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dballred
Ohmu
Registration Date: 04.24.06
Location: Oklahoma City - Seattle - Tokyo
Posts: 406 |
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Global warming, as presented by the usual gang of Marxists disguised as environmentalists, is a crock. Climate change does exist, it's natural, and it occurs so slowly that even tree lines can outrun the rising and falling ocean levels. At the peak of the last ice age, the ocean levels were over 100 meters lower that they are now and it's mathematically possible for them to rise another 60-70 meters. However, the southern half of Greenland is the only real candidate for thawing as its latitude indicates it being a remnant of a previous ice age.
The real way to distinguish the Marxists from those true environmentalists who just don't understand mathematics and the cosine effect of sunlight is the solutions they offer. Beware anyone who says you can transfer money from rich nations to poor nations and solve global warming.
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 08.01.2013, 10:34 AM |
    
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arren18
Administrator
Registration Date: 08.15.06
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 10669 |
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I agree with the earlier point about apportioning blame being pointless. It just distracts from the real issue at hand. I think global warming is a controversial topic for good reason - because there are definitely different ways to look at what's happening and explain why. I think dballred's post is an example of that blaming technique though. I don't know who these Marxist strawmen are supposed to be, or who has ever said that redistribution of wealth reduces global warming, but in any case, I feel like you're just avoiding thinking about solutions.
It's true that global warming happens naturally, but it's also true that even if it doesn't create a significant change in the levels of global warming, human action is having an adverse effect on the environment. And the thing is, these environmental issues don't damage the world at all - it's been through much worse before - but it does damage us. Even if these problems are largely natural events, we have to try our utmost to curb their effects and look at what problems we are causing, because we have to live here. So playing the blame game really is pointless, and we have to work together even if we don't agree on what exactly is happening.
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| 08.01.2013, 11:33 AM |
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Saddletank
Miyazaki's Best Friend
Registration Date: 09.28.06
Location: On your case
Posts: 10069 |
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quote:
Originally posted by dballred
Marxists disguised as environmentalists.
LOL, not your usual restrained self today then DB?
I'm no Marxist, I just think its unwise to sit and do nothing while climate change wipes out billions of humans. Wouldn't you agree?
The last time there was significant climate swing on earth, we were savages clothed in wolf-pelts and had just come out of Africa and were heading west across Europe and east across Asia. If we have a significant climate swing again now and do nothing about it we could end up back in the same place.
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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info
"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)
Post last edited by Saddletank on 08.01.2013, 02:02 PM.
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| 08.01.2013, 01:57 PM |
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Koda
Ohmu
Registration Date: 07.09.13
Location: England
Posts: 454 |
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It would get rid of Justin Bieber though haha, yeah I know but they said before even when one recycles, it literally has no effect.
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"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge
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| 08.01.2013, 02:05 PM |
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dballred
Ohmu
Registration Date: 04.24.06
Location: Oklahoma City - Seattle - Tokyo
Posts: 406 |
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There's nothing wrong at all with doing whatever you can do to limit your own production of Carbon Dioxide, but the measures the charlatans want, such as setting up "Carbon Taxes," "Cap and Trade," and establishing "CAFE Standards" with fines instead of outright bans is nothing more than stealing money and grabbing power with zero positive results.
What's really dangerous about human activity has nothing at all to do with CO2. It has to do with the REAL pollutants, such as toxic chemicals and radioactive waste. These pollutants can sever the food chain near the bottom, creating a cascading effect that can lead to the extinction of all higher forms of life.
As far as greenhouse gasses go, methane is a far greater "threat" (if you want to call it that) and the greatest "threat" is plain water vapor. To see what water vapor vice the lack of it does, look at places like Hawaii and compare them to places like the Sahara Desert. I'd rather live in Hawaii.
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| 08.01.2013, 02:15 PM |
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husky51
The Old Guy
Registration Date: 03.17.08
Location: Southern California
Posts: 12799 |
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| 08.01.2013, 02:22 PM |
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dballred
Ohmu
Registration Date: 04.24.06
Location: Oklahoma City - Seattle - Tokyo
Posts: 406 |
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quote:
Originally posted by Saddletank
quote:
Originally posted by dballred
Marxists disguised as environmentalists.
LOL, not your usual restrained self today then DB?
I'm no Marxist, I just think its unwise to sit and do nothing while climate change wipes out billions of humans. Wouldn't you agree?
The last time there was significant climate swing on earth, we were savages clothed in wolf-pelts and had just come out of Africa and were heading west across Europe and east across Asia. If we have a significant climate swing again now and do nothing about it we could end up back in the same place.
As I indicated, Marxists are one of the groups of people--not the entire set of climate alarmists. The rest are merely unaware of physics, the laws of thermodynamics, and the power of trigonometry when it comes to the sun and the shape of the Earth. I don't want to put you on the spot here, but let's apply a little critical thinking. How could billions of people die as a result of climate change? With the lone exception of a climate glitch concurrent with the P-T mass extinction event 255 million years ago, the Earth has toggled between 12 degrees and 22 degrees celsius almost like a square wave--and right now, we're closer to 12 degrees. Mass extinctions have happened as a result of climate change, but that was invariably due to the inflexible nature of the various species. Please give us humans a little credit for being able to adapt better than our fellow flora and fauna.
As for oceans rising, why don't millions of people die twice each day with the tide? The oceans rise and fall at least a meter every day--some places several meters. The oceans have been rising and falling due to several ice ages during the reign of man and all man has ever needed to do is avoid the daily tides in order to keep well ahead of any overall ocean rise. Gradually, man has had to retreat from a given spot due to the changing shoreline, but the process is ridiculously slow.
Mankind has much bigger problems to solve that to waste time feeding the egos and wallets of the hypocrites (like Al Gore) in the windmill-tilting effort to keep the climate exactly the same.
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| 08.01.2013, 03:32 PM |
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Mush
Baron
Registration Date: 07.30.07
Location: South of Canada
Posts: 1810 |
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dballred, are you suggesting that I don't understand mathematics, physics, or trigonometry? I am not a Marxist, and I would encourage you to refrain from ad hominem arguments, especially on this forum. Personally speaking, I have attempted to convince myself on numerous occasions that anthropogenic climate change is a fraud, and on confronting the evidence, failed to do so each time. I would very much like to believe it isn't true. It would make my life much easier, and I would be able to direct my efforts to other important problems without worrying about the climate.
But I have not, so far, been able to find convincing reason to doubt the anthropogenic climate change theory, and not for lack of trying on my part.
I agree with you that sea level rise is not a primary concern. I also believe that while 'adaptability' is a trait that humans possess in spades, I am not convinced that it is a trait human civilisation shares.
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Post last edited by Mush on 08.01.2013, 04:16 PM.
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| 08.01.2013, 04:16 PM |
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~OneSummersDay~
Calcifer
Registration Date: 08.12.09
Location:
Posts: 142 |
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We're ALL to blame in the sense that we all need fossil fuels to power our homes and numerous gadgets. These are the main creators of greenhouse gases, resulting in global warming.
Yes, the industries need to evaluate how their attitude towards the issue will impact on us in the long run, but so long as there's demand for electricity (which will be always), they're not going to reflect on their methods of generating power.
At the end of the day they have one thing on their mind: money. They want to create this energy in the most cheap way possible, regardless of how sustainable it is.
I like to consider myself an eco warrior, and try to do my bit for the environment on a daily basis through recycling etc, but at the end of the day I have a macbook, smartphone and iPod classic that all eat up energy.
I'm only 19, but I don't think it's right to blame the older generations. If anything, young people my age are guzzling more energy than our ancestors.
I think, if there's to be a big change, it'll take global attention. Which would be incredibly difficult/near impossible, because of the selfish nature of humans and how all-consuming/materialistic the West is.
I'm actually an optimist as a whole, but this situation seems bleak to me. I try not to think about it, do my bit and hope for the best.
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| 08.01.2013, 04:17 PM |
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dballred
Ohmu
Registration Date: 04.24.06
Location: Oklahoma City - Seattle - Tokyo
Posts: 406 |
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quote:
Originally posted by Mush
dballred, are you suggesting that I don't understand mathematics, physics, or trigonometry? I am not a Marxist, and I would encourage you to refrain from ad hominem arguments, especially on this forum. Personally speaking, I have attempted to convince myself on numerous occasions that anthropogenic climate change is a fraud, and on confronting the evidence, failed to do so each time. I would very much like to believe it isn't true. It would make my life much easier, and I would be able to direct my efforts to other important problems without worrying about the climate.
But I have not, so far, been able to find convincing reason to doubt the anthropogenic climate change theory, and not for lack of trying on my part.
I agree with you that sea level rise is not a primary concern. I also believe that while 'adaptability' is a trait that humans possess in spades, I am not convinced that it is a trait human civilisation shares.
Even I will admit to an anthropogenic component to climate change, but nothing we do or could possibly do when in comes to the emission of Carbon Dioxide, can create the scenarios set forth by the alarmists and charlatans. We are capable of doing--and are doing--far worse things. Of the ten most polluted cities on Earth, the top 7 are all in China and 8 through ten are in the third world. We can put things in the earth that can kill all life for thousands of years--and yet we put them in drums that last only a few decades. We put nuclear power plants next to the water needed to cool them--the same water that can destroy the mechanisms pumpling that water a la Fukushima. Are we not incapable of creating and accidentally releasing a chemical into the water that can kill all sea life? Can we not create a new genetic hybrid somethingorother that feasts on algae until it's depleted?
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| 08.01.2013, 06:22 PM |
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Mush
Baron
Registration Date: 07.30.07
Location: South of Canada
Posts: 1810 |
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I don't entirely see your point about the locations of the most polluted cities, or about being able to poison things. We certainly have the capacity to do exceptional and lasting damage to the habitability of Earth -- although I'm not at all convinced that nuclear power is as dangerous as you suggest, even to those creatures living nearby. If humankind wanted to wage an extinction campaign against multicellular life on Earth, with some creativity I think we could just about pull it off. But fortunately, there aren't so many supervillains around who are making it their deliberate goal to do this.
What we have done so far in terms of the CO2 is increase the concentration of it in the Earth's atmosphere by a factor of 25% in a fifty year timespan. That is a significant and very rapid alteration of the atmospheric chemistry. Unlike in the case of nuclear plants or polluted cities, this is global in scope. The difference is that while pollution of a city affects an area of ten thousand square kilometers, altering atmospheric chemistry affects an area of five hundred million square kilometers, which is fifty thousand times larger, and represents all of the area we have. That, to me, makes it an entirely different class of problem from local air, water, and land pollution. It has much more in common with a problem like the destruction of the ozone layer.
Even setting aside climate change, a 25% increase in carbon dioxide concentration is already a cause for concern because CO2 lowers the pH of water, making it more acidic, which means a global increase in soil and ocean acidity. But I'm still more concerned about the heat flux.
Methane is a problem too, and when most scientists refer to 'carbon emissions', methane (CH4) is included. Water vapour is not, and when you say that it's a larger "threat", that tells me I should clear up a point of confusion. The equilibrium water vapour concentration in the atmosphere is strictly regulated by temperature. As a result, water vapour acts as a feedback mechanism only, and it would be impossible to disturb the climate by a campaign of sustained H2O emissions. (It would come back down as rain a few weeks later). Water plays a strong role in the climate but it is not a 'free variable' that humans or any other entity can directly change.
I don't know what "scenarios set forth by alarmists and charlatans" you're referring to, so your insistence on their being outrageous isn't very meaningful. Maybe if you outline some of them, I would agree with you that they're unfeasible. To be sure, there's a lot of people on all sides of the debate who have no idea what they're talking about, so I'm sure that there are alarmists and charlatans who have claimed implausible scenarios.
The consequences that most concern me about climate change are the effects on ocean chemistry (hypoxia and acidity), the decline in agricultural productivity (due to reduced soil water retention, more variable precipitation, increases in O3, and higher temperatures), extinction of species, and destabilizing feedback effects (trapped methane in particular). I would call these alarming, not necessarily alarmist, because they are all reasonably well-supported in the scientific literature and therefore not "exaggeration of a danger to cause needless panic".
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Post last edited by Mush on 08.01.2013, 07:49 PM.
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| 08.01.2013, 07:29 PM |
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Calforsale
Totoro
Registration Date: 01.19.10
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 866 |
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You have the right to believe what you want to, but the issues of climate change are fact.
Whats worst about climate change is that we are uncertain what the future will hold. We do not know how terrible and drastic the impacts could be.
Projections give us a good idea but even optimistic projections have some devastating effects.
I also agree we shouldn't be dwelling on the past too much, but rather working on the present and future.
Even if you don't believe in these issues, we've got to fix our environment. It'd be terrible to live in a city like Beijing where the pollution is incredibly unhealthy.
@Husky, its actually true. Cows and other livestock account for a large percent of methane produced. Of course it isn;t their fault but rather the agricultural industry.
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| 08.01.2013, 09:21 PM |
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dballred
Ohmu
Registration Date: 04.24.06
Location: Oklahoma City - Seattle - Tokyo
Posts: 406 |
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quote:
Originally posted by Mush
I don't entirely see your point about the locations of the most polluted cities, or about being able to poison things. We certainly have the capacity to do exceptional and lasting damage to the habitability of Earth -- although I'm not at all convinced that nuclear power is as dangerous as you suggest, even to those creatures living nearby. If humankind wanted to wage an extinction campaign against multicellular life on Earth, with some creativity I think we could just about pull it off. But fortunately, there aren't so many supervillains around who are making it their deliberate goal to do this.
What we have done so far in terms of the CO2 is increase the concentration of it in the Earth's atmosphere by a factor of 25% in a fifty year timespan. That is a significant and very rapid alteration of the atmospheric chemistry. Unlike in the case of nuclear plants or polluted cities, this is global in scope. The difference is that while pollution of a city affects an area of ten thousand square kilometers, altering atmospheric chemistry affects an area of five hundred million square kilometers, which is fifty thousand times larger, and represents all of the area we have. That, to me, makes it an entirely different class of problem from local air, water, and land pollution. It has much more in common with a problem like the destruction of the ozone layer.
Even setting aside climate change, a 25% increase in carbon dioxide concentration is already a cause for concern because CO2 lowers the pH of water, making it more acidic, which means a global increase in soil and ocean acidity. But I'm still more concerned about the heat flux.
Methane is a problem too, and when most scientists refer to 'carbon emissions', methane (CH4) is included. Water vapour is not, and when you say that it's a larger "threat", that tells me I should clear up a point of confusion. The equilibrium water vapour concentration in the atmosphere is strictly regulated by temperature. As a result, water vapour acts as a feedback mechanism only, and it would be impossible to disturb the climate by a campaign of sustained H2O emissions. (It would come back down as rain a few weeks later). Water plays a strong role in the climate but it is not a 'free variable' that humans or any other entity can directly change.
I don't know what "scenarios set forth by alarmists and charlatans" you're referring to, so your insistence on their being outrageous isn't very meaningful. Maybe if you outline some of them, I would agree with you that they're unfeasible. To be sure, there's a lot of people on all sides of the debate who have no idea what they're talking about, so I'm sure that there are alarmists and charlatans who have claimed implausible scenarios.
The consequences that most concern me about climate change are the effects on ocean chemistry (hypoxia and acidity), the decline in agricultural productivity (due to reduced soil water retention, more variable precipitation, increases in O3, and higher temperatures), extinction of species, and destabilizing feedback effects (trapped methane in particular). I would call these alarming, not necessarily alarmist, because they are all reasonably well-supported in the scientific literature and therefore not "exaggeration of a danger to cause needless panic".
Here are a few alarmist scenarios:
1. From Al Gore's production, he shows a time lapse animation of water rising around buildings. Is that an accurate scientific depiction?
2. Meredith Viera, on two occasions, made outrageous global warming statements. Once she made a claim that if all the glaciers in Iceland (yes, tiny little iceland) were to melt, the oceans would rise at least 200 feet. On another occasion, during a special on the top ten threats to mankind (where guess what was number one), she made the claim that the earth would becme like venus with 600 degree temperatures. Are these accurate?
3. James Hansen, the nut formerly at NASA, made the claim that the arctic will be ice-free during the summer months by the year 2040. A quarter of that time has elapsed already with no discernable change. Gotta push that date out further, I guess. Maybe 2100?
Then we have Al Gore equating science and the scientific process as one that reaches full maturity when there is a consensus. We have "scientists" in Europe who want to criminalize any dissenting thought. Sounds like the kind of science practiced by the Germans during one of their darker periods.
We have the 2010 East Anglia University fudging climate data because the real data wasn't fitting their curve.
When it gets to your concern about the acidification of the seas due to increased CO2 concentration in the air, you have a point--but acidification has absolutely nothing to do with climate change.
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| 08.01.2013, 10:55 PM |
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Mush
Baron
Registration Date: 07.30.07
Location: South of Canada
Posts: 1810 |
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1. It's been... eight(?) years since I've seen Al Gore's production, so I don't remember. I do remember that some of Al Gore's claims were false or misrepresentations, though. I'm all in favour of calling him out on that.
2. I don't know who Meredith Viera is. I agree with you though, she certainly sounds like she has no idea what she's talking about.
3. Uh, hold up a minute here. Have you been paying attention to the arctic summer ice? 2040 sounds like a conservative estimate for being ice-free seasonally. International shipping firms are already banking on it, and international navies are investing in ice breakers for this reason. Try this graph to see the trend. Click 'hide all' (and hide the average too). Then, starting from 1979, click through each year to add its data in sequence to the graph. It takes some patience but to avoid biasing your perception of the data, I strongly recommend clicking through each year in order.
This map-based visualization might also help. Moreover, the ice that remains present is much thinner than the historical average, and is more prone to rapid melting.
I believe I made the distinction clear between acidification and climate change, and are you implying that I don't have a point about the other impacts I listed?
I am not aware of the East Anglia University climate group fudging data. Do you have a source for that? From what I've read, all eight of the independent investigations found no evidence of scientific misconduct. Is your understanding different from mine?
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Post last edited by Mush on 08.01.2013, 11:36 PM.
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| 08.01.2013, 11:35 PM |
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