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Humanity Responsible For Current Climate Change
tehanu writes "Scientists working with Antarctic ice have found that the level of greenhouse gases is at the highest level in over half a million years. Carbon dioxide is 27% higher now than any other time over the last 650 000 years. Methane, an even stronger greenhouse gas is 130% higher. The period of time studied covers eight full glacial cycles including a time when the earth's position relative to the sun is the same as it is today. Other scientists have found that the annual rate at which the sea has risen since the industrial revolution is twice that of over the last 5000 years. It is predicted that by 2100 the sea level will be 40cm higher. These results provide strong evidence that human activity since the industrial revolution, rather than just natural processes, has strongly altered the world's climate. As one of the scientists involved in the research put it: 'The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years.'"
The reactionary conservative crowd will stick their fingers in their ears and say that "global warming" is a myth. They'll crack jokes about how "global worming" (sic) is supposed to cause an ice age (hyuk hyuk, how funny). Then they'll segue into a rant about how those evil scientists are still trying to spread the "disproven" theory of evolution.
The mountain of evidence that we are, slowly but surely, screwing up our planet's very ability to support life itself does not matter to many people. They would prefer to believe (against all reason) that such a bad thing simply cannot happen to us. Worse, many (most?) people simply don't care what will happen in three or four or five (or ten) generations, since "ah well, I won't be alive then anyways." Never mind that this is the present generation's great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, or whatnot we're talking about, and that most people-- if asked-- will vehemently insist that they care about their children.
Trying to talk sense into these people is like trying to argue with a Scientologist about psychiatry or with a Southern Baptist about evolution.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Will it scare humanity into changing their habits? I would hope so, but the US ignores the Kyoto Treaty, and burns CO2/CO-producing fuels at hell-bent rates. Mass transportation? Nah.
It proves that unless you're interested in murdering subsequent generations, we need to start now to get energy that doesn't smut-up the atmosphere, our lungs, and forestry/ag plans that don't cut the lungs out of the earth so that someone can have cute cabinets in Miami.
Unfortunately, a little more natural drama (maybe a few dozen more hurricanes this year?) to get the body of humanity to change their habits.
But we can hope.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
"I have yet to hear explanations for why temperatures actually DROPPED from the 1940s to the 1970s despite an increase in our use of automobiles and other gases."
Wow, good one! I'll bet the world's atmospheric scientists never, ever thought of that little "fact", eh? Leave it to a common-sense guy like you - the veritable man in the street - to bring these buffoons to their senses. All that university stuff - bah! All you need is a bit of good old American know-how. Well done! Now let's sharpen our pencils and get down to work! We'll show these darned eggheads what's what, boy oh boy!
For us people in Scandinavia, this climatic change will actually be pretty good, with better climate all around the year.
Too bad, tho, for the already poor people all over the world, in Africa and Asia, and it is also too bad for the Americans.
But this is what they wanted, right? Bush didn't sign the Kyoto protocol, and he could care less about the climate, since the "climate" is so far away from Texas; man, does he detest these "international" things where he isn't the given monarch or what. Besides, Katrina and such disasters are acts of God, not an act of man; there is much intelligence in a design like a hurricane.
And China has said it won't comply to any environmental agreements, since the West already has a hundred years of polluting the world; China wants to catch up before they do anything about it, so that they also can enjoy what the people in the West enjoys. And they are so used to "natural disasters" such as floodings, droughts, "great leaps forward" and so on, and they have so many people to sacrifice for the cause.
So, if I allow myself to be just as selfish as the Americans and the Chinese for a moment, I will say this bodes well for the Swedish economy; we can thrive on your miseries, make me filfthy rich cleaning up your mess and provide services to combat a rising sea level, ever worse hurricanes, serious droughts and other phenomena.
You had it coming, suckers!
the plateau and dip in temperatures in the graph, which refutes the idea that it's been a very steady increase in gases since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
ROFL! That's some good reasoning. Let me see if I understand this: since temperature has not been on a steady rise since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, there has not been a steady increase of "greenhouse gases." God, that's funny.
Penn calls "Bullshit" on what most of the rest of the intelligent world recognizes because it gives him a big old stiffy to pretend that his "superior" perspective comes from his being more of a man. What moral deficiency is your excuse for this shoddy thinking?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Eh, what you say? France is doing fine. No worse than the United States after the LA riots in the early 90's. Paris has survived much worse. Maybe they'll get a new president, but not before the next election. The same cannot be said of the United States. Committing treason is an impeachable offense. Lying to Congress in the hopes they will permit your war action (due to that little document called the Constitution, the president cannot go to war without the formal approval of Congress) is treason. George Bush is a traitor. He may not be removed from office, but the hell that has resulted from his acts is one we all must endure. (If you make more than $250,000/year, please ignore the above. It does not apply to you, unless you have a conscience.)
Maybe if he did something useful with his four years, instead of lit-crit or queer studies, he'd have a real job.
--ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Total rubbish from an economic simpleton. Poverty kills. The more money that is deflected towards unobtainable social-engineering goals or speculative global-warming alleviation schemes, the less is spent on food aid and pharmaceutical research and education.
The net benefit to society of every dollar spent on global-warming boondoggles is infinitesimally small. Even if you accept every pronouncement of the global warming scientists, the burden of proof is still on them to show that their proposed solutions would be cost-effective when balanced against all of society's other competing claims on our collective wallet.
Actually, I have not heard of any proposals, short of mass human extinctions and a return to Stone Age conditions, that would even have any meaningful effect on the climate changes alleged by the more excitable type of Green.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Well, you have illustrated the academic equivalent of the difference between Michael Jordan and the kids playing basketball at my local park. There is still room at the top for a few superstar philosophers to make a living from books and tapes and lectures, even if they may not call themselves philosophers. Deepak Chopra and Stephen Hawking and George Lucas are philosophers, after a fashion. But there's no way every holder of a Philosophy B.A. can make a living in his chosen field.
I suspect we'd be a lot more thoughtful society if people still revered philosophers like they used to.
Philosophers have inflicted a good deal of misery on the human race, too. I'm sure Hitler and Lenin and Pol Pot considered themselves philosophers.
I'm with William F. Buckley; I'd prefer to be governed by a hundred names picked at random from the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
20%.
Fucking conspiracy theorists.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.