Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[bored]

Too bad the ozone layer doesn't.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

Gore wanted to be President and failed. So he fell back on his old hobby and forced it down our throats. Some (like you) believe the hype. "The debate is over" , said Reverend Gore!!! "What debate?", says I!!

He won't debate! He keeps running away!

This thing is still shaky. Gore knows it! His film was found to have many errors in it!! Major errors! But you nuts don't care. You don't even stop to think what else could be wrong.

There are many scientists swearing off this crap. They're not all on the oil payroll either. But some of those Gore-danian scientists are getting millions in grant money for climbing on board the "climate change" express.....

"What debate? says I" ?

hahaha! that sounds like it should've been delivered by Sir Lawrence Olivier.
you see, and I have told you this, THIS IS NOT ABOUT AL FREAKING GORE!
get it through your head, he made a movie that you didn't like, big deal, it has nothing to do with the majority of the scientific community pretty much settled on climate change.

that's the majority of a world wide scientific community.

but you're so petty that you reduced a freaking global phenomenon to a man you dislike. that's absurd.
people keep bringing science into this and the best you have done so far is post time articles from 30 years ago and articles from "insta pundit"
and yet you don't see the folly in that.

final note Gore doesn't have to debate, because, and I have said this again and again, it's not HIS science, he is merely a spokesman with an interest in the environment, and he has had an interest in the environment for the last 30 years, and has shown it to be far more than a hobby, are you so ridiculously biased that you think his interest in the environment ( when not a lot of people gave a damn) was motivated by self interest?
if you browsed over a newspaper once in a while you would already know this.
I mean, I knew about this in 91 freaking 91....what the hell? I'm Mexican and like 2 decades younger than you, what's your excuse for the blatant ignorance you so proudly display like a badge of honor.
and it's weird, because when it's convenient I have seen people like you invoke personal responsibility.
but hey, when it's going to affect you?
haha! "no everything is fine! 15 percent of scientists say it's not caused by man, and 2 % of those have proven ulterior motives but...NO! I don't care!!"

I wonder though, if they said on the news that if you went driving through a given stretch of highway during certain hours you'd have an 85% chance of getting killed, would you still go drive through that part of town at the mentioned time?
hell even an 80% chance of getting killed.
would you stay home or say "hey, there's still a 20% chance I might NOT get killed so...it's debatable"

ahaha! I love intellectual dishonesty because it's easy to spot and even easier to pick apart.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

Scientists have already confirmed periods of natural cooling and warming.....That's nature!! It's okay.....Oh....and guess what?? Those trees and plants live on CO2.

they also confirmed that climate change has been accelerated and that man has a role in it, but you choose to ignore that.
and guess what? rising levels of CO2 can Kill us! but yeah...plants not so much.
I guess you'd flood cities since fishies live in the water huh?

so ignorant.

 

[Red Mask]

After 3 decades of people crusading the environment I wonder kind of people still refuse to believe human activity isn't ruining the environment. And how much do they believe they shouldn't try anything to stop it?

Everybody knows that smoking is bad for our health. It doesn't matter if it's our free right to smoke as we please. It's bad for our health and that stuff spreads around.

People who live in the cities suffer more from ashtma and other breathing related illnesses. Who cares if trees live on CO2? We humans don't! And there aren't enough trees in the cities to make the air cleaner and fresher!

When will they realize the ecosystem we live in can't work fast enough to fix it? Why else do some countries export their garbage to less developed countries?

After some of history's great volcanic eruptions the World's temperature went down a few degrees. Hence the belief in global dimming argument against warming. But that is not the same situation we're in now. Our accumilated pollution is not the same composition nor is it as dense. So the sun still shines through for heat to come in but now it gets trapped. However, just like those days of darkness, people suffered breathing related illnesses. So I don't see what we have to be thankful for anyway. We should cut down on greenhouse gases and stop producing so much waste!

 

[Danalys]

Anyone notice how this thing quitely went from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change"?? They're already hedging their bets.t:

that's because people get confused by local areas getting colder. which also is because of the earth warming. also it now refers to increased severe weather that global warming causes.

 

[Bill]

that's because people get confused by local areas getting colder. which also is because of the earth warming. also it now refers to increased severe weather that global warming causes.

We get examples of that through Lake Effect Snow. The winters aren't getting as cold so the water stays warmer, when a front passes over it gains strength from the warm water and dumps a load of snow on the central NY area.

 

[Matt.S99]

to answer the title question, yes global warming is real. Over here where I live, it doesnt feel like winter anymore, it feels like spring,all the snow is melting etc. Sure i prefer it when it isnt so cold but not at this time

 

[SuBe]

actually that graph shows cooling over time note the graph goes from modern to past, left to right.

you are right! I read that wrong. Thanks

 

[SuBe]

so when you're trying to use it to make your point it IS reliable?

No, I was doing what you told me to do, and I happen to look into this. I have nothing against Wikipedia. But, I actually read the references, not the articles.

 

[SuBe]

By "100% Proven Climate Change is a fact" he is simply refering to the... phenomenon of the changing climate. He was admitting that what is not yet proven is what amount of effect humans have on it. That's why I agreed with him. I agree, I think it's mostly likely a natural cycle, but you did respond in an immature way.

Actuall, this is pretty much quoted from a book I'm reading. It was a joke, I didn't know that you had to be 100% serious at all times on this Forum. My Bad.

 

[CorpusBlack]

Actuall, this is pretty much quoted from a book I'm reading. It was a joke, I didn't know that you had to be 100% serious at all times on this Forum. My Bad.

What's wrong with you! Of course you have to be serious on this forum ALL THE TIME! There's no time to joke when there is something as serious as Global Warming being discussed on a board for comic book fanpersons (to be politically correct)!

 

[SuBe]

What's wrong with you! Of course you have to be serious on this forum ALL THE TIME! There's no time to joke when there is something as serious as Global Warming being discussed on a board for comic book fanpersons (to be politically correct)!

I believe the PC term is FanFolk.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

What's wrong with you! Of course you have to be serious on this forum ALL THE TIME! There's no time to joke when there is something as serious as Global Warming being discussed on a board for comic book fanpersons (to be politically correct)!

you try too hard.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

No, I was doing what you told me to do, and I happen to look into this. I have nothing against Wikipedia. But, I actually read the references, not the articles.

good try, it's just too bad for your claims that you happened to misread the graph you're quoting isn't it? maybe you should've read the article as well.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Woke up to 30 in Chicago today, things are back to normal, sadly.

 

[Carcharodon]

Scientists have already confirmed periods of natural cooling and warming.....That's nature!! It's okay.....Oh....and guess what?? Those trees and plants live on CO2.

Yeah, his point went WAY over your head, apparently. All that Carbon dioxide isn't going to do the trees a whole hell of a lot of good when they've been, you know...cut down.

Less trees + more CO2 = bad scenario. Period.

 

[CorpusBlack]

How will Global Warming effect Burlington Coat Factory on the stock market? I say sell now!

 

[CorpusBlack]

I believe the PC term is FanFolk.

I was using the Mac term.

 

[SuBe]

Gore wanted to be President and failed. So he fell back on his old hobby and forced it down our throats. Some (like you) believe the hype. "The debate is over" , said Reverend Gore!!! "What debate?", says I!!

He won't debate! He keeps running away!

This thing is still shaky. Gore knows it! His film was found to have many errors in it!! Major errors! But you nuts don't care. You don't even stop to think what else could be wrong.

There are many scientists swearing off this crap. They're not all on the oil payroll either. But some of those Gore-danian scientists are getting millions in grant money for climbing on board the "climate change" express.....

Agreed, also no one seems to bring up that in Gore's movie, his estimates are 5-16 times that of the UN research findings (depending on which graph).

 

[Carcharodon]

Agreed, also no one seems to bring up that in Gore's movie, his estimates are 5-16 times that of the UN research findings (depending on which graph).

My beef with Gore's movie is that it actually doesn't touch on nearly enough problems that are caused by the massive amounts of gaseous Carbon compounds we're putting into atmospheric and aquatic systems.

If anything, by focusing only on Global Warming, he understated the problem.

 

[Memphis Slim]

My beef with Gore's movie is that it actually doesn't touch on nearly enough problems that are caused by the massive amounts of gaseous Carbon compounds we're putting into atmospheric and aquatic systems.

If anything, by focusing only on Global Warming, he understated the problem.

So the massive errors don't bother you?? You just wish he had made more errors??? Am I reading you correctly??? Wow!

 

[Carcharodon]

So the massive errors don't bother you?? You just wish he had made more errors??? Am I reading you correctly??? Wow!

They don't bother me. Know why? I don't regard Gore's word as gospel. Anybody with half a brain should research the phenomenon themselves and take Gore's film with at least a grain of salt. Pull your head out of your ass and maybe you'll stop making blatant and incorrect assumptions. 'Kay?

In any case, warming isn't the only effect of our Carbon emissions. Not by a longshot. I've told you all this before, and you completely disregarded what I'd told you, so I'm not going to bother repeating myself. Gore understated the situation by leaving out the other, less publicized effects.

 

[Memphis Slim]

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

35 Inconvenient Truths
​

The errors in Al Gore’s movie​

A spokesman for Al Gore has issued a questionable response to the news that in October 2007 the High Court in London had identified nine “errors” in his movie An Inconvenient Truth. The judge had stated that, if the UK Government had not agreed to send to every secondary school in England a corrected guidance note making clear the mainstream scientific position on these nine “errors”, he would have made a finding that the Government’s distribution of the film and the first draft of the guidance note earlier in 2007 to all English secondary schools had been an unlawful contravention of an Act of Parliament prohibiting the political indoctrination of children.

Al Gore’s spokesman and “environment advisor,” Ms. Kalee Kreider, begins by saying that the film presented “thousands and thousands of facts.” It did not: just 2,000 “facts” in 93 minutes would have been one fact every three seconds. The film contained only a few dozen points, most of which will be seen to have been substantially inaccurate. The judge concentrated only on nine points which even the UK Government, to which Gore is a climate-change advisor, had to admit did not represent mainstream scientific opinion.

Ms. Kreider then states, incorrectly, that the judge himself had never used the term “errors.” In fact, the judge used the term “errors,” in inverted commas, throughout his judgment.

Next, Ms. Kreider makes some unjustifiable ad hominem attacks on Mr. Stewart Dimmock, the lorry driver, school governor and father of two school-age children who was the plaintiff in the case. This memorandum, however, will eschew any ad hominem response, and will concentrate exclusively on the 35 scientific inaccuracies and exaggerations in Gore’s movie.

Ms. Kreider then says, “The process of creating a 90-minute documentary from the original peer-reviewed science for an audience of moviegoers in the U.S. and around the world is complex.” However, the single web-page entitled “The Science” on the movie’s official website contains only two references to articles in the peer-reviewed scientific journals. There is also a reference to a document of the IPCC, but its documents are not independently peer-reviewed in the usual understanding of the term.

Ms. Kreider then says, “The judge stated clearly that he was not attempting to perform an analysis of the scientific questions in his ruling.” He did not need to. Each of the nine “errors” which he identified had been admitted by the UK Government to be inconsistent with the mainstream of scientific opinion.

Ms. Kreider says the IPCC’s results are sometimes “conservative,” and continues: “Vice President Gore tried to convey in good faith those threats that he views as the most serious.” Readers of the long list of errors described in this memorandum will decide for themselves whether Mr. Gore was acting in good faith. However, in this connection it is significant that each of the 35 errors listed below misstates the conclusions of the scientific literature or states that there is a threat where there is none or exaggerates the threat where there may be one. All of the errors point in one direction – towards undue alarmism. Not one of the errors falls in the direction of underestimating the degree of concern in the scientific community. The likelihood that all 35 of the errors listed below could have fallen in one direction purely by inadvertence is less than 1 in 34 billion.

We now itemize 35 of the scientific errors and exaggerations in Al Gore’s movie. The first nine were listed by the judge in the High Court in London in October 2007 as being “errors.” The remaining 26 errors are just as inaccurate or exaggerated as the nine spelt out by the judge, who made it plain during the proceedings that the Court had not had time to consider more than these few errors. The judge found these errors serious enough to require the UK Government to pay substantial costs to the plaintiff.

ERROR 1​

Sea level "rising 6 m"​

​

Gore says that a sea-level rise of up to 6 m (20 ft) will be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland. Though Gore does not say that the sea-level rise will occur in the near future, the judge found that, in the context, it was clear that this is what he had meant, since he showed expensive graphical representations of the effect of his imagined 6 m (20 ft) sea-level rise on existing populations, and he quantified the numbers who would be displaced by the sea-level rise.

The IPCC says sea-level increases up to 7 m (23 ft) above today’s levels have happened naturally in the past climate, and would only be likely to happen again after several millennia. In the next 100 years, according to calculations based on figures in the IPCC’s 2007 report, these two ice sheets between them will add a little over 6 cm (2.5 inches) to sea level, not 6 m (this figure of 6 cm is 15% of the IPCC’s total central estimate of a 43 cm or 1 ft 5 in sea-level rise over the next century). Gore has accordingly exaggerated the official sea-level estimate by approaching 10,000 per cent.

Ms. Kreider says the IPCC estimates a sea-level rise of “59 cm” by 2100. She fails to point out that this amounts to less than 2 ft, not the 20 ft imagined by Gore. She also fails to point out that this is the IPCC’s upper estimate, on its most extreme scenario. And she fails to state that the IPCC, faced with a stream of peer-reviewed articles stating that sea-level rise is not a threat, has reduced this upper estimate from 3 ft in 2001 to less than 2 ft (i.e. half the mean centennial sea-level rise that has occurred since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago) in 2007.

Ms. Kreider says the IPCC’s 2007 sea-level calculations excluded contributions from Greenland and West Antarctica because they could not be quantified. However, Table SPM1 of the 2007 report quantifies the contributions of these two ice-sheets to sea-level rise as representing about 15% of the total change.

The report also mentions the possibility that there may be an unquantified further contribution in future from these two ice sheets arising from “dynamical ice flow.” However, the Greenland ice sheet rests in a depression in the bedrock created by its own weight, wherefore “dynamical ice flow” is impossible, and the IPCC says that temperature would have to be sustained at more than 5.5 degrees C above its present level for several millennia before half the Greenland ice sheet could melt, causing sea level to rise by some 3 m (10 ft).

Finally, the IPCC’s 2007 report estimates that the likelihood that humankind is having any influence on sea level at all is little better than 50:50.

The judge was accordingly correct in finding that Gore’s presentation of the imagined imminent threat of a 6 m (20 ft) sea-level rise, with his account of the supposed impact on the present-day populations of Manhattan, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, etc., etc, was not a correct statement of the mainstream science on this question.

 

[Memphis Slim]

ERROR 2​

Pacific islands "drowning"​

​

Gore says low-lying inhabited Pacific coral atolls are already being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming, leading to the evacuation of several island populations to New Zealand. However, the atolls are not being inundated, except where dynamiting of reefs or over-extraction of fresh water by local populations has caused damage.

Furthermore, corals can grow at ten times the predicted rate of increase in sea level. It is not by some accident or coincidence that so many atolls reach just a few feet above the ocean surface.

Ms. Kreider says, “The IPCC estimates that 150 million environmental refugees could exist by the year 2050, due mainly to the effects of coastal flooding, shoreline erosion and agricultural disruption.” However, the IPCC cannot be basing its estimate on sea-level rise, since even its maximum projected rise of just 30 cm (1 ft) by 2050 would not cause significant coastal flooding or shoreline erosion. There are several coastlines (the east coast of England, for instance) where the land is sinking as a consequence of post-ice-age isostatic recovery, or where (as in Bangladesh) tectonic subduction is similarly causing the land to sink. But such natural causes owe nothing to sea-level rise.

There have been no mass evacuations of populations of islanders as suggested by Gore, though some residents of Tuvalu have asked to be moved to New Zealand, even though the tide-gauges maintained until recently by the National Tidal Facility of Australia show a mean annual sea-level rise over the past half-century equivalent to the thickness of a human hair. The problem with the Carteret Islands, mentioned by Ms. Kreider, arose not because of rising sea levels but because of imprudent dynamiting of the reefs by local fishermen.

In the Maldives, a detailed recent study showed that sea levels were unchanged today compared with 1250 years ago, though they have been higher in much of the intervening period, and have very seldom been lower.

A well-established tree very close to the Maldivian shoreline and only inches above sea level was recently uprooted by Australian environmentalists anxious to destroy this visible proof that sea level cannot have risen very far.

 

[Memphis Slim]

ERROR 3​

Thermohaline circulation "stopping"​

Gore says “global warming” may shut down the thermohaline circulation in the oceans, which he calls the “ocean conveyor,” plunging Europe into an ice age. It will not. A paper published in 2006 says: “Analyses of ocean observations and model simulations suggest that changes in the thermohaline circulation during the last century are likely the result of natural multidecadal climate variability. Indications of a sustained thermohaline circulation weakening are not seen during the last few decades. Instead, a strengthening since the 1980s is observed.”

Ms. Kreider, for Mr. Gore, says that “multiple scientists” have claimed that we cannot exclude the possibility of the disruption or shutdown of the Conveyor. Disruption, perhaps: shutdown, no. It is now near-universally accepted that the thermohaline circulation cannot be and will not be shut down by “global warming,” and the film should have been corrected to reflect the consensus.

ERROR 4​

CO2 "driving temperature"​

Gore says that in each of the last four interglacial warm periods it was changes in carbon dioxide concentration that caused changes in temperature. It was the other way about. Changes in temperature preceded changes in CO2 concentration by between 800 and 2800 years, as scientific papers including the paper on which Gore’s film had relied had made clear.

Ms. Kreider says it is true that “greenhouse gas levels and temperature changes in the ice signals have a complicated relationship but they do fit.” This does not address Gore’s error at all. The judge found that Gore had very clearly implied that it was changes in carbon dioxide concentration that had led to changes in temperature in the palaeoclimate, when the scientific literature is unanimous (save only for a single paper by James Hansen, whom Gore trusts) to the effect that the relationship was in fact the other way about, with a carbon dioxide feedback contributing only a comparatively insignificant further increase to temperature after the temperature change had itself initiated a change in carbon dioxide concentration.

The significance of this error was explained during the court proceedings, and was accepted by the judge. Gore says that the 100 ppmv difference between carbon dioxide concentrations during ice-age temperature minima and interglacial temperature maxima represents “the difference between a nice day and a mile of ice above your head.” This would imply a CO2 effect on temperature about 10 times greater than that regarded as plausible by the consensus of mainstream scientific opinion (see Error 10).

Ms. Kreider refers readers to a “more complete description” available at a website maintained by, among others, two of the three authors of the now-discredited “hockey stick” graph that falsely attempted to abolish the Mediaeval Warm Period. The National Academy of Sciences in the US had found that graph to have “a validation skill not significantly different from zero” – i.e., the graph was useless.