Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize

[CDNBear]

Nope, my bad on that.

Cool.

No I saw it and it does not state man has had a role in global warming, just a roll on enviromantal damage.

Umm, isn't that what is causing global warming? Damage to the environment?

Keep looking for racism, you won't find it bub, I run a charity every year at Christmas helping families of all races and cultures, so much for your thoeries on my bigotries. I know you will doubt it but it dosen't take away what I have done and I'm proud of it.

What's next, you gunna drum up some ancient relative that makes you 1/1,000,000 Cherokee or something?

Besides, I was refrerring to that, I was referring to your underhanded style of debate, period, nothing more, nothing less...You feelin' guilty or soething?

 

[Avro]

Cool.

Umm, isn't that what is causing global warming? Damage to the environment?

What's next, you gunna drum up some ancient relative that makes you 1/1,000,000 Cherokee or something?

Besides, I was refrerring to that, I was referring to your underhanded style of debate, period, nothing more, nothing less...You feelin' guilty or soething?

Cool.

You have yet to say it in anything I have read.

My family is British, we have our own sorid hitory.

Guilty? If helping everyone no matter what means guilt then I guess I am.

 

[CDNBear]

You have yet to say it in anything I have read.

That was what I was saying when I posted that, we need to address all environmental concerns, not just one element. I've been saying that since my first attacks on Kyoto.

My family is British, we have our own sorid hitory.

No doubt.

Guilty? If helping everyone no matter what means guilt then I guess I am.

:roll:

 

[Avro]

That was what I was saying when I posted that, we need to address all environmental concerns, not just one element. I've been saying that since my first attacks on Kyoto.

No doubt.

:roll:

I don't think Gores message is about ignoring the evironment, still yet to see any posts by you for the need to address global warming, perhaps I have missed it, I'm not on here to often.

For sure.

Not sure what the eye roll means but whatever......my turn.:roll:

 

[CDNBear]

I don't think Gores message is about ignoring the evironment, still yet to see any posts by you for the need to address global warming, perhaps I have missed it, I'm not on here to often.

Though I'm still out on the whole AGW theory, I do not believe for one minute that reducing our carbon footprint is a waste of time. Thinking any other way is nonsensical.

I figured most people would understand, "Adress the whole of our environmental impact/damage."

I didn't think singling it out was necessary.

 

[Avro]

Though I'm still out on the whole AGW theory, I do not believe for one minute that reducing our carbon footprint is a waste of time. Thinking any other way is nonsensical.

I figured most people would understand, "Adress the whole of our environmental impact/damage."

I didn't think singling it out was necessary.

So I was right all along about that.

Most people do but some on the right and dertactors funded by groups like big oil don't.

Singling it out has caused action while other negative aspects of our involvement on the enviroment have not. Sometimes a doomsday scenario scares people enough to care......unfortunately.

 

[Curiosity]

Curio, well most professors I don't generally discuss Gore with, as he's not really involved in the science of this topic. My ecology professor is a big fan of his, and I have had discussions with him about this. He's also a fan of Suzuki. I follow up on those fellas out of an interest in the politics of environmentalism, but not for clarification on the science. My ecology professor is willing to overlook Gore's blunders. He understands the science of ecology very well and he seems to appreciate that Gore has drummed up support for the issue, regardless of the errors he presents. To me, I can't really square those two things very well.

The real story is, that there are multiple disciplines with a convergence in conclusions. But to convey that message now, is exceedingly difficult.

Thanks Tonington

So even the academics are joining the pied piper? My god it amazing.

What I don't understand is the hijacking of the meaning of what is happening to our planet earth - I have practiced care for the planet all my life because my parents taught us before it was a popular political issue - even the lawn and garden waste had use - stored for winter ground cover to protect the grass and some plants... almost everything we used was used properly....and with a family of eight children I think we were far ahead of our time. It comes easily to children, learning to preserve.

Now in the past years the fear and scare tactics aren't sitting well with me because people are missing the point now about their own contributions and how these can be monitored and even mitigated with common sense - but education has taken a back seat to "who's on first" again, the political maneuvering, the big game hunter tactics which leave the most of the population either bored, angry or out in the cold.

We don't (or should not) make rock stars out of people who are now claiming to be environmentalists... my first hero ever was Jacques Cousteau who lived his life caring for earth and sea.... when did it become expensive speaking engagements and tours and awards and money raising and godlike reverence as if they created our planet themselves.

Good habits are easily learned - if we are shown the way.... and we shun the corporate entities who do not clean up their own back yards.... the people have a great power as a group working together and all the infighting of who won what isn't going to do a damn thing about our earth and the air we breathe.

Because we are capable of building, and destroying, we are a limited civilization.
A wiser group would build that which will never destroy.

 

[gopher]

Al Gore, UN agency win Nobel Peace Prize for work on global warming


Evidently, there remain quite a few people in the scientific world who remain convinced that global warming is a reality.

 

[Locutus]

Say goodnight Dick.

 

[gopher]

Good night Dick Cheney!

 

[#juan]

We talk a lot about C02 but there are other greenhouse gases that are responsible for GW.

METHANE

CARBON DIOXIDE | METHANE | NITROUS OXIDE

Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2 and is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. It has many sources, and lots of potential to cause major damage.

Methane is a clear, odourless gas produced when organic matter decays. It's also produced naturally by farm animals. Humans produce methane in our agricultural and industrial processes. It even comes out of our food waste. Methane has staying power. Each molecule of methane gas hangs in the atmosphere for about twelve years before eventually breaking up.

ANIMAL AGRICULTURE
Animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tons of methane a year.1 Methane production is on the rise, as meat consumption has risen. About 85% of methane from animal agriculture is produced in the digestive processes of livestock.2 Another 15% of animal agricultural methane emissions are released from the large stores of untreated farm animal waste.3

FARMING
Rice paddies are the number-one source of human-produced methane, producing up to 25% of global methane emissions. The warm, waterlogged soil of rice paddies encourages methanogenesis—which happens when a single-celled organism produces both methane and carbon dioxide.4 It's slightly problematic that rice is one of the world's key food staples.

BIOGENIC METHANE
Biogenic methane comes from organic materials as they decompose in oxygen-free environments.5 For example, when you tied up that plastic bag of dog poop. The largest sources are wetlands, livestock, and landfills. Formation of methane in this manner usually takes place close to the surface of the earth, and the methane produced is usually lost into the atmosphere.

FOSSIL FUEL PRODUCTION
When organic material decomposes below the earth's surface, methane often becomes trapped underground in small gaps in the rocks. Mining in these areas allows the methane to escape, and if it's not collected it seeps into the atmosphere. Underground coal seams inevitably contain significant amounts of methane. In some cases it is possible to collect this from the mine and burn it as a fuel; however, in other mines the ventilation system expels it to the atmosphere.


1 Source: www.earthsave.org/globalwarming
2 Source: Ibid.
3 Source: Ibid.
4 Source: http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/methanogenesis.html
5 Source: http://www.guardian.co/uk/climatechange/storu0,12374,1684378,00.html


NITROUS OXIDE

NITROUS OXIDE

CARBON DIOXIDE | METHANE | NITROUS OXIDE

Here's a real bad guy: Nitrous oxide. Although it comes from both natural and manmade processes, it's a potent greenhouse gas that is 170 to 290 times stronger a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

NO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of over 121 years and is responsible for 6% of human-caused global warming. The main sources of nitrous oxide are fossil fuel combustion (like from power stations), fertilizers, burning rainforests and animal waste.

TRANSPORTATION

Nitrous oxide spews out of cars. Current estimates of the amount of transport-related NO2 range from 110 to 240 thousand tonnes per year. As car culture spreads around the globe and more and more people begin to drive, nitrous oxide emissions will continue to rise. And it's not just cars. Nitrous oxide emissions come from other forms of fossil-fuel-powered transport, including planes, boats and trucks.

AGRICULTURE

Agricultural soil is the second largest—and growing—global source of nitrous oxide. Global emissions range from 2 to 4 million tonnes annually. Mostly it comes from fertilizer application, and a small amount is released from burning crop residues. Burning biomass produces about half a million tonnes of nitrous oxide each year.



FERTILIZER

In our modern world, always growing, nitrogenous fertilizers are relied on to produce higher crop yields. Because of the nitrification process, use of nitrogenous fertilizer increases nitrous oxide emissions from soil and water. Fertilizer in the form of animal waste also emits substantial emissions of nitrous oxide from agricultural soils.

 

[Walter]

Another dissenter disses Gore. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/...1e620-cb1f-4c58-841f-c2acfc7e2023&k=10287&p=2

 

[Walter]

 

[CDNBear]

So I was right all along about that.

About?

Most people do but some on the right and dertactors funded by groups like big oil don't.

Never said anything otherwise, but some shyte does fall on some on the left that have seen this as a tool against western economies.

Singling it out has caused action while other negative aspects of our involvement on the enviroment have not. Sometimes a doomsday scenario scares people enough to care......unfortunately.

Great so all the other polution that exists can take a back seat, global warming takes the drivers seat now...it's way more important.

Good thinking, we may defeat the change in climbs and save the planet from certain warming disaster, but you won't be able to drink the water, eat the crops, eat the fish...you get my drift?

 

[Unforgiven]

Another dissenter disses Gore. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=46d1e620-cb1f-4c58-841f-c2acfc7e2023&k=10287&p=2http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/...1e620-cb1f-4c58-841f-c2acfc7e2023&k=10287&p=2

Where is this information backed up? It's easy to say that something is incorrect but you have to so the proof of where it is incorrect by providing a proven alternative or an impossibility in the original statement. I see none of that in the article you posted a link to. Not to mention, no one even had the spunk to slap their name on it. Rather dumping it under the authorless jurisdiction of the paper. I think you should have to try harder than that to debunk what is claimed to be false.

 

[Unforgiven]

About?

Never said anything otherwise, but some shyte does fall on some on the left that have seen this as a tool against western economies.

Great so all the other polution that exists can take a back seat, global warming takes the drivers seat now...it's way more important.

Good thinking, we may defeat the change in climbs and save the planet from certain warming disaster, but you won't be able to drink the water, eat the crops, eat the fish...you get my drift?

You have to pick a place to start. There are people talking and working to lower the level of pollution. But you can't solve all the problems in one go nor should that be the goal.

The economy is based on fossil fuel. This must change and the sooner we get started the better. Lead and they will follow.

 

[Niflmir]

Nobel started the prizes for the very same reason that Oppenheimer committed suicide: science has a very destructive side that generally overwhelms public opinion and knowledge.

If I say nuclear science, you will immediately think of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Three-mile island and the like. How many of you think about Maria Goeppert-Mayer, and her nobel prize? How many people know what the nuclear magic numbers are? Very few.

Nobel's science led to the development of TNT and its packaged form, dynamite. He was depressed at the many deaths that could be linked to his invention, to his footprints in the sands of history. He used his money to create these prizes to celebrate the beneficial side.

In that regard, you can understand the bittersweet pride that should go along with any Nobel prize. Much like the deaths from Nobel's explosives, Al Gore's impact to the carbon cycle is far overwhelmed by the good he is doing for the environmental cause. It just doesn't always seem that way to the public, as those cartoons above show.

 

[CDNBear]

You have to pick a place to start. There are people talking and working to lower the level of pollution. But you can't solve all the problems in one go nor should that be the goal.

But sir...until the AGW movement got the wind beneath its wings, there wasn't much action on the green front.

Suddenly the AGW theory, is front and center, Kyoto the way to go or die.

I have never seen such fevered and ferocious commentary, action and divisiveness in my life. If the same energy had been expended on the environment...lets say just a mere 10 years ago, we would be in a much different place right now.

I spend a great deal of time in and on rivers, forests, lakes and I have seen the changes...from evasive species(From poluting ocean going vessels in the great lakes), forests filled with litter, contaminated soil signs, to dead lakes, to rivers so poluted, you could almost walk on the water, publications indicating the safe amount of fish to consume from which body of water.

It breaks my heart.

It's all invisible now, the only thing that matters in the temperature and whos to blame.

Like I said before, it will be a great day if we win the climate change war, but what will be left to live on, if we forget about all the other hazards in the process?

The economy is based on fossil fuel. This must change and the sooner we get started the better. Lead and they will follow.

I can not disagree, but I do not see that happening in the near future. Reduction, protection and rethinking is full order, but sadly we are to engrained to the use of fossil fuels to breath the habit anytime soon.

 

[Curiosity]

The following answers my query about academics being reluctant contributors to the issue...I completely forgot their livelihood depends upon grants and they work at the pleasure of corporations and wealthy benefactors.... I put this on
another forum it is a copy of what I posted there:

Prof. Wm. Gray of the University of Colorado is all over the news this weekend regarding his opinion of the Nobel given to Gore...I've copied
an Aussie paper rather than replicate American news to stay as neutral
as possible. Google the guy if you question his integrity. If you get to the bottom of the article...please note his words regarding "Grants" - which
the general population doesn't seem to understand are the lifeblood of
any academic - which in turn keeps their lips sealed on many issues which
would deter their gifts from corporations and/or political groups....it's an interesting marriage of learned people having to prostitute to get funding for research...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environme...696238792.html

Gore gets a cold shoulder

Steve Lytte
October 14, 2007


Climate crusader: Al Gore.


ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing."

Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.

But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

 

[Tonington]

Just to add something to what you wrote Curio. Another reason that scientists are reluctant to speak on the issues their study deals with, is because most academic journals frown upon it. They would prefer that the peer review precedes public discourse.

As to Dr. Gray, he is entitled to his opinions. Certainly as a hurricane researcher he will have a different opinion than say an atmospheric researcher. In any science which is highly politicized, there will be a large reservoir of information that can be selectively identified for partisan reasons. It's what Dan Sarewitz calls the Excess of Objectivity.

Take my field of Aquaculture for example. If the loudest voice one hears is that of the David Suzuki Foundation, then they are only really getting one side of the story. He neglects to inform people that the large majority of world aquaculture is sustainable, as most species are herbivorous. He also neglects to inform you that nutritional research in vegetable proteins for a carnivore is progressing.

Point being in this case, that skeptics are often accused of cherry picking, and I don't think it's wrong to do so. But those standards must be applied across the board.