Global Warming/Climate Change Discussion Thread

[FoolKiller]

Beyond the payrolls issue is the rhetoric used. Since before I was born we've been given scary scenarios and models, many of which have had their deadlines come and go. Everything from running out of gas in the seventies to people making predictions of the ice caps melting in ten years recently. When I was president of STOP we were flooded with stories of freshwater running out and Florida disappearing under rising oceans.

I have no clue what encourages these scare tactics, but that is where the mistrust began. And then you had those negatively affected by scare tactics produce their own studies. Eventually, it became a back and forth of making statistics say what you want.

And then when you wind up with businesses run by people like Al Gore charging people for green credits to basically relieve their green guilt I see the same tactics being used as the Catholic Church uses. At that point I realize a lot of the common terminology and PR strategies are eerily similar to that of organized religious groups. As a Christian believer who hasn't been associated with a specific denomination in over a decade for these very reasons I realized the time for intellectual discourse had passed. We will repeat the same mistakes and likely never reach a truth.

Oh, and in the US Christians get far more public grief than environmentalists in the media. Much of it is brought on themselves, but I could argue the same about "evangelical" environmentalists.

 

[Keef]

I have no clue what encourages these scare tactics...

It's proved a pretty good method for controlling a populace throughout history. Ever wonder if those using them actually know what they're doing as they do it? Oh jeez, now I sound like a conspiracy theorist.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

I believe global warming is occuring. Nature is nature but we are only a minor contribution. I also believe that the events that took place in "The day after Tomorrow" very well could happen eventually. Which would be another Ice Age to regain balance. Out of all the disaster movies out there, I believe that one is the most accurate of what will eventually happen. Probably not in our lifetime, but I believe it will happen again.

I have lived in Michigan for 25 years (I am 35) and the water level has only decreased EVERY single year since I have been here. 7 foot and 8 foot deep lakes that were here when I was a child are long gone. Just dirt now. Rivers are down, swamps that were full of water are now grass fields. Just go to any lake including Lake Michigan and the water level is down many many feet from what it was 25 years ago. I do realize other locations in the world are recieving excessive rain but Michigan, has only been drying out year after year after year.

 

[Keef]

I believe global warming is occuring.

Also, you've used the phrase "global warming". I have to assume the recent tree ring study has been shared in this thread already?

Some (very) recent food for thought.

 

[Sam48]

I believe global warming is occuring. Nature is nature but we are only a minor contribution. I also believe that the events that took place in "The day after Tomorrow" very well could happen eventually. Which would be another Ice Age to regain balance. Out of all the disaster movies out there, I believe that one is the most accurate of what will eventually happen. Probably not in our lifetime, but I believe it will happen again.

The earth's Northern hemisphere freezes over every 30,000 years. That's how we got the great lakes and finger lakes. This process has occurred many times. I never saw the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" but as far as I know, it's a fictional movie about how global warming froze the world over... (So not a very credible source of information I would imagine). Of course, if you were using it as an example in order to describe what might happen, that's fine. Just be sure to use actual evidence.

 

[niky]

If you melt enough ice to disrupt the Gulf stream and stop the circulation of warm water up north, it's actually possible to trigger a mini-Ice Age in Europe. Maybe.

 

[homeforsummer]

Also, you've used the phrase "global warming". I have to assume the recent tree ring study has been shared in this thread already?

Thanks again for the links, I've now had a read.

However, I'd be interested to know what stance you're taking on the subject, as the data in the study (if it's relevant) actually supports the AGW theory.

The finding does not change our understanding of the warming power of carbon dioxide. In fact, it shows that human CO2 emissions have interrupted a long cooling period that would ultimately have delivered the next ice age.

If we've interrupted a mean reduction in temperatures over a 2,000-year period, surely that suggests that humankind is changing the climate? Or have I missed something here?

Of course, that's provided the study is relevant anyway:

But others have doubts. Mann argues that Esper's tree-ring measurements come from high latitudes and reflect only summer temperatures. "The implications of this study are vastly overstated by the authors," he says

Either way, it suggests we've either interrupted a cooling period by making it warmer, or we've made things warmer anyway after a fairly static period of temperatures.

Though again, if I've missed something significant, feel free to point it out to me. That's just my interpretation of the links you posted

 

[Keef]

If we've interrupted a mean reduction in temperatures over a 2,000-year period, surely that suggests that humankind is changing the climate? Or have I missed something here?

Some visual averaging of their 2,000 year temperature plot tells me that warm and cool periods come and about 1,000 years apart. The slightly warm period we're in right now is right at or slightly over 1,000 years since the last one. That's perfectly normal.

If we are in a natural warming period then it seems to me that we won't be able to judge our effect until the end of that warming period - if it doesn't seem to end then we'll have our answer.

Though again, if I've missed something significant, feel free to point it out to me. That's just my interpretation of the links you posted

I'm not an environmentalist, I just want the actual environmentalists to stop bickering like lawyers in a courtroom. One side of the coin has widely publicized government lead and financed agenda while I don't know what the other side has because they're not hip and cool and socialist enough to get published in today's media.

What I am is a libertarian who thinks the government should not be in the business of governing the environment beyond enforcing our natural right to property. That alone is enough to deter one person or company from polluting the property of another person or company, or prosecute said person or company for doing so. I'm also a pilot who is acutely aware of various fuel-related environmental and safety regulations which contribute to my gas costing nearly $6.00 a gallon for no good reason.

 

[homeforsummer]

Some visual averaging of their 2,000 year temperature plot tells me that warm and cool periods come and about 1,000 years apart. The slightly warm period we're in right now is right at or slightly over 1,000 years since the last one. That's perfectly normal.

If we are in a natural warming period then it seems to me that we won't be able to judge our effect until the end of that warming period - if it doesn't seem to end then we'll have our answer.

Perhaps, though bear in mind that that tree-ring study is merely one of a great many studies. That's the real reason it's hard to judge whether AGW is real or not - bombardment of conflicting data.

I suppose the other thing to note is that "global warming" is a bit of a specific term. I'm not sure whether "climate change" is any better, but it's a good descriptor for the fact we seem to have had an inordinate amount of "biggest storm/wettest summer/warmest summer/warmest winter/driest spring/longest drought/biggest wildfire/somethingest something" stories emerging in only the past few years. I suppose it's up to scientists to verify whether periods of extreme weather changes also come and go every x number of years, but there's certainly been an awful lot of weird weather records broken recently.

I'm also a pilot who is acutely aware of various fuel-related environmental and safety regulations which contribute to my gas costing nearly $6.00 a gallon for no good reason.

My apologies, but I can't really feel sorry for you here. Been paying $8/gallon to fill up my car for quite some time now. I could be mistaken, but in the ten years I've been driving I may not have paid less than $6 for gas at any point... God knows what guys have to pay for AvGas in the UK but I suspect it's more than $6/gallon.

Also, I'm not sure how much you can lay the blame on safety regs and environmental stuff for that, unless you're referring to a load of chemicals they dump in the stuff. Gas is volatile in terms of pricing as well as chemical composition, so the fact you're paying that "much" is equally as likely down to supply and demand, and taxes.

 

[Keef]

Also, I'm not sure how much you can lay the blame on safety regs and environmental stuff for that...

Bullhonky. I can't even buy a gas can that doesn't require directions on how to defeat the locking mechanism so I can pour gas into my lawn mower! Plain ol' jugs with caps are illegal to sell now.

 

[homeforsummer]

Bullhonky. I can't even buy a gas can that doesn't require directions on how to defeat the locking mechanism so I can pour gas into my lawn mower! Plain ol' jugs with caps are illegal to sell now.

That's not why the gas itself is expensive though. It's expensive because the price of crude oil is higher than it once was, and because it's taxed.

The health and safety guff is just a mild, peripheral irritant aimed at preventing stupider members of society from killing themselves.

 

[PeterJB]

I would have to say that yes, global warming is occurring. Throughout natural history the Earth's temperature has modulated, but this is the first time that unnatural sources are causing it, which I think could cause damage to the Earth's life cycle.

 

[Adamgp]

Is Global Warming (or Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Krazy Al's Klimate Kerfluffle, or whatever it is called now) occurring? Sure it is.

The earth has gone through more than a few ice ages, and more than a few warming periods. The earth has never maintained a constant temperature.

It's all natural.

 

[Touring Mars]

It's all natural.

And your evidence is?

To claim that you know for certain that current variations in the climate system have not been influenced in any way by human activities is just as bold a claim as claiming that it has - and yet, you seem perfectly content to make the claim without substantiating it in any way. I'd be fascinated to see how it can be shown unequivocally that every known anthropogenic forcing has had absolutely no effect whatsoever, or that they all perfectly balance to create no net effect.

 

[Adamgp]

And your evidence is?

Are humans not part of nature?

 

[Touring Mars]

Are humans not part of nature?

Touché.

 

[Slash]

My personal belief is that the Earth is going through a phase, and probably has done everything we see now at some point before but we just never either realized it or it wasn't kept on record (we've only been keeping records for about 150 years).

 

[Keef]

Are humans not part of nature?

Touché.

I've pondered this point before. How can anything be unnatural? Anything which exists must be natural or else it couldn't exist in nature.

 

[Strittan]

I've pondered this point before. How can anything be unnatural? Anything which exists must be natural or else it couldn't exist in nature.

Depends on how you see it. In a way you're right, but the way I see it a car, for example, is not natural because it didn't grow on a tree or was born by another car.

EDIT: Besides, this thread is not about what you should classify as natural, but what's causing the global warming, and in general we don't regard factories, cars or machines in general as natural things, do we?

 

[FoolKiller]

I've pondered this point before. How can anything be unnatural? Anything which exists must be natural or else it couldn't exist in nature.

There is an odd combination of inflated ego and guilt. People think we are so great that we can destroy all of nature and all life as we know it by accident. And thus they feel like we are the lowest of the low because we've gone down that road.

It does largely ignore that reaching our current state (big enough to affect nature or not) is a process and we merely used what was available to us and as we improve so does our technology. From a purely economical stance we would become better as we learned to produce more from less. If we are negatively (We should debate that point too) affecting the climate the natural cycles of progress will lead us to improve over time. And when doomsday scenarios are removed from the picture it is even possible we will change in time to reverse the negatives.

All forcing us to expedite our changes does is prevent us from examining new technology properly and judging long-term effectiveness or unintended consequences, possibly even causing us to not select the best direction to head in. It allows a select few to determine the path of scientific growth and discovery. And often those few are politicians, not scientists.

 

[homeforsummer]

All forcing us to expedite our changes does is prevent us from examining new technology properly and judging long-term effectiveness or unintended consequences, possibly even causing us to not select the best direction to head in. It allows a select few to determine the path of scientific growth and discovery. And often those few are politicians, not scientists.

Is it though? Science, technology and discovery have a much broader scope than you hear about on the news. For every group of scientists working on some government-backed plan for something or other, there are almost certainly a dozen more around the world exploring different aspects of a phenomenon of their own accord.

They may not be as well-funded, but that doesn't mean politics is stifling the true nature of research.

 

[OwensRacing]

If you truly believe humans are causing global warming. Then why are you still here typing. If you believe this then do your part. Kill yourself to save mother earth.

All these people that believe humans are causing this should contribute to their theory by offing themselves for their cause.


My advice wake up and don't kill yourself.

However to preach to me that it's humans causing it while you are sucking air is completely nuts. Either you believe it's humans and think you are the elite and not the problem it's other sub humans. Or you are a hypocrite looking to be trendy.

This is a issue created to support reducing the population.

Enjoy being taxed to live on earth. You keep supporting these nuts and you too will be depleted cause taint one of us here "Elite". We will all be subject to the depopulation of earth if these nuts have their way.


My Opinion. Don't like it. Pound Sand.

 

[Famine]

If you truly believe humans are causing global warming. Then why are you still here typing. If you believe this then do your part. Kill yourself to save mother earth.

That's assuming that people who think humans "cause" global warming think that humans cause it merely by existing, that it's a bad thing and that it's something that must be stopped (and that Earth would give a crap).


Otherwise this is just unhelpful, aggressive rhetoric.

 

[arora]

Actually it is not uncommon for left wing nuts in our government to make similar claims.

Oh noos the island will capsize due to man's presence. There has to come a point of sanity, I hope.



Think what you will, but I live with this type of attitude everyday and I know these people believe man is the destruction of the earth and has no right, responsible or not, to exist.

 

[FoolKiller]

Is it though? Science, technology and discovery have a much broader scope than you hear about on the news. For every group of scientists working on some government-backed plan for something or other, there are almost certainly a dozen more around the world exploring different aspects of a phenomenon of their own accord.

They may not be as well-funded, but that doesn't mean politics is stifling the true nature of research.

When government funds something like a network of hydrogen fuel stations, funds contests to provide a specific kind of lightbulb, or provides stimulus for a specific form of technology industry it is purposely designed to be an incentive to direct technology and the market.

If you believe government has an effect and should be doing it then you almost can't say it won't affect other technology. Why else would you want them involved if not to create change in a specific direction?

Nevermind that expediting research in the best field can lead to improper research. Even if the right answer is found, being pushed in another direction makes changing that much harder because people are already invested in one area and the public becomes less trusting of the proposed change to be the way to go.

Don't risk mistakes. Don't risk public distrust. Let us find our way naturally. We are already claiming to be headed towards disaster without enough data. Don't change course based on bad data too.

 

[OwensRacing]

That's assuming that people who think humans "cause" global warming think that humans cause it merely by existing, that it's a bad thing and that it's something that must be stopped (and that Earth would give a crap).

Otherwise this is just unhelpful, aggressive rhetoric.

Sadly many think it's easier to remove humans to solve their supposed problem.

I don't support anyone offing themselves or any type of eugenics.

I do support being smart and caring for the earth. Basically it seems common sense. Cut a tree down. Plant two new. Wanna drive a car. Be sure to plant some plants to help filter.

One last thing. CO2 is added into a debate. Remember we what we breath out. Gotta ask yourself what produces the most CO2? Humans most likely.

However at one point few years back. I read a study stating the trees in Canada alone are capable of filtering the CO2 and producing fresh oxygen to support the world itself. This is off memory but that was the jest of the article. Anyway plant breath CO2. How can it be a bad thing?


I'll leave this post with a question. Where are the bees. Seriously. We used to have to cover our pop cans at work to keep bees out of them. Last few years. There is no bees to get into our pops Since we got GMO corn that produces pesticides itself we have seen a drastic decline in bee population. Thus having a large negative effect on pollination.

You can put you foil hats on or be open minded. But something is extremely fishy about this CO2. GMO. Bees. Etc etc. I think it all ties into the Agenda being discussed. Basically After the Carbon Tax being pinned on Australians. I had an eye opening moment. These people got two goals. Reduce population and get paid while doing so.


See on this idea of pointing out bad and creating revenue from it. I've came up with a plan.

Get some large ducted fans. Mount them to electric or hydrogen powered vehicles. Then use some filtration. Large filtration. Now get tax payers to pay you to drive around "filtering" the air. LoL

Locally they have a group cleaning the lakes. The lakes that have farms with animals defecating in streams that lead to the main lakes. So no matter what kinda filtering they are doing its irrelevant. Besides the water we get comes down from northern cities. See its just a vicious cycle and all about revenue generation. Basically this led me to my ridiculous ideal. LoL

Ok I'll stop being silly.

 

[Keef]

The health and safety guff is just a mild, peripheral irritant aimed at preventing stupider members of society from killing themselves.

I don't know man, it seems more like a control scheme to me. I'm not sure if the people making the rules and the people voting for them are doing it on purpose but if history has anything to say about it we can expect such regulations to ultimately lead to authoritarian rule and eventual failure of society.

 

[homeforsummer]

When government funds something like a network of hydrogen fuel stations, funds contests to provide a specific kind of lightbulb, or provides stimulus for a specific form of technology industry it is purposely designed to be an incentive to direct technology and the market.

I agree, though it's worth pointing out that much of that funding isn't in the form of grants, but loans, so theoretically the money must be repaid and we get x technology out of it.

Of course, I've written about the DoE loans program enough times to know that it's failed as often as it's succeeded, so I'm certainly not claiming it's a perfect system, but it's not all money just being frittered away to no avail.

If you believe government has an effect and should be doing it then you almost can't say it won't affect other technology. Why else would you want them involved if not to create change in a specific direction?

I'm not saying that people will ignore the best-funded (i.e. government funded) routes, but there are avenues of science out there that rely on more traditional funding methods, working towards the same cause.

Nevermind that expediting research in the best field can lead to improper research. Even if the right answer is found, being pushed in another direction makes changing that much harder because people are already invested in one area and the public becomes less trusting of the proposed change to be the way to go.

Agreed.

I don't know man, it seems more like a control scheme to me. I'm not sure if the people making the rules and the people voting for them are doing it on purpose but if history has anything to say about it we can expect such regulations to ultimately lead to authoritarian rule and eventual failure of society.

I think you're giving the "powers that be" a little too much credit there. I don't think they're intelligent enough...

One last thing. CO2 is added into a debate. Remember we what we breath out. Gotta ask yourself what produces the most CO2? Humans most likely.

The problem isn't CO2 on its own. The problem (if you believe it to be a problem) is an excess of CO2. The planet has a fairly natural cycle of things that output CO2 and things that absorb it.

Human activity has a habit of outputting CO2, but there's not enough stuff to actually absorb it, so there's a net increase.

As far as sources go, there's some info here.

 

[Keef]

I think you're giving the "powers that be" a little too much credit there. I don't think they're intelligent enough...

Like I said, I don't know if they're doing it on purpose. I just know here it's going to lead.

 

[Sam48]

The problem isn't CO2 on its own. The problem (if you believe it to be a problem) is an excess of CO2. The planet has a fairly natural cycle of things that output CO2 and things that absorb it.

Human activity has a habit of outputting CO2, but there's not enough stuff to actually absorb it, so there's a net increase.

We may have an "excess" amount of Co2 in the atmosphere, but, to put it simply, that's 0.03% change in total gas in the atmosphere. And, given that we have not invented a mechanism by which we may tie any specific and/or broad change in climate to any one gas and/or factor that may contribute to a change in climate, blaming Co2 as the "primary cause of climate change" (IPCC) is quite difficult at the moment.