Global Warming. Fact or.....

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:26 am

I'd like to make the contention that the present theory of man made global warming due to the release of predominately carbon dioxide is, at best, unscientific and at worst, completely misleading and wrong.

There have been times in the past where carbon dioxide were 10 or 20 times as high as today but had absolutely no effect as a climate driver. Carbon dioxide makes up about 1% of all greenhouse gasses and is about 80 times less strong as a greenhouse gas compared to the most abundant one. Water vapour.

Discuss.

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:10 am

Well I don't really have a whole lot to add here, I'm basically on the same page as you. Now there is plenty of proof that the average global temperature is rising, though I have my own serious doubts (as do some of the less publicity seeking scientists) as to whether or not man made gases being released into the air are a significant part of that. Or if it's just a regular "mood swing" the planet tends to go through over periods of time. Unfortunately accurate meteorological data is a relatively recent thing so there really is no way of knowing short of what they dig up in ice cores and old soil samples... which really paint a picture of a climate that naturally has gone through drastic swings over time.

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 5:29 am

in the 1970's we had global cooling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling give it 10 more years and we may have global nice weather, my point is, on a whole I don't believe in glabal warming, by saying that I mean it may or may not be getting hotter (depends on which scienctist you listen too), I just don't think its our fault. I reckon we are too small to bother our planet a great deal, if it gets sick of us it will just shit us out one day.

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 5:42 am

I was under the impression that by and large the global scientific community have accepted global warming as a fact and most of them accept the hand of man in it. Thats not to say the world doesnt cool and swing in cycles, I mean the romans grew graoes for wine in England. The issue is the rate of which it is happening and the potential for the natural cycle to recover. Ice core drilling shows never before has the rate of change been at such a pace.

Ive never been to the poles, If I were majorly paranoid I might just say they dont exist at all and there melting is just a scare tactic but Im pretty sure the icecaps melting is a reality. The seas icecovering gets less year on year so yes gloabl warming is a reality. You only need to look out the window to see the weathers changing drastically and when polar melt starts to seriously affect oceanic currents then its gonna change even more.

To say we are too insignificant to affect global patterns is wrong. We have already done so many times. Bio-diversity lessening is wholly down to us and the rainforests we are cutting down to grow food may prove to have a massive impact gloabally

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 6:27 am

wtf???

global warming is a fact - the earth's global temperature is indeed rising. why the earth's temperature is rising is another issue.
the evidence of the global warming can be found through its impacts like

1.Graph of Historical Trend of Warming Temperatures
2.More Frequent Extreme Weather
3.Disappearing Glaciers
4.Melting Arctic Sea Ice
5.Melting Antarctic Sea Ice
6.Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting
7.Tropical Diseases Spreading
8.Oceans Warming With Coral Bleaching & Disintegration

global warming is caused because of sharp increase of greenhouse gases,because of humans? yes i think so.
because
CO2 emissions have increased
water-vapour in the atmosphere is increased
methane in the atmosphere is increased
ozone layer has depleted, (we are still working on that one)

edit:PS i m glad no one has blamed it on the liberals yet.I have no f****** idea whatsoever , why would anyone look at this from a political POV.lets keep that way people...
thanks

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 6:39 am

Lets face it, you, i and we aren't competent to make any claims about global warming. All we do is regurgitate the latest information that we have been fed or looked up somewhere, what we think only depends on what channels we tend to get our information from, our peers and our personality. It rarely has anything to do with the actual science. Some people have a problem with something that is "hyped" (an expression which only really encompasses the social implications of global warming, and not the actual science), some people stick with the underdogs, some people make up shallow arguments to demonize the opposition to the side they are taking in an argument ("as do some of the less publicity seeking scientists", Crooked_Ferret, I'm giving you a mean look Shocked

... ) and we all relate this debate to some other memory, that makes the scale of our favor tip to one side or the other. It's how our mind works, and we cannot help it, but we can try to counteract it to some point.

These arguments goes for both sides of course, but personally, although, as i said this is very subjective, i tend to favor the majority, especially when it is made up of intelligent, creative and open minded people (which is something i do know, not "for a fact" but as a gross generalization on the sum of their personalities, based on how i experience encounters with some of them, and on what information i find about them). Besides i find their arguments much more convincing, that is on a scientific level, not on a personal level. Although as i said, i am incompetent and therefore i cannot truly make any genuine conclusions about the validity of their arguments.

Besides, i cannot see any truly negative effects of an increased awareness about this aspect of our environment. Collective transport, biking, more renewable energy, more attention around energy saving and emissions, why not? (even though i must agree that some of these aspects tend to overshadow public awareness of some other aspects of our environment, but overall, it's an improvement)

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 7:12 am

I believe "global warming" or "climate change" or w/e is a naturally occurring process that is maybe exaggerated by our poor environmental stewardship. History shows these kinds of shifts way before our SUV's rolled out.

Mankind is so desperate to explain "things" that we buy into half-baked theories. I'm not saying they aren't right....they just aren't quite done yet.

It doesn't take a whole lot for "ideas" to look legit. Find some professor & put a bow-tie on him, get someone that is a pro with some animation software, find some tense music, get a few thousand followers that can't see the forest b/c the trees are in the way.....and you have some pretty convincing "facts".

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 10:17 am

creeping death wrote:

wtf???
1.Graph of Historical Trend of Warming Temperatures
2.More Frequent Extreme Weather
3.Disappearing Glaciers
4.Melting Arctic Sea Ice
5.Melting Antarctic Sea Ice
6.Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting
7.Tropical Diseases Spreading

1.Graph of Historical Trend of Warming Temperatures

it was actually warmer in the middle ages than what it is now world wide

2.More Frequent Extreme Weather
3.Disappearing Glaciers
4.Melting Arctic Sea Ice
5.Melting Antarctic Sea Ice
6.Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting (all the same thing melting of ice)

the earth had a ice age then it all melted hmmm to many fish farting realising gas caused the ozone layer to have holes and heated up the earth

7.Tropical Diseases Spreading

I don't see how this can be included

any way im not arguing global warming is a issue but I don't think by making people use low wattage bulbs is really gonging help for 1 if this is fact and reason the earth is getting warmer now is souly thro humans causes green house effect I think we are to far gone 2,your not reversing the process you simply pro longing it

my personal belief is the world is running out of fuel so instead of telling people this and asking um to use less coursing panic point out the bad factors of it and make them feel guilty for using it

Im not saying global warming is not happen Im just saying this planet has seen 100's of climate changes in its time and some far more worse than the 1 we are going thro

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 12:28 pm

It's very true that the best way to secure funding is to say it's related to the study of global warming. So with so much relying and dependent on promotion of this theory it is little wonder the scientific community has bought into it.

Is the planet warming ? Yes.

Has it done this before and even more dramatically? Yes.

Has it also cooled. Yes.

Had this anything to do with man and in particular the release of gasses thru' mans activities? Unproven as yet. So why is it already been decided as fact?

It wasnt only in Roman times that the temp was higher than it is today but there was the Medieval warm period where temp shot up as rapidly if not more so, to a temp greater than it is today. It also cooled several hundred years later in the period known as the little ice age. What does this tell us?

The famous graph that was touted by Al Gore suggested, dubiously IMO, that temp increase followed CO2 when in fact it was the other way round. The temp increased first then the CO2 rose. So one of the fundamental principles behind the present theory is wrong. The whole thing is based on a false premise.

Pre 1945, when industry was limited the global temp rose. Post 1945 when there was an industrial boom the temp fell. After the economic slow down of the seventies the temp rose again. This says to me at least that it is far more complicated an issue than the present thinking allows for and we should scrap the whole premise and get back to the drawing board.

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:56 pm

It's all about money. It's a natural change, and Mr. Gore capatalized on that.

A) How many toyota prius's have been sold now?

B) How many copies of Al Gore's lies have been sold?

C) How much money are corporations making on this 'green' bullshit?

D) How much money are car makers making from 'green' cars?

E) How much have we spent on a 'green' Ethanol?

F) How much have we spent of making a 'green' powerplant?

G) How much have we spent in grants on 'research'?

H) How much have we spend on 'green' organic products?

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:59 pm

well you have to take alot of things into factor, does it not make sence to you that pollution can cause a harmful effect to the planet, you dont think thats possible???

what about the polar Ice caps melting, What about the hundreds of species whos migrating and breeding patterns are becoming more and more fucked up, or the plants that are budding early, these are questions that need to be answered

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:05 pm

Dingleberry's&Pubicha wrote:

well you have to take alot of things into factor, does it not make sence to you that pollution can cause a harmful effect to the planet, you dont think thats possible???

what about the polar Ice caps melting, What about the hundreds of species whos migrating and breeding patterns are becoming more and more fucked up, or the plants that are budding early, these are questions that need to be answered

What's wrong with the ice caps melting? I think of it as more habitat, and more farmland on, say, greenland.

I think that yes, pollution is a problem causing problems with animals, but if you use the proper cleaning agents, and scrubbers on smoke stacks, the impact is minimal.

Animals are merely adapting to a larger breeding season. It seems odd for us, yes, but to them, maybe it's just an advantage? Just because some animals are breeding early doesn't matter so much, so long as their breeding, correct?

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:14 pm

Oke first of all... I think it's only fair to say that yes... during the earth's history it has indeed known natural periods of warming and cooling. That fact is indiffutiple. Thougt stating that it's either man-made "or" a natural occuring cycle is very dangerous. Man is, without a doubt "helping" the natural cycles move faster.

I remember about a year or so ago a large sheet of ice broke free. Man had predicted it would the tear (tare ?) in it was said to be growing at a rate that it would take over 100 years for it to break off... when it finaly went... it went in 15 minutes... (the video of it falling into the sea was on CNN)

The few scientists that are still telling us our infuence on the natural cycles are (and this has been proven in some cases) largely employed by Big Bussiness. This is "not" a conspiracy theory... this is something we have seen before with the Tabacco lobby... A few scientist said : "Hell, no siggy's aren't bad for you" And just those few scientists made it possible for people to say : "well, we just don't know" I fear this is the same case.

What noone here has mentioned however is that the natural cycle of cooling and warming is based on a very fine balance in nature.... Mess with that balance and you throw those cycles off. What am I referring too ? The Earth's longues... The trees in the Rain Forests. They, as we should by now all know, inhale CO2 during the day and exhale Oxigine (?)and vice versa during the night... Rain Forests have been dissapearing exponentialy over the last few decades due to burning them off to get more furtille farming grounds... So man IS messing with this system.

Now can it be proven without a shadow of a doubt ? No... but in "this" saying "if the gloves don't fit, you must acquit" is sticking your head in the sand... It is afterall better to err on the side of caution, is it not ?

What I find extremely saddening, and this is not ment against any here, but in general, is that the multitude of people is still dead set against aborting unborn children as "life is sacrate" but they couldn't give a shit about giving them a nice place to actualy live their "sacrate" lives in...

So again... lets err on the side of caution ...

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:19 pm

toulji wrote:

What's wrong with the ice caps melting? I think of it as more habitat, and more farmland on, say, greenland.

Sorry to burst your bubble there, but the Ice Caps melting does NOT mean more farmland it means large parts of the land we have now will get submerged... My home town included... London included... Would eventualy this happenen naturaly ? Yes, but please wait till after I'm gone...

It's human arrogance and human ignorance that makes em still live on fault lines in the earth or on Vesusuvius... it's a sense of... "Oh hell, We are man... We can conquer whatever the earth throws at us..." That is arrogance and ignorance... Same as saying... "if the ice melts we'll have more land"

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:19 pm

Trubadidudei wrote:

"as do some of the less publicity seeking scientists", Crooked_Ferret, I'm giving you a mean look Shocked

... ) and we all relate this debate to some other memory, that makes the scale of our favor tip to one side or the other. It's how our mind works, and we cannot help it, but we can try to counteract it to some point.

Give me all the dirty looks you want, is it not a fact that those that scream bloody murder at the first indication of change are the ones that get more attention, larger grants, and political support.
I think so...
Most of the level headed scientist seem to take the same tone I have, which is, we really don't have enough information to know. There isn't enough of a solid consistent record of how the global weather has behaved over time. These swings could in fact be part of a natural cycle of balance and renewal. We really just have no way of knowing. I am not arguing the fact that the temperature has increased globally, I'm not saying I'm not concerned about the effects it's having. To be perfectly honest though the process is already set in motion, even if human beings are the cause the only thing we can do now is slow the process a bit , we have ZERO CHANCE of reversing it no matter what we do... if it was people the damage has been done. If it's the planet going through a natural cycle, there's no point in taking action. If it's a mix of both... which may very well be the case, there is also little we can do at this point.
Not too mention nothing will be done... if everyone on earth quit using internal combustion engines tomorrow... it would not fix the problem, In fact attempting to slow the cycle now, might just make things worse. The planet has shown in the past it has the capacity to balance temperatures if left to it's own devices. It may swing wildly one way then the other before getting there. The truth of the matter from samples and cores taken from the land and the ice, indicate over the entire history of the world. The last 10,000 years (around the end of the last ice age) or so have been a very atypical period of relative stability in temperature and weather. The truth is it's terror mongering and irresponsible not to say "we don't really know" but people don't like not knowing, they want to believe that they have a firm grip on things. That the period in which they live is somehow special to all those that came before. This is marked by doomsday theories that seem to run in the background of every generation.