Thread: Global Warming

We'll all be dead before global warming makes any significant changes to the world.... Lets just fist fuck mother nature for all we can get .

Originally Posted by Gerontion

...is not doubted by any mainstream scientists working in the field....

But surely this is one of the main problems in convincing people of the veracity of the reports.

These scientists go cap in hand to governments asking for funds to do more research, to pay for more projects, more people, more equipment, to build up their little empires. Why should we believe these scientists when we all know that politicians are a bunch of money grabbing liars? What's so different about "scientists"?

Not every scientist who believes there's a problem is a money grubbing vermin.

Play a little game. Close all your windows and doors, start a fire, and tell us the results after a few hours.

I'm still waiting for a response to my little quiz up above.

1. What's the difference between a "scientist" and a scientist? Have you got any reason to doubt the collective credibility of the thousands and thousands of people working on this?

2. All science is dependent on research funding. There's as much reason to suspect climate change theorists as those empire-building Darwinians who, cap in hand, go begging to governments and university departments pleading their absurd case that life "evolved" by "chance" (ha! crazy idea) rather than, as any sensible intelligent skeptic knows, being generated by divine fiat in 4004 BC.

3. Governments are not the only source of funds in this area. Big business - and especially the oil industry - has poured millions into this and it has singularly failed either to produce any significant counter theories or to undermine the evidence for man-made climate change.

I'll leave one of the nay-sayers to answer the question.

Originally Posted by friscofrankie

Don't think anyone is denying climate change here. The point open for discussion is, is man made, or is it a natural occurance?

If anybody could prove that it is a natural occurance there would be no reason for any government or country to impose taxes to prevent such a disaster, as whatever is done would not make the slightest amount of differance.

But there are so many pointers to it being man made. The ice caps are slowly melting, due to the raise in temperature, which in turn is due to the increase of pollutants in the atmosphere. Pollutants are man made.
Destruction of forests, green lands to make way for more urban housing.
So much of our food is being wrapped in plastic which is not bio-degradable (?), and then is very expensive to dispose of.

Maybe the human race does have to have a look at itself and say that it is contributing to a possible catastrophy in many years to come. As was pointed out - not in our lfetimes - but our grandchildrens, maybe.

Wanted to green you FF you previous post but must spread the luving around.

The results of scientific investigation are not the gospel or absolute truth, specially for something as complex as climate research, add to that the self-interest i.e. funding and politics, and the questions regarding global warming become legitimate.

Just look at what science told us about nutrition, i.e. what sort of food maintains the human body a hundred years ago, and look at it now - little of what was generally accepted a hundred years ago remains 'true' in 2006. Also, at hindsight, one may note how the scientific findings suited political issues at the time, i.e. the need to feed an increasing population on a low budget and with low maintainance.

On the other hand, phenomena such as the increasing hole in the ozone-layer can be proven to be man-made, it's not as if we have no influence on the climate.

What happens when carbon dioxide is dissolved in water?

Global warming vis a vi advancing desertification is not bollox;

I worked a lot in the sub Sahel (Chad, North Cameroon, Libya, Mauritania) and from time to time I would return to areas previously visited. For example in Mauritania where 20 years prior there had ben savannas populated with large game like elephant and lion (~1989) said areas had all but turned into one big sand box devoid of the previous fauna and flora;

the encroachment of deserts (due to global warming, population explosion, deforestation or whatever else) has progressed (in depth) at a rate of 15 to 20 km per year. To my knowledge its been going on for over fifty years now (=~between 750-1000 km)) and considering just the perimeter of the Sahara that is a lot of square kilometers. Furthermore to reclaim land lost to desert encroachment is one costly and tough task.

This is why we need high gas prices/taxes:

Sales of big pickup trucks and SUVs went through the roof - doubling from the year before in some cases. Sales of small, fuel efficient cars, meanwhile, remained stagnant. It is as if all that moaning and groaning about price gouging by oil companies never happened.

Actually, it is worse than that. American consumers have reinforced all the stereotypes they are labeled with: short attention spans, lack of social consciousness and thinking with their wallets.

Auto sales show American consumers disregard gas prices - Nov. 1, 2006

The results of scientific investigation are not the gospel or absolute truth, specially for something as complex as climate research, add to that the self-interest i.e. funding and politics, and the questions regarding global warming become legitimate.
Just look at what science told us about nutrition, i.e. what sort of food maintains the human body a hundred years ago, and look at it now - little of what was generally accepted a hundred years ago remains 'true' in 2006. Also, at hindsight, one may note how the scientific findings suited political issues at the time, i.e. the need to feed an increasing population on a low budget and with low maintainance.”

To the extent that this is true or significant, it is only so in the trivial sense that all scientific activity is – potentially – subject to revision. Of itself it provides no reason to suggest that the thesis that our activities are dangerously affecting global climate is false. What is needed to justify doubt are serious hard doubts, doubts which, despite the best efforts of Exxon and others, are notable by their absence. What these companies and their lobbyist have accomplished is to implant in a large swathe of the public the wholly false idea that it is logically coherent to move from the perfectly valid proposition that we don’t know everything about climate change to the totally false idea that we therefore know nothing. There are legitimate questions to ask about climate change but these are not questions on whether man is affecting the climate by burning fossil fuels but rather questions on how he is doing this and just how bad the consequences are going to be.

Global warming? Wear sensible, loose, light-weight clothes. try and stay out of the sun drink liquids. it's just a silly phase the Earth is going through. we got bigger problems.

Yeah it’ll be a fucking laugh. I for one am looking forward to the day when the SE Asian monsoon fails, rice crops go into dramatic decline and Bangkok slides under the waves.

I have read the IPCC stuff and an awful lot else besides. Do you care to question any of the details? I suspect not. It’s the same pointless, ill-informed “how do you know” which one hears time after time after time. Anything rather than face up to your personal responsibilities for fucking up the planet.

Originally Posted by Gerontion

I have read the IPCC stuff and an awful lot else besides. Do you care to question any of the details? I suspect not. It’s the same pointless, ill-informed “how do you know” which one hears time after time after time. Anything rather than face up to your personal responsibilities for fucking up the planet.

I actually live quite within reasonable means and take precautions to take responibility. And I question any and all information, any intelligent person should. Not as ill-informed as you might imagine.

Yeah it’ll be a fucking laugh. I for one am looking forward to the day when the SE Asian monsoon fails, rice crops go into dramatic decline and Bangkok slides under the waves.

It is this same attitude of arrogance and, "I know more than you and you are wrong" attitude that alienates the very people you want to change. Grow a sense of humor, learn to communicate what it is you think is needed in a sensible, no confrontational way or stop trying to help; you are doin more damage to your own cause than good.
Let those thatare more concerned about the planet than making point handle it.

Originally Posted by surasak

Not every scientist who believes there's a problem is a money grubbing vermin.

Play a little game. Close all your windows and doors, start a fire, and tell us the results after a few hours.

I'm still waiting for a response to my little quiz up above.

My air-con gets to work harder.

Now, what's your point?

He is an atmospheric physicist at George Mason University and founder of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a think tank on climate and environmental issues. Singer has been a leading skeptic of the scientific consensus on global warming. He points out that the scenarios are alarmist, computer models reflect real gaps in climate knowledge, and future warming will be inconsequential or modest at most.
Some people hold that the threat of climate change is so great that we need to fundamentally change the way we produce and use energy. What's your response to this view?
Climate change is a natural phenomenon. Climate keeps changing all the time. The fact that climate changes is not in itself a threat, because, obviously, in the past human beings have adapted to all kinds of climate changes.

The argument is that there's a new cause for climate change, which is human beings. And that the dimensions of this change might exceed what is natural or normal.
Well, there's no question in my mind that humanity is able to affect climate on a local scale. We all know that cities are warmer than the suburbs or surrounding countryside. So there's clear indication that human beings, in producing energy, in just living, generate heat. We're not going to go back to living without energy.
Whether or not human beings can produce a global climate change is an important question. This question is not at all settled. It can only be settled by actual measurements, data. And the data are ambiguous. For example, the data show that the climate warmed between 1900 and 1940, long before humanity used much energy. But then the climate cooled between 1940 and 1975. Then it warmed again for a very short period of time, for about five years. But since 1979, our best measurements show that the climate has been cooling just slightly. Certainly, it has not been warming.

The surface record, however, continues to go up. The surface record continues to go up. But you have to be very careful with the surface record. It is taken with thermometers that are mostly located in or near cities. And as cities expand, they get warmer. And therefore they affect the readings. And it's very difficult to eliminate this--what's called the urban heat island effect. So I personally prefer to trust in weather satellites.

You've got one record that goes back 100 years, which has got imperfections in data gathering, and then you've got a much shorter record that also has questions about data gathering, the satellite record. From a statistical point of view, you get more power out of a longer record than a shorter record, don't you? A longer record, in general, will give you more statistical power, if there is a general overall trend. But, in fact, the surface record also shows a cooling. So, which part of the surface record are you going to believe? The part before 1940, that shows a warming, or the part after 1940, that shows a cooling? See, that's the dilemma.......

more here...what's up with the weather: the debate: dr. s. fred singer

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was the aforementioned event, and it was likely to have excited meteorological researchers involved in contrail impact studies. The national airspace was shut down for three days, something that had not yet occurred since the jet age began in the 1960s and is not likely to occur ever again. Scientists took advantage of this unique three day period in history that lacked contrails. What they learned was shocking and is enough evidence to effectively silence any counterargument to their case. One measure of climate is the average daily temperature range (DTR). For thirty years this had been recorded and extra cirrus clouds in the atmosphere would reduce this range by trapping heat. “September 11 – 14, 2001 had the biggest diurnal temperature range of any three-day period in the past 30 years,” said Andrew M. Carleton1. Not in three decades had there been such a large temperature spread between the daytime highs and the nighttime lows. Furthermore, the increase in DTR during those three days was more than double the national average for regions of the United States where contrail coverage was previously known to be most abundant, such as the Midwest, northeast, and northwest regions. The specific increase in the range was 2°F, which in three days was twice the amount the average temperature had increased by over thirty years time1. This is evidence that contrails do alter the climate of the land they drift above.

Airliners.net Articles: Contrails: What’s Left Behind Is Bad News

it ain't real..... no worries here

So you don't think releasing 30 billion metric tons of CO^2 per year is going to cause any harm? Just keep burning stuff up at the rate we're going isn't a bad thing? We are releasing more than 15 times the amount of CO^2 than we were 100 years ago. It has to go somewhere.

If anyone wants to know how CO^2 emissions were calculated even back around the beginning of the IR it's from records kept detailing production of sources of fuel such as tars, oils, coal, etc.

Originally Posted by benbaaa

Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtb

look at the scale! its only 1 degree difference. and thats only 140 years

At the peak of the last ice age, 18,000 years ago, global temperature was less than 4 degrees celcius cooler than it is today.

which is a difference of 400% !

Originally Posted by Gerontion

2. All science is dependent on research funding. There's as much reason to suspect climate change theorists

agreed. I would have made a comparision to computer virus software companies or security companies in the US....... you need to build up the fear to optain more 'sales or funding'

as those empire-building Darwinians who, cap in hand, go begging to governments and university departments pleading their absurd case that life "evolved" by "chance" (ha! crazy idea) rather than, as any sensible intelligent skeptic knows, being generated by divine fiat in 4004 BC.

you just lost me now, there's a few other threads for that rubbish.....

Originally Posted by stroller

The results of scientific investigation are not the gospel or absolute truth, specially for something as complex as climate research, add to that the self-interest i.e. funding and politics, and the questions regarding global warming become legitimate.

Just look at what science told us about nutrition, i.e. what sort of food maintains the human body a hundred years ago, and look at it now - little of what was generally accepted a hundred years ago remains 'true' in 2006. Also, at hindsight, one may note how the scientific findings suited political issues at the time, i.e. the need to feed an increasing population on a low budget and with low maintainance..

agreed - also recall that not so long ago, smoking was considered good for one's health.

On the other hand, phenomena such as the increasing hole in the ozone-layer can be proven to be man-made, it's not as if we have no influence on the climate.

please be a little bit more careful with language......

neither side has 'proved' their point.

yes humankind has an effect of the climate, but i'm not certain that the Ozone layer has increased substantially due to human activity. (which is somewhat different to the Enahnced Greenhouse effect, an often common confusion)

Originally Posted by surasak

I'm still waiting for a response to my little quiz up above.

sorry, been busy...

do you mean the entire ocean at 50 degrees?

and by heat do you mean the total kinetic energy of the molecules of water?

or do you mean the average kinetic energy of the molecules ?

the ocean has a much larger volume than a cup of water and thus would have a lot more heat energy...