Global warming - is it a bad thing?

[Mulk]

Maybe because it takes strength to show that much restraint. People like to think they're tough and have lots of control, but when it comes to self discipline most people fail. And so they rather deny there's a problem rather than be proven to be pathetic.

I guess if they yell and scream loud enough and dig up enough "scientists" who agree with them, They can cover their eyes and ears and then it will be okay to drive that hummer or crank up the AC when it gets a little warm. They can go to sleep at night feeling okay that everything will be fine because they posted a questionable graph on CanCon.

 

[Scott Free]

I guess if they yell and scream loud enough and dig up enough "scientists" who agree with them, They can cover their eyes and ears and then it will be okay to drive that hummer or crank up the AC when it gets a little warm. They can go to sleep at night feeling okay that everything will be fine because they posted a questionable graph on CanCon.

And it isn't just as silly shutting down the industrial revolution when you have no proof your boogyman really exists? You have no proof even what your boogyman is!

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for protecting the environment and preserving the biosphere but I wont be coaxed by irrationality and fear mongering.

Obviously there is too much poison going into the world system but that is not in any way shape or form proof humans are causing global warming. We are causing all kinds of things and that is without doubt. So why is it you chicken littles have obsessed on this one thing - the one thing you have no proof of? The one thing experiments demonstrate over and over again you have wrong!

I can guess at why but I see little need as that is something which is self evident.

 

[Scott Free]

Maybe because it takes strength to show that much restraint. People like to think they're tough and have lots of control, but when it comes to self discipline most people fail. And so they rather deny there's a problem rather than be proven to be pathetic.

And what's the problem?

 

[karrie]

Obviously there is too much poison going into the world system but that is not in any way shape or form proof humans are causing global warming. We are causing all kinds of things and that is without doubt.

This is why I could care less what the 'proof' or the reasoning is. Poison belching out of cars. Poison pouring out of plants. Poison pouring into rivers. And virtually all of it is related to our energy hunger, our incessant need to 'power' the world around us. To make it revolve around us instead of us having to move through it. It needs to change.

 

[Mulk]

And it isn't just as silly shutting down the industrial revolution when you have no proof your boogyman really exists? You have no proof even what your boogyman is!

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for protecting the environment and preserving the biosphere but I wont be coaxed by irrationality and fear mongering.

Obviously there is too much poison going into the world system but that is not in any way shape or form proof humans are causing global warming. We are causing all kinds of things and that is without doubt. So why is it you chicken littles have obsessed on this one thing - the one thing you have no proof of? The one thing experiments demonstrate over and over again you have wrong!

I can guess at why but I see little need as that is something which is self evident.

The question posed on this thread was weather or not global warming was a bad thing. My answer is yes, yes it is. I also don't believe in dumping crude oil in the rivers or needlessly flaring sour gas into the atmosphere, but nobody asked that in this thread.

Is it a good idea to burn all the fossil fuels as quickly as we can? I don't think any reasonable individual can honestly say that it IS a good thing?

 

[Scott Free]

The question posed on this thread was weather or not global warming was a bad thing. My answer is yes, yes it is. I also don't believe in dumping crude oil in the rivers or needlessly flaring sour gas into the atmosphere, but nobody asked that in this thread.

Is it a good idea to burn all the fossil fuels as quickly as we can? I don't think any reasonable individual can honestly say that it IS a good thing?

OK, I can agree with that.

 

[Scott Free]

This is why I could care less what the 'proof' or the reasoning is. Poison belching out of cars. Poison pouring out of plants. Poison pouring into rivers. And virtually all of it is related to our energy hunger, our incessant need to 'power' the world around us. To make it revolve around us instead of us having to move through it. It needs to change.

I agree. Maybe it'll stop GW maybe it won't but we'll all definitely be better off for it.

 

[Zzarchov]

@ tonnington I remember being told waaay back in schools that Peat Bogs were actually more biodiverse than rainforests, But I could be remembering incorrectly, still it struck me pretty vividly as Im pretty sure about a half hour lecture was given to it.

That being said I can't seem to find any Shannon-Weaver or Simpson Information to back that up or refute it.

 

[scratch]

@ tonnington I remember being told waaay back in schools that Peat Bogs were actually more biodiverse than rainforests, But I could be remembering incorrectly, still it struck me pretty vividly as Im pretty sure about a half hour lecture was given to it.

That being said I can't seem to find any Shannon-Weaver or Simpson Information to back that up or refute it.

i remember the same thing.
You are right Zz.

 

[Avro]

I agree. Maybe it'll stop GW maybe it won't but we'll all definitely be better off for it.

Intersesting considering you sure seem to want to curb any effort to reduce the production of carbon.

 

[benny_patrick7]

I believe that cancer is a good thing, too. Consider the benefits:

-lots of jobs for medical and research personnel
-steady turnover in the workforce as people die off and have to be replaced
-great boon to the funeral industry
-good for the flower shops, card shops, etc.

You can always find an upside if you look.

Yes, you are absolutely right. Just make the connection between your argument and mine. I say that plusses hugely overweigh the possible minusses. The most important: we didn't actually see much of those minuses, except for gloom and doom scenarios. Nothing hugely important actually happened.

 

[benny_patrick7]

Huh???? So, the Northwest Territories is one giant lake????? I think you are mistaken.

Try to concentrate: perma frost is a frozen soil. The soil does not freeze unless it is soaked in water. This is what I mean saying that perma frost is full of water.

 

[karrie]

Try to concentrate: perma frost is a frozen soil. The soil does not freeze unless it is soaked in water. This is what I mean saying that perma frost is full of water.

Soil freezes even with only trace amounts of water in it. 'Dry' soil will still frost. It does not have to be 'soaked'.

 

[Tonington]

@ tonnington I remember being told waaay back in schools that Peat Bogs were actually more biodiverse than rainforests, But I could be remembering incorrectly, still it struck me pretty vividly as Im pretty sure about a half hour lecture was given to it.

That being said I can't seem to find any Shannon-Weaver or Simpson Information to back that up or refute it.

And in my ecology classes, Rain forests are repeatedly the most biodiverse, with tropical reefs just behind, and followed by mangroves, then swamps/bogs. I think where you and scratch maybe confused is the biomass. Peat bogs are largely made up of organic matter, and the biomass per unit of coverage is through the roof, but the number of species is not.

 

[Scott Free]

Intersesting considering you sure seem to want to curb any effort to reduce the production of carbon.

I do but not without the rest of the world doing it also. You may remember that my main objection to the GW myth was its assumption carbon was the only (the primary) culprit, (I know that since we have started this debate other gases are now being recognized as bigger contributors) a claim based entirely on correlated data, and that we should curb our carbon emissions immediately regardless of what China and other emerging economies do.

I still maintain that as completely ridiculous. Obviously carbon should be cut down but not to our own nation’s detriment.

This was my original objection and still is my objection.

 

[Avro]

I do but not without the rest of the world doing it also. You may remember that my main objection to the GW myth was its assumption carbon was the only (the primary) culprit, (I know that since we have started this debate other gases are now being recognized as bigger contributors) a claim based entirely on correlated data, and that we should curb our carbon emissions immediately regardless of what China and other emerging economies do.

I still maintain that as completely ridiculous. Obviously carbon should be cut down but not to our own nation’s detriment.

This was my original objection and still is my objection.

So do nothing?

 

[Scott Free]

So do nothing?

There is nothing to say doing something is better? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unless we understand the consequence of our actions doing nothing may be the best option.

Green totalitarianism may not be the solution. It could be this problem will require more level headed solutions - if indeed there are really any solutions to be found. We don't know what is going on. Finding that out should be our first priority IMO.

 

[coldstream]

That post is complete horse ****
There is more than enough evidence for climate change for anyone with even average intelligence. The fact that insects like the Pine Beetle are moving deeper into our forests every year is easy to see for anyone driving on the interior highways. The beetles are spreading farther north than ever before.

Almost every year produces record warm temperatures.
Polar Bears are drowning on their long swim to reach sea ice.

Coldstream do some real research before you spout any more of this drivel.

There are a lot of facts that confirm that GW is complete nonsense. Including space surveys of Ocean temperatures, geological proof that carbon peaks (they are nothing new) have occurred after, not before, warming periods, completely undercutting the GW climate models. The truth is that despite all the hysteria and fear mongering, carbon is and always will be a trace element in the atmosphere.. in fact humans account for only a trace amount of that, the huge proportion being from geological, biological and oceanic processes. Even this is recycled and washed out of the atmosphere.

GW is a POLITICAL construct, in fact it is deeper and more devious than that.. it is PHILOSOPHICAL construct based on an engrained and profoundly pessimistic view of the human impact on the environment as intruder.. which has led to a lobby that sees the spread of mankind as an inherent evil. GW is intrinsically linked to the depopulation movement, by attacking the single most essential energy producing element on earth, Carbon. The planet could not support its population, and possibly any population without carbon, which shows just how pathetic and antithetical this movement is to the human cause.

If you live in the East, take a look out your window. A early snowstorm and freezing temperatures at the end of October. It's one of several things that shows we are in a cooling phase, and that the warming and cooling we have experienced over that last decades has nothing to do with Carbon, it is just a normal climate cycle centred on solar radiation. We have nothing to worry about, the ice caps are not melting, the oceans are not rising, the growing regions are not diminishing.. all we have to fear is the economically disastrous, and morally bankrupt, 'solutions' to a NONEXISTENT threat.

 

[#juan]

There are a lot of facts that confirm that GW is complete nonsense. Including space surveys of Ocean temperatures, geological proof that carbon peaks (they are nothing new) have occurred after, not before, warming periods, completely undercutting the GW climate models. The truth is that despite all the hysteria and fear mongering, carbon is and always will be a trace element in the atmosphere.. in fact humans account for only a trace amount of that, the huge proportion being from geological, biological and oceanic processes. Even this is recycled and washed out of the atmosphere.

GW is a POLITICAL construct, in fact it is deeper and more devious than that.. it is PHILOSOPHICAL construct based on an engrained and profoundly pessimistic view of the human impact on the environment as intruder.. which has led to a lobby that sees the spread of mankind as an inherent evil. GW is intrinsically linked to the depopulation movement, by attacking the single most essential energy producing element on earth, Carbon. The planet could not support its population, and possibly any population without carbon, which shows just how pathetic and antithetical this movement is to the human cause.

If you live in the East, take a look out your window. A early snowstorm and freezing temperatures at the end of October. It's one of several things that shows we are in a cooling phase, and that the warming and cooling we have experienced over that last decades has nothing to do with Carbon, it is just a normal climate cycle centred on solar radiation. We have nothing to worry about, the ice caps are not melting, the oceans are not rising, the growing regions are not diminishing.. all we have to fear is the economically disastrous, and morally bankrupt, 'solutions' to a NONEXISTENT threat.

By Mark Henderson
Science Correspondent, The Times, 6 May 2004
POWERFUL evidence for global warming has been discovered by scientists funded by the US Government, demolishing the chief argument of sceptics who deny that the phenomenon is real.
A new analysis of satellite data has revealed that temperatures in a critical part of the atmosphere are rising much faster than previously thought, strengthening the scientific consensus that the world is warming at an unnatural rate.

The discovery resolves one of the most contentious anomalies in climate science, which has often been invoked by the Bush Administration to question whether man-made global warming is happening. While it is generally accepted that surface temperatures are increasing by an average of 0.17C (0.31F) per decade, satellites have been unable to detect a parallel trend in the troposphere — the lowest level of the atmosphere, extending 7.5 miles above the ground, in which most weather occurs.

This lack of tropospheric warming has long puzzled scientists, as it is predicted by all the major models of climate change. It has also been seized on by a small but vocal minority of scientists, who have used it to raise doubts about whether global temperatures are rising at all. The enigma, however, has been explained by a team led by Qiang Fu, of the University of Washington in Seattle.
His research reveals that the troposphere is warming almost precisely as the models predict it should: by about 0.2C (0.4F) per decade. Satellites have not previously detected the trend as they have been confused by colder temperatures in the atmospheric layer above.
The findings, details of which are published today in the journal Nature, provide one of the final pieces of proof that global warming is taking place, and that it is a human-induced phenomenon.
Sceptics have often argued that if temperatures are rising at all, this is down to natural variation in the climate as the world emerges from a “little Ice Age”. The tropospheric trend, however, is precisely what scientists would expect to see if man-made emissions of greenhouse gases were causing it to heat up.
“I think this could convince not just scientists but the public as well,” Dr Fu said.
Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, said: “It will become that much harder for people to claim that the world isn’t warming and that the warming isn’t caused by greenhouse-gas emissions.”
In their study, the Washington team examined atmospheric temperature data collected between January 1979 and December 2001 from satellites operated by the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.
These satellites used instruments known as microwave-sounding units to measure microwave radiation emitted by oxygen molecules, and thus to calculate the temperature.
The raw data for the troposphere, as measured by the instruments’ channel 2 setting, showed no pronounced warming trend.
Dr Fu realised, however, that about a fifth of the signal picked up on channel 2 in fact originated in the stratosphere — the higher level of the atmosphere between 10km and 50km above the Earth’s surface. This had skewed the data, as the stratosphere is known to be cooling rapidly.
“Because of ozone depletion and the increase of greenhouse gases, the stratosphere is cooling about five times faster than the troposphere is warming, so the channel 2 measurement by itself provided us with little information on the temperature trend in the lower atmosphere,” Dr Fu said.
His team then used measurements from weather balloons and from another channel on the microwave units to determine precisely how much of the channel 2 signal was coming from the stratosphere.
Once this stratospheric error was eliminated, the remaining data showed that the troposphere had indeed been warming, by about 0.2C (0.4F) a decade.
“This tells us very clearly what the lower atmosphere temperature trend is, and the trend is very similar to what is happening at the surface,” Dr Fu said.
The new tropospheric data does not suggest that the pace of global warming is increasing or decreasing. The research was funded by the US Government, through the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and Nasa.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global temperatures will rise by an average of between 1.4C and 5.8C by the end of the century.
Dr Hulme said that while the results further confirm the overwhelming scientific consensus that man-made global warming is a proven phenomenon, he would be surprised if it were accepted by critics.
“I’m under no illusions that it will knock down the critics altogether,” he said. “In some quarters, people hold almost fundamentalist beliefs that are immune to carefully reasoned argument. A new paper that seems to take the legs away from one of their critiques may unfortunately not make much difference to their arguments.
“It is the totality of the evidence that has convinced the vast majority of experts that the planet is warming: surface temperature recordings, rises in sea level, retreating glaciers, shifting species domains.
“The compendium of evidence from all these different sources means the overwhelming majority of scientists feel justified in warning society about this.”

As I said, I've flown over the north over a period of over three decades. There are hundreds of square miles of bare ground now, that was covered with ice and snow for many centuries. This bare ground will absorb more heat from the sun than the ice and snow and that heat will lead to exposing more ground to absorb even more heat. This is not rocket science. To say there is no global warming in the face of all the obvious evidence is ludicrous. The world's climatologists and meteorologists have shown us proof that the Earth is warming. Space surveys of ocean temperatures provide more evidence that the temperature of the oceans is rising. The sea level is also rising. Virtually every country in the world is working on a way to cut carbon emissions and you want to cling to Bush's original weak kneed ostrich arguments. Even Bush has changed his tune a hundred and eighty degrees.

 

[Scott Free]

It's just as ludicrous to say that because you've flown over splotches of bare earth that you know the cause. No one knows the cause. That it is a purely natural occurring event hasn't even been ruled out. We need actual models and laws that can make accurate predictions.

The argument that people better believe in GW and better make changes or there will be terrible consequences is an appeal to consequence of a belief. Without proof there is no basis to assume believing and making changes is going to help the situation.

Some people need actual real proof before believing things. Some don't. You will always have an easier time spreading fear among those that don't need proof. That's just a fact.

The holdouts need evidence not fear mongering.