More on Global Warming..

[guitronics]

Yeah....and wasn't he involved in the OJ trial? I think his last name is something like Kaehlin.

 

[guitronics]

Apparently the world's top scientific minds cannot determine if global warming is indeed caused by man, and his activities.

We could all become Luddites and go back to horse-and-buggy times, but the health risks from all that crap would undoubtedly put the world in a greater danger.Those horses emit methane gas, also.

As far as politics go, everyone with power, or the chance of getting power is gonna go with whatever enhances themselves,be it the media, science, government.

I had read that the only nation to endorse the Kyoto accords was Thailand.

I also read about a theory that the earth is slowly cooling, due to the sun's slightly lesser output, and the position of the earth relative to the sun.

I believe that the universe is cyclical.I believe that man has exacerbated the ozone hole problem, but I also believe it's been there all along.Just because something is noticed doesn't mean that it just recently happened.

As far as the Cato institute supporting some of the planks of the the Republican party....wow,what a revalation.

There are people of all beliefs and philosophies all around us, permeating any and all of our institutions.Some are weirder than others, but then some weird people have had true genius in their thoughts, they just had to convince others.

I live in Michigan,and a few degrees warmer would be welcome, especially in the winter.

I don't think it makes much difference at all what we do, or what we don't do.We'll just have to deal with it.Possibly the world will heal itself.

 

[etech]

ELP
"how old is the 'living' earth? well..dinosaurs lives about 70 miliion years ago. Taking into account ONLY the 70 million years since the last dinosaur, is it good science to base a theory (prediction) on less than 0.000004286% of the data?? That would seem to me to leave a lot of room for error.


When was the last time you saw a living dinosaur? "

Man was not on earth at the same time of the dinosaurs. The earth's climate cycles without any human intervention. We should plan on reducing pollution but also plan on dealing with the changes we have no control over.

Milankovitch Cycles and Glaciation

 

[RossGr]

I guess it would be moot to point out that it may well have been a weather catsatrophy which ended the reign of the dinosauers. This may have been induced by a collision with an astroid but it may have been the climate change due to a prolonged winter which did the deed.

So lets us continue on the current path, see if we can induce some changes. Of course there is no proof that we can but gee... who knows, maybe the models have some kernal of validity. If we produce enough, you know give it the old college try. Maybe we can do it. I personally think we would be doing the earth a favor to destroy this thing we call civilization.

 

[Recneps]

<<Apparently the world's top scientific minds cannot determine if global warming is indeed caused by man, and his activities>>

Right because the only way to prove that man is at fault would to be clone the whole plant and on one plant kill all the people and remove all trace of people and see which plant has a cooler temperature.

<<I also read about a theory that the earth is slowly cooling, due to the sun's slightly lesser output, and the position of the earth relative to the sun.>>

The sun is also going to blow up in 5 billion years give or take a day but it has no effect on the current climate.

<<I believe that the universe is cyclical.I believe that man has exacerbated the ozone hole problem, but I also believe it's been there all along.Just because something is noticed doesn't mean that it just recently happened.>>

Do you have any evidence to back up your clame that the ozone whole has all ways been there? I'm sure if you looked you would find that the whole is growing but that just part of the cycle right? And it just happens that the ice fields were ice cores have been removed date back millions of years are melting for the first time sence the last ice age?

 

[Linflas]

I believe the ozone hole was first noted during the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year.

 

[WordSmith2000]

<< As far as the Cato institute supporting some of the planks of the the Republican party....wow,what a revalation. >>


Well, if missing the point to support your own agenda is what you set out to do, you succeeded admirably. The point I was making is that when you have a conservative scientist with an obvious political agenda writing an article, you have to call into question any &quot;scientific&quot; claim that he wants to make. In addition, this man does not try to bring his own contrary evidence to the table, he just wants to tear down the work of others. While this tactic works extremely well in politics (witness the Bush campaign and how they lied about Mc Cain's daughter to win the state of Virginia in the primaries), it has no business in the scientific arena. When the person publishes an alternate explanation of the facts, and has the explanation verified by his peers in the scientific community, only then will he gain credibility.

AFAIC, this guy is just another conservative pundit blowing smoke up your ass to make you feel better about the things you do that hurt the environment.

 

[vohwink1]

Global warming CAUSED by humans... blah I'm sick of it.

Sure our production of extra CO2 and CFCs might be speeding up the process, but like others have said, we're studying a very tiny fraction of geological time which is not the best way to measure global changes. Ever looked at the glacial records and seen the different periods of glaciers the earth has had (or so they say)? It is a normal process of Earth. We're coming out of an ice age so the trend in temps. are increasing. So maybe our pollution might be speeding up the warming, oh well. Its an uphill battle.

We can reduce our fossil fuel consumption, we can do this, we can do that, but bottom line is we cannot change climate (for the most part). The Earth will take its course whethere we like it or not. Even if the world gets hot and the ice caps melt and we lose tons of shoreline... this won't happen overnight. You don't think that humans will adapt slowly to slightly warmer temperatures and less landmass? I doubt humans will even make it long enough to see these huge changes, but even if they do we will have changed, adapted, and created new technologies that it won't even matter anyway.

 

[sandorski]

I don't know why it's so hard for some to understand. There is a balance in nature. Volcanoes, plants, and animals do emit gases and other substances that are harmful, but nature has counter-measures for those things. Car emissions, industrial emissions, other human caused emissions, and human re-working of vast areas of terrain are not part of the natural order. The natural systems were not designed/evolved to handle the excessive human emmissions.

I'm not advocating Luditism, but if we are seriously considering whether we have an impact or not, the clear answer is yes! How can we not be? Should we just ignore that effect? If we can minimize that impact, should we not? Or should we just continue on until the effects become so bad that it makes economic sense to do something?

It's best to make changes NOW, rather than wait until it's too late, while it is affordable, and can be done with minimal societal unrest. If we wait for the &quot;proof&quot; before acting, it will probably be too late, as the momentum will only carry the effect to a much worse situation. Add to this the social turmoil when governments force it's citizenry to become Ludites or die and you'll see the end of Democracy, Capitalism, Freedom, and Civilization as we know it. This is truly the biggest threat to our existance, simply because once the balance goes out of kilter, there is nothing we can do to stop it's effects. Except to wait it out.

So what's it gonna take? How many thousands of Americans will have to die before you believe?

 

[Tominator]

<< How many thousands of Americans will have to die before you believe? >>



sandorski
Why don't you set a example. Live in a cave. Eat dirt and rocks and die an early death....we are waiting...

 

[Moonbeam]

Why not take his warning a little more seriously. Why pick the path that may lead to possible extinction? Do you ever look at yourself and try to understand your motivtions?

 

[Tominator]

<< Do you ever look at yourself and try to understand your motivtions? >>



I give up...there is no reason here...

 

[RossGr]

<< I give up...there is no reason here >>



Seems like it is pretty well split, some see no reason to change, some would like to take precautions and some want to shut down and move into caves. Just because not everyone agrees with you does not mean that there is no reason here. Of course it may be you who lacks reason.~^

 

[etech]

I liked this article so much I thought I would post a few parts of it.

Global warming anguish might be just hot air.
By Larry Mounser
Posted 30/11/00

The problem is this: the Earth is normally much colder than it is now. For millions of years, we've been in ice ages, with short, warm interglacial periods, lasting no more than 12,000 years. A cycle of about 100,000 shows up in the long-term record and 'our' interglacial has gone on now for 10,000 years, and we should be grateful for the Indian Summer in which we live. This warm period has led to human civilisation, as we know it. The next ice age will see a third of the planet under ice and cause mass extinctions. Well documented ice and pollen records show the onset of an ice age could take just 70 years. Being able to avert it by burning fossil fuels, purposely creating a 'Greenhouse Effect', could be one of the luckiest flukes in human history. Yet, strangely, it's the warming of the planet that we fear.
....
· less than five percent of CO2 in the atmosphere is the result of human activity, and there's good geological evidence that the warmer it gets the more C02 is naturally introduced into the atmosphere, so the current 0.01% increase could be a result of the previously mentioned solar activity increasing temperatures, and have nothing to do with human activity, in this chicken and egg argument
...
· recent NASA satellite figures show the planet is actually cooling. Some number-crunchers on the Greenhouse side claim these figures are in error, while members in the same camp agree with them and then try to discount the findings as irrelevant

Climatologists on both sides know, 'If you torture the data long enough it will confess.' And if you feed it into your favourite computer climate-model, it will come out balancing a ball on its nose.

The tragedy is that we are surrounded by a plethora of real environmental problems, ranging from coastal ribbon development to salination. Yet, like children too frightened to look under the bed, we're intimidated by a totally unprovable and extremely unlikely doomsday prophecy.

 

[Tominator]

RossGr
Show me someone in this thread or any other that is against reasonable conservation of resources or reasonable efforts to clean up or keep clean the environment.

Reasonable does not equal bringing progress to it's knees btw...

 

[Harvey]

Global warming phenomena are observable and can be reasonable associated with human activity, and the human population of the Earth is growing. Furthermore, the specific activities thought to be associated with global warming are primarily the result of increased technologie (i.e. increased energy production and usage).

For these reasons, alone, it makes perfect sense to take strong note of these phenomena and do whatever can be done to mitigate them. It's similar to the arguement the religion nuts keep babbling to me about when I tell them I'm an atheist -- The worst that could happen is they're wrong. Only in this case, the foreseeable downside of not doing anything is far more based in reality than any fear may I have of whether there is a god.

 

[Harvey]

<< Hey these scientist cannot predict the weather over a week time period. >>]

Hey -- You're wrong. In case you haven't noticed, satellites and computer modeling have given us very accurate weather forcasts over a one week period. The reason they can't be 100% accurate is because of random factors. It's called the Uncertainty Principle, but that isn't the &quot;uncertainty&quot; of the prediction. It relates to the fact that there are many small random conditions that can alter the specific effects of larger forces.

You really need to go back to school, and do a lot more reading before you make such broad generalizations.

 

[Moonbeam]

Just as a for instance, I am motivated by a desire not to bring progress to it's knees. I look at myself and ask, why this pinning of hopes on progress, what does progress represent. Is it wealth, comfort, freedom from the fear of disease, etc. What am I feeling, poor uncomfortable, afraid. Then I ask is there a progress that is possible without destroying the future. Is there an alternate future that I could feel good about. Am I being imagination poor by invisioning only one kind of future and not wanting to let go of it. Everything we think is based ultimately of assumptions we rarely examine, but just assume are real.

 

[Tominator]

Harvey

Wrong is wrong. I don't care how many colors you paint it. They can guess how the weather MIGHT be, but it is a guess...a week...LOL!

 

[Harvey]

Tominator[b/] -- << Wrong is wrong. >>

I believe it, coming from an expert on being wrong, such as yourself.

 

[sandorski]

Hmm, like I said, I am not a Ludite. If we act before the fact, we'll never have to worry about living in caves. If we wait until it's too late, we'll live in Hell. The worst part of that will not be the environmental catastrophe, it will be the social/political upheaval. If we have any sense of obligation for future generations we'll act. If not, our descendants will witness a new Dark Age that will make the last one look like a Sunday picnic.