Climate Change [Archive] - Page 3 - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Skybird

05-17-11, 08:24 PM

Well I'll be damned. Skybird and August, let me join the party. I don't very often agree with any of you. But here it is.
A lot -if not most of- humanity's problems would be solved by reducing the earth's population. The Chinese do have a point there imo. the Chinese have a monumental age structure problem now due to their one-child policy. Their society is drastically overaging.

Diamond shows in many examples, that this is a fundamental lesson that our society and societies before us refuse(d) to learn: that in good times when there is wealth and good supply of commodities, it is good advice not use this as an execuse to start booming and expand and grow like crazy, but to invest into reserves for bad times, keeping societies' sizes constant and having reserves when they are needed, instead of just consuming them up earlier. When looking at how leaders with highly deficitary budgets and lots of debts still waste money and any unexpected profit from taxes for example doe snot get used to solve the debt issue but immediately gets spent again, then I have very serious doubts that we will learn needed lessons. I am pessimistic about the future perspective of man's modern civilization, for this and many other reasons. The question for me is not so much whether it will all fall apart again, but only: for how long can we delay it even more. The cosmic future of man I dreamed of in my science fiction teen days, will not take place.

Running faster and faster just to stay in the same place.

Bakkels

05-17-11, 08:36 PM

True. I'm not saying the Chinese have it down perfect, but a more balanced version of their population growth-cap policy might very well be a good solution.

...any unexpected profit from taxes for example doe snot get used to solve the debt issue..

In the late '90 's, our minister of Finance did this. (Pay off national debt, I mean) and we reaped some huge benefits from this. He was also one of the few (and at some point even the only) European Finance minister that would insist on EU countries to be fined if they didn't obey the EU laws in regards to inflation and 'percentage of national debt' vs 'gross naitonal product'. I know you are anti-EU Skybird ;) , but there were very clear rules. Only the governments of the larger countries in the EU (France most of all) decided to break them, or to allow others to break them. This minister even said (back in '99) Greece and Portugal shouldn't be allowed into the Euro...
I didn't even vote for him or his party, but in hindsight...

FIREWALL

05-17-11, 09:07 PM

The climate has been changing since the forming of the planet, so why should it stop now? http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Nice pics btw.! :up:

So true Jan. :yep: As we evolve so does our planet. Maybe not in the way some, or most even would like. But that's life. :sunny:

Betonov

05-18-11, 01:16 AM

IThe book, while easy to read, is moch more in-depth, and thorough.

As always. Books are always more in depth and thorough. You can read a book for a month, but try to sit trough a movie for a month.
Unless they made a whole serie, one 1,5 hour episode for one chapter etc.

Respenus

05-18-11, 04:09 AM

Talking about interesting movies, there are two more that I would like to recommend. The first one deals with the exactly with the question of limited resources and the Malthusian idea of the upper limits to the size of the human population. It's a BBC Horizon programme, called "How many people can live on planet Earth" and the general message can easily be surmised by an analogy presented by one of the people interviewed, that is, that on the Titanic, the first class cabins went down as fast as the steerage, meaning that we'll all end up on the pile of history, the developed and developing world.

The second movies deals with a more general question of how things work or do not work in reality and how really in the deep end we really are. It's another movies called Collapse (http://www.collapsemovie.com/), but this time, by Michael Ruppert. Now, both the author and the movies have, let us say, questionable elements, for both sides of the argument, but if nothing else, it does provide a certain spark, that forces us to think about the issues presented. I myself do not have enough knowledge to claim that he is completely right, or completely wrong, but it's still a shocking movies that you should see.

Edit: I just watched the first 4 minutes of this so called documentary posted above me and I must say, this is some biased bull, if I ever saw one in my days on this fair planet. I'm not against the message mind you, it is, succeed or fail, sooner or later, but I despise being feed crap meant to scare me into believing something. Yes, the collapse of the ecosystem has brought down many civilisations in the past, but skulking in their ruins won't bring the solutions for the future. Oh, and nothing disappears into thin air. Neither the Romans, nor the Maya, nor the possible future collapse will result in total and absolute abandonment of our structures. Not unless we get wiped out by a very nasty bug, but that's a topic for a different "documentary" ;)

Skybird

05-18-11, 05:59 AM

I know you are anti-EU Skybird ;) , but there were very clear rules. Only the governments of the larger countries in the EU (France most of all) decided to break them, or to allow others to break them. This minister even said (back in '99) Greece and Portugal shouldn't be allowed into the Euro...
All that is correct and I know it. I have mentioned and criticised it myself often enough. I aolso said that I see the EU as being re-oriented since the German reunification. And it is this newly oriented EU that I am hostile to. The old one was not perfect, but at least it was not messed up so much that it was completely beyond hope for reform and repair. Before, it was more about de Gaulle'S idea as Europpe of cooperating fatherlands, cooperating economies. Today it is about a federal state of Europe with nationalo sovereignity rendered meaningless and voters for national parliam,ents being betrayed over their votes.

Hopefully, once agaion the briliant polit-thinker shave made the bill without taking into account this thriving drive of man: egoism and selfishness. It would be ironic if this time these two work for something good and destroy the EU from within. We already see it happening in so many EU symptoms and national special interests. And people more and more get alienated by the EU. The voting resuzlts in several EU countries hopefully indicate the beginning of a trend.

I recommend to leartn about the economic theories of almost forgotten Austrian economy professor Leopold Kohr. His book "The overdeveloped nations. The diseconomy of scale" is one of the most visionary and thoughtful analysis of modern economic societies I remember to ever have read.

Betonov

05-18-11, 06:07 AM

Before, it was more about de Gaulle'S idea as Europpe of cooperating fatherlands, cooperating economies. Today it is about a federal state of Europe with nationalo sovereignity rendered meaningless and voters for national parliam,ents being betrayed over their votes

This I agree, even if I'm pro-EU.

It apears that you dislike the EU for the political mess it has become and I like the EU for the cooperation of nations it represents...

Maybe the disolvement of the EU is not the solution but a rollback to only open borders, open trade organisation. No european parliament and all that jazz

Skybird

05-18-11, 06:34 AM

I am not against Europe, but against the EU. The EU claims to be Europe, and Europoe impossible without the EU. Becasue they want a top-down uniform Europe of anti-cultural collectivism with the EU staff on top of it. I am about regional differences, refocussing on the local regions, I see the diversity in Europe as one of the reasons why Europe has become so overwhelmingly successful, and I do not want the EU bigots sticking their nose in every business of priovate people that must not mind the EU at all. Needless to say I am also against the abuse of the EU's power by economic lobbism, I am against the project of installing a European-Arabic super-union and Islamic migration to Europe, and Turkey EU membership, and I have problems with many of the prestigious EU projects like energy saving bulbs and water-saving showerheads, as well as the tendency that ever ynatiuon sends one commissioner who then must do something idiotic to leave his footstep in the history books of the EU records.

I see rthis EU being beyond reach of reforms and repairs, and thus want to see it getting destroyed, like you crash an old house and clear the rubble in order to build a new house in that place. Since corruption is a deep-rooting problem in the EU, at all levels of the hierarchy, chances for reforming it are even ´more reduced.

Eurpope and the EU are two totally different things, like Christian teching and the church are two different things. The EU is not Europe, europe is not the EU. I am pro Europe, and thus I necessarily must be against the EU. Else I would contradict myself.

There is nomn uniform Eiurpope, there is not just "one europe", and never has been. There are many europes, almost as many as there are regions. The eU doesnot understand this or tries to redefine reality, destroying this culutral and regional diversity in the name of most often questionable goals for uniformity. Cooperation: yes. Uniformity: no. In the end, no poltiican on government level inEuroppe got ever leected for selling his nation and people to other nations inEurope, that is high treason. People vote for national parliaments, and here is where the legitimation lies. A parliament that allows its sovereignity being dismantled and handing auhtority over top the EU, also becomes guilty of high treason. This is not what the voters in a given country have voted for.

In the end, the hea dof states abuse the EU also for being amongst themselves. All those talking about strengthening the EU, those operetta titles of "high representatives" - they have made sutre to bring comprimse candiates of weak own profile and capability and low ambitions into ranks and offices (who is Rumpoy? who is Ashton?), with tinsel-wearers like Solana craving for attention using the EU as their private tanning bed. They are ignoring their own declarations over what they intend, and they easily break their own rules oif they do not get what they want (locking out critical citizens from voting over the EU coup-paper of Lisbon).

Dismantle it. Build a new building, with smaller dimensions and lower ambitions. Be more pragmatic. Delete all what goes beyond the goal of economic cooperation and the needed level of coordination. More I do not want from a EU. I do not even necessarily need open borders and one currency, especially not the suicide-currency we now have. It is no drama to exchange some money before you start your holiday trip. It is no effort to wave your ID card when passing the border, and in most cases get waved through. You still are free to travel, free to buy in another country and go travelling there. Your freedom by its real precious meaning is not being touched at all.

Betonov

05-18-11, 07:12 AM

Damn it Sky, I really got to stop reading your posts :doh: the more I read them the more I agree with you.

This pro EU is not pro Europe makes a good point. But I still preffer the open borders even if it was no different in the past. And the exchange offices were a highway robbery when converting. Plus there's that one billion euro non-return funds we get from EU every year :DL

Skybird

07-30-11, 03:45 PM

Anyone can now view for themselves the raw data (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/climate-monitoring/land-and-atmosphere/surface-station-records) that was at the centre of last year's "climategate" scandal (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19143-climategate-inquiry-no-deceit-too-little-cooperation.html).
Temperature records going back 150 years from 5113 weather stations around the world were yesterday released to the public by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. The only records missing are from 19 stations in Poland, which refused to allow them to be made public.
"We released [the dataset] (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727710.101-climategate-data-sets-to-be-made-public.html) to dispel the myths that the data have been inappropriately manipulated, and that we are being secretive," says Trevor Davies (http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/facstaff/daviest), the university's pro-vice-chancellor for research. "Some sceptics argue we must have something to hide, and we've released the data to pull the rug out from those who say there isn't evidence that the global temperature is increasing."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20739-ok-climate-sceptics-heres-the-raw-data-you-wanted.html

Data sets here:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/climate-monitoring/land-and-atmosphere/surface-station-records

Meanwhile a spokesman for the russian office of disaster relief has said Russia expects until 2050 a shrinking of the permafrost territories by 15-30%, and a movement of the perafrost barrier 200 km northwards. This would cause huge damages to piperlines, powerlines, streets, communication infrastructure. He said in recent years mean temperatures in Western Siberia have increased by around 1.5-2.0°C. The release of methane from these frozen grounds is expected to multiply.

That'll be fun.

Sammi79

07-30-11, 03:57 PM

Skybird

07-30-11, 04:19 PM

Most intelligent folks I know never disputed the fact that the world is getting warmer, only the significance of human action upon it. The Earth has a long cycle of ice ages, oxygen and carbon. There is evidence for global warming (and global cooling) throughout the earths 4.5 billion year history - the entirety of humanity exists on a negligible slice of time at the end of this scale. At some time(s) in the ancient past global warming (and cooling) occurred much faster than it is doing so now.

However there are obvious problems with human actions that need addressing, and fast - over population, over exploitation of resources to name a couple. Oh and pumping poison into the land, the sea and the air is not going to do any living thing any good, least of all ourselves.
To me the alarming issue is not the total ammount of change being seen in climate, but the incredible speed at which it takes place, and the incredidble speeds by which species go extinct. Both processes curerntly go hundreds of times faster than ever before in this planet'S hiostory, as far as we can reconstruct it's climate history by geologic findings. This speed and insane acceleration must be explained , and the only decisive factor that seems to qualify as a candidate is the rough correlation of this acceleration having begun and speed up with the explosion of human population and industrialisation. One needs to to think in geologic timeframes here, not in political ones. And in geological timeframes it has happened in less than an eye-lid's blink.

If the observable universe's liofespan so far, since creation, would be scaled to the length of one year of 365 days, then our galaxy would have formed up somewhere in February. Earth and the Solar System would have emerged in early September. Life would hjave started on Earth by the end of September. Big complex life forms showed up not before mid-Decembre. The dinosaurs saw birth on the second christmas day, 26th, and four days later, on Decembre 30th, they altready had gone extinct again. On Decembre 31, at 2100 in the vening, the first hominides appeared on Earth. The human civilisations we know of, appeared 30 seconds before midnight firework stars. The pyramides were formed 11 seconds before midnight, Kepler and Galilei lived maybe 1 second before midngiht, and one human'S life takes around 2, maybe 3 tenths of a second.

And it has taken us just one or two tenths of a second to notice the by far fastest mass-extinction and by far fastest ecospheric and climatic change on this planet that Earth has ever seen in all it'S life so far.

A sudden acceleration of random cyclic patterns by a factor in the high three digit range. Now for that you need to find a reasonable explanation that goes slightly and just a little bit beyond sun cycles (that have always been there, btw). What we see on Earth happening currently, according to all what we scientifically know, is beyond example in this planet'S history. Beyond example due to its speed of manifestation.

Sammi79

07-30-11, 05:04 PM

The long cycles are gradual yes, but fast catastrophic changes have happened before. Magnetic pole swapping occurs very rapidly - within a few years or so - during which time the magnetic field that deflects the charged particles (ionising radiation) from the sun would fail causing severe damage to all unprotected surface life. Vulcanism could flair up and turn the atmosphere to sulphur. Extinctions occur all the time, we are only just becoming aware of them. I argue that we should stop polluting and exploiting the environment for rather more obvious reasons, do you disagree? because in the wake of the planetary scale cycles and catastrophes we are powerless.

We are only animals after all, and turning back the tide is simply not within our power, just ask old Cnut. However we could stop crapping everywhere if you know what I mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event

96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertabrates go extinct inside an arguably short period of time roughly 250 million years ago.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/286/5441/930.short

Another abrupt global warming event roughly 15,000 years ago about as quick as it is happening now.

Skybird

07-30-11, 07:10 PM

Even the fastest mass exticntions we conclude on, took place over time frames of ten to one hundred thousand years. That ignores the fact that currently we proabbaly live in the time of the biggest bio diversity on this planet ever, there is a bigger diversity of species now than there has ever been in the poast, say the era of the dinosaurs. Nevertheless, a bigger percentage of that doiversity already got wiped put over just a couple of decades than before in tens of thousands of years.

The permian dying you refer too saw changes in the chemical balance of the oceans and the atmosphere that again took hundreds and thousands of years to evolve and finally cause the drastic consequences. We see indications today that comparable chnages take place in the oceans today again - just at a faster pace than back then. Some biologists already warn since years that the oceans are on a trip backwards to the time before fishes became a dominant lifeform, but jellyfishes were the rulers of the sea.

Some decades do not already form an era. Geologically, we talk about eras when referring to past events. But events today we describe in decades.

So again: what is alarming is not only what is going on, but the pace by which it manifestates. In scienbce we do not know of such rapid and drastic changes in climatic indizes like we observe them in our recordings of the past couple of decades, or one or two centuries. It all has been incredibly accelerated.

And the factor causing this atypical acceleration needs to be explained. Something causes an extinction effect that is worse than at the time of the dinosaurs - and unfolds much much faster. Sun cycles cannot be it. And a meteor has not struck us recently also. If you correlate the beginning of this imploding decline in biodiversity against possible causes, you are not left with many possible answers that are not linked to the existence of modern, industrialised mankind. The same is true for the changes in gas composition in the atmosphere and the general warming of global climate.

However, this discussion has been had on this board quite often. I just wanted to inform that the demanded raw dfata of almost all weather stations and their record over the past 150 years is no available to the public, sionce the unavailability of these data sets has been the fundament of many conspiration theories by climate sceptics who not only claim that mankind has nothing to do with it, but even claim that no global warming effects take place. From now on they will need to claim that these data already are being forged by weather stations all over the world since over one century.:D That adds a completely new dimension to the global conspiracy, eh?:haha:

mapuc

07-30-11, 07:48 PM

I'm not an scientist, but I will tell you this.

It would have happened whatever we have been here or not.

The only different, is that we have kickstarted it long time before it should have started.

Markus

Sammi79

07-31-11, 06:51 AM

Skybird

07-31-11, 08:05 AM

OK I'll give it one last try. The evidence presented in the first post proves 1 thing and 1 thing only : mean global temperatures are rising, faster than they have been rising on average since the end of the last ice age (although they have been rising steadily since then) and faster or as fast changes are believed to have happened before. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/286/5441/930.short

It makes no assertions regarding mass extinctions or bio-diversity at all, and it does not provide any proof or measure of the effect that human actions are having on climate change. We may be accelerating the rate of global warming, yes. There is still no definitive evidence that this is the case, however, and believing that we have the power to stop or even reverse this process is unfortunately a fairly common delusion of grandeur and a good example of human conceit. We often like to place ourselves on a high pedestal seperate from the rest of life, to think of ourselves as more advanced or better than our distant cousins. With a global population of nearly 7 billion, we are certainly the most prolific mammals that ever lived but that is as far as it goes. Worrying about climate change is missing the point somewhat compared to worrying about the immediately dangerous effects of pollution and over exploitation of natural resources, even social-political and religious problems may well do for us as a species long before the earth gets too hot. There are more pressing problems at hand.

I don'T see why you are upset. Didn't I say myself the most obvious thing is the pace of climate change? The speed at which it happens? However, both temperature rises as dramatic as we already see, and without doubt still will see in the forseeable future, do effect biological life on this planet, it changes species distribution patterns and movement patterns as well as the chances for species to grow and blossom, or to die. That we see a massive, rapid mass extinction of species currently, is not questioned by any serious scientist anymore.

So, it is a reasonable thesis, especially regarding maritime life, that climate change and changes in quantity and quality of biodiversity, are linked. Another link is that between mass extinction of species and pollution, industrial eploitation, overfishing etc etc. And some of the latter factors again are linked to global warming.

And while I also agree that there are those political, religious, cultural etc etc problems that you mentioned in your last paragraph, and while I never never have stated (not here and in no other thread ever) that it is within our reach and options to reduce warming from now on by pushing as button or even to reverse it (current state of technology and science, in fact I often said the event now has a self-dynamic that will make it unavailable for any effective acting by us for the coming decades), on your last sentence that it all does not matter that much and that there are more pressing problems I must leave you alone, necessarily. That is like a 100m runner running 99m of the race, and before the finishing line refuses reach it. We already see wars being fought over rsources, oil, and even sweet water. The UN - granted, I am no fan of the UN, but still - has just released a resolution that states that environmmental changes are likely to be the cause of future wars and human misery.

Maybe we cannot stop warming by a single button'S push, within ten years. But I think it is a good idea to chnage our economy that way so that we no longer help in strengthening factors that work against our survival interests. The longer we delay that, the more inetnse and long-lasting the self-dynamic I mentioned above will prevail, I think that is a reasonable assumption, isn'T it. When you know you can'T fly by yourself, is that the argument for not stopping to balance on the tip of the roof? Or isn'T it wiser to freeze and watch how to get down from there, even if the trip might be dangerous? Maybe it would have been the best scenario to never have gone iup there in the first? I think so. But now - we are up there, and we still need to find a way to get down there safe - or learn to grow us wings.

Gerald

07-31-11, 08:10 AM

"regardibng mnaritime life, that clkimate chnage and chnages" ....Hmm ..... a mix between a German-English :hmmm:

Skybird

07-31-11, 08:18 AM

Yes, me and my speed-typing - and laziness to correct the typos... :88)

Corrected. A little bit at least. God deserves a spanking for having given man the ability to be lazy. He could have formed the perfect universe, the happy human being, the flawless design of all and everything, and all genes having an inbuilt feature to make complex multi-cell organisms pray loyally three times every day. But no, somebody knew it better up there... :woot:

Gerald

07-31-11, 08:21 AM

Yes, me and my speed-typing - and laziness to correct the typos... :88)

Corrected. A little bit at least. God deserves a spanking for having given man the ability to be lazy. He could have formed the perfect universe, the happy human being, the flawless design of all and everything, and all genes having an inbuilt feature to make complex multi-cell organisms pray loyal three times every day. But no, somebody knew it better up there... :woot: Nice, :salute:

Rockstar

07-31-11, 09:51 AM

Sure it's getting hotter there's no doubt in my mind about that. Heck I remember trying to get to the edge of a glacier in Greenland by boat. Chart said it was there in 1943 but by 1981 it had receded something like 15 miles or more already. Needless to say if we proceeded further we would have been in uncharted waters, so we didn't risk going any further.

If it is something man can control then when leadership sets the example and begins to take this seriously they will have my attention. What pisses me off more than anything is the only thing I have seen global warming political advocates do is raise my taxes, all the other hypocritical hucksters do is make money off it. Scientists? they scramble around saying what it takes to get their grant money so they can have their arctic expeditions and their names in some scientific journal. It seems to me the most time and effort spent is on what matters most to everyone, that is who will get the credit for saving Rome while Rome burns.

But as someone said earlier I think too there more pressing problems at hand.

yubba

07-31-11, 08:24 PM

My two favorite people in the world are loggers and fishermen, neither can understand when it's gone it's gone, want to fix global climate change plant more trees, stop the destruction of the amazon rain forest and quit using our oceans as toilets.

Onkel Neal

09-25-11, 09:12 AM

Maybe this is the reason for the Texas Drought of double-naught-11?

Tucked between treatises on algae and prehistoric turquoise beads, the study on page 460 of a long-ago issue of the U.S. journal Science drew little attention. "I don't think there were any newspaper articles about it or anything like that," the author recalls. But the headline on the 1975 report was bold: "Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" And this article that coined the term may have marked the last time a mention of "global warming" didn't set off an instant outcry of angry denial.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hchUFDTcFVXkIzVWWH9iYGIXmCtw?docId=d837de45d 0f44d3e8d178949d13b180c

Anyone heard of this "global warming" thing before?

TLAM Strike

09-25-11, 09:18 AM

Anyone heard of this "global warming" thing before?

Is that like those Global Waring things that happened back in the day?

Torplexed

09-25-11, 09:42 AM

Anyone heard of this "global warming" thing before?

I'm not sure what it is, but I hear it's become something quite trendy and fashionable among all those lefties in NY. :D

http://azcity.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/global_warming_newyork280x1024-7308794.jpg?w=400&h=320

nikimcbee

09-25-11, 10:25 AM

That depends if it's summer or not.:hmmm:

Rockstar

09-25-11, 10:49 AM

OK ya got me, I admit. I'm not a fan of the global warming hype, big whoop, so shave my head, take away my birthday and send me to a big white one.

But why does that stop anyone who thinks this global warming is attributed to man from fixing it? All I hear is squabbling who is right and who is wrong. So is it just about 'see I told ya so?' Alright ya told me so! I was wrong you were right. You have your data it's been shoved in my face for several years now. NOW GO FIX IT, let the global cooling begin!

In the mid '70's I was under the impression headlines were speaking of melting the polar caps to prevent the impending global ice age. Maybe that's what world governments did at the behest of science! Now look where were heading. <hehe>. Should have just left things alone.

.

mookiemookie

09-25-11, 10:56 AM

I always loved this one:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4254681996_27b1ed7ff0.jpg

magicstix

09-25-11, 10:59 AM

09-25-11, 11:00 AM

Why its such political issue in USA just is beyond me.
God create planet earth for man therefore only him can decide when to fry us?

Tarrasque

09-25-11, 11:15 AM

I would say it's an American allergy to catastrophic chicken little claims of a secular apocalypse based on nebulous science. :D

In any case, it's not a purely American sentiment, as there are plenty of polls in the UK as well that show the people aren't buying it there either.

It's not the nebulous Science that gets me, it's the bad science. Any small tenuous bit of data that supports it - "Look, global warming is happening...". Any equally small, equally tenuous bit of data against - "It's just a statistical outlier and doesn't mean a thing." That is just bad science regardless of whatever the facts are.

P.S. Has anyone else noticed how it went from 'global warming' to 'climate change' as soon as the fact the planet wasn't significantly warming up was pointed out? :hmmm:

09-25-11, 11:20 AM

P.S. Has anyone else noticed how it went from 'global warming' to 'climate change' as soon as the fact the planet wasn't significantly warming up was pointed out? :hmmm:

I don't know what is the cause but i have no doubt that climate HAS changed significantly in my lifetime what ever my be the reason.
I'm quite young.(relatively)

CaptainMattJ.

09-25-11, 12:47 PM

Because global warming is supposed to bring a climate change.

Theres an easy guess as to why people arent buying it *cough* big industry *cough*. Notice how most republicans who are against global warming also worship oil, oil companies, and their big ass hummers.

If youve ever been to mexico city, youd see how real such a problem is. The smog is terrible, and its hot as hell there. global warming is a very real concept.

Granted, some of the things they say you "should" do is absurd, but most is common sense. things like hybrid cars, which suck now, but later they could get much better, or industrial plants doing something different.

But things like these are going to run the gauntlet of satan himself in all legislature. The oil companies will wage an all out war to keep their overpaid ass up top. Not now, not in the next decade or two, but soon we need to start making better choices about these types of things

nikimcbee

09-25-11, 12:59 PM

The whole debate became clear to be about five years ago. It's all about generating money for the state. Beyond that, I don't pay attention to the subject anymore.:yawn:

Betonov

09-25-11, 01:02 PM

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4254681996_27b1ed7ff0.jpg

Global warming true, global warming a hoax... It doesn't matter. The things on this list are a good idea anyway

magicstix

09-25-11, 01:03 PM

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4254681996_27b1ed7ff0.jpg

Global warming true, global warming a hoax... It doesn't matter. The things on this list are a good idea anyway

You're assuming stopping CO2 output will magically make all those things happen. :D

Growler

09-27-11, 09:42 AM

Betonov

09-27-11, 10:30 AM

You're assuming stopping CO2 output will magically make all those things happen. :D

Nah, I just want to see green jobs, lots of forrests and sustainable economies :D

I'm just a dreamer, I dream my life away... :|\\

Catfish

09-27-11, 11:44 AM

/headdesk

Can someone - anyone - answer this simple question, without it being in any way related to politics?

What's the harm in taking measures to protect the environment wherein we live? Actual harm, not financial, political, or biblical?

The economy sucks with all the environmental damage already done. So doing MORE damage will help how?

When will we stop defecating where we eat?

I'm tired of seeing people's plastic refuse, paper trash, and oh-yeah-let's-not-forget human waste in the Inner Harbor. I'm tired of suffocating in Baltimore in the summer heat because people won't use mass transit (which is cheaper than the ~$10/day minimum parking fees, not counting the gas wasted sitting in traffic) or can't (which sucks, because there's no political will to encourage people to use it, which would allow it to MAKE MONEY and CREATE JOBS as it expands by ADDING INFRASTRUCTURE).

Or simpler still - if we, in the US, are to expect others to cut their carbon emissions, maybe instead of being hypocritical about it, we ought to, you know, be actual Americans and LEAD THE WAY. But instead, we have debates and arguments about it, political grandstanding and posturing on both sides, and no real willingness to take risks that lead to growth.

Nuke power is where we need to be looking, until viable large-scale renewable alternatives are financially viable. And the further you live from where your power's generated, the more you pay. That's the cost of living in a modern, wired society, and it would encourage people to do smaller things to save energy - turn off lights, run washers only when necessary, maybe small-scale renewable energy AT the home.

We have to get outside of the boxes we've been operating in, both for a cleaner world, and one that's more profitable for us all. Until the politicians, corporations, and their lawyers and cronies get out of the way, there will be no solution, because it's better for them to keep US divided.

Worth to be quoted, for truth ! :up:

Well as long as a bank manager with his millions finds shelter on the Caymans after screwing up, there will nothing change until the Caymans themselves begin to look like Chicago suburbs, or Texas in summer :D

Really, business just producing to get money and more money does not pay so much, if you care for your environment. And 2 percent are a lot, if you're thinking in billions.
What do you expect from the ethical conscience of churchyard worms ?

---
As a geologist reading records of climate changes in stone there have been bigger incidents of rising CO2 in earth's history.

Don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of changes in the climate in only one hundred years, but that we (human beings, waste and CO2) also account for that, is self-evident.

There is just no one who can say what that really means, or will lead to.
However, denial of the climate change is dumb though. Just my opinion.

CaptainHaplo

09-27-11, 06:59 PM

Because global warming is supposed to bring a climate change.

If youve ever been to mexico city, youd see how real such a problem is. The smog is terrible, and its hot as hell there. global warming is a very real concept.

Global warming a very real concept? Sure it is. A concept is an IDEA.

Ever been to Los Angeles? They have a huge smog problem there too. They have been legislating it out of existence for decades.... Only problem is - LA still has a smog problem.

Government mandating what people do isn't the answer....

/headdesk
Can someone - anyone - answer this simple question, without it being in any way related to politics?

What's the harm in taking measures to protect the environment wherein we live? Actual harm, not financial, political, or biblical?

Hold on Growler - financial harm IS actual harm. Having costs rise does create real harm. I am a single dad with 2 kids, you don't think rising costs hurt? If you pay your own bills, you can't seriously say that financial increases in living are not a harm.

The economy sucks with all the environmental damage already done. So doing MORE damage will help how?

The state of the economy is partially a result of the massive amounts of regulation put upon businesses. However, business success is not predicated on harming the environment. Somehow - and I don't fault you for this - but somehow - society has begun to think that it can only be one or the other. That is not the case. We can use resources responsibly, without making it too easy for business to turn a blind eye to eco damage - while not overburdening them with regulations that make them unprofitable.

I'm tired of seeing people's plastic refuse, paper trash, and oh-yeah-let's-not-forget human waste in the Inner Harbor.

I'd be tired of that too. Organize a cleanup, get active, start the work yourself.

I'm tired of suffocating in Baltimore in the summer heat because people won't use mass transit (which is cheaper than the ~$10/day minimum parking fees, not counting the gas wasted sitting in traffic) or can't (which sucks, because there's no political will to encourage people to use it, which would allow it to MAKE MONEY and CREATE JOBS as it expands by ADDING INFRASTRUCTURE).

I have to disagree with this one. I doubt that people not using mass transit are what is causing you to suffocate. Still, lets move past that. Mass transit has a number of problems and issues. First, your depending on a governmental agency in most cases to make it work. If not, its a "private" company with a government contract. If they don't do the job, someone else gets the contract, but you the consumer have very little to no say in the process. Second, this isn't just a money issue. Its a freedom issue. Parent takes the bus to work. Oh crap, little susie is at school and throwing up. Now mom or dad has to go get her. Oh, but they have to wait on the bus, because they didn't drive their car. So little susie sits in the school nurse office puking her stomach up waiting for the bus and her mom or dad. Or hey, you forgot that office birthday party and don't have a gift. Better run out on your lunch hour and get one - but darn, your schedule and the bus do not like each other. Wait, you need to stop for groceries on the way home - so you wait for the bus when you get done at work, then you wait for it again at the grocery store. Until someone figures out teleportation, people in the US (generally speaking) are not going to give up their freedom of travel.

Oh, and lets not forget, it may be cheaper on the bus, but most people would prefer not to be on the bus with those folks who leave their biological wastes in public places, who are sick and still travel, etc etc. You can't tell the stinky drunk who just crapped his pants that he isn't allowed on the bus. He has every right to travel. Are you going to tell the sneezy woman with the runny nose she can't take the bus to the doctor?

Mass transit has its uses - but its not the answer.

Or simpler still - if we, in the US, are to expect others to cut their carbon emissions, maybe instead of being hypocritical about it, we ought to, you know, be actual Americans and LEAD THE WAY. But instead, we have debates and arguments about it, political grandstanding and posturing on both sides, and no real willingness to take risks that lead to growth.

Or we post about how we don't like stuff floating in our waterways.
That is NOT a slam on you Growler, its an observation that we ALL do this. I do it just as much as the next person. That is why I encouraged you earlier to do something about it.

Nuke power is where we need to be looking, until viable large-scale renewable alternatives are financially viable. And the further you live from where your power's generated, the more you pay. That's the cost of living in a modern, wired society, and it would encourage people to do smaller things to save energy - turn off lights, run washers only when necessary, maybe small-scale renewable energy AT the home.

I agree on the issue of nuclear power. However, why should it cost Joe more just because he lives farther away from the power plant? Heck, most nuke plants are on the water - lakes mainly - and so the people who should get the cheapest electricity are the ones who have lakefront houses? 30 Miles away the folks in the trailer park should pay more? Not sure I understand that idea.

We have to get outside of the boxes we've been operating in, both for a cleaner world, and one that's more profitable for us all. Until the politicians, corporations, and their lawyers and cronies get out of the way, there will be no solution, because it's better for them to keep US divided.

I agree as long as you add all special interest groups in there.

magicstix

09-27-11, 07:24 PM

<words>

How dare you try to use logic and facts in a debate about global warming!

Why do you hate penguins? :stare:

mookiemookie

09-27-11, 08:06 PM

The state of the economy is partially a result of the massive amounts of regulation put upon businesses.

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but that's an absolutely ludicrous statement. The state of the economy is mostly due to the lack of regulation, and reliance on self regulation, put on the financial industry. Not to mention poor monetary policy decisions made by the Fed.

mookiemookie

09-27-11, 08:11 PM

You're assuming stopping CO2 output will magically make all those things happen. :D

And you're creating a strawman by stating that the only thing being advocated is a reduction in CO2 emissions.

CaptainHaplo

09-27-11, 09:50 PM

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but that's an absolutely ludicrous statement. The state of the economy is mostly due to the lack of regulation, and reliance on self regulation, put on the financial industry. Not to mention poor monetary policy decisions made by the Fed.

Mookie - its not ludicrous. I said partly - I am fully aware that there were other factors. On that we agree - though I think we would disagree on what those factors were.

The reality is that the governmental regulation through the "Community Reinvestment Act" did not create the housing bubble, but it did create the slew of toxic loans to bad credit risks that F and F were a huge portion of.

Here is an interesting read for you:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/13/housing-bubble-subprime-opinions-contributors_0216_peter_wallison_edward_pinto.html

Now the article admits that the "self regulation" you mention was a problem - but the problem was created by .... regulation. Had the CRA and the affordable housing "mission" never happened, the toxic underbelly in the housing market would not have occured.

Now don't misunderstand - government isn't all to blame. But to say that the problem was one of under-regulation is just not accurate. The market was fine until more regulations were implemented from on high - with entirely unintended and unforeseen consequences.

That is an important lesson to be learned - regulation of business does not always have the intended results.

Now - outside of that point - regulation is killing other industry here. High taxes, ludicrous EPA restrictions, miles and miles and miles of red tape - just to do ANYTHING. This is why - along with the lack of surety regarding long term income liabilities - that other industries are simply not expanding like some folks think they "should".

The economy sucks for a lot of reasons, but over-regulation has been a significant one.

mookiemookie

09-28-11, 06:27 AM

The reality is that the governmental regulation through the "Community Reinvestment Act" did not create the housing bubble, but it did create the slew of toxic loans to bad credit risks that F and F were a huge portion of.
Oh not this argument again... :damn:

Before I start, I want you to do something very simple for me. Go back and find me an instance where any of the CEOs of any of the failed banks, mortgage companies and Wall Street investment firms blamed the CRA for their troubles.

Here's a helpful tip: don't spend too much time on that, because you won't find it.

The CRA didn't mandate that banks lower their lending standards. It mandates that banks apply their lending standards fairly across the board. The CRA does not mandate that banks offer no money down mortgages or that banks can't verify income and employment. The CRA never forced Moodys and S&P to rate subprime mortgage backed securities as AAA. The CRA never forced Wall Street investment firms to overleverage themselves. The CRA had nothing to do with the rise of the credit default swap market. Here's the text of the CRA. It's not long. Read it and tell me where it forces banks to make a loan that goes against their lending standards. (http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-2515.html#6500hcda1977) In fact, it does the exact opposite: "It is the purpose of this title to require each appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency to use its authority when examining financial institutions, to encourage such institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions." (emphasis mine)

If the CRA, which aims to help poor and minority homebuyers, or FNMA/FHLMC, which wouldn't insure a loan over $417,000 until after 2008, is to blame, explain this little nugget:

"Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population. More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic." (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/business/economy/09rich.html)

Maybe it's because the irresponsible lending wasn't the fault of banks being forced by the big bad government and the CRA to loan to poor people.

Furthermore, the final nail in the "blame CRA" argument is that the majority of subprime loans were made by lenders not subject to the CRA. (http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/cra-chartg1109.gif)

Here is an interesting read for you:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/13/housing-bubble-subprime-opinions-contributors_0216_peter_wallison_edward_pinto.html

Here's an interesting read for you, where the ridiculous claims in the Forbes article are blown to smithereens: http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html

Now the article admits that the "self regulation" you mention was a problem - but the problem was created by .... regulation. Had the CRA and the affordable housing "mission" never happened, the toxic underbelly in the housing market would not have occured. No, if the Federal Reserve hadn't lowered rates to historic lows and allowed lenders to make loans to borrowers who would never repay them, there would have been no housing bubble. Why would a lender make a loan that they knew would never be repaid? Wall Street would take it off their hands as soon as they could close them. How could this happen? Because no one enforced prudent lending standards. Not the Fed, not the OCC, not any of the bank regulators. Deregulation in the form of looking the other way.

And why would Wall Street want crappy loans? Because they had perfected the art of financial alchemy. They had deluded themselves into thinking that if they piled enough crap together into one security, the risk was diversified away and a slew of toxic mortgages all of a sudden became a AAA asset. The ratings agencies, paid by the very people that they were rating securities for (talk about conflict of interest!) backed this line of thinking and slapped AAA ratings on garbage securities. And how could this happen? Lack of regulation of the ratings agencies. That's the CRA you need to be blaming - the Credit Rating Agencies!

Of course Wall Street was even more confident that their bets on these securities were the right thing to do, as they gorged themselves on credit default swaps to insure that they'd take no losses in the event that a bond went sour. Of course this market had been deregulated also, by the 2000 Commodities Futures Modernization Act.

More deregulation helped these banks put themselves in a tenuous financial position. In 2004, the SEC removed leverage caps on the big 5. (http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130)

Now don't misunderstand - government isn't all to blame. But to say that the problem was one of under-regulation is just not accurate. The market was fine until more regulations were implemented from on high - with entirely unintended and unforeseen consequences. That is an ideologically driven argument that attempts to shoehorn facts into supporting it. It doesn't work that way. Examine the facts first, then come up with a conclusion. Beware of ideologues that attempt to do the reverse.

That is an important lesson to be learned - regulation of business does not always have the intended results. While that may be true, it's absolutely not the lesson here.

Rockstar

09-29-11, 02:35 PM

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/092911.jpg

Rockstar

10-11-13, 10:01 AM

Granted there is sooo very much we don't yet know of our own planet. But we do know what they say about theorys and opinions.

http://www.viewzone.com/changingpoles.html

"The "Shifting Poles Theory" was introduced by History Professor, Charles H. Hapgood, whose fascination with geography and ancient maps led to his re-discovery of the Piri Reis Map. This hand drawn Turkish naval map had been gathering dust since the early 1500's, its significance unrealized. On closer scrutiny, Hapgood observed evidence of spherical trigonometry and a detailed knowledge of global geography-- including the coastline of Antarctica at a remote time, when it was free of ice. The map had been drawn just a few years after Columbus visited the Americas. The cartographer, Admiral Piri Reis, described his world map as having been drawn from "very old" reference maps. It appeared as if some ancient, forgotten civilization had risen to these capabilities, and then had disappeared. The identity of these ancient mariners begged to be discovered...."

Tribesman

10-11-13, 10:37 AM

Nice website.

Mr Quatro

10-11-13, 01:26 PM

Edgar Cayce said :o ...

Now I do not wish to bring up his name for any other reason other than he did say this would happen. That a shifting of poles would occur and many boo hoo his prophecies, but in this instance he has been quite correct so far.

He had many readings, again lets not get into his many other problems of religion or living other lives (reincarnation), but just focus on this one prophecy of his.

The nay sayers have said that he was wrong in stating that this would happen and that it would happen in the mid 1990's, but under closer observation Edgar Cayce did not say that a shifting of the poles would happen in the mid 1990's, but that it would start to happen.

and it did start to happen just as he predicted it would in 1997 with El nino in the western pacific ocean.

Gradually happening is the only reason we are still standing on the planet earth of course. The oceans are increasing in temperature with coral reefs dying and islands being flooded.

Sooner or later it will cause a food chain problem, a problem that man can not cure and a problem that will be blamed on man, but one that is impossible to solve.

Have a nice day anyway for we have many years left to watch the argument of who is to blame. :yep:

Fubar2Niner

10-11-13, 01:34 PM

BrucePartington

10-11-13, 07:18 PM

Rockstar

10-11-13, 07:44 PM

It does sound a little like Art Bell doesn't it :) ? With so many theories out there to pick from one just never knows.

Movement of magnetic north however I think has been verified by 'reputable scientific source's and is heading at a pretty good clip towards Siberia. Though its thought not likely to continue moving for much longer.

desertstriker

10-11-13, 08:36 PM

known about this and researched it my self and it is all very interesting. while we won't have a dooms day, the effects of a shift could disrupt our electronics and expose us to more solar radiation and we could say bye bye to the northern lights for a bit. and thats just the magnetic shift a total core shift would be slightly more catastrophic.

Buddahaid

10-11-13, 08:47 PM

Until a reputable scientific source says otherwise, if the magnetic field is indeed shifting, the only thing I believe will happen is our compasses will become increasingly off in relation to "real" North Pole.
As I write these lines, I have not dug up deeply on this subject, but it is my understanding, from all the relevant documentaries I've seen and articles I've read, the Earth's molten core rotates opposite to the outer layers, ever since the Earth came to be.
To sum it all up, I believe this to be of no consequence.
I'm sorry but this sounds just like yet another "doom's day prophecy".

Edit: If we are to make it to "Type 1", our civilization will have to rid itself of religious dogma and superstition.

It's been proven that the magnetic poles have flip-flopped many times through the Earth's history. The evidence is in the solidified magma that has extruded from the mid-Atlantic rift.

I can't reference the gubmint sources due to the shutdown but here's another.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130171105.htm

BrucePartington

10-11-13, 10:50 PM

It's been proven that the magnetic poles have flip-flopped many times through the Earth's history. The evidence is in the solidified magma that has extruded from the mid-Atlantic rift.

I can't reference the gubmint sources due to the shutdown but here's another.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130171105.htm
Indeed.
Just for clarification, I am aware the magnetic poles have shifted before. I just don't expect it to cause any major extinction event.

Buddahaid

10-11-13, 11:17 PM

Agreed. The article was relating to shifts in the axis of rotation which I would think far more disruptive.

TorpX

10-12-13, 12:33 AM

I doubt there will be much effect beyond those on sensitive electronics and, compasses, of course.

Reminds me of the business associated with the "Harmonic Convergence". Some made outlandish predictions about it. Silly stuff.

desertstriker

10-12-13, 12:43 AM

Buddahaid

10-12-13, 01:55 AM

Still, the thread was started on the theory that the Earth's crust shifts to balance spin, and evidence has been found to support a few axial pole shifts. The axis doesn't change, just the whole crust slides over the liquid magma to find equilibrium, and does so over a matter of days. Talk about climate change!

As far as magnetic pole shifts go, the biomass seems to have got on pretty good over millennia so far.

BrucePartington

10-12-13, 12:10 PM

Birds will temporarily be disoriented too.
I thought of the birds too. They seem to "see" (as in detect, sense, read) the magnetic fields somehow. But I have trouble imagining that the shifts could be so quick that fauna and flora in general had trouble catching up.
For all we know, the Earth (the hunk of rock) is alive: the molten core rotates, tectonic plates never stopped moving around, etc.
So for me this is nothing new to the planet. These shifts take place over long periods of time, and have strongly influenced evolution. Life adapts.
For life to be disrupted by a geological accident, it would have to be something dramatically quicker, like a major volcano erupting, or a rendez-vous with an asteroid.

mapuc

10-12-13, 01:59 PM

As I understand it there are to types of polar shift

the one as mentioned above-the magnetic polar shift

and then it is the physical shift where the earth simply tip over.

The first one the theories about magnetic polar change has a huge amount of scientist behind it

The second theories have mostly conspiracies and a few scientist.

Markus

Catfish

10-12-13, 02:27 PM

The poles are shifting all the time. All sea charts are being corrected every few years to make up for the change. The precession, and tumbling of the earth's axis also changes the magnetic poles, if minimally.

Also major shifting or flip of the poles has always taken place, lots of times in the earth's history, very very often.

(You have to imagine the earth is working like a dynamo, where the outer crust is the coil, and the inner core of iron, is the magnet. The viscous inner mantle makes this movement possible.
The different speed of movement produces the magnetic field, which is vital for the surviving of all life on earth, the magnetic field shielding us from 'very unhealthy' (to say at lest) solar winds.)

That the magnetic north and south pole have changed position several times is not news though, and i am surprised that just of all subsim members seem not to know about it - after all the search for russian submarines gave final evidence for a regular changing, or flip, of the poles :)

Wegener was the first to postulate the theory as far as i know, but met a lot of resistance by the established geophysicists, like Sir Harold Jeffreys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener
http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/reversal.htm

Admiral Halsey

01-06-14, 12:40 PM

I don't know about the rest of the country but here in Kentucky it's cold enough that you can pull off the turning hot water into insta-snow just by throwing it outside trick.(I tried it myself using the hot water from the coffee maker and it does work.) Anyone else feeling the effects of the cold?

Betonov

01-06-14, 12:47 PM

Is it wrong to point out, that we have 10°C above freezing.
In an Alpine country :)

Sailor Steve

01-06-14, 01:10 PM

Anyone else feeling the effects of the cold?
I've been reading about the "polar vortex" but it hasn't come this far west. We're having the same 20-30F we've had all along.

GT182

01-06-14, 01:12 PM

Jimbuna

01-06-14, 01:15 PM

On todays weather news, the computer generated predicted path dhows it will soon be hitting Texas.

AVGWarhawk

01-06-14, 01:20 PM

57 when I got up this morning at 7am, with pouring rain. Now it's it's a cloudy 39 with occasional snow flurries. By tomorrow morning it's supposed to be 5 degrees with a high of 11. So much for your Global Warming Al Gore. :O:

I'm south of you in Bawlmer MD :88) Going to get cold for basically a day from what I heard. Next weekend summer weather in the 50 degree range!

GoldenRivet

01-06-14, 02:02 PM

The needle was between 15 and 16F this morning on my front porch... its been a long time since i have seen teen temps linger on here for more than a coupe of hours. Its lunch now... and we are just now in the low 20s... I remember some COLD winters growing up in Texas, even considerable amounts of snow and sleet. But it never really lasts for more than a couple of days.

Hell i remember one April Fools day a few years ago it started snowing massive flakes even by ski country standards around 8 am. by lunch we had accumulated about a 5 inch blanket of snow on every exposed surface... by 6pm it was all melting away as the temp had raised into the 60s, the next day we were in the 80s again.

We are forecast to ditch the teens and 20s and will be in the high 60s again by the end of the week.

fireftr18

01-06-14, 02:09 PM

Admiral Halsey

01-06-14, 02:17 PM

I'm there with you, Admiral. How do you do the snow trick?

Heat up some water with your coffee maker and once that's done all you have to do is pour it into a cup and throw the water outside.(Make sure to not let go of the cup though.)

Madox58

01-06-14, 02:22 PM

Make sure to not let go of the cup though.
:o
You mean We're not supposs to throw it through the side car window?
DAMN!
:nope:
:D

-10 F here and falling with 40 MPH gusts.

vienna

01-06-14, 02:45 PM

Chicago is now colder than the south pole:

A temperature of 16 degrees below zero was measured at O'Hare Airport later in the morning, breaking the record of 14 below zero set twice in 1884 and 1988 on Jan. 6, according to the National Weather Service.
That's colder than the South Pole in Antarctica, where the temperature was recorded at 11 degrees below zero at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station before 8 a.m. It was also colder than Novosibirsk, a city in southwest Siberia, which was 6 degrees below zero, according to the Weather Channel (http://www.weather.com/weather/today/RSXX0077:1).

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140106/chicago/chicago-extreme-cold-temperatures-plunge-chiberia

<O>

Herr-Berbunch

01-06-14, 02:53 PM

Make sure to not let go of the cup though.

I'm wondering how many cups you got through before figuring that out?

RickC Sniper

01-06-14, 02:54 PM

It was -13 below at my house last night, with a wind chill of -35 F.

The cold is supposed to move East now though and be right around the freezing mark (32F) here by Wednesday.

Admiral Halsey

01-06-14, 02:56 PM

I'm wondering how many cups you got through before figuring that out?

Only took me one.

Jimbuna

01-06-14, 02:58 PM

Only took me one.

Could use a flask, just ensure it's a metal one :)

vienna

01-06-14, 03:00 PM

Could use a flask, just ensure it's a metal one :)

You do have a mean streak in you, don't you, Jim?...

<O>

Jimbuna

01-06-14, 03:02 PM

You do have a mean streak in you, don't you, Jim?...

<O>

I try :smug:

Wolferz

01-06-14, 04:01 PM

53 degrees F here in NE Pa. when I arose this morning. The temp has been falling steadily since then and is heading towards -7 tonight.
I really should bring in the brass monkey.:huh:

Rockstar

01-06-14, 04:26 PM

Herr-Berbunch

01-06-14, 05:29 PM

Well it's one of the many signs of global warming err.. climate change:
Too hot
Too cold
Too much rain
Not enough rain
More Hurricanes
Fewer Hurricanes
Less Ice
More Ice
Cow Farts
Bad Breath
Hang Nails
All of the above
None of the above
Some of the above
Fill in the Blank

You mean the same things that have happened over the last 4.6 billion years*? :o

*this figure to some of you should read just 6000 years. :hmmm:

Edit - sorry 4.6 billion years is probably too long ago to have a 'stable' climate like we do now, so please revise that figure to something nearer 3 billion. That should do it. Then the second figure should be changed to, err, 5999 years.

Admiral Halsey

01-06-14, 05:45 PM

You mean the same things that have happened over the last 4.6 billion years*? :o

*this figure to some of you should read just 6000 years. :hmmm:

Edit - sorry 4.6 billion years is probably too long ago to have a 'stable' climate like we do now, so please revise that figure to something nearer 3 billion. That should do it. Then the second figure should be changed to, err, 5999 years.

Actually it would be more like 5999 years 363 days.(This is assuming that weather was formed on the second day.)

Skybird

01-06-14, 05:48 PM

We have spring temperatures over here, near the Dutch-German border, varying between 7 and 15°C. Strong winds and rain occasionally.

Winter goes differently.

Not one day with snow this caricature of a winter so far.

vienna

01-06-14, 05:49 PM

I thought we start counting from when the aliens put us on this planet?...

<O>

STEED

01-06-14, 05:51 PM

Last summer it was too hot now its too cold get a grip America your begging to sound like us lot in the UK. :har:

Read all about it...

Daily Express
America faces new ice age!

Gargamel

01-06-14, 09:11 PM

oh cmon you pansies!

This is prime Camping weather! It's only -5 f here. This is my favorite weather to sleep in a tent. Personal best is -28 w/o windchill. it was something like -75 with.

Admiral Halsey

01-06-14, 09:16 PM

oh cmon you pansies!

This is prime Camping weather! It's only -5 f here. This is my favorite weather to sleep in a tent. Personal best is -28 w/o windchill. it was something like -75 with.

:o How are you still alive?

August

01-06-14, 10:17 PM

:o How are you still alive?

He's a real man.

Winter camping is da bomb!

Armistead

01-07-14, 12:09 AM

Admiral Halsey

01-07-14, 12:12 AM

5 f here, -15 f wind factor....Been out today volunteering with PD/Animal Control until about an hour ago regarding animals. Sadly, many here are left out at night on leashes and die when it gets this cold. I'm amazed at the ignorance of people that think thinned fur dogs can survive.

Heck in these conditions bringing the thick fur ones should be done as well as unless they've lived in Alaska most aren't used to this type of cold.

Wolferz

01-07-14, 05:30 AM

Global warming? Pfffft!:haha:

I blame it on the volcanos.:hmmm:

Jimbuna

01-07-14, 05:49 AM

50 degrees Canadians turn on their heating. People in Newcastle plant their gardens.

40 Canadians shiver uncontrollably. People in Newcastle sunbathe.

20 Canadians wear coats, gloves and wool hats. People in Newcastle throw on a t-shirt and girls wear mini skirts.

Zero Canadian landlords turn up the heat. People in Newcastle have a last BBQ before it gets cold.

Minus 10 Canadians cease to exist. People in Newcastle throw on a light jacket.

Minus 80 Polar bears wonder if it is all worth it. Boy Scouts in Newcastle begin wearing long trousers.

Minus 100 Santa abandons North Pole. People in Newcastle put on long johns.

Minus 173 Alcohol freezes. People in Newcastle become frustrated because the pubs shut.

Minus 297 Microbial life starts to disappear. Cows in Newcastle farms complain of vets with cold hands.

Minus 460 All atomic motion stops. People in Newcastle begin to stamp their feet and blow on their hands.

Minus 500 Hell freezes over. Newcastle United win a trophy.

:O:

Wolferz

01-07-14, 07:34 AM

LOL , Jim.:haha:
Are those temps in Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin?:06:

Tango589

01-07-14, 07:44 AM

50 degrees Canadians turn on their heating. People in Newcastle plant their gardens.
:O:

LOL , Jim.:haha:
Are those temps in Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin?:06:

I'm not sure about Kelvin, but 50C is bleedin' scorching, and 50F is plenty bearable. If Canadians start turning on the heating at that temp there is no hope.:nope:

Jimbuna

01-07-14, 09:09 AM

LOL , Jim.:haha:
Are those temps in Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin?:06:

Fahrenheit....didn't want to overdo matters :)

The above is obviously one of them jokes that can be tailor made to refer and compare to anyone the author wishes :03:

THEBERBSTER

01-07-14, 11:55 AM

You need a onesie!

Stealhead

01-07-14, 12:34 PM

There was a record low in north Florida today 17 degrees Fahrenheit. It was about 27 where I live this morning.Not too bad really but you'll see some Floridians over react to colder weather.

vienna

01-07-14, 01:00 PM

Minus 500 Hell freezes over. Newcastle United win a trophy.

Not likely even if hell freezes over...

<O>

Wolferz

01-07-14, 01:43 PM

I'm not sure about Kelvin, but 50C is bleedin' scorching, and 50F is plenty bearable. If Canadians start turning on the heating at that temp there is no hope.:nope:

Ok, let's put it in perspective...

2.75° Kelvin is the average temperature in outer space. Something along the lines of -465° Fahrenheit or just above absolute zero.

The news media keeps jabbering about this cold snap being something that people under 40 have never seen before. That doesn't include me. I've seen polar cold while I lived in Kentucky. So cold in fact, that the Ohio river froze completely from one side to the other.:huh:
Driving in a car that never warmed up unless you blocked the radiator with a piece of cardboard. Then it only barely got warm.:nope:
If folks here haven't taken precautions, their brass monkeys will need a new pair.:haha:

Armistead

01-07-14, 02:18 PM

Whew, it was cold at the kennel this morning....I had to stick my finger up my butt and yell snake to scare my wanker out so I could pee....

Sailor Steve

01-07-14, 02:35 PM

Waaaay too much information. :O:

vienna

01-07-14, 02:40 PM

Whew, it was cold at the kennel this morning....I had to stick my finger up my butt and yell snake to scare my wanker out so I could pee....

Sooo...just another normal morning for you?...

<O>

Wolferz

01-07-14, 02:41 PM

Thanks Arminstead ?:haha: That mental picture has scarred me.:stare::wah:

Admiral Halsey

01-07-14, 02:49 PM

Whew, it was cold at the kennel this morning....I had to stick my finger up my butt and yell snake to scare my wanker out so I could pee....

:o :Kaleun_Sick: Yeah I didn't need that image in my head.

Tango589

01-07-14, 02:55 PM

Whew, it was cold at the kennel this morning....I had to stick my finger up my butt and yell snake to scare my wanker out so I could pee....

FYI In the UK 'wanker' has a slightly different meaning. It's either abusive slang for a complete prat, as in "you total...", or it is a term for someone who pulls their wanger on a regular basis.

Knowledge is Power (so that's why I'm running on low wattage...)

AVGWarhawk

01-07-14, 02:58 PM

Whew, it was cold at the kennel this morning....I had to stick my finger up my butt and yell snake to scare my wanker out so I could pee....

When the task was complete did you draw any mud?

Jimbuna

01-07-14, 05:08 PM

Sooo...just another normal morning for you?...

<O>

:har:

swamprat69er

01-07-14, 06:34 PM

swamprat69er

01-07-14, 06:40 PM

0F this morning at 6 with a 40 mph wind out of the west. Toasty in the house.

Wolferz

01-07-14, 06:51 PM

Just taking his temperature.:doh:

Armistead

01-09-14, 01:34 AM

I hope the owners got charged with animal cruelty.

Most don't and they only take dogs that appear sickly and will give out numerous warnings before fining. The system is overloaded as is. I go as a rescue, animal control will try and talk some people out of their dogs. I wish they would write more fines..

Wolferz

01-09-14, 07:51 AM

Most don't and they only take dogs that appear sickly and will give out numerous warnings before fining. The system is overloaded as is. I go as a rescue, animal control will try and talk some people out of their dogs. I wish they would write more fines..

Forget the fines. Sentence them to spend time in an industrial flash freezer where the temperature is maintained at -25° Fahrenheit until they can't feel their fingers and toes.:stare:

swamprat69er

01-09-14, 08:20 AM

Your authorities are way too lenient when it comes to that, fine them big and hard and ban them from owning animals for life.

Armistead

01-09-14, 10:04 AM

One house we visited had two leashed dogs, one tied to deck, one tied to tree in backyard. Both were wrapped around and couldn't move, had no food and water and spent night in cold. AC officer untangled and left a letter. Went by next day, same thing....Left another note. I get frustrated in this county, but they don't have a lot of funds and hardly apply what laws they have. We have two parts of towns, the poorer areas where it seems every house has a tied guard dog that barely get care and never get attention. Many states have outlawed leashing or chaining a dog outside or limits it to a few hours per day.

swamprat69er

01-09-14, 11:02 AM

IF the county applied the laws they have and collected the fines, they would have money.

Jimbuna

01-09-14, 01:19 PM

Your authorities are way too lenient when it comes to that, fine them big and hard and ban them from owning animals for life.

Precisely :yep:

TarJak

05-22-14, 06:43 AM

http://labs.enigma.io/climate-change-map/

Not about to enter into a debate about climate change as this has been over multiple times here. This data set and accompanying visualisation looks at temperature anomolies (explained on the page in the link), across the continental US between 1964 and 2013. Aside from what it obviously shows, I very much like the way the visualisation has been done.

Ah go on if you want to rant about climate change either way, who am I to stop you?:sunny:

Dread Knot

05-22-14, 07:11 AM

http://labs.enigma.io/climate-change-map/

Ah go on if you want to rant about climate change either way, who am I to stop you?:sunny:

What I noticed when living in the UK is the comparatively small number of pests that can attack you while you sleep. According to friends at the time, mosquitoes were only something you encountered on an exotic foreign holiday. Now a study shows that UK cities are becoming increasingly mosquito friendly, even to the more dangerous kind. Another indication of climate change?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27491891

Stagnant water is the killer. You might want to drain some ponds, the Serpentine....or Parliament. :D

Rockstar

05-22-14, 08:38 AM

The problem I think with global warming is that it has been waaay too politicizied.

IMHO I think the globe is warming and has been since the last glacial period some 20,000 years ago when ice covered vast portions of the earth. That glacial ice just didn't disappear it just took on another form, water. Its estimated sealevels have risen 150 meters since the last ice age. But why? I don't know but it sure as heck wasn't SUV's, Republicans, Communist Propaganda, BIG Oil, evil corporations or from grilling hamburgers in your backyard. Personallly I tend to side with Milutin Milankovitch and his theory.

There is said to be another 60 to 70 meters of sealevel rise locked up in our current ice caps which at the moment still appear to be melting. I'm not getting wrapped up who should be blamed or the politics of global warming. Some people think I'm nuts but while they complain and point fingers. I'm buying up cheap land up in the hills, or as have said, building my ark. If things don't change centuries from now. My offspring will think well of me as they will be land barons controlling the high ground. :rotfl2:

Gorduz

05-22-14, 09:28 AM

I could not agree more that the problemof global warming is way to politicized. People think global warming, and hear carbon tax, when there is a huge difference. Global warming is a scientific fact, whereas how to solve it is a political question, one which so far the left has had monopoly on.
What's needed are good conservative and libertarian solutions, but for that to happens a general acceptance of science is needed on the right side, which I still hope will happen before its too late.

I do however do not understand your statement:
"Personallly I tend to side with Milutin Milankovitch and his theory. "

This theory is well known, and based on planet movements and wobbling of earth, both which can be accurately modelled without large uncertainties. And the fact is that this model does not give any answer to why we are seeing such an extremely fast (compared to ice ages etc.) increase in temperature.

By all means there might be other explanations that the release of greenhouse gases, however looking at the complete picture this is unfortunately the most likely culprit :(

Wolferz

05-22-14, 09:39 AM

:sign_yeah::agree:
Everything is cyclic...
We pretty much know what caused the glacial period and it's been warming since that part of the cycle ended and began the upward swing.
One can only assume that all this doomsday global warming broo ha ha is just some chicken little BS by those with an agenda aimed at milking money from gullible sheeple. :roll:

The graphic linked in the OP only illustrates a sinus rhythm for a relatively short span of time and then the data is compared to "expected" norms?
I've always noticed that what mother nature does can be neither expected or normal. I won't waste my time researching their data because it doesn't prove anything other than their ability to apply math skills to create percentages and their need to run around proclaiming that the sky is falling because we're releasing too much of the previously trapped carbon.
It's just part of the normal cycle of this planet. If we don't release the stuff, mother nature will.
I already live in mountains so what do I care if the beach front homes get swallowed by the sea.:arrgh!:

CaptainHaplo

05-22-14, 06:58 PM

The problem with "climate change" isn't just that its too political...

Its also to PROFITABLE. You have a lot of money that gets poured into a lot of studies with a vested interest in keeping said money flowing...
If you had definitive studies that said "climate change" was not real, how many climate scientists would be hard pressed to find funding for their work?

After all, when Environmental Research Letters refuses to publish a paper by 5 recognized experts (whose credentials they do not fault) because during review it was deemed to be "less than helpful" and "worse" because it would allow climate change skeptics to cite errors in the IPCC evaluations - what more needs to be said?

Sinkmore

05-22-14, 07:55 PM

Most of the CO2 increase over the last century has been absorbed by the oceans. This results in ocean acidification, which adversely impacts small shelly plankton, who are the base of the food chain. Continued ocean acidification will eventually result in desertification. That will be bad.

At some point, the oceans will become saturated with CO2, and then rise in atmospheric CO2 levels will accelerate, which is when climate change will begin for realz. And it will be way too late to stop, then. Also, it will be too late to benefit from owning property on the new beachfront, as the global economy we are familiar with will be impossible, as will the societies that depend on it. IE, most people will die, most civilizations will vanish, most species will go extinct, and natural systems will take hundreds, thousands, or perhaps millions of years to "correct" the "problem".

It's a simple, fundamental, physical fact that adding CO2 to "air" increases its thermal retention. You can prove this beyond any rational doubt with a test tube, 12¢ worth of gases, and a little sunlight. Any claim that "climate change" is false or a hoax must somehow dispute that simple fact, or they're ridiculous. None do, or conceivably could - so they are.

There a room for debate about how much how soon, but virtually all scientists agree that it's too much, too soon. An increasing number of scientists think it's too late already. They may be optimists.

What is it about climate change that makes uninformed laymen think they know more than the scientists? There's no comparable skepticism about the spherical Earth theory, or about the speed of light, or the theory that lightning is electricity. Why accept those theories without blinking, yet refuse to accept climate science? Face it, probably you don't understand ANY science well enough to have an important "opinion" worth sharing - except when it comes to climate science!

It's absurd to deny climate science; but let's pretend that we cannot know that the facts we have mean what they mean. Let's pretend it's a 50/50 chance. No; let's pretend that there's a 2% chance that 98% of scientists are better than PR professionals at doing science. (Lol). If there is a 2% chance theyre right, then we must immediately freak out, rearrange our economies and lifestyles, pay whatever it takes, and stop emitting greenhouse gases. A 2% chance of the world coming to an end is an unacceptable risk. Only, it's closer to a 100% chance. I'm yet to see a single valid theory to the contrary.

Climate change was bad enough already, but now there's reason to convert from fear to panic. Scientists have determined that the killing blow won't be sea level rise, or bad weather - it will be the release into the atmosphere of megatons of sulfur compounds, due to proliferation of anaerobic bacteria, due in turn to reduced oceanic oxygen carrying capacity, which will render the air literally poisonous for centuries.

Have a laugh about all that, and write it all off to Al Gore's insidious plot to... well, whatever the purpose, it must be insidious, or else the coal industry wouldn't have to spend so much money to protect us from the best calculations of our wisest scientists. 'Cause the coal industry cares first and foremost about making sure no one falls for hoaxes.

LOTS of societies - in fact, most by far -have collapsed, over the eons, and been forgotten. Probably most of them never saw it coming, and ridiculed (or beheaded) their members who understood the warning signs. Most extinct societies brought on their destruction in part through action and inaction, and/or failed to adapt to circumstances beyond their control. Check out Easter Island, and wonder why they cut down all the trees, on which their society absolutely depended. We're they just dumb? Dumber than us? Or about the same?

This time, though, the "deforestation" won't be local. It'll be global; and our modern, interdependent, highly technological, ultra-specialized societies are if anything more vulnerable to prolonged disruptions than "primitive" societies.

It's really, really, really bad, and no one, not even the radical environmentalist tree huggers, are taking it nearly seriously enough.

But hey, laugh it up. Dismiss it, cuz it's complex and learning about it, not to mention addressing it, sounds like a lot of bother. That's the spirit!

Wolferz

05-22-14, 08:32 PM

Sinkmore

05-22-14, 08:45 PM

One more thing, about denialism:

There's a meme, that climate scientists are in it for the money; that they (consciously or unconsciously) skew their results in order to get at the grant money.

While such things do happen, in science and elsewhere, this argument is laughable. For one thing, most scientists who have "signed on" to climate change have received zero dollars to do climate research; they just recognize the facts. For another thing, scientists don't succeed in their careers by agreeing with other scientists; if you want to get ahead, you have to show that the precailing views are wrong, and prove it. Third, scientists mainly want to do science, to discover truths; they are as a class generally apolitical (they barely know what country they live in!) and are professionally very conservative about how they make their claims.

Consider this: Any legit climate scientist with any legit alternative theory, if proved right, will be a giant, internationally famous hero. Major institutions will be name after them. Grant money will pour in like Niagara. This is what the scientists are avoiding, in the furtherance of a political hoax?

If the facts existed, no doubt there'd be fistfights to be the first to publish.

But lastly, and this, standing alone, decimates the meme; any scientist who can effectively dispute climate change will get ten times the publicity, and ten times the opportunities for grant funding, with much less competition, than their leftist colleagues, from the exceedingly generous coal industry, who are desperate for (but can't find or even buy) contrary scientific views. The truth, as usual, is the exact opposite of the political spin.

Just think about that last point.

Sinkmore

05-22-14, 09:02 PM

Has the answers.
We might even get the idea that he's a climate expert.:up:

If our current, so called, global civilization is about to meet it's doom from climate catastrophe, what's wrong with that? Have you taken a close look at what's going on out there these days? It's overdue by my estimate. The human species needs to be whittled down considerably and taught a lesson in humility so that even the greedy have no choice but to take notice and start living in concert with nature. Instead of the never ending rape and exploitation currently being forced on the planet by those who only see the color green of money as what's important.
They will not go cold turkey until they shiver, starve or get wet.:yep:

I say; "let it happen Cap'n."

I don't claim to be an expert. I do claim to know more about it, and science generally, than most laymen. I believe I could prove that if a test can be contrived.

I do agree about how awful society is; but I don't think it's worse than it used to be in some golden age. In fact, by virtually every metric, I think most societies are more civilized, more peaceful, more egalitarian, etc., than ever before in recorded history. Rape, for example, is now a crime against a woma, whereas it used to be treated like a violation of a man's property - if even that. Few cultures now tolerate slavery, for example, whereas it used to be an essential part of perhaps most past societies. I could go on and on about how we are now -more- moral, and -more- civilized, than during any previous era. So, Noah, hold off on that ark!

But, I want to draw attention to one more thing you said - let it happen. I recognize that reaction, psychologically, from my own mind, from other topics, for instance how I view my smoking habit. It's a means of processing contradictions, rationalizing irrational urges, coping with cognitive dissonances. It's a very common view, regarding climate change, and psychologically understandable. But deeply irresponsible, and if humanity takes that sort of attitude, we aren't long for this world.

Wolferz

05-22-14, 10:10 PM

Please turn around and aim your message at the sinners...

Of course the coal industry is going to do whatever they can to save their livelihoods. Along with the coal fired power generators et al.
Cheap fuel = more money but creates a great deal of pollution.

If the government stooges hadn't been scared away from breeder reactor nuclear power by another set of chicken littles who did the radioactive catastrophe dance, we wouldn't need coal fired power or gas fired power or even oil fired power. Breeder reactors don't even create nuclear waste. They create and recreate their own fuel. No waste products to be buried in a salt mine for ten thousand + years and we would all get cheap electricity.
But money talks and BS walks, usually in the form of lobbies with fists full of dollars for bribery.
Who can stop that train when the brakes have been sabotaged?

That's why I think the impending global warming catastrophe should be allowed to happen. Starving sheeple are excellent motivators for change.

Sinkmore

05-23-14, 12:19 AM

I wasn't aiming my message at you, or anyone in particular. I did address the things you said, but I don't know anything about you except presumably that you like submarine games. So you can't be all bad. Lol. Plus, you seemed to side against environmentally destructive greedheads, so probably we'd agree about the nature of the problem. Sorry if you thought I was attacking you. I can see why you might... But, not intended.

I still disagree about letting It happen. If It happens, there won't be many (if any?) people left to learn from it. And there won't be another industrial society any time soon afterward to do it differently.

(Tangent: I've never seen it said before, but it seems to me it will be very hard for the "next" civilization to emerge from the next Iron Age, as the most readily available mineral outcroppings have mostly been depleted, the easy oil has mostly been pumped, etc.. So, this industrial civilization is probably the first and last chance chance humanity is gonna get.)

I agree about nuclear power, btw. Even conventional nuke plants are better than coal. I read somewhere that more radioactive particulates are released every year from burning coal than have been released in the history of nuclear power. Breeders are better, but IMHO thorium reactors are the way to go. At least in 2014, fusion power is still pretty much kooky-talk; and we don't need it anyway.

I disagree about who stopped nuclear power, though. Righties want to blame the hippies, but srsly, when have the long haired tree huggers ever gotten their way? You think Greenpeace has more clout on Capitol Hill than GE has? No, it failed 'cause it was too expensive relative to coal. That, and, in the U.S. at least, because the Feds stopped subsidizing & insuring the plants (once the nuke energy industry wasn't necessary to the nuke weapons industry, which was pretty much why the DOE was created.)

It isn't a question of where to get energy. There are numerous alternatives. It's only a question of how to stop using the currently installed fossil fuel system. Politics and economics are much more complicated than mere nuclear physics.

Flamebatter90

05-23-14, 04:34 AM

I think this pie chart by James Powell sums it up nicely.
http://www.jamespowell.org/resources/climate-pie-chart.jpg

Probably the most disappointing thing about the climate change debate for me is the fact that at other times, we praise scientists for their hard work and amazing achievements. But when it comes to this inconvenient realization (climate change), the scientists are suddenly the bad guys and are "in on it". That's just arrogant and bordering on conspiracy theory level of stupid.

Skybird

05-23-14, 05:00 AM

The research on Global Warming is one of the most corrupted scientific branches existing today, I think. And it gets corrupted from both sides of the frontline - from sceptics and believers alike. The scientists trying to conduct a balanced, objective approach, usually take Flak from both sides.

To support Global warming, is a big money-redistribution machine today, immense streams of money are being redirected - or are intended to be redirected - from the industrialised North to the less industrialised South of the World.

In the North, especially here in Germany, it also is the excuse for a tremendous ideological reeducation program. Also, many subsidies gets pumped (in the name of "fighting" Global Warming) into business branches or enterprises that without these subsidies would be uncompettive and would seize to exist. This social- and job-related aspect as well as the profit-interests of daring investors have taken over the motivation of wanting to become a "greener society". Not for the crowd, but for the decision makers.

The crowd does not really care for checking whether what it assumes to help environmentr and climate, indeed makes a psoitive difference for anyone. What thje crowd - ove rhere at least -wants is just to have the nice feeling resulting from believing that what they do in lifestyle chnages means a difference, globally. Checking that assumption for its truth, is not very popular over here. Ideology is all. Green ideology is like a new religion. You must not check and know the facts: you just need to believe something, an d then turn hysteric in your belief. Just two weeks ago, another big science report has slammed the german "Energiewende" and the European climate polciy in totality, showing that it not only causes no globally felt differences for the better, but that in many fields it even makes things worse. The Greenies did not react, or angrily balked .

I think the climate, by general trend and seen globally, is becoming warmer. I think human influenc eplays a role that makes a diference, but whether it is that big as the beolievers want to make me believe, I have my doubts. I think it is not baout wanting to infouence and stop climate chznage, as they say, becasue I think that simply is impossible by now, with or without human effects in global warming. What it is about is when and how we start to adapt, and prepare for the many paradoxical effects created by climate warming as well. Adaptation is key. Evolution is about survival of those who adapt, evolutionary fitness does not necessarily mean physical strength, but the ability to flexibly adapt.

I have my doubts that we will adapt. We are too many people on this globe, too many live in places where they are extremely exposed to climate disasters, and in circumstances where they have not the material means to adapt. I think we stand at the beginning of a very grim chapter of human history.

Sorting waste in Germany and switching off German nuclear powerplants, and all the hysteria about carbon footprints and energy-saving light sources, will make no difference. As long as man does not understand that we are multiple times too many people on this globe and that the corrupted industry model we now run leads too lethally excessive abuse of our living habitat, all the talking about living in harmony with nature is just mentally deranged romanticism. Environmental debates these days to me are not more like the usual cheating babbling of just any politician wanting to bget elected again: it is about control and power but claims to be about moral and ethical principles. An infantile public helps to keep the deception alive - I have enough of this theatre.

Catfish

05-23-14, 06:35 AM

Why not ask a geologist?

Look at the elements and substrates that can be found in certain strata, and look what happened to life in this or towards the end of this time.
Hint: Perm. :03:

Sinkmore

05-23-14, 05:46 PM

I think Skybird is right to be cynical, about social forces and about the prospects for an overpopulated world.

"Believers" of all kinds are ugly and dangerous. But the herd is going to follow SOMEONE, and they'll embarrass you no matter which way they turn.

Still, this is our situation. We are faced with a much greater challenge, and a more perilous threat, than for instance anyone contemplated in the world wars, or even the Cold War (which only held a CHANCE of destroying the world).

So I'm cynical too - deeply! - But I remain a cynical optimist. We can STILL do the best we can do... That would be enough to save our species, and enough of the world to live in. If our economies are managed intelligently, we can live on Earth another 50+ (Maybe even 500) million years (before the sun gets too hot).

The fools will be foolish no matter what they've been led to believe. The jackals will make obscene profits whether we adapt our societies or not. The vain hypocrite do-gooders will flaunt their righteousness regardless. So, have a drink, shake your head, but be GLAD when the town council wants to spend a million euros to investigate fart recycling; it's better for the future than "drill baby drill", which I suggest is the (equally embarrassing but less sustainable) alternative.

The research on Global Warming is one of the most corrupted scientific branches existing today, I think. And it gets corrupted from both sides of the frontline - from sceptics and believers alike. The scientists trying to conduct a balanced, objective approach, usually take Flak from both sides.

To support Global warming, is a big money-redistribution machine today, immense streams of money are being redirected - or are intended to be redirected - from the industrialised North to the less industrialised South of the World.

In the North, especially here in Germany, it also is the excuse for a tremendous ideological reeducation program. Also, many subsidies gets pumped (in the name of "fighting" Global Warming) into business branches or enterprises that without these subsidies would be uncompettive and would seize to exist. This social- and job-related aspect as well as the profit-interests of daring investors have taken over the motivation of wanting to become a "greener society". Not for the crowd, but for the decision makers.

The crowd does not really care for checking whether what it assumes to help environmentr and climate, indeed makes a psoitive difference for anyone. What thje crowd - ove rhere at least -wants is just to have the nice feeling resulting from believing that what they do in lifestyle chnages means a difference, globally. Checking that assumption for its truth, is not very popular over here. Ideology is all. Green ideology is like a new religion. You must not check and know the facts: you just need to believe something, an d then turn hysteric in your belief. Just two weeks ago, another big science report has slammed the german "Energiewende" and the European climate polciy in totality, showing that it not only causes no globally felt differences for the better, but that in many fields it even makes things worse. The Greenies did not react, or angrily balked .

I think the climate, by general trend and seen globally, is becoming warmer. I think human influenc eplays a role that makes a diference, but whether it is that big as the beolievers want to make me believe, I have my doubts. I think it is not baout wanting to infouence and stop climate chznage, as they say, becasue I think that simply is impossible by now, with or without human effects in global warming. What it is about is when and how we start to adapt, and prepare for the many paradoxical effects created by climate warming as well. Adaptation is key. Evolution is about survival of those who adapt, evolutionary fitness does not necessarily mean physical strength, but the ability to flexibly adapt.

I have my doubts that we will adapt. We are too many people on this globe, too many live in places where they are extremely exposed to climate disasters, and in circumstances where they have not the material means to adapt. I think we stand at the beginning of a very grim chapter of human history.

Sorting waste in Germany and switching off German nuclear powerplants, and all the hysteria about carbon footprints and energy-saving light sources, will make no difference. As long as man does not understand that we are multiple times too many people on this globe and that the corrupted industry model we now run leads too lethally excessive abuse of our living habitat, all the talking about living in harmony with nature is just mentally deranged romanticism. Environmental debates these days to me are not more like the usual cheating babbling of just any politician wanting to bget elected again: it is about control and power but claims to be about moral and ethical principles. An infantile public helps to keep the deception alive - I have enough of this theatre.

Skybird

05-23-14, 06:36 PM

I were not cynical. Nor were I ironic, sarcastic or funny. If I were any of that, I wouldn't have enough of this theatre, but still go there.

Skybird

05-23-14, 06:55 PM

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-scientists-mixed-over-controversy-surrounding-respected-researcher-a-971033.html

Not the man's case is the news in this story, but the description of how entrenched and dogmatized the "scientific" debate has become.

Climate researchers are now engaged in a debate about whether their science is being crippled by a compulsion to conform. They wonder if pressure to reach a consensus is too great. They ask if criticism is being suppressed. No less is at stake than the credibility of research evidence for climate change and the very question of whether climate research is still reliable.
(...)
One Austrian professor has gone so far as calling for the death penalty for climate skeptics.

Always the Austrians :nope:. First Adolf Hitler, then Conchita Wurst, now this professor. - :woot: Now, this was a joke.

Sinkmore

05-23-14, 08:01 PM

Yes Skybird, that sort of compulsory indoctrination is terrible. It's also a permanent feature of human society. Now, would you rather have compulsory sustainability, or compulsory environmental destruction? In the social sense, those are (exaggerated versions of) the choices.

I've never been a big fan of my society - it breeds narrow minded, greedy ignorami, mostly. I don't know of any group or movement or philosophy that I could ever belong to or identify with. I'm not waiting for society to get "better". I just want it to avoid self destruction, and destroying all the other cool life on Earth.

If we solve the MANY environmental crises, (Global warming is just one of them. Habitat destruction is nearly as dangerous. There are others...) then we'll have eternity to work on equality, social justice, and all that. If we don't, then it won't matter for long whether women can drive cars in Yemen, or one country massacres another, or who rules the world, or who wins European Idol.

True about the Austrians, though.
Lol, joke.

Admiral Halsey

05-23-14, 08:32 PM

My thoughts on global warming are this. The Earth's climate is constantly changing and I think we only cause a minimal amount of actual change.

Catfish

05-24-14, 05:07 AM

I think most people talk a lot about what they do not understand, but are too lazy to look for evidence of all kinds and in all directions, themselves.
Much easier to talk and have an, if basically unfounded, "opinion".

Certainly a pre-existing bias lets people search for arguments and things that support their point of view, and sometimes even unconsciously overlooking deviating evidence.

What cannot be doubted is, that there is a rise of CO2 content, in the atmosphere. But it is not surprising. The question is, should we worry about it, and if, can we do anything about it at all?
As Oberon said, a problem that cannot be solved, ceases to be one.

But before you throw all this overboard and claim to your opinion, you should read the following to at least know what you are talking about :yep:

This is how it started:

If you want to know a little background, much simplified (wrote this for simple museum texts and schoolchildren some time ago):

The oxygen we have in the air today, was a lethal poison when the first developing green plants began to produce it as a metabolic waste product (or just: waste) while producing sugars (carbon stuff) to conserve energy for bad times, and stuff to reproduce themselves.
At that time the earth's atmosphere was quite hot, which supported all kinds of chemical reactions.

Oxygen is a stuff that likes to react and go together with other atoms, building molecules (several atoms together in a stable relation), so e.g. beforehand pure iron began at some point to oxidize. Also, free CO2 was used to build up gigantic reefs, consisting of Calcium-carbonate = CaCO3.
You see, a lot of the former free CO2 is stored in those rocks - billions of tons worldwide.

After some time all that could be oxidized was more or less used up, so oxygen began to become abundant, in the atmosphere.

Also, the former free CO2 which had been cracked up by the plants, was diminishing, leading to a cooling of the atmosphere - sunlight could now easier escape, through the (for visible light) clearer atmosphere.

Oxygen in the atmosphere

But a lot of other non-green-plant-life life died by this new toxic stuff "Oxygen", that had not been there initially. Those oxygen-producing plants were basically primitive algae, but unbelievable amounts of them, and taking some million years to produce more and more poisonous oxygen. This of course was long ago.

Over the course of millions of years, some organisms began to adapt to the abundant oxygen, at some point even needed it to survive. Most animal life today is like that.

Oxidising = burning

When you burn a flame within the earth's atmosphere, this act will reduce the amount of oxygen in it, while producing CO2, or Carbon di-oxyde, a gas. One Carbon atom, and two oxygen ones, a molecule. The oxygen is trapped in this new gas together with Carbon, which cannot be used for breathing by those newish animals.

Back to the plants: They use CO2 gas to build C into their structure while producing oxygen as waste during daytime, and use it up, at night. A tiny amount of C(arbon) is being stored in their bodies, like sugar.

Now when these plants die, they give away all the stored Carbon into the atmosphere, using up oxygen, producing CO2 again while decaying. There is no rest left. All the oxygen they produced, is being used up when decaying.

BUT: There are other plants, e.g. the offspring of the now decaying parent plants, and they also produce oxygen again. So it is a game of taking and giving oxygen all the time.

But we have so much oxygen in the atmosphere, you might ask - if the plants use it all up again, why ?

When a plant decays losing its Carbon, it needs Oxygen for this to happen.
However at some places, like in the abysses of oceans, and in stagnating undisturbed water, there is not always enough Oxygen present.
So these plants (again, we are talking of masses of algae) cannot decay - at least they cannot be oxidized. There is not enough oxygen.

So they stay where they are, dead, and are being covered by sediments. Pressure and time convert these "dead bodies" into: crude oil.

The Carbon stuff stored there has been taken out ouf the circle of de-oxidation, and oxidation. The surplus oxygen is free in the atmosphere.

In a way it is a kind of battery, sunlight and oxygen has been used by green plants to crack CO2 gas into C, and O.
We can use the carbon stuff to release its energy again, by oxidising it, and unload the battery.

While we do that, we of course take away Oxygen out of the atmosphere, and convert it together with Carbon, to CO2 or Carbon-di-oxyde.

The problem:

We are filling up the atmosphere with CO2 while burning oil. And if you think about that a lot of the earth's crude oil resources will be exhausted at some time, we know how much CO2 will be in the atmosphere, again.

Maybe someone understands what the problem is about ?

Skybird

05-24-14, 05:35 AM

I have read such concepts, too. Catfish. In fact you remind me of myself ten years ago.

To make it short, CO2 is not all. And amongst the active agents in the atmosphere now, it is not even the most important or most dangerous.

Catfish

05-24-14, 06:17 AM

CO2 is not all, but it is the major problem.

Because there is so much stored in what we call 'buffers', like in calcium-carbonates.
The amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, makes it a bit more warm. Not too much, but just enough to enable those buffers to release some more, which fuels the whole process.

Next step is the release of methane hydrates, which are e.g. trapped in permafrost soils, and the mexican gulf.

If we used Ethanol or Hydrogen instead of oil, there would be no problem.
Normal car piston engines like they are used now are perfectly able to use both, without major rebuilding or design changes.

So why not ?

Skybird

05-24-14, 02:03 PM

CO2 is not the major problem. We do not know what the major problem is, and whether there is such a single factor worth to be called the "major problem".

We can no longer avoid climate change (if ever we could, that is: if man really ever made a sufficiently significant difference - and that is not clear). As I said, what it is about is not prevention, but adaptation.

The question whether or not man is responsible for climate warming, is academical only by now. Whether man can adapt while there still may be time (who knows...) - that is the question.

If global warming would ever, for whatever reasons and causal causes, turn into an ELE, it does not matter then anyway.

Triple-A-qudruple-plus rated refrigerators and electric cars do not make any differendce there. Even more so,m when it is clear for many people looking behind the stage of environmental business (yes, it is a business by now) that the real ecological costs of these "alternative" products are miscalculated and that their real costs are much higher regarding their environmental balance then people believe. Too many active costs ruining their ecological balance get ignored and get faded out.

Its exactly like what I said earlier. People do not really care for "saving the planet". They only want the subjective feeling of having done something "green", checking out whether it really is that green at all is not what people care for. Doing so would cripple many illusions. And business profits. And elections.

Catfish

05-24-14, 04:29 PM

TarJak

05-24-14, 05:46 PM

If we used Ethanol or Hydrogen instead of oil, there would be no problem.
Normal car piston engines like they are used now are perfectly able to use both, without major rebuilding or design changes.

So why not ?

Because the oil companies would have to make expensive changes to their production facilities and they prefer not to spend that money when they can continue to squeeze money out of its without that spend.

Skybird

05-24-14, 07:14 PM

I have presented some well-studied facts, i yet have to see something from you that states the contrary. If you want to ignore facts and studies, and what the Perm crisis tells us about go on.
I have enough of "opinions" that ignore science, just because bashing of common sense is à la mode for the time being.

If you go back in the forum index by maybe 5-6 years, you will find some threads in which I have held the same lecture like you now - and several times, and in more detail! ;) Obviously, since then something has happened that made me no longer doing so and no longer buying this stuff so uncritically anymore.

To draw parallels between the Perm crisis, which I also know (I have even read a whole book on just those early eras of constant dramatic climate changes - and their multi-factorial origins), and the present, is something that is en vogue currently. Whether scientific soberness allows to draw such parallels, is something very difficult to decide in the hysterically upheated atmosphere of the contemporary debates Especially before climate conferences. Before conferences, where all those multi-billion dollar redistribution policies should get signed, usually the threats from global warming climb in severity, the oceans could climb even higher than at the last conference, the total warming could result in higher temperatures then previously assumed, and all happens faster and more dramatic and more sensationally and and and.

I have said earlier already that I think the climate gets warmer indeed by general trend. But I do not repeat my mistakes from past years to just beleive any doomsday scenario claims that the propaganda media spread amongst the wide public. I have learned to look at what show runs behi8nd the stage for the public: I have learned to also look at where the money goes, and who profiteers from the climate of panic and constant alertness. The nonsense we do in Germany with all our idiotic policies that in the end just increase the power and control of the central government and channels immense profits from the income of private households into the pockets of the producing industries for all those ecology gadgets. We kill billions and billions of taxpayers' money - for effects that do not translate into even a tenth of a percent on global climate, and we ignore the many contradictions in our stupid "Aktionismus".

I strongly recommend to you personally to read this book by Edgar L. Gärtner, a former icon of the German environment movement who has turned very critically against it now, and will give you some tough challenges to your intellectual self-conviction. You will not find many more German-tongued insiders of the environment show buz who are more distinguished on these matters, and who have such an interesting journey behind themselves,. like this man of deep thinking and sharp intellect and profound knowledge of details: And he knows the scene from several angles, because he has been a conservative Catholic student, then a Marxist, then a green activist, and today an independent and courageous critic of Greenpeace and the lobbyistic economy politics run in Germany that are insane, in vein, a huge manipulation of public opinion and a giant waste of money. The title sounds sensational, but the book is intellectually extremely sober, and rocksolid.

LINK (http://www.amazon.de/%C3%96ko-Nihilismus-2012-Selbstmord-Edgar-G%C3%A4rtner/dp/3940431311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400976687&sr=8-1&keywords=%C3%B6ko+nihilismus)

For the instant amusement of this night, this little text, that illustrates what I mean by "theatre" when I said that I have enough of this "Ökowahn". There is too much freakshow like this going on. And thgat includes the UN climate summits.

LINK (http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/article/weltweit_reisen_klima_retten._am_beispiel_natalie)

An d now please finally get what I say, I repeat it for the third of fourth time now: our measurements are un likely to limit the global warming effect. By trend, the climate looks as if becoming warmer. I say so since a ver ylong time, since all time I'm on this board. But what needs to be done now is not to waste biblical ammounts of resources for measurements that are in vein (we cannot dictate a limit for global wartming), but to learn how to adapot best to that chnaging world that means.

As long as that exyslcudes the understanding that we are too many people, far too many people on this globe and so for hundreds of millions this will mean "bad luck", we try iun vein again,l and try to swim against a stream which is far too strong for us.

Either we adapt, or we break. Preventing it we cannot. Never could, cannot anymore - I do not know,l but it is not important anyway. Adapting is the word to watch out for. And our policies and infantile greeny idealism is not helpful there. Even if we would not suffer from that, I have strong doubts that we could adapt - with 7 billion people on this globe. If it all spirals out of boundary and into an ELE, then that is what will happen, I cannot help it, and could also not help it by putting ugly insulating wall panels onto my house or buying a AAA++++ refrigerator or using LED lights. That is all fine for the petrochemical industry, the craftsman mounting and moving that stuff, for Samsung and Philipps. But it makes by far not a biog enough difference to limit or influence climate warming now. Read that damn book by Gärtner. Then you maybe understand why I said I have enough of this Affentheater. The latest acts of this stageplay get broadcasted daily by now.

TarJak

06-13-14, 05:00 AM

Interesting way of illustrating the predicted change:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-JELnCdV4DlY/U5gP6F3DRsI/AAAAAAAAI8c/zza0JssgdMw/w664-h476-no/Bp01f9hCYAAMujW.png-large

Armistead

11-06-14, 08:16 PM

AndyJWest

11-06-14, 09:47 PM

For what its worth, the Chinese government has actually started to make noises about tackling the issue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-29334807

How serious they are is difficult to judge - though given the horrendous (and highly visible) air pollution problems endemic in parts of China, they may have come to the conclusion that regardless of broader concerns over climate change, they can't carry on as they are - it has had a detrimental effect on crop production, (see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/china-toxic-air-pollution-nuclear-winter-scientists), and the one thing the government can't risk is endangering the food supply. That would bring back too many bad memories, and put the whole political establishment at risk.

Rockstar

11-06-14, 10:26 PM

Seeing a lot of debates on climate change, science, deniers, etc. No doubt CO2 levels are rising. Some of my liberal friends are nuts about this subject and we have to do something now. They basically want massive regulation.
It seems to me massive regulation, like in the US, has done nothing but move
our manufacturing and the energy to run it to nations that have lil to no regulation, say China. So in that, it's made the situation worse, but I guess it feels good.

My argument is this, yes it's happening and nothing we can do about it. We have no energy/economic model in the works to sustain humanity. The upcoming world, Asia, India, China, Russia to a degree, are becoming the big polluters and aren't going to change in decades.

Your opinion?

Two words; Milankovitch cycle.

I agree not much we can do about it. Earth has and will continue to warm and cool with or with us. In fact ice sheets some 4km thick once covered 30% of the continents. The water locked up in that ice began melting around 18,000 years ago and ocean levels have since risen 150 meters. If the polar caps continue to melt ocean levels are projected to rise another 60 to 70 meters.

My solution? I'm buying cheap land up in the Appalachians. My great great great children will have a wonderful oceanview.

Buddahaid

11-06-14, 10:43 PM

This sums up how I feel about it pretty well.
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/17/d9/51/17d951e1a78983895a1c7497d49ea75c.jpg

August

11-06-14, 11:03 PM

What if human caused global warming is all that is staving off the next ice age? :hmmm:

ColdFront

11-06-14, 11:45 PM

What if human caused global warming is all that is staving off the next ice age? :hmmm:That would be cool. Uh huh huh huh huh. Heh heh, heh heh.

donna52522

11-07-14, 12:15 AM

On cold days in the winter I spray hairspay out the window.

Skybird

11-07-14, 04:03 AM

In Germany, ecology has become a surrogate religion that replaces the faith in the old deity that is not believed in anymore. But people need to believe in something, apparently, no matter in what, and ecology, genderism and social equality are three such faiths that drive people now. Before anything else it drives them nuts. From CO2 footprint statistics to veganism, from house insulation (you cannot imagine what madness that has broken lose over here) to hysterically proclaiming higher and higher criterion markers by which the temperature rise should be artifically limited this century: people are almost levitating with a halo over their heads when talking about these things and tell the world "that we must do better". Fiscal and global, political and economic realities get ignored more or less. Reason in assessing these, is Satan's work. The attitude, in which ecology gets debated and reflected, is almost Calvinistic. Is self-castigation.

I take it as granted that the climate by general trend is becoming warmer. The signs are such in quantity and quality that it is impossible to claim otherwise without making a fool of oneself. Namely biological facts are my main argument, not even geological or atmosphere-related ones.

However, survival of the fittest as thrown into the discussion by Darwin doe snot necessarily mean survival of the longest teeth and the strongest claw. It means survival of those who adapt. And adapting to a changing climate, and hoping to artificially change it, are two totally different things.

I am a strong defender of the scientific methodology, as is known by now. I believe it is the best intellectual tool mankind has, it is second to none. That has led me to once having followed climate activists' arguments to good degree. However, in best scientific tradition I also took note of findings and implications that became known later, that contradict the earlier claims and theories, pout them in question to more or less degrees. The IPCC and other voices, in best religious tradition, just ignore these and stick to their dogmas and demonize everybody violating it, trying to silence opposing voices. And some voices are hilarious indeed, no doubt. But there are also some, and increaisng in numbers they are, that have mentioned reasonable doubts and solid findings indicating that the activists' claims probably cannot be maintained the way they are being announced today.

Lets not forget one thing: in global politics - you can see this in every climate sum mit - climate policies are a weapon to try to change financial flowing patterns and to channel funds from the North to the south. It is a big, big money- winning machinery for the emerging economies, blackmailing of climate idealists takes place, appeals to their bad conscience should make them will to pay endlessly, on global scale we are talking about hundreds of billions - per year. And I do not even mention the massive lobbyism of industry groups that can make profit from selling insulations for houses, new ovens, and so on. Not to mention the economic stimulus promise that makes political institutions to jump onto the fright train as well.

Populations accept this to happen. Because and I said: it all is a new religion, and doing something good for the climate has become the individual's new fetish, the new golden calf to dance around.

It's hysteria all around.

In the end, all that freak show does not matter. The comate still will chnage the way it will. And the question of our survival, and the quality of it, still dpeends on in what way we are adapting, or not. Limiting temperature rises is something I believe is beyond our reach now. We are talking about processes of great longevity, strong self-dynamics and limited predictability, due to our still limited understanding of these processes' complexity. I do not waste any thinking over it, and I ignore all numbers on marketing stickers that try to sell their product by revealing some conscience-soothing ecology stuff. It would make me feel like a fool if I would waste my mind on that. We have a huge waste of resources, there is planned obsolence in product design, there is a mind-numbing cult about always buying the newest, the latest, the coolest even if your old stuff still works - no doubt on that. But we will not tackle it by this collective obligatory exercise in self deception that we call "ecological conscience", but only by understanding the basic principles of how markets function, what drives mko9nopolists, and how smaller markets can tackle the craving for ever-more monopoilism by every growing economic monster corporations that prevent right the capitalistic fundament and the free market.

The key to ecologically making a difference, is understanding economics. And that is where things lack tremendously in public discussion, both regarding diagnosing what is going wrong and why, and desi8gning the therapy.

Finally, my closing argument, like often before, is this: it probably will not make a difference anyway because WE ARE FAR TOO MANY. By a factor of 5-6, I would estimate.

Jimbuna

11-07-14, 06:10 AM

I know this isn't the best source but the contents come from far more reliable sources.

Maps of continents before and after sea levels rose by 260 feet:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2609338/Would-YOU-underwater-polar-caps-melted-Map-reveals-planet-look-like-sea-levels-rose-260ft.html

danasan

11-07-14, 07:08 AM

My beloved Flensburg would be gone. Hopefully not within the next couple of years - Let's say the next 30 years.

These will be the first to go down here in this area. I used to live on one of those for one year.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligen)

Oberon

11-07-14, 07:08 AM

I think it's the lag time which is deceiving many.
The current effects we are witnessing have been caused by our actions of...well any time within the last forty or fifty years really.
There's about 200 years of rampant pollution which has only really started to be addressed in the last twenty years, and yet people are acting all surprised that the climate is still changing.
Another confusion is the term 'global warming', people seem to think that because of the name it's purely going to result in places getting hotter, but that is not necessarily the case, it will result in the average temperature globally getting hotter, but there may still be harsh winters and mini ice ages.

However people saying that climate change doesn't exist...they are very much wishful thinking. It's happening, and it's not going to go away, even with our actions at the moment. What our actions at the moment are going to do though is possibly help alleviate matters in another fifty or sixty years, if (and this is a big if) we haven't already pushed things too far, as the current figures seem to possibly indicate.
It's not unlikely that the current events are part-natural, the planet does go through warm and cold phases after all, but it's also quite likely and probable that we have exacerbated the process with our industrial byproducts.

In short, I fully expect my town to be underwater within the next century. It has been fighting erosion anyway, and if sea levels do rise as predicted then we're screwed, no two ways about it.
But hey, if America thinks that business is more important that the well-being of both its coastal regions and other nations then by all means open up all the CO2 vats and flood away. We'll see how well that goes.

http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-subway-flooding-537x373.jpeg

Failing that, we could...I dunno, all work together to reduce pollution globally, using pressure on businesses no matter what nation they flee to, and perhaps, I dunno, help other nations reduce their footprint?
All this talk about China, but the funny thing is, they are the worlds biggest producer of green energy, unfortunately for a nation the size of China though, it's not enough and so it's suplemented by plenty of coal and oil power stations, but they're working to replace those with nuclear power stations...which is little comfort if they melt down, buuuut as we've discussed before, the fatalities and pollution from coal and oil production versus that of nuclear production is somewhat jinked in favour of nuclear when all is said and done.
We're in the transition phase right now, the world, moving from fossil and nuclear towards green energy. Unfortunately our lack of cohesion and co-ordination is hurting us (just as its hurting us in our space exploration efforts) but that's what you get from a planet with 196 different countries all pulling in different directions.

Because, you know...if we did have our heads out of our arses, we could have just pooled together our resources and done something like this:

http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequired1000.jpg

Boom, problem solved. Heck, you could build two in each nation just for back-ups...or if you really wanted to avoid putting it in a human populated area, just do this:

http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Fullneed2.jpg

There's 9,400,000km2 of desert to use in the Sahara, 2.5m people live there, approximately one person per square mile. It's not exactly going to have a massive impact on the area with the lowest population density in the world...and from that, we can decomission all nuclear power stations, all coal and gas power can be shut down. Oil can be rerouted to plastics and aviation fuel, until we can figure out a way to fix that, oil can also be rerouted for cars until we work out how to make quicker charging batteries for electric cars (which would probably be done by the time this solar farm would be finished).

There are plenty of options for humanity, it's just we're so retarded and fragmented by our own inbuilt bias that we refuse to take them, and as such, we continue to collectively shoot ourselves in the foot.

Good job, humanity, good job. :yeah:

Catfish

11-07-14, 07:48 AM

Hello,
opinions vary, but as a geologist i can state that the CO level has been rising steadily, with the begin of the industrial revolution. Whether it would have also happened without it ? -> need more data.

But: The amount of CO2 has never been as high as it is now, in the history of our world, since the earth itself was created from planetesimals some 4+ billion years ago. And we can prove that by continental deep drilling cores. Data are also in the polar ice (being probed by drilling cores) and in other drill cores, as well as in living plants.

Usually free CO is being used by plants, it is also bound by free Calcium like in CaCO3, and in Methan hydrates. While the living plants can flourish with a CO overdose, the amount of free elements to bind CO is limited. You could name this a buffer, which will be saturated one day.

The problem is no one knows exactly when this day will be, but when it happens we will quickly run out of solutions. This is, because if the free CO cannot be bound anymore, it will enrich the atmosphere, and this definitely leads to global warming.

There also billions of tons of CO trapped worldwide in methan hydrates, e.g. in the gulf of Mexico, but also (in unbelievable masses) in the frozen ground of Siberia. They are only stored there, because the low temperature allows it. When tempereture rises, those buffers will set free the trapped CO gases, which then will heavily fuel global warming.

After a certain point, this is a process that will run its course automatically after the point of no return. Of course, geologically speaking there will be a stop, but it will take around 20 millions years at least, to even come to a halt.

I think we would do well, to prevent reaching this first point.

Betonov

11-07-14, 07:54 AM

I used to be a skeptic, but this country currently goes trough it's third flooding this year, right after a third strong wind disaster this year. Usually we have one strong wind per year and country wide flooding every 10 years.

Something's not right.

Not to mention a green Christmas and an Easter blizzard every year now.

my opinion on solutions:
hang politicians and those that lobby them, then we'll redraw plans

Dread Knot

11-07-14, 08:24 AM

The other elephant tip-toeing into the room

The UK's chief scientist says the oceans face a serious and growing risk from man-made carbon emissions.

The oceans absorb about a third of the CO2 that’s being produced by industrial society, and this is changing the chemistry of seawater.

Sir Mark Walport warns that the acidity of the oceans has increased by about 25% since the industrial revolution, mainly thanks to manmade emissions.

CO2 reacts with the sea water to form carbonic acid.

He told BBC News: “If we carry on emitting CO2 at the same rate, ocean acidification will create substantial risks to complex marine food webs and ecosystems.”
He said the current rate of acidification is believed to be unprecedented within the last 65 million years – and may threaten fisheries in future. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is slowly dying off already.

more

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29746880

Dowly

11-07-14, 09:02 AM

I think this sums it up nicely :yep:
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Powell-Science-Pie-Chart.png

Oberon

11-07-14, 09:25 AM

http://www.chooseglmgroup.com/blog/Lists/Photos/Hammer%20and%20Nail.gif

Rockstar

11-07-14, 09:32 AM

The globe has in the past and will in the future go through it's warming and cooling phases and I believe life in general can adapt to that. Frankly, I think debating the causes of global warming is a complete and utter waste of time. Because I don't think global warming will be our demise rather the rampant unabated pollution that is killing off our food chain, pets, plants, families, trees and aquatic life.

Webster

11-07-14, 09:37 AM

climate change is a Ponzi scheme for liberals to get rich and they do that very well to the tune of millions and even billions of dollars.

climate change is a completely natural and normal condition the earth has been going through for millions of years and man has only been around for a few thousand and in that time man has had 0.00000000% impact on altering the earths natural patterns of warming and cooling cycles but because we haven't been closely tracking this data the global warming cabal claims "never before seen changes" but it truth they were more dramatic changes in the past all the time, we just weren't around to record the data. based on every prediction the global warming crowd has harped about we should have drowned under 20 ft of water 50 years ago but last time I checked my feet weren't wet lol. everything they have ever claimed about global warming has been shown to be a lie and never came to pass but the old adage is true, if you rep[eat something long enough and loud enough then people will believe it even though the polar ice caps are larger and thicker then they have ever been in a hundred years so based on their own flawed models sea levels should be alarmingly low right now.

if man went back to the stone age tomorrow the earth would not change at all because mans activities have no effect on the climate and to think that we do is rather comical and sad but then people keep voting for politicians they don't like so along with the 911 truthers we will always have the global warming cult followers who want to fell they can do something about climate change.

bottom line is ALL scientists agree there is climate change but only a very select few who have something to gain by it claim that mans activities have some effect on it. the other majority of true scientist say nothing we do will or has ever had any impact on it.

Dread Knot

11-07-14, 09:53 AM

Well, the mayor has spoken his piece.

https://secure.static.tumblr.com/b5ed9d16bd696b2d0c805d404b2a0f67/j5rmgka/InIms8279/tumblr_static_vaughn2.jpg

STEED

11-07-14, 10:19 AM

One of many gravy trains making a few people very very rich.

Oberon

11-07-14, 10:32 AM

Well, the mayor has spoken his piece.

https://secure.static.tumblr.com/b5ed9d16bd696b2d0c805d404b2a0f67/j5rmgka/InIms8279/tumblr_static_vaughn2.jpg

:haha::haha::haha:

There's always one in every disaster movie.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/24/244b992a4753d38ed947da0b5ec98738219747fa9c33f24e64 bc34f6dd550ccd.jpg

ColdFront

11-07-14, 10:56 AM

I think this sums it up nicely :yep:
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Powell-Science-Pie-Chart.pngYou are aware that peer review isn't designed to detect fraud, right?

Dread Knot

11-07-14, 10:57 AM

:haha::haha::haha:

There's always one in every disaster movie.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/24/244b992a4753d38ed947da0b5ec98738219747fa9c33f24e64 bc34f6dd550ccd.jpg

The more the world warms, the more Kevin Bacon they will throw on to sizzle. :sunny:

http://www.zgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Kevin-Bacon-All-is-well-remain-calm-300x273.jpg

Dowly

11-07-14, 11:21 AM

the other majority of true scientist say nothing we do will or has ever had any impact on it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Climate_science_opinion2.png

:hmmm:

Oberon

11-07-14, 11:31 AM

They're not true scientists, Dowly! :nope:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/files/2012/11/30810958.jpg

Dowly

11-07-14, 11:32 AM

They're not true scientists, Dowly! :nope:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/files/2012/11/30810958.jpg
Oh damn! Forgot it had to be true scientists. My bad! :O:

donna52522

11-07-14, 11:52 AM

When the terrorists get their hands on and set off several Thermal Nuclear devices, industrial emissions will play a very small part in the deterioration of the Earths climate. It's not a question of 'if' but of 'when and where'.

And just think about what we have already done testing them in the past..This is just the USA....

The standard "official" list of tests for American devices is arguably the United States Department of Energy DoE-209 document.[5] The United States conducted around 1,054 nuclear tests (by official count) between 1945 and 1992, including 216 atmospheric, underwater, and space tests.

Kptlt. Neuerburg

11-07-14, 11:57 AM

http://i1266.photobucket.com/albums/jj529/zacharybaty/oixa3_zps810088d1.jpg
Frankly I do believe that climate change is real and it is happening and that something should be done about. The problem is what to do about it, what can be changed and how to go about changing it. Granted the planet does go though it's own natural climate changes some drastic like ice ages and some minor from such things as volcanic eruptions, like the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (although that wasn't minor if we're honest). The biggest problem is that people either don't know, don't want to know or just plain don't care, some won't care until or even after their house is gone, swallowed by rising seas, buried in sand and dust or snow.

Dread Knot

11-07-14, 12:08 PM

And just think about what we have already done testing them in the past..This is just the USA....

The standard "official" list of tests for American devices is arguably the United States Department of Energy DoE-209 document.[5] The United States conducted around 1,054 nuclear tests (by official count) between 1945 and 1992, including 216 atmospheric, underwater, and space tests.

There is a fascinating global animation of all the atomic tests (and bombs dropped) from 1945-1998 on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2,053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project's "Trinity" test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan's nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea's two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade. Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. It starts out slow, but if you fast forward the video to the 1960's (about 4 mins in) it gets really crazy. Just bear in mind most of these tests were being conducted underground by 1963. Small comfort I know.

ColdFront

11-07-14, 12:27 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Climate_science_opinion2.png

:hmmm:Those figures were debunked long ago as fraudulent.

Before someone asks me why all those peer-reviewed papers haven't been corrected if they're fraudulent, peer reviewed journals are notoriously prone to reluctance or outright refusal to publish corrections. I have a friend who is a theoretical physicist who spotted a paper in a well-known, often-cited peer reviewed journal. The paper contained numerous logical fallacies, mistakes, and outright invention of data where none existed. He reported the mistakes to the authors. No response. He sent a correction paper to the peer reviewed journal. The editor flat out refused to publish it. And he's not the only one to have had this experience: http://julianstirling.co.uk/how-can-we-trust-scientific-publishers-with-our-work-if-they-wont-play-fair/

I am angry. Very, very angry. Personally I have never liked how scientific journals charge us to read the research that we produce, and that we review for them free of charge. But that is another debate for another day. What I really hate is how they abuse this power to stifle debate in the name of their business interests. This is now going to dramatically affect the quality of a paper into which I poured a huge amount of effort – a critique of the (lack of) evidence for striped nanoparticles. (More information can be found here (http://raphazlab.wordpress.com/stripy-guide-2014/) and here (https://pubpeer.com/publications/B02C5ED24DB280ABD0FCC59B872D04).)
The oft-repeated mantra is that science is inherently self-correcting, as all science is up for debate. In theory this is true. If you come up with a new shiny experiment and the data point to a new modified theory, everyone is happy: new science has corrected old science. If, however, you stumble across a shoddily written paper in a high profile journal– something with systematic flaws or a paper with poor analysis — and you try to correct the literature, now, suddenly, you are the villain. You write a paper pointing out the flaws, submit it, and journals reject it or delay its publication for years (http://raphazlab.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/stripy-timeline/). One journal even told us that “[We] do NOT publish papers that rely only on existing published data. In other words [We] do NOT publish papers that correct, correlate, reinterpret, or in any way use existing published literature data.” Wow! So, apparently, the old guard of closed-access scientific publishers are not interested in the idea that they might have published articles with errors in. Correcting the literature is not important!

Oberon

11-07-14, 12:44 PM

https://utstatic.a.cdnify.io/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/climate-denial-cartoon_1-fbe1fe1.jpg

Skybird

11-07-14, 12:53 PM

While I defend the scientific method in idea and conception, I have no illusions about the amount of corruption everyday science at institutions and in the publishing circus is being distorted by, from big pharma to big eco. It all is about money and careers, prestige and profits. The pressure in the individual to just to fit in, is immense. If you show up with findings or conclusions that contradict the dominant dogma everybody arranged himself with, you face an uphill battle against overwhelming odds, since you fight against everybody benefitting from leaving the system as it is, and if that dogma, in case of ecology for example, also is politically and ideologically wanted, then you are yelling alone in the desert.

Also, numerically counting opinions in favour and against something, holds no scientific value as an argument, it is no implementation of Ocam's razor since numbers supporting an opinion is no scientific argument in itselkf, and no empircal scientific find - it just is a confounding variable at best.

By chance, just today I have read this German article. Its not baout ecology but how historic truths get throwen out of the window in the name of postmodern relativism. The subject may be different, but the functional principles apply as well in other academic fields.

http://www.cuncti.net/haltbar/829-postmoderner-relativismus-an-universitaeten

More on the issue of how politics and ideology, business and profit interest interact and cooperate to create a constant climate of fear about ecologic issues, I recommend this:

http://www.amazon.de/%C3%96ko-Nihilismus-2012-Selbstmord-Edgar-G%C3%A4rtner/dp/3940431311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415382463&sr=8-1&keywords=g%C3%A4rtner+edgar+%C3%B6ko+nihilismus

And that author, different to so many others, indeed is an expert on the above mentioned points, who has approached the issue from both sides of the fence: from having been an extreme leftist and Greenpeace activist, to now being a staunchy critic of the eco-nihilism, as he calls it.

And a very accessible frontal attack on the hopelessly inferior methodological approach of the IPCC board and the many deficits in its methods can be found here, although that is not even the book's main focus.

http://www.amazon.de/Die-kalte-Sonne-Klimakatastrophe-stattfindet/dp/3455502504/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415382660&sr=8-1&keywords=kalte+sonne

That climate is changing, nobody doubts. Its about the conclusipons and consequences that could/shopuld be drawn. And here, hopeless confusion and ideological lobbyism reign. You can already see in in this very threat again. It was said very early on already that climate change is not at doubt. Yet there are many postings giving an impression as if that would be what it all is about: that even the fact of climate changing is being doubted.

Cheap tricks, I call that.

Scientific methodology in itself is great. Unfortunately that does not make it invulnerable to getting corrupted, if somebody decides that that serves his interests. Swiss pocket knifes are great tools as well. They remain to be that even if most people would usxe them to cut other people's throats.

Oberon

11-07-14, 01:11 PM

Gravity is only a theory.

So is evolution...and sometimes when I read GT, I do ponder... :hmmm:

Oberon

11-07-14, 01:22 PM

The Oreilly line about tides is from him "discussing" evolution.

Indeed....

I I... missed the point didn't I?

http://i.imgur.com/yAFK9.gif

I'll go for a lie down I think...

Catfish

11-07-14, 01:48 PM

Oberon

11-07-14, 01:58 PM

Maybe it sounds elitist, but don't anyone think that people should at least know a tiny bit about something, before they speak of conspiracies and say it's all fraud and making money, when there is obvious. scientific. evidence.
:hmmm:

If a hammer hits your hand, do you say it does not hurt because you want to believe the nervous system is a "fraud" ?
God i love it when such people are voted into anything important, and have to decide about things they don't have a clue about.

Ah yes i forgot it is a precondition, for politicians.

"It’s funny, if you ask a Republican in Congress if they believe in climate change, they say, well, uh, I’m not a scientist. “I’m not a scientist” — that’s what they say. But when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, suddenly they’re a doctor."

Buddahaid

11-07-14, 02:17 PM

The seeds of wrath have been sown here now. All we need is gays and Muslims to round it out and sink it. Where's that deathmatch topic I started...... :O:

Oberon

11-07-14, 02:21 PM

The seeds of wrath have been sown here now. All we need is gays and Muslims to round it out and sink it. Where's that deathmatch topic I started...... :O:

Will those seeds grow into grapes? :hmmm:

donna52522

11-07-14, 02:52 PM

There is a fascinating global animation of all the atomic tests (and bombs dropped) from 1945-1998 on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk

It starts out slow, but if you fast forward the video to the 1960's (about 4 mins in) it gets really crazy. Just bear in mind most of these tests were being conducted underground by 1963. Small comfort I know.

My point is, mankind is going to kill itself out long before any major climate changes. The planet will live on and recuperate.

On a side note..

It's funny how many non-scientists on this forum make fun of people for not being scientists. But I guess everyone here knows more than everyone here.

Dread Knot

11-07-14, 02:56 PM

My point is, mankind is going to kill itself out long before any major climate changes. The planet will live on and recuperate.

I understand. Pass the ketchup and carry on I guess.

http://s.quickmeme.com/img/b4/b4cc4b53f8fdb8b41fe69552713c902a007fb5c3407776dcfc a8afbbaa72cb8e.jpg

nikimcbee

11-07-14, 03:11 PM

Oberon

11-07-14, 03:24 PM

My point is, mankind is going to kill itself out long before any major climate changes. The planet will live on and recuperate.

On a side note..

It's funny how many non-scientists on this forum make fun of people for not being scientists. But I guess everyone here knows more than everyone here.

We're going to kill ourselves in the next 50-100 years?

Time to party like it's 2014! :hmmm:

Armistead

11-07-14, 04:01 PM

My point is, mankind is going to kill itself out long before any major climate changes. The planet will live on and recuperate.

On a side note..

It's funny how many non-scientists on this forum make fun of people for not being scientists. But I guess everyone here knows more than everyone here.

I don't see mankind killing ourselves out, but we're sure gonna mess it up and bad crap is gonna happen enough to change the world before climate change. Best to have fun now, party in the Bilge.....

Catfish

11-07-14, 04:18 PM

My point is, mankind is going to kill itself out long before any major climate changes. The planet will live on and recuperate.

Maybe humanity kills "itself", if taking a lot of other "unhuman" life like animals with it. And if, then especially because people let other people reign and start wars, and torture, that have either not much education, or are egomaniacs, or can easily be bribed, are way too religious, or are plain crazy. Why do educated people help, and work for, egomanic lunatic gangsters ? Out of fear ? For money ?
Thinking of what happens to the planet and some life surviving or not, if it does not interest us now, it will not interest humanity much then, does it.

It's funny how many non-scientists on this forum make fun of people for not being scientists. But I guess everyone here knows more than everyone here. That is only human. I think it must be especially bad when you are working for some secret service, and believe you are in possession of the absolute truth. Like the other side.

donna52522

11-07-14, 04:51 PM

We're going to kill ourselves in the next 50-100 years?

Time to party like it's 2014! :hmmm:

Exactly.

Wolferz

11-07-14, 04:55 PM

Until they begin paring down the number of mouth breathers in a last ditch effort to reduce carbon dioxide levels.

Just my humble opinion follows.

Common sense dictates...

Stop cutting down the rain forests and plant more trees. That will go further than any carbon tax initiatives in curbing climate change.

The answer has been staring everyone in the face the whole time.

Too bad they can't see the forest for the trees.:hmmm:

Eichhörnchen

11-08-14, 04:48 AM

Do you expect a species which introduced peel-off postage stamps because they couldn't be arsed to lick the things any more (= how many 100's of tons of waxed backing-paper now going to landfill that just wasn't before) to be planning on doing anything about any of this soon?

Tango589

11-08-14, 05:58 AM

We're going to kill ourselves in the next 50-100 years?

Time to party like it's 2014! :hmmm:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm260/tango589/carlton-dance.gif

Oberon

11-08-14, 07:10 AM

Exactly.

Just...just one last thing.

http://img.allw.mn/content/www/2010/09/8-top-tv-detectives/columbo_8-top-tv-detectives.jpg

Humanity is...well, it's not particularly easy to kill it off. A disease wouldn't kill all humanity off because there would be random survivors or people immune to it, communities would isolate themselves, kill anyone approaching on sight, and so on.
A nuclear exchange wouldn't kill humanity off because there aren't enough nuclear weapons in the world to hit every human settlement, and the average nuclear weapon isn't powerful enough to destroy a city on its own. If a terrorist detonated a Hiroshima style nuke in London next to the Shard (since the HoP would be too well guarded) then the actual blast radius wouldn't even reach Westminster. It would kill about fifty thousand people and make a big mess of central London (and the fallout would cause more deaths over time) but there are 8 million people in London so in comparison...
Here, have a play with this:
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Remember to set it to ground burst, because unless the terrorists detonate the nuke on a light aircraft or something then the detonation would be at ground level.

So...asteroid impact?
That would be pretty devastating, depending on the size of the rock, it could have a similar impact as a large scale nuclear exchange, massive electromagnetic pulse, dirt and debris in the atmosphere, potential for global cooling...but unless it's the size of a small moon, people on the other side of the planet would still be alive. They would struggle because of the potential for crop failure, and the average human population would go from the billions, to millions and eventually thousands...but it wouldn't go completely.

The biggest threat really is the loss of our current level of technology and social achievements, we would regress back to a sort of feudal or pre-feudal level of society (which would delight certain people, I'm sure) and there would be a LOT of people who would be unable to cope with this, they will die off, but for every...say four or five people who can't cope, there will be one who gets by, maybe doesn't excell, but he or she gets by enough to survive...and then perhaps they will find someone of the opposite sex and have children...of course, most of those children will die, but if a couple survive and they go on to meet other survivors...and so on and so forth.

Sure, there are ways and means to eliminate humanity, and perhaps it's not as difficult as I make out...a decently evolved virus would do the job...but it would have to be a slow burner, unlike Ebola, to spread quickly enough...but eventually humanity would figure out what's happening, and the government types would go into the bunker and ride it out, and odd groups of survivors would take steps to isolate themselves from the disease. Madagascar would shut down everything (TM).

The Dinosaurs went extinct...yes...but in comparison to humanity they were....well, at the risk of sounding arrogant, they were stupid. They didn't build bunkers, they didn't take steps to quarantine each other, they had no defences against a rapid change of their situation.
We do, not all of us would survive, perhaps not even ten percent of the population...but some would, and then they would repopulate.

Not that we're invincible...but we're probably a bit tougher than the dinosaurs were.

Probably. :doh:

Eichhörnchen

11-08-14, 07:26 AM

Skybird

11-08-14, 08:30 AM

Regarding extinction level events, consideirng the asteroid scenario, it obviously depends on the size of the asteroid. Beyond a certain size it is a game over scenario for mankind, and higher life forms on earth. Its not just Super-tsunamis or dust in the atmnopshere, it is about volcanic activity and the the atmospheric chnage form that, as well as the change of chemical balances in the ocean. Newest assessment of the dinosaur extinction proclaim that it were atmospheric changes (poisoning) after increased volcanic activity that disrupted the food chain of life forms, not the blast, the dust, the cold.

Modern man tends to overestimate technology. Instead, technology still is a fragile thing, breaks easily. In a post-impact world, primitive people will be more adapted to the needs of life, than modern Westerners depending on technology and having lost survival instincts and fundamental survival skills.

One also must ask whether you want to survive for sure such an extinction level event. I would prefer not to survive it. Living in a bunker under the surface is fascinating maybe for the first days. But when months turn into years and the isolation led to the social and inter-human tensions that you cannot avoid in such a situation - then I still need to be convinced that living under such conditions is worth it. Without certain base qualities both material and immaterial, we do not live, but just exist. and all the time you recall what therew was in love and beauty, what now is dead and gone, will notr be back, and only miserable life in a life-hostile environment with no outlook for improvement to be seen by your eyes of that of your children, or children's children. Gulag for life. Great.

Oberon

11-08-14, 08:49 AM

I thought the threatened widespread failure of antibiotics was the most worrying thing, but on the BBC news yesterday they said big progress had been announced on a new drug in answer to this; development will take some more time however...

The loss of antibiotics would be a nasty thing, but again, wouldn't kill us all. It would dramatically increase the death rate, but the birth rate would likely increase to match it through government incentives and fertility drives.

donna52522

11-08-14, 12:01 PM

Just...just one last thing.

http://img.allw.mn/content/www/2010/09/8-top-tv-detectives/columbo_8-top-tv-detectives.jpg

Humanity is...well, it's not particularly easy to kill it off. A disease wouldn't kill all humanity off because there would be random survivors or people immune to it, communities would isolate themselves, kill anyone approaching on sight, and so on.
A nuclear exchange wouldn't kill humanity off because there aren't enough nuclear weapons in the world to hit every human settlement, and the average nuclear weapon isn't powerful enough to destroy a city on its own. If a terrorist detonated a Hiroshima style nuke in London next to the Shard (since the HoP would be too well guarded) then the actual blast radius wouldn't even reach Westminster. It would kill about fifty thousand people and make a big mess of central London (and the fallout would cause more deaths over time) but there are 8 million people in London so in comparison...
Here, have a play with this:
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Remember to set it to ground burst, because unless the terrorists detonate the nuke on a light aircraft or something then the detonation would be at ground level.

So...asteroid impact?
That would be pretty devastating, depending on the size of the rock, it could have a similar impact as a large scale nuclear exchange, massive electromagnetic pulse, dirt and debris in the atmosphere, potential for global cooling...but unless it's the size of a small moon, people on the other side of the planet would still be alive. They would struggle because of the potential for crop failure, and the average human population would go from the billions, to millions and eventually thousands...but it wouldn't go completely.

The biggest threat really is the loss of our current level of technology and social achievements, we would regress back to a sort of feudal or pre-feudal level of society (which would delight certain people, I'm sure) and there would be a LOT of people who would be unable to cope with this, they will die off, but for every...say four or five people who can't cope, there will be one who gets by, maybe doesn't excell, but he or she gets by enough to survive...and then perhaps they will find someone of the opposite sex and have children...of course, most of those children will die, but if a couple survive and they go on to meet other survivors...and so on and so forth.

Sure, there are ways and means to eliminate humanity, and perhaps it's not as difficult as I make out...a decently evolved virus would do the job...but it would have to be a slow burner, unlike Ebola, to spread quickly enough...but eventually humanity would figure out what's happening, and the government types would go into the bunker and ride it out, and odd groups of survivors would take steps to isolate themselves from the disease. Madagascar would shut down everything (TM).

The Dinosaurs went extinct...yes...but in comparison to humanity they were....well, at the risk of sounding arrogant, they were stupid. They didn't build bunkers, they didn't take steps to quarantine each other, they had no defences against a rapid change of their situation.
We do, not all of us would survive, perhaps not even ten percent of the population...but some would, and then they would repopulate.

Not that we're invincible...but we're probably a bit tougher than the dinosaurs were.

Probably. :doh:

You wonder why people leave this site or do not post, it's mostly because they are sick of or do not want to be ridiculed for posting there opinion. This is my last post on this entire site, I'll be here for the mods only and if I have questions I will send a private to someone I like.

Thank you Oberon for making Subsim an uncomfortable place.

Garion

11-08-14, 12:10 PM

The seeds of wrath have been sown here now. All we need is gays and Muslims to round it out and sink it. Where's that deathmatch topic I started...... :O:

I was taking to Mustapha Mahn a gay Muslim friend of mine about this, he is also schizophrenic so was in two minds about it...:arrgh!:

I'll get my coat.:D

Cheers

Gary

Betonov

11-08-14, 12:15 PM

I was taking to Mustapha Mahn a gay Muslim friend of mine about this, he is also schizophrenic so was in two minds about it...:arrgh!:

I'll get my coat.:D

Cheers

Gary

You're friends with Barack Obama ???

Buddahaid

11-08-14, 01:12 PM

You wonder why people leave this site or do not post, it's mostly because they are sick of or do not want to be ridiculed for posting there opinion. This is my last post on this entire site, I'll be here for the mods only and if I have questions I will send a private to someone I like.

Thank you Oberon for making Subsim an uncomfortable place.

I simply don't get it. What was so terrible you feel the need to leave? Do you know GT would be so boring no one would bother if everyone agreed with everyone else. It seemed global warming has had the effect of making everyone thin skinned. :hmmm:

Oberon

11-08-14, 01:29 PM

Oberon

11-08-14, 01:32 PM

I simply don't get it. What was so terrible you feel the need to leave? Do you know GT would be so boring no one would bother if everyone agreed with everyone else. It seemed global warming has had the effect of making everyone thin skinned. :hmmm:

I wasn't aware I was ridiculing, just posting what I thought was a counterpoint based upon what I believe, and I admitted myself that there is still the open possibility of us being destroyed by a pandemic.
So I didn't directly say she was wrong, nor did I say that I was right, just that I thought there was more to it.

Oh well, I guess that's that reasonphobia of mine again. :o

Dread Knot

11-08-14, 01:46 PM

Oh well, I guess that's that reasonphobia of mine again. :o

Might be more a case of her Peter Falkaphobia. Fear of that one more thing coming.....

http://www.jeannewolfshollywood.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/peter-falk-colombo.jpg

Armistead

11-08-14, 02:15 PM

You wonder why people leave this site or do not post, it's mostly because they are sick of or do not want to be ridiculed for posting there opinion. This is my last post on this entire site, I'll be here for the mods only and if I have questions I will send a private to someone I like.

Thank you Oberon for making Subsim an uncomfortable place.

You know what they say about the "Bilge" Donna....You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave....

u crank

11-08-14, 04:59 PM

I simply don't get it. What was so terrible you feel the need to leave? Do you know GT would be so boring no one would bother if everyone agreed with everyone else. It seemed global warming has had the effect of making everyone thin skinned. :hmmm:

I don't get it either. I've re-read Oberon's post three times trying to see what could possibly be the problem. I don't see it.

Time to lighten up?

Betonov

11-08-14, 05:05 PM

donna is being sarcastic ?? :hmmm:

Aktungbby

11-08-14, 05:09 PM

nikimcbee

11-08-14, 05:27 PM

Gargamel

11-08-14, 05:39 PM

I think this sums it up nicely :yep:
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Powell-Science-Pie-Chart.png

This is it in a nutshell.

Why is there even a discussion??

Oh that's right.... politics.

That's why the media (well, some of them) is going away from the "fair and balanced" model of reporting, where they give equal weight to both sides of an issue. Most issues don't have equal sides, and there's little reason to give any thought to anything but clear scientific majorities, in situations that exists. Like this one.

And don't give me the 'everybody thought the earth was flat' argument. Yes they THOUGHT it, but until somebody actually started doing scientific research on it, there was no proof of it.

u crank

11-08-14, 06:13 PM

donna is being sarcastic ?? :hmmm:

If that's the case, and I hope it is......well played.

Oberon

11-08-14, 07:07 PM

If that's the case, and I hope it is......well played.

I hope that is the case...it wouldn't be the first time someone has caught me out with that. :haha:

mapuc

11-08-14, 08:47 PM

You know what!?

This Climate Change, would have occurred whatever we, the human, are here or not. The only thing we are responsible for, is having advanced this change.

Markus

Armistead

11-08-14, 09:44 PM

I hope that is the case...it wouldn't be the first time someone has caught me out with that. :haha:

Men are always wrong, even if we don't know why. You should apologize!! Anyway, I gladly am behind Donna as she is a member in "The Bilge" where she is welcomed and cherished.

Buddahaid

11-08-14, 09:47 PM

Quote: You know what!?

This Climate Change, would have occurred whatever we, the human, are here or not. The only thing we are responsible for, is having advanced this change.

Markus

There is no denying that, but is it that significant? One major volcanic blowout has vast atmospheric influence for instance. Of course that is a chance occurrence in the short term, but over the long term is of a predictable nature.

Buddahaid

11-08-14, 09:51 PM

Men are always wrong, even if we don't know why. You should apologize!! Anyway, I gladly am behind Donna as she is a member in "The Bilge" where she is welcomed and cherished.

I still want to know what the issue was. Don't tell me it's a woman thing, I've been married thirty six years(same woman you...) so I've learned something. :woot:

Aktungbby

11-08-14, 11:27 PM

:sign_yeah::k_confused::Kaleun_Crying: I don't see it either....let me go check with my better half...just for perspective!:oops:...& enlightenment!:huh:http://www.thehellenictimes.com/images/b8bfe8d7f2f0.jpg

I still want to know what the issue was. Don't tell me it's a woman thing, I've been married thirty six years(same woman you...) so I've learned something. :woot:

:sign_yeah:34 years here...to a former divorce attorney !:k_confused: Thank god for community property, a separate bank account, and a mancave to hide in! :Kaleun_Wink: I have to remind her when she's winning the (every) brawl..."I'll do 'till mister wonderful shows up"....:Kaleun_Goofy:I won't say where SWMBO is tattooed.:03::rotfl2:

Armistead

11-08-14, 11:45 PM

I still want to know what the issue was. Don't tell me it's a woman thing, I've been married thirty six years(same woman you...) so I've learned something. :woot:

Probably not our concern even though a bunch of jesting, so best we move on before we're prompted to do so.

Donna knows she's always welcome in the bilge...

Stealhead

11-09-14, 01:38 AM

I think for certain that climate change does exist there is plenty of evidence that the earth has cycled through warmer stages and colder stages once it developed a stable atmosphere. I would say for certain that our activities have some effect. I doubt very much that we can effect things enough to stop the natural cycle.

There is even evidence that Mars at one time may have had a life supporting ecosystem. Perhaps no planet (well actually in fact no planet can support life forever) can support life forever. My guess is other beings in the universe either died out before they could solve the long term problem or they did come up with a solution which most likely was to colonize other similar planets. Something we humans are long way from yet as it seems that such planets are not so close to each other though not hard to find if you have the means to do so.

The way I see it enough humans will likely survive long enough to find a home(s) elsewhere or perhaps the artificial intelligence that we created which in turn became self aware and got rid of us(or made us their slaves will).

Buddahaid

11-09-14, 03:46 AM

I believe Mars lacks enough mass to hold a human compatible, or Earth-like atmosphere.

ColdFront

02-20-15, 07:46 PM

A necromancy here, but this essay is really good: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/29/peer-review-last-refuge-of-the-uninformed-troll/Current peer review science, by attempting to explain away model failure, in fact confirms that the science is wrong
Guest essay by David M. Hoffer
It has become a favorite tactic amongst trolls to declare their belief in peer reviewed science. With this simple strategy, they at once excuse themselves from the need to know anything about the science, and at the same time seek to discredit skeptic arguments on the grounds that, not having been published in peer reviewed journals, they may be dismissed out of hand.

A retreat to authoritarian arguments in the face of dead simple observations is not new. It is a repeat of history. Not having learned from it, we appear to be condemned to repeat it. But both history and the current peer reviewed science are, if one steps back and looks at the big picture, on the skeptic side.

In the fifth century BC, Empedocles theorized that one could see by virtue of rays emanating from one’s eyes. Falsifying this notion required no more than pointing out that one cannot see in a dark room. Despite this simple observation, his theory enjoyed substantial support for the next 1600 years.

Galileo died while under house arrest for supporting the notion that the earth orbited the sun. His was convicted in part on the basis of peer reviewed literature of the time insisting that the movement of the planets as observed from the earth could be explained by the planets simply reversing direction in orbit from time to time. For nearly two thousand years, into the early 1800’s, when people fell ill, the peer reviewed literature confirmed that the best course of action was to let some blood out of them. The simple observation that death rates increased when this treatment was applied was dismissed out of hand on the premise that, if it was true, it would appear in medical journals. Sound familiar?

History is replete with examples of what seems today to be utterly absurd ideas. Ideas which stubbornly refuse to die, sustained in part by the equally absurd notion that evidence to the contrary was not to be accepted simply because it hadn’t appeared in the “right” publications. But is the notion of climate science today as easily falsified by simple observation? I submit that it is. We have the climate models themselves to upon which to rely.

For what are the climate models other than the embodiment of the peer reviewed science? Is there a single model cited by the IPCC that claims to not be based on peer reviewed science? Of course there isn’t. Yet simple observation shows that the models, and hence the peer reviewed literature upon which they are based, are wrong. We have none other than the IPCC themselves to thank for showing us that.

The leaked Second Order Draft of IPCC AR5 laid bare the failure of the models to predict the earth’s temperature going forward in time. In fact, if one threw out all but the best 5% of the model results…they would still be wrong, and obviously so. They all run hotter than reality. Exposed for the world to see that the models (and hence the science upon which they are based) had so utterly failed, the IPCC responded by including older models they had previously declared obsolete as now being part of the current literature:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/04/no-matter-how-the-cmip5-ipcc-ar5-models-are-presented-they-still-look-bad/

Even with those older and supposedly obsolete models included, the models look to be complete failures. In other words, confronted with the data showing that thousands are dying from bloodletting, the IPCC is resurrecting old studies showing that three or four patients recovered once in an old study from a long time ago. They are point blank asking you to believe that planets reverse direction in orbit quite of their own volition. They’ve contrived a theory that you can’t see in the dark because the rays from your eyes must interact with light to work.

As ridiculous as that may seem, for the IPCC, it is (literally) even worse than that. For this we have the foremost climate scientists on the planet to thank.

Kevin Trenberth, arguably the most politically powerful climate scientist on earth, famously lamented in the ClimateGate Emails that we cannot account for “the missing heat”, a tacit admission that the models are wrong. Since then we’ve seen multiple papers suggesting that perhaps the heat is being sequestered in the deep oceans where, conveniently, we cannot measure it. If true, this also invalidates the models, since they predicted no such thing.

Dr Roy Spencer’s paper suggests that the heat is escaping to space. If he’s right, the models are wrong. More recently we have the paper by Cowtan and Way, which tries to make the case that the heat is hiding in places on earth where we have no weather station or satellite data. Pretty selective that heat, going where nobody can measure it, but not where we can. If they are right, then not a single model predicted any such thing, and so, once again, the models would be wrong. Spencer’s paper stands apart from the others because it doesn’t twist itself into absurd contortions in a blatant attempt to preserve the CAGW storyline. But make no mistake about it, all these papers are being published, not because the models (and the science they are predicted upon) are right, but because they are wrong, and obviously so.

No longer is the debate in regard to if the models are wrong. The debate is now about why the models are wrong. The models having fallen, the peer reviewed science they purport to represent falls with them.
But you need not believe me in that regard.

Just the peer reviewed science by the foremost climate scientists on earth.

Tchocky

02-20-15, 07:55 PM

That site seems completely non-biased and definitely not a crock of agricultural byproducts.

I'm bookmarking it for future reference under "USEFUL AND REASONABLY ARGUED POINTS" or possibly under "IN NO WAY AFFECTED BY PREEXISTING AGENDA - NO SHRED OF SIN ATTACHES"

Cheerio.

Stealhead

02-21-15, 12:04 AM

I'm convinced that they're convinced that they can convince a baised person that they are unbiased towards a baised opinion.

Betonov

02-21-15, 02:10 AM

I believe there was no peer review before the enlightenment.
With the scientific method the real peer review was established.

And science predicted the model wrong because we're dealing here with a phenomenon never before recorded in our history and because nature is so above us that even predicting means a faint of arrogance on our part.
We're dealing here with a case when science says ''most likely'', hippies take it as 100% and the corporations take it as ''most likely is not confirmed''. Quote mining on both sides and science takes the blame.

Wolferz

02-21-15, 06:38 AM

Positive proof that climate science is full of bloviated blowhards and copious amounts of bovine scatterings.
Some scientists will say and do anything to keep the grant money flowing.
It's all about the Benjamins.

It's a blizzard bby.:timeout:

I postulate that the planet goes through cycles of hot and cold depending on the solar cycles of Sol and that man's short span in time on this earth is just a blip on the radar compared to that.

Are they even looking at the amount of greenhouse gases being released by volcanos?

We need to find a way to plug those things!

Betonov

02-21-15, 07:00 AM

It's a blizzard bby.:timeout:

It's spring where I am. And I'm in the Alps.

Oberon

02-21-15, 07:10 AM

You're correct Wolferz, it does. I don't think anyone is arguing that it doesn't. It's scientific fact that we go through hot and cold cycles, you can look at soil samples and ice cores to see that.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_15/fig1.gif

The thing that's got scientists concerned is how much our activity has impacted this natural process.

Is our activity speeding up a process that would otherwise take thousands of years? Or is it slowing it down? Are we increasing the temperature swing or decreasing it? These are question that our ancestors will probably answer because we're still in the transition stage. However, the actual basic fact of climatic change cannot be ignored, our climate IS changing, and we have to deal with that fact by adapting ourselves to it.
America is currently undergoing a very impressive arctic winter in places, and the UK is currently undergoing one of its mildest winters on record. The fact that so many records are being broken indicates that things are changing. There are things that we're going to have to deal with in the coming years, in particular the melting glaciers and arctic sheets putting more water into the oceans, effecting the sea level. New York will have to get used to more Sandys, and if anyone has built a nuclear power station on the coast, this is something that they're going to have to think about.

I live next to the sea, not far from a river. In 1953 my house hadn't been built, but where it stands was under a meter of water. I fully expect that in my lifetime it will happen again, hopefully not when I'm still living in it. We've already had a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_2007) couple of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Berit) close calls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Xaver) over the past decade. :dead:
The Thames Barrier in London was built in 1982 to protect London from flooding, in 2014 it was raised 28 times, the highest amount since it was built. (http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/uk-storms/57290/infographic-how-often-has-thames-barrier-been-used)When the barrier was built it was estimated that it would only need to be used 2-3 times a year...it's now being used 6-7 times a year. There's concerns that the Barrier will need upgrading in the near future in order to cope with the rising number of peak tides or London will face a situation perhaps akin to Robert Carlyles watery film - Flood (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zWKCpgIo1s) (which co-incidentally was the film we watched about two or three days before the 2007 North Sea Surge...only to find reality starting to mimic fiction shortly afterwards, a most unsettling event).
When you add to that the fact that there is now more CO2 in our atmosphere than there has been in at the very least fifty-five years (and possibly millions of years) then you can see that we have definitely had an impact on our natural climatic cycle. Precisely what that impact is, is something that our children will find out, likely to their detriment.
Unfortunately we're in a lag-curve, and perhaps this is what disillusions so many people in that we've taken all these actions to cut CO2 and it's still going up, primarily because the atmosphere is still reacting to events from sixty odd years ago, if we have made a change in our attempts to cut CO2 emissions, we probably won't see the benefit in our lifetime.

In short, basically, what's the harm in trying to cut down pollution? Is it that terrible that we might make the planet a better place for our descendants? :haha: We have definitely had an impact on our planets climate, no-one can say exactly how much or precisely what this will do, but anyone who has lived over twenty years can tell that the weather is changing. Whether (pardon the pun) this is natural or man-exacerbated is something that can be debated until the cows (the little methane producing sods) come home, but surely there can be no harm in trying to reduce our global footprint as well as preparing ourselves for the potential changes to come, especially those who live by the sea or a river (which is something like 90% of the worlds major cities) because they have an uncertain future ahead.

Betonov

02-21-15, 07:26 AM

Well, climate change is real.
And here's a quick review of my opinion:

Is it that destructive Al Gore tried to sell us ?? No.
Is it 100% human influenced ?? No.
Are humans at fault to some degree ?? Yes.
Are corporations bribing scientists to deny climate change so they have an excuse not to upgrade pollution standards ?? Yes
Are hippies overhyping and overpanicking the climate change ?? Yes
Am I experiencing change in weather paterns that even my grandparents notice ?? Sadly yes.

And like Obi said above, do we really need a climate change to change our ways ?? Every time technology moves forward, the pollution standards should rise.

Schroeder

02-21-15, 09:32 AM

Rockstar

02-21-15, 10:28 AM

I learned in elementary school way back when, that 18,000 or so years ago the earth was round and once covered with ice. Today, I look out the window and I can say thats nolonger the case. I'm no scientist nor do I play one on TV but I would call that a warming trend. A warming trend which has been going on for 18,000 years now. Long before the industrial revolution and the first records of weather and temperatures were kept.

What nobody has yet an answer why. So far all anyone has been able to do today is to break out charts and graphes and dazzle me with high math to tell me something I learned when I was 9 years old. Now it's politicized, which of course simply translates into high emotions, excuses for more taxes and helicopter surveillance of backyard BBQs.

Dowly

02-21-15, 10:40 AM

Some scientists will say and do anything to keep the grant money flowing.
It's all about the Benjamins.

Now it's politicized, which of course simply translates into an excuse for more taxes and helicopter surveillance of backyard BBQs.

You two do realize that for that to be true, it would have to be a global conspiracy? :)
It's not just American scientists saying we might have accelerated the climate change,
but a vast majority of scientists from all over the world agree with that.

ColdFront

02-21-15, 11:02 AM

You two do realize that for that to be true, it would have to be a global conspiracy? :)
It's not just American scientists saying we might have accelerated the climate change,
but a vast majority of scientists from all over the world agree with that.Not that hard to believe if the incentive (grant money) remains the same across nations. And that assumption is pretty realistic.Am I experiencing change in weather paterns that even my grandparents notice ?? Sadly yes.As for where I live, we still experience the same weather pattern of unseasonable weather in winter that my great-grandpa noticed a century ago.

Rockstar

02-21-15, 11:07 AM

You two do realize that for that to be true, it would have to be a global conspiracy? :)
It's not just American scientists saying we might have accelerated the climate change,
but a vast majority of scientists from all over the world agree with that.

Whats a global conspiracey?

1. That 18,000 years ago the globe was covered in ice and now it's not?

2. Or is it that the only out come I've seen to arguements on global warming based on 'might haves and maybes' by a 'vast majority', is just government proposing surveilance and taxes to fight global warming. http://sputniknews.com/world/20070403/62999935.html

Reading the definition of conspiracy I'd say #2 is the conspiracy because they're making out like bandits at my expense. :03:

Schroeder

02-21-15, 11:36 AM

What nobody has yet an answer why. So far all anyone has been able to do today is to break out charts and graphes and dazzle me with high math to tell me something I learned when I was 9 years old.
Isn't that a contradiction? Just because you didn't understand the explanation that was given doesn't mean that none was given. It might not have been extremely accurate yet as we are just beginning to understand what is going on and still need to do a lot of research but explanations are there and we know that the climate has never changed as quickly as it does now. The problem isn't so much that it does change but how fast it does.
Besides I don't care much whether it's a hoax or not (which would be pretty much impossible on that scale IMHO). We've seen the effects of pollution on the environment (dead rivers, dying forests, species going extinct etc.) so (almost) everything we do to prevent pollution and destruction of the environment in general is a good thing in my book.
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/54/1012554/3964343264366262.jpg

Rockstar

02-21-15, 12:55 PM

Isn't that a contradiction? Just because you didn't understand the explanation that was given doesn't mean that none was given. It might not have been extremely accurate yet as we are just beginning to understand what is going on and still need to do a lot of research but explanations are there and we know that the climate has never changed as quickly as it does now. The problem isn't so much that it does change but how fast it does.
Besides I don't care much whether it's a hoax or not (which would be pretty much impossible on that scale IMHO). We've seen the effects of pollution on the environment (dead rivers, dying forests, species going extinct etc.) so (almost) everything we do to prevent pollution and destruction of the environment in general is a good thing in my book.

No, I don't think its a contradiction. I knew when I was 9 years old a warming trend exsisted. The problem I had then is just as people have now. That is no one person on this planet has the answer why. I think trying to argue that pollution causes something that has been happening for 18,000 years is at best futile.

Global warming AND cooling is as science has shown a very naturally occurring phenomenon, whats to be afraid of? Prepare for it like you would any other weather system or season. Gets cold? then dress warm, floods? move to higher ground. Get too hot? wear sunscreen. Shouldn't be a problem we've done it all our life. I think the causes of global warming is an endless argument and big distraction.

However I believe we have some common ground when it comes to pollution. With todays techology pollution can be traced back to it's origin every single time, its industry, business, farms and is at this very moment affecting people and the environment in bad ways. Unfortunetaly the greatest source of pollution is you and I, the consumers and our lust for convenience. But we, including me, the same people who stand for all thats noble like clean air, water, green grass and rainforests, health of little monkeys, blah blah etc. etc. Oh we'll say how much everyone else should care but will ourselves refuse to give up our trinkets, computers, remote controls, transportation, and a multitude of other things which fill up the shelves in our homes I don't see any solution to pollution.

Just find it hard to really give a rats arse about the arguement trying to link pollution to global warming. When we have already linked pollution to cancer, birth defects, disease, fish kills, contaminated ground water etc. etc. etc. on a global scale and still even after all the hard evidence of that nothing has really changed.

But if it helps, I concede, you win, pollution has caused global warming la-dee-da. Now what?

Oberon

02-21-15, 02:23 PM

No, I don't think its a contradiction. I knew when I was 9 years old a warming trend exsisted. The problem I had then is just as people have now. That is no one person on this planet has the answer why. I think trying to argue that pollution causes something that has been happening for 18,000 years is at best futile.

Who is saying that pollution is the sole cause? Pollution has exacerbated a natural trend.
In regards to why, the main reason is because we've only been able to collect atmospheric records since 1850, and since these trends take thousands of years to peak and fall, we just don't have enough atmospheric data. However, we can see the effect that the changes had in geography through fossil records, soil samples and tree rings.
If I had to take a stab in the dark, I'd say that there is no one real cause, it's a combination of factors, solar activity, geological activity, even botanical activity, which all combine together to create these peaks and troughs.

Global warming AND cooling is as science has shown a very naturally occurring phenomenon, whats to be afraid of? Prepare for it like you would any other weather system or season. Gets cold? then dress warm, floods? move to higher ground. Get too hot? wear sunscreen. Shouldn't be a problem we've done it all our life. I think the causes of global warming is an endless argument and big distraction.

The thing is, people aren't preparing for it. We have a bigger footprint on the planet than at any time in our history, which means that when something happens it effects more people. In regards to flooding, there are millions, if not billions of people living on flood plains, some might not even realise that they are because they haven't flooded in hundreds of years. A hundred year storm rolls through and suddenly they're underwater.
Building companies are only too happy to build on flood plains because it's cheap, but home owners will find that their insurance company suddenly won't insure their home.
Cold means more energy usage, more people going to hospital through illnesses and accidents. Take a look at places in the south of America when snow first rolls through, it's carnage, people skid off the road because they don't know how to drive in snow.
Getting too hot means more energy usage in air conditioners, it means drought, it means crop problems, forest fires.
It really isn't as simple as you seem to think it is. Extreme conditions bring extreme problems. Just ask people in Australia.
Sure, we have done it through human history, but our society is a lot more fragile and a lot more easy to damage than ever before.
Take two hurricanes, the 1856 Last Island hurricane and Hurricane Katrina, both hit New Orleans, the 1856 storm was actually a bit more intense than Katrina, and yet while Katrina caused 1,577 deaths in New Orleans, the 1856 storm caused over 200, certainly no more than 300. Now, I don't know how much financial damage the 1856 storm caused, but I'd wager that it wasn't $108 billion. Why? because New Orleans wasn't even half the size that it is now.
Another example? In 1869 a Category 3 hurricane swept ashore in Rhode Island, caused a handful and some damage. Hurricane Sandy came ashore as a category 2 (weaker than the 1869 storm), killed about 233 people and cost $68 billion worth of damage.

Out of the top ten most costly Atlantic hurricanes, only 1 of them did not occur within the last fifteen years.

We are getting weaker to strong climatic events, not helped by the fact that most of our major cities are near the sea. :dead:

However I believe we have some common ground when it comes to pollution. With todays techology pollution can be traced back to it's origin every single time, its industry, business, farms and is at this very moment affecting people and the environment in bad ways. Unfortunetaly the greatest source of pollution is you and I, the consumers and our lust for convenience. But we including me, the same people who stand for all thats noble clean air, water, green grass and rainforests, health of little monkeys, blah blah etc. etc. Refuse to give up our trinkets, computers, remote controls, transportation, and a multitude of other things which fill up the shelves in our homes. So I don't see any solution to pollution either but then I'm not one to sweat the small stuff, lifes too short.

Alas, this is correct. However, we are improving, slowly but surely we are definitely improving. Like I said before, chances are the current climatic conditions are caused by pollution from back when you were born, and since we didn't really started taking steps to reduce pollution until the great Ozone Hole scandal of the 1980s, there's a few decades to go yet until we see any change, if indeed there is going to be any. It could yet be that we've passed the point of no return and things are going to continue this way no matter what we do. However, when you look at some of the pollution taking place in places like China, you can see what we're avoiding, what we're making sure doesn't happen for our children and their children.
The River Thames might not be the most hygienic river in the world, but it's a grand improvement now from even sixty years ago, and definitely a massive improvement from 1858 when it stank so much from human excrement and waste that parliament was forced to dip the curtains of the windows facing the Thames in Lime Chloride to try and disguise the smell.
Fortunately the unsung hero of London, Joseph Bazalgette designed a series of underground sewers and helped save London from a smelly, not to mention disease ridden fate.

If we were starting from scratch with the knowledge we have now, then we could build cities that would last for a few centuries at least, inland, with ample infrastructure to weather the changing elements, but we've got hundreds of years of old buildings which are not able to cope with todays climate, and short of building an entire new city for somewhere like New York (New New York?) and then evacuating everyone from it then as more Hurricanes sweep in and sea levels rise there are going to be costly disasters. Disasters that the US government will have to prepare for, that FEMA will have to deal with, and we will have to adjust, to get used to seeing more Sandys, more blizzards and forest fires and such forth.
Climate change won't kill us, but it is going to make our lives a bit more difficult.