Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[Paradyme]

Why does this even matter? It doesn't matter what your average layman thinks. The majority of Americans believe God exists even though there is no scientific evidence proving such a thing; so an "increased number" of people who don't believe global warming is real should be taken with the same grain of salt.

Wow, looks to be what most of congress and senators alike think of the American people.

Get off your high horse.

 

[The Senator]

Sorry, but I don't really care what Bucktooth B. Redneck from Backwoods USA thinks about a scientific process. Unless every average layman in this country has a background in science or a strong understanding of the science surrounding global warming, their opinion is completely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. Some people still believe the earth is flat and others think the earth is 6,000 years old, even though science completely debunks those myths. The last thing I'm going to do is turn my ear to what they think, when they can barely think as it is.

 

[SuBe]

Are they irrelevant because you feel you are smarter than them, therefore get to choose for them? Does that mean their Voice means any less than yours?

 

[The Senator]

Are they irrelevant because you feel you are smarter than them, therefore get to choose for them? Does that mean their Voice means any less than yours?

That's only part of it. I am smarter than many Americans. I have worked my ass off for years on two degrees and have a very strong understanding of complicated sciences. I know more than most people I grew up with and most people I encounter in my every day doings.

But beyond that, their opinions are irrelevant because they are offering an opinion on science. People who sit around all day with their hands in the air, shouting "global warming is F-A-K-E!!!", have no credence unless they can back their opinions up with actual science. And I doubt most people have taken ten seconds to look up dissenting opinions on global warming, and consider it to be a fraud because Al Gore is one of the most outspoken leaders on the topic.

So no. If someone disagrees with a scientific process, then I have no reason to take their disagreement seriously unless they have strong evidence to back up their opinion. That poll wasn't comprised of people with a scientific background, or people who have actually researched the subject matter. It was most likely dispersed with a variety of individuals, with all sorts of intellectual capabilities and inabilities.

Hundreds of years ago, a majority of people disagreed that the earth revolved around the sun and that gravity was real. Thank God we didn't base all future public policy decisions on what they thought.

 

[StorminNorman]

That's only part of it. I am smarter than many Americans. I have worked my ass off for years on two degrees and have a very strong understanding of complicated sciences. I know more than most people I grew up with and most people I encounter in my every day doings.

But beyond that, their opinions are irrelevant because they are offering an opinion on science. People who sit around all day with their hands in the air, shouting "global warming is F-A-K-E!!!", have no credence unless they can back their opinions up with actual science. And I doubt most people have taken ten seconds to look up dissenting opinions on global warming, and consider it to be a fraud because Al Gore is one of the most outspoken leaders on the topic.

So no. If someone disagrees with a scientific process, then I have no reason to take their disagreement seriously unless they have strong evidence to back up their opinion. That poll wasn't comprised of people with a scientific background, or people who have actually researched the subject matter. It was most likely dispersed with a variety of individuals, with all sorts of intellectual capabilities and inabilities.

Hundreds of years ago, a majority of people disagreed that the earth revolved around the sun and that gravity was real. Thank God we didn't
base all future public policy decisions on what they thought.

And again, this point would be valid if there wasn't an ever growing number of scientists and climate experts and Nobel Prize winners, etc. that were coming out as not simply skeptics of Global Warming, but full blown critics.

 

[Paradyme]

An intelligent man who believes he is intelligent has proved to himself the opposite.

 

[The Senator]

And many scientists who produce these studies are paid by major corporations to do research which sheds a negative light on global warming. Newsweek published a story years ago about how ExxonMobil paid $600,000 or more to scientists who could manipulate research to disprove the science which was already out there, because global warming just wasn't financially convenient for them.

 

[The Senator]

An intelligent man who believes he is intelligent has proved to himself the opposite.

Yes, intelligent people who have indeed proved themselves as such are really not all that smart. Anti-intellectualism has always been a forte of conservatism in this country. Looks like it will remain that way.

 

[Paradyme]

Yes, intelligent people who have indeed proved themselves as such are really not all that smart. Anti-intellectualism has always been a forte of conservatism in this country. Looks like it will remain that way.

I'm sure you don't care since I'm just a layman but I've lost all respect for you.

 

[The Senator]

I'm sure you don't care since I'm just a layman idiot but I've lost all respect for you.

I don't care, actually. I lost respect for you a long time ago, when you mocked intellectualism and insinuated that people who don't have a college degree and are unwilling to discuss things intellectually are more acceptable than people who actually are intelligent and know how the world works. I bet that because I live in a city and don't subscribe to religion, that makes me less than acceptable too, right?

 

[Kelly]

Well, ok.....you two don't respect each other....so put each other on ignore and move on.

 

[Paradyme]

I don't care, actually. I lost respect for you a long time ago, when you mocked intellectualism and insinuated that people who don't have a college degree and are unwilling to discuss things intellectually are more acceptable than people who actually are intelligent and know how the world works. I bet that because I live in a city and don't subscribe to religion, that makes me less than acceptable too, right?

What the hell are you talking about, man?

 

[Kelly]

Move on......or take it PM....

 

[The Senator]

Hmmm. I could have sworn that several months ago the two of us debated that very topic. Maybe it was another user who has similar views.

 

[Kelly]

Well, that does happen Jman........

 

[The Senator]

Well, maybe I am wrong. If I have a lot of time soon, maybe I'll go back and try to find the post I am referring to... and then I'll take the conversation to PMs.

 

[Kelly]

Well, maybe I am wrong. If I have a lot of time soon, maybe I'll go back and try to find the post I am referring to... and then I'll take the conversation to PMs.

No problem.....thanks.

 

[Carcharodon]

And many scientists who produce these studies are paid by major corporations to do research which sheds a negative light on global warming. Newsweek published a story years ago about how ExxonMobil paid $600,000 or more to scientists who could manipulate research to disprove the science which was already out there, because global warming just wasn't financially convenient for them.

Well, look at the other side: there is definitely pressure upon scientists to support climate change theory, and there are special interests involved there as well.

Of course, I'm not saying that it's the only reason that scientists support the theory. I'm sure the majority of scientists out there legitimately believe that the theory holds up. I AM saying that it's really, really easy to flip that statement around.

This brings up the larger issue of what happens when you merge politics with science. When you polarize what should be a purely scientific debate by bringing in outside interests and political baggage, science begins to play a smaller role.

Then everybody has an opinion on climate change backed up by...a basal to nonexistent understanding of the actual science. Then these people get to vote on policy, which is dangerous to be perfectly honest. The vast majority of these people, at this point, are just touting party lines (Republicans against, Democrats for it).

The whole debate then becomes so clouded with hot air and ******** that while the scientists do their thing, they get completely ignored and overshadowed by the Al Gores and Glenn Becks of the world.

 

[SuBe]

Global warming's no longer happening

So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?

By Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton JournalMarch 15, 2009

So far this month, at least 14 major weather stations in Alberta have recorded their lowest-ever March temperatures. I'm not talking about daily records; I mean they've recorded the lowest temperatures they've ever seen in the entire month of March since temperatures began being recorded in Alberta in the 1880s.

This past Tuesday, Edmonton International Airport reported an overnight low of -41.5 C, smashing the previous March low of -29.4 C set in 1975. Records just don't fall by that much, but the airport's did. Records are usually broken fractions of degrees. The International's was exceeded by 12 degrees.

To give you an example of how huge is the difference between the old record and the new, if Edmonton were to exceed its highest-ever summer temperature by the same amount, the high here some July day would have to reach 50 C. That's a Saudi Arabia-like temperature.

Also on the same day, Lloydminster hit -35.2 C, breaking its old March record of -29.2 C. Fort McMurray -- where they know cold -- broke a record set in 1950 with a reading of -39.9C. And Cold Lake, Slave Lake, Whitecourt, Peace River, High Level, Jasper and Banff, and a handful of other communities obliterated old cold values, most from the 1950s or 1970s, two of the coldest decades on record in the province.

This has been an especially cold winter across the country, with values returning to levels not often seen since the 1970s, which was an especially brutal decade of winters.

Temperatures began to plummet on the Prairies in December. The cold weather did not hit much of the rest of the country until January, but when it hit, it hit hard. Even against Canada's normally frigid January standards, "this particular cold snap is noteworthy," Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said this past January. Many regions across the country had not been as cold for 30 years or more, he added.

Does this prove fear of global warming is misplaced? On its own, probably not. But if records were being broken the other way -- if several Alberta centres had recorded their warmest-ever March values -- you can bet there would be no end of hand-wringing, horror stories about how we were on the precipice of an ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions.

Environmentalists, scientists who advance the warming theory, politicians and reporters never shy away from hyping those weather stories that support their beliefs. But they tend to ignore or explain away stories that might cast doubt.

In 2005, the summer and fall of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when several major 'canes pummelled North and Central America, we were told again and again that this was proof warming was happening and it was going to be bad. Al Gore has emissions from industrial smokestacks swirling up into a satellite image of a hurricane on the DVD box for his propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth to underline the point that more and eviller hurricanes will be the result of CO2 output.

But since 2005, only one major hurricane -- this year's Ike -- has struck North America. And now comes a study from Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue, that shows worldwide cyclonic activity -- typhoons, as well as hurricanes -- has reached a 30-year low (tinyurl.com/bunynz).

Indeed, the hiatus may go back more than 30 years because it is difficult to compare records before about 1970 with those since, since measurements four or more decades ago were not as precise or thorough. Current low activity may actually be the lowest in 50 years or more.

If Maue had proven hurricane activity were at a 30-year high, of course his findings would have been reported far and wide. But since he is challenging the dogma of the Holy Mother Church of Climate Change, his research is ignored.

For at least the past five or six years, global temperatures have been falling. Look at the black trend line on the chart at www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ put out by the man who runs NASA's worldwide network of weather satellites.

Also, in the past few months, two studies -- one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin -- have shown a slowing, or even a reversal of warming for at least the next 10 to 20, and perhaps longer.

Even the Arctic sea ice, which has replaced hurricanes as the alarm of the moment ever since hurricanes ceased to threaten, has grown this winter to an extent not seen since around 1980.

Global warming is not only no longer happening, it is not likely to resume until 2025 or later, if then. So why are we continuing to hear so much doomsaying about climate change?

There are a lot of people in every age who think they know better than everyone else and, therefore, have a right to tell everyone how to live. In the 1950s, it was country-club and parish council busybodies with their strict moral codes. In the 1970s, it was social democrats with their fanciful economic theories. Today, it's environmentalists.

Same instinct, different wrapper.

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Global+warming+longer+happening/1391903/story.html

 

[Kelly]

Waiting for Car to show up.....

 

[Carcharodon]

I'm here, but I'm really, really stoned. It's an interesting article, written with a blatant slant, but valid nonetheless. I think it just goes to show that the debate should never be considered over.

 

[Carcharodon]

Here's an issue I'd like to bring up, and it's one that really needs more attention than the few brief media mentions it has gotten so far. It's just sad.

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean
Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 19, 2007

At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing."

To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe.

In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years.

"With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping," Eriksen said. "There's nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm."

The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans."

The report found that 80 percent of the oceans' litter originated on land. While ships drop the occasional load of shoes or hockey gloves into the waters (sometimes on purpose and illegally), the vast majority of sea garbage begins its journey as onshore trash.

That's what makes a potentially toxic swamp like the Garbage Patch entirely preventable, Parry said.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues. ... The long-term solution is to stop producing as much plastic products at home and change our consumption habits."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step; buying foods that aren't wrapped in plastics is another.

After the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the use of plastic grocery bags earlier this year with the problem of ocean debris in mind, a slew of state bills were written to limit bag production, said Sarah Christie, a legislative director with the California Coastal Commission.

But many of the bills failed after meeting strong opposition from plastics industry lobbyists, she said.

Meanwhile, the stew in the ocean continues to grow.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is particularly dangerous for birds and marine life, said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.

Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. Birds swoop down and swallow indigestible shards of plastic. The petroleum-based plastics take decades to break down, and as long as they float on the ocean's surface, they can appear as feeding grounds.

"These animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," Chabot said. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."

The Greenpeace report found that at least 267 marine species had suffered from some kind of ingestion or entanglement with marine debris.

Chabot said if environmentalists wanted to remove the ocean dump site, it would take a massive international effort that would cost billions.

But that is unlikely, he added, because no one country is likely to step forward and claim the issue as its own responsibility.

Instead, cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is left to the landlubbers.

"What we can do is ban plastic fast food packaging," Chabot said, "or require the substitution of biodegradable materials, increase recycling programs and improve enforcement of litter laws.

"Otherwise, this ever-growing floating continent of trash will be with us for the foreseeable future."
How to help

You can help to limit the ever-growing patch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean. Here are some ways to help:

Limit your use of plastics when possible. Plastic doesn't easily degrade and can kill sea life.

Use a reusable bag when shopping. Throwaway bags can easily blow into the ocean.

Take your trash with you when you leave the beach.

Make sure your trash bins are securely closed. Keep all trash in closed bags.

 

[BatMatt]

I was very happy to see Obama sign the Wild and Scenic Rivers package today, I'm not sure why I haven't visited this thread before, environmentalism is one of my biggest political issues I take interest in.

 

[Mister Sinister]

"When did survival on planet Earth get to be a liberal cause?"

Love him or hate him, Bill Maher comes up with a very good point here.

 

[Paradyme]

I wish I was able to find this topic last week when I had an interesting article to put in here but unfortunately I couldn't and now I don't remember where I found the article.