Global warming

[drippingwet]

I'm not a total expert on the subject, so I'm wondering what's the current situation, what's being done, is it enough to stop the warming? Isn't some of the current attutude a bit like saying, "oh well, a massive asteroid is going to crash into the world tomorrow and wipeout everything out, but we'll carry on as normal"!!!??? Another problematic attitude might be, "well what difference will it make if one person starts riding their bike to work and recycling everything?"

It may well take a war-like attitude by the entire world to sort this problem in time. Land and cities disappearing, crops dying, killer storms??? Just what is happening with this issue?????

On the othe hand, are humans resonsible for global warming, or is it a natural occurance?

[Rogue]

Please see thread in Politics folder titled "More evidence of Global warming"

[mrbiggs]

No one really knows for sure the answer to any of those questions. The only thing we really know (and by "we", I mean "every scientist, but not the federal government"...don't get me started...) is that it IS happening.

Most scientists think that the changes are drastic enough to be assigned to human activities. There is, though, the distinct possibility that global warming has nothing to do with us, and it's just a coincidence.

Personally, I think it's a little hyped. The Earth has adapted to changes far more drastic than a change in temperature that is less than 2 degress Celcius over 200 years. The only problem is that if we're unlucky, humans might not make it through...

[Soldier]

Are you so sure about that, Mr. Biggs? Might want to check your numbers.

First, there's every good chance that global warming has nothing to do with us. The earth has been going through warming and cooling trends for as long as it's had this atmosphere (this being the third atmosphere it's had). There have been plenty of periods in the past that were warmer than this.

Second, are we so sure the earth is actually getting warmer all around? Can you show me the actual numbers for it?

Third, are you so sure that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere would actually lead to warming? Not, perhaps, cooling?

Are we sure that crops ARE actually dying more than they were before? Global warming's actually good for crops - longer growing seasons, better weather, etc. Are we sure that weather has been significantly worse recently than it has been historically?

I mentioned it before, but I highly recommend reading Michael Crichton's State of Fear. Skip the entire story if you want, and just read the footnotes (which are real, and from very respectable sources). Then tell me if global warming really seems so obvious.


And please, don't everybody ask me to cite all this. I don't have the information with me.

[mrbiggs]

I can't back up what I said. I didn't mean to take a stand in that part.

I was trying to say that it is very controversial, but that most agree that it is happening, and many attribute it to humans. In other words, there is no one correct opinion. Both sides exagerate and distort facts, one brushes it off, and one is apocolyptic. The only thing we KNOW for sure, as I said, is that the Earth is getting warmer.

Wait, it seems you disagree with that as well. I have to go to bed, sorry. I'll cite some stuff in the morning.

[Soldier]

I wouldn't say both sides exaggerate; I was just looking at straight-up numbers. Strange thing is, sea levels are rising. In the North Pacific. But they're dropping in the South Pacific. What's up with that?

Anyway, I wasn't so much attacking you in particular, as the idea that "everybody who's anybody knows it's true."

Look into the idea of eugenics sometime; the similarities to that movement are startlingly similar to what's going on with global warming.

[ThatReallyHurt]

There have also been studies done that show that a 1-2 degree C increase in ocean surface water temperature can make the jet stream do strange things, like carry more air from the far north farther south, making for unusually cool summers.

Of course, all the studies, papers, scientists, politicians, tree huggers, and tree choppers all have their ideas and "independent lab studies" to back things up. Truth is, we can't really REALLY test many of the theories because we're still trying to understand how stuff works here now... global warming? Try accurately forecasting the local weather first. Never mind the fact that we really only have one test subject (the Earth), and no control for the experiment.

I'm sure that human activity is affecting the Earth as a whole - we can't mow down zillions of square miles of trees and grass and replace it with pavement without something changing. Likewise, we can't dump zillions of cubic miles worth of poison into the earth, rivers, and oceans without something happening. The real question is how much of an effect are we having? Unfortunately, there's no good way to find out until we're right in the middle of it.

Some people say that global warming is a product of 20th century technology - remember that we've been burning fossil fuels like stink for 200 years, and they're finding evidence now that humans may have burned down entire forests on purpose thousands of years ago. Is global warming a real phenomenon? We've only got accurate weather records for what, 150 years? In the history of a 5 billion year old planet, is it a good idea to use 150 years for a baseline? I'm sure though, that soon enough we'll have a better idea if global warming is occuring (mass dieoffs, huge temperature swings, etc.), if it happens.

If it sounds like I'm sitting on the fence, I am - but I feel the same way about 99% of the food additives that have been "invented" and declared "safe"... but that's another thread entirely...

[Larrison]

For my $.02 worth on global warming..

I have to come in with ThatReallyHurts, in that I'm sitting on the fence. I've dug through the journals and read articles on both sides -- not just the PR flames which both sides put out. The data collected over about the last 50 does show an increase in temperature, or seems to. But the mechanisms for human-caused global warming are pretty tenuous -- something like 99.5% of the mechanisms and materials used in the models of global warming are geophysical or non-human influenced for producing green house gases.

And as a bigger conundrum, the global climate models have a hard time explaining the warming period of around 1000-1300 AD, when Greenland was warm enough to farm and settle, and the "little ice age" around 1500 -1700 when records show temperatures dropped dramatically. Heck, during Elizabethan times, the Thames would freeze over and they would hold city winter festivals on the frozen river. However, the river hasn't frozen now for more than 100 years.. These are long enough periods you can't explain them as due to a volcanic erruption or any other short term phenomena.

The obvious answer is the sun's heating of the earth is not constant. But we've only had the instruments in space to measure the solar constant for around 25-30 years, or through about 1 full sunspot cycle. And while the measurements are pretty variable, they seem to indicate that the solar constant has increased slightly -- by an amout that seems to translate into what accounts for around 80-90% of the observed rise in global temperature. Not all of the rise, but most -- with a large range of uncertainty still from the uncertainties in the models, the global temperature measurements, and the solar constant measurements.

So I'd say the jury is still out about human-caused global warming.

[Schiavona]

I don't know anybody up here in Alaska (not in politics) who DOESN'T believe that things are warming up. I'm not talking day-to-day temps (it was 50 F the first week of the new year!), but over the past 20 years the growing season has extended two weeks and permafrost is proving to be not so perma. Are humans to blame? Who knows. Can we stop it? I doubt it. Weather is such a vast and complex system.

"James Issac Neutron! What did I tell you about fooling around with complex, unstable systems?" "Ahh, Mom! It was just so hot out!"

Originally Posted by Soldier

Second, are we so sure the earth is actually getting warmer all around? Can you show me the actual numbers for it?

Are we sure that weather has been significantly worse recently than it has been historically?

.

[VELISARIOS]

We all responsible for global warming. Look what happent, the birds song from the middle of winter to call the female birds to them(it is supposed to do in the spring!And we have January), the seasons change. Byt unfortunatelly we cannot do something. The large companies of our world the only thing that they thought is...money and they dont think the destuction of our world. All this smoke that risen from the manufactors has poison and polute our air, our waters, our earth. The nuclear tests polute everithing around and the temperature grows up in the poles from that. As a result the ice of the poles melding, and our voices dont heared from the strong companies. As I said before the only think that the companies want, is money. But what they do the 'money' if there is no one to use it? If we continue like that the Earth is Doomed.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by ThatReallyHurt

There have also been studies done that show that a 1-2 degree C increase in ocean surface water temperature can make the jet stream do strange things, like carry more air from the far north farther south, making for unusually cool summers.

Of course, all the studies, papers, scientists, politicians, tree huggers, and tree choppers all have their ideas and "independent lab studies" to back things up. Truth is, we can't really REALLY test many of the theories because we're still trying to understand how stuff works here now... global warming? Try accurately forecasting the local weather first. Never mind the fact that we really only have one test subject (the Earth), and no control for the experiment.

I'm sure that human activity is affecting the Earth as a whole - we can't mow down zillions of square miles of trees and grass and replace it with pavement without something changing. Likewise, we can't dump zillions of cubic miles worth of poison into the earth, rivers, and oceans without something happening. The real question is how much of an effect are we having? Unfortunately, there's no good way to find out until we're right in the middle of it.

Some people say that global warming is a product of 20th century technology - remember that we've been burning fossil fuels like stink for 200 years, and they're finding evidence now that humans may have burned down entire forests on purpose thousands of years ago. Is global warming a real phenomenon? We've only got accurate weather records for what, 150 years? In the history of a 5 billion year old planet, is it a good idea to use 150 years for a baseline? I'm sure though, that soon enough we'll have a better idea if global warming is occuring (mass dieoffs, huge temperature swings, etc.), if it happens.

If it sounds like I'm sitting on the fence, I am - but I feel the same way about 99% of the food additives that have been "invented" and declared "safe"... but that's another thread entirely...

That's another part of my point - things are entirely too complex for us to be able to see very well what's actually happening. We don't even know for sure that greenhouse gasses will lead to global warming, and not, in fact, global cooling. You're right, some ocean temperatures have been shown to increase; they've also decreased in some places. There are some glaciers retreating; there's also about 90% of Antarctica advancing. Plus the hundreds of thousands of glaciers we aren't even keeping any kind of track of. And we don't even know if there would be mass die-offs.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by Schiavona

I don't know anybody up here in Alaska (not in politics) who DOESN'T believe that things are warming up. I'm not talking day-to-day temps (it was 50 F the first week of the new year!), but over the past 20 years the growing season has extended two weeks and permafrost is proving to be not so perma. Are humans to blame? Who knows. Can we stop it? I doubt it. Weather is such a vast and complex system.

"James Issac Neutron! What did I tell you about fooling around with complex, unstable systems?" "Ahh, Mom! It was just so hot out!"

And Alaska represents what percentage of the earth?

I also fail to get your last quote there...but that's just because I'm dense.

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

(snip)The Earth has adapted to changes far more drastic than a change in temperature that is less than 2 degress Celcius over 200 years. The only problem is that if we're unlucky, humans might not make it through...

Or, in the inimitable words of George Carlin (upon seeing several members of the audience wearing "Save The Planet" t-shirts):

"Save the planet? Save the planet...what gall! What unmitigated hubris! The planet is doing just fine, folks--it's people who are f*cked!"

[Soldier]

Food for thought: There was another movement similar to this global warming clamor, back in the 1800s. "Every scientist in the world" knew about this crisis that was impending. Those few who disagreed, were quickly shouted down and shown to be biased, paid off by interested parties, etc. Governments around the world began passing legislation to ward off the impending catastrophe. There were universities founded specifically to study the problem, and come up with a solution to it. The most educated, liberal, progressive, forward-thinking people were the ones who could clearly see the problem. It was widely accepted by great thinkers and famous/influential people all over.

What was it? Eugenics. The idea that if "inferior" people are allowed to keep breeding, the human gene pool overall will be of lower quality, resulting in a world-wide catastrophe for the human race.

It was determined that "inferior" people - blacks, Jews, mentally challenged, epileptics, anyone who looked a bit different, etc. - had to be either killed or sterilized, to make sure that they would not reproduce and poison the gene pool.

Just like global warming now, it was one of those things that everybody knew was true; you were either a fool or biased to try to say that it wasn't a real problem. California, as ever, was one of the most progressive and forward-thinking states; they were among the first to pass legislation to control the "problem", and had the highest number of sterilizations in the nation. American scientists became upset when Germany took the lead in eugenics research, and became even more effective at it - including constructing large holding and execution camps, and the infrastructure to get to them - eventually aiding the atrocities of WWII.

Sound familiar, anybody?

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by Soldier

(snip) The idea that if "inferior" people are allowed to keep breeding, the human gene pool overall will be of lower quality, resulting in a world-wide catastrophe for the human race.

How sad for us all that they proved to be prophetic.

[Soldier]

Okay...any chance of you explaining further?

[Red #40]

I get into this subject at work all the time and its a bit frustrating, most people here in Texas take the position that global warming is a lie from the tree huggers, granted its totally unproven but they seem to take that as an excuse to chuck their litter out the window on the highway and pour their motor oil down the storm sewer.

But back on subject, geologically its easy to see that the climate does change on its own so the real question is if sea levels are going to rise because the temp is rising, how far inland should I buy my beach front property? (for the great grand kids)

[Soldier]

Well, if it's Florida you're looking at, then I'd say...probably South Carolina, or thereabouts.

I agree that this isn't any excuse to just keep trashing the place; I'm just saying that there really isn't much evidence that the sky is, in fact, falling.

[lochinvar]

Most of the debate on this subject seems to revolve around two questions:

1) Is the sky really falling?
2) If it is falling, are we causing it to fall, or is it falling on its own?

I find these questions intersting in an academic way, but ultimately moot. The real question is: What can we do about it if the sky is falling?

And the answer is: Damned little. We may be able to mitigate it, but we can neither stop it or reverse it. So if the Global Warming crowd is correct, it becomes a matter of degree: not "will the world get warmer" but rather "how much warmer will it get?"

And the answer to that question is: even if we ceased emitting greenhouse gases right now, it would still get warm enough to cause major natural disasters.

[Soldier]

...and you know this, how?