Global Warming

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How did I miss this thread? There was another a while ago, and the posters were pointing to a link (that’s proof?) that showed that the North Pole was warming, while conveniently not mentioning in the same link, it showed the South Pole was cooling. 😃
Yes, it is. I’ve proven it and so have others. You refuse to accept the links as proof.
Read your sentence again…
A new poll among 3,146 earth scientists found that 90 percent believe global warming is real, while 82 percent agree that human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures.

So, like I said, 80% of the scientists studying the issue agree that Global Warming is caused by man. I have numerous times used that figure - 80% - and so have others. Again, read the thread in its entirety before commenting.
When I was in grad school (Mathematics), and we couldn’t finish a proof, we’d ask for a show of hands for everyone who agreed that we were headed in the right direction. Everyone would raise their hands, and we’d look at the professor, and say, “Done, proof by consensus.” We would all have a good laugh, then go back to the drawing board.

The amount of consensus means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
The carbon emissions essentially create a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat, thus causing an increase in global temperature.

That’s third grade science, folks.
Without this blanket there would be no life, correct? Thank God for it!
 
Imagine the following situations (note: I’m referring to man made Global Warming)

A - Global Warming Is Real

B - Global Warming Is Not Real

Imagine the following solutions and consequences:

A (1) - We take the necessary precautions recommended by all the top scientists, and life on Earth - God’s Creation - continues to thrive.

A (2) - We do nothing and now life as we know it is gone; a disaster second only to nuclear war has taken hold. The damage is IRREVERSIBLE.
A (3) We do nothing, and what is not more than a cylcfe goes through that cycle, we hit palteau, and then descend into a furhter cooling cycle. Damage is not reversible, but we face damage from lower than normal temperatures; farming and forestry are damaged not by heat but by cold.

A(4) We take the necessary precautions urged by scientists - making major changes to manufacturing which result in a disasterous economic downturn globally; people die because of lack of resources to obtain basic necessities, and we find that our efforts have made no discernable impact on the global warming.
B - We take the necessary precautions recommended by all the top scientists, and even though Global Warming was not real, at least we were prepared. We only suffer a few REVERSIBLE economic problems, such as higher taxes.
B (1) We make changes that create a vast downward spiral in global economics; people worldwide starve because of massive layoffs which in turn cause massive loss of revenue to governments who then cannot provide even basic necessities of food, shelter and minimal health care…


It makes sense if you limit the results to what you propose. However, you have no guarantees whatsoever that the changes being proposed will not have economic repercussions far, far beyond what you seem to imagine.

We are right now in an economic crisis globablly which has frightening implications if we cannot get our financial trust re-established. And you want to add to that with tinkering further with world-wide economies based on presumptions that the impact of humans in this issue is a significant part of the global changes.

Your alternatives are limited by your agenda; there are more and potentially farther reaching cosequences to what you propose than you are willing to admit.
 
Polar bears float, right? They can swim, too.

Did you know that sea levels during the Cretaceous were about 500 feet higher than they are today? Was that caused by human-induced Global Warmin’ ™?
And the Vikings living off the land on GREENland around 1000 AD, and the Norsemen living and making wine in VINland.

:tanning:
 
Now I remember why I decided to stay away from this thread.

The philosophy, getting from A to B, and understanding how human beings consider things absent arbitrary whims. But it’s also a matter of believing the route from A to B is the best route. Too many people refuse to do so, and too many simply don’t understand what A and B is. Thus, the last three posters.

Have fun.
 
I came across this CNN article, updated January 20, 2009 - or, today.

Human-induced global warming is real, according to a recent U.S. survey based on the opinions of 3,146 scientists. However there remains divisions between climatologists and scientists from other areas of earth sciences as to the extent of human responsibility.

Against a backdrop of harsh winter weather across much of North America and Europe, the concept of rising global temperatures might seem incongruous.

However the results of the investigation conducted at the end of 2008 reveal that vast majority of the Earth scientists surveyed agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

The study released today was conducted by academics from the University of Illinois, who used an online questionnaire of nine questions. The scientists approached were listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute’s Directory of Geoscience Departments.

Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?

About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.

cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html
Any good trial attorney could rip that one to shreds. There is an inherent assumption that the scientists questioned were even doing any research that directly relates to global warming. It further asks for a personal opinon, not a professional opinion based on analysis of objective data. And given that the objective data is subject to a tremendous amount of iterpretation - which it is getting, as to the level of impact juman activity has on this whole issue - the poll is irrelevant for anything other than a continuation of “the sky is falling” rumor. That the rumor may be substantaited by facts that in the recent past we have charted with some degree of accuracy global temperatures increasing does not change the fact that the evidence is in serious dispute as to how much a) man may be impacting global temperature changes, and b) how much impact to those changes a change in human activity may have. In other words - if man is contributing 10% (the figures in this blog seem to indicate 3%, but 10% is easier to work with), and somehow could decrease human impact by 50% (and I have seen nothing to indicate that this could be done), then there would need to be a showing that a reduction of 5% total would make any difference at all to the global trend. And if we could only acheive a 10% reduction of (name removed by moderator)ut, that amounts to ony a 1% decrease of the total.

Put this way, perhaps the question becomes more clear as to the value, if any, of significant world-wide changes to economies.
 
Now I remember why I decided to stay away from this thread.

The philosophy, getting from A to B, and understanding how human beings consider things absent arbitrary whims. But it’s also a matter of believing the route from A to B is the best route. Too many people refuse to do so, and too many simply don’t understand what A and B is. Thus, the last three posters.

Have fun.
Since I was one of the last posters, I presume you are referring to me.

My suggestion is that the A 1,2, B is a simplistic, limited, and biased presumption that those are the only alternatives.
 
I asked my sister (masters in ecology) about this and she said, “they might be increasing in heaven”. Though she’s one of those scientists that are being derided here by ad hominem attacks (ironically by the same people who call “logical fallacy” at every turn), she’s not getting any government funding at the moment.

A lot of people in this thread seem to think that all scientists are corrupt and twist their findings in their lust for money. Scientists are normal people, most who get into the field due to a genuine desire to help, and would you believe it, many are NOT driven only by their next round of funding (there is less funding granted to global warming studies than has been implied), and some are even Catholic.
Your sister may have a Masters in ecology, but unless she has undertake a study of polar bears, I would wonder what she has actully read about the issue. Add to that the question of how long the bear population has actually been studied, and what the accuracy of those studies are, I would wonder whether she is reading someone’s propaganda (and in environmental circles, there are studies, and then there are propaganda pieces based on wishful thinking and precious little valid verifiable studies) or she actually has made a survey of all studies realted to this.

It is well known, for example, that populations of coyotes go up and down in relation to the cycles of hares. And the cycle of hares goes up and doen in part due to diseases, which are more prevalent in higher populations than in lower ones. It appears that coyotes adjust to the food populations by having fewer pups when the food is on a downswing - as if there was a natural means of population control among the coyotes.

Given that bear populations have not been studies for any significant period of time, a whole lot of presumptions are bing made without significant long-term verifiable evidnece. Before the pipeline was put in up in Alaska, the environmentalists predicted loud and long how the caribou herds would be devastated by the pipeline. The herds are thriving; and they appear attracted to the pipeline as the heat thrown off it is enough to allow vegetation to start growing there sooner than surrounding areas. They have repeatedly been found gathering in the area of the pipeline - that horrible, man-made thing that was going to cause their utter destruction.

I do not dismiss out of hand anything and everything that an environmentalist says. Having lived long enought to have seen the hysterical predictions be proved false and the dicussions suddenly change to a different topic, however, one might understand my reluctance to buy into every predicition that makes its way into popular conversation.

Your sister may well and truly believe the polar bear population is fastr becoming extinct. Having seen some of the emotional trappings that have been attached to a “study” or two about the issue, I am more circumspect.
 
And the Vikings living off the land on GREENland around 1000 AD, and the Norsemen living and making wine in VINland.

:tanning:
Yeah Greenland hasn;t been nice in thousands of years. The name was basically a marketing ploy. scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/greenland-used-to-be-green.php But the vikings barely etched out a living there. As for the vinland thing it;s not known for sure whether it was a marketing ploy or maybe a case of mistaking berries for grapes…basically it seems the idea of grapes growing there is doubtful though. gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/14/05155/292
 
I wonder why people are so hellbent on rejecting something as obvious as Climate Change. Contributors are so perplexed by terms like “possibly,” “maybe,” “likely,” and so on when offered an explanation for the impending disaster, they write it off, despite overwhelming evidence, as trickery by scholars looking for notoriety and riches. That’s incredibly shortsighted and risky.

Climate Change is fact. No person with so much as a clue will tell you any different. The dissension concerns whether the cause is man, or if it’s a natural cycle. Suppose it’s the former and Government heeded the advice of you nay-sayers, what are we to do then?

Thankfully, we now have a president who will follow the advice of the experts. What’s more is that if McCain had won, I’d be saying the same thing.

MORE PROOF
Experts. You want me to believe that a political person with an agenda is not going to stack the deck? What - are you selling bridges, and beach front property in Arizona?

Anyone who is paying attention should be able to figure out that the political world is not the place we need to go, to determine truth about anything. Whether it is the Republicans who find the science they like, and set up rules and regulations based on their prejudicial preconceived notions, or the Democrats who do the same thing, they both use whatever evidence they can marshall, coupled with whatever spin they can put on it, to acheive what they want. Truth may or may not surface during the process, but anyone who believes that truth will triumph is so far beyone naive that I cna’t find a word for it. The political process is not about finding truth; it is about acheiving one’s priorities by any means possible. Truth, if it furthers those ends, will be used; if truth needs to be distorted or denied, that too will happen.

As to your comments about impending disaster, both the issue of impending and disaster are more than simply questionable. there is a vast amount of data we have acheived over the last 40 to 50 years, and the data is coming faster and faster. The question is not so much about the current flow of data as it is about the previous 10,000 years of lack of much, if any data, and the projections as to what the current data really means.

Even assuming that the data in fact tells us we have global warming, the data appears to be extremely questionable as to how much impact human activity really has, how much we can actually change, and what, if any impact overall that change in human activity may have to global warming overall. Further, it is at best a wild guess as to how long global warming caused by nature will last, how extensive it will be, and what actually will occur if it either increases, or reaches a plateau and remains for some period of time.

What we have is a phenomenal amount of data without sufficent long term evidence as to what, out of that pile of data, is significant and what is not. Scientists have data spewing out of their research, and are making models which seek to give some prediction of what the results will be IF. IF being the operative term, and they have far, far too little long term data to tell us what is going to happen 2 years from now, let alone 40.

In the 60’s, with all the “science” marshalled together, we had an absolute disaster on our hands in terms of population growth and food production. Since then, both the “science” of population growth and the “science” of food production have been shown not only to be false, but something bordering on absolutely false. Population did not grow geometrically as we were “guaranteed” by scientists that it would. It has in fact approached a levelling off. and food production, which was “guaranteed” to grow arithmetically, has approached geometric growth. We have mass starvation in areas in the world not becuase we cannot grow enough food, but because we have governments which will not insure that the food goes where it is needed (and I am not referring tho the US government).

So what happened? Models were made on assumptions; the assumptions were wrong, the models were wrong, and what was “guaranteed” didn’t happen.

We are going throught the same thing now: it is not that scientists are incapable of research, but that we are again presuming that the models they are using are “guaranteed”. We can’t even get all the scientists to agree on some basic weighing of the evidence. “Top Scientsts” gets bandied around by the news, as if someone with true authority had actually made some sort of finding of fact - truth - in determining what the term “top” actually meant. “Top” by what factual information - that some newspaper said they were; a group of newspapers?

Anyone so naive as to the world of science who believes that there is not a herd mentality within them, and that someone who runs counter to the current modeling will not be dismissed is someone who is ikely to be buying bridges. The issue is not anywhere near whether there is global warming or not, but how long it will continue, what the results of it will be, when it might cycle and what the results of that will be, and how significant man’s activity is to that cycle. Coupled with that is the question of how politicized the whole issue is - we most certainly politicized the population and food models. And we still have people who truly and firmly believe those models are still valid, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
 
Now I remember why I decided to stay away from this thread.

The philosophy, getting from A to B, and understanding how human beings consider things absent arbitrary whims. But it’s also a matter of believing the route from A to B is the best route. Too many people refuse to do so, and too many simply don’t understand what A and B is. Thus, the last three posters.

Have fun.
How comfortable for you to hide under the shadow of your own false assumptions when the glaring light of reality comes calling.

Only YOU have the understanding…:rolleyes:

Those that disagree are simply ignorent of this subject you know so well.:rolleyes:
 
Their is no 100% accurate model that can show that human influance is changing the global temerature significantly.

The earth temerature and weather patterns have changed millions of times over millions of years. However, their is definatly 100% proof. That reducing carbon, not cutting down so many trees and generally poluting our world less would be a good thing.
 
Their is no 100% accurate model that can show that human influance is changing the global temerature significantly.

The earth temerature and weather patterns have changed millions of times over millions of years. However, their is definatly 100% proof. That reducing carbon, not cutting down so many trees and generally poluting our world less would be a good thing.
Exactly my feelings too. I believe that it’s entire possible that the global warming we are experiencing is a natural phenomenon. However, the fact that we are polluting and removing earth’s natural filters is not helping matters at all. I believe if this is natural, we are only expediting the process. Therefore, I also believe that it is our responsibility to help slow it down.
 
Yeah Greenland hasn;t been nice in thousands of years. The name was basically a marketing ploy.
Perhaps, but the wikipedia supports a moderate climate there at the time…
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland:
At that time, the inner regions of the long fjords where the settlements were located were very different from today. Excavations show that there were considerable birch woods with birch trees up to 4 to 6 meters high in the area around the inner parts of the Tunuliarfik- and Aniaaq-fjords, the central area of the Eastern settlement, and the hills were grown with grass and willow brushes. This was due to the medieval climate optimum. The Norse soon changed the vegetation by cutting down the trees to use as building material and for heating and by extensive sheep and goat grazing during summer and winter. The climate in Greenland was much warmer during the first centuries of settlement but became increasingly colder in the 14th and 15th centuries with the approaching period of colder weather known as the Little Ice Age.
As for the vinland thing it;s not known for sure whether it was a marketing ploy or maybe a case of mistaking berries for grapes…basically it seems the idea of grapes growing there is doubtful though.
Doubtful??
again, the wikipedia is in disagreement with you.
Finally it has been speculated that grapes did in fact grow in Newfoundland (47-51°N) in the past. The first recorded grapes were grown 2002, when a successful vineyard was established in Gambo, Newfoundland, 48°50’N.[3] The time period of the Vinland settlement corresponds with the Medieval Warm Period (from about the 10th century to about the 14th century). Water temperatures in the northern hemisphere during this time were up to 1°C warmer, allowing the planting of vineyards as far north as the coastal zones of the Baltic Sea (ca. 56°N) and southern England (ca. 51°N). There are vineyards at 54°N in Lancashire and Yorkshire, northern England.
 
Also since it seems a couple people missed it when I posted it before. The idea that most scientists thought we were heading into an ice age is false! realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole/ ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf
No one is missing it.
It simply does not matter. The little tidbit you are giving simply proves the point all the more.

At the time, there was a group of scientists that agreed that Global Cooling was a real threat and we were looking at an ice age.
The media grabbed it and ran.

Today the same thing is happening.
There was a group of scientists that agree that Global Warming is a real threat.
The media grabbed it and ran.

Same story, just as unreliable, 30 years later.
 
However, their is definatly 100% proof. That reducing carbon, not cutting down so many trees and generally poluting our world less would be a good thing.
Great idea.
Now if there is a means of doing so without destroying the economy…👍
 
Yeah Greenland hasn;t been nice in thousands of years. T
THOUSANDS? Hmmm. 2009 AD-1000 D (I’m being very generous)= 1009 years. You global warming alarmists sure have a away of making up your rules of statistics, let alone doing simple math.

:tsktsk:

Thanks vz71 for the supporting documentation.
 
No one is missing it.
It simply does not matter. The little tidbit you are giving simply proves the point all the more.

At the time, there was a group of scientists that agreed that Global Cooling was a real threat and we were looking at an ice age.
The media grabbed it and ran.

Today the same thing is happening.
There was a group of scientists that agree that Global Warming is a real threat.
The media grabbed it and ran.

Same story, just as unreliable, 30 years later.
The point I was trying to make is that the idea that MOST scientists held that view is FALSE. Only a small handful actually thought that and it seems the media like you said took it and ran. Now adays the Majority of scientists agree with global warming AND that it is at least partially manmade. As for the media…it seems to depend on the source and whatever mood they are in the day of the week. It seems they are just as eager to make claims of catastrophic global warming then the next month claim global warming has been disproven. That;s one big reason why in general the media is a pretty poor science source to prove much of anything.

But the situation now is not that same situation as back then.
 
Now adays the Majority of scientists agree with global warming AND that it is at least partially manmade.
Most people acknowledge that the earth is warmer now than 150 years ago. Does that mean the majority believe that it has continued to warm in the last decade? That it is continuing to warm now? Maybe, maybe not. There are many ways in which man can (theoretically) influence the climate: clearing forests, slash and burn agriculture, ozone depletion. Do a majority of scientists believe that these activities have affected the climate? Maybe, maybe not.

On the only relevant question of whether man made releases of CO2 have caused a significant amount of global warming, however, I seriously doubt that a majority of scientists believe this to be so. I strongly suspect that the majority are (rightly) silent on that point. That is, what you claim and what you infer are two different things and what you claim is no proof of what you infer - even if true.

Ender
 
THOUSANDS? Hmmm. 2009 AD-1000 D (I’m being very generous)= 1009 years. You global warming alarmists sure have a away of making up your rules of statistics, let alone doing simple math.

:tsktsk:

Thanks vz71 for the supporting documentation.
Actually I used thousands because according to this scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/greenland-used-to-be-green.php Greenlands ice cap is hundred of thousands of years old and covers 80% of Greenland. And while during the warm period it was like smaller…it isn;t likely Greenland had a nice lush climate even back then. Now if the point the poster was trying to make was hey Greenland was once greener then it is today…ok they are right…if the point was to say that it was a lush nice enviroment then no that doesn;t seem to be true. Another source is here. www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/vikings_during_mwp.html But I have done some looking and it still seems to me that the idea that Greenland has had a nice climate a thousand years ago is not true.

As for Vinland… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland Nope still doesn;t seem settled to me that grapes actually grew there. However it is quite possible that wine was made there just not from grapes. depts.ttu.edu/hs/texaswine/docs/Wine_History.pdf pages 4-6 talk about Vinland here as well.
 
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