A Question about Global Warming

[The_Dark]

OK... I have read a bit about this from both sides of the debate. Frankly, I dont know what to think.

I can really see how our emissions and the large hurds of cows can be doing it. (Yes, cows, they account for most of our green house gases). I can also see how they would have little impact in the long ron of things. Thats the thing the media and pundints are pissing me off about. Greenhouse models dont show any noticable effect for 1-200 years from now. None that I have seen put together by a real scientist show anything really happening for a couple hundred years that we would actually notice.

The thing that everyone seems to be missing is natural cycles. Earth weather system goes through cycles... hurricanes are have been really bad the last couple years.. but we went through 20 years of absolutly mild ones... The number of hurricanes isn;t really up either... Hell, you wanna see bad weather.. look at the 1930's.. Holy shit did mother nature show her stuff then...

Then there is the Sun... the Sun is going through some cycle that noone really undrstands... We have had more frequant emmisions from the sun over the last few years. Some fo those emissions have bathed us in years worth of radiation all at once. The sun normally goes through an 11 year cycle with the Sun spots.. the 11th year is always a great show if you have the equipment to look... but.. we built toward a peak and it just keeps going up...

And now.. mars... Mars`s polar caps are melting. Siesmic activity we have never seen before.... Mars is going through Global Warming too... and we only have two cars on mars...

So.. Is it really us? Or is it just somethign that was going to happen if we were here or not.

[Scary Guy]

Don't know, but it is happening, and must be stopped.

I heard some crackpots make some stuff up about global cooling once or twice. I was hoping maybe they were making valid points and they would balance eachother out somehow.

Who knows, maybe it would have happened anyhow, but we sure as hell aren't helping the situation any.

[phee]

I totally undestand where you are coming from Dark... we simply don't know enough to get a clear picture... Or I should say that I know enough to know that I don't know....

Look at it this way... Let's say that we are in fact causing the Earth to "heat up" which then causes the ice caps to melt, and create more water, and because of the heat, causes there to be more evaporation that would then cause more cloud cover and rain, that then causes less heat which causes the earth to become colder and ice to form at the ice caps...etc...

So take the painfully realistic film that changed the nature of environmental politics: "Waterworld" (yes I am being sacrcastic) The characters were all desperatly seaching for a source of fresh water... but do you realize that in a world where there was enough water so that land was so scarce, how much it would rain almost all the friggen time...? and therefor fresh water.... you can see the paradox

[Steven]

right now I'm much more concerend with a very probable Bird Flu pandemic, the fact that our antibiotics and innoculations are at least 5 years behind many viruses that are re-creating themselves.

I'm also concerend about the long term viral effects of the New Orleans area will be. We dont realy have a grasp of containing the damages, therefore the future will have to tell how all of this sewage and decay will manifest itself in migrating wildlife, mosquitos, and.....migrating people.

[Daevion]

well our sun is a dynamic ball of gas, compressed to the point of a fusion reaction....its what gives this planet life and what will eventually take it away from us......if you look at how vast the universe is you will see that humanity is nothing but a speck of dust with little impact on the system as a whole.....eventually our sun will end its stable fusion process and expand outward rendering this planet uninhabitable...were talking a stellar time frame so I think were ok for now.

[Paper Hearts]

Well, I think beyond contributing to, and complicating global warming, there are numerous other reasons to build more efficient machinery with lower emissions.

The technology has been around since the 1970's where we can do it, too. Instituting that technology and laws that require better standards have only been stopped by hired lobbysts of the oil and automotive industrys. America needs to set the example, rather than have leaders who say "Well China's not doing it, so niether are we" It's obviously an shitty excuse, being that Bush is a member of the oil industry. The rest of the civilized globe lives by higher fuel efficiency and emmissions standards and we can too-the same auto companies who build vehicles for other countries build vehicles for the US, for the most part. It's easier on the environment, and your wallet and it'll probably keep us from having any more passenger jets slammed into our landmarks.

[phee]

Well, I think beyond contributing to, and complicating global warming, there are numerous other reasons to build more efficient machinery with lower emissions.

The technology has been around since the 1970's where we can do it, too. Instituting that technology and laws that require better standards have only been stopped by hired lobbysts of the oil and automotive industrys. America needs to set the example, rather than have leaders who say "Well China's not doing it, so niether are we" It's obviously an shitty excuse, being that Bush is a member of the oil industry. The rest of the civilized globe lives by higher fuel efficiency and emmissions standards and we can too-the same auto companies who build vehicles for other countries build vehicles for the US, for the most part. It's easier on the environment, and your wallet and it'll probably keep us from having any more passenger jets slammed into our landmarks.

I agree with this as well...

[Msterbeau]

*Time out from Yodaspeak*

Whether or not there is actual global warming, the consequences of cars and industry on air quality, especially in large urban popluation centers, is not in dispute. If we want decent air to breathe, we need to make our machinery as efficient and clean burning (Or non-burning) as possible.

[The_Dark]

I agree.. we should be working on cleaner running machines in general... My point is really that global warming is being blamed for all kinds of things that just have no scientific basis.

[Paper Hearts]

Well, I think that it's healthy to have speculation in certain situations-what more can we do than speculate, anyway? Even Scientific laws are really speculation. Speculation does not mean that someone is being necessarily untruthful and in the case of global warming the only thing these people have to gain is a more healthy environment. It's true that certain scientists that are hired by groups like the auto companies or the oil companies, make speculations against the idea of global warming, but it's hard to take those groups very seriously for me, since they are hired by these type of groups. I suppose two different people might see giant pieces of the south pole melting away or giant holes in the ozone layer and draw different conclusions about what is happening, but I side with caution rather than the economic gain of General Motors or the Bush oil affliates. Unfortunatley though, those same scientists are the only scientists that the president takes seriously. I do not trust that

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Don't know, but it is happening, and must be stopped.

I heard some crackpots make some stuff up about global cooling once or twice.  I was hoping maybe they were making valid points and they would balance eachother out somehow.

Who knows, maybe it would have happened anyhow, but we sure as hell aren't helping the situation any.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

in the 70s global cooling was an issue by some of the same people who are now promoting global warming....

it does make for more interesting news...

[The_Dark]

Do you trust James Hansen? He is the man that coined the term Global Warming. It was he that stood before congress and laid ou what will happen to the Earth if we don't cut back on CO2 emmisions.

If you trust him.. perhaps you should read comments made by him over the last year... in a nut shell.. Global warming is not the cause of our current weather conditions... Global warming wont have a noticble effect on us for at least 100 years.

Now, nooone go putting words in my mouth. I am in no way saying that Global warming is not a threat. It is and is very real, but it's a threat to our great grand children.. Not us... Again.. dont put words in my mouth... I think we need to do somethign about it now.

What I am saying is that the media and pundints need to stop blaming the current weather on Global Warming. I am saying that we should factor the odditys of the Sun's behavior into weather models. Come on people.. the same thing is going on on Mars and there is no people there to be causing it.

[Paper Hearts]

I didn't realize anyone was blaming global warming, directly, for recent wheather catastrophees, but I will say that vehicles, factories, with higher emissions, deffinately contribute to the problem of global warming and accelerate it. Seeing as we have no other way to try and fix the problem it'd be a good thing if we held ourselves to higher standards. Plus, again, there are other reasons, more immediate, why we should establish those new principals.

[The_Dark]

Oh yes... Gore and Dean are among them...

[Shade Everdark]

Scientists for the NOAA have determined that average ocean temperatures have risen, on average, 1 to 2 degrees since, I think, the 1960s. This is taking into account seasonal climate fluctuations and El Nino and La Nina cycles. They don't say that it is definitively global warming, but they don't rule it out, and they don't seem to have any other plausible solutions.

Me, I am not the sort of person who likes taking those kinds of risks, long-term problem or acute problem.