A Question for all you Global Warming skeptics

darksakul

Old Man? I am not that old .....
Jun 14, 2008
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Rosetta said:
There have been 6 major extinctions wherein the majority of the Earth's life died that we humans know of. All of them happened before we were here and all of them happened due to massive climate change. The ice age was the most recent.

Humans do not affect the climate.

The Earth will cool and warm long, long after we go extinct and the cycle of life and death will be unaffected.

The hippies are wrong. The science is right.
Aulleas123 said:
I would call myself a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming theory, as far as actual global warming is concerned I have no problem with believing that.

I'm under the belief that many people who claim that "it's all our fault and we should punish ourselves for our sins" transcend scientific findings and promote a view that is political and even religious in nature. Should we have clean air and water, absolutely. Should we hold companies accountable when they pollute at an unacceptable level, yes. Should we destroy private industry out of blame and spite when an analysis of variance would suggest that human involvement might be much more manageable than doomsayers are suggesting? No, I don't think that's the answer.

To many people, this is about clean air and water, renewable energy, and general stewardship over the earth. I can respect that viewpoint because it makes sense to have a healthy environment for a variety of arguments. But when people take global warming and "going green" and turn it into a weapon to guilt us into doing what they want us to do, that's where I personally draw the line.

To me, there's very little difference between the college student telling me to pay to large foundations (i.e. corporations) for repentance for carbon credits and a Catholic priest telling me to pay a tithe to the church for repentance of my lack of virtue.

Sorry for the rant, I hope I got my point across without being obnoxious and without even being your target...
These two summed up my feelings on this issue better than I could in my own words.
 

TheIronRuler

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I don't like the whole movement, but 'tis understandable to want a change.
What concerns me more than our poor mother earth is the lack of resources and our need for new energy sources, preferably infinate ( Solar).
If this carries on we will have wars over oil and gas fields, we will see nation destroyed due to these wars and nations becoming extremly rich for owning a piece of land.
We will.... wait... we are already experiencing it. Therefore we're fucked and we can't change jack.
 

The Rockerfly

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Dec 31, 2008
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Prove to me there is irrefutable evidence that climate change is caused only by human beings and I will buy a hydrogen car.
I'm all for new energy but I can't see it happening until the masses cannot afford coal and oil or climate change is proven to be by human beings. There is evidence but there is evidence on both sides, nothing to truly blow the other out the water so I'm standing on my comfort side thank you
 

TheRealCJ

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T8B95 said:
TheRealCJ said:
T8B95 said:
The Earth has been here for 4.5 billion years (don't get me started Creationists, in short, you're wrong). There has been life on this Earth for 3.7 billion years. Humans have been around for at most one million years. We've had advanced industry for a paltry 250 years. That is such a small percentage that my calculator won't give me a proper number when I ask for it.

In all that time, we have been going through constant warming and cooling periods. Before the last Ice Age, there were no ice caps in the world. We now have two major ice caps.

Are you really that arrogant? Are you conceited enough that when a small change happens in the world's temperature, you think that the only possible explanation is that you caused it?

Basically, that sums up my opinion on the subject. Good day to you.
Are YOU that dense?

If we've only been here a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the time that the earth has been around, surely the earth has never experienced something as strange and new as us.

And since our existence and the impact on the planet is unprecedented, who knows what effect we're having on the planet in such a short time. Is it possible that the 250-odd years of human industry could be the straw that breaks the camel's back?

And since we're ploughing headlong into the complete unknown, surely it would be better to err on the side of caution. If you're halfway across a bridge and it creaks ominously, do you a) Proceed exactly as before, safe in the knowledge that "Oh, well, the last half help up without a problem, there's no possible way it could break at this point". Or do you b) Take it a bit slowly.

And no, I don't believe that Humanity is wholly and soley responsible for changes in the temperature. But we're certainly not doing anything to help matters.
Who the hell are you to say that the Earth has never experienced anything like what humanity has done to it? Using the example everyone is the most familiar with, K/T extinction had roughly two million times the force of the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful explosion in human history. The K/T extinction was 65 million years ago. Oddly enough, it seems that the Earth is still here. And the K/T extinction wasn't even close to the worst thing that the Earth has lived through.

My point stands: the Earth has been here for longer than a human being can comprehend. It has survived volcanoes, being struck at impossible speeds by large objects, tectonic plate shifts, and glacier movements. It will survive us.
Probably.

But will we survive us?

I don't honestly thing people are concerned about the Earth as a lump of rock in space. But the Earth as we sit on it. And we should be doing everything we can to ensure that it's not this generation (or the one after us, or after them, or etc.) that cocks it up for any and all generations to come.

Humans already have the means to prolong the species far beyond what nature intended for it. Most of human history has been a drive to prolong the species far beyond what nature intended for it. But when we use up a definitely finite resource without trying to find an alternative (Think about it, where in the planet's history has there been such a massive drain on unreplenishing resources like oil?), that's going to make it all the harder for future humans to survive. Especially if the earth is gearing up for another massive climate shift as you seem to be suggesting.
 

quantumsoul

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I think the debate is more of "is global warming a natural cycle or are we the cause of it?".

The earth a big place I'm not sure if we can influence global temperature positively or negatively.

It may be a better idea to adapt to the climate change rather than try to stop it.

I just wish there was an easy solution especially for the people of island nations that will eventually be inundated by water.
 

Damien Granz

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Apr 8, 2011
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Here's the deal. Global temperatures are rising, and human activities have either cased and/or accelerated these changes, and these changes will have negative effects on human society as it is today, and no current scientific body holds a dissenting opinion on this (though some have taken the stance of effectively 'no comment').

Global Warming means that the mean temperature of the globe warms, not that the entire world instantaneously bakes into a desert or a tropical ocean in a day. This does mean that some places will experience turbulent weather, such as snow storms, and relatively brief periods of cool down as the Arctic and Antarctic regions heat up and melt.

Global mean average temperature rising produces heat where it's not wanted which evaporates seawater and glaciers, and the added moisture displaces air creating hurricanes and rainstorms, and if it's already cold enough, snowstorms and blizzards. These weather patterns will temporarily cool down the areas they happen in for short periods, even if the average temperature of that area rises.

So you will experience periods of extended cold, as well as periods of extended heat, even if the mean temperature is rising at all times.

If you already live in an extremely temperate area, these extremes will be less so, for the time being. Because it's an increase in averages, not "Every day becomes 80 degrees".

Think of it as filling a bathtub with water, and your temperature being floating ducky. When you dump the water in, wave formation will cause your duck to sink and bob up high for a while until the turbulent period is over, even when the water level is globally always rising. Then, eventually your area will rise up. Now imagine you're a rubber ducky, and next to you is a very tall sailboat. The sailboat will rock into new lows and heights than you, but will remain taller than you regardless because it already is taller than you. When the water rises everybody up, it doesn't necessarily mean that all areas rise to the same height. The ducky will still be shorter.

I hope this cleared some things up for people that don't understand global warming or climate change in general.

It's not the same as just heating up a microwave oven and expecting that a uniform heat will envelope everything at once, and it's not counter intuitive to say that the GLOBE is heating up, while some parts will experience heat and cold spikes and turbulent weather associated with what people think of as the 'cool' season (IE, rainfall or snow).
 

punkrocker27

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Elcarsh said:
ArBeater said:
500 years ago it was common sense that the world was flat.
That's a common myth, actually. It has been common knowledge for at least the last couple of thousand years that the earth is roughly spherical.
Common knowledge among scholars, perhaps, but not to the commoners themselves.
 

TheRealCJ

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Lilani said:
TheRealCJ said:
Those are some awfully big presumptions you're making. I think all of this has more to do with the earth's natural cycle of warming and cooling to do with "global warming"--because as George Carlin once pointed out, how can something that we've been doing for less than 200 years irrevocably screw up the earth worse than anything that's happened to it in the past 4,000,000,000 years it's existed?

That being said, I don't think we should do nothing about pollution and waste. To just ignore it would just be a long, drawn-out process of shooting ourselves in the foot. Of course we need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, of course we need to find more efficient ways to deal with waste, and of course we need to make sure we don't cut down every forest left on the planet. Nobody is arguing all of those things are fine and dandy as they are and could never come back to haunt us someday.

What they argue is that we don't need to flip everything upside down this very moment to deal with those problems. We need to let the improving technology run its course and work society into a position to where it is ready for those things when they arrive [sub](and when the oil companies decide they can't hold it back any longer).[/sub]

At this point, the notion of global warming feels like little more than a fad to me. It's worn out. It's just a buzz word, like "abortion" or "gay rights." I think if you want to convince people to be more green, you should stop beating them over the head with videos of stranded polar bears trying to swim for the shore 10,000 miles away, and present the problem as a local issue. You know, on a more human level. Show the long-term affects pollution can have on people and where they live.
As indicated, I'm hardly an eco-warrior. But I do believe that we should be doing more than we are now.

Things like Hybrid cars are barely a step up from what we are doing now. It's still old-tech, just used in new ways. Science needs to spend more time actually doing cutting-edge research than worrying about what looks good at this very moment.

As I said earlier, what we need is not a stop-gap measure to make it appear as if we're doing the right thing, but a massive shift in our fundamental beliefs and habits. It's happened numerous times over the course of Human history, why can't it happen again?
 
Jul 13, 2010
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Rosetta said:
uro vii said:
Rosetta said:
Yes, because as we all know, as the heat increases, melting the ice caps, MORE ice will form.

Yes, the heat that melted the polar caps will allow more ice to form. Indeed. Ice thrives during a global shift towards heat.

Hell, it's easy to show! What you do is put some ice in a cup, set it in the sun and wait for the ice to melt. What will happen? The cup will freeze!

Bahahahahahaha.
Right, so what you're saying is because you can't understand a basic concept it must it must be wrong? This is the science, and I seem to remember you being the one who said that the science was right.
Omg. My sides hurt. Stop, please.

You think... making the temp. hotter will cause more ice to form... because the other ice melted and lowered the sea temp. that was being heated by the atmosphere... that melted two continents...

Epic. Pure epic.
Ironic really, that you are now arguing from the point baseless opinions and ignorance when you where advocating science a few minutes ago. And yes, when the belts stop bringing hot water from the equator then the poles will cool down more than enough to stop melting. Enough for much of the polar water to completely freeze actually. The equator will not suffer an Ice age, it will remain hot.
 

Razhem

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TheRealCJ said:
Okay, so first of all: I think global warming is absolutely happening. But I also respect those who have a strong opinion contrary to mine (Well, those who aren't arses about it anyway).

But my question is thus: You may not believe it's truly happening, but why are you so against preventative measures to stop it happening in the future? Surely you'd agree that to stop it from happening 100 years from now, which is entirely plausible, there should be some preventative measures taken now.

I've got people here in Australia, prominent people, people in Government, saying things along the lines of "Global Warming has not been proven as fact, so just keep right on doing exactly what you're doing now, because it's not causing immediate and noticeable damage."

That seems unnecessarily reckless to me. After all, doesn't the old idiom read "A stitch in time saves nine"?
I'm a skeptik, I believer we do have some influence, but in the global scale it is barely noticeable. Remember that a single volcano eruption causes a hell of a lot more chaos that we can cause in years.

On the other hand I do agree being stagnant dicks and ignoring all the other potential energy sources available and being discovered is pure idiocy. I'm a firm believer in nuclear fusion when it is finally workable and in it's implementation. I am also a firm supporter of wave energy and nuclear fission energy to start closing petrol stations and other carbon based installations, with nuclear fission energy being substituted with fusion the moment it actually works.

The thing is though, everything is a business, being green is also a business. It's been shown that hybrids do jackshit about controlling gasoline consumption yet people gobble it up and it is heavily lobbied for, because car companies are paying for that PR from the left wing political sectors (the same way the right wing centres in other aspects that have usually been centred on them). The whole healthy food is an industry, no matter how wholesome their labels may look like and there are businesses centred on renewable energies (not a bad thing by itself of course, but when energy sources that are mostly sort of half assed in efficiency get a free pass cause they are "eco-friendly" I start getting slightly annoyed). Also, another one is corn based biofuels which cause a shit ton of damage (require heavy amounts of water to grow the crops and is the equivalent of throwing your food to a furnace) yet people actually believe they are helping the planet with them. This are the sort of proposed solutions that rile me up since they clearly have the best of intentions, but have not been thought through enough (you can make biofuels work, but not like that).

It is also used as a huge excuse to keep countries in development process down. To put it bluntly, the ozone emission limits of the US (When they bother to respect them) or other first world countries are a shit ton higher than the ones you are allowed to have if you are in development process and well, they are enforced a lot more heavily on the developing countries, meaning that unless they blow stupid amounts of resources they don't have on something new and "ecofriendly", their maximum industrial potential is truncated from the get go, and I'm preeeeetty sure it's not a coincidence.

Basically, I'm all for applying preventive or new methods to get our energy flow going that are more friendly to the environment, but only when they actually fucking work and are not used as an excuse to bumrape developing countries.
 

TheRealCJ

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Rosetta said:
TheRealCJ said:
Rosetta said:
TheRealCJ said:
Rosetta said:
TheRealCJ said:
Okay, you can sod right off.
Maturity at its finest.
You're right, I should have just laughed maniacally and completely ignored what the poster I was replying to was trying to explain.

Much more mature.
Let me check something... Nope. Nowhere did I say I was mature; I simply said your post was immature.

Try again?
Uh, no, I don't think I will. Because I still want you to go away and leave the adults to talk.
Again! Such astounding maturity; implying I'm a child. Bravo.
You're certainly acting like one, what with your stupid typed laughter and constant appeal-to-ridicule.
 

Zero=Interrupt

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Nov 9, 2009
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Discussing Global Warming is the same as discussing religion. There are people who absolutely believe in it, and there are people who believe it's absolutely, positively a hoax. Neither is going to convince the other side otherwise.

That said, the Earth warms and cools in cycles. It has been doing this for millions of years without mankind being present on it. We know this from geologic samples taken from substrata around the globe.

Global warming is a hoax. It has been proven so with the concocted study data released in the emails from the the UK. The results of the original studies were skewed by them taking a wide sample of data, and then throwing everything that didn't agree with their theory. It has been pushed and pushed by the mainstream media until everyone believes it as true, when all it is is some sham to sell electric cars and "green" technology, none of which works. Moreover, it's being used by big government types to get into your life by telling you what to eat, drink, drive, power your house with, and which lightbulbs you can screw in. For all of you people who believe in having the freedom to do what you want, when you want, wake up, because this is what's going on.

Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to get away from fossil fuels and having a clean environment. Everyone like things to be clean and tidy, me included. However, running around like Chicken Little screaming that the sky is falling solves nothing, and neither does giving the government more power in the name of rampant environmentalism, which is what the whole Global Warming fiasco is.
 

Tharwen

Ep. VI: Return of the turret
May 7, 2009
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Global Warming is not an issue that we can realistically affect (in either direction), but pollution is. Not polluting the environment is a good thing, and I suspect the whole global warming thing may have been encouraged by various governments to try to work against that problem.
 

Gildan Bladeborn

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Go read articles like say... this one from the Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html], which delve into the myriad ways that environmental alarmists misconstrue, stretch, or outright ignore facts to push their own agenda (in this particular example, things Al Gore has said).

And then take a gander at a few speeches by the late Michael Crichton [http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/crichton_3.pdf], where he quite rightly points out that the science isn't there to support the hysteria about "Global Warming" when there are far more pressing and immediate humanitarian crises to worry about (his speech "The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming" starts at page 20 and is especially relevant).

The "accepted notion" that Global Warming is a real thing that is happening and it is definitely our fault and only drastic action taken right now can avert it oh noes, the thing about that is that there isn't and never has been any conclusive proof. No, what we have is "the broad consensus of climate scientists".

[HEADING=3]Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.[/HEADING]​

The work of science has nothing to do with consensus, that's the arena of politicians and pundits - science cares only for reproducible results, and those are precisely what the "broad consensus" of climate scientists who have convinced the world that Global Warming is fact can not deliver.

Should we take measures to reduce air pollution? Certainly, but not at the cost of crippling the global economy to achieve emission standards that may objectively have no impact on "reducing" the impact of a trend that we also cannot prove is even happening (Global Warming) - we should be doing that because we want to improve air quality, and it should be a result of innovation over time. This artificial sense of urgency that would have us bring our nations to financial ruin to "avert the crisis" is extremely short-sighted and arrogant; anyone who insists we can accurately predict the future is lying, or extremely ignorant.
 

Lilani

Sometimes known as CaitieLou
May 27, 2009
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TheRealCJ said:
As indicated, I'm hardly an eco-warrior. But I do believe that we should be doing more than we are now.

Things like Hybrid cars are barely a step up from what we are doing now. It's still old-tech, just used in new ways. Science needs to spend more time actually doing cutting-edge research than worrying about what looks good at this very moment.

As I said earlier, what we need is not a stop-gap measure to make it appear as if we're doing the right thing, but a massive shift in our fundamental beliefs and habits. It's happened numerous times over the course of Human history, why can't it happen again?
And I agree, we do need to do more, and I think that shift is already occurring. Those who were pretty moderate about the environment (like me) are taking those little steps, and as the old generation falls away and we have our kids it will permeate society that much more.

What people are the most worried about is that the changeover will negatively affect them. That it will hinder what they do now, whether personally, financially, or both. Some people like their big trucks, and MILLIONS of people rely on oil for their livelihood, and for many it's been that way for generations. The thought of oil being gone in the near future scares the shit out of them, and the the fact that there are people out there who are shouting and demanding that it be gone even sooner scares them even more.

What we really need is for people to be for the benefits of both sides, not just against the negatives of one side. Both sides need to understand that neither is completely wrong, and that both will have to give in order to receive. They're going to have to open up to the possibility of settling the dispute rather than "winning" it.
 

ryo02

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I can end this argument right now you just have to ask yourself whats the worst that could happen if your wrong but we followed your advice. (both sides of the arguement)

if those who think its real are wrong
the worst is we wasted some money on things we should be doing anyway.

-------------------------------

if the ones who think it isnt real are wrong

flooding disasters many people and animals dead. animal species are allready dying out just look up the plight of pollinating insects needed for many of our food crops our live stock wont be immune either.
hell if things heat up enough the very air we breath and much of the ground we walk on is at risk.

yknow the whole rivers of blood kinda shit.
 
Jul 13, 2010
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Rosetta said:
uro vii said:
Rosetta said:
uro vii said:
Rosetta said:
Yes, because as we all know, as the heat increases, melting the ice caps, MORE ice will form.

Yes, the heat that melted the polar caps will allow more ice to form. Indeed. Ice thrives during a global shift towards heat.

Hell, it's easy to show! What you do is put some ice in a cup, set it in the sun and wait for the ice to melt. What will happen? The cup will freeze!

Bahahahahahaha.
Right, so what you're saying is because you can't understand a basic concept it must it must be wrong? This is the science, and I seem to remember you being the one who said that the science was right.
Omg. My sides hurt. Stop, please.

You think... making the temp. hotter will cause more ice to form... because the other ice melted and lowered the sea temp. that was being heated by the atmosphere... that melted two continents...

Epic. Pure epic.
Ironic really, that you are now arguing from the point baseless opinions and ignorance when you where advocating science a few minutes ago. And yes, when the belts stop bringing hot water from the equator then the poles will cool down more than enough to stop melting. Enough for much of the polar water to completely freeze actually. The equator will not suffer an Ice age, it will remain hot.
Mmmmm, and the heat that melted two massive continents wouldn't warm the water around them at all. Nope.
Yes, because it is not anywhere near hot enough without also having the heat brought up from the Oceanic belts. You do realise that you given no sources, no info, no science to base what you say? Your's is a pure argument of ignorance. You seem to be under the blatantly wrong impression that your presumptions are more accurate then multiple scientific studies.