[quote]Headhunter wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Yea, global warming is just a massive plot by liberals…
The damn ice caps are melting, the Greenland ice sheet is metling, and yet you fellas will deny it to the bitter end.
Why is Antartica’s ice sheet increasing?
GW is simply a new way to throttle the productive people of the world.
BTW, studies are now showing that industrializing countries (India and China) are re-foresting blighted areas. Starving people despoil their land in their efforts to survive. Wealthy countries can afford to worry about pollution.
Of course, starving people are easier to control and dominate, which is actually the goal of the GW crowd (as the President of the Czech Republic points out above).
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
Brad61 wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
I don’t know where FI has been hanging out but this has been the coldest winter in NJ since I moved here in 1998.
Congratulations.
But we’re talking about global warming. Little blips and local fluctuations aren’t relevant.
It’s also kind of like the stock market. You shouldn’t freak out (or celebrate wildly) after one good or bad day (or week, or month) Or in the case of the weather, one season. What you look at are the long term trends.
The long term trend is that the planet is getting warmer.
Right! Maybe we will get back to the place where Greenland was actually GREEN and not all ice and snow.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
You’ve all heard of the Industrial Revolution? Well, the global warming nonsense is the ANTI-industrial revolution.
I love air conditioners, cars, furnaces, computers, just about any product of an industrial civilisation. I and almost all people will not give those things to prevent the planet from having a 3 degree heat wave. If the polar bears and penguins and other such beings can’t adapt to that, fuck 'em.[/quote]
Just like the New Orleansers, fuck them. Sorry, couldn’t resist. If global warming is true, air conditioners, cars, furnaces and computers might well become too expensive for a teacher to own.
The temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic, not exponential.
The potential planetary warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from pre-Industrial Revolution levels of ~280ppmv to 560ppmv (possible some time later this century - perhaps) is generally estimated at less than 1 ?C.
The guesses of significantly larger warming are dependent on “feedback” (supplementary) mechanisms programmed into climate models. The existence of these “feedback” mechanisms is uncertain and the cumulative sign of which is unknown (they may add to warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide or, equally likely, might suppress it).
The total warming since measurements have been attempted is thought to be about 0.6 degrees Centigrade. At least half of the estimated temperature increment occurred before 1950, prior to significant change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Assuming the unlikely case that all the natural drivers of planetary temperature change ceased to operate at the time of measured atmospheric change then a 30% increment in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused about one-third of one degree temperature increment since and thus provides empirical support for less than one degree increment due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
There is no linear relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide change and global mean temperature or global mean temperature trend – global mean temperature has both risen and fallen during the period atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising.
The natural world has tolerated greater than one-degree fluctuations in mean temperature during the relatively recent past and thus current changes are within the range of natural variation. (See, for example, ice core and sea surface temperature reconstructions.)
Other anthropogenic effects are vastly more important, at least on local and regional scales.
Fixation on atmospheric carbon dioxide is a distraction from these more important anthropogenic effects.
Despite attempts to label atmospheric carbon dioxide a “pollutant” it is, in fact, an essential trace gas, the increasing abundance of which is a bonus for the bulk of the biosphere.
There is no reason to believe that slightly lower temperatures are somehow preferable to slightly higher temperatures - there is no known “optimal” nor any known means of knowingly and predictably adjusting some sort of planetary thermostat.
Fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide are of little relevance in the short to medium term (although should levels fall too low it could prove problematic in the longer-term).
Activists and zealots constantly shrilling over atmospheric carbon dioxide are misdirecting attention and effort from real and potentially addressable local, regional and planetary problems.
No, I would say you are the idiot and gullible to boot!
Now we have a few scientists funded by the oil companies, who say that global warming isn’t a concern, or that humans don’t play a role, or that changes in the climate aren’t related to pollution.
On…
This is the lie in your statement. Most scientists that are starting to speak out against the global warming fearmongering and exaggeration do not take one dime from oil/energy companies although people like Al Gore have set themselves up to make a fortune and be in power if the carbon credit trading schemes are enacted. [/quote]
If he didn’t have any money invested in it, you’d all doubt it’s credibility because Gore himself “doesn’t believe in it enough to put his own money in”.
You will always find something to whine about with this.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Cutting CO2 emissions by an amount significant enough to impact the computer models would destroy our lifestyles.[/quote]
You mean we won’t be able to drive three ton vehicles to the mall to buy ever more things? Outrageous!
I have no idea what Al said, but if you agree that sea levels can rise in inches, it’s only a matter of time and extrapolation to get to the “feet”.
May I remind you that if we keep burning up stuff the air will become more polutted causing ever more respiratorial problems for kids.
Overall, the whole debate amounts to the following: If we care, we act and lose some confort and if we don’t, we lose our souls and go down in history as the most selfish, wasteful and auto-blinded people to walk on the surface of the Earth.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Cutting CO2 emissions by an amount significant enough to impact the computer models would destroy our lifestyles.
You mean we won’t be able to drive three ton vehicles to the mall to buy ever more things? Outrageous!
…[/quote]
I mean we won’t be able to burn any “fossil fuels” for any use at all. No coal, no natural gas, no oil or gasoline.
The only things we can burn are things that can be replenished, such as wood, biodiesel etc.
If the global warming doom and gloomers are correct we must eliminate everything else in order to get the CO2 levels back to where they should be.
Even if we could wave a magic wand stop emitting CO2 we are locked into 50 to 100 years of warming until the CO2 levels return to “normal”.
Basically if the computer predictions are accurate we have already passed the tipping point. If they are not accurate we haave nothing to worry about.
If he didn’t have any money invested in it, you’d all doubt it’s credibility because Gore himself “doesn’t believe in it enough to put his own money in”.
You will always find something to whine about with this.[/quote]
Funny how Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates managed to “invest” without payoff but Al Gore tended to follow Donald Trump’s example.
I can’t wait to see Al “If a baby has a fever” Gore shave his head after losing a steel cage death match to Vince McMahon. You know, to fight global warming.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Basically if the computer predictions are accurate we have already passed the tipping point. If they are not accurate we haave nothing to worry about.[/quote]
I’m sure the wise path is somewhere in the middle.
If the predictions are accurate and we start acting now, it might mitigate the consequences of a global warming. If they are not accurate and we keep polluting like we do, it is certain that it will badly impact our health and environment.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Basically if the computer predictions are accurate we have already passed the tipping point. If they are not accurate we haave nothing to worry about.
I’m sure the wise path is somewhere in the middle.
If the predictions are accurate and we start acting now, it might mitigate the consequences of a global warming. If they are not accurate and we keep polluting like we do, it is certain that it will badly impact our health and environment.[/quote]
You have unwittingly hit on the core of the issue: do we need a crisis to push the issue of pollution reduction? Does it matter if global warming is bogus? Isn’t pollution in itself a problem to the extent that we need to take action?
I feel that global warming has become a lightening rod for both pro and con, because the science is anything but conclusive and there is no scientific consensus on if there is warming, if it is a natural occurrence, if it is man made - what we should do about it, etc…
So because this issue is much more political than scientist, it gives some people a cause to champion and others an excuse to not deal with pollution. On the other hand, who can argue that pollution is good? Who cannot see with their own senses the dirty water and air? You don’t need scientific consensus to know pollution is bad; not so with global warming.
So unless something changes drastically, I think that the global warming issue will, in the long run, do more harm to the true environmental issue of pollution reduction than if the issue of global warming was never created/discovered.
If the predictions are accurate and we start acting now, it might mitigate the consequences of a global warming. If they are not accurate and we keep polluting like we do, it is certain that it will badly impact our health and environment.[/quote]
First of all, that assumes any current prediction of one hundred years from now is any more accurate than any prediction one hundred years ago is of today. From Malthus’ Population Catastrophe to Thomas Edison saying heavier than air flight was impossible to Einstein and Churchill saying we’d never harness the power of the atom all the way up to Bill Gates saying he’d never build a 32-bit OS, we’ve had lots of very intelligent people making very intelligent wrong predictions for hundreds of years.
Not to gloss over GW and encourage anyone to be deliberately polluting and wasteful but to say that contributing in a small part to a heatwave is just as bad as scaring people out of buying and using an air conditioner because it “destroys the environment”.
If the predictions are accurate and we start acting now, it might mitigate the consequences of a global warming. If they are not accurate and we keep polluting like we do, it is certain that it will badly impact our health and environment.
First of all, that assumes any current prediction of one hundred years from now is any more accurate than any prediction one hundred years ago is of today. [/quote]
No, it doesn’t assume squat! That’s the reason Zap and myself included “if’s” in the reasoning. Being as it may, I agree with the rest of your post.
Don’t know why you put in Bill Gates with the lot though. Rich doesn’t imply intelligent. What’s next? Are you gonna quote Paris Hilton?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
I don’t know where FI has been hanging out but this has been the coldest winter in NJ since I moved here in 1998.
First of all, in December there were days where it was in the 50s and 60s.
We got one storm all year that was bad, and that was last week- all winter.
Now besides that, New Jersey is not the world… just because local temperatures are not rising doesn’t mean that the world’s temperature is not rising… you know this, don’t be an ass. [/quote]
Take it easy my Joisey leprechaun friend.
FYI - Winter does not begin until 12/21.
December was warm but when it got cold here it was very cold and records were reached.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Yea, global warming is just a massive plot by liberals…
The damn ice caps are melting, the Greenland ice sheet is metling, and yet you fellas will deny it to the bitter end.
Why is Antartica’s ice sheet increasing?
GW is simply a new way to throttle the productive people of the world.
BTW, studies are now showing that industrializing countries (India and China) are re-foresting blighted areas. Starving people despoil their land in their efforts to survive. Wealthy countries can afford to worry about pollution.
Of course, starving people are easier to control and dominate, which is actually the goal of the GW crowd (as the President of the Czech Republic points out above).
The report warned that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. “The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism,” the 35-page report predicted.
“Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations,” former U.S. Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan told Associated Press Radio. “Everybody needs to start paying attention to what’s going on. I don’t think this is a particularly hard sell in the Pentagon. … We’re paying attention to what those security implications are.”
Gen. Anthony “Tony” Zinni, Bush’s former Middle East envoy, said in the report: “It’s not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.”
The report was issued by the Alexandria, Va.-based, national security think-tank The CNA Corporation and was written by six retired admirals and five retired generals. They warned of a future of rampant disease, water shortages and flooding that will make already dicey areas ? such as the Middle East, Asia and Africa ? even worse.
“Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” the report said. “The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations.”
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!
They should’ve just said National Security will finally become ineffectual about the time GW opens the seals and releases the four horsemen. They pretty accurately described them; Pestilence, War, Famine, Death.
Prof. Richard Lindzen from MIT has a good article in Newsweek on this:
EXCERPT:
[i]Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature goes down?not up?the more carbon accumulates in the atmosphere.
Even if emissions were the sole cause of the recent temperature rise?a dubious proposition?future increases wouldn’t be as steep as the climb in emissions.
Indeed, one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already higher. Various models predict that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will raise the world’s average temperature by as little as 1.5 degrees Celsius or as much as 4.5 degrees.
The important thing about doubled CO2 (or any other greenhouse gas) is its “forcing”?its contribution to warming. At present, the greenhouse forcing is already about three-quarters of what one would get from a doubling of CO2. But average temperatures rose only about 0.6 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era, and the change hasn’t been uniform?warming has largely occurred during the periods from 1919 to 1940 and from 1976 to 1998, with cooling in between. Researchers have been unable to explain this discrepancy.
Modelers claim to have simulated the warming and cooling that occurred before 1976 by choosing among various guesses as to what effect poorly observed volcanoes and unmeasured output from the sun have had. These factors, they claim, don’t explain the warming of about 0.4 degrees C between 1976 and 1998.
Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes explanation. Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn’t account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record?an effort that is now generally discredited.
The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Ni?o and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries.
Is there any point in pretending that CO2 increases will be catastrophic? Or could they be modest and on balance beneficial? India has warmed during the second half of the 20th century, and agricultural output has increased greatly.
Infectious diseases like malaria are a matter not so much of temperature as poverty and public-health policies (like eliminating DDT). Exposure to cold is generally found to be both more dangerous and less comfortable.[/i]