Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[SuperFerret]

Yes. There's no way to avoid extinctions that we cause.

Spoiler

Spoiler

:facepalm

Did the dodo ever really contribute anything to the world? Really, the most it provided us with is "Dead as a dodo".

Alright, you've got me on that one.

 

[deathfromabove]

Did the dodo ever really contribute anything to the world? Really, the most it provided us with is "Dead as a dodo".

Alright, you've got me on that one.

is that a justification?

besides he still made his point that some extictions are avoidable.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Did the dodo ever really contribute anything to the world? Really, the most it provided us with is "Dead as a dodo".

Alright, you've got me on that one.

So, wait. We should only protect animals that are beneficial to us?

 

[Carcharodon]

He was kidding lol.

 

[SuBe]

It's been a while since we have agitated all you global warmers out there. In case you all didn't know, the UN is having a little climate conference in Poland right now. And an Associated Press report from Poland says, "Scientists studying the changing nature of the Earth's climate say they have completed one crucial task -- proving beyond a doubt that global warming is real. Now they have to figure out just what to do about it."
Aren't you thrilled? The UN has figured it out! The debate is over! And right now more than 10,000 UN delegates and environmentalists are sitting in Poland and working out the kinks of their plans to cap greenhouse emissions around the world. They are itching at the chance to make the evil rich countries pay up.
Let's look at the weather map. It snowed yesterday in Houston, Texas. The temperature in Siberia was around 80 degrees below zero. Southern California is headed for record low temperatures with snow in some LA suburbs. The Earth hasn't warmed a bit in the last eight years. In fact, it has been cooling slightly. The ocean waters off California are cooling. In the midst of all of this the United Nations is now telling us that it has been absolutely proven that man is causing global warming and that we must act right now to stop it or 30% of all plant and animal life on earth will perish.
Lawrence E. Buja is a climate change researcher from Boulder, Colorado. He says, "The skeptics are doing a good job because they are making us present ironclad proof." Ok .. what proof? Please show me the direct link between human activity and global warming. Please explain to me how a recent study showing that the sun was responsible for half of the warming in the recent decades is incorrect. Please tell me how the world can be warming when 2008 is set to be the coolest year of the decade. Please tell me why the Antarctic ice caps are actually growing.
Proven? Proven how? With computer models. Not with actual scientific testing and fact, but with models ... computer models programmed by humans with or without biases who can insert or leave out data as they see fit.
Then that leads me to this ... a US Senate Minority Report is about to be released. It contains testimony from over 650 scientists (note that they are all scientists and not just ENVIRONMENTALISTS) who are criticizing the man-made climate claims of this UN conference.
But it won't really matter. According to the powers that be, the debate is closed. But just remember that it isn't based on the science, it is based on a need to redistribute the wealth throughout the world - make the richer nations pay for their evil emissions.
Why go through all this trouble? Because if the UN can convince the world that man (more specifically, Americans) are endangering the rest of the world then the UN can embark on a program of weakening the American economy - and us - while strengthening the third world at our expense. This about control and power, it is not about saving the Earth. There was a reason that the Kyoto Treaty left out nations like China while punishing the economies of the United States. This whole scam may not really be on your radio screen right now ... but the time is coming when you will really need to pay some close attention.



AND NOW ... FOR THE MORE RATIONAL SIDE


This story found on Drudge this morning: "UN Blowback: More than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims"
Yup ... it looks like some scientists are going to launch a bit of an attack on this UN global warming conference underway in Poland. Read the story for details ... but I do want to include some of the quotes from these scientists here in the Nuze. Enjoy:

• "I am a skeptic...Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
• Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history...When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
• "The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
• "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
• "Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." - . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the Universityof Auckland, NZ.
• "After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
• "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
• "Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp...Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

There are many more quotes in the story ... give it a read.

Nice Thoughts, don't you think?

 

[Carcharodon]

Yeah...claiming "absolute proof" is a bit much, especially in the realm of science. I do find it funny that the author of this article wants to SEE said proof, though something tells me he wouldn't understand it if it were all presented to him. That's the problem when you try to bring science into the public domain, unfortunately.

What's interesting (and it's certainly not the babbling of the author, who keeps using specific instances of anomalous weather as evidence AGAINST climate change even though it doesn't work that way) is the 650 skeptical scientists. I'd love to SEE one of these debates.

 

[The Battousai]

Every time someone "debunks" global warming (should be called ocean warming, though), it's usually based on their very basic knowledge of hot and cold. It's FAR more complicated than that.

 

[Galactus]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1158

 

[JLBats]

Nice Thoughts, don't you think?

I always find it neat when people are on the side of the debate that they'd obviously be on. I don't know why. I just find it neat.

 

[Galactus]

Since 2003, More Than 2 Trillion Tons of Arctic Ice Melted
By The Associated Press

posted: 16 December 2008 11:07 am ET



WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.

NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren't complete yet, but this year's ice loss, while still significant, won't be as severe as 2007.


The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.

In assessing climate change, scientists generally look at several years to determine the overall trend.

Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. In the 1990s, Greenland didn't add to world sea level rise; now that island is adding about half a millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said in a telephone interview from the conference.

Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms.

Other research, being presented this week at the geophysical meeting point to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice.

"It's not getting better; it's continuing to show strong signs of warming and amplification," Zwally said. "There's no reversal taking place."

 

[Ace of Knaves]

The question shouldn't be "is global warming real". It should be "can and do humans effect global warming"?

I don't pretend to be a scientist but isn't there studies and reports that show everytime a volcanoe erupts, the amount of carbon dioxide and sulphur it releases into the atmosphere dwarfs that of the entire human race?

 

[tuffenoughtoroc]

But how many volcanoes actually erupt in one year?

 

[Ace of Knaves]

But how many volcanoes actually erupt in one year?

Oh yea i know they don't exactly erupt every year. But the report was talking about massive ones like Mt St Helens. It said that when St Helens went off the amount of crap that was thrown up into the atmosphere was the equivalent to many, many years of pollution by us. Can't remember the exact amount it was a while ago i read it.

 

[Majic Walrus]

The question shouldn't be "is global warming real". It should be "can and do humans effect global warming"?

I don't pretend to be a scientist but isn't there studies and reports that show everytime a volcanoe erupts, the amount of carbon dioxide and sulphur it releases into the atmosphere dwarfs that of the entire human race?

That could be true, but that doesn't mean that driving around in our Hummers spraying on hairspray and giving the finger to the Ozone layer are really helping any.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

That could be true, but that doesn't mean that driving around in our Hummers spraying on hairspray and giving the finger to the Ozone layer are really helping any.

Oh yea I understand that.

But I don't like it when people preach to me and tell me how to live my life for a cause that we haven't and maybe cannot prove to be our doing. I recycle and all that, no problem. But i'm not going to start driving a Toyota Prius and stop using deoderant because some tree hugger tells me not to.

 

[Majic Walrus]

Oh yea I understand that.

But I don't like it when people preach to me and tell me how to live my life for a cause that we haven't and maybe cannot prove to be our doing. I recycle and all that, no problem. But i'm not going to start driving a Toyota Prius and stop using deoderant because some tree hugger tells me not to.

I dig what you're saying.

I don't like it when people start comparing carbon footprints or going overboard. All things in moderation is what I say. No one should have to drastically change the way they live in order to help out the environment.

Recycle (everything, this can save money too), carpool (this saves money obviously), and use some good judgement and everyone will be better off.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

I dig what you're saying.

I don't like it when people start comparing carbon footprints or going overboard. All things in moderation is what I say. No one should have to drastically change the way they live in order to help out the environment.

Recycle (everything, this can save money too), carpool (this saves money obviously), and use some good judgement and everyone will be better off.

Yea i agree. People are just looking too far into IMO. All it takes is a little bit of common sense.

 

[Carcharodon]

I don't pretend to be a scientist but isn't there studies and reports that show everytime a volcanoe erupts, the amount of carbon dioxide and sulphur it releases into the atmosphere dwarfs that of the entire human race?

That's highly disputed. There's also the matter of interpretation: is the volcano releasing carbon dioxide at a greater RATE than human production during eruption?

If this is the case, then the overall contribution from humans is far greater than that from volcanoes. The fact that a volcano may spew out more carbon dioxide per unit time only during eruption means that its overall contribution may be negligible.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

That's highly disputed. There's also the matter of interpretation: is the volcano releasing carbon dioxide at a greater RATE than human production during eruption?

If this is the case, then the overall contribution from humans is far greater than that from volcanoes. The fact that a volcano may spew out more carbon dioxide per unit time only during eruption means that its overall contribution may be negligible.

Yea i get what you're saying. But the report was talking about big eruptions, like St Helens. It was saying that St Helens spewed more crap into the atmosphere than the whole human race does in a time span of years. I'm not saying thats fact, just presenting another side to the argument.

 

[Carcharodon]

Yea i get what you're saying. But the report was talking about big eruptions, like St Helens. It was saying that St Helens spewed more crap into the atmosphere than the whole human race does in a time span of years. I'm not saying thats fact, just presenting another side to the argument.

I know. I'm just trying to demonstrate that scientific findings, while based on concrete data, can be strongly subject to interpretation. This makes it easy for one side to make a claim that, while based in fact, may not reflect the reality of a situation.

This is compounded by the increasing politicization (is that a word?) of scientific problems and issues. This is true on both sides, of course.

 

[ScottyBBadd]

It is 28 degrees here in Texas. Where is this global warming?

 

[Carcharodon]

It is 28 degrees here in Texas. Where is this global warming?

Just over your head, apparently.

 

[The Senator]

It is 28 degrees here in Texas. Where is this global warming?

Hahahaha!

Yeah, I hear this all the time.

"It's -12 in Minnesota, burrrrrrr, there's no such thing as this global warming whosawhatsit! "

Meanwhile, the arctic ice sheet is melting and is expected to completely disappear next summer, the U.S. is in a nationwide drought, and species are becoming extinct at a rate of 3,000 per year because the ecosystems they inhabit are changing due, in part, to the changing climate.

So, sorry it's cold in Texas... but your cold weather is not indicative of the global climate crisis...

 

[SuBe]

Scientists Call AP Report on Global Warming 'Hysteria'
Tuesday, December 16, 2008


Scientists skeptical of the assertion that climate change is the result of man's activites are criticizing a recent Associated Press report on global warming, calling it "irrational hysteria," "horrifically bad" and "incredibly biased."

They say the report, which was published on Monday, contained sweeping scientific errors and was a one-sided portrayal of a complicated issue.

"If the issues weren't so serious and the ramifications so profound, I would have to laugh at it," said David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma who has been critical of media reporting on the climate change issue.

In the article, Obama Left with Little Time to Curb Global Warming, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein wrote that global warming is "a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid," and that "global warming is accelerating."

Deming, in an interview, took issue with Borenstein's characterization of a problem he says doesn't exist.

"He says global warming is accelerating. Not only is it continuing, it's accelerating, and whether it's continuing that was completely beyond the evidence," Deming told FOXNews.com.

"The mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980."

Deming said the article is further evidence of the media's decision to talk about global warming as fact, despite what he says is a lack of evidence.

"Reporters, as I understand reporters, are supposed to report facts,"Deming said. "What he's doing here is he's writing a polemic and reporting it as fact, and that's not right. It's not reporting. It's propaganda.

"This reads like a press release for an environmental advocacy group like Greenpeace. It's not fair and balanced."

A spokesman for the Associated Press said that the news agency stands by its story. "It’s a news story, based on fact and the clearly expressed views of President-elect Barack Obama and others," spokesman Paul Colford told FOXNews.com in an e-mail.

Michael R. Fox, a retired nuclear scientist and chemistry professor from the University of Idaho, is another academic who found serious flaws with the AP story's approach to the issue.

"There's very little that's right about it," Fox said. "And it's really harmful to the United States because people like this Borenstein working for AP have an enormous impact on everyone, because AP sells their news service to a thousand news outlets.

"One guy like him can be very destructive and alarming. Yeah it's freedom of speech, but its dishonest."

Like Deming, Fox said global warming is not accelerating. "These kinds of temperatures cycle up and down and have been doing so for millions of years," he said.

He said there is little evidence to believe that man-made carbon dioxide is causing temperature fluctuation. "It's silly to lay it all on man-made carbon dioxide," Fox said. "It was El Nino in 1998 that caused the big spike in global warming and little to do with carbon dioxide."

Other factors, including sun spots, solar winds, variations in the solar magnetic field and solar irradiation, could all be affecting temperature changes, he said.

James O'Brien, an emeritus professor at Florida State University who studies climate variability and the oceans, said that global climate change is very important for the country and that Americans need to make sure they have the right answers for policy decisions. But he said he worries that scientists and policymakers are rushing to make changes based on bad science.

"Global climate change is occurring in many places in the world," O'Brien said. "But everything that's attributed to global warming, almost none of it is global warming."

He took issue with the AP article's assertion that melting Arctic ice will cause global sea levels to rise.

"When the Arctic Ocean ice melts, it never raises sea level because floating ice is floating ice, because it's displacing water," O'Brien said. "When the ice melts, sea level actually goes down.

"I call it a fourth grade science experiment. Take a glass, put some ice in it. Put water in it. Mark level where water is. Let it met. After the ice melts, the sea level didn't go up in your glass of water. It's called the Archimedes Principle."

He called sea level changes a "major scare tactic used by the global warming people."

O'Brien said he doesn't discount the potential effects man is having on the environment, but he cautioned that government should not make hasty decisions.

"There is no question that the Obama administration is green and I'm green, and there's no question that they're going to really take a careful look at what we need to do and attack problems, and I applaud that," O'Brien said.

"But I'm really concerned that they're going to spend all the money on implementation of mitigation, rather than supporting the science."

 

[SuBe]

Antarctica Ice Cap Growth Reaches Record High Levels (Photos)
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/10/antarctica-ice-cap-growth-reaches.html