A Question for all you Global Warming skeptics
- Thread starter TheRealCJ
- Start date
The issue is, a lot of these measures proposed either:
1. Cost a whole fuckton of money
2. Greatly restrict individual liberty
3. Pose a significant risk to human life
4. Have the potential to cause significant environmental damage
5. Don't work
6. All of the above
1. Cost a whole fuckton of money
2. Greatly restrict individual liberty
3. Pose a significant risk to human life
4. Have the potential to cause significant environmental damage
5. Don't work
6. All of the above
The increase in melting ice could also have something to do with the fact that the Earth is technically close to the sun than it has ever been
To be completely honest with you, I found myself saying, "WHAT global warming???" many times this past winter. As much as the east coast got walloped by snow and such this past winter, I would think there are a great many people thinking the same thing. My personal opinion is that the climates are shifting, as they have done throughout the earths history.
With that said, though, I do think we should take better care of our planet. It is our home, after all.
With that said, though, I do think we should take better care of our planet. It is our home, after all.
Not at all. I don't believe Humanity is smart enough to come up with some of the conspiracy theories that they bandy around.HankMan said:
I do believe they're apathetic enough to devise a "safety scheme" and then change the results to make it look like it's working though.
Aluminium : Sure, can recycle that. Everything else...well...if you're adding up all the collection/processing costs then paper/plastic are running pretty equal. And you can't carry a wet paper bag home.
Well, I think the evidence as to how much we have and can really effected/effect climate change is inconclusive.
Next, I would say Pascal's Wager is a weak argument. If you believe in human-influenced climate change, you should believe in God. We can't really tell if "God/climate change" is there. However, it is best to behave as though "God/climate change" is real, because the consequences are devastating.
Furthermore, I think the efforts we take are kind of useless. Hybrids use less fuel, but people tend to drive them more. The side-effects of manufacturing and cleaning "reusable" items are never taken into account against disposable or recyclable items. 20 people in 20 smart cars or Vespas do more damage than 20 people on a diesel bus. Florescent lights contain all sorts of nasty gases and chemicals. Florescent and LED lights may use half or one-quarter of the power, but you need twice or four times as many to get the same amount of light. "Renewable" sources like hydro, solar, and wind are very unpredictable, and disrupt "natural environments" like rivers, hillsides, and deserts. We could go nuclear, but wait! No we couldn't because "OMG radiation!!!1!!"
So, meh.
Next, I would say Pascal's Wager is a weak argument. If you believe in human-influenced climate change, you should believe in God. We can't really tell if "God/climate change" is there. However, it is best to behave as though "God/climate change" is real, because the consequences are devastating.
Furthermore, I think the efforts we take are kind of useless. Hybrids use less fuel, but people tend to drive them more. The side-effects of manufacturing and cleaning "reusable" items are never taken into account against disposable or recyclable items. 20 people in 20 smart cars or Vespas do more damage than 20 people on a diesel bus. Florescent lights contain all sorts of nasty gases and chemicals. Florescent and LED lights may use half or one-quarter of the power, but you need twice or four times as many to get the same amount of light. "Renewable" sources like hydro, solar, and wind are very unpredictable, and disrupt "natural environments" like rivers, hillsides, and deserts. We could go nuclear, but wait! No we couldn't because "OMG radiation!!!1!!"
So, meh.
Did you know that all the charts that people use as 'evidence' can be tampered with by the scientists? And that the only data that can't be changed says that global temperatures are at an all time low for the past 400 years?
Also, we did heat up slightly for a few years, and now we are dipping again. Look at this chart, you see that little rise near the end before going down again? Global warming my ass, look at the temperatures a few thousand years ago.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Easterbrook-Natural%20global%20warming.jpg
Also, we did heat up slightly for a few years, and now we are dipping again. Look at this chart, you see that little rise near the end before going down again? Global warming my ass, look at the temperatures a few thousand years ago.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Easterbrook-Natural%20global%20warming.jpg
I think its inevitable and I do think we're speeding it up but not to very high degree, nevertheless I think the measures will slow it down but in the end its just going to happen anyway.
Climate Change is, in my opinion, a truly nasty issue. There's so much deliberate misinformation on both sides of the debate, but despite all that I have to honestly say that I firmly believe humans are causing it. The fact is that all the data we have points towards an increase in the Earth's temperature since the Industrial Revolution. You can claim that that's not a lot of time in the context of the world, but it's still a good amount of data that shows a steady rise. It's pretty much the most reliable, and largest body of data we have, and closing our eyes and hoping that it doesn't count is hardly a good way of dealing with the issue.
Now, for an anaylsis of some of the common counter-climate change arguments, a good number of which were summed up by Kyle Meadows:
Basically, if we are speeding up climate change, and taking into account the whole "Climate Change has already caused a number of mass extinctions" issue, I really would prefer it if we stopped speeding it up. I like my human race not going the way of the Dodo, thank you very much.
Regardless, Renewable energy is a good idea for more reasons than one. It cuts down on normal pollution, it is ultimately less expensive for the individuals, and to top it off I love the idea of being self-sufficient.
Sorry for the wall of text. Now, I would like to refer people to a fantastic Climate-conscious film. The Naked Gun 2 and 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA9S5IM8T3U&feature=related
Now, for an anaylsis of some of the common counter-climate change arguments, a good number of which were summed up by Kyle Meadows:
The age of the earth is irrelevent, even if you're using it to put the amount of data we have on the Earth's climate into perspective. If climate change really is just a cyclical event (which I believe it is, but the ones that have gone before are looking to be different from the man-made one occurring in the present), we have no firm knowledge on how frequently and how extreme these cycles are. Oh, we have glaciers and trees that tell us that the climate has changed back and forth over the course of the Earth's history, but so far as I know no one has been able to conclusively state whether what we are experiencing now matches into the cycle of events. On the contrary, what information we do have says that the current rise in temperature is pretty much unprecedented.Kyle Meadows said:
Surely this is all the more reason to fear climate change and do what we can to slow it down, not speed it up? If Climate Change has the potential to cause mass extinction, then don't we need to do everything we can to stop it?Kyle Meadows said:
Is anyone really naive enough to believe that we can't? Humans have shaped this world to a colossal extent. As one random example, we have enough nuclear weapons to obliterate all life on Earth a ridiculous number of times over. A problem in one, single oil rig last year caused a massive ecological disaster. We managed to create chemicals like CFC that punched a hole in the Ozone layer. The whole of human history says, quite resoundingly, that YES we can have a massive effect on the planet. I can't believe that there's anyone who has seen what human technology in the modern era is capable of that doesn't believe we can cause massive and irreperable harm to the planet.Kyle Meadows said:
I agree. The fact that Climate Change is a cyclical event is more or less impossible to dispute. The issue is that the climate sceptics tend to use this information as if it means that we can't have an effect on Climate Change one way or another. But we can, and it does appear that we're not only speeding it up, but making it more severe. Just watch the news sometime. I live in Queensland and got to see the effect of the flood, and the first thing that ran through my mind was Al Gore in the Inconvenient Truth saying that as time passed storms would become less frequent and more severe. Since Queensland is only just emerging from a massive drought, only to be greeted by the biggest flooding in the state's (admittedly short) history (well, in Brisbane specifically, while the 1974 floods technically covered more ground, they didn't have massive dams keeping back most of the water).Kyle Meadows said:
Basically, if we are speeding up climate change, and taking into account the whole "Climate Change has already caused a number of mass extinctions" issue, I really would prefer it if we stopped speeding it up. I like my human race not going the way of the Dodo, thank you very much.
Has anyone actually measured the amount of Greenhouse gas released by the many natural events and compared it to the amount released by humanity since the start of the Industrial Revolution? I'm honestly not aware of any such study, which by and large means that any speculation on whether these natural events are having a bigger impact than the combined total of human activity since we really got into the whole Carbon Dioxide producing gig. Although honestly, I'm fairly certain that in a comparison the human contribution would at least be significant, if not greater than all the natural causes combined. We don't even need to do more than the planet however. So many natural systems of this planet are inherently fragile and easily upset. A small percentage may be all that is needed to tip the climate system over the edge. Of course, it doesn't help that with all our forest burning, we're not just producing Carbon Dioxide but also limiting the planet's capacity to reabsorb it.Kyle Meadows said:
Regardless, Renewable energy is a good idea for more reasons than one. It cuts down on normal pollution, it is ultimately less expensive for the individuals, and to top it off I love the idea of being self-sufficient.
Sorry for the wall of text. Now, I would like to refer people to a fantastic Climate-conscious film. The Naked Gun 2 and 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA9S5IM8T3U&feature=related
'The science' is overwhelmingly in favour of the current event of Global Warming to be as a result of human activity.Rosetta said:
Here is the science:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/006.htm
http://www.fasts.org/images/policy-discussion/statement-climate-change.pdf
http://www.eurogeologists.de/images/content/panels_of_experts/co2_geological_storage/CCS_position_paper.pdf
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
True the saying 'a stitch in time saves nine' is correct, but just because something "might" be an issue in the next hundred or so years doesn't mean we should be putting stitches everywhere just in case. I would prefer the proverbial 9 stitches needed to fix an issue to 20 stitches done needlessly 'just in case' and then we find out each one of those stitches was worthless.
Two of the big oppositions to global warming things is that 1) the earth does cool and warm up naturally on it's own, regardless of what we as people are doing to it, and 2) the majority of carbon/methane pollution isn't even caused by us, but by animals in the wild living and dying.
Other forms of pollution I won't mention because obviously dumping nuclear waste into oceans/rivers/forests/etc. is bad. Same goes for oil spills and that sort of thing, but that's a completely separate topic, I only mention it because too often I hear people put 'carbon/monoxide pollution' in the same basket as every other form of pollution. Carbon usage etc. isn't one of the big things that needs to be addressed when talking about 'treating the planet better' because there is much bigger fish to fry, this is just an easily explained/easily taxed fear source put out.
Another fun thought to remember: this may be one thing that is likely to effect the earth negatively, but there are countless thousands of other things that can practically obliterate life as we know it. The fact that a meteorite hitting earth wiping out a lot of lives could happen at any moment is just as likely, but it's never discussed because it's not easy/possible to tax people.
Get people afraid of how much carbon they are using? They will encourage taxes to stop other evil people using to much. Try and have a 'meteorite defence plan' tax and no one will be in favour of it.
Two of the big oppositions to global warming things is that 1) the earth does cool and warm up naturally on it's own, regardless of what we as people are doing to it, and 2) the majority of carbon/methane pollution isn't even caused by us, but by animals in the wild living and dying.
Other forms of pollution I won't mention because obviously dumping nuclear waste into oceans/rivers/forests/etc. is bad. Same goes for oil spills and that sort of thing, but that's a completely separate topic, I only mention it because too often I hear people put 'carbon/monoxide pollution' in the same basket as every other form of pollution. Carbon usage etc. isn't one of the big things that needs to be addressed when talking about 'treating the planet better' because there is much bigger fish to fry, this is just an easily explained/easily taxed fear source put out.
Another fun thought to remember: this may be one thing that is likely to effect the earth negatively, but there are countless thousands of other things that can practically obliterate life as we know it. The fact that a meteorite hitting earth wiping out a lot of lives could happen at any moment is just as likely, but it's never discussed because it's not easy/possible to tax people.
Get people afraid of how much carbon they are using? They will encourage taxes to stop other evil people using to much. Try and have a 'meteorite defence plan' tax and no one will be in favour of it.