Global Warming: Not Man Made

[MorbidKate]

I've mentioned it before but it's worth saying again. ExxonMobil has been using the exact same "Denial machine" tactics as Big Tobacco did to fight the science on the impact of smoking. They borrowed the playbook. So much in fact that they use the same PR agencies and funded scientists to back their self-generated "science".

Kate

[NickD]

Yes, and that was addressed. With implicit acceptance, only 45% of papers in the last 3 years accept global warming as man made/aided/whatever. 48% explicitly neither accepted nor denied it.

Yeah. And only 6% rejected it.

So what's the point, again?

That would be my next sentence that you didn't quote.

[Mayhem]

Global warming is caused by a secret cabal of Ninja Pirates. Al Gore is the secret head of this cabal and when he is not making movies or giving speeches he is sailing the seven seas on the Queen Anne's Revenge, plundering oil tankers and assassinating whales.

And you see how quickly they turn their eyes back to the "research!" That damn ninja-pirate is plundering oil ships and getting booty on the high seas right now, probably in multiple sense of the word "booty!"

You fools, you have bought into the propaganda spread by big oil.

The statistical evidence clearly shows that pirates *prevent* global warning, as shown by this graph of global temperatures vs Number of Pirates.



/thanks to the FSM and his noodly appendages.

[Mulu]

That would be my next sentence that you didn't quote.

This is no "consensus."

This is an absurd and propagandized conclusion. Always beware of the "air quotes," they usually mean someone is trying to be persuasive as opposed to objective. An author trying to persuade you that global warming isn't human caused can pretty much always be traced back to the denial machine of big coal and big oil. They have a *profit incentive* to prevent emissions reductions, and their profits are far more important than a silly polar ice cap or wildlife going extinct, or the loss of coral reefs, or low sea level islands and cities being swallowed by the sea, or widespead drought and famine, or the increased range of tropical diseases and the disease outbreaks that will cause, or....

Get it?

Heck, I knew global warming was occuring and man made in 1981 when I was in the 9th grade; the science already existed:
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas,
2. human activity releases measurably large amounts of CO2 that wouldn't be released in the absence of that human activity,
3. increasing CO2 in the atmosphere has the obvious and predictable result of increasing the global average temperature.

That's it, that's all you need to know to understand Global Warming. Well, that and the fact that the natural cycle of warming and cooling *should* be in a cooling trend right now as we slowly enter the next Ice Age. Not sure what took the rest of the world so long to figure it out.

[ç i p h é r]

1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas,
3. increasing CO2 in the atmosphere has the obvious and predictable result of increasing the global average temperature.

Precisely, and that means human existence contributes measurably to global warming. We emit CO2 naturally. Our lifespans are increasing (thanks to advances in medicine and technology). Our population is growing. Our food and energy consumption is growing. Our civilization is evolving and so our lifestyles demand more comfort and luxury. We're displacing more and more of our environment every year. The better we make our lives, the worse it is for the environment.

Logically, it all ends in the same place; A climate that increasingly becomes warmer.

That's it, that's all you need to know to understand Global Warming. Well, that and the fact that the natural cycle of warming and cooling *should* be in a cooling trend right now as we slowly enter the next Ice Age.

Why should we be in a cooling trend? Aren't you assuming a world that is totally static and unchanging? Do scientists even know for certain what triggers the cooling cycle?

The only thing I have argued is that global warming is an eventuality we cannot avoid. So why *must* we try to stop it as opposed to, say, finding a way to live with/survive that eventuality?

[MorbidKate]

The only thing I have argued is that global warming is an eventuality we cannot avoid. So why *must* we try to stop it as opposed to, say, finding a way to live with/survive that eventuality?

So we should embrace it? Interesting. Of course, the race is already on to cash in on the land grab that's happening in the arctic as countries try to make claims on the undersea natural resources that will be exposed as the ice melts.

As for finding a way to live with it or even survive it, the key problem is the massive number of people living near the coast or on waterways affected by tides and the impossible task of relocating hundreds of millions of people due to the water levels increasing with the caps melting.

http://www.oceansatlas.com/servlet/CDSS ... M3PWtvcw~~

The US alone has 160 million people living in coastal regions and the percentages are growing every year. Why must we stop it? Because economically, the US and the world literally can't afford not to.

Kate

[Grand Fromage]

= exhalation.

[ç i p h é r]

Kate:

Let's stick to what I'm actually saying. Humans emit CO2. The human population is increasing. As our population increases, we displace the environment, minimally to make room for our civilization and food supply.

Therefore, taking what Mulu said to its logical conclusion, it's only a matter of time until we outpace our planet's ability to deal with our presence.

Right?

[Lusipher]

Hes got you there, Kate.

Live long and prosper. Probably on Mars.

[Veilan]

Is it just me, or is advocacy for environmentalism eerily reminiscent of Catholicism?

You reap what you sow, the world will end, we must repent our sins and atone. Preferably in a self-chastizing manner.

There's the selling of indulgences in CO2 credit trading / purchasing.

We got enough priests giving sermons on it, and there's the Pope Gore and the Holy Scripture in the Balance.

There's signs and wonders in every climate phenomenon these days being linked to climate change / global warming, sometimes even contradictory (storm in europe = result of global warming, no floods following it = unpredictability of weather due to global warming).





Not that I'm saying I don't believe we are doing quite some damage to our environment, however, there seems to be a profound lack of critical thinking going on all around. Oh well, I guess it burns too many calories to think critical and therefore is bad from an evolutionary standpoint. Or maybe we did ride dinosaurs...

[Mulu]

Precisely, and that means human existence contributes measurably to global warming. We emit CO2 naturally.

Do I *really* have to say "due to industrialization" for that not to be assumed? I mean, seriously, your biological respiration is trivial compared to a leaf blower.

As for the rest, it's a lifestyle choice that can have a reduced impact with very little effort.

Why should we be in a cooling trend? Aren't you assuming a world that is totally static and unchanging?

How is a cooling trend static? It means the climate is changing, to be colder.

Do scientists even know for certain what triggers the cooling cycle?

Does it matter? Limited to what I knew in the ninth grade the conclusions were already obvious. By that time, apparently I already knew more than most people will ever learn, sad as that is.

In the ninth grade, I learned that the planet was in a cooling trend since the last holocene peak until the industrial revolution, and that is still the accepted fact today. Quite a coincidence that the natural cooling trend would reverse after we started dumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an industrial rate, don't you think?

The only thing I have argued is that global warming is an eventuality we cannot avoid.

Defeatist cut and runner!

It's actually quite easy to reverse, and it wouldn't take a drastic change to our way of life. It would take some, and it would have to be consistent. The biggest hurdle to those changes are in fact folk like you, and of course the fossil fuel industries. Saying we can't change global warming could certainly become a self-fulfilling prophecy if enough people dig in their heels to prevent policy change.

[Zakharra]

It's actually quite easy to reverse, and it wouldn't take a drastic change to our way of life. It would take some, and it would have to be consistent. The biggest hurdle to those changes are in fact folk like you, and of course the fossil fuel industries. Saying we can't change global warming could certainly become a self-fulfilling prophecy if enough people dig in their heels to prevent policy change.

Mulu, what are the changes you're suggesting?

Try to get China and India, two rapidly growing economies, to change energy policies. The US is changing it's policies, slowly, but it is changing as more technologies come into play and become economic to use/produce. It's the up and coming economies that have to be forced to change faster.

[NickD]

Is it just me, or is advocacy for environmentalism eerily reminiscent of Catholicism?

You reap what you sow, the world will end, we must repent our sins and atone. Preferably in a self-chastizing manner.

And anyone who doesn't agree with us is a heathen/moron or has sold their soul to/been paid out by the devil/energy companies.

[ç i p h é r]

As for the rest, it's a lifestyle choice that can have a reduced impact with very little effort.

In all the development that has occurred over the past decade, the trend has been bigger homes and greater displacement of the environment. I don't see anyone choosing to live in smaller homes and tighter spaces. This is progress (apparently).

How is a cooling trend static? It means the climate is changing, to be colder.

What I'm saying is you would have to assume everything is equal for heating and cooling trends to be exactly the same. You said that we *should* be in a cooling trend now. Why?

Do scientists even know for certain what triggers the cooling cycle?

Does it matter?

I should think so, since you're advocating policy and life style change based on scientific facts.

In the ninth grade, I learned that the planet was in a cooling trend since the last holocene peak until the industrial revolution, and that is still the accepted fact today. Quite a coincidence that the natural cooling trend would reverse after we started dumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an industrial rate, don't you think?

No it's not a coincidence, but I think you're also ignoring other factors that have been influenced directly/indirectly by the industrial age. For instance, the population of the planet has more than tripled over the last century and took only a dozen years to grow from 5 to 6 billion. That's an exponential rate of growth. This is significant because not only are we pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, but the stinky truth is that we're generating gases like methane through our food supply and sanitation systems.

According to atmospheric data, concentrations of methane in our atmosphere have increased by 150% over preindustrial levels, more than 3 times the percentage increase of CO2. Methane is 21 times more effective at trapping heat than CO2 over a 100 year span, which means that it has a much larger relative impact on global warming than CO2. What's particularly interesting is that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the Livestock industry contributes more to green house gas emissions than the transportation industry. Clearly, as our population increases, so too must our food supply. So climate change is not just a big coal/big oil problem.

So coming back to my original point, the greenhouse effect taken to it's logical conclusion means we simply cannot escape global warming. Eventually, perhaps hundreds or thousands of years from now, our footprint on Earth will simply be too large to manage. Can someone demonstrate otherwise?

Defeatist cut and runner!

I prefer pragmatic or practical.

[NickD]

So coming back to my original point, the greenhouse effect taken to it's logical conclusion means we simply cannot escape global warming.

With that "it's too hard, so why even try?" attitude, it's no wonder you lot lost in Vietnam.