What is Digg?308 Comments
- nexah3, on 10/10/2007, -26/+67I think Global Warming is one of those things that you'd rather be safe than sorry.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -5/+44I'm warming up to it
- dracostimpy, on 10/10/2007, -19/+45I'm all for cutting down on carbon emissions, just don't try to promote it by taxing my ass. Instead, how bout they give tax breaks to people/companies that "go green"?
If Al Gore starts talking about tax breaks instead of tax increases, maybe I'll believe he truly cares about the environment. Otherwise, he's just another ***** trying to extract another pint of blood from Joe Taxpayer. - bradallen18, on 10/10/2007, -10/+34exactly, how can being more environmentally friendly be a bad thing?
- kbedell, on 10/10/2007, -27/+48That video was funded by gas and oil interests working to create confusion in the minds of the public -- thereby keeping millions or billions of dollars in governmental regulations from hitting their industry.
Truth is, they misled you. - ausfahrt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22there goes the neighborhood. This, again, is silly. Just be good to the earth. Remember reduce reuse and recycle. Do your best even if global warming is or is not "our" fault. Get big industry to do the same ... lets all do our best and that is all we can do. Debating it is not helping and doesn't change the fact that it is good to leave a small footprint.
- stealth45, on 10/10/2007, -14/+33I think it's a natural process slightly accelerated by human activity.
- Dweller99, on 10/10/2007, -15/+33Actually, the truth is that the Great Global Warming Swindle has been thoroughly debunked REGARDLESS of who funded it.
- pintomp3, on 10/10/2007, -6/+24i guess the propaganda isn't working. the tobacco companies used the same tactics, and same pr companies, to try to convince people cigarettes weren't addictive and don't cause cancer.
- diggSJaustin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+20Well, for one thing, it could involve thinking uncritically and doing something *less* friendly to the environment. I'm not suggesting this is the case with climate change, but if you blindly accept everything anyone labels as "environmentally friendly," you could end up being counterproductive. Research the cloth diaper debate for an example of what I mean.
- iFungus, on 10/10/2007, -4/+20'Mr Market will take care of it" - That always works, right?
- amsterdamordeth, on 10/10/2007, -7/+21I'd rather them stop dropping nuclear waste into the oceans, and mercury into our lake and river systems. I can handle some extra thunderstorms and some rising sea levels, but will it make any difference when our entire ecosystem is a ball of toxic waste?
They also forgot that 10% of global warming is caused by all the hot air coming out of our elected officials. - nblsavage, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14Actually a lot of states offer tax rebates for "buying green" Energy Star appliances, etc.
- catalysis, on 10/10/2007, -6/+19I live my life leaving as little waste and pollution as possible, regardless of if anthropogenic climate change is a real threat or not. Everyone else is free to do whatever they want.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
-Gandhi - iluvatar, on 10/10/2007, -9/+20The right has done a fantastic job of demonizing taxes. Look, nobody *wants* to pay taxes, but they're essential to maintain the nation. And considering the level of debt our country is in taxes *need* to be raised soon before we dig ourselves deeper.
- iFungus, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12Thanks for being responsible for your kids and the rest of humanity in the future.
- nblsavage, on 10/10/2007, -8/+18Ah...welcome to raving paranoia.
- frazw, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11I already posted this in reply to someone else above but I think it bears repeating.
#1 You cannot deny that global temperature is rising. No scientist (worth his salt) argues that. but even if you do #2, #3 and #4 below stand on their own.
#2 We cut down trees, trees take in CO2 and give out O2. Fewer trees means less CO2 handling capacity.
#3 We generate a lot of CO2 by burning hydrocarbons (oil, petrol, diesel, coal), which give out water and CO2.
#4 CO2 absorbs sunlight in the visible region towards the UV side (around 420 nm) which gives it vibrational energy. vibrational energy can then give rise to heat through molecular collisions.
You can debate the extent to which each of those points has an impact but they are all facts you can look them up and verify them for yourself.
I'm not entirely convinced that global warming is solely man-made BUT we almost certainly have an effect.
Wake up and think about the science for yourself instead of just throwing accusations of where the money is.
You disagree with me fine give me some SCIENTIFIC counter arguments and we'll talk but please no crap about tax hikes when we all know the US government is in the oil companies' pocket. - IllBeBack, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10When did Al Gore ask for money from you exactly? I've heard him try to persuade people into doing things smarter and to consume less, but he hasn't asked for money has he? Maybe I had cotton in my ears during that part of "An Inconvenient Truth."
- Scruffydan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8It's called the green religion (amongst other things), but real environmentalism looks at the science (and the precautionary principle) not press releases from "green" companies or other sources of unreliable information.
- levine, on 10/10/2007, -8/+16In short, yes.
- nblsavage, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12That has been debunked and if you'd take a few seconds to Google it you'd find that out, but that would conflict with your cozy worldview so I know you won't bother.
- Ajajadude, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I'd hardly say heaven v. hell, global warming v. playing it safe is the same thing. Finding cleaner, cheaper, safer forms of energy regardless "just to be on the safe side" isn't a bad thing. Reducing emissions to improve the air quality isn't a bad thing. Take a look at Southern California's smog problem and tell me we should wait until more information is available is a good thing.
Basically, you're saying we should hear out the people who are opposed to cleaning up our act (literally and figuratively) to hear what they have to say about pollution and alternative fuels because they might be right? Pollution MIGHT not cause global warming and it MIGHT not be all that bad for us? - shabos, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7http://www.surfacestations.org/
see for yourself how the temperatures being recorded are not accurate - tmbrwolf19, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9I agree that pollution is a threat. But where on earth are you people getting this fraudulent crap? I have seen a grand total of one report claiming a lack of consensus, based entirely on the fact that it assumes papers that don't present a opinion on global warming must not agree with it. The science is intuitive for anyone willing to learn it, and i suggest you do.
- tmbrwolf19, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9Unfortunately thats idealistic and not realistic. That is the common environmental mantra that 'if i do something, maybe other people will follow my example,' but it doesn't work. Governments need to come in and make effective laws that create a significant difference. As a part of an effective democracy, its your responsibility to make your view known. Idle non-vocal action is more damaging then any active miss -nformed action.
- inactive, on 10/28/2007, -1/+6well played
- pschommer, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7You said it! The federal government takes in plenty to pay for necessary services. With deference to our men and women at sea, congress needs to stop spending money like a drunken sailor. Any extra revenue is always seen as pork project in my district.
People who think we can tax our way out of a problem or into any kind of properity are quite wrong. - pineutrino, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Mr Market will only take care of you if it's maximally profitable for people to follow a course of action that helps prevent global warming, which will only happen if a system of tariffs and subsidies is put in place to ensure this, which will only happen if our politicians find that putting this in place gets votes, which will only happen if the populace voting them in is educated and informed about global warming.
- jobenly, on 10/10/2007, -5/+10Uh, they're essential to maintain the nation the way we want it. The federal government doesn't HAVE to fund education. The federal government doesn't HAVE to pay for bridges in Nowhere, Alaska. The federal government doesn't have to give money to AIDS research. About the only things the federal government has to do is keep the peace, protect the country, and dispense justice. Most of the government's expenditures go to foreign and domestic social welfare programs, which are technically elective, whether you like them or not.
- yoda17, on 10/10/2007, -0/+575% and it becomes a fact.
- Ajajadude, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8Slightly? These things don't happen overnight, in terms of geological time. 100 years in the grand scheme of things is a nanosecond in our lives.
- Scruffydan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Its worth nothing that Silent spring did not advocate for a total ban on DDT.
" No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story - the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting. …
What is the measure of this setback? The list of resistant species now includes practically all of the insect groups of medical importance. … Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes. …
Practical advice should be ‘Spray as little as you possibly can’ rather than ‘Spray to the limit of your capacity‘ …, Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible.
-Rachel Carson in Silent Spring" - XopherMV, on 10/10/2007, -5/+9There are not two sides to scientific issues like this one. Scientific consensus has been reached. Global warming is a fact. The fact is it's caused by humans. There is only one set of facts. Anyone else claiming otherwise are a bunch of kooks, just like the people who push creationism or those who say the world is flat, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
There is no corruption in the science camp. Scientists aren't making gobs of money off their research into global warming.
The people denying global warming are doing so out of their own political agenda. Oil companies want to ignore the facts in order to sell you more of their goods. Republicans want to ignore the facts because they hate the proposed remedies, which include more regulation of business who give them millions of dollars every year. THAT is where the corruption lies. THOSE are the people with the motivation to lie. - Isidore, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5No one on the IPCC doubts that there are cycles and natural factors. The question is whether the global warming observed since the mid 1970's has a significant human cause. The IPCC says yes with 90% certainty.
Sir David Attenborough was once a climate skeptic, believing that it can all be explained by natural causes and cycles. He changed his mind, this is why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ob9WdbXx0
New Scientist addressing main climate skeptic claims
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/ ... - lcars, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Sure there is global warming - there's also solar system warming since 2002. Not too many SUV's on Mars though.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07aug_sout ... - jobenly, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6DDT wasn't banned for making resistant mosquitoes. It was banned because it shells of birds' eggs thinner (from Wikipedia): "[Silent Spring, the popular anti-DDT book] suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds." It's also worth noting that the evidence regarding DDT being a carcinogen is still largely inconclusive.
Also from the Wikipedia article:
"In the period from 1934-1955 there were 1.5 million cases of malaria in Sri Lanka, resulting in 80,000 deaths. After the country invested in an extensive anti-mosquito program with DDT, there were only 17 cases reported in 1963. Thereafter the program was halted, and malaria in Sri Lanka rebounded to 600,000 cases in 1968 and the first quarter of 1969. Although the country resumed spraying with DDT, many of the local mosquitoes had acquired resistance to DDT in the interim, presumably because of the continued use of DDT for crop protection, so the program was not nearly as effective as it had been before." From reading that, it seems that DDT resistance comes from inconsistent spraying, much like antibiotic-resistant diseases result from people not finishing their prescriptions.
All of this is a little off my real point, though. DDT may or may not be a good example of what I'm trying to say here-- All environmental policies instituted by government will have unintended consequences. Our first impulse is to assume that any green is the best thing to do. In real life, the environment, society, and the economy (all of which are affected by green policies) are much to complicated to make things so black and white. - Arrhenius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Svante Arrhenius, 1896
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
Although the knowledge that CO2 absorbs heat goes back to the late 1850's - WasabiBomb, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You know, we hear that argument a lot- that any sort of attempt to curb climate change will destroy our economy. I don't buy it- every scientific movement has, in the end, resulted in an economic improvement. The only danger is that Big Oil would make less profit- and, frankly, their failed business model is NOT my problem.
- iChainsaw, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4its just a blip on the climographs in world history...
- Arrhenius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"Satellites detect no warming in the atmosphere since 1979 and now see some cooling."
Your information is out of date.
"The Earth generates 90% of all CO2 in a given year"
Natural process are roughly in balance. Think this through if you can - if the natural processes were not in balance, the atmosphere would be like 99% CO2. The "fingerprint" of burning fossil fuels can be seen in changing carbon isotope levels in atmospheric CO2. Contesting this point is the equivalent of being a young-earth creationist. You are just copy & pasting stuff that you don't understand.
"Water vapor is responsible for 95% of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Hot humid summer nights are the greenhouse effect in action."
Water vapor has a larger effect than CO2, but CO2's fraction is larger than 5%. Its important that much of CO2's "dirty work" happens up in the stratosphere, which is very dry. Deniers who know some science will sometimes sneak in the term "sea level" when they discuss the effects of CO2 and most people never realize that the denier is pulling a fast one.
"Damn those oceans!"
That's one of the reasons that we can't directly control water vapor levels. But we indirectly influence it because an atmosphere warmed by CO2 can hold more water vapor ... positive feedback. - pineutrino, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Pay more attention in astronomy.
- Arrhenius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4That makes no sense at all. Many Socialist/Communist countries had terrible environmental records. Far worse than here in the West, where people have the right to complain about polluted water, air, etc.
- XopherMV, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8Gore did NOT ask people to give up their homes. Gore asked that people reduce their carbon footprint. He's installed electrically efficient appliances. He's installed solar panels to create his own electricity, the rest he buys from green power generation. Gore HAS reduced his carbon footprint.
The idea that a former SENATOR and former VICE PRESIDENT must live in a studio apartment before speaking out is just plain dumb. - bobonut, on 10/10/2007, -9/+13Phew, that's a relief. I was beginning to think Digg was representative of general opinion and thankfully this has reminded me that not everyone is a relatively wealthy, white middle class male and not everyone thinks environmentalism is a conspiracy against the US. Now if only Republicans would stop trying to hijack science...
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Nobody cares what you think, you are a well-known idiot.
- jobenly, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7I hate taxes, too, but a tax break for someone who isn't you means either a) you're paying more taxes or b) the government is running a little bit more in the red. It's not quite a zero-sum game, but it's not far off.
- StratisFear, on 10/10/2007, -5/+9Where most scientific theories are promoted through hard data, Global Warming is promoted through claims of popularity.
- bib4tuna, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5i think global warming is being treated like a fad. i dont care which celebrities are riding ***** bikes or not washing their hair. because of all this mistreatment its going to get dropped as a "concern"(more like, 'look at me everyone, i love the earth') sooner or later
- jobenly, on 10/10/2007, -7/+11Here's an example: Congress passes a carbon tax. Energy prices climb significantly. Low income people living in very cold (or hot) areas cannot afford to keep their homes at a healthy temperature. Small business owners that depend on low energy costs (like truckers) are run out of business. Costs of items that require lots of shipping and refrigeration (e.g., fresh produce, meat, dairy, etc.) increase. It's nice to think that taxes are being applied to just the "rich corporations", but you know that the taxes will just be passed on to their customers. And the customers who will be hit hardest will be the ones who a)don't make much money or b)can't adjust their lifestyles to adjust to the new costs.
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