would sometimes reach two meters high, and snow plows were heavily coveted.
As I grew into middle-school (different school systems, forgive me any inaccuracies), the snow would generally not be higher than a little over 1 meter high. As I went to highschool, snow would generally not reach higher than 0.5 meters. And in the last decade (better part of it anyway) I have generally not seen more than 20 centimeters of snow for the better part of the winter.

And all through this, I have also seen a rise in temperatures. With exception of some cold-streaks, I remember it generally being -20 C for most of the winter when I was in kindergarten and elementary school. Fast-forward to this winter: The coldest temperature we've had this winter, and that lasted three days, was -10 C.

This is not any evidence supporting the theory that humans are accelerating the global warming. It's just a statement of facts showing, from one persons view, that the Earth IS getting warmer.

We know CO2 can maintain heat more effectively than what the rest of gases in our atmosphere can do. We know we supply CO2 to the atmosphere by burning fossile fuel.

The question is, in my opinion: Is that a very bad thing? We, as a species, may have to evolve more to cope with this change. Can we do that fast enough? Probably not. We know the Earth has had the same amount of substances (periodic table) for as long as it has existed in the form we now know (with life). How come it has been able to sustain life if the environmentalists are correct in saying we are killing our planet? To me, they are right, if you add a statement to that: We are killing our planet as we know it today.

Before the world has become like the scenario in Highlander II: The Quickening (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102034/) I won't say either camp in this discussion is wrong or right. Maybe not even then, as it can be seen as a natural occurence only sped up by human interaction.

[mkemse]

What what I have read, seen and felt, I have no reason to beilelve it is NOT happening

[ceegee{Benz}]

And all through this, I have also seen a rise in temperatures. With exception of some cold-streaks, I remember it generally being -20 C for most of the winter when I was in kindergarten and elementary school. Fast-forward to this winter: The coldest temperature we've had this winter, and that lasted three days, was -10 C.


There has been a masssive temperature rise here in England as well. Our sea temps are rising to the point last summer a couple of great white sharks were spotted off the coast of cornwall. Last summer also saw record breaking temps.....43c in my garden...average temps were running on about 38c and this year the met office reckon we will have temps higher than last year.

We have also had the mildest winter on record if you could call it winter lolol and the freakiest weather changes I have ever seen.

With the temperatures rising the ice caps are melting and along with that the sea levels are rising, and the english coast line is starting to corrode so england is slowly but surely getting smaller.

Makes you wonder if there really is anything that we as a world nation can do

[TomOfSweden]

GLobal warming - a naturally occuring event that may or may not be affected negatively or positively by human activities and the effects of which will, in my opinion, ulitmately self correct. The question to be answered is whether the human race will survive the correction.

I couldn't have written it better myself. Such words of wisdom. Thanks. There's too few of you in the world. It feels a bit like enviromentalists are the new fundamentalists of the world today.

We are on the way out of an ice age so it should get progressivly warmer. What scientists are debating, is how much of a rise is normal. Which we don't know yet.

[TomOfSweden]

In that span of years, I have witnessed first-hand that the world is changing climatically.

No, you haven't. It's all in your head. It goes up, then down, then up, then jiggs around a bit. The time frame between these events are something like 10-150 years. You need to look at 100 years or more at a time and take the average of it. Just looking at 30 years means nothing. You can't draw any conclusions. Science still doesn't know why it does this. Best guess has to do with activities on the sun, but it's still just guess work. England had a long time when they grew grapes for wine, in times when the science we have today tells us they shouldn't have been able to.

here's some info on it. I didn't read it carefully. Just the first page I found on it. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279a.html

[Rhabbi]

I have no problem with the concept of global warming, we can look back and see the evidence of it in older trees and the fossil record. My problem is the actual effect that we, as humans, have on it. Volcanic eruptions spew more gasses and dust into the air in a single day than we have in history, so our contribution to the overall temperature is probably negligable.

[blossom]

my partner seems to think its a goverment cover up to stop 3rd world contrys developing (i think he heard it on the radio and agrees with it). me, i think its happenin due to loads of ice being melted but im still in to minds about it

[Qmoq]

I don't think it's a myth, I think it's the biggest problem mankind has faced since the cold war. I do hope I'm wrong, but I fear that those documentaries that are being shown that say "don't worry, it's the earth naturally getting hotter because of volcanos" are going to be shown on TV the way "smoking calms you down and is good for you" adverts are shown today.

Is global warming responsible for everything, such as el Nino or Hurricane Katrina? I doubt it. But I don't think it's a myth.

[TomOfSweden]

my partner seems to think its a goverment cover up to stop 3rd world contrys developing (i think he heard it on the radio and agrees with it). me, i think its happenin due to loads of ice being melted but im still in to minds about it

I think it's correct, but it's not a govornement cover up. It's a subconcious cover up most people seem to nourish. It's the same mechanism behind giving money to aid.

Here's my theory. We seem to like the 3rd world being poorer than us and when we send them aid it makes us feel a little better about ourselves. But this needs the 3rd world to be poor, so we subconciously fight their possibilities to become modern and industrialised. Just this thing with solar panels in the country-side of Nigeria. It's an extremely expensive way of producing power. We would never atempt to pull it off in Europe. It's economically undefensible.

So it's basically down to good old racism, but prettied up so much that we might even fool ourselves we aren't racists.

[TomOfSweden]

I don't think it's a myth, I think it's the biggest problem mankind has faced since the cold war. I do hope I'm wrong, but I fear that those documentaries that are being shown that say "don't worry, it's the earth naturally getting hotter because of volcanos" are going to be shown on TV the way "smoking calms you down and is good for you" adverts are shown today.


Global warming will happen and isn't a myth. It's consequences will be disastrous and many land living species will die out. There's plenty of evidence that suports that. The debate is whether or not, we are responsible. Which may very well be a myth. And if we are responsible, can we do anything about it?

We even know that the polarity of Earth will switch one day. That'll be interesting. We have no idea what effect that will have.



Is global warming responsible for everything, such as el Nino or Hurricane Katrina? I doubt it. But I don't think it's a myth.

Huricanes are the result of differences in heat between the poles and the equator. The polar ice caps melting will raise the temperature of the poles, which will even out the heat difference and lead to less severe hurricanes. Elemental metereology.

[Stone]

everyone seems to see a conspricy in everything.The only reason 3rd world countries are that way is do to education mostly.Global warming whatever seemed like it was pretty fucking cold to me this last winter and it was pretty fucking hot last summer seems normal to me.

[boytoy2mistress]

Global warming may or may not be a fact, but our modern media and politicians have blown it out of proportion because it is the flavour of the month, much as healthcare in Canada was before it, terrorism before that and 9/11 before that. Global warming is not the apocalypse that many are making it out to be, it is part of natural cycles that have occurred on earth for millions of years, which any anthroplogist will be able to tell you. I don't deny that humans are exacerbating the situation with the methodologies that we use, but living species on the planet will adapt to changing circumstances as they have done so for millions of years also...or perish. Darwin called it.

[nk_lion]

Woo...3 exams down, 3 to go.

Anyhow, back to global warming. Initially I believed that global warming was a fact, however some of the opposing message leaked to me and I started to realise that I don't have all the facts to make a judgement. But neither do the politicians and certain TV/radio personalities.

Hollywood got the public all on an uproar about drastic climate changes (remember the 'Day After Tomorrow'? And then the right wing media (I'm thinking of a specific Glenn Beck episode where he basically insulted every single scientist who believed in global warming). So you got fanatics on both sides on the fence with this issue IMHO.

BUT, while global warming may affect the global population by a few degrees, possibly wiping out some cities due to iceburgs melting, etc., I can say for a fact that smog and emissions will affect you. Take for example two cities: Karachi and Bombay (Mumbai). When I last visited both those cities, I immediately found it harder to breath there. The smog is so intense, that if a wall was painted white, within a year it would be dark gray to black. Some of you are thinking that these two cities are in third world countries, so the problem would never happen here. WRONG, in Toronto, smog warnings increase every decade. A 100 years ago, there was no such thing, 2 decades ago, it was a rare occurance, the last few summers, it has been more common to a point being accepted. A smog day means a harder day for those with Asma, it means that if it continues like this, industrialized cities won't look a lot different from Bombay and Karachi.

Reducing emissions may not really change the global patterns, but if a community bands together, they can help themselves.

Besides, why not recycle? Why not change your lightbulbs to the more energy efficient ones? My university unfortunately refuses to spend money to do those things, even though the payback (for their usage) would be only in a few years. It's cheaper to cut down on power usage using energy efficient technology then producing more power, which you the consumers end up paying.

[TomOfSweden]

Besides, why not recycle?

I saw a Penn and Teller episode of Bullshit on this. According to them, only recycling aliminium cans saves carbon emission. All other types of recycling, including paper ultimatly ends up in adding to the polution. Collecting and reprocessing paper is less cost efficient than cutting down trees. And the paper industry won't make the trees disapear, since they continously plant new trees.

The people who are making the Amazonas disapear are poor indians using the ancient farming methods of burning down areas of forest, because they can't afford fertilizers.

I haven't read any scientific reports on recycling, so that TV show is the sum total of my "expertese"

[Qmoq]

I haven't read any scientific reports on recycling, so that TV show is the sum total of my "expertese"

That's the way I feel sometimes - the media bombards us with "facts", but it's only when we experience something for ourselves - like nk_8950 did - that we actually believe that something's wrong.

If you don't believe that the world is getting hotter (on average), you have your head in the sand - there are indisputable temperature readings that show this. The question is... what's causing it? My current position is that there are severe problems, and it's too odd to be a coincidence that it happens in the half-century that we really hit the fossil fuels hard. I don't have proof of this... but at the same time the "it's the volcanos" people certainly don't convince me the other way.

As for those people who think that recycling is bad... the largest man-made object in the world is Fresh Kills landfill site, a rubbish dump on Staten Island, New York... and it's been closed since 2001 (source: QI, a respected BBC program for smart-alecs). If we could find a way to dump less crap, or even better get rid of the crap that's there, that has to be a good thing, no matter what Penn and Teller say.

Q

[nk_lion]

I saw a Penn and Teller episode of Bullshit on this. According to them, only recycling aliminium cans saves carbon emission. All other types of recycling, including paper ultimatly ends up in adding to the polution. Collecting and reprocessing paper is less cost efficient than cutting down trees. And the paper industry won't make the trees disapear, since they continously plant new trees.

The people who are making the Amazonas disapear are poor indians using the ancient farming methods of burning down areas of forest, because they can't afford fertilizers.

I haven't read any scientific reports on recycling, so that TV show is the sum total of my "expertese"

You have a point TOS. Actually, I don't know the full effects of recycling using those recyling facilities, so I won't comment on that method more.

But recycling doesn't necessarily mean sending of bottles, cardboards and paper to those plants. Reuse plastic bags or paper bags, join a freecycle group (people give away stuff that they don't need for free), you'll be surprised how many people would make do with an old microwave with an analog timer. I use cardboards to lay around the roots of my plants in my backyard to prevent weeds from growing rather then buy some plastic from Home Depot.

Just a bit of imagination would reduce household waste by a lot, and maybe save you some money as well.

And perhaps you can get a second opinion about the advantages of recyling other then the Penn and Teller episode.

[TomOfSweden]

That's the way I feel sometimes - the media bombards us with "facts", but it's only when we experience something for ourselves - like nk_8950 did - that we actually believe that something's wrong.

If you don't believe that the world is getting hotter (on average), you have your head in the sand - there are indisputable temperature readings that show this. The question is... what's causing it? My current position is that there are severe problems, and it's too odd to be a coincidence that it happens in the half-century that we really hit the fossil fuels hard. I don't have proof of this... but at the same time the "it's the volcanos" people certainly don't convince me the other way.


It would hold up if the average temperature 1000-1300 wouldn't be above todays temperature. They hardly burned any fossil fuels at all back then. There's no correlation between carbon emissions and mean temperatures. All we've got is one Swedish researchers theory from the 70'ies that still has never been confirmed.

Since none of the scientists are certain about anything regarding temperatures, the field is open for any loud-mouthed moron to make a stand unoposed. Nobody can say they're wrong. Enviromentalists arguments tend to be so emotional. It's like, "if you don't recycle you hate nature". Which is just bollocks, but everybody seems to buy into the rhetoric.

edit: sorry about that. I checked. The temperatures are higher today than they where 1000-1300 ago. oops. I need to read a bit more.



As for those people who think that recycling is bad... the largest man-made object in the world is Fresh Kills landfill site, a rubbish dump on Staten Island, New York... and it's been closed since 2001 (source: QI, a respected BBC program for smart-alecs). If we could find a way to dump less crap, or even better get rid of the crap that's there, that has to be a good thing, no matter what Penn and Teller say.
Q

You're forgetting that we can put soil on top of a landfill and make it into nature again. And in a couple of hundred years it'll be all recycled naturally. That is what is being done today with landfills. It's the whole idea and it's not a problem. The available landfill space is in fact infinate. Because we'll never run out of new ground to fill up.

Finding a way to dump less crap is always good, since energy efficiency is always in everybodies best interest.

[Guest 91108]

You're forgetting that we can put soil on top of a landfill and make it into nature again. And in a couple of hundred years it'll be all recycled naturally. That is what is being done today with landfills. It's the whole idea and it's not a problem. The available landfill space is in fact infinate. Because we'll never run out of new ground to fill up.

Finding a way to dump less crap is always good, since energy efficiency is always in everybodies best interest.

It may be fine to turn it to nature , but usually it is bought by developers who care not what for nature and build their cheap ass subdivisions on it.
Charge you a fortune then you find out why you are sunk -- ie:
I think you should buy landfill property so you can experience the problems they are having with them if you think they are a good idea.
You have the material decomposing and so forth in the ground releasing gases.
You have the sinking of the land as the landfil material decays it creates sink holes. That causes foundation problems with the building's structures. Becomes so expensive to fix often the homes are abandoned.
The landfill property value drops as soon as the problems begin to surface and are near impossible to resale.

And those are just a couple of the local issues that i know of them.. i'm sure there are more.

bottom line is landfills are not the answer for us or nature.

[TomOfSweden]

It may be fine to turn it to nature , but usually it is bought by developers who care not what for nature and build their cheap ass subdivisions on it.
Charge you a fortune then you find out why you are sunk -- ie:
I think you should buy landfill property so you can experience the problems they are having with them if you think they are a good idea.
You have the material decomposing and so forth in the ground releasing gases.
You have the sinking of the land as the landfil material decays it creates sink holes. That causes foundation problems with the building's structures. Becomes so expensive to fix often the homes are abandoned.
The landfill property value drops as soon as the problems begin to surface and are near impossible to resale.

And those are just a couple of the local issues that i know of them.. i'm sure there are more.

bottom line is landfills are not the answer for us or nature.

But we've got massive amounts of land we aren't using for anything. Why not use them.

[Guest 91108]

that is what i'm say ToS.. when they done these landfills some decades ago. they weren't going to be for what they are now.
just as those now won't be in several more years.
land is being used up left and right at the moment.

[TomOfSweden]

Looky looky what I found. It's a BBC documentary called "The great global warming swindle". It leans on theories that carbon emissions should go up when temperature rises. Which is a causality issue. If true then carbon emissions is not evidence for us causing global warming.

This documentary is guilty of the same crimes enviromentalists are, namely that they make too big of a deal of numbers we aren't sure of yet. The bottom line is that nobody knows. Not even almost. If nothing else, this documentary proves that the oposite side has just as good arguments for ignoring carbon emission cut backs

part 1 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=l5ZU2pVfbQI)
part 2 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ScCNzHLV2NA)
part 3 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=BYUtPEgpEO8)
part 4 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gaGgJxURuY4)
part 5 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=u-_cxJ3p4Zo)
part 6 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=p2o-lLebzbU)
part 7 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ng7ZAXusjJ4)
part 8 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=DFG6ZHOfYvs)
part 9 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gnxQWUDH7G0)
part 10 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=fqxSwh591hE)

[mkemse]

Has anyone seen "An Inconvinient Truth" and if so your impressions of it. No i have no seen it, this is NOT a setup question for debate of it, rather a simple question

[ms_minx]

Looky looky what I found. It's a BBC documentary called "The great global warming swindle". It leans on theories that carbon emissions should go up when temperature rises. Which is a causality issue. If true then carbon emissions is not evidence for us causing global warming.

This documentary is guilty of the same crimes enviromentalists are, namely that they make too big of a deal of numbers we aren't sure of yet. The bottom line is that nobody knows. Not even almost. If nothing else, this documentary proves that the oposite side has just as good arguments for ignoring carbon emission cut backs

part 1 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=l5ZU2pVfbQI)
part 2 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ScCNzHLV2NA)
part 3 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=BYUtPEgpEO8)
part 4 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gaGgJxURuY4)
part 5 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=u-_cxJ3p4Zo)
part 6 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=p2o-lLebzbU)
part 7 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ng7ZAXusjJ4)
part 8 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=DFG6ZHOfYvs)
part 9 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gnxQWUDH7G0)
part 10 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=fqxSwh591hE)

If the BBC wasn't controlled by the government, I'd be more likely to believe half the things they transmitted. If this was a Channel 4 documentry, I'd be more convinced. With causality, you have to accurately determine temporal precedence and that is the strongest evidence avaliable yet.
xxx

[TomOfSweden]

If the BBC wasn't controlled by the government, I'd be more likely to believe half the things they transmitted. If this was a Channel 4 documentry, I'd be more convinced. With causality, you have to accurately determine temporal precedence and that is the strongest evidence avaliable yet.
xxx

I'm not sure I follow you, but it does seem like heat increased and then co2. co2 emissions did go up 1000-1300 without human intervention.

and BBC being controlled by the govornement is a really lame conspiracy theory issue. All it means is that it's more likely to be pc, not less. The private channels work with selling news. Which, in this case doesn't exactly strengthen their position.

[ms_minx]

and BBC being controlled by the govornement is a really lame conspiracy theory issue. All it means is that it's more likely to be pc, not less. The private channels work with selling news. Which, in this case doesn't exactly strengthen their position.

I agree, I agree Tom, as I'm not one for conspiracy theories. But do take the time to read about the BBC Complaints Audit, if you can be bothered. It doesn't make for riveting reading. But when your Boss tells you what to air and what not to air, you listen. Could explain (and please note I said 'could' not 'does') explain why there has been more changes in this company than shuffles in our (i.e. UK) Labour's goverment benches! Tony was 'green' in 1997 and currently, Gordon Brown is a murky shade of his surname on the matter. When he is the next PM, then that's what the basis of future BBC documentaries will be based around. Again, to my personal opinion, so far there has only been an association but very recently, temporal precdence has been demonstrated with regards to global warming, thus implying causality.
xxx

[Ozme52]

Global Warming? Yes. Most likely. Caused by humanity? I highly doubt it. In fact it seems to me to be utter hubris for us to assume we've caused it or can stop it.

We have this tendency to be so centric that we ignore our own history. Take the Vikings for example. Talk about a group of people with an excess of leisure time on their hands. They managed to raise enough food for themselves that they could afford to go to sea in search of fame, fortune and adventure. Why? Because it was much warmer then than it is now. Enough warmer that the treelines were 6000 feet higher up the mountains. Enough warmer that they could grow and store sufficient food for themselves to last throughout the year AND to stock what amounted to huge expeditions of exploration. (Not to mention raiding wealthy neighbors... and not raiding them for food mind you... but for lucre.)

Because it used to be warmer. A lot warmer. Did you think that Greenland was some sort of real estate scam? Nope... it was named so because of the verdant fields found there. Then something happened and it got cold!! (Probably something to do with the sun... you know... that REALLY HUGE ball of fire up in the sky. Now a small change in the sun's output, THAT can have an impact on the climate.)

So what's all the fuss about? It's because man, again with full hubris and arrogance, insists on populating the coast lines. So a return to normal, (i.e., a warming trend,) is going to wreak havoc on beachfront real estate prices... not to mention millions upon millions of peoples living in the lowlands and many island nations.

[OttifantSir]

No, you haven't. It's all in your head. It goes up, then down, then up, then jiggs around a bit. The time frame between these events are something like 10-150 years. You need to look at 100 years or more at a time and take the average of it. Just looking at 30 years means nothing. You can't draw any conclusions. Science still doesn't know why it does this. Best guess has to do with activities on the sun, but it's still just guess work. England had a long time when they grew grapes for wine, in times when the science we have today tells us they shouldn't have been able to.

here's some info on it. I didn't read it carefully. Just the first page I found on it. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279a.html

I don't mean to flame you or anything derogatory here, but from what you say, you don't really dispute my claim to have seen the climate change. I have not done scientific research on the matter, but I have a memory of how things was. I HAVE seen the weather pattern change. Is it signifant in scientific terms? No. But that doesn't take away the fact that what I have experienced gives me the conclusion that the weather has changed since I was born. Maybe it will change more during my lifetime, maybe it will stay the same. There is the freak possibility of me sitting with my grandchildren and telling them that when I was a boy, we had snow towering two meters and sometimes more. And they will ask what snow is. That is a FREAK possibility, but with our knowledge of the climate till date, it IS a possibility, simply because we don't know how to predict the future.

[TomOfSweden]

I don't mean to flame you or anything derogatory here, but from what you say, you don't really dispute my claim to have seen the climate change. I have not done scientific research on the matter, but I have a memory of how things was. I HAVE seen the weather pattern change. Is it signifant in scientific terms? No. But that doesn't take away the fact that what I have experienced gives me the conclusion that the weather has changed since I was born. Maybe it will change more during my lifetime, maybe it will stay the same. There is the freak possibility of me sitting with my grandchildren and telling them that when I was a boy, we had snow towering two meters and sometimes more. And they will ask what snow is. That is a FREAK possibility, but with our knowledge of the climate till date, it IS a possibility, simply because we don't know how to predict the future.

It's a question of statistics. You need a population big enough to draw conclusions. If you've only seen one German guy in your entire life who had dark complexion and spoke Turkish it would be a faulty assumption that all German people look and speak like that. You haven't lived long enough to draw conclusions.

You have no idea if it's a freak possibility, or no possibility. You can't work out anything about it, because you don't have the numbers.

Let's just leave it to climate scientists to argue about it. They are the ones educated in these matters.

[tessa]

~sighs~

This is an opinion forum. If a member wants to post an opinion, and as long as it breaks no Forum rules, it's perfectly acceptable and shouldn't be subject to censorship...even when others think the opinion or the information cited isn't so scientifically based.

So, let the discussion/opinion-fest continue.

[gagged_Louise]

Word, Tessa. And if nothing else, 2007 will surely rank as the year when human-induced climate change hit the major agenda in the common debate and became something widely recognized and worried about.

[tessa]

~hugs Louise...for a few different reasons~ ;)

[TomOfSweden]

Word, Tessa. And if nothing else, 2007 will surely rank as the year when human-induced climate change hit the major agenda in the common debate and became something widely recognized and worried about.

I'm not so sure about that. I think 2007 will be the year when we stop thinking about how to avoid global warming, and instead have a debate about how to deal with it. Because it will get warmer, with or without human interferance.

Surely nobody thinks the temperature will be stable if we stop burning fossil fuels?

[Ozme52]

That's the main point Tom, because it's happened before, only we didn't recognize it nor were we "advanced" enough to deal with it. More people live at the water's edges now than ever before... and possibly more now than have lived there all together since the dawn of the Agricultural Age.

That's where our problem lies, in the impact it will have on those people. I'm guessing many of them will be able to move to the newly flourishing Sahara Savannah. As they say, it's not the heat, it's the humidity... and once the icecaps melt back a bit, there will be more moisture for rain on the currently arid areas of the world.

[TomOfSweden]

That's the main point Tom, because it's happened before, only we didn't recognize it nor were we "advanced" enough to deal with it. More people live at the water's edges now than ever before... and possibly more now than have lived there all together since the dawn of the Agricultural Age.

That's where our problem lies, in the impact it will have on those people. I'm guessing many of them will be able to move to the newly flourishing Sahara Savannah. As they say, it's not the heat, it's the humidity... and once the icecaps melt back a bit, there will be more moisture for rain on the currently arid areas of the world.

Is that really what will happen? I thought global warming will make the Sahara even more arid, and make it spread. I think we're shit out of luck in that department. People will simply have to move north and south, and we'll have a new higher coastline.

Here in Sweden, (or at least around Stockholm) the old coastline from before the last ice-age is still clearly visible. We know how high it will be and it's damn high. All of Stockholm will be reduced to a couple of tiny islands.

Earth isn't particularly over-populated. I read a report a while back where they stated that if all humans would go over to a vegetarian diet we could today support 60 billion people easy. Hitting that roof is a while off. I think the transition to this new world will be so slow and our markets will react so fast, that I don't think it'll be more than an inconvenience. Our cultures will adapt faster than the world changes.

The human strength is that our brains are so maleable. We can get used to anything, as long as people around us face the same difficulties. We're the mammal equivalent of a cockroach. We'll be fine. And we'll always worry about cataclysms. I think that's a genetic thing :)

[tessa]

Ah, and the discussion continues. ~giggles happily~ And it is a rather fascinating one. I love reading this stuff. Notice I have nothing more to add. When it comes to such matters, I just spectate.


As they say, it's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Actually, I can add something, but not on global warming. Much less erudite than that.

I saw a cartoon once- this guy is new in hell and is looking rather overwhelmed. Another guy walks up and says, "pray for low humidity."

Ok, it seemed funny at the time.

~sighs~ This is why I watch from the corner.

[gagged_Louise]

I'm not so sure about that. I think 2007 will be the year when we stop thinking about how to avoid global warming, and instead have a debate about how to deal with it. Because it will get warmer, with or without human interferance.

Surely nobody thinks the temperature will be stable if we stop burning fossil fuels?


Yeah, I wouldn't say the temperature will stop changing, or sink back toward a 1900 AD level, even if we stopped all fossile fuel burning right now. The effects of what has happened are certainly long-range, there is a very long "braking distance" even if mankind would, let's say, stop consuming oil and lower the use of coal to 50% tomorrow (that's a very unrealistic scenario of course!). And i don't deny there is a natural change which might be pushing the temperatures up. But after years of attempts to mitigate and ridicule the whole question, the point that "the greenhouse effect" and man-indúced climate change are real and to be reckoned with is, I think, firmly anchored both in people's minds and in serious political and scientific debate.

Solutions? I don't have any easy ones. I used to be hardcore against civilian nuclear energy, but at the present we seem to have very few alternatives if we want to remain a high-energy society and, for instance, not pull down many industries and shelf the networks of modern pc/telecommunications that this site, among others, runs on. Even more so 'cause we can't really tell China, Brazil, Thailand or India that "your'e not supposed to strive for the kind of hi-tech civilization or automated industries that we enjoy here in the west", can we?)
Going on to use oil and coal to milk out electricity is senseless, and the supposed alternatives (wind power etc) are just not in the league to give the amount of energy the world needs: maybe they might begin to get there in forty years, but not now...) There are a number of very good reasons not to want nuclear plants in the long run, but at present it's not easy to avoid an effort to upgrade and expand nuclear power technology. Sorry, we can't afford to be without it (but also, I think, we need a much more powerful research effort to find operative new sources of renewable energy)

[TomOfSweden]

man-indúced climate change are real and to be reckoned with is, I think, firmly anchored both in people's minds and in serious political and scientific debate.


That may be the case. But that doesn't make man-induced climate change true. Politically it's being used to take peoples atention off the serious issues. In USA, Bush just laughed at it until now. Before he wanted all atention on the war in Iraq, now he doesn't. Shwartzeneger buys a enviromentaly friendly car.

In Sweden we've got masses of enviromental reforms that are total bullshit, not based on any research what so ever. We have one of the biggest and most effictive paper industries in the world. Why are we of all countries recycling paper? It makes no sense. It doesn't save trees, carbon emisions, money or peoples time. Pure political garbage from day one.

We know nickel metal cadmium batteries are important not to throw in the garbage, and collect responsibly. Which was why we started to recycle bateries. But those hardly exist any more. Now all we have are nickel metal hydride batteries. Are those enviromentaly hazardous? I don't know. I haven't heard anything that would indicate it. Nobody seems bothered finding out. I can't find any information on it anywhere.

Recycling is expensive, (beside using a lot of fossil fuels in the collecting). If we can't justify it we shouldn't do it, right?

Politically enviromentalism is mostly just down to rhetoric. The polititians own opinions aren't really important are they? It's about winning, right? Emotionally people seem to be into it because they seem to either like feeling guility about stuff or like hating who ever is worse than them, (ie another type of elitism/snobism). Scientists opinions seem to be irrelevant.

[gagged_Louise]

I totally agree with you Tom, that a lot of the environmental policies implemented at home (in Sweden) in the last ten years are basically crap, the reasons are a bit outside this discussion though they're obvious if you've been around (the uncertain political backing of the governments in the last ten years; the need to throw tidbits at the Green Party; the fact that nobody's felt up to taking decisions about long-term enegry policies). And it's probably much the same in France, Italy or Germany.

It should be clear to anyone that chaining ourselves up to coal, oil and gas is a threat to the environment in a real way and a political liability (you get tied up to unstable and dictatorial regimes - Russia, Iran, saudi Arabia; you have to pay rising costs to buy fuel instead of building your own energy industry, etc) What's lacking isn't just the technology but also a world-wide political arena where this kind of thing could be discussed and ferreted out .

[TomOfSweden]

It should be clear to anyone that chaining ourselves up to coal, oil and gas is a threat to the environment in a real way and a political liability (you get tied up to unstable and dictatorial regimes - Russia, Iran, saudi Arabia; you have to pay rising costs to buy fuel instead of building your own energy industry, etc) What's lacking isn't just the technology but also a world-wide political arena where this kind of thing could be discussed and ferreted out .

That is a completely different discussion but one I totaly agree on. Couldn't have said it better myself. Saudi Arabia is a fascist nation and I feel very uneasy about filling thier coffers. We are prolonging their corrupt govornement by buying their oil.

Or as ....(an economist I can't remember the name of) said. "Who cares if the oil runs out? If it does we'll find another energy source or make the ones we have more efficient".

[OttifantSir]

It's a question of statistics. You need a population big enough to draw conclusions. If you've only seen one German guy in your entire life who had dark complexion and spoke Turkish it would be a faulty assumption that all German people look and speak like that. You haven't lived long enough to draw conclusions.

This argumentation reminds me of two movies I like: The Gods Must Be Crazy (I & II)
The bushmen of Kalahari had never seen a bottle of Coca-Cola in the first one, nor even a white man. They saw the bottle as a gift from the gods until they all started needing it for everyday life. Point here: They had never seen it before, so they drew conclusions on the basis of their lives so far. They made a false conclusion about the bottle, but they were still entitled to make that conclusion. I didn't repute your statement about it being scientifically insignificant, nor that I hadn't done research on it. My conclusion may be wrong, misinformed or otherwise incorrect, but that's MY conclusion on the matter. And it is somewhat backed up by scientific research. We know the world is warming up. It's not yet as warm as it was in the late thirties (apparently the heat records of the 20th century occurred then), but it's getting warmer. I HAVE read enough on this to know that that's what's happening. I also know that noone knows all the reasons why it is happening.


You have no idea if it's a freak possibility, or no possibility. You can't work out anything about it, because you don't have the numbers.

Well, me sitting with my grandchildren and trying to explain what snow is, IS a possibility, simply because I don't have the numbers. As far as I know, noone has them, so therefore this IS a possibility. Even a scientific possibility since it hasn't been proven wrong yet. My reason for calling it a freak possibility is the latitude and longitude of my chosen place to live on this planet. It's pretty far north, and the inclination of the Earth's rotation is such that my coordinates doesn't get the full benefit/onslaught of the Sun's rays. It is therefore generally colder than coordinates further South (from the North Pole and further North from the South Pole)


Let's just leave it to climate scientists to argue about it. They are the ones educated in these matters.

Climate scientist are certainly the ones properly schooled about this matter, but they are not the only ones educated about this matter. The definitions are quite closely matched, but education comes in many forms. It is something we obtain every second of every day. Education is comparable to experience. Schooling is education/experience set within strict guidelines, (hopefully) based on science, and where you are required to gain a certain degree of Knowledge/Facts (as we know them today anyway).

[Ozme52]

The amount of 'fresh' water trapped in the two icecaps is enourmous. So yes, many areas will get far more rain than they do now.

I know there is a concern that the current CO2 levels far exceed what has been measured in the gases trapped in deep icecores... but we have no way of knowing how those 'trapped' gases behave over hundreds of thousands of years... so we may well be comparing apples to oranges...

Lastly... there's no predicting if the global warming will ever really come to be. All it would take is one exceptional eruption of a volcano, ala Krakatoa or Pinotuba, or even Mt. Ranier, for example... and the ash added to the air could counter act all the greenhouse gases in the course of a decade. Many historians are coming to believe that the Dark Ages in Europe were so named... because they were indeed "dark!" ... the results of some impressive geological activity.

[Liam Naisson]

I know i am rather fresh in here but this is a topic i have a very strong interest in. Feel free to bash in at any moment.

Global Warming, is an old term, its "climate change" now, because in some areas it will get warmer and in some it will get colder. The change is a very bad one. We will have more droughts and more floods. More harsh winters with record minus temperatures and blizzards and also more over the top heat summers that will melt the glue thats holding in the windows of your black SUV.

If you do not believe that humanity is responsible, then you have to look simply at one fact: Carbon in the atmosphere. This was also something nicely demonstrated in the inconvienent truth. Lots of carbon equals climate change. Again something you cant dismiss. Yes, the planet has had its fair share of movments in the carbon levels. But in the past 650'000 years, or about 325 times as long as christianity exists, these levels have never risen above a certain level. Now we are here, and lo and behold the levels rise to record heights and just keep climbing.

Now i hope nobody makes an ass out of themselves and denying the existance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or its rather grave impact on the climate in a very global way. So with that off the table, anyone want to tell me, that this increase is not from us human beings? If not, where else does it come from?

If some of the bigger ice formations come lose around the planet, there could be increases in water levels within months, in the range of multiple meters.

And if we just continue to pump out CO2 as we do now, the concentration will reach a very neat mass in 2100. At that point, there will be no ice left on both poles and for that matter most areas in the world. Water levels might rise up to a hundred meter. Again, thats one hundred meters. Forget the ice shelfs coming of and making a big splash with 10 meters, thats 100 meters. three quarters of the worlds population and almost all of the very fertile land we are currently using for farming is gone with that. And thats in only 93 years.

It wont happen overnight, it will take a long while, but it will get worse and worse.

Buy solar panels, use compact flouressencnt light bulbs, get a more fule efficient car. If you simply value your money, do those things, you save a TON of cash right there. One CFL bulb saves me around 50 bucks in power alone, not even talking about how cheap they are now and that i dont have to replace them every few months. My two solar panels i got off ebay, the electronics for it as well, all dirt cheap. I paid 300 bucks for all together, my power ill went from over 100 bucks (becuase of all my computers) down to 30. I am thinking about getting another cpuple batteries and another panel and push that even further down.

I wouldnt tell anyone to go and live in a cave, throw out their car or anythig like that. But at least make some intelligent choices that are easy, save you money and help the environment in one single package. Everybody wins.

[TomOfSweden]

We don't know if the raise in C02 levels is the result or cause of global warming. As Ozme aptly pointed out, there's massive amounts of CO2 stored up in ice. When it melts it gets released. So much we know.

[Liam Naisson]

Um, ok... Let's recap that then.

Low CO2 levels -> Ice Age.
High CO2 level -> No ice age.

So we do know CO2 is responsible for it. We also know for a given fact that we pump a shitload of that stuff every single second of the day into the atmosphere. We also know that it keeps in the atmosphere and not "goes out into space". And although everybody would like to think that or at least like to think that the atmosphere is so big that it is not noticeable, they are so wrong that it hurts. The atmosphere itself is a tiny layer on the planet. Its a bit in the past but i think my old geography teacher made an example as to when the earth is a 1 meter diameter sphere, the atmosphere is a plasticwrap around the planet pretty much to scale.

So given there is not unlimited space in the atmosphere and we know we pump TONS of CO2 into it, you are of resolv that we are not responsible for it?

Lets take it two steps further. Yes there is CO2 in the ice. There is also methan, lots of it, and that SOB is even worse than CO2. The ocean also is full of CO2, about a thrid of what is put out, is absorbed by it, but the saturation levels are making the ocean now toxic to many creatures, food chains get killed of in very dramatic ways there. And lets not forget about the worlds largest carbon sinks: Trees. We keep burning them down like there is no tomorrow.

So we do our best to pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we can, which we already know for a fact, makes the planet warmer. With that ice starts melting. The melting ice releases more CO2, which in turn makes it warmer, getting more ice to melt, releasing more CO2. To make matters worse, the warm temperature dries up small rivers and lakes that usually keep a few gigantic forrests alive. Those trees and other plants, die, fall on the ground, start to rot and, yes you already guessed, start to release some more CO2.

I am not saying there is no release of CO2 elsewhere, in nature, but i am sure as hell it is us human beings who are responsible for getting the ball rolling.

What is more important though is that we try as people on this planet, to slow that ball down as much as we can, because its going ond where its going is gonna be awful either way. Unless you are going to die in the next 20 years, you will sit with the rest of us here and expierence some pretty nasty things.

[Ozme52]

One of my points, and I'll say it again, we don't really know if what we're measuring today can be compared to what we assume we're measuring from 650,000 years ago. There are too many variables we know nothing about.

The recent brough-ha-ha (sic) about the hole in the ozone layer... yes there was a hole. But no one had the technology to even know if it was unusual... or if it was normal... or if it was cyclic. Yes, we theoretically outlawed CFC's... and the hole it gone... but we still don't know if it was just part of a cycle which we could never measure before.

Do you really think puny little mankind can influence such drastic changes in the whole world's atmosphere in such a short time? I think not. Did we help? Possibly... but whatever happened to create the hole... and whatever happened to close the hole... was probably a normal part of "mother nature" doing her thing.

And I think "father sun" is going through a normal and regular cycle of warming up and cooling down and we are currently in a warming phase. As I said earlier, it's been this warm before. Warmer.

It's ridiculous to assume we're the cause. In fact, it's typical of our overinflated sense of importance.

PS. Gore's electic bill last year was reportedly in excess of $30K

[TomOfSweden]

Um, ok... Let's recap that then.

Low CO2 levels -> Ice Age.
High CO2 level -> No ice age.

So we do know CO2 is responsible for it.


Ouch. All we know is that there's a strong correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures. It doesn't in the least imply causality.

Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality) an article on causality.

[Liam Naisson]

A strong correlation. We know the "global warming effect" exists, greenhouse gases are responsible for it. If we did not pump a lot of that stuff into the atmosphere that "natural warming" wouldnt happen. The ozon layer is an entirely different problem. Again, the atmosphere is very thin, contratry to what we would like to believe. To say we have no impact after pumping crap for decades into the air in the volumes of tons, is just plain denial.

It equals out to, we don't impact the water quality by pumping waste into rivers, we dont influence wildlife by paving roads across the planet and that we dont do a very long list of awful things because of all the garbage we are mostly dumping in the worst possible ways imaginable. Causality is not an excuse to deny whats right in front of your face.

Considerering the majority of scientists (everyone who is not paid by the big companies that are currently polluting the world like crazy or simply getting richer by the day from it) agree that CO2 is the cause and that humanity is responsible for it, what do you say to something like that? I mean sure, they change their minds, but thats just good thinking. You test, you study and if you get different results or insights, you change your mind to reflect what you learned. If you have ever had any touching expierences with academia, you will know its almost impossible to get those guys to agree on anything. That they can agree on something like that is either a miracle or simply a pretty gruesome truth.

Gore's electrical bill is no argument, just a fact. Want more dirt? He flies all over the world constantly, and flying is one of the worst things you can do to the enviornment. He ain't a saint, but he tries to bring the message out into the masses, thats more than most people do.

I love that i have some people here who totally disagree :) A good discussion is always worth a lot. What i wonder though, is what the motivation is. Like, say it doesnt even matter anymore who started the ball, its rolling and getting worse, more ice is melting, gulf stream could stall, sea levels will rise (the question is only how fast, not if), weather gets more extreme (more floods, more droughts), we have record plus and minus temperatures all over and there is not really anything we can do to completely stop it, as it feeds on itself. So what exactly do you guys think in all this? Like should we sit back and enjoy ourselves until the planet is all in the toilet and then blow our brains out? Whats the plan? Or what is your plan?

[TomOfSweden]

A strong correlation. We know the "global warming effect" exists, greenhouse gases are responsible for it. If we did not pump a lot of that stuff into the atmosphere that "natural warming" wouldnt happen. The ozon layer is an entirely different problem. Again, the atmosphere is very thin, contratry to what we would like to believe. To say we have no impact after pumping crap for decades into the air in the volumes of tons, is just plain denial.


You didn't read the causality article I linked to did you? Correlation does not imply causality. Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation) another article that's easier to understand. It's one of the lamest and most overly abused rhetoric tricks in the world. And it's never been true.



It equals out to, we don't impact the water quality by pumping waste into rivers, we dont influence wildlife by paving roads across the planet and that we dont do a very long list of awful things because of all the garbage we are mostly dumping in the worst possible ways imaginable. Causality is not an excuse to deny whats right in front of your face.


First off. It's mostly large mamals we're killing off. All other species is doing great. Rats and insects have never had it better. Environmentalists have this bad habit of equating animal with cute and furry while anything that looks icky is dispensable. I really hate that attitude. Insects have feeling to :)



Considerering the majority of scientists (everyone who is not paid by the big companies that are currently polluting the world like crazy or simply getting richer by the day from it) agree that CO2 is the cause and that humanity is responsible for it, what do you say to something like that?


That's the lamest conspiracy theorist garbage I've ever read. I doubt you can find the name of a single scientist paid big major corporations to fight environmentalists. Science is science no matter who pays for it. A scientific finding is no less true no matter who pays for it. If the numbers work then it's scientific truth.



I mean sure, they change their minds, but thats just good thinking. You test, you study and if you get different results or insights, you change your mind to reflect what you learned. If you have ever had any touching expierences with academia, you will know its almost impossible to get those guys to agree on anything. That they can agree on something like that is either a miracle or simply a pretty gruesome truth.


From this paragraph, I'm guessing your main source of scientific info is popular press. It's just not true. Scientists agree on lots of stuff. All scientists agree that's there's a correlation between globol temperatures and CO2. What they disagree on is the conclusions we can draw from this. The press only focuses on the things where they disagree, (off course, it's their job). But it's only a minute part of all research.



Gore's electrical bill is no argument, just a fact. Want more dirt? He flies all over the world constantly, and flying is one of the worst things you can do to the enviornment. He ain't a saint, but he tries to bring the message out into the masses, thats more than most people do.


I agree here. There's no crime in having a passion.




I love that i have some people here who totally disagree :) A good discussion is always worth a lot. What i wonder though, is what the motivation is. Like, say it doesnt even matter anymore who started the ball, its rolling and getting worse, more ice is melting, gulf stream could stall, sea levels will rise (the question is only how fast, not if), weather gets more extreme (more floods, more droughts), we have record plus and minus temperatures all over and there is not really anything we can do to completely stop it, as it feeds on itself. So what exactly do you guys think in all this? Like should we sit back and enjoy ourselves until the planet is all in the toilet and then blow our brains out? Whats the plan? Or what is your plan?

"If we don't know to what port we're sailing, no wind is favourable. "
-Seneca

[OttifantSir]

I really can't give you the name of the program, because I got in a bit too late for that, and the info on Text-TV didn't display the title in English. But, it was a BBC/CBS (maybe, it was a co-produced program of US and UK anyway) program about the climate change.

I posted earlier about the heat records of the 20th century being in the thirties. This program discussed that. Remember also: At that time, the Depression was going strong. It were less release of CO2 to the atmosphere at that time than later in the century. The 70's showed us a gas crisis. Less CO2 released into the atmosphere, yet the temperature rose. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is measured in parts per billion (or perhaps million. I don't accurately remember this), anyway, the number they stated was 0.00534. I guess per cent, of the Earth's atmosphere is currently CO2.

If you compare the measuring of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last century to the temperature, you will see two graphs that are widely spread apart. Back to the example of the 30's and 70's.

Apparently, although I don't remember all of how it came to be, it's Margaret Thatcher's fault that we believe in man-made climate change today. She worded herself in such a way, because she didn't want to lose her position as Prime Minister, as to set off a scientific wave of people researching the correlation between CO2-levels produced by man, and the temperature.

What is it then that's causing the climate to change? The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is one of the two trapping the heat. The oceans are vast amounts of elements, and they need time to heat up and cool down.

But what is causing our planet to heat up in the first place?

Astronomy. Europe has seen what's called the Little/Small Ice Age, where the Thames froze solid. I believe that was in the 1600's. They didn't have the devices to measure the CO2-lever in the atmosphere, but they did have something else: Telescopes. Which they used to look at the sun. Why? Because they believed that sunspots, massive outbursts of radiation and energy from the Sun, had a correlation to the climate. If we are to believe the evidence presented, I am convinced. In the thirties and seventies there were a lot more sunspots than in other times of the century, despite the CO2-levels released was lower than before. In the 1600's, sunspots was almost non-existent. And the release of CO2 would have been like it was when the Romans grew grapes in England.

A hint for all those wanting a scientific grant to do some research: Say your research is about something and it's release of CO2 and the impact it may have on the climate. You have a better chance of getting it, even if you prove that it has nothing to do with the climate.

Also, take a look at how the icecaps have been behaving the last twenty years. They have shrunk, grown, shrunk, grown extensively, shrunk somewhat, grown, shrunk some more, grown again, shrunk again, and on and on. The amount of ice on Greenland will probably stay the same. The highest temperature recorded on the glaciers of Greenland is -16 C. Doesn't ice melt at 0 C?

Off course, it's never a bad thing to switch to hybrid cars. You do save money for yourself, and you will most likely make astmatics and others with respiratory diseases happier. But the point is, we are not in control of the climate change in any way. We do not contribute to it, and we can not stop it. Unless we devise a global shield to protect us from the Sun. But without it, we are dead anyways.

[goodgirl_85]

While I can't take the time to read EVERYONE'S opinion on this matter, I do have my own to submit. Global warming or not... something is happening to the environment that may or may not be a good thing in the end. However, I do know that a hurricane (btw which the warmer the waters the stronger the hurricanes- the more the FRESH WATER ice caps melt into SALT WATER oceans the WARMER the oceans will get) destroys countless lives along with the other horrific acts of mother nature is surely something to look at. In my eyes mother nature is a beautiful thing that turn its back on us at any moment. But instead of focusing on mother nature which is something we cant do anything about, maybe we should start doing something about things we can help with... lets say helping out at the local homeless shelter, giving some food to a food pantry... joining big brothers big sisters program... anything like that... because in order to survive whatever mother nature is preparing us for ( and who's to say that "Day after Tomorrow" is all that fictional) we are going to have to work together, as a team enemies will be forced to become allies and the hollywood stars will become as commonfolk as we are.... but thats just my opinion. Life is life and life happens. Yeah its tragic when a tornado kills and leaves hundreds homeless as it is when some guy is allowed the time and essentially the freedom to kill 30people in a two hour span. We have to keep our hands up, help our neighbors, and go on smiling. We all did it after 9/11 - a day that woke me up and brought me out of my 17 year old ignorant narrow view of the world.

Without suffering there would be no compassion. This veiw has been with me a long time and has brought me not only my frist family death at the age of thirteen when i watched a loved one take her last breath but so many other happenings both directly and indirectly affecting me.

Ok sorry i went off on a rant... sometimes that happens. I know i went way off basis, but my point is try not to worry about what you cant control and mother nature is just something you cant control. Cuz if you worry to much, you can miss alot of living and a lot of the "moments" that make life so grand. SO concentrate on them.. and smile at a stranger when you pass him on the streets. It could make his day

[OttifantSir]

Really, that was my point. We can't control it, we don't affect it in any way, we can't stop it in any way. It's part of the astronomical cycle of our planet.

[TomOfSweden]

Goodgirl. Sorry to rain on your parade but increased global warming will lead to less severe hurricanes. No scientist in the world will dispute that.

The day after tomorrow didn't even pretend to care about science. It's just playing on popular myths and fears. Nothing wrong with that, but don't confuse it with science.

[Liam Naisson]

If the gulfstream stalls, really shuts down, which is a possibility, "The Day After Tomorrow" wont happen like it did in the movie, freezing choppers in mid air, gigantic "cold air down sucks" etc, but it could lead to extreme colds in regions that were temperate to this day, dry out land more away from the coast, oh, and it will happen over a decade or two, not in one day.

So your argument is "we are not responsible and we cant do anything about it", did i get that about right?

That BBC thing, um, yeah, it wasnt a BBC thing, it was a documentary called something along The Great Global Warming Swindle or equally stupid. It cut together bits and pieces, off hand comments, negative examples etc and made them look like they were real, while not footing into facts. The big gas thing where there wasnt much to go around? Gas accounts for only a part of CO2 output. Think coal, you cant have it more directly carbon to air than that.

CO2 is measured in parts per million. So since you think this is crap, lets look a bit at more facts.

www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0320-11.htm
Published March 20, 2004. At that point the increase was 3 parts per million a year. Before the industrial reveolution we were talking 280 parts per million. Dont just take that guys word for it, lets see what some goverment agency has to say.
cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html

So the current values given is a value from 2004, at 377, but they also say in the first article its rising 3 per year so we are at 386 now roughly. It was 280 in average, all trhought the history of the planet we can look back at (ice cores go back to 650'000 years). Now all of a suddern we got a rough third more, or 100 parts per million more CO2. Looking at temperature graphs since humans keep records, shows you a very fascinating relation. Oh and "they go appart big" is a matter of scaling, not a matter of data. If you approximate the start and the end to be about in the same area on a graph, you will notice these weird patterns of spikes (up and down) in temperature and CO2 and how fascinatingly well they line up.

Sience does not equal sience. You can leave out data, chose to interpret data in your own way (causality anyone?) and come to very nice conclusions that undermine anything you want, or get paid for.

The only difference is when you have hundreds of scientists, from all over the planet come to agree on the same thing, coming to the same conclusion, then you can be pretty sure they are on the right track. And did that not happen very recently? Oh right i think they call themselves the IPCC...

www.ipcc.ch

Just in case you were living under a rock, they came to the conclusion that it is human beings. And those are experts in those fields from all over the world. Now you and me can talk about this for ages, but i stick with the guys that know their stuff.

[TomOfSweden]

If the gulfstream stalls, really shuts down, which is a possibility, "The Day After Tomorrow" wont happen like it did in the movie, freezing choppers in mid air, gigantic "cold air down sucks" etc, but it could lead to extreme colds in regions that were temperate to this day, dry out land more away from the coast, oh, and it will happen over a decade or two, not in one day.

So your argument is "we are not responsible and we cant do anything about it", did i get that about right?

That BBC thing, um, yeah, it wasnt a BBC thing, it was a documentary called something along The Great Global Warming Swindle or equally stupid. It cut together bits and pieces, off hand comments, negative examples etc and made them look like they were real, while not footing into facts. The big gas thing where there wasnt much to go around? Gas accounts for only a part of CO2 output. Think coal, you cant have it more directly carbon to air than that.

CO2 is measured in parts per million. So since you think this is crap, lets look a bit at more facts.

www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0320-11.htm
Published March 20, 2004. At that point the increase was 3 parts per million a year. Before the industrial reveolution we were talking 280 parts per million. Dont just take that guys word for it, lets see what some goverment agency has to say.
cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html

So the current values given is a value from 2004, at 377, but they also say in the first article its rising 3 per year so we are at 386 now roughly. It was 280 in average, all trhought the history of the planet we can look back at (ice cores go back to 650'000 years). Now all of a suddern we got a rough third more, or 100 parts per million more CO2. Looking at temperature graphs since humans keep records, shows you a very fascinating relation. Oh and "they go appart big" is a matter of scaling, not a matter of data. If you approximate the start and the end to be about in the same area on a graph, you will notice these weird patterns of spikes (up and down) in temperature and CO2 and how fascinatingly well they line up.

Sience does not equal sience. You can leave out data, chose to interpret data in your own way (causality anyone?) and come to very nice conclusions that undermine anything you want, or get paid for.

The only difference is when you have hundreds of scientists, from all over the planet come to agree on the same thing, coming to the same conclusion, then you can be pretty sure they are on the right track. And did that not happen very recently? Oh right i think they call themselves the IPCC...

www.ipcc.ch

Just in case you were living under a rock, they came to the conclusion that it is human beings. And those are experts in those fields from all over the world. Now you and me can talk about this for ages, but i stick with the guys that know their stuff.

The problem with that ipcc report is that most of the people who authored it are politicly apointed and that some of the scientists who have their names on it are fighting to have them removed.

There are extremly strong political reasons for needing humanity to be the culprits. If we aren't all the green parties will go down the toilet. All politians who've built their whole platform on being green. I'm not saying we couldn't fuck up the environment. Only that we're still far from a position where we can draw sure fire conclusions.

I'm doing fine here under my rock. :)

[Sir_G]

I'm doing fine here under my rock. :)

Seems to be the place most people prefer to hang out at when it comes to this issue. All I know is that when dollars, multinational companies and politicians are involved in any issue the truth well never come out and the debate will continue till it's too late or the planet turns into a cinder with everyone pointing the finger at everyone else.

My answer is to try and reduce my ecological footprint on the environment (I think thats what they like to call it these days) and live by my rules on my terms. Any one that chooses to share my immediate environment in my home either deals with it or doesn't and doesn't come back. Out there in the world I share as best I can within the limits of living on my own terms mostly within the law sometimes outside it.

A very interesting thread this with some interesting points of view. Viva free speech for as long as it lasts!

[goodgirl_85]

Never meant to say we arent responsible nor did i say we cant do anything about it. What I meant is that each of us can only do so much and dont worry about what you cant do. However, one must point out that humans have not always been around, and scientists have determined that there have been more than one ice age, and hmmm what wiped out the main in characters in one of my all time favorite TV show DINOSAURS. ?????? I do believe there are still many theories but no one quite knows. Global warming is something that mother nature herself does... we as humans just dont help the situation at all. and for every person who goes "green" there is one person that doesnt. shrugs. life happens, live it how you want, worry only about you can do to help the world. whether it be helping the homeless, donating time or money to various charities or going "green". whatever suits your lifestyle. Anything else, dont worry about because like i said before youll end up missing those little wonderful moments that make life so grand.

girl

[shifha]

"And lets not forget about the worlds largest carbon sinks: Trees. "
Actually, imho, the largest carbon sink in the world is, surprisingly, rock which has been recently weathered, exposing new surfaces.
Basically, people concentrate on climate change as the major problem. But over population and the results of polluting the oceans and atmosphere may be just as bad.

[Liam Naisson]

Rocks being the biggest carbon sinks? Thats a new one for me. Trees draw down the most carbon out of the air of all things on the planet so far, followed shortly by the ocean which does about a third. So i have a problem currently picturing that rocks do a lot of a difference currently. If you have a source, i would love to read about it though.

I also love the "it's a political thing" debate. It's not. It is a matter of survivial as a species. You think this is some kind of conspiracy that a huge amount of scientists cooked up, together with all the green parties of the world, to create a powerbase? Please, thats not even worth a siencefiction short story. Even if you would entertain that rather amusing thought, where is that powerbase now that the report is out? Oh yeah it doesnt exist, because that is all fantasy. Also the IPCC is not some club if idiots called together yesterday, they have been around for a while and looked that this for a very very long time before bringing out their report.

There is exactly one guy who does not want his name in it, his name is Christopher Landsea. He left saying that he viewed the process "as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound". But he also notes that the actual report "maintain[s] consistency with the actual balance of opinion(s) in the community of relevant experts."
So the usual politics drama on that guy, yet even thought he didn't like something, he still says the whole thing is balanced report about what the experts think. It is a rather silly argument that one guy leaving or not being happy with something that thousands worked on, makes the whole thing bogus.

I read up a little about the current perdictions again. A quarter of the human population and a third of our infrastructure (globally) would have to relocate or be destroyed, if the sealevel rises 2 meters. Currently the IPCC has a range of 0.9 - 1.4 meters sealevel rise projected till 2100. They corrected it half a meter UP, after 5 years more data. Rises in temeprature are a lot faster then they perdicted, most of the "bad values" are in the upper 90% of the ranges they perdicted and feed of each other to cause everything to spiral out even faster than they thought. The initial ssumptions were made on the premesis that many of those values might spike or go higher, but not that a great many of them all go into the top ranges in unison.

Over population is another factor in this gigantic equasion. This not only means families having 10 kids in China or India, it also means women being made criminals if they want to abort their child or being refused access to birth control. Please dont go down the abortion rights road here, this is only one of many little side tracks that all plays into the gigantic machine that drives global warming.

For my part, i only have CFL light bulbs, i even got the company that manages my appartement building to replace all the ones in the halls with CFLs. I bought a load of power bars and switch everything off completely that i am not using, with the exception of my alarm clock. There is a solarpanel on my balcony, supplying some extra power that i am not sucking form the grid, saving me money and the envoriment some extra carbon. I walk, bike or use the bus, dont even own a car. If i would buy one, it would be this one: http://theaircar.com/ which not only is nice to the environment, no, i also save a ton of gas, can refill it for free at pretty much all gas stations, can plug it into a socket if need be, or use a solarpanel to recharge it at home. It might not be a cool sportscar, but it will drive me around town and cost me less than any other car in buying and maintanance.

Don't go living in a cave. Just do the small changes that will in effect save you money. And btw also help the environment, but thats just a small added bonus.

[Ultraprene]

Well written essay. Let me answer one point. Rocks are a sink for CO2 in the sense that carbonate rocks hold a lot of the CO2 generated in the past. I don't believe they are "eating up" the stuff going into the atmosphere now. Some atmospheric CO2 does go into the ocean, but this lowers the pH of the water (Dissolved carbon dioxide is called carbonic acid.) It's a weak acid but still acid.

I admire your efforts to reduce your "carbon footprint." Keep up the good work.

[OttifantSir]

But he also notes that the actual report "maintain[s] consistency with the actual balance of opinion(s) in the community of relevant experts."

I have not yet visited your links, but I would like to know if this scientist has qualified his statement, or if you know where to find the original statement/interview.
Because this statement only says in polite terms, (coupled with the reason why he wants to leave, and the fact that he never was asked to be a part of the research, they just pasted his name in there,) that nothing was accomplished. Said ruder, more directly: They have wasted a whole lot of money to prove that we don't know anything.

I am not someone dumping litter and toxic materials everywhere. I sort the trash, I use energy efficient light bulbs, I lower my inside temperature.

But, I think the "Global Warming/Climate Change"-hysteria is just that; Hysteria. It won't hurt us to think of other ways to get power than by burning fossile fuels, but I don't think we can affect the climate all that much.

I also seem to remember that making solar panels for homes, produces CO2 equivalent of burning off a lot of coal. Environmentally-kind ways to produce power is waterfalls and (yes, for the environment) nuclear plants. These release CO2 too, but that's less than any other energy source. But they have other problems, I know.

[M@ster{sg}]

the temperature's risin', the ice on the poles is melting, there are more and more hurricanes, ... all effects from the global warming... and why?

nature (or God, depends what you wanna believe) provided us a nice planet to live at. everything was created with a purpose no matter who "made" it. there's water, air, animals, plants, humans.... ok, humans have been the best in evolution, yes they have become the smartest, but was it all necessary?

Were we meant to go that far in evolution? did we need to invent weapons and destroy eachother? the fact is in my opinion that science ruined a lot of nature, and is the main cause of the global warming.
whatever created all of this made sure that life on this globe would be possible... how? it gave us a protecting atmosphere, but then again, the humans had to explore the space around our world... to find what exactly?
every time they launch a spaceshuttle, a bit of the atmosphere is destroyed permanently... and a second time when the shuttle returns...

so bit by bit our only protection from the big ball of fire (thx for the quote Jerry) is taken down. And yet are the scientists amazed of all the things going on lately...

they were smart enough to get their degree, but what's the part they missed?
logical thinking? I mean, what's up there in space that they keep hiding? what's important enough to give up our own existense in a matter of time?

So far for my opinion :)

Kind Greetings
M@ster

[shifha]

Here is a source for the rock sink hypothesis, Liam. http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/karst/kig2002/cg_karst.html

[shifha]

And this is a better one. http://www.iemss.org/iemss2002/proceedings/pdf/volume%20due/416_egorov.pdf