Greater Threat to Humanity: Abortion or Global Warming

[LindyPhil]

I was recently faced with this thought as I argued with my friend over why I think abortion is worse than the current situation we are in concerning global warming. For this very reason, she is justifying voting for a democrat whose platform will be to fight global warming. Could anybody help me with an arguement?

Thanks

Phil

 

[Hastrman]

Um, because global warming may not be real, and abortion definitely is?

Because global warming may affect us negatively in a thousand years, while we’re killing millions of babies now?

Contributing to global warming, if it’s real (and I doubt it), is no more than negligence. Abortion is willful murder.

That ought do it.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

She would rather support somebody in a party who is willing to fight against something which ‘may’ threaten an unknown number of humans at some nebulous point in the future but not care that the same party has been a major supporter for those who not only threatened but actually killed millions of babies in the last 30 odd years?

Wow.

You see, to me that points out the real devil of selfishness which has been the curse of the mid/late 20th century through now. “Global warming may affect me so I’m all for finding and supporting those who want to stop it and thereby help me. But as for abortion: if I want a baby I’ll have one. If I don’t, I’ll abort, and nobody had better try to stop me. And of course, if it isn’t my baby involved, I don’t really care one way or the other. If I wouldn’t have an abortion personally, I certainly can’t presume to tell somebody else how to live her life. . .and since I am not having an abortion personally I’m totally morally in the right for being tolerant enough to allow others their abortions.”

How have we come to this, that we call ourselves Christians and have stood idly by for a generation while innocents are brutally killed in a silent holocaust?? I am ashamed for myself and all people today. How can we let this go on?

 

[harinkj]

Both will kill people. It is a toss-up.

• Kathie :bowdown:

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Both will kill people. It is a toss-up.

• Kathie :bowdown:

Kathie,

Ok, let’s you and I get into a rocket and blast off to the sun and force the sun spots to stop. That way we would both be giving our lives away. You for something you believe to be true. Me for…well…I’m just an all around nice guy.

CDL

 

[st_lucy]

Both will kill people. It is a toss-up.

• Kathie :bowdown:

Yeah but, if you save the unborn you could be saving the world, because the unborn my be the scientist that will come up with a REAL solution to global warming.

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

To answer the question “Greater Threat to Humanity: Abortion or Global Warming”? - Abortion kills some people, Global Warming MAY kill a lot more.

BUT that is poor justification for voting Democrat on that one issue. I have a tendency to believe that global warming is a real threat, and it saddens me that the Republican party seems to poo-poo and even hide evidence about it, but to justify voting Democrat because of that, not in my book.

 

[FightingFat]

Abortion is legal at the mo. It’s our duty to try and change that by having the best argument.

Global warming is killing people now and will get worse. It’s relatively easy to do stuff about that-- to take responsibility for your own carbon footprint, walk a little more instead of driving, try and recycle, put a jumper on instead of having the heating up full wack-- stuff like that.

Both are serious considerations for Catholics. I would add that voting Mr. Bush into power has not stopped abortion.

BTW you prbably need to add a link to this thread or the men in black will close it down!

 

[pumpkinbeast]

Yeah but, if you save the unborn you could be saving the world, because the unborn my be the scientist that will come up with a REAL solution to global warming.

Excelent point.

Abortion is killing hundreds of thousands of people NOW, and even if global warming is a threat and not just a cycle, it’s not killing anyone now. If global warming is real, it will need a drastic change in lifestyle to fix, from what I’ve heard. So why not start with educating children instead of killing them?

 

[harinkj]

Kathie,

Ok, let’s you and I get into a rocket and blast off to the sun and force the sun spots to stop. That way we would both be giving our lives away. You for something you believe to be true. Me for…well…I’m just an all around nice guy.

CDL

What do sunspots have to do with global warming? Or is this the latest theory by “intelligent design scientists”?

• Kathie :bowdown:

 

[Hastrman]

What do sunspots have to do with global warming? Or is this the latest theory by “intelligent design scientists”?

• Kathie :bowdown:

Considering your choice of an intensely irritating little emoticon in every one of your posts, you might want to be careful how you use those sneer quotes. I sincerely doubt you’re qualified to assess the scientific merit of Intelligent Design. Unless you’d like to explain how blood clotting can function in the absense of any of the necessary proteins? How about bacterial flagella, do you have provable structures that might stand in for the structures it currently employs? I insist on seeing your lab notes from the experiments where you proved these ideas. Or maybe you’d like to admit right here that you don’t actually know what Intelligent Design theory states?

You seem to think global warming is a settled issue. It is a politicized issue; the propaganda machines of the press have touted it high and low; but it is not, scientifically, settled.

Sunspots have nothing to do with global warming, though, I will concede that.

 

[Al_Masetti]

What do sunspots have to do with global warming? Or is this the latest theory by “intelligent design scientists”?

• Kathie :bowdown:

The sun’s output of energy is not at a constant level; the output varies … and no one knows WHY … it just does.

[In addition, the amount of energy that the Earth actually receives from the sun (and also from cosmic rays from non-solar sources) depends on the Earth’s orbit and rotation.]

There are a number of ways to measure the sun’s output.

One of the ways is to count and measure the sun’s surface eruptions, which we call sunspots.

Simply stated, the number of sunspots generally occur, on average, in about an 11- year cycle. However, it’s not EXACTLY 11-years. The cycle varies. Could be 10 years or 12 or more years.

So far, scientists have collected data on about 23 solar cycles. There is a Web site: www.sidc.oma.be and click around … check archives and graphics.

Now, here’s the tricky part. I wrote a paper that summarizes this stuff in more detail. HOWEVER, I have been forbidden by the moderator to refer to it because it is posted on my own Web site.

If you PM me with your mailing address, I will mail you a copy (it’s hard copy as well as on line).

Or, you can look for me by Googling my full name which is Albert Masetti and the first hit should be my Web site.

Then click on newsletters and read the July 2003 newsletter.

If you do find my Web site, you can also click on Links and then click on the Gerson report. Dr. Gerson, who died relatively recently (a few years ago), didn’t publish much of his work because … he worked his whole life for the National Security Agency … the super spy folks. HOWEVER, one of his reports got processed to remove the secret stuff and was declassified. In that report he discussed in summary form some of the bad things that happen at the “solar max”.

So read those things and see if they help answer your questions.

 

[ricmat]

What do sunspots have to do with global warming? Or is this the latest theory by “intelligent design scientists”?

• Kathie :bowdown:

Actually, I’ve read somewhere that global warming actually causes sunspots, not to mention tsunamis, and earthquakes, and…drum roll please…global cooling.

Perhaps global warming causes abortions too.

 

[Hastrman]

Actually, I’ve read somewhere that global warming actually causes sunspots

Tell me you’re kidding, I beg you.:ehh:

 

[ricmat]

Tell me you’re kidding, I beg you.:ehh:

Yes - kidding on the sunspots (as a previous poster suggested, there is a correllation in the other direction).

However, the others, not kidding unfortunately.

 

[harinkj]

The sun’s output of energy is not at a constant level; the output varies … and no one knows WHY … it just does.

That is true but I do not have a lot of confidence that solar output is the reason for the 1 1/2 degree increase over the last century.

When I scanned your web site, my eye did catch your item about the 12 & 15 year cycles, or sub cycles. This is interesting because a colleague at NASA who is responsible for solar activity analyses has talked to me about the two sub cycles. I cannot remember if he was also talking about 12 & 15 years.

People who are interested in the effect that solar activity has on weather should check out this paper:

web.utk.edu/~grissino/downloads/burckle%20grissino%202003.pdf

The gist is that during the Maunder Minimum, which non-specialists should recall is the time when there were very few sunspots, 1645 to 1715:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

the resulting mini-ice age caused certain trees to grow wood that was very dense. This wood happened to be used to make violins by people such as Antonio Stradivari in the late 17th century. There is speculation as to whether this dense wood was part of the secret in the violins excellent voice.

I’ll send you an email when I find out if the sub cycles that my colleague talks about are the same ones that you discuss.

Clearly the sunspot activity affects the weather on the Earth. Scientific evidence appears to support the greenhouse effect as a major cause of global warming and it would go out of control if CO2 emissions are not controlled.

• Kathie :bowdown:

 

[Hastrman]

Well, the “global cooling” thing (which was the apocalyptic hullabaloo in the 1970s, but we’ve learned so much since then, right?) makes a little sense. What it basically means is that “global warming/cooling” are misnomers; what’s really happening is we’re making the climate more extreme, in both directions.

I don’t buy it, but it’s not as irrational as “Global warming causes global cooling” makes it sound.

 

[Contarini]

Well, the “global cooling” thing (which was the apocalyptic hullabaloo in the 1970s, but we’ve learned so much since then, right?) makes a little sense. What it basically means is that “global warming/cooling” are misnomers; what’s really happening is we’re making the climate more extreme, in both directions.

I don’t buy it, but it’s not as irrational as “Global warming causes global cooling” makes it sound.

Why don’t you buy it? What I don’t understand is why we pit moral issues off against each other. If there is any reasonable chance that our consumerism and materialism is having a devastating effect on the good earth God made, then we should do whatever it takes even if we have to go back to horses and buggies. Similarly, I would argue against pro-choice folks that if there’s any reasonable chance that the fetus really is a human being (as I believe), then we should do whatever it takes to protect unborn life. We always have to give the more idealistic, inconvenient, morally demanding option the benefit of the doubt, or we will remain mired in cynicism.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[ricmat]

Why don’t you buy it? What I don’t understand is why we pit moral issues off against each other. If there is any reasonable chance that our consumerism and materialism is having a devastating effect on the good earth God made, then we should do whatever it takes even if we have to go back to horses and buggies.

“Reasonable chance” is in the eye of the beholder. If we had gone off after the global cooling scare of the 70’s and started pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere to make things heat up, would that have been a good thing?

We have only a few hundred years of good weather observations to work from (at best). And some of those are flawed - e.g. the sensors that used to be in an unpopulated rural field which is now the middle of a concrete (heat retaining) parking lot in Chicago. Depending on your point of view (or source of funding), it seems you can find exactly the data to need to support that view.

BTW - a mere 15000 years ago an ice sheet 2 miles thick covered most of the northern hemisphere. Now it’s gone. Did man have anything to do with this?

 

[pnewton]

That is true but I do not have a lot of confidence that solar output is the reason for the 1 1/2 degree increase over the last century.

I saw a couple of graphs that showed the earth’s temperture and sunspot activity.

solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/varsun.html

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

In any case, as to the question at hand, anyone with a moral compass can see the difference between slaughterin innocent children and the temperature rising a few degrees.