What is Digg?338 Comments
- HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -45/+185No one is disputing that "Global Warming" is real. What *IS* in dispute is the cause of it.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -11/+108Enjoy the spectacle while you can. I'll be playing the fiddle.
- eatporktoo, on 10/12/2007, -18/+107that photo might be "sad", but it's damn beautiful and amazing if you ask me
- Bytor, on 10/12/2007, -23/+933 stages of the funded controversy/denial business. Which stage are you buying?
Stage 1: Climate change is not happening.
This was the major funded opposition position initially when the scientist measured the effects that were not large enough for everyone to notice. But now that everyone can witness nearly a decade of warmer temperatures and year after year of record temperatures, this is falling out of favor in the denial/controversy business. Though there is still pockets of this. Last month I was reading stories about how the Icepack in Greenland is really not melting but getting thicker. This was false, but it was put forward by the standard denier mouth pieces who are still on stage 1. But they should get the memo soon.
Stage 2: We don't know what is causing it.
This now the majority position the funded denial machine. Get enough newspaper articles published and the average layman will start to believe there is a controversy even when there isn't. This is working quite well for the controversy business. Despite the fact that nearly every reputable climate Scientist on the planet agrees that we are heating up the earth with the Billions of tons of C02 we add annually to the atmosphere (that accumulates to higher concentration). When there is no controversy that C02 is heat trapping gas, that we are dumping BILLIONS of tons into the atmosphere annually, that the concentration is rising. Somehow laymen will still buy the story that this is not causing the now obvious heat increase. That somehow magically this is not having an effect and it must be some as yet undiscovered "natural cycle". Bravo to the manufacturers of controversy for convincing anyone in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and even to the contrary and even to the contrary of common sense.
Stage 3: Nothing we can do about it anyway.
Some have moved to stage three, while not entirely admitting that we are the cause, they appeal to the more sensible by at least acknowledging that possibility. Even if we are having an effect, their argument is that we are powerless to stop it. So we should do nothing, go about your business, nothing to see here, move along.
Since we have our own cadre of laymen who seem to have refuted the majority consensus of working scientists, I would guess they are buying the Stage 2 story: Essentially being that billions of tons annually, of an acknowledged green house gas, are magically doing nothing, and that some other unknown process is instead responsible for the warming. I guess they must believe in magic. We can continue to use the air as a dumping ground because it will magically be taken care of. - fleury29, on 10/12/2007, -16/+82@HMTKSteve
Your exactly right. Global warming is obviously, and scientifically real. Temperatures are rising rapidly. But what is being argued right now is: is this a reaction brought on by green house gases, and human advancements, or is this just one of the earth's many cycles? Only an idiot would deny the existence of global warming. Even if it is just an earthly cycle, green house gases are not helping in any way. We need to stop the production of green house gases as much as possible, we need to ween ourselves from gasoline to other sources of fuel. - Bytor, on 10/12/2007, -4/+57"I love how I get dugg down without anyone responding - the other thing is, ice, when it melts, takes up no more space, so if the ice caps melt, sea levels won't actually rise!"
Ok I will respond and then digg you down. Most people prefer to dig down idiots rather than respond to them, I will make an exception.
Greenland ice sheets are on land. When they melt, they pour into the sea, and the sea rises. Moron. - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -12/+52"What *IS* in dispute is the cause of it."
Well in that case you get to choose between the things you KNOW you can do about it, and the things you CAN'T do about it. All the major science groups around the world have already spoken. - Bytor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+38@JMB
"Maybe - I was referring to all the ice just floating about - if that melts, no difference."
No you said ice caps, the article is about Greenland. The vast majority of the worlds ice is in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets which are grounded. If you want to pretend to enter this debate you have to have two clues about what you are talking about.
"What I do have a problem with is simply being taxed more."
Here we have the real crux of you belief system. You don't want to be taxed or inconvenienced, so you rationalize a belief system and choose to believe what the deniers are selling because that would be more convenient in your personal life. Reason and facts have nothing to do with it. You clearly display a lack of knowledge about the issues and parrot the paid controversy machine because that might result in a more convenient lifestyle for you.
"I'm going to wait for more proof. Plenty of scientists are still holding their hands up and saying "we just don't know"."
No there are not plenty of scientist. There is a small cadre of oil funded scientists and outright loons, that are essentially sell lies. You willingly choose to believe those lies in order to rationalize prioritizing personal convenience over environmental health.
Thanks for offering yourself as the perfect example of the clueless layman denier, without a real clue what is going, ignoring all the real science and buying the controversy machine hook, line and sinker. Their job is so easy, because they are selling you exactly what you want to believe. - NikoKun, on 10/12/2007, -34/+64I think the reality of Global Warming is, that we are passed the debate stage... -_- Anyone still questioning wheather we are the cause or not, doesn't know enough about the topic to be debating on it in the first place...
We ARE the cause, and that has been known for over 20 years... but some people didn't want the world to know that, for their own gain... Sadly now, many people are still stuck with that old idea that we are not the cause... and its really making, doing anything about global warming, very hard...
These next 50 years are going to SUCK weather wise, if we dont do something imediatly... We're going to be lucky, if its even possible to reverse what damage we've caused... Its possible that it could be too late already. But that doesn't mean we still shouldn't try...
BTW, I think that photo was used in "An Inconvenient Truth"... lol Anyone that still doubts Global Warming should watch that!!! - halavais, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24No one blames Bush for global warming. Many blame Bush for not just ignoring the problem, but making it a matter of policy to silence scientists warning of the problem. The debate, right now, seems to be between big oil and energy producers who say global warming is just part of the natural up and down of our planet, and scientists who say that this is unprecedented and dangerous to life on the planet. Unfortunately, Bush's administration has decided that the policy of the country should ignore or silence the science and support big oil. That's why he deserves a large part of the blame.
Given that we are in a period where policy change might (might have?) led to a much better world, you are right. Bush will go down in the history books as someone who could have done something about the problem, and chose to not just ignore it, but to actively try to stop people from knowing the truth.
Just as Wilson set up the National Park Service or the work Walter Brown, Oregon state senator and (gasp!) socialist led to the first ban on CFCs in the US, the work of individual politicians matters to the environment. - Bytor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22"I'm just saying you are doing the same thing you are accusing him of. At least the deniers actions are consistent with what they claim their belief is."
What a misguided load of crap.
First: There is nothing laudable about freely poisoning the planet because it is consistent with your deluded rationalizations.
Second: There is a fundamental difference from JMB believing what he does because it makes his life personally convenient(what he wants to believe), and my belief that is based purely on peer reviewed science and is most definitely not what I would like to be true. I would love to believe that we weren't negatively affecting the planet. So I am not believe what I want to be true, in fact I believe the opposite because that is where the evidence lies.
Third: You know nothing about me. I don't fly around the world and I have taken steps to minimize my environmental footprint. My car is a small efficient 4 cylinder and I drive less than 6000 mile/year, commuting to work by human power over 90% of the time. I have taken steps to always choose energy saving choices even if they are more expensive or inconvenient. - bmurph83, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19It's "GLOBAL". It is just the fact that the upper latitudes show signs of the problem first - Greenland and the Poles. Trying to discredit the science is not helping the problem.
- Digg4all, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18It sounds like you think Bush is a scientist and that he questions things. Thanks for the laugh this morning.
- STKD, on 10/12/2007, -10/+24Bytor:
If I could digg that up a thousand times, I would. Thank you for posting a genuinely intelligent and factual analysis of things for all these people who seem to be beyond either "getting it" or realising that we *CAN* still do something about this. Convincing people is the hard part. - halavais, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Assuming, for the moment those are real questions:
> How long have we been studying the climate of earth?
Longer than we have been studying genetics or evolution. Things exist, even when you don't study them. I think what you mean is "How long do we have records of climate change." The answer is, with varying degrees of accuracy, for many millennia.
> How long has earth been around?
About 4.5 billion years. Though a chunk of that without a "climate" to speak of.
> How much natural toxins are spewed into the air during volcanic eruptions?
Depends on the eruption. But it can be significant. And some of those eruptions have led to climate change, which in turn led to extinctions. Not sure how this is relevant, though, unless you know of some mass volcanic eruption coming up soon that the vulanologists don't know about.
> But you think that the people of the earth in the last 200 to 300 years have caused this Global Warming??? LOL
Yes. I think this not because I was sitting on the porch wondering why the climate is changing, but because I trust science to be right more often than it is wrong. This is also the basis of my belief in other things I can't see and seem intuitively odd to me: like the idea that their are little organisms called germs that live inside my body and can make me sick.
> Or better yet, that the Bush administration could have made enough changes to hinder or stop this possible Global Warming?
I'm pretty sure that they could not have stopped it, but there is *no* question that policy changes could have slowed it. If, for example, we had adhered to the Kyoto Protocols (not entirely Bush's fault, but he shares a big chunk of the blame), it would have slowed global warming. If we had outlawed coal power plants it would have slowed global warming. I don't think any reasonable person thinks otherwise.
What reasonable people can disagree about it how much we should do, and how to balance it with economic issues. We could put a serious dent in global warming by outlawing internal combustion automobiles and coal-fired power plants entirely. The economic costs required to do this would probably be too much to bear. Moreover, switching over to hydro-electric, nuclear, and wind, could have other environmental impacts. It's not a matter of whether we can have an impact on global warming, but where the optimal balance point is between controlling emissions and maintaining economic growth.
Hope this helps--thanks for your questions. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -91/+104"No one is disputing that "Global Warming" is real. What *IS* in dispute is the cause of it."
AMERICA - by consuming 40% of all the energy generated on Earth and by not signing the Pact of Kyoto - is the cause of it.
It's so ***** obvious, and is also so ***** obvious that I'll be dugg down to hell for stating the truth. - polo8, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Methinks you need to wake up. Temperature around the planet is increasing. But don't worry, I'm sure more coal fired power stations and a bigger SUV will keep your air con running as long as the problem lasts.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17@hammerattack:
"You're the first person I've seen assert that."
Based on your careful parroting of denialist propaganda, I'd say you start your comment off with a bald-faced lie. Clearly you are aware of the broad scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. So, before we go any further, we have to question what kind of ideologically extreme blinders cause someone to blatantly lie to promote their beliefs?
"I assume you're referring to the published essay by Naomi Oreskes. This essay, which, itself is not peer reviewed, relies on a survey of the extracts (not actual articles) of a mere 928 works published in articles contained in the ISI database that were returned when it was queried with the words "climate change". It's conclusion is that there is a consensus among those few scientists that published in those few journals between 1993 and 2003, which happen to have made it into the ISI database."
Too bad you merely parrot propaganda, rather than being one of the originators of it; you seem unaware of the widely-published debunking of your claims.
To cite but one example, The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) s one of the largest bodies of international scientists ever assembled to study a scientific issue, comprised of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries. The IPCC has concluded that most of the warming observed during the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. Its findings have been publicly endorsed by the national academies of science of all G-8 countries, as well as those of China, India and Brazil. A joint declaration by the national science academies of sixteen developed nations supported the IPCC's findings, declaring, in part: "The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science."
As you must know, since you cited Oreskes' article (surely you actually read the article, rather than just parroting denialist propaganda from a Exxon-funded website - oh wait, you didn't), the National Academy of Sciences in the US recently issued a report, "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions". The report begins unequivocably: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."
As noted in the article (with links directly to the cited reports), The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), among many others, have issued official reports containing similar conclusions about anthropogenic climate change.
Oh, and of course stating that Oreskes' report was not peer reviewed is another lie - it was published in Science, the official, peer-reviewed publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But then, if you had looked at the actual source material (i.e., the article), rather than just quoted your favorite propaganda, you would have known that.
Just as you would have known that the ISI database is quite thorough, that there are a finite number of peer-reviewed publications on this topic, and that the 928 articles represent virtually all the peer-reviewed articles on the subject during the time period of the study. Your attempt (or, I should say, the attempt of the denialist site from which you uncritically pasted your propaganda) to discredit the study by using loaded terms such as "mere" "few" "happened to make it in" are nothing but rhetorical attempts to hide the facts. They are deliberate lies. Again, one must wonder, A) at the radical ideology that would support such blatant lies, and B) at the close-minded dogmatism of one who would cut and paste blatant lies uncritically and unquestioningly.
"Do you believe in God? Because I did a survey. I walked into at least a dozen local churches yesterday and asked the best dressed person I could find if the believed that there was a God. Based on this, I can affirmitively say that God exists because there is a consensus among church officials."
Of course, you know well that this is a deliberately flawed analogy, intended to equate the peer-reviewed result of decades of empirical research and trained analysis with the unquestioned received dogma of religion. Science works not because it is popular or the result of majority decision; anthropogenic climate change, just like evolution, either exists or does not based on the evidence, not based on popularity or democratic vote.
Ironically, it is the position you promote which attempts to override the scientific method with demagogic appeals to popular sentiment and selfish motivation; it is your position that is unsupported by the facts, is based in blind faith and dogmatic refusal to accept contradictory evidence - as witnessed by the willingness, nay eagerness, to lie in service of your cause. It is precisely this ends justifies the means mentality that is at the root of anthropogenic climate change in the first place; and it is this anti-intellectual, anti-science mentality, which cloaks itself in pseudo-scientific language, falsified pseudo-scientific results, and exploits laypeople's ignorance, which is the enemy of all thinking people.
Shame on you for not thinking for yourself, for not bothering to check source material on your own, for mindlessly falling prey to phony propaganda, for willingly propagating lies.
Check the facts for yourself, including 900,000 years of ice-core evidence showing how utterly anomalous and unprecedented our current situation is, as well as more recent evidence showing how closely the problems track the industrial revolution, as well as how accurate model projections mirror empirical results. It doesn't take an expert to see the evidence and draw common sense conclusions; the only way to conclude otherwise is to do what you have done, close your eyes and refuse to look, close your ears and refuse to hear, while keeping your mouth open parroting lies.
Every single statement made in your entire comment is a bald-faced lie, contradicting all publicly available, freely accessible evidence. Every assertion, every sentence is a lie. Ask yourself, what is behind that? - michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20Just go ***** watch an Inconvenient Truth because all these arguments about earth cycles is *****.
We have ice core samples that go back thousands of years. This is the highest CO2 levels ever!!!!
The correlation between temperature increase, CO2 levels, and CO2 emission may as well be the same chart. All 3 lines are identical.
Just see the damn movie and pull your head out of the sand. - tzmguitarist, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16I was going to say...
I've been taught since I was in 5th grade that CFC's, etc., are the main cause of holes in the ozone layer - which can be a contributing factor toward the overall global warming we're experiencing. I was even taught in High School Biology that el niño and la niña are directly attributed to climate change.
I'm a republican and I'm asking - what's the debate? Why aren't we doing something about it? - kremvax, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13"While sipping pina coladas on the short of the beach resort town of Nain, Newfoundland in Canada!"
Less sipping, more scavenging for food because the temperate zone for all the crops you used to grow just *moved* as the climate shifted. - NikoKun, on 10/12/2007, -9/+20@HarryBauzonia, yea right... lets see how much warm weather doesn't suck when the coast states are flooded, when the constant heat waves cause more and more people to die of heat exaustion, when the hurricanes are getting worse and worse because they are feed by warm water... Oh and btw, an extream warming period, WILL be followed by an extream cooling! Once the ice caps melt enough, the ocean currents become distrupted, and stop the currents that keep the temperatures/weather on our planet regulated, and once it stops, the planet will cool... GREATLY... we will be in another Ice Age after that...
So yah, go ahead and tell me warming doesn't suck... and in 50 years, we'll see what kind of a world we live in... -_- - Bytor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@eviltandem
"This is true. But there's nothing laudable about telling people all around the world to reduce their quality of life (or asking developing nations to continue to live in squalor) while you continue to enjoy the benefits of burning fossil fuels. If you are american, every aspect of your life is the problem."
There are two stages and they are separate. First you acknowledge there is a problem, then you work on solutions. Acknowledging the truth does not necessarily pertain to any certain political outcome. And regardless of any imagined distasteful political outcomes, the truth should remain the truth. How do you jump to the third world continuing to live in squalor from recognizing the truth about our impact on the planet? BTW I am not American.
"Let's be fair. The science you are putting so much faith in here is lots and lots of guess-work. We can't predict whether it will rain tommorrow accurately because of all the variables involved."
Hardly. This is facetious and fallacious argument, brought on by either ignorance or willful misrepresentation of the facts. Werther is a highly chaotic system that resist modeling. Climate is the long term trend that can be modeled and there accurate detailed models that take into account all major variables. These models are tracking very well. This is hardly guesswork.
"You seem to be advocating spending a lot of time and money to solve a problem you don't even fully understand."
What I advocate is conservation, hardly a spendthrift position. I probably understand it better than most other laypeople. I actually read some of the peer reviewed science on this and I do have BSc. I don't claim to be an expert, but I don't see any real flaws with the model of the climate forcings, there may be small inaccuracies, but the trend of this is clear for anyone who is willing to take the time to examine the actual evidence. Most lay people are like our friend above they are merely believing opposite to the models because of wishful thinking.
"This does not reverse, or even stop, the process. The fact that you own a car means you totally believe you are destroying the planet (and man-kind), but prefer to not be inconvenienced. I guess I fail to see how that's better."
If everyone made a major effort, there could be a significant impact without going to the extremes you suggest. You are trying to make recognition of the problem and moving toward a solution as an extremist position that will basically end civilization as we know it. This is yet another facetious argument on your part. If everyone drove small 4 cyl vehicles and made a considered effort to minimize driving, that could easily cut in half vehicle emissions. That is a very significant positive effect overall GHG emissions.
It sounds like you moving to defeatist stage three: we can't do anything about it. Regardless of which stage the denier arguments come from (It's not happening/It's not us/We are powerless to stop it). One things is clear GHG emission are certainly not helping and it can't hurt to reign them in. None of the denier arguments would lead us to a position where we just keep polluting as usual. No harm comes from conservation. - STKD, on 10/12/2007, -51/+61Among peer-reviewed scientists, there is NO debate about the cause.
An Inconvenient Truth "FTW". There is also an excellent documentary (that sadly I've forgotten the name of right now) on google video that explains exactly where this "debate" comes from. - STKD, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13"Many" scientists do not question it. There is NO debate among the scientific community. Watch AIT. The few people who are in fact being paid to give that impression (many of who were also involved in the cigarettes=healthy campaigns) are. The problem is the media *has* to give "balance" on the issue. A few crackpots get equal time to the rest of the scientific community - that's a fact.
There's a wonderful docu' on the "global warming deniers" on google video. I encourage you to watch both and get a better understanding of the situation. - STKD, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I guess denial is in full swing now.
/actual science.
The meltwater that is forming in Greenland causes "pockets" of water to form on the surface of the ice. However rather than refreezing, this running water quite quickly starts channeling down through the ice until it results in what you can see photographic proof of in that article. The water then lubricates the bedrock beneath the ice which, obviously, causes friction and further melting. Which is also visible in how fast the ice sheets are breaking up, and why the breaks happen. There is nothing odd about this.
/end actual science.
What is so debatable and hilarious there? It's not *that* hard a concept to follow, is it? - modernjazz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Are they saying we should ask a scientist to analyze climate change and not a professional politician?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"...if the ice caps melt, sea levels won't actually rise!..."
phew... because i was told they would. thanks for putting my mind at rest.
better tell the others - SaumZ, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Another sad aspect of this is, the rushing water causes more friction and more heat which will make the ice melt faster. It's a downward spiral from here.
- STKD, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12It is NOT the naturally occuring cycle causing it. As many people have said many times already THIS IS COVERED IN THE DOCUMENTARY. The natural cycle is HUNDREDS of times lower.
Why is everyone so afraid to watch it? - halavais, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11(a) It does when that local is part of a region that is the coldest on earth; it's not like the arctic circle is warmer than usual but the rest of the earth is *compensating*.
(b) It is when, as a system, the ice sheet ends up affecting the flows of seawater and masses of cool air on the planet; there are no "locals," only parts of a global system. - michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12no he will just get credited with not lifting a finger to help.
or for actually encouraging it with US energy policy. - rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@archer75:
"Of course it's real. It's been happening for millions of years. It's a naturally occuring event in our planets history."
Actually, it is not, as the data clearly shows:
http://www.gci.org.uk/images/CO2_CH4_Temp_440KyrBP.jpg
CO2 levels, which are closely correlated to global temperatures, have risen higher than they have in the past million years (the chart shows 400,000 years worth of ice core data, which has recently been extended back to over 900,000 years, showing the same normal cycles and the current off-the-scale rise in CO2, as well as where we are going if we don't change anything).
"When Gore was in office the koyoto accords were rejected."
Actually, when Gore was in office the Kyoto Accords were signed. Shortly after becoming president, George W. Bush unsigned them. It was one of the first times in US history that a president revoked a major international Treaty signed by his predecessor.
"Al's wife drives an Escalade."
That is simply not true, no matter how many times you read it on freerepublic.com
On the rare occasions when the former VP or his wife merit Secret Service protection, they are passengers in bullet-proof SUVs driven - and chosen - by the Secret Service. On their own, the Gores neither drive nor own an Escalade. In fact, the Gores personally have made tremendous efforts to ensure that they have a zero carbon footprint on the Earth, offsetting their energy consumption by buying green credits or otherwise helping to reduce emissions elsewhere. It is something, incidentally, anyone can do if they care to reduce their impact on the Earth.
"Gore is just try to make some money with his movie but I don't think he really gives a ***** about any of it."
Actually, all his proceeds from the film and from the book are donated. Gore has not made any money from any of it - and, he has been working thanklessly to raise awareness of the issue for more than 30 years, long before it was popular or advantageous to be seen as being "green".
So, you made a a comment with three assertions, all of them bald-faced lies. I assume you didn't deliberately lie, that you are just misinformed. However, you have to ask yourself why you are so willing to parrot mindlessly claims that are so obviously false, without checking the facts for yourself. It isn't hard, in this day and age of Google.
Your bias, that is your preconceived notion about this issue, which is clearly not based on even basic knowledge of the facts, makes you eager to accept anything you read which reinforces your prejudice. You don't even care what is true or credible, you just parrot whatever you read that agrees with your dogma, and reject whatever you read that contradicts it.
I encourage you to think for yourself and ask yourself if you should continue to accept information from sources you now know to be blatant liars. - appetite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"98% of the world population is incapable of understanding the issue"
That's a really arrogant and, in my opinion, inaccurate comment. You're not going to win anyone over with rhetoric like that. - STKD, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11And I'm TELLING you that exactly that IS covered in the documentary. Are you afraid to actually go see it and find out it doesn't support your nice little safe view? I was. I did. I changed.
- maeon3, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12You know what? Nobody is going to do SQAT because Global Warming will not be a problem for the current generation.
- vikingcoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The 1991 Pinatubo explosion was the second largest volcanic explosion of the 20th century. It was 10 times larger than the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption. Between 42 to 234 million tons of CO2 were put out.
Humanity's CO2 emissions in 2004 from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels totalled 27 billion metric tons.
Using the larger figure, that is 27,000 / 234 = 115
***
Humanity is currently producing more CO2 every year than 115 Mt. Pintatubo explosions.
***
http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/wolfe/
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Philippines/Pinatubo/description_pinatubo.html - STKD, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13Watch the film and see this PROVEN to not be the true cause. Global warming and the cause are not under debate among the serious scientific community. WE are causing this. The sooner people face up to it, the better.
- Qazzian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Or you could try http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ice_sheets.html
- psdiao, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8From what I can remeber from stuff I've read, global warming affects the ocean and air currents which affects the weather around the globe. This can cause significant tempurature rises in some areas and significant drops in tempurature in others.
Edit: What halavais said. - halavais, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Some folks have bought into the idea that "all is politics," and that we can somehow socially construct our way out of it. It sounds like Peter Pan "If we just believe global warming doesn't exist it will go away." Americans have started shunning science in favor of convenient lies--and not just in this area. Unfortunately, facts still exist, no matter how much you ignore them, and this one is in the process of biting us on our collective asses.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@socket:
"There is little (or none depending on who you ask) evidence humans are the the cause of global warming. Most likely it's a combination of increased solar activity a current warming trend in the NORMAL global weather cycle."
Both of those statements are patently false.
1) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change alone consists of over 2,000 leading scientists from 100 countries around the world who concluded that most of the warming observed during the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. Its findings have been endorsed by the national academies of sciences of all G8 countries (including the United States), as well as those of China, India and Brazil. A group of another 16 developed nations issued a formal statement that said, in part: "The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science."
All major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise has a bearing on the subject have issued formal reports unequivocally tying human industrial emissions to climate change. These include The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."
There are no peer-reviewed scientific studies in any major science publication in the United States that dispute this.
So, your first statement is a bald-faced lie.
2) Here are some charts created from source data freely available on US government sites, among others.
http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/images/CO2_and_Temp2.gif
http://www.gci.org.uk/images/CO2_CH4_Temp_440KyrBP.jpg
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/uploads/vostok_co2_temp2_thumb.jpg
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/carbon_cycle/temp1000yrs.jpg
http://www.eds.org.nz/content/images/snapshots/glob%20temp.jpg
http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/mauna/image3b.html
These charts cover various periods, from the past 400,000 years to the past few decades, and various ranges in between. They show the correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and average global temperatures, and show, beyond any doubt, that current CO2 levels have spiked way beyond anything seen in the past million years (the ice core data in the charts showing 400,000 years has been extended back to over 900,000 years recently, and shows the same patterns; normal cycles, and then this literally off-the-chart recent spike).
The data shows that your second statement is a lie as well.
So, there are two possibilities here: either you are misinformed - in which case, you should take responsibility for mindlessly parroting propaganda without checking for yourself - or, you are deliberately lying.
Assuming the former, you also might want to ask yourself what would motivate the propaganda sources you mindlessly parrot to so blatantly and obviously lie about an issue of such critical importance to all of our lives. - drmangrum, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Yeah, save the planet. Thats rich. It's not the planet that needs saving, it's us. The planet will still be here long after out society has turned to dust. It will continue to have life evolve, it will continue on as it has for the last 4 and a half billion years.
Natural Selection is still at work. - dougbdl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Google eighteen hundred and froze to death. That was caused by a VERY minor volcano and only affected the earth's temp by 1 degree. The fallout was enormous.
- inajeep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yes but the overall mass is shrinking. It's not like it doesn't get snow and ice anymore.
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+693ex, that chart is incomplete, and uses scale to obfuscate recent anomalous data.
The data itself is freely available from the US government, here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/domec/domec_epica_data.html
Interestingly, there used to be charts on that site as well, they have been removed. No matter, because charts based on the data sets are freely available all over the place. Here are a couple that range back 400,000 years:
http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/images/CO2_and_Temp2.gif
(note the citation of the source data below the graph, you can check it out for yourself)
http://www.gci.org.uk/images/CO2_CH4_Temp_440KyrBP.jpg
The data has since been extended back to over 900,000 years by the team of Antarctic researchers analyzing the ice cores directly.
Sp00n, I seriously doubt that you are a geologist, otherwise you would know that A) there are multiple sets of paleoclimatological data from various ice cores drilled at various locations, all supporting two facts: 1), there are normal, regular cycles of CO2 level/global temp over time, and 2) current levels are anomalous, wich CO2 levels significantly higher than over the past million years at least - with half of the current increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere occurring just since 1945.
More recent studies, from tree cores among other sources, corroborate the data, and models based on hypothesized effect of CO2 levels on global temperatures have proven remarkably accurate, when compared with both historical and paleohistorical data, as well as current results.
There is no question that we are in anomalous territory, the correlation with industrial output is compelling, and the relationship between CO2 levels and temperature levels is not even a source of controversy any longer. That being the case, the radical spike in CO2 levels in our atmosphere, well beyond any normal fluctuations seen over the past million years - which includes several ice ages and thawings, is a serious source of concern. - staticneuron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"I never said climate change doesn't exist. You knee jerk, reactionist morons need take your holier-than-thou, sanctimonious rhetoric and cram it. My point, which sailed ever so high above your heads, was that claiming a global problem based on a localized incident is ridiculous."
You claiming that this is a localized incident is ridiculous. You obviously must think these scientist are stupid.
Scientist 1: Hey bill!
Scientist 2: What? This better be important, American idol is on.....
Scientist 1: You remember that panic we caused a few days ago about greenland..
Scientist 2: Yeah.....
Scientist 1: Can you believe that place had volcanic activity there all the time..
Scientist 2: Huh? Your kidding... the tour guide never said anything about volcano's
So where does the ice melt into? What are the effects of the increased melting of this ice (happening even faster since 1996)? Changes in oceans do not affect the wind? Affecting the wind does nothing? The problem not only lies in what caused the ice to melt but the after effects of the ice melting as well.
How on earth can you seriously think this is a small localized incident?
. - g30ph, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7LOL. People have nothing to do with Global Warming. All that black ***** that's coming out of smoke stacks at factories, and trucks, and cars - it just disappears into magical happyland.
I believe that global warming happens naturally and cyclically, but I also believe we are speeding it up by adding fuel to the fire. - halavais, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Science isn't fact. Science is reasoning based on evidence.
Do you have an alternative to propose? I kind of like reasoning based on evidence. Plus, it tends to allow us to do things like make flying machines and medical devices and stuff. - repins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5http://www.discover.com/issues/jul-97/departments/thegreenlandviki1186/
"To the norse men and women living in Iceland in the tenth century, an island called Greenland must have sounded like Eden. At the time, the North Atlantic was in the throes of a warm spell, and parts of southern Greenland were actually green and fertile, at least by Icelandic standards." -
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