Human Related Global Warming

[BCreefmaker]

i was just wondering what people currently think about the causes for global warming? this poll hopefully will not only give me some insight into the views of other ecologically minded people on global warming and its causes, but also give me some objective views into this movie i just saw, because it changed my view of global warming in a second, but i just want to make shure it makes sense to others also. befor i go on, i would just like to say: yes i am a so called " heretic" i do no longer believe in global warming being caused by humans. we have to kinda be full of our selves to believe that we have more impact over this earth then the sun, the moon, the ocean, the clouds , and all the other biological processes going on 24/7/365. however, i still think a future built on renewable resources, more efficient methods, reducing pollution, and recycling is key. so now on to the real question, the poll, and the debate im not really even sure if this is what most people already think here.

i think this program has only been broadcast on t.v. only in Australia

please vote after watching the video!

Great Global Warming Swindle

 

[Sk8r]

Let's put it this way: the world has been warming since the last ice age, which is why we're not armpit deep in ice.

It continues to warm and dry.

Eventually it will trip the thermohaline conveyor trigger and we will ice over again.

If we don't use our current resources to build answers for this problem before it happens, and develop means to combat the pre-flip heat, we will be in deep kimchee when the situation worsens.

Can we slow down the rate by reforming? A bit. But it's more important to support research and development of means to restart the conveyor/vs. is it a good idea to restart the conveyor, and how to feed billions who'll be caught in a bad spot.

We need to quit bickering over details and get ready, because it will happen.

 

[BCreefmaker]

lol did you even watch the movie sk8ter? its an hour long movie.... you posted nine mins after me... sorry to say you have been brain washed by the American/ European media into repeating facts that have been skewed. this movies clearly points out there have been times in human history where the mean earth temp has been several degrees higher then what it is now, and guess what it was a golden age in the midevil period, when many cathedrals were build because crops were so plentiful, and again for an even longer period in the bronze age the temp was even higher then the last midevil spike, and it lasted for 800 years! and the polar bears survived fine!

 

[greenbean36191]

There is no doubt that global warming is real. There is no doubt that natural causes are to blame. There is no doubt that humans are also to blame.

Rather than developing your views about ANY science topic based on propaganda videos or the mass media have a look at the primary sources.

 

[Sk8r]

BCReefmaker, I've spent decades studying history and climatology, degree in classics, specialty in med. archaeology, which is a mere blip in the 13,000 years since the last melt. Temp goes up, it comes down, happens all the time: volcanoes blow, temp cools for a few years, temp rises again; Vikings tried to colonize mid Atlantic, worked short-term, then they got hit with the Little Ice Age. I also know astronomy, and yes, it's possible the sun blips every 500 years---there's quite a lot of talk about this possibility in in classics: barbarians ran out of grass and headed south every 500 years and we're at a 500 year mark at the moment...makes history convenient to remember if you peg your invasions at around 0, 500, 100, 1500 bc and ad, but it's only a generality. And the plain fact is the earth has gotten warmer over the last 13,000 years, the reefs we know have formed during the last 13,000 years, and the climate has gone on changing for the last 13,000 years. Prior to that, there were other icing periods. As long as plate tectonics keeps the continents approximately in their current configuration---they drift very, very slowly---the thermohaline conveyor is going to go on doing its thing and driving the currents that keep Britain and western north america moderate, etc., etc. But when it stops, as it will if it gets too much fresh water dumped in, we will likely ice again. 13,000 years itself is a blip, but in human/protohuman history, this tends to be the story, repeated glaciations and warming periods. The sun, while possibly a player [I used to tell my students watch what happens around 2000 AD because theory has it that solar output or sunspot activity may undergo something interesting, and we may have a hot dry spell in the Tarim Basin and N.America, but that's a minor 500 year cycle. The El Nino/La Nina cycles probably [imho] only date to the current continental configuration, but do figure in: MesoAmerican archaeology shows periods of extreme drought, etc.
But the simple point is---we had really big ice sheets, not once, but multiple times during the time the continents have been roughly configured as they are; and with a warming trend in place, with minor blips up and down, since 13000 years ago, we are likely in for a bit more heat and then a sincere need of parkas.

 

[billsreef]

Sure we have to be full of ourselves to believe we have a greater impact than the sun, moon, etc. But we also have to be equally full of ourselves to believe we don't have an impact on our environment. As greenbean mentions, you really want to go back to the primary source literature and not use the mass media to form your opinions. The mass media is full of holes, errors, omissions, and agenda's on both sides of the issue. The climate scientists have never said we're causing global warming, only that our increasing greenhouse gas emissions will cause the natural warming cycles to amplify, i.e. happen faster and peak higher than they would without our contributions. So yes, it would happen without us, just a tad slower, and not quite as hot. In any event, no matter what you think of the issue in regards to global warming, increased pollution simply isn't healthy for us and we should do all we can to reduce such pollution.

 

[Sk8r]

Just one of those curious thoughts, in addition: we may have had one global ice-down in the longago, very long ago---records in north africa, among others, [dropstones in the tail end of the Atlas Mts.] , but in general, the ice ages as we think of ice ages all happened in geologically recent time---since the rise of the mammals, notably since the rise of us---and WE are not the culprits: we weren't numerous enough. What does generally matter is the configuration of the continents. As long as the currents run where they do, up by the north Atlantic turnaround, and as long as that meteor pocked little stretch of extreme northern Canada exists, and as long as the [you know there's no land under it] north pole is locked in a circle of usually icy land, the potential exists for a big wash of fresh water coming into that region of the Atlantic and screwing up the Conveyor.

This potential didn't exist in prior alignments of the continents, and by what appears in the geologic record, no ice ages, except that one possible global blip back aeons ago.

So it would seem to make a very, very strong case that what goes on to cause the cycle of ice-down and warmup is continental position and global ocean flow in the mode we have now---a very strong, long period [centuries] flow in a very nice long cycle of high and low currents, that keep everything stirred up.

In all the time there've been homosapienssapiens, we've enjoyed tolerably warm weather, warming and drying continually. Signs are upon us that we're near the max of the cycle, which won't be friendly to our agriculture, and that we need to do differently than we do to gain ourselves some time to adapt to the changes. On the other hand, if we don't, it may happen faster, and as I say, we may need parkas rather soon after we see the peak of the cycle.

 

[BCreefmaker]

sk8r, i dont think you will ever get it dude. yes the earth goes thorough ice cycles, however we dont control anything really, if the sun next 3 years were to produce half as many solar flares, humanity would go into a mini ice age or possibly a full blown one. and the complete opposite if the solar flares doubled. in either situation the changes to the earth are natural, and they would be so great and wide spread we could do very little to reverse the changes. and the fact of the matter would be we could do nothing, because we were mostly concerned with climate preservation in the terms of anti-globalization. like i stated in my first post i still believe in recycling, conservation, getting rid of pollution, and so on. however if you do think thats your biggest thing to worry about, how to stop global warming from happening and preserve our current climate, you sir are very delusional. if your that worried learn and teach your children how to make igloos and ice fish! i live in Canada so i already know how! so bring it SUN! BRING IT ON! and yes poor Africa, i love that one quote "saying you can only have solar and wind energy is like saying you cant have any energy" why oppress other countries growth for our political beliefs and not real science.

remember hippies and commies love global warming, its just another justification to do anything for "positive change"!

 

[Sk8r]

BCreefmaker, I don't think you're thinking on a large enough scale. Solar sats, tide-driven or current driven pumps, all capable of development in a direct assault on a zonal cool-down. What we could do by focusing high energy input on critical areas is limited by two things: building the system, technologically feasible but untested, and b, knowing what we're doing if we give the Conveyor that kind of shove. Recall that ice ages as experienced during human history aren't global, but zonal: the poles get colder and the equator simultaneously gets hotter and wetter. All this equals the same amount of energy in the system, just that the distribution system has glitched, and all the heat is staying in one place. Planetary correction: the source of the imbalance goes away, the freshwater freezes up at the poles again, and the conveyor re-starts automatically. Do we want to hasten it? Is it a good idea to meddle? It seems, on the surface, to be a system where we can't exactly change the solar output, but we can redirect it, which is pretty much what the conveyor does. How much is enough? How soon to interfere? How long to interfere? It's like managing a dam---if you don't open the floodgates soon enough the whole dam fails and you've got everybody in deep water and mad because they lost their houses. If you open the sluice and it turns out you might possibly not have needed to, but 3 houses went downstream, those people are really mad...are they justified? Does everybody else owe them compensation for the fact they lost everything to potentially save the houses of the others?

Start tinkering with the climate and the people who lost crops are going to start insisting they get compensation and help, and globally we aren't anything like organized to handle it...do we care whose crops get devastated, or that the Amazon rain forest burns? We care---but have we got the mechanisms to figure how bad that is and whether there's an offset in the system.

 

[scottras]

Hi BC,

I really think you need to do some more research. That movie I saw recently and if you only know a little about AGW then it can seem pretty convincing. However, not only are most of the "facts" wrong, the one that are correct are presented in the wrong fashion. Once you start digging into the movie it looks pretty ordinary.

If you need a hand with anything to do with the research I am happy to help.

 

[greenbean36191]

I heard some buzz about this movie earlier this week so I tried to give it an honest chance after this thread showed up, but I couldn't sit through it. In the part I did watch I saw half truths, dishonest representations of graphs, lots of misleading implications, an expert who also denies the health risks of secondhand smoke (and claims to be an expert on that too), and an expert who has since claimed that he was quoted out of context to the point that the meaning of his comments was completely reversed.

 

[jeffnsa]

the scientest on both sides of the argument are being paid to deliver their side, when in fact they are both correct.also add in skaters plate techtonic theory (that is a very interesting theory with merit) and i believe you have the true answere. for anything to happen you have to have multiple items set up and a trigger to initiate it.

 

[hankthetank]

Global warming is inevitable.Rather than whine about how to stop it,which we can't,why don't we whine about how to live with it.

 

[chesapeake]

i also believe the earth is not doing anything it has not done before the differance is there is about 200 million more vonerable people here then before.

 

[scottras]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10368544#post10368544 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chesapeake
i also believe the earth is not doing anything it has not done before the differance is there is about 200 million more vonerable people here then before.

True, CO2 levels have been higher in the past, but not in last 300,000 years or more.

There are a lot more than 200 million people that will be affected. There are around 6.7 billion people on the planet at the moment.

 

[greenbean36191]

Global warming is inevitable.Rather than whine about how to stop it,which we can't,why don't we whine about how to live with it.

Because we're exacerbating the problem and people aren't the only ones that have to live (or die) with the consequences.

 

[Boomstick]

Ah, it is True, the world IS flat.......

Anyone who denys that GW is not being accelerated by human activity has their head where the sun don't shine.

Sure there are cycles and natural phenomina, but it is plain, accepted scientific fact that if you pump a ton of C02 into the atmosphere that is not supposed to be there - we will cause a ton of problems.

Sk8r - do me a favour - hook you car exhuast up to your fish tank and run for say an hour - if it is all on nature, then all will be fine and nothing will happen to your reef - let me know how it turns out for ya. If all is fine - then i will stand corrected

As a reefer, seeing the worlds coral reefs decline due to warming ocean temps, rising levels effecting lighting - and pollution killing coral and marine animals, itis sad to me that people in this community are even debating this fact - and yes it is a FACT!

 

[Leilani57]

Fact: 2006 is the warmest year on record.
Fact: 2005 is the second warmest year on record.
Fact: 2007 is already well on it's way to beating 2006 for the record.

Fact: 12 hottest years on record have occured within the last 16 years.

This past winter, european ski resorts faced the warmest winter in 1300 years-- some shut down and had to cancel ski tournaments. Some filed for bankruptcy. Insurance companies are refusing to cover ski resorts below a certain altitude because of global warming.

Daffodils and cherry trees were blooming throughout the northeastern United States on New Year's Day this year.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth continue to skyrocket (see graph, below). In fact, we have managed to get them higher than they have ever been in the past 450,000 years. These concentrations have proven to be a linear relationship with temperature over hundreds of thousands of years. This is fact, check the science.

<img src="http://leilanimunter.com/Images/blog/co2.jpg">


AND THIS.... this graph is Population and Global Warming (CO2 concentration and mean global temperature verses log-population) CO2 concentration (circles) and mean global temperature (squares) plotted relative to their absolute scales, ppm on the left and oC on the right, respectively. Vertical dashed line at 1995.

<img src="http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/commons/gaslgpop.gif">


My degree is in biology, I am a scientist and the scientists of the world have agreed: global warming is caused by humans.

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. ~ Ralph Nader

 

[christa]

I am one of those that still doesn't know what to believe. I just don't know facts anymore because the media is all about their agenda. I am torn because I am not a scientist.

 

[Boomstick]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10375410#post10375410 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by christa
I am one of those that still doesn't know what to believe. I just don't know facts anymore because the media is all about their agenda. I am torn because I am not a scientist.

Christa - it is not about science, it is about common sense, we are doing something that is not natural, it is 100% man made - mother nature / King Neptune - didn't invent the car or make CO2 spewing factories.
In fact mother nature grew trees - and we cut them down for farms and urban sprawl
And King Neptune made fish, plankton and Algae and we over fish and pollute to kill them.

Forget the politics, forget about the media and forget the science, just think about the common scenes of what we are doing and how it is not natural.