Excellent German comment:

http://www.heise.de/tr/artikel/Komme...en-866331.html

It's amazing that we live in a time where people live longer than dreamed of before and we talk about health and nutrition disasters. We are living longer because of our superior nutrition!

It's amazing that we talk about man-caused climate change in the face of past measured climate changes much quicker and much more severe where man could not have contributed!

It is amazing that we speak of societal degeneration into conflicts over resources, ungovernable masses, violent chaos, when we live in the most peaceful time in history. When's the last time some tinhorn French dictator attacked every country in sight, killing millions on the European continent and becoming some sort of perverted hero for doing so?

As David Gelernter said eloquently and with tremendous factual support in his book 1939: the Lost World of the Fair. in 1939, in spite of peering down the gullet of a certain war that would cost a hundred million lives, in spite of the fact that a Chicago worker with a good job would likely not make enough money to eat every day, in spite of the fact that life expectancy was 20 years less than today, these people living in hell were forward-thinking, optimistic, creative and resourceful. Today we have accomplished almost the totality of their vision for the future, and we are thoroughly disheartened, whipped puppy dogs, afraid to bring children into the paradise in which we live. Makes me ashamed to be human. Certainly they would rightly be ashamed of us. Quitters suck!

Neon, do you carry a sign that shows, "The End Is Near" painted on it? I liken your comment on not having kids to Skybirds comment to me about being overly protective of my kids in a long lost thread months ago. I was point blank told I was way over protective of my girls. You're not wanting kids for the fear of something happening surpasses the borderline lunatic as I was portrayed by not only Skybird but serval others in the thread. Perhaps you should stop and think that it might be one of your children that becomes the person who develops the answers to all the questions concerning global warming! Think about past history and what if prominent figures of our time had parents that did not want a child because of what MIGHT happen. Sure, perhaps only one in a billion really make a difference. Could be your child as the one! You never know. I do not think I would deprive myself of child and all the wonderful things that child rearing entails over a possibility that something might happen.

Exactly! I am somewhat baffled that bright people are so mired in pessimism about the future when the present is so fantastic, and full of potential.

And Sky, regardless of your library and sources of media, etc., it's still as I said, you are gathering some of your ideas and opinions from external sources, who may or may not be accurate. Yes, maybe the polar ice cap is melting, but who says that signals Step 1 in the end of the world? Every autumn the leaves die and fall off the trees, doesn't mean that's it, it's all over for nature. My eyes are open, that could be why I am more skeptical about man-made global warming. I have not signed on to the Al Gore express. I admit that I am not in a knowledgeable position to express an opinion one way or the other. And reading articles for and against won't really make me more knowledgable, just more opinionated.

I'm poutting things togethe rin that way that to me it makes the most sense, takes single details best into account, and matches in the easiest way. This is common procedure in science. If you have several theories to explaind a set of observations and they have the same explaantory value, pick the one which is the less complicated.

Also, I take into account psychological habits of people, that for example is they resist chnage, and want to stay with the old and familiar, because that is known to them, and what is known is associated with security and safety. I also consider who profits most from making society not changing the old ways, and that is the establishment, the profiteers of the old familiar ways and the old fashioned economy game. Those who benefit the most from the status quo have the most to lose.

I already have observed climate changed in my very own life span. I must not wait to see it happening. Summer is not what it was 30 years ago, and winter the same. It is countable fact that the number of regions having to deal with numerous symptoms telling a change to the worse have seen steep increases in the past 20-30 years. weather phenomenons have undergone drastic changes as well. We know for sure that the ocean is changing too, is becoming warmer and of changing ph-indices. We already see a steep rise in natural desasters like landslides and floodings, we see the shifting of climate zones and species following the changing climate barriers, and we see unnormal ground water levels and erosion, loss of agricultural soil and annormal plancton and alga levels in the oceans which have undergone dramatic changes in the past 30 years or so.

But what you are telling us is that these phenomenons are questionable, their mere existence must be researched, and if they exist they mean nothing. sorry, but that is just not good enough.

We have more than enough data to draw parallels to past societies, the way they pumped up population levels, boosted productivity, consumed more ressources than their environment could maintain and replace, and finally collapsing. when there was room to pout aside reserves for future times of crisis, this usually was not done, but the surplus wa sused to grow population level even more, ifngoring that these additonal people have to be fed as well. We also could see parallels between the present and the sociological and political decision-makings of the past. the most stunning thing one could learn if investing time into these matters is: in the past, it were rational, reasonable decisions leading societies into their fall. It's not just some safety failing, one person giving a wrong command. It's something like a psychological double-blind-trap. Often, interests of poltical prestige, religious motives, and power in general went hand in hand in cementing the old ways and habits even when they had become suicidal already. Cultures have a tendency towards not wanting to chnage, to protect their feeling of identity. In this context here, this inner tendency works for our worst.

Just consider this: in classic economy and state theory, growth is assumed to be potentially unlimited, and the needed precondtion to foster society, and produce more common wealth (how I love this word shell). But this growth is what has led us to excessively overconsummate ressources, living beyond our means, destroying our envrionment, and boosting population more and more. We thought and still think that the future generation would fix things, so we party on. Those who habe the most profit at rsik, keep telling us that the debts we make will be dealt with "in the future", when "the ecojoym has become better", etc.etc. etc. I heared this already when being at elementary school. And today, more than thirty years later, they still say the same. Where we are aware of a resources being limited, we think: "okay, it should be saved, but if I do not take it, then somebody else will, so better I take it myself before the others do." Social psychology knows this as the "prisoiner's dilemma", politics knows it as the "dilemma of communal property", it all is variations of these two well-described problems (I even had to talk about it in one of my verbal exams, btw. :) ). We still argue for unlimited growth in the economy - although the insane Western production levels of material wealth and the creation of Western living standards in no way can be maintained on a global scale, for a population of over 7 billion. This is insanity, and it is potentially suicidal. But still we get preached that what we need is economical growth. As a matter of fact our communbal systems are designed to depend on the financial income this produces, yes. That does not mean their must be growth - it means that the design of our societies is flawed in a very fundamental, most vital basis: it's a flaw that makes sure socieities of our dewsign cannot survive in the long run, and their wealth only is a temporary affair. Those taking profit from this only are intersted in the situation being stable for the duration of their lives. And after them: the flood, who cares. And yes, it is reasonable weighing of options in decision-making, and reasonable thought causing this misery. You see the great danger? Being so rational and reasonable is what is spelling our doom and is ruining the planet. And how could one argue against being reasonable and rational? I tend to praise myself for trying to be rational and reasonable, don't I?

The point is - reasonability and rationality need altruism in the meaning of the old christian concept of "agape" to complement them . Else it is maximum egoism in action. And egoism is what eats us up, one by one, the weak ones first, the strong ones last. That the consequences of our actions unfold slowly and creepingly only, and thus are hard to recognise (like you also do not see the grass growing, but it does - just very slowly), doesn't make it easier.

Instead of trying to establish delays and more delays and make hesitation the rule of the game, we need to understand that the time to understand we are in trouble, is over. The data to understand that - we already do have, and since long. What we need is research not on this old joke, but on the question if and how we could adapt to the challenge - a challenge that we have set up ourselves: rationally and very reasonably, psychologically maybe inevitably, but when taking the problem for itself: unneeded. If we fail, the world will not be the same anymore, and will move on without a global human civilisation. If we succeed (I am pessimistic), the world also will be a very different one afterwards.

Message of that is: the world we know from the present, will no longer be what it was. Man will understand that, or will not - it does not matter. Whether he understands, is not important for the planet, but only for man himself. The situation is not revolving around us - the planet just moves on with it's history, with or without us playing a future role in it.

Skybird, I will make it even shorter than your dissertation on what needs to be done. The scientists need to get on the same page. One group says one thing and another group says another thing. Al Gore is wringing his hands. There will always be sceptics. For all we know this is how the dinosaurs became extinct. Theory after theory.


To have global warming stop Al Gore needs to park his Leer Jet. :O:

Article on world cooling 1975:

So this week we are warming. Next week we will be getting cold. Al Gore continues to wring his hands. Talk about mixed signals. :doh:

Then we have this:


So really, what is it? Warming? Cooling? Does it matter? Is Al Gore getting another prize?

Here is the best part:

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

False analogy. You conclude on the future without knowing if the present is the valid basis for doing that regarding the details you focus on. Let me illustrate the problem.

When the Norse came to Greenland, they saw a vegetation and landscape that at bfirst glance looked very similiar to their own in Scandinavia. So one really cannot blame them for thinking they could run farming and agriculture the same way they were used to do from Scandinavia - it was reasonable, it was rational to assume that, considerign their information and knowledge of that time. But with time passing by, they realised that the vegetation due to the different, harsher climate grew much, much slower than in Norway, and that therefore grass and trees, once consumed, would not be replaced for a longer, a much longer time, than in Norway. Which meant the soil was exposed to wind and storm, salient air flows and in general: erosion, for much longer time, beign carried away and being lost. Over the latter two tirds of their presence on Greenland, agriculture and farming became more and more difficult, and finally non-maintainable anymore. Even more, the soil in Greenland is much made of Volcanic ashes, like in Iceland (just not so extreme), making it very fertile, but also very light and easily carried away by the wind, while the soil in Norways is made of much greater shares of heavy clay that is more difficult to be eroded by winds. You know how the story ended, for these factors and others as well (europeans started to trade ivory with the Far East instead with the Vikings, making this most precious trading good less valuable for the Vikings on Greenland; the mini "ice age" interupting shipping lines to Greenland; the vikings sticking to inadequate customs and habits that prevented them to learn surviving techniques from the Inuit and made them staying with absolutely unappropriate cultural habits and dress codes in order to stay connected to their home in eurpoe and demonstrating the very same cultural behavior like in europe - at all costs: an identity thing much like you cling to the socalled American way of life). First they had to let go their cows, their pride they were, but also a natural desaster for Greenland like the sheep in australia, and very, very difficult and work-intensive to be kept alive over the winter, then agricultural soil that could be used for farming became rare within the reach of the two major settlements. Supremacist behavior against the Inuit had turned the natives into enemies, and one did not learn survival techniques from them (how to hunt seals, for example). First the Western settlement died, and then the larger, Eastern died as well. Neal, they did not return to Scandinavia, you know. They DIED miserably - due to isolation from europe, cultural stubborness, farming and agriculture collapsing, and finally: starvation.

Well, no matter if you try to edcuate yourself oin thigns or not, you do not have the freedom not to make decisions in your life. Deciding you must, whether you like that or not, and you do not have the omnipotential to become a poracticng superexpert in all fields you could imagine. You have to accept compromise, therefore, and must try to come to decisns on basis of ninfomation that you have the freedom to collect in a laissez-faire manner, not caring a bit about their quality, or by trying to bring them together in a way you think that makes best sense. The latter is what I try to do. And it is not as if I do not have support for my conclusions from more knowing and more clever minds than my own.

You just have illustrated the general problem of ours in your very first sentence of your post. You want a good life, the party going on, and nobody disturbing the good mood. But the american/Western way of life that is in formidable waste of material wealth and natural ressources, cannot be maintained forever. The American way of life is nothign special, it is no natural law engraved in stone. It is an excess, and that is true for the whole Western culture of the modern. And even with, far far more modest living standards I have very severe doubts that the panet could maintain a global population of 7 billion if all these people would share that already lowered way of life.

We are far too many, and the few of us live far beyond reasonable standards, causing consequences that mean disaster for all others - and in the end their own children as well.

Skybird, a test for you:

http://csccc.fcpp.org/question.php?csquestion_id=1

So, this is Americas fault? Neal did not illustrate your point of "who cares". He only said it forms an opinion after reading page after page on warming/cooling or whatever it might be this week. I can show you page after page for cooling but a blind eye is on these pages as you are buying into this warming, the end of mankind and the world as we know it diatribe. Have you looked at articles concerning cooling? Articles on earth cycles?

Skybird or anyone interested:

Report on the corruption with global warming. (click on the PDF file for report)

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/co...corrupted.html

Warhawk, please...


Yes, I have. and I found it often
- serious data taken out of context or not given in completeness;
- pseudo-scientific claims;
- manipulative in narrowing timespan of awareness to such short leveols that longterm conseqeunces got ignored;
- sources being dubious, to put it mildy;
- ignoring existing, maybe even existing-since-long explanations for let's say paradoxical effects (like for exaple the partial, local forkming of new ice in one part of the antarctic - what already in the late 70s or early 80s have been predicted in case of ice caps melting.

For these and other reasons I refuse to debate on whether there is a man-made sifgnificant climate change taking place or not. I cannot take this discussion serious anymore, like I also do not take serious a debate on how to compare the reasonability of evolution and that of creationism - as if it has any, or to compare ratio and religion - as if there is anything that could be compared. This kind of debate to me is just distracting, trying to buy time, to delay action and to protect the status quo that is quite profitable for the current establishment that is catching the cream from leaving things as they are.

We can talk on how to adapt to the already happening changes, now and in the future. we can talk on details of - yes, incomplete - climate models and their prediction span.

But we cannot talk on the issue of these changes taking place when I do not only read about it, but experience it in my own lifespan, with my very own senses, and media input by trend just confirms what I see, read and feel. That debate is pointless, and since quite some time now. It is a historic regression.

Tip of the day: the socalled Copenhagen Diagnosis has just been released. Hint-hint. It let's even the corrected (worstened) IPCC report look pale.

Before you close the book on it as verse concerning global warming read the link to the article that is very convincing on the fabrication of global warming and cover up.

Post #50. 27 pages.

Only on weekends and usualy in a sad clown suit :D

Hmm yes I must be crazy, I don't want to bring more children into an already overpopulated world. I am quite convinced that we are heading towards a period of major conflict, strife, and trouble for many different reasons. I do not want to bring children into that world as I would not want my children to suffer for it. It is also not something I take lightly at all.

Global warming is only a part of the greater whole that greatly worries me. Also there is no miracle cure to the situation.

I doubt it works like that, also I suspect knowing human nature, that we have already passed the tipping point overall. That by the time most of the population sees the problems, that it will be far too late to recover.

Like I said its not a decision I make lightly. I would love children, and may even adopt some at some point if I do not have any. But my predictions as to what is coming are very grim. Bluntly I believe we are heading towards a period of mass extinction which will most likely take our species out with it. I wish it was not the case, but that is the picture I formed rationaly from all I have taken in.


Anyhow back on topic, people like to talk about all the money invested into the green movement. That these people have a stake in global warming and thus have reason to fake the data. Well what about the other side of the coin? If global warming is real and we are the ones resposible then its going to cost most corporations in the world massive sums of money to try to fix it. These money men have plenty of reason to try to suppress, distort, deny, and fabricate evidence for or against it. They also have far more resources available to counter it then the green movement, and will have plenty of scientists of their own to flood the scientific community with junk research.

I've read a lot of the stuff from both sides of the debate. The problem I have with a lot of the contrary material is much of it is pseudo scientific. Like as in the creation vs evolution thread here they are selectivly picking a few things which supports their argument and ignoring everything that disproves it. Good science takes everything into account, proof and disproof and weighs them together. There is also a ton of bad science floating around right now clouding and poluting the issue. Not because it disagrees with the widly held view in the scientific community, but because a lot of it is fraudulent, or pseudo/un scientific.


As for that article you posted AVG, I haven't read it in full yet, but from the quick skimming of it I wasn't too impressed so far. But I'll leave real comment on it until I have read it in full and checked the supporting documentation. I will say though that I do not trust that site one bit as they have a very obvious and strong bias and agenda of their own. I do wonder though what organization is behind that site, as it raised a lot of red flags automaticly for me.

Sadly we can say that most sites are strongly skewed to their views. There are plenty of sites that are obvious and have a strong bias. Read the 27 page report. There are some interesting things in there.

That's why I avoid all of those sites and try to look at the research itself only. I may not fully comprehend it all, but I know enough about research methodology to try to spot flaws, problems, manipulation and deception in the research. I automatically discard opinion stuff as it is always biased, and would normally discard that article for just that reason.

A further comment I would like to make is, yes I believe we are heading into very troubled times. But I have no motivations to want to believe it, in fact I would argue the exact opposite, that I have far more to motivate me not to want to believe any of it. It is so much easier to believe that their isn't a problem. I am not biased towards believing it, I am actually biased towards not wanting to, as most people would be.

There have been vast periods of time in Earth's history when the polar ice caps did not exist at all! The planet was much warmer than it is today. Life flourished.

For several instances, the last being about 12,000 years ago, severe and sudden global cooling caused the icecaps to reform and glaciers extend all the way down the Indiana and Ohio in the US, covering half of Europe. The planet was much colder than it is today. Life flourished.

Today's climate drift, if real (our database is pitifully short as human records date only back to the middle to late 19th century in metropolitan areas, later in others), is well within the normal parameters of Earth's temperature range and no cause for alarm. For every catastrophic effect receiving gleeful publicity and hand wringing, there will be one, perhaps more, beneficial effects which have no highly motivated press agents right now.

"Global warming," "climate change," whatever you want to call it is a political, not a scientific issue. Science is merely curious. That is good. Politicians will never let a crisis, real or imagined, go to waste in pursuit of their agendas.

It is entirely possible to assemble a library of books agreeing with your preconceived attitude toward the goodness of mankind, the dark possibilites for the future and the inherent evil of non-socialist thought. However, assembling such a library is no substitute for valid evaluation.

I could easily assemble a library of books seeking to prove NASA never reached the moon.

I often wonder what the world would be like if WW2 never occured. What if the millions that died lived? Where would the world be. I truly believe our resources (land to grow food) will be our undoing. You touched on overpopulation. We are getting there and in some countries they are there. I can respect your decision for not wanting children but I respect you more for considering adopting a child instead. I have a Korean adopted sister and a Korean adopted nephew. I could not imagine what my life would have been not growing up with my adopted sister. She is 4 months and 11 days younger than me.

The mythical story spreads and does not to look to be so mythical after all:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...lobal-cooling/

Wether these emails right, wrong, cherry picked or not, it sure does make some people wake up and start questioning.

Wait, that wasn't an analogy at all! :timeout: What do you mean?

....??? I don't know what to say... Ok, I guess.


Hmm... is this a test or something? :hmmm:



Ok, that's your opinion. I disagree. What do I care about "the party going on" as resources are concerned? I'm willing to bet you and I are in the same range of resources used. I have nothing against making cut backs if needed. But I am not convinced they are needed.

On another note, have you studied the phenomenon where people get a trend of thinking going and before you know it, everyone's saying something they really know nothing about, but they truly believe it's validity?

Actually the Norsemen called the land Greenland because it was green. The much warmer climate of 1000 AD meant that there was much less ice and milder climate in Greenland than there is today. Life, including the Norsemen who are ridiculed by ignorant people for misnaming the land, flourished until the climate changed with the coming of the Little Ice Age, which shut them down.

Now we think that if those times return it would be a global catastrophe!:har::har::har::har: Then we call the catastrophizing science.:har::har::har:

You know, the prime function of science is to attract grant money. This grant money must be obtained from politicians and bureaucrats. The best way to attract their attention and resulting cash is to make outlandish and ominous claims. There was this team of renegade wanna-be hurricane forcasters camped out in the UK, of all places.

Wanting to make a living out of forecasting hurricanes, they settled on a strategy: let's predict the most harmful path for every hurricane we can. Well, they looked silly until the inevitable storm (a stopped analog clock is right twice a day!) fulfilled their prediction. UKMET GOT IT RIGHT!!!!!! The cash rolled in. Today they are less inclined to follow that strategy, but just watch the forecast plots of computer simulations for UKMET. Hehehehehe! Predicting disaster is good business. It certainly pays for Al Gore's bizjets and allows his company to blackmail businesses worldwide in a carbon voucher fraud of epic proportions. His last trip to Australia had a bigger carbon footprint than my entire life! Damned hypocrite. He can fly his bizjet anywhere he wants. Just don't tell me it would be necessary for me to trade my Astro van for a golf cart. I'm not going to do it anyway.:down: