Global warming. Really?

[Phil Ayesho]

yea I perosnally believe its a complete skam, propaganda in the US anyway. I mean, the ice cap is not melting, and in fact expanding if you look at the facts.

Your "facts" are faulty, friend.

The northern ice cap is collapsing... so much so that there is a rush between the Soviet Union, Canada and the US to exploit the arctic ocean.
For the first time in recorded history there is an open northwest passage by sea, because the ice has retreated so far.

The melting of the northern ice is insignificant to sea level because that ice is floating.
However, the melting of the greenland ice sheet and the west antarctic ice sheet, both land based masses of ice, will raise sea levels by 5 to 9 meters.

That is 15 to 27 feet.
70% of all human beings live in areas that will be flooded should this warming continue.

He took the average of every century except the last one (where he took the actual number instead). Naturally that would create a spike that doesn't actually exist. DO it correctly NO FUCKIN SPIKE.

Um- wrong. The spike in the last half of the last century is so profound that it shows up in ALL methods of data correlation.
SOFTENING the spike thru averaging the last century merely shows that the entire century as a much broader rise.

That, however is dishonest and dissembling. What you suggest is nothing other than a way to HIDE the fact that the past 50 years has seen a uniquely anomalous change in HOW FAST and HOW MASSIVE atmospheric conditions
are changing.
In short... you are whining about a statistical method that REVEALS an critical aspect of global warming... the unprecedentedly sharp nature of the increase.
You are an apologist seeking to CONCEAL that thru statistical averaging.

Let's see, my dad says a volcanic eruption in asia last year has been causing the weird weather this summer

Your Dad is almost not wrong.
Mount St Helens eruption, 25 years ago, put as much CO2 in the atmosphere in a few days as human industry had over the 20 years bracketing the eruption.
Every volcano puts massive amounts of CO2 in tha air.

So what? Volcanos are NOT erupting any more frequently than they have throughout history. Their effect is already part of the BASELINE average that is revealed in historical data.
Human beings activities are the equivalent of ADDING at least one mount St Helens sized eruption every 20 years.
And the RATE at which we are adding to the problem is increasing exponentially. China and India's economic booms of the last ten years means that we are now adding a mount st helens eruption's worth of co2 every 10 years. When Africa finally get's developed, it will be down to a St Helen's worth every 5 years...
That is the equivalent of 20 additional St helen's sized eruptions every century.

THat is a fucking LOT of co2.

. I was watching this video that carbon emissions have been increasing, it would cause a DECREASE in hurricanes, not an increase.

Bullshit - no one really knows the long term effects of global warming- due to its chaotic nature, we simply do not understand weather well enough.

Humans causing is also bullshit, being that the major greenhosue gas is water vapor (mostly clouds). Carbon dioxide makes up for 20%-ish I think, I dunno, and that of that percentile, humans contribute 3% to the total amount of carbon dioxide.
On top of that, carbon dioxide is a friendly green house gas if you look at the facts. It encourages plant growth (they grow more fruitfully with twice the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air than currently. The fatcs are all fucked up, cause of stupid al gore, go figure.. PROPAGANDA

Again- you have no idea what you are talking about.

Methane is the most potent greenhouse gas- it is rising exponentially due to the billions of cows being fed corn.
Water Vapor is TIED to global temperature- ergo, as co2 and methane cause a rise in temperature, you can expect MORE water vapor in the air due to the fact that warmer air can hold more water vapor.
As sea levels rise the amount of surface area covered by water will increase, which will ALSO add to the amount of water vapor in the air.

ERGO... the warming WE cause with co2 and methane will THUS cause an increase in water vapor.. which will ADD to the problem, not reduce it.

So- do you understand that the argument about water vapor is stupid on its face? That water vapor ALSO being a greenhouse concern only AMPLIFIES the effects of human caused warming?

Oh- but don't stop there bucko- read further- because things are evne MORE fucked up than that.
IN FACT the water vapor on Earth has been FALLING--- Look into the crisis called the Pan Evaporation Rate.
Warming SHOULD increase water vapor and rainfall... it HASN'T- worldwide average shows a drop in rainfall.
WHY?
Particulates in the air... human pollution... is reducing the pan evaporation rate.

How do we know it's us? Because in the weeks after 9/11- when all air traffic was shut down over the US... the Pan evaporation rate in the US ROSE dramatically. precisely correlated to the end of high altitude air traffic.

What this means is that our particulate pollution is REDUCING the effect of global warming...
Which kinda puts us in a box...
If we address global warming by reducing emissions... if the particulates in the air falls significantly, then global warming will ACCELERATE.

We are left with hobson's choice..
Keep polluting to slow the rate of warming- and end up with a gradually hotter, yet increasingly bone dry planet.

Or stop polluting to lower the ultimate high point of global warming, but at the cost of a much more rapid rise in temperature, but a lot more rainfall.

Apologists like you seem to imagine that because you can't SEE the hour hand of the clock move that it must not be moving.

but like cancer- the fact that you are still alive and that you don't feel any different does not mean that it is not killing you.

 

[BigDallasDick8x6]

Phil, you are my hero.

 

[HazelGod]

I think the changes are a result of orbit position on a cycle of 26,000 years which marks extreme changes before the sun passes the center point of our galaxy.
(snip)
Google 2012 and precession to learn more...

:lmao:
Stop, Scrufuss! Please! Can't breathe...!

 

[Svidrigailov]

Listen up people. I am an environmental engineer, so I know what I'm talking about. The fact is, climate models can fairly accurately predict temperature changes due to some change in natural and anthropogenic irradiative forcing. Yes, there is solar variability; yes, the orientation of the earth with respect to the sun changes where and how light gets absorbed. These are very well understood by climate scientists, but they do not sufficiently account for the drastic changes in global mean surface temperature that have occured since the mid 1700s. The growing concentrations of greenhouse gases does, however, account for it.

 

[Skull Mason]

Wow. Not sure how to even respond to something like that. But I'll start with there is no such thing as a "living" atom. (I just glanced over the periodic table of the elements to make sure a new one hadn't been added I wasn't aware of. Nope. No "living" element has been added.)

Secondly, the elements exist throughout the universe. They are not limited to this solar system. Our particular sun is only one of an estimated 70 sextillion (7 x 10^22) stars in the observable universe.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Astronomers count the stars
To think that our star is somehow the "heart" of all atoms puts you in direct contradiction with the overwhelming majority of the world's reputable scientists on yet another issue.

Wow, I'm not even sure if you understood anything I fucking said! Admittedly (and regretfully) I used the word atoms instead of organisms, but my point remains the same. Every atom in this solar system, every organism in this solar system, was born in our star, the Sun. Therefore, the Sun is somehow the heart of everything you and I are made of, and the ground we walk on, and the air we breathe, and yes the Co2 that man is pumping out. I don't see how the hundreds of billions of stars and hundreds of billions of galaxies really has anything to do with that? I don't know, try to think a little more abstractly. I also don't really understand what we are debating as I pretty much agree with you, it is just that I believe the Sun will have the ultimate say in what our climate chooses to do, even though man is a virus and a toxin, as I stated earlier. This is why I really liked the movie and idea behind M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening", because it was about the Earth releasing it's own antibodies to rid it's skin of the virus that is man.

 

[BigDallasDick8x6]

I also don't really understand what we are debating as I pretty much agree with you, it is just that I believe the Sun will have the ultimate say in what our climate chooses to do, even though man is a virus and a toxin, as I stated earlier.

If you're saying the sun is the the dominant controller of our weather and climate, of course I agree with you. There would be no weather or climate without it. But if you're saying the sun is such a powerful force that we might as well ignore the affect of CO2 build up, then no we don't agree.

 

[Incocknito]

My reply would have been the same as Phil's except less lucid.

It is a bit dense to think that humans have not impacted upon the environment / climate of where they live.

Do you also think that humans have play(ed) no part in the extinction of wildlife?

Humans are the reason for most if not all of the "bad" in the world.

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

Physicists believe this will be a time of very strong solar flares that would have dire effects on our planet.

Do

They

F**k

And it just so happens that this alignment will be center to the milky way's center which is a black hole. There is a lot of energy and radiation that emits directly in front of this body.

Hahaha. You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

For anyone who actually thinks there's no such thing as Global Warming or Climate Change, I remind you... THERE WAS A FREAKIN' TORNADO IN BROOKLYN!

Think about that for a second.

 

[Pye]

Wow-- I'm pretty surprised that so many people on this board are as ignorant as this...Global Warming doesn't mean that you should be warmer on your commute to work. It means that greenhouse gases are causing the earths atmosphere to warm up a few degrees more than it should be (or more than is healthy for life on this planet). The warming of the earth is causing the ice caps to melt...cooling more of the ocean and causing a shift in the salinity and killing off ocean life and changing the thermal currents...changing weather patterns throughout the world.

People mostly disagree on the cause...is it pollution or the raping of the rainforests?

For people in this thread to state it's "propaganda" your ignorance astounds me. BTW Santa isn't real...there is no Easter bunny...but the Tooth Fairy exists so rip those teeth out and hope she brings you the lottery.

 

[Skull Mason]

For anyone who actually thinks there's no such thing as Global Warming or Climate Change, I remind you... THERE WAS A FREAKIN' TORNADO IN BROOKLYN!

Think about that for a second.

That is pretty sick. But was it a microburst as opposed to a tornado? We had one out here in Jersey a few summers ago and it took out a mile or two wide swath of giant trees in a matter of seconds. I happened to be outside when it hit and it felt like the end of the world. I got out and took hundreds of photographs of the destruction the next morning, made a tornado look silly!

 

[BigDallasDick8x6]

That is pretty sick. But was it a microburst as opposed to a tornado? We had one out here in Jersey a few summers ago and it took out a mile or two wide swath of giant trees in a matter of seconds. I happened to be outside when it hit and it felt like the end of the world. I got out and took hundreds of photographs of the destruction the next morning, made a tornado look silly!

Sounds like what happened in France a few years ago. If I remember correctly it was Versailles? 200 year old oak trees wiped out in a storm. Needless to say the populace was heartbroken over the loss. The French president tried to console them and said it was a once-in-a-hundred year event and 3 days later it happened again taking out more centuries old trees. It seems we are having more and more "rare" events lately.

Good point Pye about the rainforests. They soak up CO2 so had we not lost so much of them that would be one more sponge. Plus when you cut down vegetation the carbon it absorbed in its lifetime is released as it decays. So a double whammy from rainforest depletion from a carbon balance standpoint. Not to mention water vapor patterns, effects on habitat, loss of shade, etc.

Planting trees is one of the best things a person can do for the Earth. The website for the City Arborist in Dallas says a neighborhood in Dallas with lots of shade trees is on average 11 degrees cooler than a neighborhood without trees. Trees grow very slowly so plant some soon!

There is a story about some wealthy man who wanted a certain tree planted on his estate. The gardener told him that it was a verrrrry slow growing species and it would be 100 years before it became a significant size. To which the wealthy landowner responded -- "Then there's no time to waste. Get in it this afternoon."

 

[joyboytoy79]

Planting trees is one of the best things a person can do for the Earth. The website for the City Arborist in Dallas says a neighborhood in Dallas with lots of shade trees is on average 11 degrees cooler than a neighborhood without trees. Trees grow very slowly so plant some soon!

While, in general, i agree with this assessment, i do offer a bit of a disclaimer:

1) Plant trees only if they are a native part of your local ecosystem. If you live in most parts of the great plains, trees are native to only flood plains. If you live in a desert or semi-desert, trees are simply not native.

2) Plant trees that will not require irrigation (after the initial planting, of course... everything needs to be watered in, and coddled a little until it's established).

3) USE NATIVE SPECIES! This will pretty much make points one and 2 ineffective. Yes, any tree will consume CO2 as it grows, but if it sets seed, will its babies find their way into pristine and sensitive habitat and take over?

Other strategies for those who live in areas where trees are not an option (and for those who simply dislike trees in their landscapes).

*Shrubs and sub-shrubs. Anything that produces wood locks in carbon for the long haul.

*Reduce the amount of your lawn that's dominated by mown grass. Plant flower beds instead. Use natives whenever possible, but if you have to use non-natives (or even if you just want to) make sure they're safe for your area. Check your local county ag extension for a list of noxious weeds.

*Stop using wood chip mulches. If you mulch for looks, consider growing a "living mulch" such as carpet bugle or virginia creeper. If it's moisture conservation or weed suppression you're concerned with, mulch with shredded newspapers or straw.

 

[BigDallasDick8x6]

^^ Totally agree. Two great books -- "Get Your Lawn Off Drugs" about going organic and "Get Your Lawn Off Grass" about using something more eco-friendly.

Also, if you've never seen the piece below, it's a true classic.

Conversation with St. Francis: ​

How God Invented Organic Gardening​

GOD: St. Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.

St. FRANCIS: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD: Grass? But, it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms.

St. FRANCIS: They poison the grubs and grass insects, sir. The birds that eat the poisoned bugs get sick and die.

GOD: What?!!!! The grass is sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing the grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn. Still, they keep planting more grass.

GOD: Hmmm. The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it—sometimes twice a week.

GOD: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in
bags.

GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS: No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS: Yes, Sir.

GOD: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS: You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It's a natural cycle of life.

ST. FRANCIS: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD: And where do they get this mulch?

ST FRANCIS: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

GOD: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE: "Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It's a story about....

GOD: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

 

[lucky8]

For anyone who actually thinks there's no such thing as Global Warming or Climate Change, I remind you... THERE WAS A FREAKIN' TORNADO IN BROOKLYN!

Think about that for a second.

There was also an earthquake in tennessee...

...and grass in the Sahara, and an ocean over kansas...

musta been all those camel farts that caused it...

 

[lucky8]

And here's a question I'd really like to know the answer to...how does one go about determining the average temperature of the globe as a whole?

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I got out and took hundreds of photographs of the destruction the next morning, made a tornado look silly!

Fascinating.
You should post a couple, Skull.

 

[lucky8]

And here's a question I'd really like to know the answer to...how does one go about determining the average temperature of the globe as a whole?

nevermind...found the answer: NASA - Earth Gets a Warm Feeling All Over

 

[D_Tintagel_Demondong]

My reply would have been the same as Phil's except less lucid.

It is a bit dense to think that humans have not impacted upon the environment / climate of where they live.

Do you also think that humans have play(ed) no part in the extinction of wildlife?

Humans are the reason for most if not all of the "bad" in the world.

Easter Island is a great example of the devistation that humans can cause to their environment. It was settled by Polynesians around 700 AD. It was full ot palm trees and many migratory birds who nested there-- from albatross to petrals. When they first arrived, it was a plentiful paridise.

By 1600, the Islanders used up all the trees, killed all the birds except the frigate, and overfished. Not only that, but they couldn't make boats because there was no wood; they were trapped on the fruitless Island. The tribes soon started warring with each other over the few remaining resources. The wars were so devistating that their population went from about 14,000 to just a few hundred. This is when the Dutch discovered the island (on Easter Day) and wondered how the small remaining population could build and move such massive statues that were all over the island.

My point is, we've done it before and we can do it again--but on a global scale.

 

[BigDallasDick8x6]

Yeah, I read something once that said -- "I wonder what the person was thinking when they cut down the last tree on Easter Island?"

You have to wonder what they thought they would do the following day.....