global warming - worse than we think?

[Ozrat]

CCR aka John Uskglass, the example you mention about the Sumerian's doomsday was based on the ever popular notion that kids don't learn from their elders (which still exists in cultures across the world presently), not on 'enviromental claptrap' like today, and you are still avoiding the reality that we are facing unavoidable climate changes while all the Summerians had to do was learn how to irrigate and rotate crops and other sustainable farming methods.

In case you haven't been following up on the development of the world's population, the countries that have the fastest human reproduction are in developing countries where enviromental standards are not nearly as strict as in industrial nations. Not only are these population masses most likely going to be in dirty crowded urban centers with limited available resources, they will also be near the shore lines if the water rises.

Arguing that the future ratio of religious preference for the world's sealevel population is going to be one form or another, or even that it has any relevance in this discussion, once again. Furthermore, you still haven't provided any backup to your claims in the first place.

And no, hard science doesn't change rapidly as you claim. Scientific theories do change, and for the better based upon proven knowledge and observation.

What exactly are you trying to argue again?

 

[welsh]

The man defeats and conquers nature is a very dominion kind of view. But it's also very scientific- dominant theories tend to exhaust the environment.

Ignoring the fact that science is changing rapidly, and will continue to do so for a long time. Enviormental claptrap about fall of society are just teh continuation of collapse ideas that have been around sense the Sumerians.

ANd you will just ignore the scientific arguments about the health consequences of nuclear testing, the problems of PCB's in the water, lead gasoline causing atmospheric polution, the frequent notes on the dangers of unbalanced ecosystems, and on and on.

You are still dismissing the many times that science has warned us that damage to the environment causes harm to human society.

For what you have argued, that environmental scientists are a rabid group of extremists who advocate "environment first" over human welfare, is a fairly minor, if vocal, view. Your environmental extremists are still a minority voice, and I don't think are fairly well represented by most scientists. Furthermore scientific methods themselves work to contradict even the most extremist scientific theories.

And yet you will deny that environmental destruction of forests did not lead to the devestation of Easter Island?

While I don't subscribe to the "environment explains everything" theory- you might want to check Jared Diamond's book. If not him than you Keegan's History of Warfare which also discusses the fall of Easter Island to environmental consequences.

What is disturbing is your remarkable willingness and your zealous advocacy of assuming extreme positions. Forgive me, but you haven't even gotten to college yet? One would think you should acquire more knowledge before you continue talking out of your ass.

blah blah blah- doesn't address the key questions

CC, I advise you to stop twisting around the point, reply to everyone's arguments and actually made a valid counterargument

If you do not, The Rosh will shoot you

He will anyways.

He should because you are still being evasive.

(1) How do you account for your claims and discount the many warnings of science that have been heeded to the improvement of the environment?

(2) If you are so willing to discount scientific methods, what alternatives do you espouse?

(3) What proof do you have that all scientists, or even the majority of them, are nuts- or are you just on an extreme anti-intellectual bent.

 

[REHfan]

Does anyone else remember the "next ice age" scare in the 70's?

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/iceage.htm

 

[Zaij]

I can recall reading somewhere that the whole global warming thing is just a scare and it's a natural cycle. The consequences of acting and not acting on it respectively were a plunge into the next ice age, or a complete fuck up of the environment.

 

[Kamikaze]

bah

Even old people notice the thing and say its global warming, This was like the first december in decades when there almost is no snow at all, today was the first day to even get to -20c (which is usually normal in wintertime estonia).

 

[Wooz]

If I remember correctly, some theories claim that global warming/global cooling is part of a natural, global cycle, that takes place over the span of a few hundred years: The current situation would be aggravated by non-controlled emissions of gases into the atmosphere, wars, and other human activities, but in the most part, it'd be due to a natural phenomenon.

The last "ice age" was recorded somewhere between the 16th and the 17th century, Europe had very rough and extremely long winters, causing thousands of people to freeze and starve to death.

 

[Roshambo]

"Global Warming has killed no one, and despite the poles supposedly melting faster then ice creme in the Sahara."

Explain that to the people who have been affected by the tsunami (unless you believe that the tsunami washed out the effects of global warming in that area, that is the only thing I could think of to support the above statement), blizzards the likes of which stupid people in SUVs skid around in and cause more problems than SUVs are supposed to help (because they bought the vehicle, that automatically infers ability to drive it!), having crops destroyed due to very unseasonal weather changes, fishing villages going hungry to the point of death because fishing is much poorer, etc.. Although I think I masterfully parodied the US Govt's initial reaction to the one situation. Kind of like...yours, CCR. Congrats on being such a model Christian citizen. We should all take example.

(Although it is funny that you seem to read more into DDT being the savior of people despite the new plague of DDT-resistant insects a few years down the line that actually make more people sick if they use more DDT. A free basic entymology lesson for you, too, this morning. Too bad you couldn't have applied the "sequence of events" part of that skewed thinking to the more relevant aspects of this discussion, like the effects of global warming.)

I do understand that there are a number of factors with weather, but the least of which should be the constants. Guess what? Those are going. It doesn't take much imagination to conceive of what the sudden loss of a planet's polar ice caps would mean. I say sudden, because like the glaciers, those have been around for thousands of years.

Wait, the glaciers are quickly melting as well, some are gone now.

To put it simply, the tsunami wave, El Nintendo, all of the recent bullshit that we've been experiencing while we still have ice caps and halfway regular patterns, is all going to seem like child's play when the situation becomes fucked enough for even the common vacci erectus to comprehend.

Or, you could just believe that they all will suddenly re-freeze next winter...

Then there's also the mentality of "Hey, it's already happening anyways...", but considering that Earth weather patterns are easier to identify in history than tomorrow, the glacier ice and many other methods of detecting the levels of CO2 and other gasses have been used to paint weather patterns over eons, especially the more recent one.

Usually, things tend to balance each other out. Something happens, the nature of things helps it swing back into balance or briefly in the other direction. Unfortunately, most of the readings have been pointing towards the artificial expansion of a number of factors that haven't been present in a weather profile on record before.

So we're in for a very unpredictable period where a lot of scientists are scared shitless because they have no historical basis to use as a static model to compare the current variables to. Should we prepare for what does appear to be happening or just wait and see what happens?

I don't need to stick my finger in the lamp to know I'll get a shock if it's plugged in and turned on. Of course, those polar ice caps could be Photoshopped like the original Lunar Landing.

What on earth are you talking about Rosh? Millions of Christians would be effected if anything you are talking about happened; half the megacities of the earth would be underwater (including Rio De Jainero, Lagos, etc..), all of them with 10+ million Christians. IF anything, mroe Christians would be effected then non-Christians, as Christainity generally dominates the costal regions of the world. (See Africa, Mid East, etc...)

Nice try, but I was pointing out that those already dead and starving in fishing villages are already dead because of climate changes, which seems to be of little concern to you, even less now that you have to use hyperbole to evade your original moronic statement. I didn't say that it wasn't going to affect Christians, so please, come up with something more laughable next time because logic obviously wasn't the basis of your reply. Built upon my observations was a remark of irony, because it really does seem like unless it has some effect on you, you seem to think it isn't happening to the point of possibly causing unknown effects (Kind of like the US and much of the remaining world, it seems), just because we should use history as an assumption although we have seen nothing historically close.

Which is another aspect of a very poor "scientific method".

And I take insult from the idea that I only care about people who worship 'my god'. JC did'nt say anything along those lines, especially when you consider how many Gentiles he helped, not to mention his favorable view of the Samaratans.

Good, please do take insult. Maybe next time you wouldn't have said anything to unbelievably retarded like "Global Warming has killed no one, and despite the poles supposedly melting faster then ice creme in the Sahara. " Frankly, I think the ego of a kid counts for less than the lives of people who are starting to feel this first, but some kid from the Midwest who can present even less backing than said hack thinks everything is okay because a scientific hack of a writer says so. Even in the natural order of things, it means the world first floods and bakes the fuck out of the ground, which will make current agriculture hell. Then I could also point out another fact - most of the world's ice ages have been with larger land masses. This allowed for a MUCH better chance for special survival and evolution. Something I'm fairly certain that Kansas isn't alone in outlawing.

Sorry, Wooz, the last Ice Age ended 7000BC, and lasted for about 70k years; you'd have have the Pleistocene superglaciers covering the North Americas - each ice age the earth has gone through has been progressively worse. This arises from smaller, spread land masses retaining less heat and stability to offer the world an easier time to swing back to a more habitable climate.

But I suppose farmers could take advantage of the closer, higher, and possibly easier to desalinate oceans by the time the caps fully melt. Considering that a lot of the populace has drowned by then, they might actually have less of a strain put upon them; less mouths to feed. Maybe by then, either science or God will have evolved all of the food supply to not only grow in the new climate, but also feed everyone. Then they will make enough money to go down and buy one of the tropical isles in order to survive the Ice Age for the next (optomistic) estimated...120,000 years.

Gee...thanks, CCR. Though your dogmatic approach, inability to understand context, and evasive replies, I, too can see the positive side of things!

 

[Ozrat]

I'm taking a course in ecosystems right now and it seems that in spite of CO2 levels being 50% higher now than preindustrial atmospheric levels, 'global warming' takes a back seat to other impacts on the environment caused by human actions. The rate of nitrogen cycle of leaving the soil and returning has doubled, which is not good for plant growth. That goes for the phosphorus cycle too.

In order for an ecosystem to remain balanced over time, everything that one finds in one must be recycled back into the same ecosystem eventually. That doesn't happen with mining for minerals, exporting natural resources, ect. And an alarming amount of our byproducts that we as humans create are not biodisposable at all. If we expect to survive, we cannot view ourselves as separate from the same laws that all other aspects of ecosystems follow and depend on for survival and sustainability.

Regarding the "ice cream in Sahara" comment, its ironic and interesting to note that the Saraha was once thriving with human settlements and abundant ecosystems before climate change turned it into the vast expanse of sand it is now.

 

[Roshambo]

I'm taking a course in ecosystems right now and it seems that in spite of CO2 levels being 50% higher now than preindustrial atmospheric levels, 'global warming' takes a back seat to other impacts on the environment caused by human actions. The rate of nitrogen cycle of leaving the soil and returning has doubled, which is not good for plant growth. That goes for the phosphorus cycle too.

But you must understand, it's the "divide and dismiss" approach! Taken by itself, global warming, acid rain, and all that fun "little" stuff is rather easy to dismiss and make it sound unbelievable that one thing would suddenly cause immense catastrophy.

So while global warming isn't going to kill us, it is indeed everything else that has been going on that will make the earth's ability to recover in a stable way rather questionable. Plant life is already going to be suffering in such a situation, and as a result, animal life will suffer in turn. It is kind of hard for plant life to adjust to a new climate when under artificial chemical saturation (much less "grow"), as any farmer knows, but should I dare to "stroke my ego" and point that out?

Or, you could go by "Cousin' Jethro's" planting method, which consists of "Just push in another stick of Miracle-Gro!"

 

[Ozrat]

Shhhh, you don't want Americans to be worried about something trivial like spending 10 calories of fossil fuel for every calorie they eat in food...

 

[calculon000]

Hey Rosh, could you whip up a car that runs on garbage? I'd really appreciate it.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Better yet, whip up a car that runs on sexiness, I could use a new set of wheels.

 

[Nocturne]

well, I my case that woud have difficulty starting.....

 

[Roshambo]

Hey Rosh, could you whip up a car that runs on garbage? I'd really appreciate it.

Sorry, I'd be sued for trademark infringement.

*zapped by mind-control ray*

It is simply not possible...oil is the only solution...must obey the oil barons...

On that note, play Trash!

 

[Wooz]

Yes, I know the last, "true" Ice Age was well before the 16th Century, and I paid some attention to geology classes at school as well
Based on what I learned at High School, I was pointing out that some theories claim that between the millenary climate changes, every hundred years or so, there would be miniature ice ages or heat ages, based on some obscure CO2 strata, some scientists came to the conclusion that the current situation of the global weather; extreme weather changes and planetary warming is part of the Earth's natural cycles.

Which could well be total bullshit, spewed by Shell, Exxon or other supercompany 'scientists'.

In any case, people, be careful where you park your car. Weather is more and more unpredictable, and more and more extreme.

Maybe it wants to follow the latest trends in the gaming industry.

 

[welsh]

More news on the environment. Looks like we have just about tapped it up.

Ecosystems

Habitats for humanity

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition


A new report suggests that humanity is stretching its natural assets

BESIDES being nice to look at, the green and feathered stuff that makes up the environment is rather useful. Habitats provide humans with services such as water treatment, pollination and sediment capture. This is particularly important to the poor, who rely on natural resources. So, five years ago, the United Nations' secretary-general, Kofi Annan, commissioned an assessment of the consequence of ecosystem changes for human well-being.

So, on March 30th, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)—an effort that cost $24m and involved around 1,400 experts from 95 countries—reached its conclusions on the global and regional patterns in these services. Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the past 50 years than in any comparable time in human history, it says, with a quarter of the planet now under cultivation. The exchange of natural habitat for cultivated land has been largely beneficial to humanity thus far.


At present, the oceans probably represent the clearest example of damage to natural assets. Fish stocks are in a poor state, and in many sea areas the weight of fish is less than one-tenth, or even one-hundredth, of what it was before the introduction of industrial fishing. There are also a number of examples of overfishing which have led to sudden changes where one habitat shifts to a different type. Perhaps the best known case is the complete collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s. Although fishing has not resumed, cod have not returned to the fishery.

Around two-thirds of the ecosystem services the MA looked at (everything from fresh water to air, water and pest regulation) are being degraded or used unsustainably. Some services, though, have been enhanced. Three of these are the production of food in the form of crops, livestock and aquaculture. The fourth is that terrestrial ecosystems have become a net sink of carbon dioxide emissions in the past 50 years. This is due to an increase in forest cover in the rich world.

The point of the MA is to provide a baseline against which governments can measure the importance of future changes to the environment, and so, hopefully, make better policy choices. The upshot is a warning that human activity is putting a strain on habitats and that the ability of the ecosystems to sustain future generations can “no longer be taken for granted”. The MA's findings are likely to have implications for achieving the UN's goals of reducing poverty and improving health in poorer countries. Given the number of scientists and governments involved, there may be little debate about the findings. What is liable to be a far more contested issue is what, if anything, should be done

 

[gonzo13]

global dimming

I also recently read an article that talked about how global warming could be getting masked. The idea is that while we produce a huge amount of greenhouse gasses, we also release a huge amount of light absorbing compounds and particulate material into the atmosphere which block the sun, and cool the earth. We are apparently preventing roughly 10% of normal sunlight from reaching the earth. If these materials were not in the atmosphere global warming would be much more rapid and severe.

The upshot is that even though the earth seems to be getting warmer and climate change needs to cease, we also need to be aware that changing out production methods might make make the problem astronomically worse in the short term if we are not careful.

www.bariumblues.com/sci_am_dk_earth.htm

This is by no means an argument in support of continuing our current path. This is just meant to demonstrate how our disregard for our environment is destroying the earth in ways we are not even able to predict, and that the solutions may be more complex than we can imagine.

 

[welsh]

Ok a little gravedigging and a bit of updating.

Just saw this article- and note the vested interest-

Scientists find errors in global warming data By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
2 hours, 33 minutes ago

Satellite and weather-balloon research released Friday removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say.

Doubt that global warming is real or just fiction?

Surface temperatures have shown small but steady increases since the 1970s, but the tropics had shown little atmospheric heating - and even some cooling. Now, after sleuthing reported in three papers released by the journal Science, revisions have been made to that atmospheric data.

Climate expert Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, lead author of one of the papers, says that those fairly steady measurements in the tropics have been a key argument "among people asking, 'Why should I believe this global warming hocus-pocus?' "

After examining the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif., found that the satellites had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures. Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found a math error in the calculations.

"Our hats are off to (them). They found a real source of error," says atmospheric scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, whose team produced the lower temperature estimates.

So the science geeks screwed up? What consequence?

When examining the balloon data, Yale University researchers found that heating from tropical sunlight was skewing the temperatures reported by sensors, making nights look as warm as days.

Once corrected, the satellite and balloon temperatures align with other surface and upper-atmosphere measures, as well as climate change models, Santer says.

Global warming's pace over the past 30 years has actually been quite slow, a total increase of about 1 degree Fahrenheit. It is predicted to accelerate in this century.

Thus- yes, global warming is actually happening. And maybe a big "Howdy" the the Sixth Great Extinction.

Mark Herlong of the George C. Marshall Institute declined to comment. The group, financed by the petroleum industry, has used the data disparities to dispute the views of global-warming activists. In recent years, however, the institute has softened its public statements, acknowledging that the planet is indeed getting warmer but still maintaining that the change is happening so slowly that the impact is minimal.

Financed by the Petroleum industry.... Like W? Like the war in Iraq (whoops, no that's publically funded in support of the petroleum industry).

Isn't this kind of like trusting the Tobacco Lobby for a fair and balanced appraisal of the dangers of smoking?

 

[Maphusio]

God I got shut down for my views on this last time lol. I shall keep my toung leeshed.

 

[ferdinand]

Does it mean anything to anyone that the world having two ice caps at once is probably a unique property (with the exception of ice ages, of course) of our planet? That atmospheric carbon levels much higher than those now were vital to normal life in the dinosaur era?

Geologically, the melting of an ice cap means diddly-squat. It's happened many times before and it'll happen again.

A rise in carbon levels isn't going to destroy life on earth, and the doomsayers to suggest so are morons. Sure there'll be more storms, but thats nothing new. The effects of Global warming aren't going to destroy life/civilisation, but they'll precipitate change. Deal with it.

That said, it would be best if we caused as little change to the global ecosystem as possible.

Explain that to the people who have been affected by the tsunami

Unless I'm mistaken, the tsunami was caused by an earthquake. Please explain how elevated carbon levels and slightly higher average world temperatures affect the movements of the earth's tectonic plates.