What is Digg?358 Comments
- Itazura, on 10/12/2007, -62/+161Of course, anyone can see it rapidly increasing within the last decade. Record snow in places it hardly does like Pheonix, Malibu, and Albuquerque. Insane record highs breaking well over 100 degrees in San Fransico. Plants blooming out of season, crops freezing over, longer than normal hurricane seasons, the list goes on. Global warming isn't a theory, it isnt some wacky idea, it is a smart real cause and effect scenario happening around us. Anyone who doesn't "believe" in it as they say are about as ignorant as the Christians who don't "believe" in dinosaurs because they aren't in the bible. Ignorance will not save this planet, people need to wake the hell up.
- hambend, on 10/12/2007, -7/+52'The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary,' said one senior UK climate expert.
Ok, that makes the United Nations, the European Union, several thousand climate experts and Steven ***** Hawking who think global warming is not only real but a serious, potentially catastrophic threat. Can we stop arguing over it now? - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -26/+69Just to be a prick, let me remind our viewers that in the 60's and earlier climatologists told us that hurricane seasons were cyclical, and they predicted that in the late 90's to early 00's we'd see another huge rise in the number of and intensity of; hurricanes.
We can't just pick any freaking weather event we may find scary, end of the world, fire and brimstone, cats and dogs living together and say its man made global warming that caused it. Just because it has been a warm (El Nino?) winter doesn't prove *****.
I'm not refuting man made global warming with my sentiment here, just sick and tired of hearing every possible doomsday scenario wrapped together and being put forth. The person who says that hurricanes, or a warm winter are proof of man caused global warming immediately get the WING-NUT label from me. Real scientists know better.
Again, man caused global warming is a concern of mine but I want to use ~real science~ to examine it, not the ***** that a reporter who flunked 9th grade physics wants to tell me... - offput, on 10/12/2007, -10/+50The Penn and Teller global warning thing was primarily attacking institutions like greenpeace who no longer fight for environmentalism but rather anti-commercialism. Also, it's dated by a couple years by now, there has been ice core studies since then which further corroborated global warming.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -15/+53I think we can all agree that global warming is behind 9/11 attacks.
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -51/+85Penn & Teller are great, but they're also not scientists, and they happen to be extremely wrong in this case.
- bluechocobo42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34@ codyman - So is gravity.
- Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29Really? Where are the opposition? Seriously, if you're going to say that there are other expert climatologists that disagree with the majority stance on Global warming, you better back that up with at least a name or a link to somewhere. If you believe that the global warming theory is full of holes, you seriously haven't devoted enough time to reading about it. Its not like some simple theory, its a robust theory, much like evolution, because of the enormous amounts of evidence collected in the past and still being collected that nearly all support the theory.
- carbonetc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25People will go absolutely insane over the slightest possibility of a terrorist threat.
But show them something that could drastically impact the lives of BILLIONS instead of thousands or millions, and those same people are barely even curious about it.
I just don't get it. - Gtitian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24A lot of people want to initiate an "Intelligent Debate" about global warming. I don't think it's very intelligent to debate it. It's like when you get bit by a raccoon, you don't wait and see if you develop rabies before you get the rabies shot. You get the shot because even though it stings a bit, rabies sucks a lot more. I think we should bite the bullet and accept the economic responsibilities of cleaning up our act, or face the possible threat of catastrophic climate change. The fact that a good deal of very smart people are saying that catastrophic climate change could mess things up for us very soon should be reason enough to take the ounce of prevention over the pound of cure.
That sounds intelligent by my count. - Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23So is evolution, doest being a theory make it less true?
- Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20Exactly. The possibility of 10,000 people dying from a terrorist attack is enough to rally up an entire nation. But a possibility that the ice caps and the ice of greenland will melt (like they ARE) raising the sea level a bit enough to displace millions of people around the world living on the coast? Nah, its just some liberal agenda.
- NeanderVol, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22I'm not the biggest Al Gore fan, but you have to give him props for carrying the "Global Warming" flag for so long. He doesn't own this issue, but at least he's a guy with (some) political clout trying to do something about it. It's high time everyone (i.e. not just Americans, but all humans) get off their collective asses and start demanding with their voices, votes, habits, and pocketbooks that we start finding ways to make alternative energy sources viable economically. Otherwise, we'll all suffer the consequences.
And I "normally" side with Republicans ... - sebnukem, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Americans don't like global warming because it has no oil and it can't be nuked.
- ewap8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17@Doofy:
98.26% of statistics are made up on the spot. If you're gonna post numbers, at least have the courtesy to leave a reliable source link. - TomRitchford, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20"To repeat "the world's leading scientists" as if there aren't JUST AS SMART scientiists disagreeing."
And these "JUST AS SMART scientiists" are? - hambend, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18@Aardvark1878
The UN has as much power as its constituent are prepared to give it. They first undertook research into climate change when the general assembly voted to do so. The Kyoto Protocol is only worth anything because of all the nations that signed it. If that's what you call socialist, then... fine.
I suppose you'll tell me the European Union is socialist, too. Or communist, maybe. Or are they too liberal? I doubt even you could label them fascist, but I'm sure you'll pick one word or another to stick on them so that you don't have to listen to a single ***** word they say, allowing you to believe no more or less than whatever you want to believe.
But that still leaves several thousand climate experts and Steven ***** Hawking. Unless you can give me references to a better crowd than that which claims climate change is harmless (or a load of crap), you might want to rethink your position.
I know I'm borderline flaming here, but in my defense I don't want the world to die. - sirloin, on 10/12/2007, -10/+25did anyone actually kick on the trolls link before digging him up?
lol and he actually uses two magicians to dispute the worlds leading scientists - ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Perhaps you should do yourself, and everybody else, a favor and learn what the term "scientific theory" means:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Theories_as_.22models.22 - earthtoandy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+23its true, we can single out one weather pattern, or year or decade even. weather is unpredictable and ever changing.... and these normal changes parallel the global warming problem
but the proof of the grand problem is in the ice, or lack there of it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -16/+29That fact that you consider one decade worth of data to be proof of anything is absurd.
(P.S. 2004, 2003, and 2002 were NORMAL winters for most of the country. So you are really only going back 2 years.)
If ignorance won't save the planet, then you sure as hell are not going to save this planet. NOBODY is suggesting that you can prove global warming by looking at the last 10 years.
And ee...El Nino has nothing to do with the winter this year does it? Nahhhh. Can't be. Or...is El Nino caused by Global Warming, despite the fact that it has been occurring since long before humans existed. - Robozilla, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17I am alarmed at how many people in this forum alone don't believe in global warming. It almost makes me ill. Things like the exponential decay of the polar ice caps, are irreversible, and dangerous.
It is unfortunate that I think the world will not react until serious damage has been done. The oceans don't have to rise much to flood many of the most populous places in the world.
In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to not make ***** worse... buying those lightbulbs that use way less energy, not driving, and at least trying to spread some this information around.
Al Gore, as awkward a character as he is, has done a great thing. I urge everyone to see that film, regardless of your opinion. I can only hope that more films will be made that address the issue, perhaps a film that can reach across party lines, and perhaps change the minds of the non-believers.
I feel like we're on the verge of the world waking up and stopping this, with plenty of airtime given to the issue, but we are only at 1% of what we need to be doing.
Solar power FTW. - Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Your ignorance is not only conveyed by your words, but your tone as well. Nobody believes we're running out of food. Any scientist will tell you that we've escaped that age-old fear by using new agricultural technology that has multiplied production in ways previously thought impossible.
However, global warming (or the euphemism: global climate change), is more than the simple theory of lack of food due to overpopulation, its a theory backed by over 70 years of data sampled from the atmosphere, as well as the hundred thousands of years we've been able to analyze through ice cap drilling. Yes, average temperatures of the earth do change, but nowhere in recorded history in that data collected has it ever risen this fast. The first and most plausible explanation is to point to greenhouse gases, the #1 of course being Carbon Dioxide, which is produced not only by the vehicles we use, but by the most popular form of power plants: Coal. There are other factors to consider but none of them are as likely to contributed to such a dramatic change in earth's average surface temperature than greenhouse gases.
Don't brush it off just because its a 'theory'. You know what else is a theory? Gravity, evolution, light, etc. Just being a theory doesn't make it any less true or important. - saranagati, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13@bierce
Actually the experts knew the earth was round over 2500 hundered years ago. Eratosthenes accurately measured the diameter of the earth in 220 BC and aristotle who lived 150 years prior to that mentioned that it was common knowledge, at least among the learned. - Gtitian, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14I'm sorry... but anyone who argues that the U.N. is a bad idea at least in principle if not practice is simply ignorant. And I'll elaborate:
Build a country, make laws, govern it's people, define it's borders, find law and order and peace. Everyone in the country agrees to work together for the good of the country, because it's safer than working against each other. The term to use here is "social contract" but thats kinda unimportant. So then we just adjust focus and look at all the countries instead of people inside individual countries and we find.... anarchy. Without a body to govern how countries interact with each other we completely undermine the reason we formed countries in the first place. What's the point of having and ordered microcosm when the macrocosm is brutish and chaotic, where might makes right and law and order hold no meaning? If that's the case, we'd actually be safer on our own, without countries of any kind.
The problem with the U.N. is that it only works when EVERYONE wants to play. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13@Doofy:
The difference is that our atmosphere is saturated with water such that it condenses out and precipitates out cyclically. What makes CO2 and other greenhouse gases so dangerous when their proportions go out of whack is that our atmosphere isn't saturated with CO2, and it doesn't simply condense out; the addition and removal of CO2 in nature is a slow process involving a lot of energy, and our industries have thrown it out of whack by taking carbon that has long been out of the cycle and burning it and putting it into the cycle at such a rate that the natural mode of carbon dioxide recycling--namely, plants and algae absorbing it and making it into organic molecules--cannot remove it quickly enough to keep the concentration of CO2 in equilibrium.
Saying that 95%+ of the heat retention of the earth come from water is a pointless observation; water is already in dynamic equilibrium because when the water in our air gets saturated beyond what pressure and temperature permit, it condenses out or precipitates out. Carbon dioxide doesn't condense out except at extremely low temperatures (think dry ice), and has a long way to go before it reaches saturation, so all the changes in the carbon dioxide levels make a greater impact on the *change* in the heat retention than water vapor, whose atmospheric concentration isn't being impacted by mankind. - Methodius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10What bugs me is that half of the measures that could cut down on global warming would also help a great deal with pollution. I think that a great deal of anti-pollutant activism is staved off, because we're spending so much time debating a rather abstract consequence of pollution, and it's in the name of this abstraction that a great deal of environmental policy reform is considered these days.
We don't know for sure (or at least, we can't agree) that pollutants will eventually cause the earth's temperature to rise to ecology-wrecking levels, but I doubt that anyone here is going to debate that pollution does ***** like destroying ecosystems, damaging the ozone, making our air crappy, and tainting the Earth in general. I couldn't care less whether global warming is real or not. We need to clean up our act regardless, and if we do that then global warming (fact or fiction) is a great deal more distant. - hambend, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@Aardvark1878
I agree with you that the UN is largely ineffective at its intended purposes, but I don't see how that invalidates scientific studies they've funded. Corruption, maybe, but even then I'm not sure who benefits in this case. The UN isn't really a power unto itself so I'm not sure how you can suspect a power grab.
Maybe instead of a "red flag" you should try a "black flag" philosophy. If you really don't trust the UN, then their support on an issue shouldn't be a warning signal, it should just be nothing. I guess I'm just not sure why, when presented with a list of sources which support a point of view, you chose to attack what you saw as the least reliable first. It's almost like you'd rather win the argument than come to the right answer. - ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Ya, and thousands of climate scientists from hundreds of countries are making a mistake that sombody with college stats wouldn't make.
Get a life man. You're not smarter than these people. In fact, you just proved you're much, much stupider. - ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Because there is a lot more than 100 years of measurable data. Ever heard of ice core samples? (And a wide variety of other techniques.)
Do you people go out of your way to NOT learn about the subjects you criticize? - Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18@Aardvark1878
Wow. Just wow. Did you freeze yourself 40 years ago and just wake up yesterday? 'socialist organization'? Did you know that the U.S. was involved in the creation of the U.N.? Pull your head out of your ass - DataLifePlus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The phrase "final verdict" should not be in a scientist's vocabulary.
- Miyazaki, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16No, I'm sorry, global warming is not a theory. It exists, the cause of it is what has so many scientists and random ***** son the internet debating about it.
- TomRitchford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"http://www.nov55.com/gbwm.html Please follow this link."
Fascinating site -- ignoring the numerous spelling and grammar mistakes, your nutty professor not only doesn't believe in global warming, he thinks that relativity and prion diseases are also hoaxes: http://www.nov55.com/ovr.html
"Im sure you are concerned about the environment, but please, you and all your friends need to quit shoving this ***** down our throats."
I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head. It'd be bad enough if you had something rational to add but in fact you're sending us to some paranoid crank's website who thinks that he's the only one who understands that all of science is totally wrong. - returnofmalv, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Geez, who am I going to trust? A body of scientists or the crap that comes out of political talk shows? Do you honestly think the scientists haven't addressed your lame counter-examples in their theory?
- mastershake1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13"Global warming is a misnomer. What we are really looking at is climate change, and we aren't yet sure of the implications of it."
Increased mean global temperatures may cause temperature oscillations including record snowfall. The "ZOMG IT'S SNOWING TEH EARTH CAN'T BE WARMING" response may be snide but it doesn't deny that the temperature is changing. The warming skeptics rarely claim that the earth isn't warming; they either try to discredit the global climate models used or claim that warming is a good thing. Even if or when these skeptics disprove this, they lack evidence to counter the highly plausible scenarios that would occur if, say, the thermal-haline cycle in the ocean shifted, or if the ocean level raised. - p0ss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@ dilbert111
even *if* those things were the primary contributor to global climate change, shouldn't we still do something to stop it?
I may not have lit the bushfire that is about to burn down my house, right now it doesn't matter who lit it, i should be fighting the fire.
yes, there is some pyromaniac looking guy telling me there is no fire.. but i am prepared to take the chance that there is no fire and i wet my roof for nothing. - Ignignokt01, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10None? Other than their paycheck for doing research at whatever institute they're working for. Its not like Toyota is paying scientists to HYPE UP GLOBAL WARMING SO PPL WILL BUY HYBRID CARS!!
- Methodius, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9UglieJosh: I'm pretty sure that his second comment blew your case for sarcasm out of the water.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8"last time I checked global warming was / is a theory..."
So is gravity, but I bet your tea doesn't float out of its cup! - Gtitian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8While I like Penn and Teller, I also realize they are HARDCORE Libertarians and use every media they can to push their agenda. I may be a social libertarian, but certainly not the economic kind.
- jamessavik, on 10/12/2007, -14/+21Ah... a "final" verdict on a THEORY based on a computer model of a system that isn't well understood.
Good luck with that. - DS513, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12@ broomett
Yeah, but would it really kill you to recycle? Or to give up a gas-guzzling hybrid for an electric car? Even if global warming is over hyped (which in my personal opinion it isn't) we Americans are way too wasteful as it is. People won't voluntarily change their lifestyle on their own, so I think the governments of the world really need to step in and seize the moment.
If the US government can mandate all-digital television broadcasts by 2009, why can't they also mandate an all-electric car or all hybrid car at a specific date too? Besides the added expense, is there really any good reason not to buy a hybrid or electric car? - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13@Doofy:
"96.775% of CO2 comes from natural sources.
Only 3.225% comes from human sources."
That citation is totally meaningless because it doesn't address *equilibrium*, which is what matters.
The 96.775% of CO2 coming from people and animals breathing, plants decaying, and natural fermentation processes and the like is compensated for by the same amount of carbon being absorbed by plants and algae, going back into the food chain and the carbon cycle. The fossil fuels we are burning on the order of billions of barrels of oil and billions of tons of coal cannot be equated to the CO2 exhaled by animals and emitted by fermenting and decaying material and by the burning of biomass; the carbon we are putting into the cycle at the rate we are doing far out-paces the rate at which carbon dioxide is taken back up by biomass such as plants and algae, so that 3.225% that comes from artificial sources is responsible for the dis-equilibrium we see.
In other words, you're looking at the carbon in the carbon cycle by citing that 96.775%; the stuff that's causing the globe to warm up unnaturally is the rest that we've thrown into the cycle with our industrial capacity that doesn't have a corresponding capacity in nature to absorb and use it, and that part sits about in our atmosphere causing problems. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Sorry, but nothing related to science is "final".
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Occam's Razor: an exercise
1) your professor has the multidisciplinary genius to comprehend a dozen scientific subjects so thoroughly that, if his claims were considered true, would revolutionize their fields.
2) He just signed his name to a handful of nutcase anti-science bandwagons.that completely discredit him.
You don't think your source's credibility is important? - adambeazley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Weather or not you believe that Global Warming is a true threat, I think we can all agree that alternate forms of energy is a good thing.
Not only do we clear up some of the environmental issues, but eventualy we may be able to break our addiction to foreign oil.
Solar Energy is definently the way to go, you can even rent it now, see for yourself: http://www.Powur.com/freesolarpower - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7We're famous?
- straxus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Groupthink: A term used by people who don't like the idea that they hold a minority opinion.
- Hockeymac18, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I could be misinterpreting what you said, but it sounded like you didn't know what the definition of a theory is. If so, do you even know what something being a "theory" means? Do you know what else is a theory? Gravity. Yes, the thing that holds you to the ground every day is based on a theory. Do you believe that is a farce as well? Sure they should not be declaring this as a "final verdict" because the nature of science is to always test something, and then test some more to confirm; but the fact that Global Warming is a theory shouldn't discredit it or make it less correct. You should study the scientific method and learn how the process of forming scientific theories progresses.
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