....Mathematics is a science and like any other science, it attempts to explain natural phenomena...
How does 2+2=4 explain a natural phenomenon? Is that an absolute truth or only a way of looking at reality, open to opinion, sort of like the blind men trying to explain an elephant? The elephant is reality, but the blind men's explanation of it may not be, or remain a puzzle to them.
...the first instance of what we define as "a chicken" was a genetic aberration born to a non-chicken...
That is an opinion of what may or may not have actually happened, not a present observation. All present observations clearly are that all chickens hatch from chickens that lay eggs which hatch into more chickens which lay eggs which hatch into more chickens.... unless you run out of chickens and eggs.
Therefore, be careful, don't eat ALL chickens and all eggs! If you do, there will be no more of either.
...Yes, but c was defined before that equation was created, was it not?...
But the issue is the unit of measurements, not c itself. If the unit of measurement is DEFINED such that c=1, then the formula the previous poster gave is correct.
A deeper questions would be: Is mathematics absolute truth or relative? Is 2+2=4 true even if the majority of mathematicians would believe it to be false? It is part of the debate on whether there is such a thing as absolute truth, or truth, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is 2+2=4 merely a human convention or is it true apart from the existence of humans, mathematicians or otherwise.
There is a variant of this question: "Does a tree fall in the forest, if there is nobody around to observe it?"
These questions are rather academic and distant from every day life when posed in the abstract domain of mathematics, but become very emotionally charged when slid over into the realm of morality and behavior.
....Even if they were selective in which encrypted data they block....
How can anyone select encrypted data, if there is no way of knowing what information the encrypted stream of bits represents? There are thousands, if not millions of commercial entities. They also communicate to each other over VPN and HTTPS and other encrypted communications. At these hubs, that communication is taking at terabit rates. I suspect that this is a harebrained idea of government bureaucrats to wast a lot of taxpayer money.
....the backbone operators can just just block encrypted data....
Does that mean the encrypted data for financial transaction will also be blocked? I don't think the moneybags of this world will stand for that. Can encrypted financial data be somehow be allowed to go through while other encrypted date is blocked?
....current warnings about global warming probably "just as wrong"...
Exactly, they are wrong when they measure and model the atmosphere to ascertain long term climate. You have to model the oceans. It is they, predominately, that determine the global climate. Just look at a globe to see that. It is flat wrong to observe the melting of ice in the polar regions and on the high mountains and then conclude from that there is global warming. What is the heat capacity of the whole atmosphere, when compared to that of the oceans?
Please show the data that indicates a significant change in the average temperature of the oceans as a whole, or at at least measured and averaged over a depth of the upper 300-400 meters or so. Then, if you show the oceans have warmed appreciably in the last 50 years or so, we'll talk again about GLOBAL warming.
(..but headlines of popular newspapers and magazines..)
Do you suppose the the media of that day pulled those headlines out of their a$$es or they got that from some "scientists" of that day? Where do the media of today get their screaming headlines about global warming? Do they invent them out of thin air or are there also some "scientists" today that feed the media the same sort of crap?
...Why look at a less reactive measure for change,...
If you want to warm up the earth as a whole, you have to warm the water. The temperature of the air doesn't mean diddly-squat on a global scale. Air temperature varies greatly from the hottest to the coldest places on earth.
Look up the heat capacity of water, as compared to air and the mass of the earth's water compared to the total mass of the entire atmosphere. If the water temperature doesn't change, the overall climate won't either.
The very reason that Europe stays nice and habitable is because of the warm waters of the gulf stream. Even a person that doesn't know anything about climate change or weather can look at a globe and reasonably come to the conclusion that the water of the earth control the climate. All other factors are tiny in comparison. Even a small body of water, relative to the oceans, such as the Great Lakes, has a large effect on the climate around those bodies of water.
All those computer models simulating the atmosphere are worthless and a big waste of CPU time, when it comes to predicting even the short time weather. Accurate models of the seas, input with enough accurate temperature data, may be more likely to show any long term trends of the whole planet's climate.
There are many caves in various parts of the earth. Another way to gauge the average temperature of the planet may be to track the temperatures of caves, such as Carlsbad Caverns or the Oregon Caves. We live close to the latter. Even though it get very cold outside in the winter with lots of snow and very hot in the summer, the temperature inside is essentially constant, about 50F. If there is a GLOBAL warming trend, it ought to be also reflected in the average temperature of the world's caverns.
(...The climate is a system we don't fully understand...)
So then are you advocating that we should make major social and economic changes based on ignorance or at least partial ignorance?
(..Right now there are rapid changes taking place..)
Changes of what? The air temperature and some melting ice? So what!
(..most likely reason is certain human activities..)
Humans are certainly the most arrogant life form on this rock! A rock we did not make, don't understand the workings of its weather, enough to predict it even for a week! So here are some members of homo sapiens that presume to be able to predict the long term climate and even more arrogantly think they have an effect on it!
I think your growling bear knows more about the weather than people do. He knows when it is time to stop growling and go to hibernate, because he understands that winter is coming.
....No doubt it will have occured to you that thousands of other communities across the globe possessed competent boat building skills...
If one can prepare of a disaster ahead of time, then it might be possible to survive such a catastrophe. We read that Noah preached for 120 years to the people around him, while building the Ark, and about what God had said would happen. They no doubt thought he was crazy, building a huge boat miles from the ocean.
We read that the animals came to Noah. He did not have to go and collect them. Further we read that God told Noah when to enter the Ark and specifically that God shut the door of the Ark. Noah sat locked into that ark for a whole week wondering. Then the flood suddenly came and there was no more time for those outside to prepare. Anyone who had some kind of boat might have lived a few days, weeks or even months, but before it was all over, more than a year later, they would have all died, just as we read happened.
Since the Ark was not designed to go anywhere or transport anything to some other place, Noah would not have needed any seafaring or navigating skills. All the ark needed to do is stay afloat on the rising waters. It did not even have to have a particular boat like shape.
If you want more, google this: "water in the mantle"
Now that you know how to use Google, I'm sure you can find material on why living things decay rather quickly today, after they die. You can also learn what must be done to prevent this decay.
To turn a living creature into a fossil, it has to be killed quickly and the remains must be prevented from decaying. Tell me the process you propose to use that will make a fossil in a million years or even a week before decay destroys the remains or it gets eaten by some scavenger?
Find the evidence that shows that the over all average ocean temperatures have risen appreciably, since scientists were first able to measure them. Show me satellite data that shows that even since we had such technology, a significant change in the ocean temperatures. A little more ice melting in the polar regions and high mountains doesn't make for global warming. THAT is an inconvenient truth you have face.
It is you that has to provide data that shows the climate IS changing. You and your GW friends are asserting that the whole earth is getting hotter, so you have the burden of showing evidence for that. If the oceans are not getting significantly warmer, then the earth as a whole isn't either.
The measurements don't support GW. An even if it were getting warmer, that doesn't mean that human activity is to blame, nor that warming would necessarily be bad. Would you object to a lower heating bill each winter? Probably not.
...I wonder if there is an alternative explanation for widespread sedimentary rock and fossils...
No matter what explanation is tried, the evidence clearly reveals that whatever took place, was a sudden world wide catastrophe involving lots of water. The ONLY way to make fossils out of living creatures, is by sudden death and immediate burial under sterilizing heat, not the millions of years postulated by evolutionists.
Good! Do some real, hands on science and see if you find some fossils in the making there or in any other bog you find. If you do, write a paper. I'm sure it'll be published by the most prestigious journals, if you find some fossils to be. You may even get a Nobel Prize.
...And scientists are watching that very thing accelerate....
OK and exactly how much ice have we observed to have melted already and how much has the level of the Oceans gone up in the last 50 years or so? Not enough to measure? Well then, you and so many trust the fancy computer models trying to predict the future too much. Of all people, those here on/. know of the Garbage-in and Garbage-out principle of computing. If you don't KNOW the data and the variables that affect it, you have to assume (believe) a lot. Science is NOT based on assumptions or beliefs, but on KNOWN data. Beliefs are the domain of religion and philosophy.
If global warming of ALL oceans were observed, then there might be some truth to this whole GW religion. However the over all average ocean temperatures has not changed much since we have had the ability to measure these temperatures. A little ice melting in polar regions and high mountains doesn't make for GLOBAL warming.
Now if all the oceans of the earth truly DID get warmer, the land would also and since warmer water evaporates more, there would be more rain and where still cold enough more snow. If the rain were still distributed in proportion as today, (that's an unknown) many deserts and the now frozen regions would become habitable and productive. So now, what's wrong with that?
Those that propagandize the global warming myth have a socialistic agenda for the whole planet. We do however have to take care of the environment on orders of our Creator, since we are only caretakers thereof, not the owners, since we did not create it. We are allowed to properly use the resources He has provided, but not to squander or ruin them.
...OK, now try it with ice cubes sitting in a glass full of Greenland...
I said FLOATING ice in the waters of the earth. There is evidence that Greenland was really once a "green land" filled with forests and fields in historical time. That's why it still has that name.
...If your perspective is that the world is a couple weeks walking in either direction big...
If you saying it was only a small local flood, explain the fact that sedimentary rock and fossils are found on every continent, including Antarctica. This is also the case for even the highest mountains on earth, such as Mt. Everest.
We also find coal and oil all over the planet, made from suddenly destroyed plants and animals. Why do you think these energy sources are called FOSSIL fuel?
Slowly buried life forms decay. They never produce coal or oil. To do that takes quick burial and lots of heat and pressure.
The Biblical flood account tells us that the fountains of the deep broke open. There is evidence for MUCH more water is bound in the mantle of the earth, still today, than in all the oceans. Get out a geology text that has a drawing of the layers of the earth and compare their thicknesses. Also, volcanic action would have supplied plenty of heat. There are sill the dead or dormant volcanoes all over the whole earth.
Since we KNOW that the mantle of the earth is still rather hot even today. The water that come up from there was very hot and saturated by minerals. Those minerals acted as the cement, just like in concrete, that bound the soft mud and sand into stone in about the same amount of time it takes concrete to harden. The jumbled graveyards of creatures we find entombed were mineralized, petrified and we still find them that way, well protected, as if cast in concrete. We find these fossils in sandstone thus cemented together and also in other types of stone, such as limestone.
You don't need a citation for this! You can do an honest to goodness scientific experiment to convince yourself this is true.
Put a few ice cubes into a glass and then fill the rest with water until it is as full as you can make it, without overflow. Now just watch as the ice melts.
Much of the earth's ice, especially in the north, is already floating in the ocean, just as the ice cubes in your glass. If every bit of all that floating ice melted, it would affect the level of the ocean in the same way the ice cubes melting affected the water level in your glass.
...isn't it a good thing to handle the waste of our industrial civilization will[sic] better care...
Most definitely! However policy should balance all needs of society. Economic, health and social needs must all be examined and rash decisions on anyone's agenda avoided.
...So your idea is that scientists might be wrong based upon their research....
So the scientists of 1895, 1932, 1975, 1973 and 2006 all never did any research and were all idiots? Maybe it was the media of their day that were spouting that stuff and were proven wrong by history? The media today are of course sooooo much more objective than they were back then!
(..There is a method for determining what the most likely thing to be the truth is..)
Yes and the truth of the matter is that the overall ocean temperature of ALL the oceans is not changing beyond our ability to measure. Ice melting in polar regions and high mountains and warmer air does NOT make for GLOBAL warming. Whatever is making that ice melt has nothing to do with human activity.
(..So your idea is that scientists might be wrong based upon their research..)
Exactly! What makes you think that todays scientists are so much better and/or more honest than their forefathers? Are today's scientists any less prone to being wrong just because they have a little better technology and fancy computer models?
I know, for example, that the weather forecasts here on the west coast were more accurate in the 1950s than today. The reason is that back then they had weather ships out there on the Pacific with real live meteorologists on board. They could lick their finger to learn which way the wind was blowing (facetious) and stick their bald head out and see how many rain drops were REALLY falling on their head. Based on that and some higher tech, such as an occasional weather balloon, they were more accurate most of the time than their descendant weathermen of today, with their fancy computers and satellites. I can't even count how many times I've shoveled some "partly cloudy" in the winter, around here.
(..We need global policy changes..)
Maybe, if the Chicken Little GW agenda were based on scientific facts, not a socialistic goal for the whole planet.
The theorized increase is a mathematical calculation, not a measured FACT. Furthermore, the temperature of the atmosphere is almost irrelevant, since the earth is covered three fourths with water, which has a MUCH higher heat capacity than air. If you take the average temperature of ALL oceans, not only in the polar areas, the temperature is remarkably constant. A little more ice melting at the poles or in the high mountains is not indicative of over all warming of the whole planet.
Even if whole northern sea ice melted, every cubic inch thereof, it would not raise the level of the ocean at all. The estimates of much the seas would rise if every bit of ice on the planet melted are all over the map from a few inches to hundreds of feet.
If the earth DID get warmer on average, if the ocean temperature did go up significantly, it would make the now icy empty northern wastelands habitable and let food be grown there. As oceans get warmer, if they did, more water would evaporate from them, resulting in more rain everywhere on land. That would mean large areas of present deserts would also become productive. Most people's heating bills would also decrease.
In short there is no evidence that 1) the average temperature of the oceans as a whole is increasing much, if at all. 2)Even if the earth would warm significantly, there are more indications that this would be beneficial for mankind than harmful.
I know that the GW alarmists are very vocal and can and often do get very vitriolic in their attacks with those who don't agree with their agenda. This especially true when facts and figures are brought to the public's attention that contradict their loudly trumpeted propaganda.
...I actually believe that GW is -- in part -- man-made, but the hordes of people refusing to believe...
Don't you think that taking expensive action on global warming should be based on KNOWLEDGE, rather than yours or even the majority's BELIEF? Belief is for religion and philosophy, not for science. The problem is that NOBODY really KNOWS whether human are the cause of any warming, which in itself scientists are not entirely sure about.
Since most of the planet is covered with water, it seems that the best measure of over all warming should be the temperature of the ENTIRE ocean, not just the parts near the poles of the earth. By THAT measure, the temperature of the ocean is almost constant.
Slashdot Mirror
...I would say a few things are invented...
Is the concept of zero in math an invention or a discovery? Did the Roman numeral have a representation for zero? Who invented or discovered the zero?
....Mathematics is a science and like any other science, it attempts to explain natural phenomena...
How does 2+2=4 explain a natural phenomenon? Is that an absolute truth or only a way of looking at reality, open to opinion, sort of like the blind men trying to explain an elephant? The elephant is reality, but the blind men's explanation of it may not be, or remain a puzzle to them.
...So math is about numerals, not numbers...
So then II+II=IV is not the same as 2+2=4? Does the truth of math depend on numerals?
...the first instance of what we define as "a chicken" was a genetic aberration born to a non-chicken...
That is an opinion of what may or may not have actually happened, not a present observation. All present observations clearly are that all chickens hatch from chickens that lay eggs which hatch into more chickens which lay eggs which hatch into more chickens.... unless you run out of chickens and eggs.
Therefore, be careful, don't eat ALL chickens and all eggs! If you do, there will be no more of either.
...The universe is incredibly elegant in its mathematics though...
And it got that way through time and chance? I cannot BELIEVE that.
...Yes, but c was defined before that equation was created, was it not?...
But the issue is the unit of measurements, not c itself. If the unit of measurement is DEFINED such that c=1, then the formula the previous poster gave is correct.
..Because squared gives you the right units...
What does this have to do with units?
A deeper questions would be: Is mathematics absolute truth or relative? Is 2+2=4 true even if the majority of mathematicians would believe it to be false? It is part of the debate on whether there is such a thing as absolute truth, or truth, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is 2+2=4 merely a human convention or is it true apart from the existence of humans, mathematicians or otherwise.
There is a variant of this question: "Does a tree fall in the forest, if there is nobody around to observe it?"
These questions are rather academic and distant from every day life when posed in the abstract domain of mathematics, but become very emotionally charged when slid over into the realm of morality and behavior.
....Even if they were selective in which encrypted data they block....
How can anyone select encrypted data, if there is no way of knowing what information the encrypted stream of bits represents? There are thousands, if not millions of commercial entities. They also communicate to each other over VPN and HTTPS and other encrypted communications. At these hubs, that communication is taking at terabit rates. I suspect that this is a harebrained idea of government bureaucrats to wast a lot of taxpayer money.
....the backbone operators can just just block encrypted data....
Does that mean the encrypted data for financial transaction will also be blocked? I don't think the moneybags of this world will stand for that. Can encrypted financial data be somehow be allowed to go through while other encrypted date is blocked?
....current warnings about global warming probably "just as wrong"...
..)
Exactly, they are wrong when they measure and model the atmosphere to ascertain long term climate. You have to model the oceans. It is they, predominately, that determine the global climate. Just look at a globe to see that. It is flat wrong to observe the melting of ice in the polar regions and on the high mountains and then conclude from that there is global warming. What is the heat capacity of the whole atmosphere, when compared to that of the oceans?
Please show the data that indicates a significant change in the average temperature of the oceans as a whole, or at at least measured and averaged over a depth of the upper 300-400 meters or so. Then, if you show the oceans have warmed appreciably in the last 50 years or so, we'll talk again about GLOBAL warming.
(..but headlines of popular newspapers and magazines
Do you suppose the the media of that day pulled those headlines out of their a$$es or they got that from some "scientists" of that day? Where do the media of today get their screaming headlines about global warming? Do they invent them out of thin air or are there also some "scientists" today that feed the media the same sort of crap?
...Why look at a less reactive measure for change,...
If you want to warm up the earth as a whole, you have to warm the water. The temperature of the air doesn't mean diddly-squat on a global scale. Air temperature varies greatly from the hottest to the coldest places on earth.
Look up the heat capacity of water, as compared to air and the mass of the earth's water compared to the total mass of the entire atmosphere. If the water temperature doesn't change, the overall climate won't either.
The very reason that Europe stays nice and habitable is because of the warm waters of the gulf stream. Even a person that doesn't know anything about climate change or weather can look at a globe and reasonably come to the conclusion that the water of the earth control the climate. All other factors are tiny in comparison. Even a small body of water, relative to the oceans, such as the Great Lakes, has a large effect on the climate around those bodies of water.
All those computer models simulating the atmosphere are worthless and a big waste of CPU time, when it comes to predicting even the short time weather. Accurate models of the seas, input with enough accurate temperature data, may be more likely to show any long term trends of the whole planet's climate.
There are many caves in various parts of the earth. Another way to gauge the average temperature of the planet may be to track the temperatures of caves, such as Carlsbad Caverns or the Oregon Caves. We live close to the latter. Even though it get very cold outside in the winter with lots of snow and very hot in the summer, the temperature inside is essentially constant, about 50F. If there is a GLOBAL warming trend, it ought to be also reflected in the average temperature of the world's caverns.
(...The climate is a system we don't fully understand...)
So then are you advocating that we should make major social and economic changes based on ignorance or at least partial ignorance?
(..Right now there are rapid changes taking place..)
Changes of what? The air temperature and some melting ice? So what!
(..most likely reason is certain human activities..)
Humans are certainly the most arrogant life form on this rock! A rock we did not make, don't understand the workings of its weather, enough to predict it even for a week! So here are some members of homo sapiens that presume to be able to predict the long term climate and even more arrogantly think they have an effect on it!
I think your growling bear knows more about the weather than people do. He knows when it is time to stop growling and go to hibernate, because he understands that winter is coming.
....No doubt it will have occured to you that thousands of other communities across the globe possessed competent boat building skills...
If one can prepare of a disaster ahead of time, then it might be possible to survive such a catastrophe. We read that Noah preached for 120 years to the people around him, while building the Ark, and about what God had said would happen. They no doubt thought he was crazy, building a huge boat miles from the ocean.
We read that the animals came to Noah. He did not have to go and collect them. Further we read that God told Noah when to enter the Ark and specifically that God shut the door of the Ark. Noah sat locked into that ark for a whole week wondering. Then the flood suddenly came and there was no more time for those outside to prepare. Anyone who had some kind of boat might have lived a few days, weeks or even months, but before it was all over, more than a year later, they would have all died, just as we read happened.
Since the Ark was not designed to go anywhere or transport anything to some other place, Noah would not have needed any seafaring or navigating skills. All the ark needed to do is stay afloat on the rising waters. It did not even have to have a particular boat like shape.
...Citation needed...
/., supposedly a computer whiz and don't know how to look up things on Google? Maybe you're just lazy? Well look at this.
Your are on
http://www.physorg.com/news90171847.html
If you want more, google this: "water in the mantle"
Now that you know how to use Google, I'm sure you can find material on why living things decay rather quickly today, after they die. You can also learn what must be done to prevent this decay.
To turn a living creature into a fossil, it has to be killed quickly and the remains must be prevented from decaying. Tell me the process you propose to use that will make a fossil in a million years or even a week before decay destroys the remains or it gets eaten by some scavenger?
....or you who have no evidence....
Find the evidence that shows that the over all average ocean temperatures have risen appreciably, since scientists were first able to measure them. Show me satellite data that shows that even since we had such technology, a significant change in the ocean temperatures. A little more ice melting in the polar regions and high mountains doesn't make for global warming. THAT is an inconvenient truth you have face.
It is you that has to provide data that shows the climate IS changing. You and your GW friends are asserting that the whole earth is getting hotter, so you have the burden of showing evidence for that. If the oceans are not getting significantly warmer, then the earth as a whole isn't either.
The measurements don't support GW. An even if it were getting warmer, that doesn't mean that human activity is to blame, nor that warming would necessarily be bad. Would you object to a lower heating bill each winter? Probably not.
...I wonder if there is an alternative explanation for widespread sedimentary rock and fossils...
No matter what explanation is tried, the evidence clearly reveals that whatever took place, was a sudden world wide catastrophe involving lots of water. The ONLY way to make fossils out of living creatures, is by sudden death and immediate burial under sterilizing heat, not the millions of years postulated by evolutionists.
...There is a boggy pond near here...
Good! Do some real, hands on science and see if you find some fossils in the making there or in any other bog you find. If you do, write a paper. I'm sure it'll be published by the most prestigious journals, if you find some fossils to be. You may even get a Nobel Prize.
...And scientists are watching that very thing accelerate....
/. know of the Garbage-in and Garbage-out principle of computing. If you don't KNOW the data and the variables that affect it, you have to assume (believe) a lot. Science is NOT based on assumptions or beliefs, but on KNOWN data. Beliefs are the domain of religion and philosophy.
OK and exactly how much ice have we observed to have melted already and how much has the level of the Oceans gone up in the last 50 years or so? Not enough to measure? Well then, you and so many trust the fancy computer models trying to predict the future too much. Of all people, those here on
If global warming of ALL oceans were observed, then there might be some truth to this whole GW religion. However the over all average ocean temperatures has not changed much since we have had the ability to measure these temperatures. A little ice melting in polar regions and high mountains doesn't make for GLOBAL warming.
Now if all the oceans of the earth truly DID get warmer, the land would also and since warmer water evaporates more, there would be more rain and where still cold enough more snow. If the rain were still distributed in proportion as today, (that's an unknown) many deserts and the now frozen regions would become habitable and productive. So now, what's wrong with that?
Those that propagandize the global warming myth have a socialistic agenda for the whole planet. We do however have to take care of the environment on orders of our Creator, since we are only caretakers thereof, not the owners, since we did not create it. We are allowed to properly use the resources He has provided, but not to squander or ruin them.
...OK, now try it with ice cubes sitting in a glass full of Greenland...
I said FLOATING ice in the waters of the earth. There is evidence that Greenland was really once a "green land" filled with forests and fields in historical time. That's why it still has that name.
...If your perspective is that the world is a couple weeks walking in either direction big...
If you saying it was only a small local flood, explain the fact that sedimentary rock and fossils are found on every continent, including Antarctica. This is also the case for even the highest mountains on earth, such as Mt. Everest.
We also find coal and oil all over the planet, made from suddenly destroyed plants and animals. Why do you think these energy sources are called FOSSIL fuel?
Slowly buried life forms decay. They never produce coal or oil. To do that takes quick burial and lots of heat and pressure.
The Biblical flood account tells us that the fountains of the deep broke open. There is evidence for MUCH more water is bound in the mantle of the earth, still today, than in all the oceans. Get out a geology text that has a drawing of the layers of the earth and compare their thicknesses. Also, volcanic action would have supplied plenty of heat. There are sill the dead or dormant volcanoes all over the whole earth.
Since we KNOW that the mantle of the earth is still rather hot even today. The water that come up from there was very hot and saturated by minerals. Those minerals acted as the cement, just like in concrete, that bound the soft mud and sand into stone in about the same amount of time it takes concrete to harden. The jumbled graveyards of creatures we find entombed were mineralized, petrified and we still find them that way, well protected, as if cast in concrete. We find these fossils in sandstone thus cemented together and also in other types of stone, such as limestone.
...citation needed...
You don't need a citation for this! You can do an honest to goodness scientific experiment to convince yourself this is true.
Put a few ice cubes into a glass and then fill the rest with water until it is as full as you can make it, without overflow. Now just watch as the ice melts.
Much of the earth's ice, especially in the north, is already floating in the ocean, just as the ice cubes in your glass. If every bit of all that floating ice melted, it would affect the level of the ocean in the same way the ice cubes melting affected the water level in your glass.
...isn't it a good thing to handle the waste of our industrial civilization will[sic] better care...
Most definitely! However policy should balance all needs of society. Economic, health and social needs must all be examined and rash decisions on anyone's agenda avoided.
...So your idea is that scientists might be wrong based upon their research....
So the scientists of 1895, 1932, 1975, 1973 and 2006 all never did any research and were all idiots? Maybe it was the media of their day that were spouting that stuff and were proven wrong by history? The media today are of course sooooo much more objective than they were back then!
(..There is a method for determining what the most likely thing to be the truth is..)
Yes and the truth of the matter is that the overall ocean temperature of ALL the oceans is not changing beyond our ability to measure. Ice melting in polar regions and high mountains and warmer air does NOT make for GLOBAL warming. Whatever is making that ice melt has nothing to do with human activity.
(..So your idea is that scientists might be wrong based upon their research..)
Exactly! What makes you think that todays scientists are so much better and/or more honest than their forefathers? Are today's scientists any less prone to being wrong just because they have a little better technology and fancy computer models?
I know, for example, that the weather forecasts here on the west coast were more accurate in the 1950s than today. The reason is that back then they had weather ships out there on the Pacific with real live meteorologists on board. They could lick their finger to learn which way the wind was blowing (facetious) and stick their bald head out and see how many rain drops were REALLY falling on their head. Based on that and some higher tech, such as an occasional weather balloon, they were more accurate most of the time than their descendant weathermen of today, with their fancy computers and satellites. I can't even count how many times I've shoveled some "partly cloudy" in the winter, around here.
(..We need global policy changes..)
Maybe, if the Chicken Little GW agenda were based on scientific facts, not a socialistic goal for the whole planet.
...Global warming is very real....
The theorized increase is a mathematical calculation, not a measured FACT. Furthermore, the temperature of the atmosphere is almost irrelevant, since the earth is covered three fourths with water, which has a MUCH higher heat capacity than air. If you take the average temperature of ALL oceans, not only in the polar areas, the temperature is remarkably constant. A little more ice melting at the poles or in the high mountains is not indicative of over all warming of the whole planet.
Even if whole northern sea ice melted, every cubic inch thereof, it would not raise the level of the ocean at all. The estimates of much the seas would rise if every bit of ice on the planet melted are all over the map from a few inches to hundreds of feet.
If the earth DID get warmer on average, if the ocean temperature did go up significantly, it would make the now icy empty northern wastelands habitable and let food be grown there. As oceans get warmer, if they did, more water would evaporate from them, resulting in more rain everywhere on land. That would mean large areas of present deserts would also become productive. Most people's heating bills would also decrease.
In short there is no evidence that 1) the average temperature of the oceans as a whole is increasing much, if at all. 2)Even if the earth would warm significantly, there are more indications that this would be beneficial for mankind than harmful.
...That didn't sit well...
I know that the GW alarmists are very vocal and can and often do get very vitriolic in their attacks with those who don't agree with their agenda. This especially true when facts and figures are brought to the public's attention that contradict their loudly trumpeted propaganda.
...I actually believe that GW is -- in part -- man-made, but the hordes of people refusing to believe ...
Don't you think that taking expensive action on global warming should be based on KNOWLEDGE, rather than yours or even the majority's BELIEF? Belief is for religion and philosophy, not for science. The problem is that NOBODY really KNOWS whether human are the cause of any warming, which in itself scientists are not entirely sure about.
Since most of the planet is covered with water, it seems that the best measure of over all warming should be the temperature of the ENTIRE ocean, not just the parts near the poles of the earth. By THAT measure, the temperature of the ocean is almost constant.