A Question for all you Global Warming skeptics

[Therumancer]

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"?

EDIT: I feel that people are taking "global warming" point slightly too literally. I'm also talking about pollution in general. But that doesn't have as many obsessive back-and-forthers.

There is more to it than just skepticism. It's not entirely clear that global warming is man made, or that if it is, that it's a bad thing.

To put things into perspective Larry Niven wrote a book called "Fallen Angels" which was a work of science fiction intended to illustrate some fairly legitimate points about the entire issue which he outlined in his afterwards aside from the story.

The basic idea is that the world is over due for another ice age. There are some fairly compelling arguements about how the burning of fossil fuels, and those greenhouse gasses might be all that is maintaining life on planet earth by keeping the temperature up. Taking action to cut the emissions could wind up doing even more catastrophic damage than the doomsday scenarios predicted from extreme global warming.

The point being that there are a lot of theories on all sides of this, all of which are pretty credible even if everyone on all sides wants to debunk each other, and right now the global warming thing is the most popular theory for the moment, due to the involvement of left wing icons like Al Gore.

For all we know, global warming could be entirely natural as well, and there are a lot of people that hold to that attitude as well.


The point is that the people pushing the global warming thing right now, generally want radical action to be taken, when I don't think we actually understand enough about the situation overall to make any extreme desicians. We're talking about a situation where we do have some time, so before we start hitting the panic button, we need to analyze things a bit more, because we could wind up doing more harm than good by messing with this.

We cut down on the emissions which have been building up all this time, and the ice age theory is correct, the odds of being able to build them up again to halt the process are going to be minimal, especially given the amount of fossil fuels we expended to get to
this point to begin with.

To be entirely honest given how messed up reality tends to be, I imagine in the end we're going to wind up with a situation where we're going to need to engage in a pretty delicate balancing act.

 

[cantgetaname]

Oh and another note:
YES the world has been through temperature highs and lows naturally, but that has NOT BEEN BECAUSE OF RISING CO2. What we're going through now IS.

 

[AxWeildingPsychopath]

I don't think tht it is global warming so much as it is the earth just fixing itself. For instance whenever a cyclone occurs the CO2 in the air around tht area has been cleaned. Also whenever theres a drought for say, three years, then next wet season, it absolutely pisses down, sometimes all the way through the supposed dry season.

The earth will fix itself in time, but rly only if we let it.

 

[bob1052]

So what you are saying is basically:

"even if you don't believe it is happening, don't you believe we should be making changes to stop it from happening"

 

[Harlief]

It's not that they're taking the term "Global Warming" too literally, people don't take it literally enough. The total global temperature is rising, but in many isolated places, the temperature is dropping. This seems to be the basis for a lot of anecdotal proof that Global Warming is a vast conspiracy concocted by the illuminati or aliens or reptilian shapeshifters or whatever.

 

[Heronblade]

I agree with you on most of this, especially the thing about oil, but if we can get at least our cars onto something other than oil, that at least saves the oil for all the other things that need it until we find a replacement for oil/for the things that need oil. I don't know the statistics, but I'm betting on that transportation uses most of the oil.

All right then, we get cars onto something other than oil. That is actually a good plan, and I personally endorse it. But it is also incomplete, let me explain.

At the time being, we have two good options to use as an alternative fuel in our vehicles. Straight electric power, and hydrogen power. Electric power is fairly self explanatory. Hydrogen, when it burns, forms water, not carbon gases. However in order to make enough hydrogen to do this, we need to use a significant amount of electricity at an electrolysis plant.

Whichever you choose, you have successfully eliminated greenhouse gases emitted directly by our cars. HOWEVER, you have also increased power grid consumption by a proportional amount. X fewer gallons burned in the gas tank means Y more pounds of coal burned in the power plant. Without also finding an alternate energy source for electrical production, doing so for our vehicles is almost meaningless. Nuclear power plants just might be our only hope for efficiently eliminating this problem, but recent events suggest that may now be a political impossibility.

Ya, but also, the power efficiency in that coal power plant is probably 1000% efficiency more then in my car. Because they WANT all the power they can get out of the coal, where as cars need gas, and if we need more gas, we need to BUY more gas, see where I'm going here?

Centralizing power output like that is indeed more efficient, by about 25%. As for conspiracies to get more money, "they" can easily increase the base cost for electrical bills to compensate. The question of it being more efficient is not an issue. The problem is that the upfront cost to switch over to electrical or hydrogen systems would offset any profits made for a long period. Ultimately, companies are in business to make money, and there is a difference between squeezing every penny out of people and avoiding bankruptcy.

It's not that they're taking the term "Global Warming" too literally, people don't take it literally enough. The total global temperature is rising, but in many isolated places, the temperature is dropping. This seems to be the basis for a lot of anecdotal proof that Global Warming is a vast conspiracy concocted by the illuminati or aliens or reptilian shapeshifters or whatever.

Incorrect, in terms of what is going on with average global temperature right now that is.

Spoiler

http://www.longrangeweather.com/images/GTEMPS.gif

As you can see, current average global temperatures are going down again, after never having hit the highest record for the past few millenia. Currently, the concern is not extreme temperatures, but the fact that the interval between hot and cold phases seems to be getting shorter.

 

[Sylocat]

*sigh*

Climate change deniers are not "skeptics."

Skeptics are people who question assumptions, who try to avoid arriving at predetermined conclusions. Skeptics are people who make an effort to investigate whether the position they hold is the correct one.

Climate change denialists do not question their own assumptions, they maintain a practically-religious devotion to their position that enables them to shrug off proven facts. They regurgitate the same old tired arguments no matter how many times they are refuted, ignoring all scientific evidence in order to delude themselves that their predetermined notion is correct all along. That is not "skepticism," that is fanaticism.

It's embarrassing. They're almost as bad as Creationists (or Scientologists), and their beliefs are almost as preposterous (emphasis on "almost," but still...).

 

[dWintermut3]

I think it's undoubtedly the case that climate change (NOT global warming, "warming" is a gross oversimplification") is happening.

What I dispute is the hubris that insists that brief mayfly creatures like humans can cause climate change when a single volcanic eruption emits more greenhouse gas than all of Los Angeles does in two years.

And yes prevention is better than trying to fix things after-the-fact but it's a question of cost. In the middle of a global economic meltdown putting strictures on businesses is irresponsible. being homeless is a lot more dangerous than being exposed to .5* warmer temperatures.

And remember, even the most dire estimates of climate change say warming is less than one degree right now.

 

[angry_flashlight]

I think the Lord and Master highlights my issue with Climate Change:
The actual issue of caring about the environment has been super-ceded by politics, holier-than-thou attitudes and human greed, pushing the actual point of the movement away from what it's original intention (taking care of the Earth/environment). The human-caused Global Warming conclusion has been utilized by governments and activists groups (who may or may not have ulterior motives for their proposed "improvements") to scare and guilt the public into doing exactly what they want. If you don't support a particular cause or change, then "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT!!11!!1!!ONE!!!". This kind of name calling prevents open, factual discussion from occurring in the public eye. With the current state of affairs, you must support their changes or become a pariah of society by "not caring about the environment", even if you've figured out that the proposed changes would actually be worse than what they claim is going on right now, or simply benefit only the rich and powerful. Right now you have to obey or else be ostracized, which only benefits those doing the preaching, not the whole society.

What we should do is stop playing the blame game like small children and decide what we are going to do that would most benefit us without letting other areas of life (politics, profit, etc.) affect our decisions. The current solutions are unfeasible and/or counterproductive in large scale (i.e. global) situations. We must also take into account how any proposed changes/restructurings affect the poorest of the poor, not just us the rich ones who can afford the nice shiny solar panels/whatever. While we may feel good that we have a "zero carbon footprint", I'm pretty sure Mr. ILiveInAMudHutAndAmVeryVeryHungry doesn't if those restrictions prevent him from feeding his family or making a living.

 

[cantgetaname]

I think it's undoubtedly the case that climate change (NOT global warming, "warming" is a gross oversimplification") is happening.

What I dispute is the hubris that insists that brief mayfly creatures like humans can cause climate change when a single volcanic eruption emits more greenhouse gas than all of Los Angeles does in two years.

And yes prevention is better than trying to fix things after-the-fact but it's a question of cost. In the middle of a global economic meltdown putting strictures on businesses is irresponsible. being homeless is a lot more dangerous than being exposed to .5* warmer temperatures.

And remember, even the most dire estimates of climate change say warming is less than one degree right now.

Again the volcano thing, please refer to my earlier post for links. But NO people put out more CO2 then volcanoes every year. Just google it. BUT they MAY put out more Greenhouse gases JUST FOR THE FACT that water vapor is a greenhouse gas (I don't know the numbers on how much water they put out.) But water vapor comes down A LOT quicker then CO2. (Precipitation)

 

[Ritter315]

"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." - The reason for that for most people is the fact that a LOT of quote "global warming prevention" ideas are HORRIBLE and have long-term unseen concequences for economies, ecosystems, and the earth itself. Also, the idea of global warming isnt even a recent idea. Global warming is a natural part of the earths lifecycle and has been for as long as theres BEEN an earth. There's alos global cooling, like there was in the 1920s and people were thinking of melting the polar ice caps just like some people nowadays want to put sulfer in the air to reduce the temp.
Economic ideas like limiting production, energy consumption etc. are also doing harm to some of the poorest in society. People hate it when a coal power plant opens up, even if it allows people to stop using dirtier fuel sources in their own homes, or if cars arent going to be energy efficent even if they are very cheap (Like the Ta-ta Nano in India)
Ultimately, people who argue for these envirnmental laws often only care about the end and dont even LOOK at the means and that doesnt even guarentee that the ends are going to be met. In many cases envirnment group's proposals would actually lead to a greater destruction of th envirnment in the future.
Humans are BARELY making an impact, AT ALL. Air pollution is the clostest thing you can argue, but our water is cleaner than ever, our forests are bigger than ever, and people are living longer than ever. So when people say that we should keep on doing exactly what we should keep doing, I an see why they think its for the best.

 

[cantgetaname]

"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." - The reason for that for most people is the fact that a LOT of quote "global warming prevention" ideas are HORRIBLE and have long-term unseen concequences for economies, ecosystems, and the earth itself. Also, the idea of global warming isnt even a recent idea. Global warming is a natural part of the earths lifecycle and has been for as long as theres BEEN an earth. There's alos global cooling, like there was in the 1920s and people were thinking of melting the polar ice caps just like some people nowadays want to put sulfer in the air to reduce the temp.
Economic ideas like limiting production, energy consumption etc. are also doing harm to some of the poorest in society. People hate it when a coal power plant opens up, even if it allows people to stop using dirtier fuel sources in their own homes, or if cars arent going to be energy efficent even if they are very cheap (Like the Ta-ta Nano in India)
Ultimately, people who argue for these envirnmental laws often only care about the end and dont even LOOK at the means and that doesnt even guarentee that the ends are going to be met. In many cases envirnment group's proposals would actually lead to a greater destruction of th envirnment in the future.
Humans are BARELY making an impact, AT ALL. Air pollution is the clostest thing you can argue, but our water is cleaner than ever, our forests are bigger than ever, and people are living longer than ever. So when people say that we should keep on doing exactly what we should keep doing, I an see why they think its for the best.

"Our water is cleaner then ever, our forests are bigger" WHAT?!

 

[thiosk]

This thread has generally run its course, but I'll just pop in to say:

There is no point of debate in the general public, as the vast majority of the debaters do not understand the fundamentals of the concept.

The skeptics generally ignore any given evidence and continue to tout the same lines. They tend not to know what sunspots are, but boy, theres this blog that talks about maunder minima!

The proponents (henceforth, the "believers") will likewise tend to reject contrary evidence with claims that the evidence was produced with oil money.

Neither party really knows anything except what is spoon fed to them by their own biased political parties. Its hilarious when the skeptics come in spouting off about their god given right to drive SUVs and punch hippies in the face, and don't forget its just a plot to introduce the Amero and dissolve the USA. Its also bizzare when the believers come up scream at the top of their lungs, lumping acid rain, global warming, holey ozone, and dying owls in the same ranty sentence.

The funniest part of it all is that we WILL transition to a primarily solar-based economy, not because of global warming, but because it will eventually be cheaper per kilowatt hour than fossil fuels.

And I'm actually putting my money where my mouth is.

 

[radioactive lemur]

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"?

EDIT: I feel that people are taking "global warming" point slightly too literally. I'm also talking about pollution in general. But that doesn't have as many obsessive back-and-forthers.

We are against it because those "preventative measures" are all forms of subtly veiled communism creeping into a once great Western society. Government control of industry, more taxes on unnecessary thing like "carbon" and shit like that. We're talking stuff that hurts literally everyone in society from the poor to the rich (except the leftwing elitist bureaucrats and professors paid million dollar grants to produce the results they are told to produce. It's a CONVENIENT lie for those bastards). Look at it this way, say you may or may not have a disease. You feel fine and all tests come back inconclusive. Would you be willing to take a daily 12 gauge needle in your scrotum as a "preventative measure"? I bet you wouldn't but that's what you're asking society to do.

 

[cantgetaname]

This thread has generally run its course, but I'll just pop in to say:

There is no point of debate in the general public, as the vast majority of the debaters do not understand the fundamentals of the concept.

The skeptics generally ignore any given evidence and continue to tout the same lines. They tend not to know what sunspots are, but boy, theres this blog that talks about maunder minima!

The proponents (henceforth, the "believers") will likewise tend to reject contrary evidence with claims that the evidence was produced with oil money.

Neither party really knows anything except what is spoon fed to them by their own biased political parties. Its hilarious when the skeptics come in spouting off about their god given right to drive SUVs and punch hippies in the face, and don't forget its just a plot to introduce the Amero and dissolve the USA. Its also bizzare when the believers come up scream at the top of their lungs, lumping acid rain, global warming, holey ozone, and dying owls in the same ranty sentence.

The funniest part of it all is that we WILL transition to a primarily solar-based economy, not because of global warming, but because it will eventually be cheaper per kilowatt hour than fossil fuels.

And I'm actually putting my money where my mouth is.

Ya, you win. I totally agree with you. You really can't change anyone's mind.
/quit thread
(and I'm serious, not being sarcastic here)

 

[Heronblade]

We are against it because those "preventative measures" are all forms of subtly veiled communism creeping into a once great Western society. Government control of industry, more taxes on unnecessary thing like "carbon" and shit like that. We're talking stuff that hurts literally everyone in society from the poor to the rich (except the leftwing elitist bureaucrats and professors paid million dollar grants to produce the results they are told to produce. It's a CONVENIENT lie for those bastards). Look at it this way, say you may or may not have a disease. You feel fine and all tests come back inconclusive. Would you be willing to take a daily 12 gauge needle in your scrotum as a "preventative measure"? I bet you wouldn't but that's what you're asking society to do.

This is what I get for being just slightly on the more skeptical side of life. Thanks to me not swallowing what the media says without question and choosing to form my own opinions, I get lumped in with the crazies like this guy. What the hell is up with Republicans and seeing communism everywhere anyways?

 

[sneakypenguin]

It's just that many of the solutions are economically inefficient, or only achieve sinking quality of life.

I'll take the time to point out in this thread that that statement is utter fucking shit. Believe it not, becoming more environmentally sustainable goes hand in hand with creating a better, more enjoyable, more equitable society. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of people or groups that look at these things as an overall paradigm shift. Essentially, steps taken to solve climate change (and air pollution in general, and water pollution, and habitat destruction, and energy inefficiency) are a means towards the same end as steps taken to solve world hunger, poverty and general economic inequality, unhealthy and unfulfilling lifestyles, and autocracy. There's huge amounts of material on this; it's a total myth that we'll have to go back to the dark ages to combat global warming and pollution in general.

If it was economically efficient then it would already be in place(hence why green products succeed because people get extra utility and their willingness to pay exceeds non green products). No one says we'd have to go back to the dark ages, its just driving anything other than gas or diesel powered cars or trucks isn't practical, and solar or wind power still has the excess capacity problem, and clean engergy like dams or tidal power is only doable in select places. If its not economically optimal then it is a decrease in quality of life. Hardly a fucking shit statement as you so eloquently said.

 

[Boom129]

I think this winter in the US is a pretty good sign that at least SOMETHING is wrong with the climate

 

[Singularly Datarific]

GLoBAL warming? No.
Climate Change? Heck yes, the climate is always changing- the idea that this planet will never change any of it's systems is an idiotic one.
(Insistent terminology on my part)
Anyways, what I believe is that consumer based "green" products are bogus. There is a moral meter in our minds that believes that if we do something nice, we are allowed to be mean a little bit more as offset, so if you're buying a prius, you drive twice as much cos you feel good about your driving, or you become preachy (good lord).
If you want to prevent it, it takes more than buying swirly light bulbs, you gotta rethink your laws of give and take.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

*Snip*

Now to say that global warming isn't real or hasn't been proven is stupid.

Now saying that we are causing it is a different matter.

Global warming exists, so does global cooling. The planet goes through natural phases of warming and cooling.

From all that I have read and listened to, I don't believe we are having a significant effect, not enough of an effect that we have that we have to have solutions in the next 100 or more years. Though if we work calmly and steadily, instead of setting us back by restricting certain fuel sources like coal and oil.

Spoiler: Spoilered because this is a really long explanation, but it is the best solution to speed the research of clean energies.

It is because of stupid restrictions that the US can't break it's dependance on foreign oil. We shouldn't just be looking into researching cleaner fuels, we should also be using the unclean resources as a way of breaking our dependance on foreign oil.

I know you said you are in Australia, but since I'm not I am looking at it from the perspective of my country.

Now the last time I got gas last week it was $3.99 a gallon. I haven't looked lately, but I'm willing to bet it is now over $4.00 a gallon now. Since three weeks ago it was $3.84, and then in one week it when up 14 cents to $3.99.

Now our oh so wonderful President Obama over here, he has the stupidity to attack the coal industry and say that we have to put extra charges on it since it is dirty and we have to stop using it.

He's moronic thinking is cutting the US off from its quickest solution to get off foreign oil.

The solution is using our vast amounts of coal. We take our coal and turn it into synthetic oil, we then turn that oil into gasoline. Now when I heard about this it was just before Obama was elected. Then it was projected that if we did this, a barrel of our synthetic oil would cost around $55, that is a little less then half of what regular oil cost now.

If we turned that into gas and stations hear sold it at a reasonable profit from what the synthetic oil prices a barrel would be at, here we would be paying half less of what we are paying now for gas.

One might ask, "why would we want to do that, it would make gas cheaper and people would be willing to use more?" Well, right now, one of the reasons oil prices get higher is because the foreign holders raise prices for several reasons, one of those reasons is that when they see new clean energies threatening their business, they raise prices as a penalty. This harms the economy because it makes people spend less because they have to save that money for when they are at the pump. This makes people less willing to try and innovate in clean energies and fuel sources, because such innovations are going to take many many years, and they aren't sure if the country can stand such high gas prices for more than a decade.

Foreign oil prices will raise quickly as well if they catch wind that the US is cutting its dependance by creating its on cheap oil source. But, since we already have the tools at hand to quickly make our synthetic oil and make it into gas, it wouldn't take more than a couple years to cut our foreign oil dependance completely. The country can survive higher foreign oil prices for that long.

When our dependance is cut, clean energies and fuel research can work at a faster pace without fear of gas prices going up because of the foreign oil companies raising the barrel price. But since Obama and people of his mindset can't think clearly, US clean energies research will most likely be slowed and set back by at least a decade.

If we did do the synthetic oil plan, since we have tons and tons of coal for it, I'm sure we would have enough cheap oil that we could and would share it with other countries like Australia. It would go a long way in boosting your country's research as well.

There you have it, problems solved.