Global Warming

[Dream]

I came across this article today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/sci_nat_how_the_world_is_changing/html/1.stm

What's your feeling on global warming. I have heard so many scientists that say it's real, but then I"ve also heard so many that say it's fake. I really don't know what to think...

So what is the truth? Is global warming real or is it just a giant conspiracy to put fear into people's minds? (Maybe the Vatican should look into this)....

 

[Paul S]

Nobody's quite sure how to predict weather - there's just too many factors in nature we just don't have data on or don't fully understand. We can do it pretty well for a week or two, but even the TV weatherman gets it wrong sometimes.

We do know that cities, because of the asphalt and buildings, reflect heat differently than rural areas, and cities are warmer than their country neighbours - but guess where most of the weather stations are which measure the temperature?

There also aren't really any weather stations on 70% of the planet - the ocean, so we're not sure what's going on there.

I think it is possible the earth is getting slightly warmer, but I think it's due to changes in the sun or other natural causes. Around the 1200s, it was even warmer than it is now, but we never hear about this, and it was a great time for farmers and the population of Europe flourished. I've also read that all the greenhouse gases put into the air each year by man is one-tenth of what gets put into the air by the eruption of a volcano.

Climate changes - that's just what it does. It's done so for millions of years and will continue to do so, and I don't think there's anything we can do about it. There are other environmental issues, such as pollution, that we can do something about, so we should spend our time and money worrying about that instead of something we have no control over.

Yes, there have been some pretty stupid things done to the environment by man, but we're still here, as are most of the animals and plants. I don't think we should go around deliberately destroying species, but most of the endangered species are insects. Do we really need more bugs, or should the needs of humans come first?

 

[nyj]

Wow... more places for me to drive my 5/mpg Hummer!

 

[princess_ballet]

Fake.

 

[Carrye]

Do we really need more bugs, or should the needs of humans come first?

Well that's not entirely fair, and is a false dichotomy. Insects are useful, and most go unnoticed by humans (except for those darned 'sconsin skeeters!). Humans always come first in Creation, but I am unconvinced that one is to the exclusion of the other - humans and other life can coexist.

As to the global warming question: Our weather data goes back approx. 100 years. That's not long enough to infer any sort of long-term changes (what global warming theories do). We can say that the temperatures have increased over the past 100 years, but we don't know what that means in the grand scheme of things. Scientists have posited that the earth's temperature fluctuates in cycles. I just don't think we have enough information to make strong and convincing conclusions.

 

[NDIrish]

I tend to agree with Paul on this one.

 

[Dream]

Well let's look at this a different way:

Some scientists claim global warming is real. Other claim it is fake.

Is it really worth the risk of ignoring it?

(I'm not advocating either side, I just want to hear people's opinions)

 

[Paul S]

Well that's not entirely fair, and is a false dichotomy. Insects are useful, and most go unnoticed by humans (except for those darned 'sconsin skeeters!). Humans always come first in Creation, but I am unconvinced that one is to the exclusion of the other - humans and other life can coexist.

You're right that we can have both, unless the particular insect happens to live only on your property, where you want to build a house, or in the nearby forest, which you need to cut down to make money to survive. Maybe there's better ways to go about this, but just because some rare insect or mouse lives in your tree doesn't mean you should never be able to cut it down.

Well let's look at this a different way:

Some scientists claim global warming is real. Other claim it is fake.

Is it really worth the risk of ignoring it?

That depends on the risks - what happens if we ignore it, and what happens if we do something? If we ignore it, the earth might get warmer and the sea might rise a few feet. That's bad in some areas but good in others, but we don't really know what the effects would be. If we cut back on emissions, just in case, that's really going to hurt the economy, which means lost jobs and higher prices. I don't think there's enough evidence that anything really bad will happen if the earth gets warmer, and I don't think there's enough evidence that the warming is caused by man. Balanced against that, the economic harm is just too big to risk "doing something".

 

[NDIrish]

I believe the ultimate danger is that the warming gets to the point, where the runaway effect takes over, and we end up trying to live on a planet like Venus.

 

[Paul S]

I believe the ultimate danger is that the warming gets to the point, where the runaway effect takes over, and we end up trying to live on a planet like Venus.

But how much stuff would we have to put in the air for that to happen? We've had volcanoes and other natural events spewing gases into the air for millions of years, and Earth hasn't turned into Venus. What percent of emissions is caused by man and what percent is natural?

The Venus theory reminds me of Y2K - someone gets an idea of what the worst possible consequences are, and we panic and spend billions trying fix something that turns out to be no big deal.

 

[nyj]

Bah! My Hummer will be able to get me through streets covered in water by flooding thanks to melting polar ice caps!

Global warming! Bring it on!

 

[Paul S]

Bah! My Hummer will be able to get me through streets covered in water by flooding thanks to melting polar ice caps!

Global warming! Bring it on!

You want one of these.

 

[lonnienord]

when do we get global warming and when does it Ohio. Last summer was mild only hit 90 twice and this winter has been cold cold as in down right freezing!!

i am more than ready for some global warming!!

 

[NDIrish]

You want one of these.

That reminds me of that new Pepsi commercial...

 

[nyj]

You want one of these.

Yes, I do!

For $750,000, buyers can get the fully loaded "NBC" version that can, Ayres said, detect and block out fallout from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons by over-pressurizing the cab with filtered, clean air much like an aircraft.​

Global warning would be no match for me!

I love the caption from Forbes Magazine where they reviewed this truck...

Attacking a small country? The Bad Boy may be the vehicle for you.​

Beware Canada, I'm coming for you!

 

[ukok]

I believe it's for real...and unless we're planning on getting raptured in the near future, we'd better make every effort that we leave a habitable earth behind for our childrens children.

God Bless.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

I thing every credable, independent study done in the past 15 years or so shows that the average global air temperture and the average oceanic temperture are both raising. The real question is what is causing it.

On this there is a split in the opinions of the scientific community. There are those who claim their models show that this warming is the result of human activity.

This are those who claim their models show that it couldn't be human activity completely and something else (The brightness of the sun, for instance) is primarily responsible.

I don't know. Personally I am hard pressed to claim we did this on our own (the temperture increase in pretty dramatic). But I think we need to take some action. The last time this kind of thing occurred (the so called mini-iceage of the 12th and 13th centuries) it almost wiped out Europe.

No matter what the cause, ignoring this is not a good idea.

 

[Paul S]

I don't know. Personally I am hard pressed to claim we did this on our own (the temperture increase in pretty dramatic). But I think we need to take some action. The last time this kind of thing occurred (the so called mini-iceage of the 12th and 13th centuries) it almost wiped out Europe.

What wiped out a third of Europe was the Black Death, not the climate. Maybe there's some linkage between climate and disease, but we're much better at handling disease today. I haven't heard this as one of the reasons we should stop global warming now.

An interesting book on global warming and other environmental issues is A Skeptical Environmentalist, written by a former member of Greenpeace who started to really examine the scientific evidence for enviromentalists' claims. He says that there are problems, but we're improving, and many of the claims really are exaggerated.

 

[Wild_Fan4Christ]

I tend to think it is a conspiracy theory. But then again, the past 10 years in Minnesota the winters have been pretty wimpy.

Hmmm, am I going to agree with a scientist who believes in the big bang theory? Or am I going to believe in God who created the earth and has "ultimate" control over it. I will take the former with a grain of salt and trust in the latter.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

What wiped out a third of Europe was the Black Death, not the climate. Maybe there's some linkage between climate and disease, but we're much better at handling disease today. I haven't heard this as one of the reasons we should stop global warming now.

An interesting book on global warming and other environmental issues is A Skeptical Environmentalist, written by a former member of Greenpeace who started to really examine the scientific evidence for enviromentalists' claims. He says that there are problems, but we're improving, and many of the claims really are exaggerated.

You history needs a little brush.

In the 12 and 13 hundreds the wheat fields of Iceland disappeared. England, for the first time in its history, became unable to feed itself. The poor top soil of Central Europe would no longer support the growth crops it had supported for the last 300 years.

The idea of a "growing season" became important to European farmers for the frist time. The forests of Europe suffered terriably, thinning to the point of becoming scatterred (They never fully recovered) .

The winters became longer and very colder (Warm currents in the Atlantic also disappeared, or at least decreased in overall heat). Coal became an issue and access to it because an international problem.

Trade with the near east increased dramatically as food, fuel and clothing were imported to support the population. Plague hit Constatinople, (probably brought in from Asia) caravans bound for Paris, Prague, Rome, Munich and Warsaw spread it all over Europe in less the six months.

Yeah the plague hurt Europe. But it wouldn't have gotten around a quick or as bad if the Europeans didn't need to import everything they ate, drank and wore.

And its not a coincidence that the Reninssance and the the warm weather of the 15th Century occurred at basically the same time. Once the mini-iceage ended, things in Europe got alot better.