🌎 Discussion: Climate Change, Global Warming, Emission Standards, and Other Environmental Issues - Part 1

[Human Torch]

Turn off the Fox News. You sound like a religious nutjob bursting with conspiracy theories.

Sorry to burst your bubble,but some people prefer independent thought to being led like sheep by the government.

 

[Feenix]

It's ironic that you would accuse others of being sheep.

I'll chalk this up to you just posting sensationalist (and incredibly wrong) comments for attention.

 

[Marvolo]

The bottom line is everyone has an agenda.Of course,the leftists in the scientific community are going to skewer their findings to suit the godless/socialist left who fund their work.To think otherwise,is totally naive.

A great example of this is in the health care industry.The scientific folks in the FDA don't want to study the benefits of herbs & vitamins because they can't patent a food or herb.There's big money to be made in treating people with drugs & surgery.The Common Good,be damned.When you leave Big Brother in charge of the Scientific community,the only findings you're gonna get is what the Guv wants you to know.And Money is always at the center of it.

Congress has repeatedly blocked any bill that would allow the FDA to study and regulate vitamins since the 90s. Look it up. There was a big stink over it in 96. Vitamins are controlled by the Federal Trade Commission and this won't change because they hand a ton of money to politicians to make sure the FDA doesn't get their hands in the vitamin market. The U.S. is the only first world developed country that has no legitimate oversight of "vitamins". Independent medical research has been done on some of these herbs, supplements, and vitamins and some of the stuff on the label and the ingredients isn't actually in the bottle. Getting that stuff off the shelves is damn near impossible right now. The FDA has repeatedly tried to change this, but lobbyists are amazingly efficient at stopping change for the better.

About climate change, from my own experience it is substantially warmer in my area than it was a decade ago. The weather is crazier in general. We have had multiple tornadoes in the past five years. Used to we never had tornadoes. The storms have gotten crazier. The seasons are different. Outside of my area tho the evidence is there if you look for it. The climate is changing. It's not a global multi-country organized conspiracy. It's just fact. Climate is changing and it has a real effect on us and our eco system. We can do something about it like responsible adults and a responsible society and species or we can stick our heads in the sand and do nothing.

 

[Doctor Evo]

The bottom line is everyone has an agenda.

Clearly.

Of course,the leftists in the scientific community are going to skewer their findings to suit the godless/socialist left who fund their work.To think otherwise,is totally naive.

You are practically a cartoon character.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Ya HT your worldview is kind of insane. I hate to burst your bubble but there is no agenda from scientist trying to undermine god and the bible. Science by definition is the search for answers. Journals like Science only report about 7% of the stuff submitted to them and then only after being peer reviewed to make sure the claims are valid. So for you to think that there is some big conspiracy by science as pretty laughable. I can assure you almost no scientist cares what your beliefs are until you start trying to use misinformation to further an agenda

 

[Destructus86]

The bottom line is everyone has an agenda.Of course,the leftists in the scientific community are going to skewer their findings to suit the godless/socialist left who fund their work.To think otherwise,is totally naive.

A great example of this is in the health care industry.The scientific folks in the FDA don't want to study the benefits of herbs & vitamins because they can't patent a food or herb.There's big money to be made in treating people with drugs & surgery.The Common Good,be damned.When you leave Big Brother in charge of the Scientific community,the only findings you're gonna get is what the Guv wants you to know.And Money is always at the center of it.

The only reason to have the FDA get involved in the study of vitamins and herbs is so they can work with big pharma to sell it overpriced. There have been PLENTY of independent studies of these things which have shown some are very Beneficial...while other herbs and vitamins had little to no effect. (aside from the psychological belief you think it's working)

So, really, I think it's great the FDA doesn't get too involved. Keep it indie. Though people really need to get out of the mindset that herb/vitamins are always the better option...because that's not always the case. A lot of our pre-conceived notions on the usefulness of herbs and natural medicines come from a long line of BS from ancient times when people really didn't know too much about illness.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

There are a very few vitamins and supplements that have any useful benefits for us. These 5, Vitamin D, probiotics (you can get these from yogurt), zinc, niacin (also called B3), and garlic are some of the only few known to have an actual effect on humans.

Also,

These are the startling findings of three articles just published in the highly influential Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers involved in the studies didn't mince words; they're concerned that people are spending too much money on pills that confer no benefit, and in some cases may even be harmful. What's more, they even hinted that companies selling supplements are fueling false health anxieties to offer unnecessary cures. In an editorial titled "Enough is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements," Dr. Lawrence Appel of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and his co-authors wrote, "Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided."

Wow. That'll come as a shock to the nearly 40% of adults who regularly take antioxidants, multivitamins, and other supplements.

http://io9.com/scientists-say-vitamins-and-minerals-are-a-waste-of-mo-1484902526

So essentially 95% of the supplement and vitamin world is crap and does nothing or may even be harmful. On top of that recent studies of national top vitamin and supplement brands showed that 1 out of every 3 supplements doesn't even contain the advertised supplement or vitamin

 

[Destructus86]

There are a very few vitamins and supplements that have any useful benefits for us. These 5, Vitamin D, probiotics (you can get these from yogurt), zinc, niacin (also called B3), and garlic are some of the only few known to have an actual effect on humans.

Also,



http://io9.com/scientists-say-vitamins-and-minerals-are-a-waste-of-mo-1484902526

So essentially 95% of the supplement and vitamin world is crap and does nothing or may even be harmful. On top of that recent studies of national top vitamin and supplement brands showed that 1 out of every 3 supplements doesn't even contain the advertised supplement or vitamin

I totally believe it. A lot of our beliefs in regards to these things are rooted less in fact and more in an unfounded belief that if it's not big pharma it's "good" or that natural is always the best. Again...these ideas originated in ancient times and we carry them to each generation like old wives tales.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

BBC is instructing its editors and producers to stop striving for "false balance" by booking so many anti-science and climate-denying commentators. "Audiences should be able to understand from the context and clarity of the BBC's output what weight to give to critical voices," a company report stated.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/07/3456782/bbc-cuts-climate-deniers/

Another win for the UK, now if their US counterparts would do the same

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Climate Change Is So Bad Even Oil Companies Are Bracing for it Now

This month, an oil refinery on the Delaware River submitted plans to state officials and Army engineers to reinforce its facilities. Why? Because the earth is warming, storms are churning, and the sea level's already high enough to endanger the oil company's business.

In its filing, the Delaware City Refining Company says its shoreline is disappearing. Rapidly. "The extent of tidal encroachment is obvious," the report says, adding: "Review of historical photography suggests that the rate of shoreline erosion is increasing." The only solution, it says, is to build a protective ring of buoys "that has the resilience to deal with Sea Level Rise (SLR) for at least 50 years."

The oil company's report has some ominous graphics, including the one above, showing the progressive erosion of the waterline by tides and waves, egged on by rising sea levels. In some cases, the refinery's storage facilities and vehicle lots are already on the mouth of the new shoreline, thanks to that rising tide:

Once the local Sierra Club managed to stop gloating about the irony of a carbon-producing oil company making preparations to cope with carbon-caused climate changes, it did notice an issue with the company's plan: The proposed buoys would dissipate wave energy from tides, boats, and storms, but they wouldn't do much about the actual sea rise, which is accelerating.

"Delaware's coastal areas could experience sea levels at 0.5 to 1.5 meters above their present level by 2100," the Sierra Club argues. "Adjusting to the new conditions of higher sea levels, the report suggests, should involve planning for adaptation measures and building adaptive capacity." The group suggested those measures might include the oil refinery changing the magnitude of its greenhouse gas output.

Regardless of what coping methods it takes, it's remarkable that a petroleum-producer is acknowledging the effects of climate change on its business. Remarkable, but not unique. For nigh on half a decade now, vintners have been popping up in warmer climes, shippers have been charting new routes through sea lanes once cluttered with ice, and insurance companies are adjusting their actuarials to deal with the new environment.

"Though major international corporations tend to be amoral machines for collecting revenue without regard to fairness or human life," a colleague of mine once wrote, "they do have one thing going for them: when there's money on the line, they don't waste time ****ing around":

You will never see a major international corporation prancing around fancy-free and acting as if the seas aren't going to rise and whatnot, because they have assets to protect. Failing to plan for global warming due to some weird anti-science bias could potentially cost them billions of dollars. Therefore they will plan.

Is the planning a little more complicated when your business is essentially what's making the globe warmer? Not especially. Just put out a couple floaters and keep counting the money.

https://delaware.sierraclub.org/sit...07/Joint Permit Application Cover and TOC.pdf

Oh the irony is so thick like a fine crude substance

 

[Hobgoblin]

Mercury Levels in the Ocean have Tripled Since the Industrial Revolution

http://www.nature.com/news/humans-have-tripled-mercury-levels-in-upper-ocean-1.15680

Mercury levels in the upper ocean have tripled since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and human activities are to blame, researchers report today in Nature1.

Although several computer models have estimated the amount of marine mercury, the new analysis provides the first global measurements. It fills in a critical piece of the global environmental picture, tracking not just the amount of mercury in the world's oceans, but where it came from and at what depths it is found.

“Nobody's attempted to do a more comprehensive overview of all the oceans and get an estimate of total mercury in the surface and some deeper waters before,” says David Streets, an energy and environment policy scientist at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, who was not involved in the study.

Researchers collected thousands of water samples during eight research cruises to the North and South Atlantic and Pacific oceans between 2006 and 2011. To determine how mercury levels had changed over time, they compared samples of seawater from depths down to 5 kilometres with water closer to the surface, which had been more recently exposed to mercury pollution from land and air.
Mercury magnified

Their analysis reveals that human activities — mostly the burning of fossil fuels, but also mining — had boosted the mercury levels in the upper 100 metres of the ocean by a factor of 3.4 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The total amount of anthropogenic mercury in the world's seas now stands at 290 million moles, with the highest levels in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.

“They were really able to look back in time with their study,” says Noelle Eckley Selin, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who was not involved in the study.

The researchers say that ocean circulation patterns have helped to blunt the effects of some of the rise in marine mercury. Circulation patterns that drive very cold, salty and dense water to sink into the deep ocean carry large amounts of mercury from shallower depths where life abounds. That provides some protection to marine life, as mercury's toxic effects magnify with every step up the food chain. For example, the mercury levels in a top predator such as tuna are 10 million times higher than those in the surrounding seawater.
Ocean buffer

But study co-author Carl Lamborg, a marine geochemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, says that the deep water's ability to sequester mercury may soon be exhausted. Humans are on track to emit as much mercury in the next 50 years as they did in the last 150 years, he notes.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/07/3456782/bbc-cuts-climate-deniers/

Another win for the UK, now if their US counterparts would do the same

Telling that censorship is considered a "win".

 

[Schlosser85]

My dad tried to tell me the other day that there's actually more ice now in the poles than 10 years ago, and that global warming has stopped.

My dad's not into Fox News, so I don't know where he got that from.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Telling that censorship is considered a "win".

It's not censorship, just because you believe something that has no factual evidence does not mean it should be taught in schools. Schools are a place were facts and science need to be taught. Not someones personal beliefs. If you want to teach your children that than it's fine but it has no place in an educational system. "Teaching the controversy" is some of the most idiotic BS that has ever come across the USA. Once there is actual evidence that can be proven and verified then you can teach it, until then let's stick with the facts

 

[JeetKuneDo]

My dad tried to tell me the other day that there's actually more ice now in the poles than 10 years ago, and that global warming has stopped.

My dad's not into Fox News, so I don't know where he got that from.

He must have actually looked into the issue instead of listening to the media and politicians.

It's not censorship, just because you believe something that has no factual evidence does not mean it should be taught in schools. Schools are a place were facts and science need to be taught. Not someones personal beliefs. If you want to teach your children that than it's fine but it has no place in an educational system. "Teaching the controversy" is some of the most idiotic BS that has ever come across the USA. Once there is actual evidence that can be proven and verified then you can teach it, until then let's stick with the facts

Agreed. I don't think AGW should be taught in schools either since it has also not been proven.

Not sure what schools have to do with the link though.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Well considering 97% of scientists agree climate change is real and at least partially to blame because of human actions than we can roll with that. If you can disprove man made climate change than feel free to submit your research. There is a standing offer on the table that will get you a large sum of money if you can do this. But you keep denying climate change and evolution all you want just because that's what FOX news tells you to do

 

[The Question]

The bottom line is everyone has an agenda.Of course,the leftists in the scientific community are going to skewer their findings to suit the godless/socialist left who fund their work.To think otherwise,is totally naive.

1: What would the godless/socialist left profit from people believing in global warming?

2: Devout Christians who consider socialism to be a bad thing completely baffle me. Jesus was one of the biggest socialists there ever was.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Can We Solve Global Warming For Almost Nothing?

Much of the discussion about cutting the carbon emissions that are slowly destroying our planet centers on the supposed cost of all these new forms of clean energy. A new report suggests: what costs?

Yes, changing over our planet's dominant power supply from one powered by fossil fuels to one powered by cleaner forms of energy will be enormously expensive. And yes, the tax on carbon emissions that it will likely take to spur companies towards clean energy will be enormously expensive, to polluters. But, as today's report from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate points out, these costs are only part of the economic story of climate change. In order to get a full picture of the economic impact of various courses of action, we must also take into account the costs of not curbing our carbon emissions, as well as the potential economic benefits that clean energy investment could provide for us in the long run.

These sorts of long-term estimates on a global scale are inherently imprecise. (And in this case, one economist warns the New York Times, the estimates involve coming up with economic values for things like human lives saved, which can obviously vary.) That does not mean they are unimportant. In at least a general way, today's report estimates that the overall cost of doing the hard work to avoid the most extreme consequences of climate change might add up to something like... zero. From the report:

It is very difficult to estimate the economic costs of such effects, as there are many uncertainties. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that the likely costs of just 2°C of global warming would be of the order of 0.5–2% of global GDP by the middle of the century, even if strong adaptation measures are taken. Once warming has proceeded beyond this, the costs will rise further – though the IPCC finds there is too much uncertainty to estimate reliably by how much...

Even before accounting for climate action, the global economy will require substantial investments in infrastructure as the population and the middle class grow: an estimated US$89 trillion by 2030 across cities, land use and energy systems. For a good chance of keeping global warming below 2°C, a large share of those investments will have to be reallocated. Improving the energy-efficiency of buildings, industry and transport, for example, could require an additional US$8.8 trillion of incremental investment, as analysis for the Commission shows. Deploying low-carbon technologies including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS) could require another US$4.7 trillion. Yet a low-carbon scenario could also save money in other areas, such as US$5.7 trillion saved in fossil-fuelled power plants and along the fossil fuel supply chain, and up to US$3.4 trillion from building more compact, connected cities and reducing sprawl.

Overall, the net incremental infrastructure investment needs from a low-carbon transition up to 2030 could be just US$4.1 trillion, if these investments are done well. In this case, the infrastructure capital needed for a low-carbon transition would be only 5% higher than in a business-as-usual scenario, helping to limit future climate impacts and adaptation costs. Other studies have suggested even lower investment needs, given some of the potential synergies in fuel and infrastructure savings.

In other words, the savings from smart investments in energy efficiency, mass transportation, clean fuels, and good urban planning could offset so much of the costs of this massive changeover that its final price was just barely higher than keeping on the same path that we're on now. And it would come with the added bonus of not consigning us to the worst kinds of climate change-fueled doom.

It's not financial gospel. It is, however, a good framework to use when someone starts talking about how curbing carbon emissions will be "too expensive."

http://newclimateeconomy.report/

Can't wait to see what people try to come up with to discredit this and say we should continue on the same path

 

[Hobgoblin]

WWF Claims Half of All Vertebrates Are Extinct Since 1970

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/30/opinion/sutter-living-planet-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

(CNN) -- In case you've avoided reading what may be the more depressing reports in the history of the natural world, the awful take-away is basically this: Half the animals of planet Earth have disappeared since 1970, and much of it is the fault of humans.


Yep, you read that right.

Half of the world's vertebrate animal populations are gone.

And it happened in only the span of two generations, according the Living Planet Report, which was published on Tuesday by the environmental group WWF, in collaboration with the Global Footprint Network, Water Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London. "In other words," the report says, "vertebrate species populations across the globe are, on average, about half the size they were 40 years ago."


^%&*!

That's mind-blowingly infuriating.

And it's worse for some species and regions, in particular.

The report overall considers 10,380 populations of 3,038 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, and says populations have declined by 52% between 1970 and 2010.

But for freshwater fish and other species, the drop is 76%. And for for species in the Neotropics, which includes Central and South America, the decline is 83%.

 

[Doctor Evo]

WWF Claims Half of All Vertebrates Are Extinct Since 1970

That's not actually what the article is saying. This is a bit of a misrepresentation.

Also, the article refers rather explicitly to vertebrates, so the following statement:

Half the animals of planet Earth have disappeared since 1970...

...is highly inaccurate, given that vertebrates make up about 3% of animal diversity.

 

[SV Fan]

WWF Claims Half of All Vertebrates Are Extinct Since 1970

Only one animal I remember in the WWF

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Antarctica Is Losing So Much Ice It's Throwing Off Earth's Gravity

Rising sea levels inundating coastal cities are the least of our global warming problems. According to a new report by the European Space Agency, the loss of snowpack along the antarctic ice shelf is throwing off Earth's gravitational field. Yeah, pretty sure that's bad.

For the last four years, the ESA's GOCE satellite has circled the globe, mapping the Earth's gravitational field in unprecedented detail. And between 2009 and 2013, the GOCE revealed, the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has progressed enough to actually decrease the region's gravity.

It's just a small decrease, not like we're going to see penguins floating off into space, but it is yet another example of how global warming is rapidly changing our planetary dynamic.

And this revelation is backed up by the findings of a number of other scientific satellites. The joint US-German Grace satellite has been detecting similar gravitational disturbances—albeit at a much coarser resolution—for more than a decade and the ESA's own CryoSat satellite has found that West Antarctic Ice Sheet's rate of loss has tripled every year since 2009 and has caused the entire continent to shrink by 125 cubic kilometres a year since 2011. At this rate, researchers fear that the collapse and dissolution of our Southern polar ice cap has become irreversible.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/antarctic-ice-melt-causes-small-shift-gravity

Science doesn't lie climate change deniers

 

[Donut]

That sounds like a Syfy channel movie in the making

 

[Doctor Evo]

This thread is as funny as ever. We're still all doomed and of course the human race is controlling everything that happens.

I'm also enjoying the latest scare....Ebola!! Augh! We're doomed!

People crack me up.

As if we needed another reminder that you don't understand any of the arguments being made in these threads.

 

[Destructus86]

Anyone who denies any form of climate change just baffles me....