Global Warming

[opuspup722 0]

Global Warming is a problem but I don't keep myself awake at night worrying if a giant ozone hole is opening above my head. The Earth is not a perfect world, it's filled with bad things but I'm not going to let that ruin my life by thinking about it. If it's real then I'll guess I'll try my best to ride out the tidal wave, if it's not I get to have a jolly laugh at the expense of Al Gore. We know too much now, andt the more we know the more we have to worry about. Ignorance is bliss as they say/.

[fate556 5]

honestly you should send that to vinnie however he did talk to a number of scients they just wouldnt let him use his name but they all concur with this

[confused04 14]

He's completely mistaken and quite frankly, he's a liar (Braden). Hes trying to take advantage of people who don't know the fundamental principles in science and pulls them out of context, contorts them and uses them to fit his own means so he can sell more books on crackpot science. Is it perhaps that these scientists didn't give their names because there are no scientists to give names. I've been looking up scholarly articles and not ONE will support this zero point theory. So much of his theory is illogical and makes no sense. I find it hard to believe that millions of scientists are wrong, but he... he is right. And if you want to claim that scientists have their own goals and ambitions, Braden's is obviously to earn money by selling more and more books. What he says isnt science, but complete misinterpretation of science for his own "novel" thinking. He has new age thinking that is riddled with fallacies.

Who's vinnie?

[hamsterTK 93]

Who's vinnie?quote>

probably cousin vinnie

[fate556 5]

vinnie is a friend of mine who wrote that article on global warming copy and paste this - http://hometown.aol.com/fateridder/myhomepage/profile.html - to see and he writes many other's he has alot of connections and honestly i couldnt answer your questions or comments so i would suggest you send them to him i'm sure he will help you .

[fate556 5]

just go down a tad u will see the global warming piece by the way he is in the process of getting a web site

[thundercrack83 0]

Well, I've jumped into this very late, but from reading what I've read, this seems to have turned into an "Is Global Warming Real?" debate. I think the purpose of this was not to debate the reality of global warming, but to stipulate that is real and come up with solutions for it.

My personal opinion is that global warming is a fact and there is countless evidence in this thread alone that backs it up. However, that being said, I don't really care all that much because by the time it becomes a real problem rather than merely fodder for campaign platforms, I'll be dead. I know the environmentalist stance is, "What about your children? Or our children's children?" And I would say, "I'll be dead. What do I care?" I know some of you are aghast at my heartlessness, but seriously, when you're dead, the environment is going to be the last thing you will be concerned with and you know it.

Now, would I like to see something change and make sure that the lives of my offspring and my offspring's offspring does not turn into the end of Ferngully? Of course I would, but as has been pointed out, there is too many factors against that happening, not to mention, humans don't care about anything until it's a life-altering problem. For example, a cavity. Nobody wants to deal with a cavity, so they wait until it starts to hurt to get it filled. It's human nature. With global warming, the steps to make things better are inconvenient to governments, businesses, economies, and to people in general, so nobody is going to act until they wake up and find they're standing in a black cloud and can't breathe.

If we were to try and fix it, how would we do that? Well, look at it from a SimCity perspective, since that is the reason we're all here in the first place. We put parks and mass transit and all kinds of pollution eliminating cheats and mods into our cities to get rid of the pollution. Since technology is borne out of necessity, something will come along to fight these problems, but it's only going to happen when it's absolutely necessary. Apparently, nobody thinks we're at that point yet, which is kind of scary, considering some evidence to the contrary.

Sorry if I've repeated other people's opinions, I really didn't read all six pages of this thread.

[JackStraw 19]

You know, Theres enough political, social equailty, environmental, etc. stuff in the papers, on tv and such... That cant ST be a issues free zone? JEEEEEES

[JackStraw 19]

Originally posted by: marcszar While Americans argue back and forth if global warming is real or not and whether they caused it or not from the comfort of their climate-controlled suburban homes, Vanuatuans and Pacific Islanders are being flooded off their islands, polar bears from Greenland are getting trapped in Canada because there is no longer any ice for them to get back, Africans are mourning the loss of the Mt Kilimanjaro Icecap, Europe suffers heat wave after heat wave, and severe typhoons continue to sweep across East Asia.

The rest of the world is experiencing the effects of global warming- that's why they believe in it. It's hard for Americans, who live and work in climate-controlled bubbles (Home>garage>car>office>and back) to understand this threat.quote>

 

Oh My God... See what I mean?

[mikemac 0]

In my opinion I do believe that global warming is happening and more likely then not humans are the cause for it. I also know that the earth does have natural warm and cold periods of time naturally. One person was talking about there being a "warm period" during medieval times which is false. In mediaval time form about 1200-1300 A.D. to about little after 1700 A.D. the world was actually experiencing an "ice age". Now this wasn't like the ice age we all think about with mammoths and caveman wearing animal furs. This was a mini ice age which affected europe dramatically especially for growing food they were accustomed to grow and making bread with.(which was the main part of there as meat was to expensive). Wine became very rare and a luxury commodity because it could only be grown farther south than it is grown now, maybe even as far as Africa. Most crops failed and many livestock died because of lack of food for thr majority of the year. This eventual made europeans come up with different crops to eat and make new kinds of bread with. This is when the potato became very useful and more widely used cause it could survive better growing underground. So with this being said this was a natural accurance of the earth climate cycles which i believe we are experianceing now that started in the 1700's of a gradual change to warmer a warmer climate. Still I have no doubt the with the industrial revolution this gave this cycle a turbo boost to whatever the climax of this warm period will be and when it will end. I have a feeling that the weather could continue to get warmer but on to a certian degree before it chages most of the climate and weather patterns all over the world. Some eventual speculations have been pole shifts, magnetic shifts, and the more obvious higher ocean levels. However I believe that the real climax of this global warming trend will actually end up in some kind of ice age to come. THe severity is impossible to gauge. My guess is thought there will be harsher and longer winters all though thte temperate zones and some of the larger desert areas may become temperate zones themselves, almost making them the fall back position to the hardship the northern lands will be experiencing. Who know the deserts could ones again be green. It is said the in the day of ancient egypt it was a more trpoical/temperate area before it was flooded and then dried out to what it is today. I agree with everyone on save the environment issues. I live in Seattle and you can be fined for not recycling a lot of kinds of things especially in the greater Seattle area. We try to do our part but it is only very small compared to the massive amount that needs to be done. In my opinion every person on this planet could sustain themselves for the greater part of the year if not all of it if they simply installed solar panels on there rooftops and and windmills for the less than sunny days. Granted this would no cheap investment but at the prices we are paying for energy right now it is 99% impossible you won't save money in the long run. This could easily make enough power for every household in America or any other nation for that matter and the best part it is free green energy that is renewable as long as the sun shines and the wind blows. As a matter of fact I would be surprise if we had huge surpluses during parts of the year. Now if this idea could get out to the masses at an economically priced package and have some sort of tax cut incentive or something I think you might see things change DRAMATICALLY in the next ten years.

[confused04 14]

The Medieval Warm Period did exist and preceded the Little Ice Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

[Micah 16]

The Medieval Warm Period did exist and preceded the Little Ice Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period quote>

Indeed. In fact, I learned that three months ago in my World History book. That's one major factor that allowed farmers to have a bountiful harvest throughout most of the early (mid) Medieval period.

[Silur 3,309]

Hi. all

No problems - nobody may do it ...

Don't worry - all of you like big car and car ....

May be you block your cars  and work with HT ..

[coolotter88 2]

okay, easy solution...start a company, then collect tons of capital from investors to build lots and lots of solar panels in deserts all over the place (not only that, store nuclear waste under the sahara for a nominal fee from nuclear countries too keep investors happy) build a super conducting power line infrastructure (capable of transmitting 10 gigawatts of power per cable) around the world.using power generated from vast solar panel fields, drive fossil fuel fired power out of business. when you finish buying out the other power companies, "influence" countries to use only your power to "save the environment, don't return to fossil fuels" and all that stuff. much of the world will use your power...???...PROFIT!

[confused04 14]

wow... thats one big cable

I wonder how much a "ton of capital" is to cover entire deserts

[SpecialEddie 3]

Originally posted by: marcszar While Americans argue back and forth if global warming is real or not and whether they caused it or not from the comfort of their climate-controlled suburban homes, Vanuatuans and Pacific Islanders are being flooded off their islands, polar bears from Greenland are getting trapped in Canada because there is no longer any ice for them to get back, Africans are mourning the loss of the Mt Kilimanjaro Icecap, Europe suffers heat wave after heat wave, and severe typhoons continue to sweep across East Asia.

The rest of the world is experiencing the effects of global warming- that's why they believe in it. It's hard for Americans, who live and work in climate-controlled bubbles (Home>garage>car>office>and back) to understand this threat.quote>

Hey! What global warming? If you're hot, just turn on the AC!

[thundercrack83 0]

Speaking of air conditioners, didn't they actually contribute to the problem when they had freon in them?

[SpecialEddie 3]

Originally posted by: thundercrack83 Speaking of air conditioners, didn't they actually contribute to the problem when they had freon in them?quote>

 

Hey, as long as I'm cool on a hot day. 

And wait, how did we get all this information on global warming? 

Newspaper: Cut down from trees or recycled from used paper. Recycling units also take up energy and pollute the environment as well. Where will it get the force to smash all those bottles and pile up all that paper?

TV: Uses electricity. 

Computer: Uses electricity.

Radio: Uses electricity.

The best way to save the environment is to not listen or read the news! Turn off the appliances and deny Global Warming. Hey, it may be strange, but you're conserving power.

While we're here on our computers discussing global warming--how many lights and appliances are on at our homes? Mhhm. Lots, huh?

[thundercrack83 0]

There is a lot of merit to your point, actually.

[coolotter88 2]

it is a really big cable (considering its basically liquid hydrogen encased in a sheet of copper which has a thick rubber coating around it...)

recycling actually uses less energy than making new paper...newsprint is basically recycled anyway, they don't use new trees for newsprint...do they?

[thundercrack83 0]

Now I don't know for sure, but I'm guess that if newspaper wasn't recycled, there wouldn't be a tree left on the planet. Think of all the daily newspapers in the United States alone, let alone the entire world, and then think of how many pages of paper go in to printing all of the newspapers. That's probably more paper than cable required to run across the globe as in the "solar panels in the desert" scenario, which is a great plan in theory.

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

[coolotter88 2]

and in the middle of winter, people are chipping ice off their SUVs wondering "some global warming would be nice"

[confused04 14]

Hmm... I haven't posted in a while and I luckily came on an explanation for those who are wondering why the temperatures in the 1950's to the early 80's were below average. With some thoughts from Sporeum and the recent article stating the Alps are at their warmest in 1,300 years, I finally found out why this occurred. Aerosols have a known effect on global temperature similar to volcanoes. During the 1950's - 80's, aerosol release was very high, enough to overcome the relatively low use of fossil fuels (again... relative to today). After a lot of aerosols were banned or discontinued due to other environmental hazards, their impact increased as they began to either precipitate out of the atmosphere, degrade, or react. The Montreal Protocol ceased CFC production due to the impact it had on the ozone layer. With CFC production gone, a major component of aerosol production ceased and with the coinciding increase of fossil fuel use in both the developed and developing world, a warming trend ensued that not only erased any cooling that had been achieved, but beyond as well.

Winters are jokes here now anyway. Minnesota hasn't had a harsh winter that used to lend to its reputation in more than a decade. I mean, our lakes aren't walkable yet and its December! There have been repeated incidents where the temperature in MSP didn't climb above 0 F in weeks, but we've been having winters with RAIN in January. Some "ice box" we are! I love snow and we haven't had our first inch yet! Not that I'm saying I can definitively say that this is a result of global warming, but it certainly supports it. If my Christmas has NO snow, I will be utterly pissed.

Regarding "Americans" being to blame....

First- Intuitively, despite being responsible for 25% of all CO2 emissions, there still remains 75% so theres plenty of blame to go around...

Second- American manufacturing is STILL the highest in the world (almost double 2nd Place which is Japan, courtesy of whatever news program Katie Couric is on) which inflates the per capita CO2 production. (Just to Note: American Manufacturing stands at a staggering 1.75 trillion dollars still)

Third-  You say we live in our climate controlled bubble... live in the US without it and you would be clamoring it too.  We have a more extreme and variable environment then most other nations excluding Siberia, Northern Sahara.  We know what 10 days of 100 F does in Europe (with tens of thousands dead in France alone) and that can be quite common in the US, particularly in the South and even all the way up through Canada.  Besides, not everyone works a desk job so we all don't drive from one bubble to another.  Many people in the US do notice the effects of Global Warming, its getting a reluctant government to do something about it.

Fourth- Lets not blame people because in ten years we'll be blaming China over the United States anyway.

[Flying_Scarecrow 0]

Originally posted by: confused04Winters are jokes here now anyway. Minnesota hasn't had a harsh winter that used to lend to its reputation in more than a decade. I mean, our lakes aren't walkable yet and its December! There have been repeated incidents where the temperature in MSP didn't climb above 0 F in weeks, but we've been having winters with RAIN in January. Some "ice box" we are! I love snow and we haven't had our first inch yet! Not that I'm saying I can definitively say that this is a result of global warming, but it certainly supports it. If my Christmas has NO snow, I will be utterly pissed.quote>

 

Amen!  I live in Minnesota as well and I had to travel 260 miles north to international falls to actually find a place where it still knows how to snow and even then it wasn't much, even more unnerving was to hear how cities south of here like st.louis and chicago got dumped on by multiple feet of snow this past week (thats our snow) strange weather patterns indeed.

[ExiL3 10]

Thundercrack83: I am sorry, but you do not know for sure.

 1. There isn't any thing as LACK of trees. There has been much less trees before, long before humans came to be.

2. Trees are renewable, for every tree chopped, a new one is grown.

3. Recycling paper causes more damage to the nature than just chopping down a new tree and trash the used paper.

4. As long as there are humans, there will never be a lack of trees, we are growing a LOT of trees, and this industry (the tree industry and the use of wood) is actually quite clean.

PLEASE don't say, "but the rain forest isn't renewable". Of course I know that, but the rain forest isn't chopped down to make paper, paper and the other things that trees are used for (like housing and so on) comes from your "normal" forest. The rain forest is being chopped down, mostly, to make place for farming, so blame them.

So there is NOT a lack of trees or O2, and this is not a part of the "global warming problem", just sorting some facts out there folks.

oh, and I just wanted to clarify some myths about trees, and this type of industry. I am not trying to "diss" thundercrack83.

take care,

[thundercrack83 0]

ExiL3: I stand corrected then! Also, I didn't think you were trying to "diss" me, so it's OK, and the words "the rainforest is not renewable" would never come from me in any circumstance, let alone the chopping down of it to make paper. My whole point was a rather facetious way to state that newspaper is probably recycled, since there is so much of it. Can you also explain how recycling harms the environment more than chopping down trees, though? I've never heard that before and I'm curious.

[ExiL3 10]

thundercrack83: good, now the "rainforest is not renewable" wasn't directed just to you, I might have been a bit vague there. I just wanted to make sure no body thought that I meant that.

Ok, I don't have much time to explain, cause I have an exam tomorrow in construction designs, but I'll try to shorten down some facts and such.

- first, recycling paper is quite the big procedure. First, when the paper has been used, and thrown away into containers ( the containers there in the first place are often made by plastic which comes from the oil industry, but this isn't a big contributor to the waste of energy). Then someone, often a truck of some sort fueled by either gasoline or diesel, picks it up and drives it to a recycling center. Now at this center everything gets sorted out, some tossed away anyhow(about 40%). Then the paper has to be loaded up again and transported to a factory to process the paper. Here they use lots of different chemicals for the different types of paper (now we are talking about paper that gets recycled back to be used as paper again). Bleaching the paper is quite typical. This creates a lot of different gases. When all this has been done, it has to be transported out again.

EDIT: I just want to add; Often the paper has to be transported a long way between these points, and mostly there are more of these points such as storage places and paper mills. And I didn't want to add the expense into all of this, but just as a small fact -yeah it's also more expensive to recycle than to make new stuff (except when it comes to aluminum).

- Oh and, there are different meanings about everything, different pacts, so I can't rely 100% on my sources. But the whole picture is that when you have used the paper and throw it away, and paper is bio-degradable, it rots and gives off methane. BUT on more or less all landfills (in the "westernized" world) have pipes who pick up this methane and use the methane to heat up houses, which is VERY clean. So throwing paper away doesn't really give off any pollution.

- Of course, the best thing would have been if people would just stop to use so much paper, but then again paper isn't really a big part of the problem. The big part of the problem is; coal power, cars, trucks, ships, air-travel, gas power (without CO2 cleaning). Well those, if they are cut down, then the rest will get sorted out, but we all know that is going to take a while

- So the only more or less good "excuse" for recycling paper is to protect the wildlife, or in other words protect forests with wildlife in them from becoming "wood farms", which I kind of support, though this is not really a good argument since most of the paper used is already coming from such "wood farms" and there isn't a big need for new such areas.

Of course thundercrack83, make your own opinion about this. I am not saying that this is how it's done everywhere, since we live on a planet with lots of different cultures. This more or less applies to north America and Europe, and I guess Australia but I am not quite sure how those Aussies do it. And then again, I might be wrong since some country in Europe might be using a different method and so on...

So this is a little bit off topic, let's get back to it

take care,

[BattleField-2142 9]

The sun is also heating up the earth -- since it started it got 30% hotter. If you believe in the sun-dial:

The sun began at 6:00 A.M.

We are at 11:36 A.M.

By 2:00 P.M., Humans will no longer be able to live on Earth ( The sun will have melted everything )

And at 6:00 P.M., the sun will end - with no explosion.

[confused04 14]

The Sun has little if anything to do with the current warming trend as, going by your time example, it would be saying the sun got hotter between 11:36:00.000000001 and 11:36:00.000000002. The output differences between these two times are minimal. This is not to say that there could have been warming attributable to solar cycles, but not within 20 years.