Global Warming - Fact or Fiction?

[doubly]

I'm reading a really interesting book by Michael Chriichton (the guy who wrote Jurassic Park) called State of Fear. In this novel, seroius flaws are pointed out in the theory of global warming. Really, it's news to me that it's a "theory", not an established fact.

Chrichton argues that the Earth is going through a natural warming trend. Also, it has never been proven that CO2 emissions are the actual cause of the warming trend. Other issues, such as the reliability of so-called "climatologists", are also raised.

One of the most interseting things I found was the mention of a guy named Bjorn Lombrg. Apparently, this guy set off to disprove another scientist who put forth that the envoronment was actually improving. In the process of doing this, though, Lomborg found out that the scientist he was disproving was actually right. (Maybe some Scandinavian members could shed further light on this.)

I just want to get some opinions from people worldwide. I believe in things like the Big Bang and evolution, but I know they're only theories scientifically. Global warming, on the other hand, I'm just beginning to doubt....

[JackYang]

I blame it on CHINA's POLUTIONS!

[deviljet88]

Originally Posted by JackYang

I blame it on CHINA's POLUTIONS!

Eff off. You can't blame the people for wanting to own cars. Freezing, how cool. Ice age seems fun, need ice down in Australia. This is going to end up with a particular greenie on KKW shouting at everyonelse, so I'm not going to post how ignorant I am. Refer to the other tonne of Global Warming threads if you want.

[PhoeniX]

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

We live on this planet,…, this planet is our home,…, this planet is our house,…, and people who can't have respect for their own house/planet, aren't worth living in/on it!

I never thought of it like that but I think that you're right

When are they gonna invent environmentaly friendly cars? Or do they have them yet?

[frodo1511]

Watch the Day After Tommorow.

Although not completly accurate, it's hypothesis' could come true, just not as fast as in the movie(an ice age in 2 weeks? Obsurd).

[Mags]

There's quite a lot of evidence that the earth is going through natural temperature changes. It's also pretty definite that those changes may be exacerbated by global warming and pollution, but there's not really anything to say that this wouldn't be happening anyway.

The earth goes through climate cycles. It's natural, and it happened quite a bit before we were even here.

Anyone who wants more information, I'd suggest they read "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. Excellent read.

[Narg]

Originally Posted by Bellum_851

I never thought of it like that but I think that you're right

When are they gonna invent environmentaly friendly cars? Or do they have them yet?

Never. They wont invent environmentaly friendly cars ever. Know why ? oil companys would loose FUCKLOADS of money, were talking trillions of dollars. There have been heaps of cars invented that could run of non-fossil fuels, but the people who made them have just been bought out by the large oil companies. Even if they refused to sell their product, they would most likely either be beaten into submission, or killed. Its all about money, thats why doctors are NEVER going to cure cancer, know why ?, there making shitloads of money from the treatments, fuck the cure, weres the money in that. Its the same with AIDS etc. Doctors dont cure shit.

Also, Nice post FF, but you forgot to add the fact that you drive a car and live in a large house that would use lots of electricity. So infact, your no environmentalist are you .

[frodo1511]

Only monks have appreciation for the environment.

Anyone agree with the Day After Tommorow theory I stated earler?

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Narg

Never. They wont invent environmentaly friendly cars ever. Know why ? oil companys would loose FUCKLOADS of money, were talking trillions of dollars. There have been heaps of cars invented that could run of non-fossil fuels, but the people who made them have just been bought out by the large oil companies. Even if they refused to sell their product, they would most likely either be beaten into submission, or killed. Its all about money, thats why doctors are NEVER going to cure cancer, know why ?, there making shitloads of money from the treatments, fuck the cure, weres the money in that. Its the same with AIDS etc. Doctors dont cure shit.

Also, Nice post FF, but you forgot to add the fact that you drive a car and live in a large house that would use lots of electricity. So infact, your no environmentalist are you .

And also, the amount of money the government rakes in from the tax on oil doesn't give them much of an incentive to invest money on other forms of power.

[deviljet88]

Originally Posted by Narg

Never. They wont invent environmentaly friendly cars ever. Know why ? oil companys would loose FUCKLOADS of money, were talking trillions of dollars. There have been heaps of cars invented that could run of non-fossil fuels, but the people who made them have just been bought out by the large oil companies. Even if they refused to sell their product, they would most likely either be beaten into submission, or killed. Its all about money, thats why doctors are NEVER going to cure cancer, know why ?, there making shitloads of money from the treatments, fuck the cure, weres the money in that. Its the same with AIDS etc. Doctors dont cure shit.

Also, Nice post FF, but you forgot to add the fact that you drive a car and live in a large house that would use lots of electricity. So infact, your no environmentalist are you .

That is utterly not true! You think doctors delibrately hide a cure or attempt to not find a cure for cancer? If they didn't cure shit, you'd have died of the common cold you ungrateful bastard. If you learn more about cancers and AIDS, you'd realise why they're so hard to find cures for. However, the actual RELEASING of cures, then you may be correct. Pharmaceutical companies, especially in AIDS, want to have a monopoly on it. Problem is though, Africa is a poor country and its where AIDS is hitting the most. Catch 22, companies don't get cash, people don't get cured. The stuff about oil companies I agree on though.

Onto Scott's point, you're Victorian, surely you've heard of the wind farm plans in the Gippslands? Bloody assholes there keep complaining about unsightly turbines though, more about political ambition than cash, for not oil based economy countries I'd think anyway.

Edit: Scientists try to find cures anyway, not doctors in most cases.

[Alias]

Originally Posted by Narg

Never. They wont invent environmentaly friendly cars ever. Know why ? oil companys would loose FUCKLOADS of money, were talking trillions of dollars. There have been heaps of cars invented that could run of non-fossil fuels, but the people who made them have just been bought out by the large oil companies.

"All this and it’s looking to the future as well. In a genuine show surprise, BMW unveiled the enormous H2R, its hydrogen-powered concept which points to what the company sees as the fuel of the future. The 6.0-litre V12 engine produces 245bhp when running on liquid hydrogen, and accelerates to 60mph in 6 seconds. Even more impressively, a few days before the show, it clicked 300km/h in tests, a world record which officially makes it the fastest hydrogen car in the world. The styling and sheer size caused controversy, but as a showcase for discussions on future fuel technology, it didn’t fail."
Quote from article about the paris motoshow.

So what Oil companie owns BMW then?

[meegaan1]

I think that global warming has gone down, but that's only because here in North Nevada, we didn't have ONE DAY during summer that was one-hundred degrees (Fahrenheit) or more. That's unusual for us.
Maybe we'll all freeze instead of fry!

[Kelsey]

I would love to hear what everyone has to say on this topic, especially since we all live in such a variety of places around the world and therefore experience all kinds of different examples and opinions on the matter. Today I got in an argument with a co-worker about global warming (I don't necessarily believe it's the huge deal we're told it is), and it's obviously becoming more and more of an issue (if not in nature, then among the earth's population). Is global warming as big of a deal outside of the U.S.? What are your thoughts on the subject?

[hasselbrad]

While I would like to see us burn cleaner, renewable fuels like ethanol, I don't think global warming is a phenomenon over which we have any control. Most of it is bunk science backed up with far too narrow a scope of data. People are all excited because the polar ice caps are shrinking, but they are actually larger now than they were in the '20s and '30s. Permafrost is melting, but I have a suspicion that this has more to do with what's going on beneath the Earth's surface than with what the air temperature is. A one degree change in the temperature isn't going to cause soil that's been frozen for ten millenia to thaw. People like to point to the increased cyclonic activity taking place in the Atlantic Basin as proof that global warming is taking place. What they fail to mention is that there has been a reduction in the amount of cyclonic activity in the Pacific Basin recently. This is a natural cycle that the Earth goes through over a span of about 20 years. And, the intensity of storms hasn't increased, only the population density of the areas they've hit.
If there is another Ice Age on its way, there isn't anything me, you or Greenpeace can do about it.

[EmotionSickness]

I'm none too educated on the subject, to be honest, but from what I DO know, I think it goes in cycles. They say "record heat", but we've experienced heat like this before...100 years ago.


In essence, there is little we can do to prevent global warming, or freezing, for that matter.

Edit -- haha, in other (more articulate and refined words): what Brad said.

[Katielondon]

global warming is mostly a natural thing, and that which is man made only accounts for a small amount of the total, of which most is factories etc, i hate the government using it as an excuse impose stupid taxes on motorists more just because thier short on money, the truth is everyone could drive around in 7 litre V8s that do about 10 miles to a gallon and it wouldnt affect the climate at all, the same must go for factories and plane companies whos taxes have been raised under the faulse acusation of ' causing climate change and global warming' if you ask me its just a thing which is mostly made up by the government to scare us and tax us more.

[deviljet88]

Of course it's a big issue outside the US, greenies and scientists don't just live there. I think global warming sucks but there's more destructive events headed humanity's way, and a lot sooner.

[Kelsey]

I think global warming is all crap. people just want something to be scared of.

[Kelsey]

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

First of all it's pretty important that you have some understanding of the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the natural process by which the atmosphere traps some of the Sun's energy, warming the Earth enough to support life. Most mainstream scientists believe a human-driven increase in "greenhouse gases" is increasing the effect artificially. These gases include carbon dioxide, emitted by fossil fuel burning and deforestation, and methane, released from rice paddies and landfill sites.

So what is your solution? Cut down all the trees? If Al Gore is to be believed, the problem lies within the carbon dioxide. His argument, which from your above response sounds like you would agree, is that the greenhouse effect is causing the heat from the sun to be trapped within the atmosphere, thus heating up the earth and causing "global warming." This idea has too many holes. One being: what grows when it gets warmer? Algae. What does algae do? It sucks up the CO2. So what's the problem?

Here is a quote from an article that cites Professor Tim Patterson, a paleoclimatologist from Carleton University: when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Something what most people don’t understand is that global warming is not something straight, it is exponential. For that reason, the smallest influence we have on a complex system as the world’s climate has far-reaching consequences.

What scientific study points to that? We can't even control the effects of the coyote-elk population in Yellowstone National Park. How the fuck can scientists accurately predict the temperature in fifty years, or what will happen when and if the average temperature of the earth rises a few degrees.

For example, when the upper water layers of an ocean warm up more, they mix up less good with the layers from below, which means that there will be less feeding substances in the top layer that can take up carbon dioxide (CO2) by photosynthesis.

But the warmer weather means longer growing season, so nature, as it has in the past, can easily balance itself out to make up for the lack of initial nutrients provided to the algae or whatever else on the surface of the water.

For example, the icecaps reflect the light back to the atmosphere, but when the ice melts, what is happening all over the world, decreasing ice cover will mean exposed land absorbs more heat and speeds up warming further.

Melting icecaps can mean more moisture in the air, right? More moisture can mean more clouds.... So isn't it possible that the increased number of clouds will reflect the sunlight? If that's the case, the water won't heat up. We don't know that won't happen any more than we know it will.

The latest reports on increased levels of glacial discharge, in the journal Science, reports the amount of ice being dumped into the ocean from the Greenland Ice Sheet has doubled in the last 5 years. Scientists had thought that global warming did not yet significantly threaten the ice sheet and it would take over a thousand years to break down.
A full breakdown would result in a catastrophic global sea level rise of 7 meters. That's bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis.

Says Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki: "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier. In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."
He's not the only one who thinks that:
Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems."

But Karlén clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karlén concludes.

The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.

you're entitled to have your opinion of course but i doubt you'll be able to refute the more and more upcoming evidence provided by scientists all over the world who spent their days and billions of dollars investigating this matter.

Try me. I think if I got enough people with titles and so called status to tell you that the moon is made of cheese, you'd believe that in a heartbeat. Oh, but that's just silly isn't it?

I'll be back later...this topic is awesome, let's keep it going.

[Fiirdraak]

I was impressed by Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. He lay down lots of statistics, causes and effects that have happened to the Earth during its existence. He stated that the changes have been drastically stronger during the past 50 or so years than in the entire history of the planet (as much as can be measured). In just 50 years population has multiplied from roughly 2-3 billion to over 6 billion people. Remember, that to get to the 2 billion took us thousands of years. Greenhouse effect is real. Industry pushes out tons and tons of CO2 plus many other cemicals that do hurt the climate and the atmosphere. Temperature measurements show from 1880 to this day that ten hottest years during this time period have all occured during the past fourteen years. Glaciers that are vital to the balance of Earth's climate systems are retreating which can be seen in before-and-after satellite photographs. This means that if the same rate of melting continues, most of the coastline cities will be drowned, such as New York, L.A. and so on. The sea level will rise at least 6 meters. Almost a thousand scientific articles that were reviewed tells that they either sided with the theory that global warming is in fact human-caused or did not comment on it. None of them declined the theory about human-caused effects.

Global warming is reality and it gets worse as we 'speak'. There is no question about its reliability. This fact is supported by the fact that some people who were dealt with White House's climate politics forged climate change documents to support growing industry with the cost of greenhouse effect and global warming. And why not? US's most financial income comes from coal-based industry and they are willing to take a stand for it until now some changes can be seen in the WH's climate politics. Other nations also have the same issues, US is not the only 'bad guy' even though majority (compared to other nations) of the CO2 pollution comes from US.

It is quite possible that these devastating natural disasters that have occured in the past few years (i.e. Hurricane Katrina) are nature's way to deal with the growing stress towards ecosystems that humans cause with their thoughtless actions. Every day areas the size of soccer fields are being cut down in the Amazonian rainforests to make room for cattle and cultivation. And since the soil in rainforests is very delicate, the forests cannot be re-planted because the soil cannot support it anymore. So the damage they do is permanent.

All in all, those people who say that climate change and global warming is not true are idiots, if you ask me. One doesn't have to be a scientist to see what effects we have to our surroundings, how we are becoming increasingly efficient in destroying our living environment. We are digging our own grave my dear friends.