Slashdot Mirror
Still More on Global Warming
hype7 writes "The Daily Telegraph is running a piece on the world's temperature. Apparently, it was a lot hotter in the middle ages: "A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today's temperatures are neither the warmest over the past millennium, nor are they producing the most extreme weather - in stark contrast to the claims of the environmentalists.""
" . . . Perhaps of even greater significance is the continuous and profound distrust of science and technology that the environmental movement displays. The environmental movement maintains that science and technology cannot be relied upon to build a safe atomic power plant, to produce a pesticide that is safe, or even bake a loaf of bread that is safe, if that loaf of bread contains chemical preservatives. When it comes to global warming, however, it turns out that there is one area in which the environmental movement displays the most breathtaking confidence in the reliability of science and technology, an area in which, until recently, no one--even the staunchest supporters of science and technology--had ever thought to assert very much confidence at all. The one thing, the environmental movement holds, that science and technology can do so well that we are entitled to have unlimited confidence in them, is FORECAST THE WEATHER!--for the next one hundred years..."
George Reisman, Ph.D, The Toxicity of Environmentalism
This only furthers the evidence that global warming has not been caused by human action.
Since WWII, growing populations and increasing industrial activity have put billions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, yet the climate cooled significantly between 1940 and 1975. Since then, surface thermometers show a continued small warming trend up to the present, while satellites, as well as balloon-borne radiosondes, do not. It is possible that loacal warming in urban areas has contaminated surface data, skewing the results.
It was with good reason that the US did not sign the Kyoto treaty.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
The telegraph article is a pretty lousy article, and gives few details. A bettle article is available at Space Flight Now. Apparently, the study was partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute so I would be especially wary of bias.
There isn't enough evidence in the articles to understand what the study actually found. They published some of their findings in the Climate Research journal, which only gives an abstract without a subscription. However, they haven't even published their full findings which are supposed to be published in Energy and Environment which appears to be more of a policy journal than a scientific journal.
I think it is very hard to evaluate the credibility of these claims without seeing the actual journal article that explains them. Another thing is that according to Space Flight Now article, is that the study is actually "A review of more than 200 climate studies," and we need to look at the authenticity of these studies. However, maybe it will help us look at global warming from a new perspective.
Ok, there is more than one factor at play here. It's not as if anyone really expected climate to depend only on human CO2 emissions, right?
But I don't think anyone should take this as an excuse to say "see? SUV culture is not bad for the planet".
Were affecting the equilibrium of a really complex system and we don't really know where that will bring us.
The idea isn't that temperatures have been low and high and now they're REALLY HIGH. The current temps aren't really much higher than they have been in previous peaks. It's that they've been rising and falling in a fairly gradual and random manner since the earliest point we have records of, and now, since about 1800, they're rising REALLY REALLY FAST, about twice as fast as any other temperature rise or drop we have records of, and seem to be continuing to rise really really fast.
Moreover, before when the rising temperatures were more or less random and due to many factors, it was just a matter of waiting until the factors causing the high temperatures went away and stuff started falling again. Now, when there is significant reason to believe that the temp. rise is being caused by human activity, it seems reasonable to expect that if the human activity causing it continues unabated-- as it seems to be-- well, they just aren't going to stop.
By the way, you shouldn't bother debating global warming. Especially on slashdot. Most studies on the subject you'll be able to link are biased one way or the other (note: who funded this current study?) and most people who have something to say on the subject will base what they say on that they want one answer to be true or not.
The ability of the human mind to begin with a conclusion and then look around until sufficient evidence is found to "prove" it is limitless.
--super ugly ultraman
the other problem that people don't realize is that a lot of fossil fuel burns in the environment naturally too and is released naturally. In the gulf of mexico for instance, oil seeps through the earth's crust creating natural oil slicks which harm animal life in that area, oil that if drilled would not slick as much. This proves that in some cases, action or inaction by us hurts the environment not just oil drilling, but perhaps not drilling sometimes hurts the environment. I think we have to weigh the pros and cons every time we make environmental decisions, both sides have to be looked at, not just the environmental side, and not just the economic side.
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
there was vegitation in the artic circle, there are frozen remains of Mammoths up there with undigested vcegetation in their bellys (and there was enough of it to sustain a creature of that size as well).
Secondly, where did all the ice from the ice age go? surly mans discovery of fire didnt promote the end of that period in time...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
...just ask any brain-dead hick here in the Midwest (I live in Indiana with a lot of them and this winter was particularly cold and snowy).
Disolve to snowy Indiana January
Brain-Dead Hick: Global warming, my ass. It's durn cold out here.
Me: You know, you can't just decide whether Global Warming it true or not based on such a short sampling period like this winter compared to last winter.
BDH: You're one of those fancy college boys aren't ya. You calling me a liar?
Me: No, I was just saying that you can't base such a statement on how cold it is right now.
BDH: Listen here. It's durn cold, that's proof enough to me that Global Warming is a crock of bull. And if you pull more of that college crap on my I'm gonna beat your ass.
Me: Durn it's cold out here. Global warming, my ass.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
I'm no expert, but try to follow he discussions on global warming.
What I find is that questioning the global warming theories seems to be "not done". It would not be the first time a scientist get in trouble because he/she comes up with different models.
I don't say we can throw whatever we like into the atmosphere, moderation is alwais good. This still should not stop different scientists trying different ways of looking at the climate. To me this is what science is about, otherwise the world would still be flat.
I live in Boston. It is April. The forecast is for 3 to 6 inches of snow.
I know I know. Warming is not universal, it is the bigger picture scientists are concerned about. Some regions get warmer, but everybody's climate changes, threatening flora and fauna.
But from my point of view, it should be a few degrees warmer, especially this time of year. The Red Sox home opener is Friday. I hope they get the field cleared by then and also hope another storm doesn't dump still more snow.
Warming? I will be shoveling my steps and digging my car out later (tomorrow?). On April 1, 1997 Boston got nailed with 24+ inches of snow. 3rd biggest snowfall ever. EVER! No fooling.
I'm really looking foreward to those 6 weeks of summer - during which the avereage temp will be 100 degress F. Then is is right back to 50 degrees and below for the remaining 10.5 months.
Ice ages come and go in cycles. We are at the beginning of the next ice age and it should become colder not warmer.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
in the 70's, many of today's Global Warming researchers were claiming that the Earth was falling into an Ice Age.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
However, we have weather data only for the last 120 years. All "data" before that comes from "environmental models" or ice cubes from Antarctica. Well, the models predict that the models are correct. A classical logic flaw - this problem was already discussed in the antics by Aristoteles and Platon. The data from ice cubes is very wacky, it's sometimes very difficult to say from which time the ice comes from and it's even harder to get it's temperature.
So, we don't really know if there is a global warming. Temperature changes of 0.5 degree celsius are within the error intervals of the estimators therefore totally meaningless.
There is no decent theory were this global warming should come from. Trajectory oszillations of earths orbit around sun might sound sensible, but the chaotic dynamics of the n-body systems are hardly understood, especially in 4 dimensions. So that's just a guess.
The ecologist ideology "CO2-pollution" is just rubbish. These guys say that global warming starts around 1903 were CO2-levels couldn't have any effects. The methane levels in the 35000 feet layers of the atmosphere can't also be responsible for the very same reason - modern highly methane producing cow breed were introduced after 1934 world wide.
So I think this is just a pseudo-scientific ecologist scam to scare people away from modern technology and to keep them in the dark without information to control them better.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
I was surprised to learn recently that trees are not CO2 sinks--once they die, decay restores their lifetime of consumed CO2 to the atmosphere. There are only two CO2 sinks: - biological matter that is interred deep into sediment (which often becomes oil) -solid CO2 at the bottom of the ocean (where the pressure results in a higher melting point) That there are only two sinks of carbon on Earth makes me suspicious of fossil fuels, as much as my heart goes out to the pro-tech sentiments expressed here.
I've been complaining for a while now that the problem with "global warming" is that we don't have enough long term weather data to accuratly state that this isn't a natural cycle. I'm really glad that the scientific community has taken notice of this little loophole. It might actually get a few environmentalists to do serious research instead of hugging trees. *snicker*
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
/. readers tend to be pretty smart - or so I thought. I find it completely depressing that even here politics override common sense. The preponderence of evidence shows that we really are having a significant impact on world climate. No one really knows what that impact will eventually be, but when screwing around with immense things that you really don't understand and that happen to keep you alive unknown == dangerous.
It hasn't been proven that global warming is true - far from it, in fact - but research has "strongly suggested" (my term, but certainly fair) that it could be true, so it strikes me that any half-intelligent primate would jump to it and try to avoid the possible crisis instead of jumping up and down and screaming "you haven't proved it yet!"
So even if this proves that global warming is not man-made.. which it doesn't until more researchers find the same answers.. we still should have signed Kyoto.
There's a lot more to pollution than global warming. How's about respiratory ailments? Know what the instances of asthma are like now, as opposed to 50 years ago? How about all of the other diseases being caused by contamination of ground water by toxic chemicals. Look especially to heavily-industrialised but unregulated states like Texas for examples of these kind of health problems.
Also, this does not challenge the damage to the ozone layer, and the probability that it is our doing. What about the tears that have been appearing in it at random, such as the one above Chile that doused a village in direct UV?
Kyoto is also about hedging our bets. As there are methods of accomplishing all of the same industrial goals with less pollution, why do we want to take the chance that it's caused by us, when we can ditch the pollutants and then sleep knowing that if the world bakes, at least it isn't our fault? How will all of you conservative fucks feel in 50 years if you were wrong? "Oops?" This is not something we can go back, say "sorry" and fix. If we are causing permanent damage to the planets ecology, our descendents will pay the price. As long as there is any doubt whatsoever, I'd rather err on the side of caution. I think any rational person would.
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
They didn't call it the "Medievil Warm Period" for no reason...
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
I couldnt care less if it's about global warming or the ozone layer or saving pink river dolphins from extinction. Environmental-friendly living is a worthy pursuit in and of itself!
Do you shit on the floor? Do you piss in the kitchen sink? Earth is where we live for crying out loud, we should try to keep out planetary home as clean as possible even if there ISN'T a single dangerous side effect of pollution. Where are your manners? Can we call ourselves truly civilized?
I'm sick of this stupid polluted town with dirty floors and smoggy air. I'm sick of waking up every day around 6AM when the first round of buses start zooming past my windows, which btw, keep getting black with soot.I find it terribly bothersome that, as an amateur astronomer, I have to travel hundreds of miles in order to do any half-decent observation and I really can't understand how the simple logic of keeping our own damn "house" half-clean seems to be beyond the feeble minds of its inhabitants. *shrugs*
That's funny... it never ceases to amaze me how arrogant people can be in thinking we are outside the ecology, or can just trample all over it, quite obviously upsetting balances in drastic ways, and then try to justify it either because we're somehow special, or because "that's just nature". Sure, we're part of the ecology, but it dosn't mean to say that everything we then do in the ecology is a good, natural thing to happen.
Its perfectly natural for our temperatures to fluctuate. Its not that long since we had a fucking Ice age so a bit of warming is not an inherently bad thing.
It also amazes me how ignorant people can be. Yes, certain temperature fluctuations are perfectly natural, but the question is: are the temperature fluctuations we have seen over the past couple of hundred years normal, or are they the result of human activities? It is a fact that rising temperatures are already causing problems in low-lying areas, and that if they continue to rise, as the majority of the scientific community believes, we will see many more problems for humans and the ecology as a whole. You're just fudging the argument.
It seems some of you have never taken High School chemistry. If you have, you'd know that any stress applied to an equilibrium system will be counteracted by an opposite process. For instance, if you heat up ice, it will melt, a cooling process. If you freeze water, it will give off heat, warming itself up.
It just so happens that the Earth's equilibrium lies at about 50 (give or take, it's different for different parts of the world.) Now, whatever we do, be it release CO2 or keep matches lit, the Earth will not increase its temperature significantly until it has exhausted its ability to cool itself, namely, melting ice. Thus, the only direct indicator of global warming is the elevating sea level, not the change in temperature.
However, it is extremely hard to measure this over a long period of time, but another way of predicting warming is looking for changes in weather patterns. If a location gets 10 times the normal amount of rain two years in a row, you know something is wrong. If an area becomes dry and arid when it used to be damp, something has changed, most probably due to our influences. Why? While melting and freezing ice will hold an equilibrium steady at a certain temperature, the Earth is a gigantic closed system, and thus requires a large amount of mixing to transfer heat from one location to another. Thus, rising temperatures need to be transmitted to the poles for equilibrium to remain constant, and the Earth does this through weather patterns. If the temperature changes, so do weather patterns. And the frightening thing is, they are. Quite a bit too.
Just saying that since the temperature hasn't risen, there is no global warming, is an utter lie. The temperature won't rise significantly until all the ice at the poles has melted.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Weather goes in cycles. Simple fact. Without man being an influence we've had ice ages -> hot spells -> ice ages. If what they are saying is true then as its now cooler then we might be haeding for another ice age. Also take the hole in the ozone layer which was a big deal in the late 80's. Recent tests have shown that is now smaller and taking the life of CFC's is 50 years people are now wondering if it is all a natural cycle
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
this argument is probably due to the "environmentalists" wanting to lobby their idea of an environmentally clean world of the future. They need an angle to attack the general public, cause silt in the streambeds ain't doing it. BUT, alarming theories on global warming captures our attention definitely. So what if its slightly bogus, they're lobbying for a greater good. So said the Nazis though. We may want to question the validity of EVERYTHING anyone says even if it discredits the value of "the greater good"...
this is not a sig.
environmentalism is really a path to world socialism and world government, in the same vein as the UN. every time an "environmental crisis" appears, there is a always a call for money. money from the government. also, each new claim comes with the associated calls for limits to our freedoms.
That people continue to spout such drivel blows my mind. Hasn't the cold war been over for a while now? Incorporating Rush Limbaugh's soundbytes into a slashdot post is one thing, but sounding like a michigan militiaman is even worse.
Seriously.. Get a grip, the world isn't out to get you.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
"Apparently, it was a lot hotter in the middle ages"
...
Right, I'm moving there then.
What do you mean they don't have internet access?
graspee
Lets set up two planets and see on which humans will survive... Personally i still vote for the one with cars. If you die, die in style.
Methinks you need to study some history. Man, or homo sapiens sapiens, originated between 350,000 to 150,000 years ago, and achieved world-wide distribution about 50,000 years ago. Modern civilization is considered to be about 10,000 years old. And it was only in the 20th century that the population passed the billion mark.
All studies I have seen on Global Warming seem biased so why not do your own study. What the enviromentalists seem to complain about is not that the temperature is so high but that it is increasing at a faster rate than before. Being a Geek I'd like to see this for myself. Does anone know where one could find the yearly mean temperature for say the last 2000 years?
Calculating the derivative of the temperature curve is, what, 6 lines of perl?
The way I see it, let the environmentalists keep whining about CO2 and whatnot. Anything that stops the heart of petrolium dependency is good in my eyes. the US wouldn't meddle in the middle east. Iraqis and Iranian governments would have no reason to hate us. In the past the major life bringing arteries of the world were filled with fresh water, these days they are filled with black goo. I think the symbolism is ironc.
The earth's orientation has shifted at east once - it was cold somewhere, just wasn't there.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Environmentalism is about as far from socialism as it is from right-wing conservatism. Socialism holds that society is the fundamental, whereas environmentalism holds that the ecology is, whereas right-wing conservatism holds that the family and status quo are, etc. etc. Most ecological parties are also essentially capitalist, though they aren't into the laisse-faire capitalism that thinks corporations are trustworhy while states aren't.
When you say freedom, you're just referring to your individual freedom - freedom from the control of others - but there are many more freedoms you enjoy, such as freedom from poverty, freedom from shitty living conditions, freedom from pollution, freedom from a repressive government, etc. etc. Get that into your head, and you might drop the absurd posturing.
And your last paragraph, well, name me an environmentalist who has advocated a third world dictator telling the US how to run its economy!
So About global warming...
I zhink that if we want to prevent it we have to stop doing thing like going to work in your car by yourself...
BTW : did you see a enviromentalist go around on a bike, or go to an office to complain using public transport??
Well i know that i use public transport, and mostly when i go somwhere near i walk... i contribute, you should too.
i think the studies showing that shooting people are all wrong. those studies, and the policies they cause, are restricting my freedom to shoot people. that sucks. same goes with alcohol. and anything else potentially harmful. but damn it, we have a natural right to do anything, right? yup.
... just -maybe- ... it's possible to limit ourselves slightly. market economy is already restricted: no monopolies (theoretically) ... long john's can't fry your fish in animal fat anymore ... we restrict ourselves all the time. this won't be the first, nor the last. as posted elsewhere: even if we're not sure of all the causes and all the effects of our actions, maybe we should still be somewhat careful?
... on another note ... do you really think we should be bossing other countries around? bribing some, invading some, putting up blockades on others ... ? and if you're worried about freedom, you might also look at what our current, completely blameless government is doing to us. they're not corrupt, right? wonder why my rights keep going down the drain every time they get together to worry about my security ...
maybe you're right. maybe capitalism and freedom are more important than at least looking at the possibility that we're screwing ourselves over. but maybe
you're right of course. we don't have enough data. and the people giving us what data we have already interpret the data in odd ways, mostly for their own profit. all of them. but i'd hate for our generation to be remembered as the ones who had a chance to do something about the world before it got too bad -- but just figured it was fine and refused to look. that'd suck.
and
In southern Maine we just got a foot of new snow with perhaps another foot coming this week.
Global warming? Bah!
Now we can continue to pollute the planet and plunder the oceans and rainforests as much as we like. Phew!
Yeah, but he was using /. math. ;)
1) These studies do not contradict the fact that human induced warming is occuring.
2) Potentially, human induced warming can be much much greater than what weve seen so far
3) The studies show that warmer temperatures lead to more extreme weather.
4) if warmer temperatures in the past have led to more extreme weather, warmer temperatures caused by humans can do the same.
5) even if there are OTHER factors (solar variability etc) leading to warmer temperatures, CO2 is a well known greenhouse gas, without it, the earth would have an average temperature below freezing, solar variability or not.
6)Other natural factors leading to warming would suggest that we do even more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase sequestration of gasses, to counteract the very changes in weather that these studies suggest warmer temperatures bring.
yup, those environmentalists sure got slammed by that study.
The Bible does not advocate man destroying the planet. It is quite clear that God will destroy the earth when he is ready. All I was give the idea of global warming some context to the rest of time.
Every time I fart I am contributing to a rise in global temperature by about 0.000000000000001 degrees Celcius for 24 hours.
eTrade SUCKS
Agreed. One could just as well argue that people are healthier because fewer people are "dyin' of the consumption!" People used to die of all sorts of things that doctors didn't know were forms of cancer.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Man is only 7000 years or so old. Why is that a problem? The Bible is clear if you add up the ages of those people found in the genologies.
To quote Gomer Pyle,
"Surprise, surprise, surprise!"
No, of course there's no sarcasm in there...
Hey! I know! All those Dinosaurs they used as construction equipment! They must have crapped all over the place! Think of all the methane that must have produced. So, it was the Dinosaur's fault that we have all this global warming or cooling!
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Terrorism is really a path to world socalism and a world government - in the same vein as the UN. Every time an "terrorist threat" appears, there is always a call for money. Money from the government. Also, each new claim comes with associated calls for limits to our freedoms.
It's easy for (some of you) Americans to shout "socialism!" everytime there is something you don't like, isn't there?
i hunt and fish, and love the outdoors as much as anyone. but, i think capitalism and freedom are far more important. do you really want the corrupt third world dictators telling the US how to run its economy?
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damned sure I DON'T want the US telling the world what to do. I mean, how can the US sit and pontificate when their Congress" is corrupt? Or how about profiteering from a war which the US started preemtively and unilaterally on "humanitarian" grounds? Or actively supports terrorists" and backs dictatorial regimes when they are in the apparent best interest of the US? Or the best interests of certain member's of government?
Do I really want the corrupt nuclear supperpower to be telling the world how to run their affairs? No. And you should be worried too. The US is becoming the Land of the Progressively Less Free.
(I apologize for this being off-topic. When someone spouts off like this person did, I feel a need to respond. As for the current war in Iraq and the soldiers on the ground there: I support you and hope you come back safely. I do not support the government who sent you, or the reasons they give for doing so.)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
the commentary on this scientific study is missing the point, as usual.
--in stark contrast to the claims of the environmentalists.--
Global warming is not about plotting the temperature of the earth from some point in the past till today. If there are some environmentalists out there who claim that it is, then they are missing the point as much as the commentator of this article is.
Global warming is a concern NOT because of how cold or hot we think it once was on earth, it is a concern because we know that we are adversely affecting our climate with certain actions. The greenhouse affect and the heat retention properties of certain elements and substances in our atmosphere are without question - these are scientific facts beyond doubt - and THESE are the concerns of environmentalists. They realise that global warming is propably not in our best interest, and if it were to occur (or if it is occuring) because of something we are doing, and we have the ability to prevent it - shoudlnt we?
It has absolutely ZERO - ZILCH - NOTHING to do with what the weather was like for the Knights in Shining Armour
If the enjoyed 90 degree days year round that doesnt change the fact that certain subsatnces when poured into our atmosphere will affect our atmosphere - in a way that we will most likely regret.
Yes, there is an academic and scientific argument whether the weather has changed, what causes that, and how much more it's going to change in the future. That's nice. That's interesting. But it has little to do with public policy on greenhouse gas emissions, however.
The argument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is simply that if emissions keep growing, sooner or later they will change the climate. They may cause warming, they may cause cooling, or they may cause other changes in weather patterns. It may take another decade of growth, or it may take another half century. But the conservative and prudent thing to do is to limit our emissions until we know more.
And, in fact, reducing greenhouse gas emissions should have no deleterious effect on the global economy: it just replaces one set of industries with another. If anything, that creates new business activity as new infrastructure needs to be created (new power plants, railways, etc.).
It is quite ironic that self-proclaimed "conservatives" are the ones most in favor of continuing the dangerous experiment of emitting vast amounts of greenhouse gases on a global scale.
Okay folks- take this quiz- What is the largest contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere?
A: vulcanism.
What is the second largest contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere?
A: Decomposition of organic materials. (soil production)
What is the Third largest contributor of CO2 to the atmospere?
A: Rocks.
ROCKS? How can that be?! Rocks are inert!
A: Igneous rocks are naturally carbonated due to the high levels of CO2 dissolved in the earth's magma. (boiling hot MAGMA) . This CO2 is released anytime a rock gets wet and erodes. It's a small amount, but unfortunately there are a great many rocks. Like, a million.
I do not deny that humans impact the environment with our activity. Certainly any feasable action to limit our impact should be undertaken. I am not sure that we need to bicycle to work, though. Environmentalism is reasonable and prudent. Environmental activism is a disease. Hug a tree if it makes you feel good, but realize that extreme lefty environmental activism is a ruse for marxism, and that most of the damage men used to wreak upon the ecology has been outlawed. Our cars are cleaner every year. Hell, even our sport utility vehicles get 18-25 mpg. The main reason we buy THOSE is because the CARB emission rules killed the full size car. There was an exemption for light trucks, so people who needed large cars just buy them higher off the ground. There is no way for a family of seven to use a Toyota Prius for anything worthwhile.
Many environmental activists have a conspiracy theory based mindset, and believe all corporate entities want to fuck up the world. If this was insanely profitable, I would agree with them. In real life, auto manufacturers see fuel cell tech and other high mileage/high efficiency technology as a huge selling point. They see it as a sales advantage. Believe it or not, there is no conspiracy between auto manufacturers and oil companies. Car companies want to sell cars that use less fuel. Oil companies want to use their oil to make more profitable things than gasoline. As a complex hydrocarbon, petroleum has immense potential as a base for synthetic material production. From it, even sugar can be synthesized. (but I'm sure you wouldn't eat sugar made from motor oil no matter what, would you?-- If it was pure and identical to cane sugar, why not?)
I wonder when they will start accepting what chaos theorists have been saying for over 30 years now! They do have a tremendous amount of theory to explain such phenomena as temperature fluctuations (and of course, how it is connected to the stock market :) ). This also shows, wheather we can trust this article or not, that nobody has any idea whatsoever wheather the greenhouse effect exists or even what it really is.
This requires a whole lot of study, before anyone can make any conclusions. And even though environmenatalists are fighting for a good cause, most of them have no idea what they are talking about!
I come from a part of the world that's under the ozone hole - I want freedom from skin cancer - I WANT the right to stop the US from dumping stuff in the atmosphere that will kill me - it doesn't make me a 3rd world dictator
Agreed. One could just as well argue that people are healthier because fewer people are "dyin' of the consumption!" People used to die of all sorts of things that doctors didn't know were forms of cancer.
"Consumption" was what tuberculosis used to be called. Now, in the 1st world at least, it is exceedingly rare and easily treated with antibiotics. But it used to kill people regularly.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Do you realize that you haven't made a single argument as to:
- how environmentalism is a path to world socialism;
- how environmentalism is a path to world government;
- how environmentalism is contradictory with capitalism;
- how environmentalism is contradictory with freedom;
- how environmentalism amounts to corrupt third world dictators telling the US how to run its economy. (as a side note, the current behavior seems to be the US telling everybody how to run their country)
In short, you're a troll.
Now I think that you should read about the "tragedy of the commons" - that is, the economic problem of having some common resource (here, the air, and more generally the environment) that can be used without limitation or taxation. The problem is that, while the interest of everybody is to abuse those resources (since the slight abuse committed by one person is low on the global scale), bad things happen if everybody abuses those resources.
May I also add that this problem is acknowledged by both "socialist" and "capitalist" economists, though with rather differing solutions proposed?
en-vi-ron-men-ta-list n. 1. A political activist whose main area of concern is the environment. 2. A scientist whose area of research is the environment.
The Telegraph seems to be attempting to discredit those scientists by painting them with the brush of political activism.
Few scientists, regardless of their political views, doubt the reality of global warming. The evidence is increasingly difficult to refute _and_ there is a strong theoretical basis to the observations being made. Whether or not there were isolated areas which have actually been warmer in the last 1000 or so years is of little consequence. This is not mathematics. It will take a whole lot more than one counter-example to disprove the theory.
That still doesn't change the fact that pollution is causing a lot of health problems.. How many kids back in the day of the steam buggy had asthma? I know I have a lot of really nasty allergies due to the pollution-- I can hardly breathe at night! I think everyone should be more concious of alternative travel.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Well yes, I live right smack in the middle of a largish city... I'm seriously considering moving to a quieter place in a few years, when I start having kids and run out of space for them. But with the economy being what it is, I can't afford making any major changes to my life until I start earning some decent money again. Sometimes I just wish I was a farmer or something ;)
Don't believe me? Check out http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere /polar/polar.html where there is plenty of information explaining where when and how the ozone hole exists. In case you're in a hurry:
* There is still an ozone hole. It opens up every year over Antarctica, generally from August through December, then closes back up.
* This year's (2002) hole was the smallest in 20 years. At no point has the ozone hole ever opened up directly over New Zealand. However, the proximity of the hole means that UV levels have been higher in recent years than in the mid 20th Century and probably before. Unfortunately, NZ's relatively clean air also means that fewer UV rays get dispersed in the atmosphere so sunburn rates are higher here than in dirtier regions similarly afflicted (mostly Chile).
* Lest we (or more accurately, I) get too excited, it's probably fair to note that 2001's hole was abnormally large, so it's hard to point to a downward size trend evident in the hole itself.
* On the other hand, the chemicals responsible for the ozone hole, CFCs, have been phased out to such a degree (because of the 1987 Montreal Protocol), that the stock of CFCs in the atmosphere has peaked and the scientific consensus is that the annual ozone hole will disappear entirely within 25-50 years. See what happens when you design an environmental treaty well enough that even Ronald Reagan signs it?
* This is such good news that there is no mention of it on the Sierra Club's website (a search of which yields no references to the ozone layer since 1996), nor on Greenpeace's "Ozone Crisis" site, which hasn't been updated, according to the HTML source, since September 1997. By the way, the Greenpeace site declares that the Montreal Protocol is a total failure and each annual report from 1992 to 1997 explains why CFC accumulations should continue to accelerate in the future. By 1997 the report begins to focus mainly on worries about volcano eruptions.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that despite its dangerously-clean air, New Zealand has some of the lax est environmental rules in the developed world, beating out even the US in some categories. Thus while NZ is indeed nuclear-free, unlike, say, Boston, recycling in Wellington is a chore, not an easily-accomplished civic duty.
I come from a part of the world that's under the ozone hole - I want freedom from skin cancer - I WANT the right to stop the US from dumping stuff in the atmosphere that will kill me - it doesn't make me a 3rd world dictator
so you are in antarctica? it seems you *are* free from the risk of skin cancer. i highly doubt you go outside with much exposed skin. if you do, exposure to the sun is at best a secondary concern...
Life is short; think quickly.
I think you've just proven the original poster's point, Mr. Socialist.
No way. That piece has to be wrong. There's no "scientific" proof.
Face it, the world is comming to an end. Doom is near. The world has been comming to an end ever since there were environmentalists and you're not about to change that now with one silly article.
Doom I tell you! Doom!
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
In English perhaps. In Norwegian it is Aristoteles and Platon, probably in the posters native tounge too. Not easy to know that you should translate personal names...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Yes, tuberculosis was called consumption, but so was any other wasting disease, like cancer. People who died of things that we now know were cancer were often said to have died "of the comsumption."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Oh go and do Economics 101 or whatever it is that you people like to mention to lend false authority to ignorance. Just because I believe in freedom from poverty, does not mean I am a socialist. If you think it does, you're either a nut, or ignorant. I won't hazard a guess.
that global warming is caused or accelerated by human activity, however a plausible mechanism has been put forth: we produce C02 etc. which allow short wavelenghts in but trap IR. Fine. Is that the only mechanism at work? What about the particulate matter that is released by man that is highly reflective and may raise the Earth's albedo? Perhaps the net effect of man is to cool the planet. The earth is on a natural warming trend. I have no references but saw plots to this effect in a class I took on Global warming from BCs Geophysics dept. The question is how much does man contribute to that trend. Those plots didn't show conclusively that man was having any effect, but that in no way proves that we aren't. So what do we do? Mine is just a lowly opinion, but I think it's wise to err on the side of the conservative and do what we can to limit emmissions of greenhouse gasses.
This lobster was alive when it hit the frothy, boiling water.
scripsit b17bmbr:
Really? No shit. I need to stop making fun of environmentalists. I mean, all this time I was thinking that we were going to need a serious revolution, with all the messy liquidation of the national bourgeoisies, having to organize a dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. I never realized that I could bring about world socialism by just recycling my beer cans!
Workers of the world, recycle!
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
So whether this change is natural or man-made, we need to figure out how, or if, we can stop it, or at least slow it down. That's where our energy should be going. Obviously, studying past patterns of weather is important for this, but let's face the fact that we have a problem and stop taking the attitude that well, if it's natural, if it happened before, it's ok. Sorry - but we're just as wet and hungry if it's natural as if it's not!
To quote Willy Wonka "Strike That, Reverse It"
we ARE fairly accurately able to determine past temperature patterns through examination of temp-dependant phenomena, and the work of literally thousands of scientists concurring about global warming and disbelieved by one oil industry funded study is hardly the same as every quasi-religious pseudo scientist of the past being defied in regards to the earth being flat.
Sure, it sounds like you're a moron. It's quite possible that you are.
... until they eliminate the need for human operators, then they cannot make such a facility safe enough to avoid inevitable disaster.
For most kinds of engineering, that's acceptable (inevitable disaster), you just move on afterward. In the case of radioactive materials, it's not always that easy.
-pyrrho
Most ecological parties are also essentially capitalist,
Wrong. In the US, many people who would term themselves environmentalists are politically moderate or run-of-the-mill liberal. I would include myself here; I'm pretty much right at the center. However, the party which makes environmental concerns the largest part of its platform is the Greens, in both the US and Europe. I would not call them "capitalist" by any stretch of the imagination - they are about as socialist as possible. They simply phrase themselves differently from groups such as, say, the International Socialist Organization.
I don't see any necessary conflict between environmentalism and capitalism; rather, the conflict is between environmentalism and free-market libertarianism. However, many of the ecological disputes center around what are essentially shared resources (e.g. national forests, waterways), which makes libertarian arguments sound rather stupid. I grew up in the Pacific NW, and I for one think the timber companies should be permanantly expelled from public lands.
Nuclear Power: You cite two examples of operator failure.
:-)
DDT: saved immensely more people from pest borne disease than were remotely affected by environmental impact
Preservatives: when was our last famine?
Observation: Environmentalists, like most of us, focus on "evidence" that supports their point of view i.e. observation is wildly subjective even when gathered by the finest technology available simply because data must be interpreted.
Fact is, from based on "observation" we should intensely distrust other people. Mind you, my computer is a close second. Now there's an untrustworthy piece of technology
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Global warming is caused by humans pumping co2 into the air, thus increasing global tempaure and melting the polar ice caps. Since 2/3's of the human race lives on coast lines, they will drown and the chemical plants causing the pollution will be destroyed.
Problem solved.
Meanwhile Chicago gets some decent weather for winter, thus prolonging construction season. I hate snow, bring on some global warming!!!
no
It's certainly true that the earth has been warmer in the past. The concern that I've been reading about is whether the present rise is happening at such a high rate of speed as to cause problems. Problems like destabilizing the planet's negative feedback loops, or leaving vegetation without enough time to adjust their range to match the changing climate.
It doesn't sound like this article/study specifically treats such questions.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Nationalism: It makes the world suck.
Well, yes, at least Microsoft is concerned enough to only produce softwares full of toxic wastes.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
The sky is falling!
Every time I read about global warming and the ozone hole, all I can think of is "the sky is falling!"
The fable of Chicken Little is supposed to teach children that some people expect the end of the world and look for signs of it constantly.
Unfortunately, it seems that a whole generation of pseudo-scientists have decided that Chicken Little was right.
Has anyone else seen the old documentaries on how pollution was going to lead to another ice age? Before there was global warming there was global cooling and all of it was blamed on pollution. Don't get me wrong, eventually pollution will catch up with us, but it's important to think about the implications of blaming global temperature changes on the cause of the hour. The earth is always either warming up or cooling down. That's what it does, always has, always will (hopefully). Nature doesn't stay constant.
Whenever I tell people I don't buy global warming they look at me like I just sprayed DDT on the Galapagos Islands. Not buying global warming != supporting global pollution. I may not believe that pollution is increasing our temperature, but I do believe that it is increasing our cancer rate, which in my mind is much worst. Maybe if I hadn't seen those documentaries on global cooling my perspective would be different.
Do me a favor and double it!
Sure, we're part of the ecology, but it dosn't mean to say that everything we then do in the ecology is a good, natural thing to happen.
Uh, what? If we are a part of nature (and I'd have to say we are) then EVERYTHING we do is natural. Maybe not "good" (who the hell decides "good" and "bad" here anyhow?), but it sure as hell is natural.
When a beaver makes a dam, its all natural and "good". When a man makes a dam, HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT ABNORMAL ABOMINATION! Get your head out of your ass. We are animals. The only difference between us and a shit flinging monkey is a few abstract ideas.
I'm not saying we shouldn't take care of our environment. I am all for saving our biodiversity and keeping the air/water/earth clean. I don't want to live in a shithole. But that doesn't make anything we do unnatural, it just means we have a little bit of sense about what is going on and can choose to do things differently if we please. I bet if that beaver knew any better he'd make up some concrete and block the whole river. But the beaver doesn't know any better, and yet we do. Still, doesn't change the fact that we are both animals doing natural things that animals do.
In the end if we nuke the entire planet 100 times over, it is nothing but nature continuing on as it has for all of time.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
"if you remember the 70's, paul weirich, et al., the big concern was global cooling."
Paul Weyrich? What's that neocon nutcase got to do with the environment?
"do you really want the corrupt third world dictators telling the US how to run its economy?"
Well I suppose that might be worse than President Bush.
*shudder*
...and you will see that the author of the paper being discused in the article, a Dr Philip Stott, is really juat an right-wing anti-enviromentalists pro-GMO goon. See:
http://www.probiotech.fsnet.co.uk
He's even quoted on the Ultra conservative EviroTruth website:
http://www.envirotruth.org/myth1b.cfm
More info about Stott can be found here.
The sun is getting brighter. Also, there is a remarkable correlation between solar activity and climate, like the Maunder minimum (cessation of sunspot cycle) coinciding with the Little Ice Age in Europe. If the sun does have an influence on climate, then the problem is not outside the area of expertise of astrophysicists. This current study doesn't rule out the role of solar variability, and actually makes it a stronger argument.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
The findings prove that the world experienced a Medieval Warm Period between the ninth and 14th centuries with global temperatures significantly higher even than today.
They also confirm claims that a Little Ice Age set in around 1300, during which the world cooled dramatically. Since 1900, the world has begun to warm up again - but has still to reach the balmy temperatures of the Middle Ages.
The timing of the end of the Little Ice Age is especially significant, as it implies that the records used by climate scientists date from a time when the Earth was relatively cold, thereby exaggerating the significance of today's temperature rise.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Many people misconcieve what golbal warming actually is (much of this based on the incorrect use of terms) a better term would be "climate instability." Basically, the weather (already very unpredictable) would be even more unpredictable. A previous slashdot article I believe covered the fact that the
whole of Europe would become much cooler. This would be because their warm fronts would be disrupted.
"Guns don't kill people, bullets do."
I would like to see the IPCC Third Assessment link included with all future articles on global climate change.
While a healthy skepticism about all things is generally good, the vast majority of people, especially on this site, will simply accuse anyone they disagree with of bias. This kind of smear makes it impossible to have a rational discussion of any sort. You have all got to realize that sometimes research won't support your position. Just because someone has data you don't agree with doesn't mean they are evil tools of the government/corporations/Orwellian evil/the Zerg. There are quite a few scientists who are not motivated by money, beliefs, or a particular ideology.
That's important. Let me repeat that.
There are quite a few scientists who are not motivated by money or a particular ideology.
I should know, after all. I am one. I also know others!
I have realized that if, in science, you attempt to defend any particular position because you like it or believe in it, you *will* end up skewing the data to support you. This is bad, I think. Many other scientists think the same way and try to pursue the data to where it leads, regardless of politics or personal views. This can be unpopular, but it is VERY frustrating when people accuse valid data and research of bias...because they don't agree with it. Again, people on this site and elsewhere have the extremely bad habit of picking a side an defending it, and looking at the data later. "Bad beats."
The continuous, general anti-science rhetoric by deliberately ignorant people on this site is also tiring and silly. It acts as a red flag of illiteracy to the rest of the world as well. If anyone on this site wants to be noticed, they should restrain their criticism of science to legitimate questions, not accusations of bias with little grounding in fact.
The main theses of this particular article have been ignored by basically everyone on this site. The main point is that if we are coming out of an *ICE AGE*, then reports that the world is warming quickly probably exaggerate the effect purely by accident--of course we're warming up if we were cold earlier! Evidence that the world's climate undergoes natural shifts of much magnitude casts doubt on the severity of the current warming trend and gives rise to the possibility that it is entirely (or at least mostly) natural. While theory obviously dictates that humans are having an effect, this article is pointing out that the current warming trend may not be all due to humans.
Now, I'd have to see the article itself (and it's Sunday so I ain't going to the office or library) to make a full judgment, but people on here spewing against it without that same research are simply spewing political rhetoric--not valid conclusions.
The best piece of advice I ever took was discarding political ideology in favor of the facts.
Now, let me get back to my frickin' research. Thanks.
--
Christian Sieber
"And yet, it moves." -- Galileo Galilei
It's interesting to note that the thinking these days suggests that famines are the result of a widespread loss of income, whereby large groups of people simly cannot buy food, as opposed to a limit on the amount of food available.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
True that what we do is not necesarrily a good and natural thing to happen. However the relevence of warmer periods in earths history from which it recovered shows that our impact may or may not be as large or as irreversable as some claim them to be.
Most of the human impact global warming studies attempt to claim that it is human action and human actions alone responsible for the warming trend seen over the last couple of decades.
Now you take a study like this one and the solar variable studies and you find that a good chunk of what the human action studies claimed were due to human factors alone can in fact be contributed to completely natural earth weather pattern variation and they loose alot of steam out of their sails.
In fact when considering the results of largely agreed upon solar variation studies which human action studies did not account for, the resulting subtraction of those degrees of change from human action studies places their results back into the statistical margin of error region.. ie not a smoking gun, no statistical significant values of measureable change based on results of human action.
Fact: a single major volcanic erruption introduces more C02 into the atmosphere than mankind does in multiple years of production. I forget the exact number. I beilive there is a stat out there pointing out St. Helens dumped more C02 into the atmosphere than the US has produced in its entire industrial history. While your at it check the amounts released in the recent humongous forrest fires out west this past year as well. IN terms of industrial emmisions we are still puny in comparison to nature. In other words Earth has delt with larger problems than us.
However, I grant our long term effects can and perhaps are begining to add up to something dangerous but I firmly believe carrying capacity issues are going to cause a much larger concern for us before any emmision gases reach truly irrefutable significant levels. Regardless of what we do we will emit gasses that will play a role in earths weather. Thats one of the cornerstone deffinitions of life. We affect our surroundings. The larger and more powerful we get the more we will affect them. Replace all the C02 emmisions tommorrow with H20 from fuel cell emmisions and we will probbaly hear doom and gloom about that as well. Pontentially more storm systems, more cloud cover, leading to colder temps etc.... don't just consider enviromental concerns from the single angle that anything we are doing now is bad and any change made good. If we are emmitting gasses on a globaly significant level then ANY THING WE EMMIT IN REPLACEMENT WILL BE SIGNIFICANT AS WELL. Gasses at these levles are not produced for the hell of it and thinking you can simply x-nay these emissions without something replacing it are silly and in my book such thoughts are the first sign of an eco-wacky study. Good studies take more factors into account when considering possible actions to take and sometimes they include *gasp* compromises.
Finally if we can actively impact the eco system in a negative manner we can also actively impact it in a positive manner. Most eco concious groups talk about stopping or cleaning up when perhaps they could figure out ways to create industrial methods that work to counter act each other. There is more than one way to skin a cat. TO date in my book environmetalist and industrialists are both guilty of lack of long term thought. Industrialists in terms of impacts of waste emmissions and enviromentialists in terms of killing industry. Fact: environmental concerns to date are only considered in times of realtive ease. Toss us back into the depression and see how much people give a rats ass about 50 years from now. Not that its right. But it is reality and reality is what must be dealt with at some point.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
We've been here for a fraction of the Earth's history, and we've been able to accurately monitor changes in the world's atmosphere and temperature for a fraction of the time we've been here. My point? We're in absolutely no position to say what's "normal" or not "normal" in terms of temperature and weather changes. Had we been monitoring the weather for the last 100 million years, I might think otherwise. But we haven't. We've been taking accurate measurements for less than 100 years and some people are arrogant enough to assume that they're "experts" in worldwide climatic changes.
The first poster was right - we're coming off an ice age. How does an ice age end? Perhaps - global warming? Did we cause the end to the last ice age? I think not - yet if we were around at the end of the last ice age in any type of scientific fashion, there would be the same people ranting and raving about "oh my God, the ice that's been here for thousands of years is melting! Look what humans are doing to the Earth!".
My point is that we really need to take a step back. Are there some things we're doing terribly wrong? Sure; the toxic waste, giant landfills, annihilation of the rain forest, etc are all really bad things. But it's not going to affect the Earth. Why? We're nowhere near as big or as important as we think we are. Might we effect a slight change in Earth's climate and its ecosystem for a small period of time? Sure, but what we tend to forget is that Earth will be around a long time after we're gone. Those talking about how we're "destroying the planet" are so self-important and arrogant that they fail to realize just how small they're thinking. If it set fire to a forest, I've destroyed a forest. But guess what - when I'm dead and gone, that forest will grow back. Stop thinking in terms of 10 years or 100 years - nature doesn't think like that. Nature works in periods of millions of years. Our existence on this planet is a microsecond in nature's time. The most destructive thing we could possibly do - nuclear war - would be completely undone in a few million years. Don't believe me? Look at the massive astroid impacts this planet has endured. The dinosaurs were annihilated in a massive, global event - whatever that event might have been. Yet somehow, the Earth survived and bred new life. Amazing!
It's hardly amazing; it's just the way nature works. We're much smaller and less important than our religions have made us out to be. To those who march on constantly in their little "save the planet" campaigns, I really think you ought to change your cause to "save the humans". Why? Because if we damage the ecosystem that spawned us enough that we're unable to adapt, we'll be gone. We couldn't destroy the planet if we tried; but we can easily put an end to the silly bunch of creatures called "humans" - something nature will do when we've become too inconvenient.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Your chemicals that are purported to have such a harmful affect on the environment are not as dangerous as you think.
DDT got a lot of bad rap in the newspapers, but there isn't solid science yet to prove that it is dangerous to the environment. It was banned purely for political reasons that had nothing to do with science and everything to do with sensationalism.
And as far as cancer-causing agents? I think this is hilarious. The "scientific" community takes rats that are genetically predisposed to cancer, even in a clean environment, and then feed them enormous amounts of these chemicals. When one or two of them get cancer, it is declared as a carcinogen.
The environmental movement has nothing to do with hard facts or real science. They are motivitated by the same thing that motivates most people out there: sensationalism and "feelings".
And you claim that environmentalists rely on scientific observations. Balogna. The only observation they pay attention to is the observation of their bank accounts, and the effect of their dumb-headed propaganda on the masses.
The environmental movement in America is best described as "Communism in drag". All they want to do is disrupt American industry, our right to eat, drink, wear, and use the things we want, and our right to drive whatever car we would like. They are all about limiting freedom and expanding government. They are never about increasing individual rights.
True environmentalists realize that taking away rights from people is not the way to go about preserving the environment. The best way is to operate within the bounds of law and common sense and buy land and turn it into a preserve. Another good way is to do responsible research and show the facts to the companies, and have them cooperate willingly rather than at the opoint of a gun.
This myth about companies being unwilling to clean up their act is hogwash. The presidents of these companies are people like you and I. They want to see the world as clean as the next guy. They aren't willing to spend millions of dollars on an environmental fad that has no solid background, just like you aren't willing to buy snake oil.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
You missed my point, which is that those acts are natural, of course, but they disrupt the balance of things that would otherwise be if we didn't take those actions so much, and unecessarily so, with so many negative consequences for many species within the ecology, that we can be fairly sure about them being "bad".
Go read Friedrich Hayek's famous book The Road to Serfdom. Given what Hayek said in that book has shown pretty much to be true, this is one very good reason I am very skeptical of the environmental movement in many aspects.
Michael posted an interesting comment about an article in the Daily Telegraph, which apparently shows that the world was a lot hotter in the middle ages than at present. Before accepting this claim without question, I would urge readers to: (a) read the source document ("about to be published in the journal Energy and Environment") and (b) read some of the literature which provides background material for the belief that global warming is happening now. As a start, take a look at the most recent report on the science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
(start with the "Summary for Policymakers"),
and have a look at some of the reasons why we should be skeptical of much of the "anti-greenhouse" propaganda at:
http://www.trump.net.au/~greenhou/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"You know, you can't just decide whether Global Warming it true or not based on such a short sampling period like this winter compared to last winter."
To that, the guy would really say:
"You know, you can't just decide whether Global Warming is true or not based on such a short sampling period, such as 20-30 years. You need to look at it over a much longer period of time. In fact, through the 70's environmentalists were convined we were in a period of global cooling. I'm afraid that if we wait another 20 years, we'll be back to that thinking (global cooling) and we will waste untold time and resources fighting a problem that doesn't exist".
What's amazing (make that absurd) is that people use 160 years of hard temperature recording to claim that we have long term global warming. What is realy amazing (Make that realy absurd) is that now we use 20 years of hard ozone hole measurements to make long term predictions about the ozone layer.
Speeking of silly shit, ever wonder why there is not more roasted mutton from New Zealanders smoking in valleys with all them methane producing sheep?
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
but you can still see the comments there here.
/. much lately - I'd thought it was just me, but it looks like we do seem to have lost rather a lot of the intelligent, thoughtful old guard lately. While there are a few thoughtful responses above, and most of the moderators seem to have done the right thing, the number of even >1 moderation inane comments on /. in this case is way higher than it ought to be.
I haven't been posting to
Guys, next time you see anything relating to global climate change, go read some of the actual science on it (Google will be happy to help) before posting here, ok?
Energy: time to change the picture.
I think the bigger argument comes from anyone who's ever heard about the environment in Soviet Russia. There's a concrete, historical example of socialism being worse for the environment than capitalism.
The study shows that higher global temperatures existed in the past. It doesn't say anything about what is causing the current warming trend.
Then it shares someting in common with the claims of the environmentalists: it has no evidence showing that human action causes global warming.
Those who are opposed to emissions restrictions like to argue that the current warming trend may not be caused by humans.
The way you crafted this sentence shows your dishonestly. I and others who are opposed to emission restrictions argue that there is no evidence that the current warming trend is caused by humans.
They may be right, but that's not the point.
Okay, you are condeding that those opposed to emissions restrictions may be right about the fact that there is no evidence that human behavior is causing global warming. In other words, you are admitting that your claims may be fabricated.
It does not matter if warming is human-caused or not.
If this is true, then you are refuting what the environmentalists have been claiming about global warming. They argue that global warming is, in fact, human caused. Hence, we need to curb certain human behaviors (such as emissions).
What matters is "is this a good trend for us?" (and it does not look good)
This is "The sky is falling!"
and "can we do anything about it?" (probably).
I can't help but notice that the causes of "global warming" always come down to Americans and their capitalistic ways. Is it no small wonder that so many communists found safe haven in the environmentalist movement?
Human activity is certainly contributing to global warming, and we can do something about that activity.
This is illustrative of the poor critical thinking skills exhibited by many environmentalists. You write that human activity is "certainly" (if it was so certain, then why did you need to label it as such?) causing global warming, but you have previously mentioned that your charges may be fabricated and that whether or not human activity causes global warming doesn't matter anyway.
So the question is then: "should we?"
At this point, is your agument really worth considering? You have no evidence, an admission that your charges may be fabricated, and poor reasoning.
Given that warming seems to lead to more extreme weather,
Ahh, it "seems" to. Like much of the environmentalists' data, it is not compelling.
and given that any climate change is going have drastic and expensive consequences for argriculture,
Wait a minute, "any" climate change is going to have expensive consequences for agriculture? I admit that your wording is vague, but I infer that you believe that "any" climate change is going to have extreme and negative economic impact on agriculture. Well, what if the climate changed so that an agricultural area got more rain when it previously wasn't getting enough? Wouldn't that be a positive effect from a climate change?
That's the problem you face when you use universal qualifiers like "any" (meaning "all") -- I need but generate one exception to disqualify it.
and given that it seems easier to induce global warming than global cooling
Once again, it "seems." What "seems"? Where are you getting this?
It is highly unlikely that everyone has got it all wrong and that there is no global warming at all.
Which is not the argument, of course. The argument is this: There is no evidence that any current trends in global warming are caused by human action.
And again, it's better to err on the side of caution.
In other words, let's just assume it's caused by humans.
If we convince ourselves that there is no problem and we turn out to be wrong the cost of that mistake will be extreme high.
I think the problem is very clear: the environmentalist religion
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Please read a basic grammar book. It is difficult to be credible in claiming scientific expertise if you fall down on basic grammar and spelling.
Sigh, okay time for Science 101. Science is not based on dogma or unchanging beliefs. Rather it's based on research
You are not totally correct. I'll trump your "Science 101" with "Sociology 101":
Science is controlled by humans, not by infallible angels. Since it is controlled by humans, its practice, while allegedly being about "pure research," will be tainted by ego, money, and power. Once ego, money, and power get involved (and they always do), then there will be parts of science that are based on protecting some individuals' or groups' ego, money, or power. This happens in any and all human endeavors.
Science is an iterative process.
Science is an iterative, human process. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone is perfect.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Yeah, that would be great forest management. Perhaps we should burn it instead of clearing it, then we can burn up trees that have economic value, so that we can "feel good" cause we are "doing something" by keeping the evil loggers out of the forests. Even if it would be demonstrably better for them to log the forest, cause then you are sticking it to the big, evil corporations. Its that attitude that upsets me. And it is more common than most well intentioned people want to admit.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
These studies do not contradict the fact that human induced warming is occuring.
Excuse you, but what "fact"? I have never seen any evidence that humans are causing global warming. I have seen Leftists and environmentalists finding a new excuse to hate American industry and hate the fact that Americans drive cars when and where they want to.
Potentially, human induced warming can be much much greater than what weve seen so far
Show me the evidence. Don't just say, "Well the majority of the scientific community believes it!" I won't accept your ad verecundiam and ad numeram arguments. I, too, can list a bunch of scientists who say that your claims are excrement.
The studies show that warmer temperatures lead to more extreme weather.
So what? You're still stuck on #1 and #2. Start with a flawed premise, and you will reach a flawed conclusion.
if warmer temperatures in the past have led to more extreme weather, warmer temperatures caused by humans can do the same.
Flawed premise, flawed conclusion.
even if there are OTHER factors (solar variability etc) leading to warmer temperatures, CO2 is a well known greenhouse gas, without it, the earth would have an average temperature below freezing, solar variability or not.
So you are admitting that there are other factors. It begs the question: How much do all of the factors (including the Holy CO2 factor) contribute to global temperature? Have you measured? Do you even know how to measure them? Do you even know what all the factors are?
Other natural factors leading to warming would suggest that we do even more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase sequestration of gasses, to counteract the very changes in weather that these studies suggest warmer temperatures bring.
"Heads, I win. Tails, you lose." It seems that you believe that reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced at all costs. How convenient that doing so just so happens to involve weakening American industry and capitalism. It also just so happened that so many communists and America-haters have found good company in the Church of Gaea.
Environmentalism is a religion. It has as much to do with science as does Christianity.
yup, those environmentalists sure got slammed by that study.
Yes, sarcasm. It's solace for those who have a poor argument.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I hope you are not serious.
Cthulhu loves you.
There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob
This sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure if you are making a point about something currently in place.
Are there things allowed to mobs but forbidden to individuals?
Oh, I must give you a hint ahead: scientists are clever folks and have come up with other ways of getting those records than simply browsing through human notes.
Chernobyl was a disaster but TMI actually did very well - especially when you consider that it took simulaneous HUMAN failures to push the plant over the edge. If the operators has followed Rickover's dictum to "Believe your indication" things would have gone much much better.
Chenobyl is what happens when you don't plan for reactor safety - they violated so many operation rules it's hardly believable. The design of the plant included a positive "alpha-T" that is the temperature coefficient of reactivity could be POSITIVE which means the plant had an operating regieme with postive feedback. Is this stable? NOPE and definately NOT what you would design for a system which changes power exponentially.
So don't cast such a broad net.
eh ? I don't see the sense of your comment, let alone its relevance
That parka will keep you safe from UV!
Don't let THEM imminetize the eschaton.
The word is immanentize. To be distinguished from imminentize. Imminetize isn't a word.
Sorry if this seems like a spelling nitpick, but it's more significant, due to the common confusion of terms and meanings.
Some discussion here.
Peace and love, y'all
Sorry, I think your facts are not quite correct.
As you know, Monsanto, besides marketing its genetically-altered plants, also produces RoundUp, which is the #1 used pesticide.
Monsanto has every incentive to increase dependency on pesticides, not the opposite. Its genetically-modified plants resist Roundup, so you can put more of the stuff on your crops, so more pests are killed more surely, but not what you want to grow.
It's beautiful: Monsanto sells you both the seeds and the pesticide, and soon you can only use this combination and you are locked in with them under their term.
The fear is also that the roundup-resistant gene will spread to other plants (it can happen) and make them somewhat roundup-resistant. Then you have to use even more of the stuff and now you have a vicious circle you can't get out of.
Great, isn't it?
> We couldn't destroy the planet if we tried.
If by 'the planet' you mean 'the large lump of rock orbiting the sun,' then you're right, at the current moment we couldn't destroy it. Although I would have to wonder what exactly 'destruction' would entail in this case? Would splitting it in half be sufficient? Or would we have to drop it into the sun?
If, however, you consider life to be in some way valuable, then you're just plain wrong. Given a year or two of serious, solid work, and some good planning, the United States could, using only its military budget (and not even all of that!) contrive to destroy every single living thing on Earth larger than one cell in size. They could probably even manage to do it without nuclear weapons, although it would of course be a lot easier with them.
Is it really such a stretch from 'we could completely destroy life on earth if we really set our minds to it' to 'we could seriously fuck up the ecosystem beyond all hope of repair if we're not careful'? I don't think so.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Just because someone is a bigot doesn't mean they're a moron.
(Or perhaps he was joking.)
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Environmentalists keep saying how CO2 is bad. Well, I would like to remind them that when they breath they expel CO2. The cure? Stop breathing. It will do the world good.
caused by operator incompetence
friendly fire - caused by operator incompetence (personally I'd rather call it fuckup fire)
perhaps if we got rid of all the operators? or better if we made it more difficult for them to fuck up.
The fact that operator incompetence can have lethal consequences, means that the technology needs modification. I'm in favour of increasing safety equipment and procedures.
And can somebody explain to me how a pilot cannot tell the difference between a convoy of trucks with cars, and a tank?
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
You honestly believe we could eliminate every single bacteria in the world? To answer yes would show that you have a very limited understanding of biology and bacteria in general. Aside from that, when you look at the astroid impacts of this planet's history, remember that they would have caused something very similar to nuclear winter. Would nuclear winter wipe out all humans on this planet? More than likely, it would eliminate virtually every single higher life form. Would nuclear winter eliminate other life forms, such as bacteria? Hardly; there any many types of bacteria which would thrive in such an environment, and many others which would lay dormant for however many millions of years it took for the ecosystem to begin to reform.
You forget that life on this planet started in conditions that were staggeringly uninhabitable by today's standards. We could launch every single nuclear missile and release every chemical and biological weapon ever created and we'd still end up with tons of organisms surviving. Within a few million years, you'd never know humans existed.
"we could seriously fuck up the ecosystem beyond all hope of repair if we're not careful'"
That's just arrogant. Could we fuck it up to the point that humans could survive in it? Yes. But nature doesn't revolve around man - man's existence "revolves" around the center of the galactic toilet bowl, hoping nature doesn't decide to flush.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
We should at least create sufficient carbon sinks (forests) to remove the amount we produce - or use biomass as our principal fuel, since it's carbon-neutral. There's no good technical reason why all new vehicles can't be built to run on biodiesel. It's widely sold in Europe and most standard diesel engines can use it. It creates CO2 when you burn it, but the oilseed rape absorbs the same amount of CO2 when it's growing in the fields.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
1. How how is caused by human activity?
and
2. How will global warming affect weather patterns?
Weather patterns are important because weather is a local phenomena. Will you get enough rain during the summer so your crops can grow? Or will you get so much that the Okeefenokee swamp is jealous? Or so little the an acre of land on Lake Bonneville costs more than yours does?
All this meta-study does is point out things that a climatologist should already know.
They are blasphemers who dare challenge the doctrine of Global Warming!
> You honestly believe we could eliminate every single bacteria in the world?
r eation/isotop e_list.html
:-)
Clearly you didn't actually read my post, or you wouldn't have bothered to ask this. I said we could destroy all life larger than one cell in size. I still believe this to be true.
And an asteroid impact bears absolutely no resemblance to what would happen if you impregnated the atmosphere of the world with extremely radioactive compounds with a very long half-life. Dramatic climate change is a bear, but it's nothing compared to an environment that takes self-organizing life forms and corrupts the information that they need to pass on to their progeny. I think it conceivable, though not obvious, that we could in fact wipe out the vast majority of unicellular life as well.
> Within a few million years, you'd never know humans existed.
We could fix this, too. Take a radioactive substance with a really long half-life... on the order of 20 or 30 million years. Spread it far and wide through the atmosphere.
Here are some good candidates:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/c
> Could we fuck it up to the point that humans could survive in it?
Um... I'm pretty sure it's fucked up to that extent already.
> But nature doesn't revolve around man
Yes, but at some point you have to decide what IS important. If you don't think that life is important, then that's fine, because nothing we're going to do is going to have much effect on *geology* in the short term. If you think that us destroying everything except for unicellular life is a negligable change, then that's clearly true from the universe's perspective and clearly not true from the earth's perspecitve. The biosphere is thin, but it has had an extremely large impact on the composition of the surface of the earth.
You clearly don't even believe we could have that much of an effect. But I submit to you that, given the even distribution of a few million tons of highly radioactive materials with a really long half-life over the surface of the world (and, of course, in the oceans as well), we could probably prevent any even modestly complex self-replicating organisms from existing for an extremely long time. If you don't know enough biology to understand why this is, the conversation stops here, I'm afraid, because I'm not going to take the time to explain it to you.
Suffice it to say that the human capacity for destruction is nearly as great as the human capacity to ignore facts that we don't want to acknowledge.
If we were (in some bizarre, science-fiction way) to produce a hundred kilograms of antimatter, would you still claim that anything we could possibly do would have any real impact on the earth? E = 200 * c^2 = 1.8 * 10^19 kg * meters^2 / seconds^2 = 1.8 * 10^19 joules.
This would be enough (by a couple of orders of magnitude, in fact) to bring the moon down onto the earth. Would you consider that 'serious'?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
When you say freedom, you're just referring to your individual freedom - freedom from the control of others - but there are many more freedoms you enjoy, such as freedom from poverty, freedom from shitty living conditions, freedom from pollution, freedom from a repressive government, etc. etc.
While true under the strictest sense of the word, you are bastardising the word someone. To the layman, freedom means not having to do someone elses bidding.
We could sit here all day and say things like "freedom from cancer, freedom from clean air, freedom from cars, freedom from seeing another person ever. All we really do is contaminate the meaning of the word freedom.
I'm not attempting to take a position on your statement or the parent, just being a grammar nazi.
It's clear that the climate changes, and we don't really know why. There are lots of good reasons why we should develop replaceable energy sources and stop burning fossil carbon as our principal energy source - not the least of which is that the fossil carbon is going to run out some day. But global warming caused primarily by human interference? Unproved, perhaps unprovable.
[this
I live in Poland. Ten years ago I used to wear T-shirt, sometimes a pullover in April. Today I see the snow behind the window. Brrr. And this year winter was one of the coldest I remember.
If someone could warm it a bit, I'd be grateful.
First off, it mentions that there are some problems with the observations. Second, we have some enormous and indisputable global phenomena, such as the rapid disappearance of species, that can't have happened and then un-happened in the middle ages. We also have forests retreating up mountains to stay with the moisture and appropriate levels of heat. There's no evidence that this happened 1100-600 years ago. This one questionable contradictory observation does not a refutation make, and those who say it does are just reaching.
The temperature has risen steadily this century, but that does not mean that it will continue to do so. But it means that we are leaving the equilibrum position that the global climate has been in since the last ice age. More over, this rapid change in the climate is claimed by a majority of climate scientist (or environmentalist if that is what you like to call them) to be caused by human energy consumption and other human activities.
When we leave the equilibrium that we have come to depend on, the system will at some point become unstabel. Such unstabel systems can be seen for instant in a simple pendelum with an external force out of frequency with the pendelum motion; the motion will become chaotic and the behavior of the system very hard/impossible to predict. The system will often come back to a new equilibrium position, but where it will end up is again very hard to predict.
The climate is of course a much more complex system than any simple mechanical model you can make in the lab. What we do know is if we get too far away from the equilibrium, the climate will become unstabel, and we will see some uncontrolable changes, before any new equilibrium, i.e., weather pattern set in. If the new weather pattern will lead to global cooling or global warming is anyones guess. But rapid changes in the climate on a global scale will definitly wipe out huge eco-systems and will probably wipe out the poorer parts of the world, if not also richer countries. The economic cost will of course sky rocket (think of the costs money wise if Miami and Manhatten suddenly are under the sea level , as one example).
There are scientific reasons to belive the earth has been into such externally driven climate changes before. Everyone knows of the theory of the dinosaurs being killed of by the climate change due to a meteorite. Similar changes have happened in the past when the sun has gone through changes. The resent change in the climate is most probably due to human beings, and therefore is unique in that we can actually do something about it.
I do not really understand the economic argument of Bush (and his oil friends). First, the cost will be much greater if these climate changes comes. Second, it makes sense to not be so dependent on burning fossile fuels, and to use energy sources that pollute less but equally importantly, are renewable. Third, what ever country or company develops the technology that makes sun, wind, waves, thermal energy competetive, or likewise, make burning of fossile fuels more effective or makes technology to not let CO2 out in the atmosphere, will have a technology that they can sell for hard bucks all over the world.
The Kyoto agreement will force industrialized countries to make investments now, that will cost some part of our budgets, but it is an investment in the future that one can hope will lead to a more stable climate, but for sure in more viable energy sources and useful technology. I think it is a more valuable budget cost than tax breaks for the rich 3% of the US population.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
So though I think any statement suggesting that human activity is not contributing to global cclimate change is questionable, why don't I just concede the point. You got me. Global Warming is Junk Science.
Okay, now the only reason to work to replace burning fossil fuels for power is air, land, and water pollution and their expensive impact on public health, acid rain and its expensive impact on natural and manmade resources, the politics of oil and the incredibly expensive impact of diplomatic and military maintenance of world oil supplies, the non-renewable nature of these fuels and the eventual impact on all human society of running out without having developed rational alternatives...
Funny, my views on the subject haven't changed.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
You come off as sounding all superior. But talking big and making a good argument are two different things. You must drop your condescending attitude; if anything, it's just going to your opponent resistant to accepting your point of view. That goes for me and for anyone that you may debate.
I would spend time here explaining the difference between 'contributing to' something and 'causing' something, except that you are clearly intelligent enough to know it... you're just ignoring it so you can make your opponent look foolish.
What you are saying here is that "causing" implies "being the one and only contributing factor." It seems we have a semantic problem. And I didn't have to make my opponent look foolish: she/he did a fine job all by their lonesome. I notice that you ignore the fact that the previous poster admitted that the charges may have been fabricated as well as the fact that they admitted that the reasons behind global warming didn't matter anyway.
It's clearly untrue that there is no evidence that global warming is caused by human action.
You have made an error by choosing to use the word "clearly." If it was really so clear, then you wouldn't need to label it as such: its clarity would be self-evident.
There is plenty of evidence, albiet indirect and uncertain.
I don't depend on indirect and uncertain evidence to make my judgements.
What you're saying is, 'Any evidence produced by environmentalists can be immediately discounted completely. Once this is done, there is no evidence that any current trends in global warming are caused by human action.'
These are your words, not mine. My argument is this: I have seen no evidence that human activity causes global warming.
Oh, I forgot one thing. 'Anyone who produces evidence that the current trends in global warming are caused by human action is, ipso facto, an environmentalist.'
Again, these are your words, not mine. Stop putting words in my mouth. Furthermore, how could these be my words? They imply that I have seen someone produce some evidence that human activity causes global warming.
You are a very strange man, but an interestingly consistant one. You are constantly accusing others of your own failings.
Not only do you accuse me of ad hominem (which I didn't), but you commit one yourself.
I could, for example, say that Libertarianism is a religion, and money and 'unfettered capitalism' are its gods.
Perhaps you could. Do you care to whip it into an argument?
And, like the stereotypical raving religious fanatic, you use every rhetorical tactic at your disposal to mock those who say things you don't like, but can make few actual substantive arguments because you're too busy with vitreol and spleen.
It's telling that you didn't find the time to respond to my arguments but did find the time to include this invective. Aren't you committing the sin that you accuse me of?
One person makes the argument that we are dumping a bunch of garbage into the atmosphere, and that we have very little idea what the consequences might be.
Actually, that was not his/her argument. They argued that it didn't matter what the causes were.
You *could* argue in return that since we don't know the consequences, we should pretend that it is impossible that there could be any, and act accordingly. It's an amazingly stupid argument, but at least a self-consistant one.
If only it were my argument or even relevent to the discussion we were having. CO2 is not "garbage." You are actually bringing up a separate discussion. Did you want to "go there," too?
Instead you call him a pinko commie rat-bastard who is out to destroy the free market (and, of course, America) with his ideas. Not a lot of substance there, and what there is sounds like it was dreamed up by McCarthy.
Except that I didn't cal
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
How did this get a positive moderation?
Somebody doesn't know Godwin's Law I guess.
I'm off to meta moderate.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
That's the real reason to oppose that crap. It's like crack for farmers. It's sad when there is a good reason to oppose something, but the hippies go after nebulous fears of a mouse somehow being born with an ear of corn coming out of its ass.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Most environmentalists I know, at least, don't even (directly) distrust the effects *technology* has on our environment and our health. What we distrust is the effect that GREEDY PEOPLE AND CORPORATIONS have on our environment. The effect that people who are more concerned about "Efficiency" (read: Improving My Bottom Line) than they are about the public good. Unfortunately, the profit motive tends to be a controlling factor in the majority of scientific research, as unless a corporation sees an eventual profit growing out of a research project, they're not going to foot the bill. And if nobody foots the bill, nobody does the research.
Oy. I'm rambling now, and need coffee.
-d
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
Bet you didn't know that, huh?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Organics are recalled 10x as often? I wasn't aware of that. Any documentation?
small(ish), rolled up, fried tacos. very tastey
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
In other news, a Wyoming couple was arrested on charges of "Playing God" when prosecutors discovered their rampant procreation. Vowing to crush the unauthorized creation of life, the DA has stated he will be asking for the maximum penalty.....
'Do some homework' is the cry of those who cannot document their own assertions. Basically, you say 'go look at the evidence for yourself.' If the person you're arguing doesn't find any, you have plenty of recourse: you can tell them they didn't look hard enough, or in the right places, without actually telling them where to look. Or you can say that they're lying, or that they're stupid, because they didn't find what is so obviously there. Or you can, after they spend a bunch of time looking, steer them in the direction of a biased source.
And if they find data that seems to refute what you're saying, you can always claim that it's biased. Not actually giving out your own sources keeps you safe from claims of bias, even if your source does happen to be the 'People in favor of whatever it is you're arguing in favor of.'
Saying something is common knowledge, and that it has been documented to death, may or may not be true. Even if it is true, it's not helpful, because it depends entirely on who documented it. Give me your sources.
But you can't or won't, so you accuse me of having my head in my arse. Because it's easier than backing up your assertions.
The global cooling thing was a brief footnote in history, which is currently being blown up to insanely huge proportions by a bunch of people who are determined to discredit the global warming theory for their own, usually economic, purposes. And people like you have bought into it hook, line, and sinker, because it dovetails neatly into your own preconceptions... and so it must be true.
See? I can make unsupported assertions, too. And they're no more useful than yours.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
That's an important little detail that I didn't see in that article. How warm the Earth is right now isn't that scary. What's scary is how fast it's heating up. What's even scarier is a look at historical global temperatures. All the graphs I've seen show gradual warming for 10,000 to 100,000 years, followed by a cold spike. Remember that during the last ice age, glaciers covered North America down to about the latitude of Manhattan. Buy real estate in Florida now! It's only going to get more expensive! Even if humans aren't the only thing warming the planet, we're at least contributing. And I'd like to avoid the natural backlash as long as possible.
I agree that the hole isn't directly over NZ .... but it isn't a sharply defined thing either ... UV levels are higher in the Southern Hemisphere, so are skin cancer rates. Where I live at the moment you don't see signs in school playgrounds saying "hats must be worn in the playground" ... in fact an Australian woman here recently made a big fuss because the local schools had banned the wearing of hats at school.
I think my point was that things that happen in the US do effect people in other countries in real, dangerous ways - and people should have some recourse to protect their health and well being - certainly branding them "3rd world dictators" is that same childish and narrow minded "my country right or wrong" "I have the freedom to do anything I choose, screw you" sort of attitude that I think typifies the "ugly american" stereotype we all grew up with. I live in the US, I know lots of Americans who aren't like that, sadly there's an undercurent in society here, typified IMHO by US talk radio, that just feeds the rest of the world's image of the US as a rapacious behemoth that doesn't care about anyone else
Yup, instead of copy paste, here is a link to a long post on the subject of enviromentalists real motvations. Of course it is =1 Troll, but that's ok, my Karma is excellent and I gotta burn some off.
Democrat delenda est
Well, once again a "scientist" whose main field is not climate neither any other related domain tries to describe the debate about global warming as occuring between "environmentalists" and "serious scientists" ignoring all scientific work on the subject and forgetting that the "evidence" he mentions was already taken into account by the scientific community.
It's not a suprise that he doesn't even mention the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) which reviews all scientific publications about climate change and yearly produces extensive reports on the current knowledge about global warming.
If he did it would be too easy to dismiss all his claims since the IPCC already took all the elements he brings to light into account.
Have a look at the latest scientific evidence about global warming directly at their site.
THIS is the absolute reference on the subject and no economic PhD will be able to claim it's the work of environmentalist hippies without looking both dishonest and ridiculous.
http://www.ipcc.ch
The IPCC is no "environmentalist" association, it's a "governments-appointed" scientific panel which job is to review ALL scientific evidence on the subject including the "revolutionnary" stuff this poor oil-industry-sponsored economists talks about.
Not exactly an environmentalist lobby...
Pleaase don't confure our current system with what would happen in an actual capitalist system. And even here it isn't quite as bas as you think. For example, the problem with inherited money is not as bas you you apear to think. Most of the truly wealthy are either self made or took a modest inheritance and made it big through skill or risk taking. Trust fund kids don't tend to create a lot of wealth and it gets split into smaller and smaller chunks with each generation.
That tendancy for power to monopolize is a result of mercantilism, or using the power of the State to prohibit competition.
Random example: Automobiles. Once there were hundreds of makers, now there are perhaps a dozen worldwide. Because new companies can't enter the market and companies occasionally fail or merge, the number can only decrease. But WHY can't a new company enter? Reason #1 is government regulation.
We should be in a wonderland of variety because te big automakers don't actually make much of anything. They outsource everything from engines to body parts. Small niche builders should be buying parts off the rack and designing all sort of intersting cars. But they would want to start with high margin cars and would never meet the CAFE standards without also selling as assload of cheap econoboxes to keep the average MPG up. And while there would be an inital market for exotic cars, it would be hard for a startup to compete in the lowball market without volume purchasing. And consider how expensive it would be to meet the paperwork requirements of the huge body of federal regulation that a large multi-national corp can easily absorb.
And don't fall for the finite resources argument. Liberals see a finite world and obsess over how to carve up the pie 'fairly' but free people see infinite vistas and a ever increasing pie, limited only by our imagination and will to succeed. Running out of oil? Who gives a rats ass! As we run low the price will rise (if we retain a semblence of a free market) and someone will see a profit in a replacement.
Sieze the stars and we won't ever worry about resource limits again.
Democrat delenda est
You missed the word "free" as in "free world history."
Not to mention that even Chernobyl killed many fewer people than coal.
Not to mention that nobody in a democracy would ever build a dynamically unstable, FLAMMABLE reactor like the Soviets did at Chernobyl.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Sorry, but 20 years is way to short a time to draw any inferences from. Furthermore, there is no 20 year long spike in CO2 to which you can correlate the post 1980 era. Finally, you don't take into account several issues:
Solar irradiance variations
urban heat island effects and its impact on land thermometers.
Also, take a look at the various IPCC reports that have come out... the most important trend there is that of the forecast warming to decrease.
The only good weather is bad weather.
I've been reading all these posts, and wondering a bit. First off, I'm a student majoring in Geology and Computer Science. (double-major woo!)
Point 1: The earth would be a lot warmer if the isthmus of Panama did not exist. When it formed, it blocked the flow of warmwater currents, this began the "ice age."
Point 2: Some Geologists call all the time from the late Cenozoic to present the "ice age." This was when Antarctic glaciation began. (Other Geologists refer to the ice age as starting 10 MYA, when mid-latitude glaciation was first evident). The little period of extreme glaciation that ended 10,000 years ago was just that, a period of cyclical glaciation. Things are still a lot colder now than they were 40 million years ago.
Point 3: During the warm periods in the Earth's geologic history, there was much more biodiversity.
Point 4: A warmer planet could mean longer growth cycles, rainer weather, and more farmable land in higher latitudes, if the planet were to become at all like it was in the past.
So, why is global warming necessarily bad? I don't care what you all identify the cause as, and I don't care about rising sea levels. (They are well below average over hundreds of millions of years, you know.)
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
If the "environmentalists" would please stop breathing.
...
The point is, no one KNOWS how the entire climate system works.
It (CO2=Global Warming) is a theory. That is all.
Imagine if we decided to kill all people with birth defects, or even just "bad jeans", just because many accept evolution?
"Environmentalists" will tell you:
1. It is warmer then it was 100 years ago.
2. There is more free CO2 in the air
3. Therefore the CO2 MUST be the cause of the increase in temperature.
This ladies and gentlemen is referred to as "post hoc ergo propter hoc" so long as we do not have all of the supporting facts. Kinda like:
1. It is warmer then it was 10 years ago.
2. The internet is larger then it was 10 years ago.
3. Therefore the internet MUST be the cause of the increase in temperature.
Of course, there's always the requisite ad hominum attacks.
Normal person: "Hey, maybe part of this warming is normal considering that we are coming out of an Ice Age"
"Environmentalist": "You are bought and paid for by the oil companies!"
Normal person: "Hey, maybe part of this warming is caused by variable energy intensity from the sun."
"Environmentalist": "You are bought and paid for by the oil companies!"
Normal person: "Hey, maybe part of this warming is from the fact that the locations where the temperature is being taken has become more urbanized since 1900."
"Environmentalist": "You are bought and paid for by the oil companies!"
Normal person: "Maybe we should reserve judgement on this until the facts are in."
"Environmentalist": "You are bought and paid for by the oil companies!"
Normal person: "You know, the rate that it seems to be getting warmer is so slow that it won't make much difference if we wait, say, 500 years, and then if it IS a problem it will probably have stopped being one since I don't think ANYONE thinks we have 500 years of fossil fuels in reserve, but even if it is still a problem we will have 500 years of new technologies to combat it."
"Environmentalist": "You are bought and paid for by the oil companies!"
Normal person: "Kyoto was a flawed protocol from the start. It's main goal was wealth redistribution away from the US. That is why, except for Gore, no one in the US government wanted it (including Congress and Clinton)"
"Environmentalist": "You are bought and paid for by the oil companies!"
Some people can not be reasoned with.
Dan
"Anti-green"?
Please re-read your high school biology text's.
Warming AND increased CO2=GREEN.
Dan