Archangel M
Senior Master
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We are causing global warming??
- Thread starter Archangel M
- Start date
Nomad
Master Black Belt
How many of these "scientists" work for industries and/or governments that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in regards to fossil fuel usage?
Follow the money.
From the evidence that I have seen, the vast majority of scientists (myself included) believe that man-caused global warming is real, substantial, and a huge threat to our civilization going forward.
Then again, you can still find "scientists" saying evolution is not a validated scientific fact (it is) or that smoking does not really cause cancer (it does).
Follow the money.
From the evidence that I have seen, the vast majority of scientists (myself included) believe that man-caused global warming is real, substantial, and a huge threat to our civilization going forward.
Then again, you can still find "scientists" saying evolution is not a validated scientific fact (it is) or that smoking does not really cause cancer (it does).
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Not this again 
Twin Fist
Grandmaster
the jury is still WAY out on man being the cause of glbal warming.
wait, no it isnt
the earth has cooled and warmed in the past, and man had nothing to do with it.
it is arrogance and conciet of the highest order to think they we and we alone are responsible
wait, no it isnt
the earth has cooled and warmed in the past, and man had nothing to do with it.
it is arrogance and conciet of the highest order to think they we and we alone are responsible
Lets review a couple of threads before we start this again, shall we?
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57246
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61520
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61630
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57246
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61520
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61630
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
And that is not all of them
Not this again
I agree that it is a subject that is still not confirmed.
I agree that too many people are looking at one location on the planet with limited data and making sweeping judegments.
I agree that too many people are not looking at history but only recent history where we started cold.
I agree that too many people are not doing the system approach.
I also agree that even if we are not the single cuase or the single most cause or even a plurality of the cause, it is something our culture and society does understand, and we can do what we can to make things better.
1) Emission controls on vehicles:
Pro: For cleaner air and localized air quality
Con: Cost it passed onto Customer and they do not understand
No one looks at the Power companies (* Cough - Coal - Cough *) as a larger source, until very recently.
2) Wind
Pro: In areas where is is constant it is good
Con: It is not available everywhere
People complain about the eye soar
Impact to enviroment - people are concerned about birds, when it is the bat population that is harder hit.
3) Solar
Pro: Clean - Cheap once installed
Con: Not efficient in all locations. Cost for solar cells is up (* New technology i.e. China with 250% absorption rate, are coming out *) and using water is not always efficient as it takes energy to pump the water
4) Tidal
Pro: In areas where is present it is constant
Con: Eye Soar along coasts
Cost of implementation and maintenace and impact to environment
5) Water - i.e. falls, streams, dams, etcetera
Pro: in areas that have flowing water it is very effective
Con: Some areas are seasonal
Some areas to be effective cause flooding of valleys where people and animals some endangered live
6) Nuclear
Pro: Effective and Efficient
Con: Waste Disposal
Location - Risk factors and local complaints of no one wants one in their back yard
No new reactor location (* last data I saw *) has gone online in the US since 1979. Some have been revamped or updated.
Now, none of these will be the single source. But we should be looking into them all, and trying to make them cost effective and efficeint and accepted by the population.
Why?
Because the source of energy for Coal and Oil is limited and Wood and Peat is worse for emissions.
I brought energy sources as the usual issue for humans effecting the environment is the by product of our energy production be it massive for large populations or for personal usage.
PS: Also do not forget to look at the Core and the movement of the Magnetic Poll and energy released into the earth via plate movement. Also do not forget to look at the magentic areas of North in the South and see how they line up with the "wholes" in the O Zone Layer at the poll areas. A system approach will be the best, but people making lots of individual incremental changes will be the more realistic plan versus the one shot save everything plan.
My take on this thread...after all the others...
**Note: Image removed due to inappropriate language.**
**Note: Image removed due to inappropriate language.**
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Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Axis tilt, planetary orbit, oceanic conveyor belt system, melt water, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The planet is a rather complex group of systems and possibly self-correcting. But that is not necessarily a good thing for the inhabitants of the planet.
The following is not directed at Rich or his post
I fail to see the need to place or deny blame on this topic.
Is the planet getting warmer?
Are large amounts of fresh water being dumped via melt into the oceans?
Can we do anything about it?
If we can't then hold on for the ride if we can then why don't we just shut up and work to fix it.
Ray
Master Black Belt
Anyone who is an honest to gawd "scientist" should be smart enough to know they have a vested interested in knowing the truth about the cause of global climate change, and whether it is within the control of our species.
I watch a lot of Discovery and the History Channels... I like to think that most if not all the info on there is pretty accurate ... considering.
They've found that the earth has been through a warming cycle and a freezing cycle before.
Natural order of things. Natural course of the planet.
Sure we helped pollute the air, land, water quite a bit but theory has it that if man were to suddenly leave the planet altogether it would rejuvenate it self right quick... geologically speaking... say about 1000 years or less.
We could do with a lot less pollution and be more "green" as it were the popular saying these days. It would make it a much nicer, cleaner place for our children to grow up into.
Sigh, but it can't be a singular effort. EVERY country on the planet must do their share. Hell we can't even get along that well much less even think about agreeing to reduce carbon emissions and such. Too much damn money to be made so cheerio pip pip and all that, we'll learn the lessons later eh?
Oh and the children can clean up the mess.
They've found that the earth has been through a warming cycle and a freezing cycle before.
Natural order of things. Natural course of the planet.
Sure we helped pollute the air, land, water quite a bit but theory has it that if man were to suddenly leave the planet altogether it would rejuvenate it self right quick... geologically speaking... say about 1000 years or less.
We could do with a lot less pollution and be more "green" as it were the popular saying these days. It would make it a much nicer, cleaner place for our children to grow up into.
Sigh, but it can't be a singular effort. EVERY country on the planet must do their share. Hell we can't even get along that well much less even think about agreeing to reduce carbon emissions and such. Too much damn money to be made so cheerio pip pip and all that, we'll learn the lessons later eh?
Oh and the children can clean up the mess.
I don't know... I think things are pretty simple.
The Earth is too complex a system for any one thing to be the magic cause of anything. But that doesn't mean that what we do can't effect it -- for good or bad.
I do think it's interesting that not too many years ago, some scientists were questioning whether we were overdue for an ice age -- and if human activity had forestalled that.
In short -- I see doing what we can reasonably do to protect and maintain the environment is a no-brainer. But let's not fool ourselves that we can change hundreds of years of human and natural activity overnight, either.
The Earth is too complex a system for any one thing to be the magic cause of anything. But that doesn't mean that what we do can't effect it -- for good or bad.
I do think it's interesting that not too many years ago, some scientists were questioning whether we were overdue for an ice age -- and if human activity had forestalled that.
In short -- I see doing what we can reasonably do to protect and maintain the environment is a no-brainer. But let's not fool ourselves that we can change hundreds of years of human and natural activity overnight, either.
Phoenix44
Master of Arts
IMO, it really doesn't matter who caused global warming. What matters is the potential consequences, and what can be done about it.
Nomad
Master Black Belt
Unfortunately, if history has shown us anything, it's that many people are more than willing to sell their opinions and reputation if the price is right. Of course this shouldn't happen, but it clearly does (just look at the doctors employed by cigarette companies for many years to present their "findings" that tobacco wasn't harmful, in spite of the overwhelming evidence from independent professionals that it was). The sole purpose was to muddy the waters and maintain their product value. I believe that similar things are happening here with the anti-global warming crowd.
I would also quickly agree that we are not solely responsible for any warming effects that are happening; as has been stated, the earth is a very very large and complex system.
However, to blandly state that we are having NO appreciable affect as a means to avoid taking more responsibility for our collective actions as a species on this planet is to turn off all the lights and pretend that nothing is happening.
There are very solid statistics on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and how it has been steadily increasing since the advent of the industrial revolution. It is not difficult to correlate this increase to the massive increase in the use/burning of fossil fuels which we know release CO2 into the atmosphere and the concommitant reduction of forested land that we know is quite efficient at consuming & sequestering CO2 and emitting O2.
Furthermore, we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that does have a marked effect on how much radiation bounces off a planet and escapes back into space. Increased levels inhibit the escape; hence we get warming. People have been successfully modelling this for many years using very powerful computers; the more complex the models get, the more accurate the results are to what we're seeing right now.
Is the earth self-correcting? Almost certainly, in the long term... it's recovered from worse things than what we've been able to throw at it so far (eg. massive asteroids, the aforementioned ice ages, etc.). I just doubt that many of us (humanity, that is) will be around to see it correct.
ginshun
2nd Black Belt
Honestly, I could do with a little global warming right abut now. I don't think it has been above 0 degrees F since Sunday.
Ray
Master Black Belt
It is unrealistic to imagine the earth being "self-correcting" to provide an environment in which life (intelligent life included - whether that includes us or not, I'm not sure) thrives. It is no more "correct" in the grand scheme of things than the sun someday going nova and wiping all life off the earth. Why should we imagine our little blue planet is worth "saving"?
Lynne
Master of Arts
It's the New Zealander's flatulating cows. NZ scientists admitted to being embarrassed by their cow's flatulence puncturing the ozone layer. Oh brudda...
Nomad
Master Black Belt
Maybe, but the mass extinctions present in the fossil record do tell of some pretty massive catastrophes that the earth (and at least a small fraction of the life on it) has managed to survive, and "recover" from (extinction of dinosaurs, much larger mass extinction earlier (can't remember what period off the top of my head)). It's happened before; I don't think it's difficult at all to imagine it happening again.
From bacteria that thrive the what is pretty close to boiling sulfuric acid in ocean vents to stuff trapped under the ice in pockets in Antarctica; if one thing has been clearly shown, it's that life itself is pretty darn tenacious. Very few catastrophes would be severe enough, IMO, to eliminate it entirely from the planet (ie. sun goes supernova, swallowed by a black hole, etc). People, OTOH are relative newcomers to the planet, and on a geological timescale, may yet prove to be quite shortlived.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Yes it is self correcting but the question is how severe that self correction is, basically is it survivable or not.
Slow and easy, sure. It gets warmer, there is more water in the atmosphere, that reflects radiation back into space and the earth then gets cooler.
Or it gets warmer, the polar ice caps melt the glaciers melt, the earths crust rebounds and since there are a few volcanoes in Antarctica they become active as do a few others and you have a lot of ash in the atmosphere get enough ash you get rather harsh living conditions for the indigenous species of the planet but this could cause cooling a bit quicker...it can also blot out the sun and cause a lot of extinctions either directly or indirectly (Ex. plants die, nothing to eat). Throw enough fresh water into the ocean (melting ice) and the oceanic conveyor belt system shuts down, however you do not notice it for hundreds of years and it will start up again but now you are in to I believe about a thousand years or more between shutdown restart and recovery. That will really mess with earths temperatures by the way.
Actually it is a fact it is self correcting, however it cannot fix being burned up by a supernova. It is pretty much fixing stuff that occurs within its atmosphere. I had a professor in college that was talking about this topic and he did feel that there could possibly be a point where the planet could self correct in a catastrophic manor thereby causing mass extinctions. But I do not remember the entire lecture, that was over 20 years ago and I'm old and forgetful now