Climate Change and Global WarmingFollow

Just curious about what everyone's views on global warming, and climate change are, because it is happening. Most people who say it isn't are too arrogant to look outside their window.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/features/details?item%5fid=583710

The changes can be seen almost everywhere, and with an election coming up are you going to vote for someone who endorses the combustion of fossil feuls and has made it clear that he has no concern for the environment (Kyoto)? Want more hurricanes Florida? Want more forest fires and less rain California? Think straight.

Tree-hugging commie.

No, seriously, you're right about the weather and stuff. But, pardon my ignorance, what exactly was your point? Are you just trying to raise awareness? Or are trying to be inflammatory?

I'm curious what people's views are, becuase it is a pretty big issue up here in BC, but it seems like the US is doing less and less to protect the world we live in, but seeing that I don't pay a lot of attention to the US i could be wrong.

I hope Varuss doesn't see this, he thinks it's all a media beatup. There was a huge thread on this topic a few weeks ago.

Two questions.

1) Do you know what the Kyoto accord is?

2) Do you know where the democratic platform stands on it?


It might be a fair debate after you answer these qustions.

where i live i have been doing that also. with sea levels rising it will get to me 80 miles inland.

True. Quote of the day

"If we dont get off this planet were going to go berserk."


(Hint: It was stated by some one who speaks in a monotone electronic voice.)

Max Headroom?

*ahem*
mt

Edited, Tue Sep 14 17:03:43 2004 by JusteneNightshadow

Eh? First off, it's "some scientists" "guess" that the temperature will rise. There's still huge debate as to whether the pollutants are actually going to result in an increase or decrease in temperature globally.

Um. They also aren't really sure if any changes that do occur would have occured anyway. There really isn't enough data to support any solid conclusions. For the most part, it's fringe scientists who make sweeping claims about global warming.

Oh. And the US puts out 25% of the pollutants that "some scientists" think might cause global warming. You're putting the cart before the horse here. What's missed is that the US puts out more then 25% of the total industrial output of the world. In essense we produce *less* pollution for X amount of work then the rest of the world. The fact that we can do that with such a small percentage of the worlds population is just more evidence of efficiency, not the other way around.



Drilling doesn't cause the pollutants that we're talking about. In fact, new drilling reduces the total pollutants. As oil fields become tapped, it gets harder to refine a sufficient quanity of usable petrolium products to meet world demands. As purity of the field drops, more refinement must be done to get usable pruducts, and more byproducts are released as a result. But lets not let fact get in the way of hyperbole here...

As to Kyoto? Have you read it? It's garbage. While it does have the noble goal of reducing the rate of those pollutants believed to maybe cause a greenhouse effect, it does it in a very irrational way. Instead of looking at pollution from a "X amount produced while doing Y amount of work", they just look at national totals, or totals as a percentage of population within a nation. So, a large industrialized nation gets screwed, not becuase it's polluting more then it's producing but simply becuase it's able to do more work with fewer people, so the rate of pollution to people is higher. A nation full of people growing rice in paddys with no electricity and no cars is apparently the ideal to which we should all aspire...

Kyoto was so obviously politically motivated it's not even funny. It should have been renamed the "let's write an accord that will let all the tiny undeveloped nations of the world ***** over the US for being big and successful".

Meanwhile, said third world nation is perfectly allowed to use power plants that spew out pollutants and run cars that belch out noxious fumes because such a small percentage of their population owns cars or use electricity that the total in relation to world totals and their own population is low. Wow. Way to encourage elitisim! Let's make it so that emerging nations *can't* improve the quality of life for their citizens because then they might have to clean up their power plants and cars. Brilliant!



Or they've just presented the other side of the issue. It all depends on how you look at it really.

And it's not like Republicans are the only people who recieve campaign contributions from Big Oil. They butter both sides of the bread if you know what I mean...



Yes yes. Nice. But we have absolutely no where near enough historical data to know if we are heading into a warming or cooling trend, or whether that's "unusual" or not. We don't know what "normal" temperatures are. We've only got reasonable amounts of recorded history going back 2.5k years. We only have reasonable amounts of global weather history going back maybe 100 years. The trends we are talking about go in cycles of anywhere from 10k to 100k years. As I said in the last thread we had about this. Looking at changes in temperature over the last 100 years and stating that we're causing a warming trend (or even that we're in one), is like you measuring the temperature over a 3 day period and declaring whether we're in spring or fall based purely on those measurements.

It can't be done. Anyone who says they are "sure" has an agenda. Any honest and reputable scientist in the field of long term climatology will avoid making any kind of definative statement about global warming or cooling except to say: "We don't know".

Let me paraphrase something that I found in National Geographic this month, and these are their own words, not my own, so you ingorant people open your ******* minds.

"The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80% since 1912"
"Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2030"
"Thawing permafrost has caused the ground to subside more than 15 feet in parts of Alaska"
"Scientists using submarine sonar data documented a 40% thinning in the past 30 year" This is in the arctic near Alaska

I would go on, there is an amazing amount of data on weather patterns, animal population cycles broken, effects on oceans, etc, but I fear most people would not pay attention, or would be too stubborn to give it any thought. If there is anyone who would like me to post more then say so and I'll post what I can.

I talked with a professor at my university who studies paleoecology, which is essentially the study of climate over time. He uses core samples from lake sediment to statisticly determine what the climate in any given place was like 100's, 1000's, even 10,000's of years ago. And he says the same thing, the climate is warming, things are changing.

Now there is no doubt that the climate changes over time, that is a well known fact given ice ages and other similar events. And this is often used as a scapegoat for those people who refuse to look at the evidence of climate change. But you have to look at the scale of events. Glaciers are retreating at record rates, some at up to 600 feet per year. Now, this may seem a little strange, but if this is constant, and a given glacier has been around for tens of thousands of years, how big must this glacier have been 100, even a thousand years ago? It simply does not make sense.

Global warming is not just about warmer temperatures so there are more days at the beach, or the ability to grow crops with in a longer growing season. It means weather patterns themselves will change, storms will intensify hurricanes, lenghten periods of drought, and cause severe flooding in areas of the world. Sure it isn't felt in the US, or even parts of Canada, but in regions that need the cold, the effects are being felt. Here in BC it has not been cold enough to kill off the mountain pine beetle during the winters, and the losses are huge. A state of emergency has been declared in some parts of BC becauase the beetle has killed thousands of hectares of forest.

I find it completely useless to try to explain some of these concepts in detail to people without common sense, open minds, or just a cpmplete lack of understanding of the dynamics of this earth. I can and will post information about this here if people are interested, but if not then I'm just wasting our time here.

Chicago had a near-record cool summer this year.

The atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, have increased since pre-industrial times from 280 part per million (ppm) to 360 ppm, a 30% increase. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are the highest in 160,000 years. Carbon dioxide is a by-product of the burning of fossil fuels, such as gasoline in an automobile or coal in a power plant generating electricity.

This is not a short term measurement. 160,000 years long enough for you?