How Credible is This "Global Warming?"

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

I'm not sure of how accurate scientists are when it comes to Global Warming, or Climate Change, or whatever they wish to call it. However, I myself will do what I can in my daily life to be friendlier to the environment. Should I be lucky enough to have children in the future, I want them to be able to experience the beauty of this planet as much as I have.

Wow, good on you man. Wish more people would do that. I m doing roughly the same as you do, driving less, no more busting my petrol. Cutting down on unnecessary waste of electricity and water.

Originally Posted by Vexx

Um... ya'll had better do more research on the current world food production issues and the available fresh water supply before you say "overpopulation is a hoax". There's a lot of planet, yes.... not so much arable land or fresh water reserves.

Might i add, we don't have any viable technology to get to those planets yet even if they do have habitable living conditions either and being in the water recycling business, clean waters are getting more difficult to obtain nowdays and technologies we used to obtain them is not as efficient as having clean natural water reservoir to obtain them.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

But inside their head they are thinking : Why do we have to clean up such a small mess when we can use the time to make huge profits? And the mess just stays there and grows.

In Malay, there is a saying that goes "Sediket Sediket, lama lama, jadi bukit." (Bit by bit, it will become a hill), and that just applies to anything, whether it be your savings or the mess you just made. Unfortunately the mess made at the moment is microscopic compared to the mountain it is going to grow into in the future.

It is more of keeping track what you are doing rather than cleaning up the mess which you can't see in the first place. Kind of suck that the rat race we are all in are diverting our attention away from spotting the littlest of it.

Hehe, that's a saying i havent heard in a long while... and didn't expect foreigners to know about it either. I think people are just so used to looking at the other way when there's a problem hoping it will go away until it blows up in our face.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

Wow, good on you man. Wish more people would do that. I m doing roughly the same as you do, driving less, no more busting my petrol. Cutting down on unnecessary waste of electricity and water.

Hey not all Conservatives are evil fire breathing demons from Hell(or outer-space if you're Athiest ). I was a Boy Scout once upon a time and have done my fair share of camping, hiking, etc. I love nature, love the mountains, love the ocean and the desert, I love this planet, and I don't want to ruin it. I know we pollute. We've been polluting since we came on this earth. I'd just would like to see some balance. If that's even possible anymore.

Even though I love my fossil fuel burning supercharged corvette that can roast rear tires into 3rd gear, I make sure it's tuned properly to be as fuel efficient as possible for normal driving, and burns clean(it passes all California emissions easily). When I bought the car it didn't have catalytic converters. I had them installed. As I've said before I do recycle, and I've cut my driving down to less than 7,000 miles a year. There has to be a way we can have our cake and eat it too. Be friendlier to the environment without hurting our economy or sacrificing everything we've gained this past century. I'm all for it.

[Vexx]

Might i add, we don't have any viable technology to get to those planets yet even if they do have habitable living conditions either and being in the water recycling business, clean waters are getting more difficult to obtain nowdays and technologies we used to obtain them is not as efficient as having clean natural water reservoir to obtain them.

You misunderstood... I wasn't making some idiot suggestion that we move to another planet, the sentence means "there's a lot of planet" (singular), meaning Earth has a lot of surface area. It is just that much of it isn't suitable or adjustable for humans. The amount of fresh water and land that can be used for food production is much much smaller.

[JMvS]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Aye, that's an issue I've long had..... I figure 1-2 billion people is a number that doesn't stress the primary living zones on the planet. ... obviously we're way past that. The "one child" notion has unintended consequences (no one is having girls in China, oops) since other societal matters weren't dealt with ("patriarchy"). The "no child" notion has its own demographic crash (e.g. Japan). We either have tamped down the usual limiters (black plague, droughts, etc) or the pressures are building up for some insane pandemic.

Well, it depends, overpopulation is a constant feature in the evolution of human societies, and has always been relative to environment fragility and the evolution of technology.
We got more and more numerous trough the ages because means allowing more and more people to be supported were being discovered. Before each of those breakthrough, populations either were facing overpopulation crisis (like recurrent famine), or had resolved it by various means (constant tribal warfare, expansion, massive emigration, delayed marriage, restricted marriage, massive religious celibacy, institutionalized infanticide, patricide or suicide even...).
The current period if of course far from stable, as more and more breakthrough are made, allowing more and more people not only to be sustained, but to defy death both in their young and old age.

But given how modernity affects the dynamic of societies, in the mid-long term, we will be facing the shortage of a crucial resource: young peoples. As the cities of before were only able to sustain themselves on rural immigrants, our largely urbanized countries are draining the best of the youth from less advanced areas. I must admit I am quite curious to see what kind of equilibrium of dynamic will be reached when the reserve will be exhausted.

Originally Posted by Jinto

Because CO2 is currently the main issue. Of'course given the higher potential of methana as a greenhouse gas it should be included (sooner or later). However in a green economy you would not want to waste any methane, thus collecting it and burining it bio-gas power stations. What remains then is CO2... which in turn is based on plants that absorbed the CO2.

Are you aware that methane is not exactly a "waste" but a byproduct of the decomposition of organic matter (via bacterial activity): it is abundantly released by marshes, cattle, rice fields, etc... so to not waste it you would have to collect and process ALL organic matter...
Not to mention the billions of tons that are on the seafloor, which we are wondering if they would be a resource or not (see methane hydrate).

Soot and similar carbon based substances have a cooling effect. At least that is what I learned in school, read in magazines and online. It is often used to explain why major volcano eruptions lead to first a stagnation in temperatures and later on to a raise. Thats when the soot is out of the atmosphere but the CO2 is still in it.

Actually it is not carbon which is the main actor of cooling in volcano eruption, but SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide), which when pulverized in the atmosphere as an aerosol, block a significant part of the sunlight.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by JMvS

Are you aware that methane is not exactly a "waste" but a byproduct of the decomposition of organic matter (via bacterial activity): it is abundantly released by marshes, cattle, rice fields, etc... so to not waste it you would have to collect and process ALL organic matter...

Yes I am. Maybe a huge portion would be sufficient for a start.

Originally Posted by JMvS

Not to mention the billions of tons that are on the seafloor, which we are wondering if they would be a resource or not (see methane hydrate).

Or in the perma frost of the tundra. But there is no problem as long as it remains methane hydrate. Now a global warming will surely affect the perma frost... so maybe the methan that is stored in it should be burned (supervised).

Originally Posted by JMvS

Actually it is not carbon which is the main actor of cooling in volcano eruption, but SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide), which when pulverized in the atmosphere as an aerosol, block a significant part of the sunlight.

That is right, but the original claim was about bigger/huge carbon based particles. Those darken the atmosphere as well... their cooling effect may not equal that of SO2 but it is still significant.

[SaintessHeart]

Came across something interesting while surfing the net :

Methane Release Looks Stronger

Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed.

Methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping solar heat.

The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of Russia, led by Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

"Methane release from the East Siberian Shelf is underway and it looks stronger than it was supposed [to be]," he said.

Professor Semiletov has been studying methane seepage in the region for the last few decades, and leads the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), which has launched multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean.

The preliminary findings of ISSS 2009 are now being prepared for publication, he told BBC News.

Methane seepage recorded last summer was already the highest ever measured in the Arctic Ocean.

High seepage

Acting as a giant frozen depository of carbon such as CO2 and methane (often stored as compacted solid gas hydrates), Siberia's shallow shelf areas are increasingly subjected to warming and are now giving up greater amounts of methane to the sea and to the atmosphere than recorded in the past.

This undersea permafrost was until recently considered to be stable.

But now scientists think the release of such a powerful greenhouse gas may accelerate global warming.

Higher concentrations of atmospheric methane are contributing to global temperature rise; this in turn is projected to cause further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane in a feedback loop.

A worst-case scenario is one where the feedback passes a tipping point and billions of tonnes of methane are released suddenly, as has occurred at least once in the Earth's past.

Such sudden releases have been linked to rapid increases in global temperatures and could have been a factor in the mass extinction of species.

According to a report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the springtime air temperature across the region in the period 2000-2007 was an average of 4C higher than during 1970-1999.

That is the fastest temperature rise on the planet, claims the university.

The recent thaw over the last decade means that some of the large reserve of carbon from organic material such as dead animals and plants in sediments is now being released into the sea and into our atmosphere.

Trapped below that is the methane hydrate now warming and leaking through holes in the defrosting sediments.

Previously it was thought much of this gas was absorbed into the sea.

But according to a recent report that Professor Semiletov and his team compiled for the environmental group WWF, the shallow depth of arctic shelves means that methane is reaching the atmosphere without reacting to become CO2 dissolved in the ocean.

Professor Semiletov's fellow researcher aboard the Russian icebreaker that carries the ISSS team each year is Professor Orjan Gustafsson from Stockholm University in Sweden.

He said that methane measured in the atmosphere around the region is 100 times higher than normal background levels, and in some cases 1,000 times higher.

'No alarm'

Despite the high readings, Professor Gustafsson said that so far there was no cause for alarm, and stressed that further studies were still necessary to determine the exact cause of the methane seepage.

"It is important now to understand how fast it is being released and how much is being released," he said.

However, there is a real fear that global warming may cause Siberia's subsea permafrost to thaw.

Some estimates put the amount of carbon trapped in shelf permafrost at 1,600 billion tonnes - roughly twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere now.

The release of this once captive carbon from destabilised ocean sediments and permafrost would have catastrophic effect on our climate and life on Earth, warn the scientists.

If anyone is wondering what the heck has this got to do with GW, it is time to revisit your junior high school knowledge, if you still remember any.

Of course, there is something even MORE interesting.....

Do We Need TO Say Our Prayers

[synaesthetic]

Methane hydrates letting up is about the only way a doomsday GW apocalypse can ever happen. And it would be very, very bad.

RE the Kenya thing: I find it hilarious that people blame their plight on AGW instead of on the eco-imperialistic behavior designed not to save the world, but to prevent the Third World from industrializing.

You can't do it clean until you've done it dirty; unless the First World is willing to help out these poor nations, there's no way in hell they can afford expensive clean tech.

[risingstar3110]

If you are living in the Northern hemisphere (in Europe, NA, some part of China, Korea), then how are people there talking about the recent extreme weather? Especially when the COP 15 has just ended quite unsuccessfully one month ago?

I personally found it's quite ironic to say the truth.... in such bitter sense

[NorthernFallout]

@risingstar: Judging from myself, friends and family here in Sweden, we don't really care. It isn't something worth discussing, because most of us know the on-going debate and what all that entails (read: neither side can prove it to a satisfactory level). Thinking about it all the time is a waste of time; it's a media hysteria we have no interest to take part of.

Sure, we've had the coldest winter since several decades (especially compared to the very green winter last year), but that isn't strange. If it happened before it can happen again. Since December we've had a continuous -15C, with peaks at -30C (Record was -40C, and not in the top north even) with the additional heavy snow. For me, this isn't extreme weather, just a very cold winter.

Regarding COP 15, we laughed at it. Nations globally will NEVER unite over anything. It was like a kindergarten fight.

[Crontica]

Global Warming is pure propaganda, they all talk about how dangerous it is, but none seems to be doing anything to raise our earth level to safer heights. Trying to stop the North and South pole from collapsing is pure rubbish.

[bbduece]

For people who don't believe in global warming. Take a lesson in geography and read up on current issues then say we should not be wary of global warming.

Where do all the pollutants that can't decay for the next thousands and millions of years go? What happens to those same substance when they start stacking up because we make more and more each year? How can we expect a cup of water to stay clear when we keep pouring in sludge?

We live in a big cup of water but even this giant cup of water have its limits.

To answer this thread. The issue of global warming is relevant enough for us to debate about it and take some preventive measures.

Why keep polluting when we can find more efficient ways to maintain a beautiful world.

We are far from destroying the earth but if we don't change our ways then we are just being ignorant.

[Nightbat®]

Originally Posted by bbduece

For people who don't believe in global warming. Take a lesson in geography and read up on current issues then say we should not be wary of global warming.

How about a lesson in history, a bit further back than 150 years please?

the earth's been warmer and colder than now over various periods of time
Co2 levels have been higher and lower than now over various periods of time

We can't even adaquatly predict the current weather, yet we can state GW's cause with 100% accuracy?

[synaesthetic]

Regardless of whether you believe that human actions are affecting the climate of Earth or not--this isn't the important question. The important question is this:

Can it be fixed?

My faith in human ingenuity and adaptability says yes.

My understanding of human greed and stupidity says no.

[Dralha]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

the earth's been warmer and colder than now over various periods of time

Yes, that's true. There are three natural climate forcings that change Earth's energy budget: solar, orbital, and tectonic. They have been responsible for shaping Earth's climate in the past and will influence Earth's climate in the future.

A fourth climate forcing is anthropogenic. It's a relatively new one that started at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and has resulted in the addition of billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere from sequestered carbon deposits in the Earth's crust.

It's the anthropogenic climate forcing that is currently driving the most recent global warming trend.

Co2 levels have been higher and lower than now over various periods of time

Yes, that's true. A variety of natural factors influence the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, over the past century, human activity has increased CO2 concentration by 30%, resulting in an increase in its radiative forcing (the rate of energy redirected to Earth's surface per unit area).

We can't even adaquatly predict the current weather, yet we can state GW's cause with 100% accuracy?

Weather isn't the same as climate. Climate is actually easier to predict than weather because it's over the long-term; it's the weather averaged over several years or decades.

And given the evidence, we can conclude that it's the anthropogenic forcing that's currently driving global warming. Total solar irradiance has varied by 0.1% over the past several decades, which is insufficient to account for the amount of warming that's taken place. No tectonic activity has been observed that could explain the warming. The effects of orbital fluctuations manifest over thousands of years, not decades. By the process of elimination, the increase in concentration of greenhouse gases, first CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, then H2O and CH4 from the increase in temperatures and biological activity, is primarily responsible.

[bbduece]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

How about a lesson in history, a bit further back than 150 years please?

the earth's been warmer and colder than now over various periods of time
Co2 levels have been higher and lower than now over various periods of time

We can't even adaquatly predict the current weather, yet we can state GW's cause with 100% accuracy?

taking climate change out of the equation, we are polluting the planet a very fast rate: we can deforest an entire area with a couple of machines, it takes 1 unregulated factory to make an entire lake toxic, we have destroy ecosystems, etc

GW is a prediction, more or less, base on scientific experiments and models. All scientific claims are theories at its core.

GW is a light bulb saying we should care and start doing something about it. Wether it is true or not, we should find greener alternatives.

nothing in science is 100% yet it is credible

[justavisitor]

when weather becomes extremely hot, ppl blame it on global warming, when weather becomes extremely cold, like now in western europe..ppl again blame it on global warming...

I don't think human has enough power to destroy the Earth..the worst case is, human beings will destroy themselves, and then the earth will be back to what scientists think it's "normal" after human beings become extinct...I think "protect our earth" is an overstatement...

Having said that, I will do my best, within my power, to make the world a bit greener..it doesn't hurt..but I think the main responsibility is on the government and those big companies...I have an impression that government and big companies are taking advantages of the "threat" of the global warming to grab more $$$ from the citizens

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

How about a lesson in history, a bit further back than 150 years please?

the earth's been warmer and colder than now over various periods of time
Co2 levels have been higher and lower than now over various periods of time

We can't even adaquatly predict the current weather, yet we can state GW's cause with 100% accuracy?

We already have average temperatures higher than anything we had for thousands of years. The speed at which temperatures increase is equally unprecedented.

We know that CO2 levels and temperatures have been well correlated in the past and we know how much CO2 we produce. Not surprisingly, we found about the same amount in the atmosphere.

I don't know if you want to jump on the argumentative train "The fact that temperatures changed in the past disproves that humans are responsible for global warming." with your remarks but I hope not because that argument is about as silly as can be. I can as well "disprove" the fact that guns kill people by pointing out that people already died before guns were invented.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by justavisitor

when weather becomes extremely hot, ppl blame it on global warming, when weather becomes extremely cold, like now in western europe..ppl again blame it on global warming...

I don't think human has enough power to destroy the Earth..the worst case is, human beings will destroy themselves, and then the earth will be back to what scientists think it's "normal" after human beings become extinct...I think "protect our earth" is an overstatement...

Having said that, I will do my best, within my power, to make the world a bit greener..it doesn't hurt..but I think the main responsibility is on the government and those big companies...I have an impression that government and big companies are taking advantages of the "threat" of the global warming to grab more $$$ from the citizens

You would be correct. Follow the money trail. Hell ole' Al Gore is worth what a billion dollars now? All due to his Global Warming movie and talks. He's by no means someone who actually cares about the environment. Only making money. And people have made him very very rich.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

You would be correct. Follow the money trail. Hell ole' Al Gore is worth what a billion dollars now? All due to his Global Warming movie and talks. He's by no means someone who actually cares about the environment. Only making money. And people have made him very very rich.

so what if he made money? He's the only one making money, on promoting his agenda.... except big conglomartes are usuing "green" as a buzz word to market their products. Al Gore is probably the least motivated to make money off of this considering he drives a hybrid and buys carbon offsets when ever he travels by private jet. Does it mean he has forsaken the luxuries of his success, no but your strawman arguement to villanize him because he made money is asinine. this world is run by money, and he had no real incentive to go work considering he was vp for two terms and amassed a great amount of wealth during his stint in politics, not to mention his speaking fees at the time were also still very high.

[synaesthetic]

Al "hurr i invented the internet!" Gore is a massive tool; defending him just makes you look like a moron.

The Goracle's toolishness aside, the simple fact that one can amass wealth in politics is wrong. Term limits, salary caps, let's bring back the part-time legislature.