Global Warming Reaching Critical Point

According to this report, global warming is reaching a point of no return, where climate change could be catastrophic and irreversible.
Yet the US government still will not recognise the Kyoto accord, because it would harm the US economy. This seems dangerous near-sighted thinking.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH
/science/01/24/climate.change.ap
/index.html

I understand that there’s a bunch of folks who have their panties in a wad about this issue, but aren’t we forgetting just one teensy-tiny, itty-bitty little detail?

WE SAVED OURSELVES FROM A FRIGGIN’ ICE AGE!

It’s still coming, folks. We’ve only delayed the inevitable. I need y’all to start buying more SUV’s and get those emissions up. Do your part, dammit… save the rain forest!

Complete, total, and utter bullshit. They have no idea what they are talking about, and can’t. To call what they do science is fraud to the utmost.

To get money and attention, the climate change whores need to play chicken little often enough.

The problem for them is that their models still don’t work for shit, and that all climate changes that we have observed as humans in our flash in the pan time frame here on Earth are well within norms. In fact a mathematician recently debunked their graph showing a steady state temperature until recently.

They are the Swaggarts and Tammy Faes of their field- whoring for cash on the premise of intimate knowledge demonstrated by credentials which they can’t live up to.

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
I understand that there’s a bunch of folks who have their panties in a wad about this issue, but aren’t we forgetting just one teensy-tiny, itty-bitty little detail?

WE SAVED OURSELVES FROM A FRIGGIN’ ICE AGE!

It’s still coming, folks. We’ve only delayed the inevitable. I need y’all to start buying more SUV’s and get those emissions up. Do your part, dammit… save the rain forest![/quote]

If there’s one article that sounds like shit, it’s that one. One thing (very important) not mentioned is that Ice Ages seem to have been a cyclical, natural part of our earth’s history. However man pumping umpteen billion tons of shit into the atmosphere and cutting down trees definitely is not. Our planet has clearly shown it recovers from Ice Ages and life continues, but will it after we cripple it through emissions and chemicals?

I realise there is a wide range of theories on climate and opinions differ. But how could anyone in their right mind think that what we are doing to the environment is no cause for concern?

The ‘global warming is a lie’ theory is pushed by oil companies and other greedy individuals who, in an almost Orwellian way, are trying to alter truth.

schrauper: Tell us how you really feel, man. Don’t hold back.

Seriously, don’t you agree that we need to get rid of that damnable ozone layer? I don’t want to live in an ice age, no matter how fun skiing is. Think about it: no more beach bunnies in their bikinis, no more surfing, no more mai tais and watching the sunset in some tropical paradise with a hot chick you met that weekend… The thought of losing my Jimmy Buffet culture down here in Florida is almost too much to bear.

[quote]deanosumo wrote:

If there’s one article that sounds like shit, it’s that one. One thing (very important) not mentioned is that Ice Ages seem to have been a cyclical, natural part of our earth’s history. However man pumping umpteen billion tons of shit into the atmosphere and cutting down trees definitely is not. Our planet has clearly shown it recovers from Ice Ages and life continues, but will it after we cripple it through emissions and chemicals?[/quote]
Buddy, I understand your concern. I posted that web report about the ice age as a kind of joke. There’s all kinds of stuff going on in the scientific community that has nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with money. That’s what schrauper was trying to say. This issue in particular is especially caught up in the “give us billions of dollars” war cry. These fucks, I mean “scientists”, are little more than scam artists. This has nothing to do with oil company conspiracies, pal, it’s about a couple of jerkoffs trying to get published and get grants. The fact that they seem to “take on” the big, evil corporations is just playing into their audience’s preconceived notions. It’s all quite spectacular, actually, if you think about how far they’ve taken this shit-ass science they’re peddling. Look… now even they got YOU worrying about this.

[quote]I realise there is a wide range of theories on climate and opinions differ. But how could anyone in their right mind think that what we are doing to the environment is no cause for concern?

The ‘global warming is a lie’ theory is pushed by oil companies and other greedy individuals who, in an almost Orwellian way, are trying to alter truth.
[/quote]
We can’t cripple the earth. We are mere specks of nothing in comparison to the awe-inspiring power of Mother Nature, and her adaptability. We are arrogant to think that we might in some way damage our planet in any other way than an extremely temporary and superficial one. And just for the record, the times which saw the most plentiful amounts of lifeforms in the fossil record is when we were in an established greenhouse effect as a planet. Why do you think they call it “greenhouse”? Because life is all over the damn place! Will some polar icecaps melt someday? Maybe. Will it destroy all life on the planet? No. Relax. Life is good. Just like it always has been.

More Global Warming crap.

The problems with this thinking is that it is too simplistic and political. This is like the PETA people complaining about animal rights. Sure I believe in animal rights, but I don’t want it taken as far as PETA wants to take it.

We need to determine a few things before taking severe action.

First we need to prove it is actually happening, and permanently happening, not just a temporary trend. For example they thought we were headed toward an ice age because there was a cooling trend in the middle of the last century.

Next is that we need to determine if we are actually responsible. Cause and effect are hard to prove, especially with such a complex system as the Earth’s climate. If you know anything about chaos theory, you know that just breathing can make a difference between a storm, or clear skies eventually.

Next we need to determine if we should take action or not, not just take action without figuring out the implications. The Earth used to be 20 degrees warmer during the time of the dinosaurs, and now we are worried about a degree. Some scientists actually believe that this is actually good news not bad, and it is foolish just to assume it is bad.

I don?t have a problem with people discussing this, but lets get rid of the alarmism here. Saying we need to do something now or it is too late, is just foolish. Even if the climate theorists were right, (and their science is all wrong,) the change is so slow that to wait a decade is nothing.

And if nobody knows, when the scientists try to estimate the effects of global warming, they use an increase of 1% in carbon dioxide, but the actual increase is only 0.4% a year. That means they are using a model that is off by 150%.

Sure I don’t mind working for a cleaner Earth, and less pollution, but again lets not go alarmist, and do things that might be bad for business, economics, and possibly slow down the elimination of poverty, because of and incomplete theory based of faulty information.

Mage,

I think you are sticking your head in the sand a bit.

Science tells us what CO2 does.

Recent studies have actually shown that particulate matter, also added by human activities, apparently counters the rise in CO2 levels. It does this by make the sun “less bright”, which means it reflects incoming energy.

While it isn’t simple, we shouldn’t assume that our activities on the planet have no impact at all. We should not assume that the global environment is only stable because we liberate megatons of carbon via combustion on a daily basis.

Yes, its a huge, complex and dynamic system. No, its not going to ignore our changes to it forever. We need to be more careful.

Hey vroom.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Mage,

I think you are sticking your head in the sand a bit. [/quote]

By requesting that people don’t just jump on the bandwagon? That people take a slower approach to things and make sure that the rules people are trying to implement are not overkill?

And science is imperfect. Mostly because of the humans involved. But like I said, they are using the wrong model. Taking a number and changing it from 1 to 2.5 just to simplify things is not good science.

See, your own post shows that we still don’t have all the information in yet. This is information that might slow the human effect of global warming.

We should also not assume that we are causing the current warming trend just because there is one. And again we should not assume it is bad, or only bad. The fact is that we just don’t know. And anyone who says they do is delusional.

Again I am not saying do nothing. I am all for a cleaner environment, better fuel economy, renewable and cleaner sources of energy. But I am not for jumping the gun, and possibly causing a situation that could be worse, and find out later it was unwarranted.

See, right there. You are assuming that it is bad. What is this based on? Just because somebody told you? We are heavily into theory here.

I just put together a spreadsheet, and ran the numbers. An oversimplification of course, but it will give an idea of what I am saying.

If a bond was purchased that paid 1% a year, and another one that paid 0.4% a year it would take 247 years to equal what you make in 100 years. If we look at 25 years, it will take 60 years at 0.4%.

Sure this is the climate, but it shows how far off they are by using the 1% instead of the actual number. And if what they say will happen in 25 years actually takes 60, I am fairly certain we will have advanced a lot by then to know better what is true, and what need to be done.

But right now I think it is too soon to take drastic action. Subtle action is what we should focus on right now. Things that have little impact on the economy.

Also we cannot just believe nothing is being done. For example, we have 3 wind turbines locally. I have driven by wind farms with 20 to 30 of them. I have read of roofing tiles made out of solar material. Nobody can tell you are running on solar, but you are. My understanding is that it won’t provide all your energy needs, but imagine thousands, if not millions of houses with these things. Even if it only provides 10% of a houses energy needs, that can have a substantial effect.

As you can see, I don’t have my head in the sand, but I do have it firmly planted on my shoulders.

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
If there’s one article that sounds like shit, it’s that one. One thing (very important) not mentioned is that Ice Ages seem to have been a cyclical, natural part of our earth’s history. However man pumping umpteen billion tons of shit into the atmosphere and cutting down trees definitely is not. Our planet has clearly shown it recovers from Ice Ages and life continues, but will it after we cripple it through emissions and chemicals?
[/quote]

Ever hear of volcanos? They pump more shit into our atmosphere in one eruption than all the evil americans combined.

They’ve been keeping weather records for what, maybe 150 years? And the enviro-wackos propose to tell us that this ‘global warming’ is not cyclical?

Bullshit.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Mage,

I think you are sticking your head in the sand a bit.

Science tells us what CO2 does.

Recent studies have actually shown that particulate matter, also added by human activities, apparently counters the rise in CO2 levels. It does this by make the sun “less bright”, which means it reflects incoming energy.

While it isn’t simple, we shouldn’t assume that our activities on the planet have no impact at all. We should not assume that the global environment is only stable because we liberate megatons of carbon via combustion on a daily basis.

Yes, its a huge, complex and dynamic system. No, its not going to ignore our changes to it forever. We need to be more careful.[/quote]

vroom,

We don’t know nearly enough about the interactions with CO2 in the “huge, complex and dynamic” system to even begin with the alarmism. And we don’t really understand the causes of the natural fluctuations between warm ages and ice ages that have occurred naturally to begin to speculate on what the increase in one element in the system will cause – that kind of static analysis is almost pointless, because the environment doesn’t exist in a ceteris parabis (sp? – I never could remember that one…) setting.

At the very least, different plants and animals respond to the addition or subtraction of various substances in their environments by thriving or dying, and that very response tempers the effect.

I’m not saying I know what will happen either – just that a lot of these predictions are alarmist, and all the models that show disaster are linear-based models that can’t even forecast current conditions if you give them the precise previous conditions we had - at least not over any significant time interval.

If you want to be alarmist, worry about nanotechnology or perhaps asteroids hitting the earth – which they have done with relatively alarming frequency over the history of our little ball of rocks and gas.

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
According to this report, global warming is reaching a point of no return, where climate change could be catastrophic and irreversible.
Yet the US government still will not recognise the Kyoto accord, because it would harm the US economy. This seems dangerous near-sighted thinking.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH
/science/01/24/climate.change.ap
/index.html[/quote]

BTW, here’s a link to a good article addressing these “new” findings:

Although I am a strong ecologist, I frown upon people that try to scare populations into not polluting the environment, much in the same way (and for the same reasons) I frown upon people that incite religion by scaring people into thinking the Apocalypse is really close.

If you believe we need to respect our environment, you need to believe it for reasons other than fear - much as if you believe in God, and Jesus Christ as your Savior, it shouldn’t be because you’re afraid to go to Hell and just want to play it safe.

I’m much more worried about the dramatic increase in the % of people with chronic respiratory diseases, or even cancer, caused by environmental agents. It’s incredible how can people stand idle while we see ever-increasing millions of kids in elementary school carrying inhalers.

I’m much more worried about our dependence on oil, and, due to our consumption of oil being much higher than we could ever produce (even if we drill the heck out of Alaska and Texas), oil coming from countries that hate our guts.

I find it ironic that the same people who believe Arab countries are the personification of Evil, are not supporting policies that would reduce our dependence of oil - part of which will always necessarily come from those countries and their corrupt, fascist governments.

As a bodybuilder, I’m also worried about the destruction of ecossistems where species that are good, healthy sources of lean protein - e.g., wild salmon - once flourished. And, by the way, the mercury in my absolute favorite food: Tuna.

I’m also appaled at the fact that the US industry does not see the incredible opportunity that would be being the world leader on eco-friendly products, and that our fearless leader is too short-sighted to think beyond playtime and see that while it would be a tremendous investment, with a huge-short term cost to the economy, it could potentially be a gold mine and bring the US industry again alone to the forefront of the World, leaving the Asians and Europeans eating our dust for centuries to come.

But, I’m not surprised - that’s what we get when we elect a government that believes in the illusion of power given by short-term control rather than the TRUE power of long-term leadership and influence.

Just for good measure, here’s a link to an article I’ve posted before that looks at both sides of the global warming issue:

I think you’ll find the statements I made were awfully damned mild compared to the response I am getting back.

You who are so opposed to doing anything that might not be pro-economy should take a step back and look for your own bias.

I’m not claiming there is an emergency today and that we have to halt all energy use. However, the opposite, claiming that there is no evidence that we might be heading for a cliff, is just as silly.

I’ll agree with some of you that the issue is far from conclusive, but I’ll return to one of my original points: why is the US not honoring the Kyoto accord? Shouldn’t we play it safe on this one? The stakes are too high, for me.
The industry and waste produced by six billion beings must be having an effect on the earth’s climate.
It’s also interesting how those of you on the right are so quick to dismiss theories which do not fit in with your own belief-systems- anything which interferes with the pursuit of money.

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
I’ll agree with some of you that the issue is far from conclusive, but I’ll return to one of my original points: why is the US not honoring the Kyoto accord? Shouldn’t we play it safe on this one? The stakes are too high, for me.
The industry and waste produced by six billion beings must be having an effect on the earth’s climate.
It’s also interesting how those of you on the right are so quick to dismiss theories which do not fit in with your own belief-systems- anything which interferes with the pursuit of money.[/quote]

Read this take on Kyoto and the global warming “problem”. Frankly, I’m more concerned about all the methane gas being passed from all the fat bodies living in this country.

Right-wing hysteria? Shit, lothario, God bless his soul, runs the T-Nation atheist’s club and even he has doubts about the validity of these global warming claims. No one is going to mistake him for William F. Buckley.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42521

[quote]gdm wrote:
Right-wing hysteria? Shit, lothario, God bless his soul, runs the T-Nation atheist’s club and even he has doubts about the validity of these global warming claims. No one is going to mistake him for William F. Buckley.
[/quote]

I don’t just doubt it, pal, I’m calling bullshit in the highest degree. Anyone who says to me: “we have to start buying hybrid cars, because we’re killing the earth” will get a very loud laugh in return. The reason to buy a hybrid car is because you want to have less smog and get better gas mileage. The planet could care less about what we do.

I find global warming stupid. Yes the planet is getting warmer. Are we causing it? Doubtful. If we all get in the water with a paddle and stroke… Is the tide going to change. Why did the hole in the ozone layer get smaller… I thought CFCs had a half-life of over 50 years for the shortest lived ones…

I think the Earth is gonna do what it wants, when it wants. And there isn’t too much we can do about it.

Here is a good site:

In one interview it is mentioned that the Keyoto Protocol will reduce global temprature by 0.15 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. (About 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit.)

http://www.globalwarming.org/article.php?uid=657

And here is a Q&A page on global warming and climate change. The quick answers are at the top, but a more in depth answer is further down.

http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=67

There were charts, but all images are now missing unfortunately.