So..Is Global Warming Real? Or not?

[Fireflies]

Global warming. as portrayed by the media, is a marketing farce to create a new "green" market for... well generating money. it's a cash grab that plays off peoples fear and Eco- awareness. Being eco-friendly is a Good thing, but at the same time it's being twisted with fear to squeeze us for more tax dollars.

Climate Change does occur, and always has, always will. with or without humans.

Couldn't have said it better myself that's it exactly

 

[hyperion33]

Yes.

Global warming is real, and humans ARE affecting it. YES, the Earth does have heating and cooling stages, but the Earth is heating up faster than normal. 2-3 degrees in 500, 1000 years? Sure. 2 degrees in about 100? No way that's natural.

However, I must agree that the media is misinterpreting what's going on. They're using it for scams. Many environmentally friendly products, or "green" products, are simply dyed green, often with a chemical that is, ironically, bad for the environment.

There are a lot of things that actually are better for the environment, like LED bulbs: they use much less electricity, they're cheaper in the long term, they're brighter, and they don't get hot at all. Incandescent? Dim, use a lot of electricity, expensive over the long term. Fluorescent? Cheaper, but have mercury. Still pretty dim compared to LED.

 

[WillieNelson]

There is no global warming, Chuck Norris was cold so he turned the sun up.

 

[Firebrand]

Well, by global warming do you mean the earth warming over time, like Hyperion was saying, or the fact that humans are directly responsible for it?
Because the earth does have heating and cooling phases. The Ice Age, for example, was a cooling phase, and right now it is in a warming phase. That much at least is true. However, the heart of the debate is whether or not we as a species have contributed to it.
Scientific data says that we have, but not as much as it is made out to be. We are influencing it, but Al Gore and his contemporaries have been blowing it out of proportion.
Then again, I do feel the need to mention... A temperature increase of just two degrees could have drastic and far-reaching effects on the world.

 

[Squirel Princess]

I have another thing to say. Global warming isn't just warming in the summer. It's cooling in the winter. Global warming is just one part of the story. It should really be called Extreme Weather Change, because it snows more and is on average colder in the winter now.

thats why it was 54 degrees F just a few days ago. In. The. Middle. Of. Winter. and we havent gotten snow til after cmas... when last year it snowed in october

 

[Liberty Defender]

I believe global warming is a myth. Climate change is a completely natural phenomenon. Humans are not the cause of it.

 

[AmbipomMaster]

Al Gore tried to tell everybody the Earth is slowly heating up and it won't stop. What he failed to mention is that the Earth goes through a series of Heating and Cooling. An article in Canada showed that ice melted through and they found an ancient cave inhabited millions of years ago. If the ice is just now melting, how did those people make that cave? How else did the Ice Age start? The Earth constantly heats and cools itself, and scientists refuse to believe it.

 

[Liberty Defender]

Al Gore tried to tell everybody the Earth is slowly heating up and it won't stop. What he failed to mention is that the Earth goes through a series of Heating and Cooling. An article in Canada showed that ice melted through and they found an ancient cave inhabited millions of years ago. If the ice is just now melting, how did those people make that cave? How else did the Ice Age start? The Earth constantly heats and cools itself, and scientists refuse to believe it.

The Earth is actually in an ice age right now. Technically, whenever there are massive ice sheets on the surface, it is an ice age. We've been in the current ice age for a long time, and it has to end eventually.

 

[kaiser soze]

Sorry for mini-modding, but this is a bumped dead thread...

 

[GhostAnime]

Al Gore tried to tell everybody the Earth is slowly heating up and it won't stop. What he failed to mention is that the Earth goes through a series of Heating and Cooling. An article in Canada showed that ice melted through and they found an ancient cave inhabited millions of years ago. If the ice is just now melting, how did those people make that cave? How else did the Ice Age start? The Earth constantly heats and cools itself, and scientists refuse to believe it.

[FONT=Times New Roman,Georgia,Times][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Geneva,Helvetica,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]When they look at this kind of data they say that the average global temperature has most likely never been this high for at least 1000 years and the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gas CO2 has not been this high for 420 000 years and likely never this high over 20 million years. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Geneva,Helvetica,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]For those who like to read graphs, the 'all within variation' notion is countered in part upon viewing the following IPCC graph. You'll note that there was a slight downward trend until the early 1900's at which point there was a massive upswing in average global temperature. The present level (in red) is higher than the 95% error or uncertainty range depicted in grey. This error is larger prior to the thermometer data in red at which point it becomes much less broad. The rate of average temperature increase in the last century is unprecedented in the past 1000 years.[/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[AmbipomMaster]

But yet, when you look at year's hottest average temperatures, last time I checked it was still in the 1910's

 

[GhostAnime]

Did you not read the post? Look thousands of years back. Not just a century.

 

[Bill Nye the Sneasel Guy]

So the world is warmer, some of the time, in some places, and colder in some other places for some of the time. This is horrifying beyond words.

 

[Liberty Defender]

Did you not read the post? Look thousands of years back. Not just a century.

Given that the causes of what people claim is man-made global warming started during the Industrial Revolution, a look bad into the late 19th and early 20th centuries is quite appropriate.

 

[chuboy]

So the world is warmer, some of the time, in some places, and colder in some other places for some of the time. This is horrifying beyond words.

It is. A few extra degrees might not mean much in your living room but it means a hell of a lot to the whole world. It doesn't need to be said that the Earth exists in a sensitive dynamic equilibrium and if you shift something everything else has to adjust.

A few degrees warmer means, as an example, oceans will a) heat up, causing havoc to sensitive ecosystems like coral reefs, and b) release more dissolved carbon into the atmosphere, affecting the acidity of the oceans (ecosystems affected again) and further contributing to global warming. (Scientists also speculate that if frozen methane trapped at the ocean floor were ever to melt and escape into the atmosphere, the results would disastrous; methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas.)

A few degrees also means there is more energy in the atmosphere to evaporate water. More evaporation = more precipitation.

I could go on but I think if you entertained the thought more than briefly you would come to your own conclusions.

Given that the causes of what people claim is man-made global warming started in during the Industrial Revolution, a look bad into the late 19th and early 20th centuries is quite appropriate.

No, you have to look back further to get an idea of the trend. The climate may have been warming anyway - you wouldn't know unless you looked back a thousand years or so and got a better idea of what was happening naturally.

 

[Bill Nye the Sneasel Guy]

A few degrees warmer means, as an example, oceans will a) heat up, causing havoc to sensitive ecosystems like coral reefs,

I don't know about you, but I don't live in a coral reef.

and b) release more dissolved carbon into the atmosphere, affecting the acidity of the oceans (ecosystems affected again)

Make up your mind. If the oceans are heating up and releasing the carbonic acid in them as carbon dioxide, that's making them less acidic. Here are the two I believe that you were thinking of, because this one doesn't make any sense:

That more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would result in a larger fraction being dissolved into the oceans, making it more acidic, simply from not being bound up in the coal, oil, etc.

or

Because gases aren't as soluble in warm water as they are in colder waters, more of the oxygen in the water will be released into the atmosphere, potentially choking countless fish that I still don't care in the slightest about.

and further contributing to global warming. (Scientists also speculate that if frozen methane trapped at the ocean floor were ever to melt and escape into the atmosphere, the results would disastrous; methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas.)

Global warming is called climate change now. Anyway, the methane isn't frozen at the bottom of the ocean; you're thinking of the methane predicted to exist under permafrost, such as Siberia, Antarctica, etc. Methane from the ocean comes from microorganisms that we have no control over, unless you want to pollute the oceans until they die. With the ocean business, it's happening anyway, and it's honestly a much bigger deal to be considering the huge herds of grazing animals that we have in terms of methane production.

A few degrees also means there is more energy in the atmosphere to evaporate water. More evaporation = more precipitation.

More degrees in some places, less in others... and you're really grossly oversimplifying the weather, there. The Sahara is a champ at evaporating water, but it never got the memo about the 'more precipitation' business, and could probably appreciate some of that. Some places would do better with more rain, some better with less. This doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I could go on but I think if you entertained the thought more than briefly you would come to your own conclusions

My conclusions; grumble, pay maybe more for power bills (maybe), continue not eating seafood. Life goes on, and we've survived through so much in so many places as humanity that it's honestly a joke to think that we'd be this badly affected by changing weather, especially considering all the modern technology we've had that our ancestors have lacked (and considering the hellholes some people have happily called home for centuries or millenia, such as freezing deserts with the only water around being poisoned with arsenic... we can probably deal with some more flooding.) It's not worth stopping the progress that's lifting millions into a brighter future.

 

[chuboy]

I don't know about you, but I don't live in a coral reef.

Regardless of whether you're genuinely this ignorant on the matter, or just being deliberately obtuse, I'm not sure whether it's worth my while elaborating. If it's the former, please, go and read the wikipedia page on biodiversity and educate yourself.

Make up your mind. If the oceans are heating up and releasing the carbonic acid in them as carbon dioxide, that's making them less acidic. Here are the two I believe that you were thinking of, because this one doesn't make any sense:

Yep that was a derp on my part, I was thinking faster than I typed.

potentially choking countless fish that I still don't care in the slightest about.

Again, if you don't know why you should care about them, you ought to leave the debate.

Anyway, the methane isn't frozen at the bottom of the ocean; you're thinking of the methane predicted to exist under permafrost, such as Siberia, Antarctica, etc.

Huh. I guess all those scientists studying methane clathrates off the coast of Mexico are wasting their time then.

I'll just leave this here.

In any case it doesn't matter, methane trapped under permafrost that melts as the climate warms will have the same effect as methane that escapes from oceanic clathrates. Oh and for the record, carbon in the methane trapped in ice far exceeds (by conservative estimate) the amount of carbon contained in all the other fossil fuels that we know of. But yeah, livestock. That's important too.

More degrees in some places, less in others... and you're really grossly oversimplifying the weather, there. The Sahara is a champ at evaporating water, but it never got the memo about the 'more precipitation' business, and could probably appreciate some of that. Some places would do better with more rain, some better with less. This doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I think you're being optimistic and probably equally simplistic about the effects of weather. A few degrees less or more here or there doesn't have to be a bad thing, but you have to understand that you will have no control over it. Too bad if it IS a bad thing though.

My conclusions; grumble, pay maybe more for power bills (maybe), continue not eating seafood. Life goes on, and we've survived through so much in so many places as humanity that it's honestly a joke to think that we'd be this badly affected by changing weather, especially considering all the modern technology we've had that our ancestors have lacked (and considering the hellholes some people have happily called home for centuries or millenia, such as freezing deserts with the only water around being poisoned with arsenic... we can probably deal with some more flooding.) It's not worth stopping the progress that's lifting millions into a brighter future.

You don't have to stop progress. That is a gross exaggeration. No one is telling anybody to go back to living in caves and hunting for food with spears and arrows.

If anything, we are encouraging progress by supplying a demand for environmentally-conscious engineering. You can say 'who cares' but that is a near-sighted view. Short time gain with long term pain, in general. Even if CO2 turned out not to be dangerous, the way we use fossil fuels at the moment is unsustainable.

As for coping with 'a little more rain', again you clearly are not thinking too hard about what you're saying. Did you hear about the flooding in Thailand that killed dozens of people? Well, you didn't know them so who cares about that, but what you might care about is the factories that were destroyed, driving up the price of all sorts of commodities from rice to hard drives that directly affect your wallet. Extreme weather events like the Thai flooding are predicted to become more frequent and one way or another that is going to affect the price you pay for your precious first-world goods.

Hey, you never know, it might even happen in Tennessee to a bunch of Americans that I don't care in the slightest about.

 

[Profesco]

Profesco used Hi Bump Kick!