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
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
part 9
part 10

[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
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
part 9
part 10

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.