Climate Change a Hoax?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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[quote]Sanitarium wrote:
-SuperMan- wrote:
Sanitarium wrote:
I would much rather one species became extinct and the ice caps melt than the entire planet enter another ice age…

You lost me with that statement, one species?.. How about all species?.. The ice caps melting could very well suggest another ice age. And, contrary to what you said up top, man can very easily affect fragile mother earth. We have polluted every single existing body of water on the planet, and killed and deformed hundreds of species, polar bears just happen to be next on the list.

Wait so by your logic:

The Earth is warming, therefore the ice caps are going to melt (and the poor poor polarbears are going to die), therefore an ice age is coming. Yes of course how could I have been so stupid! It should have been clear to me from the beginning that when things get warm, everything freezes over…

You are absolutely ignorant to think that it is wrong for humans to have “killed” hundreds of species. If you knew anything about evolutionary biology, you would understand that, save some meteor strike or other natural disaster, species thrive at the expense of other species. Millions (maybe billions?) of species over the course of life on Earth have died because of other species.[/quote]

Yes, I’m totally igorant to evolutionary biology (shirt tears).

Easy there tiger, that’s not what I said, and it’s not my logic either. If you took the time to read my prior posts, you wouldn’t have to shoot off on tangents at me.

Good luck proving your point to the rest of us.

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[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
666Rich wrote:
As a geologist, I would not say it is a “hoax”. A few of my professors did climate change core research. There is definatley an anthropogenic effect, the question is how much, and from what data does one really determine this. Climate change does happen naturally to a degree with the Mihlankovitch (sp) cycles, which caused the ice ages and other climate phenomona. However, one cannot dispute their is more anthro green house gasses than previous, greenhouse gasses cause warming. There is also less albedo feedback due to urbanization and more heat is trapped, in a nutshell the urban heat island effect.

I agree with what you’ve written here. “By how much” is the actual question. Given that the earth warms and cools with no external forcing, that’s an extremely tough thing to measure.

I do think alot of people blow this out of proportion and their are perfectly cost effective ways to mitigate the damage done. I believe firmly in CO2 sequestration, though some believe it will cause geologic instability. I disagree. I also believe in using green techniques in urban centers. I am not even referring to LEED certified buildings, but rooftop gardens. They act as a sink for c02, and also deter wastewater runoff flooding that is commmon, especially in Pittsburgh where the storm drainage and sewage systems are connected (yuck). Passive solar is another good option, my father built an addition with windows facing the sun, and as a result less energy is used.

There are economic incentives to do this anyway: it’s cheaper on your summer cooling bill. Rooftop gardens create fresh produce. It’s better to look at greenery than to look at concrete.

Global warming or not (and I think the alarmism is fraudulent), people would start doing these things anyway, even for just aesthetic reasons.

Saving energy can really be economical.
Exactly. Energy efficiency is a productivity booster.

Most ethanol ideas are absurd and require way more inputs than outputs. We also are going to need oil for a long time to come, but there are innovative ways to save energy that are not cost intensive and alot more common sense than most of washington would like to admit. But then again, washington and common sense do not coexist.

Ethanol is an absurd market distortion caused by agribusinesses lobbying for subsidy monies to be directed their way.

I agree with you: we’ll be using oil for a long time to come, but a lot more efficiently. [/quote]

I also agree with these statements. People crying “hoax”, as well as the people who think the sky is falling are both probably wrong. Any damage we have done in the last 100 years can be undone in a similar time span. If we take reasonable environmental steps, we will likely stop any impending danger and have more efficient industries.

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/care

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[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

This is physical chemistry as well as observed facts, recently discovered, regarding what has in fact occurred: CO2 rise lagging temperature rise.[/quote]

Can you provide me with a link to the study(s) you’re basing this off of?

Thanks!

Your argument is not a new one and is something ‘global warmers’ predicted. I’d like to hear your response to arguments such as those presented in:

Question – are you arguing that increasing atmospheric CO2 does not increase temps (ie – all else held the same, increase [CO2] and what does temp do?), or that it does but other factors arise that counter said temp increase so there’s no net change?

I have an open mind on this. The main problem I have with the deniers is that their methods remind me of those used by big tobacco when they were funding scientists to challenge the science linking smoking with lung disease/etc. – which makes me skeptical of their science and claims.

I also have a problem with the ‘global warmers’ in that they seem to be on some holy mission.

Cutting through the crap from both sides is necessary to figure out what’s what, and why your source(s) would be appreciated.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
Well, dammit, I learned something today. The earth’s core is several million degrees.

[/quote]

I love how Al Gore thinks we live on the sun.

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Anyone with even a sliver of common sense realized this was a hoax when it first came out. The question becomes will the obsessive believers of climate religion actually continue the charade and what will be the next crisis they manufacture to believe in?

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576368,00.html

If the “scientists” are right we should be burning to death any second now.

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[quote]-SuperMan- wrote:
I don’t want anyone to think I’m in the global warming camp or some kind of an alarmist, but it doesn’t look like the polar bear is fairing too well now.[/quote]

You mean the polar bear who’s population has exploded to over 20,000?

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Pretty presumptuous of mankind to think that we could adversely affect the planet Earth; that our young species, reigning (or so we have been told) on this planet for a mere million years or so (in a form that we would recognize today), and its domesticated livestock have actually contributed, or could possibly ever contribute, enough methane and CO2 gases and will consume or have already consumed enough of this planet’s resources to cripple her. Come on people… wake up you are not in the Matrix!

The dinosaurs “ruled” for nearly two hundred million years (that was until the Earth got tired of them, recouped her losses, and finally retook the energy she had poorly invested)… they were mass consumers on an unprecedented scale… on levels that mankind could nowhere comprehend. Their herds grazed away forests and grassy plains that eclipse desertification and deforestation known to man today. A single one of their giant reptilian turds was the size of one of our homes (or double trailer semi trucks) and emitted methane levels that of an entire 5-star cattle ranch or pig farm for a week. Hell, everyday when just one of the smaller herds of herbivores opened their mouths to chew or belch it was equivalent to China’s or America’s emissions in one year!

Two hundred million years our giant friends roamed, pillaged, raped, and devoured the planet Earth… she’s still here and doing quiet fine. Now mankind will most likely not last that long (those aren’t very good betting odds you know), nor will the Earth let humans take more than she can give. Even so, everything is cyclic and reordered, thus the energy and resources are truly never lost, just transformed.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
hedo wrote:
Anyone with even a sliver of common sense realized this was a hoax when it first came out. The question becomes will the obsessive believers of climate religion actually continue the charade and what will be the next crisis they manufacture to believe in?

After “them” having cried wolf over global warming it makes me wonder if the next real crisis will be taken seriously.[/quote]

Without a doubt they will make up a new scenario - same narrative (“disaster looms…therefore, we need to arrogate ludicrous amounts of power + money because we know best”), slightly different subject. Remember the population bomb nutjobs??

[edited for clarity…]

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I keep seeing 1998 being used a measurement point to show that the trend is one of cooling. But, isn’t it kind of sneaky to use a spike in temperature as a starting point? The article I posted points out that if the starting point is changed to 1997, or 1999, the trend dissapears.

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This entire argument (or at least the argument that we NEED to commit economic suicide and redistribute all our money to the third world) hinges on two assumptions:

1- That we can PREDICT and CONTROL the weather on the entire globe. We can’t. All the competing theories and ideas in this one thread alone demonstrate that we can’t. We are NOWHERE near being able to accurately predict a system as complex as global climate.

2- That a warmer global temperature would be bad or somehow catastrophic. Witness the Medieval Warm Period. Greenland was devoid of ice, and people sailed from Europe to farm there. It was significantly warmer than today. Where was the catastrophe? The world didn’t end. In fact, a warmer climate may be BENEFICIAL. More people die of cold-related issues than heat related. How many more should die for this cause?

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Push:
Shit I must have been one small little kid when I visited the Smithsonian!!! I could have sworn those monsters were bigger. Well, if not by sheer size, then by volume they had us… they outnumbered us at least 100 to 1!

All joking aside… yes, you are right in a sense. The average size varied tremendously over different periods; some were the size of modern day rodents. But overall as a group they were huge and the Sauropods, well they were f-ing gigantic… “on an order of magnitude more massive than anything else that has ever walked on the Earth.”

It is very debatable but generally most scientists agree that:

“The smallest dinosaur was bigger than two-thirds of all current mammals; the majority of dinosaurs were bigger than all but 2% of living mammals.”

“Estimates of median dinosaur mass range from 500 kg to 5 metric tons.”

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[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Eventually people are going to notice that the sea didn’t rise and the world didn’t end.[/quote]

I doubt it.

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[quote]Nick Danger wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:

This is physical chemistry as well as observed facts, recently discovered, regarding what has in fact occurred: CO2 rise lagging temperature rise.

Can you provide me with a link to the study(s) you’re basing this off of?

Thanks!

Your argument is not a new one and is something ‘global warmers’ predicted. I’d like to hear your response to arguments such as those presented in:

Question – are you arguing that increasing atmospheric CO2 does not increase temps (ie – all else held the same, increase [CO2] and what does temp do?), or that it does but other factors arise that counter said temp increase so there’s no net change?

I have an open mind on this. The main problem I have with the deniers is that their methods remind me of those used by big tobacco when they were funding scientists to challenge the science linking smoking with lung disease/etc. – which makes me skeptical of their science and claims.

I also have a problem with the ‘global warmers’ in that they seem to be on some holy mission.

Cutting through the crap from both sides is necessary to figure out what’s what, and why your source(s) would be appreciated.
[/quote]

I had posted here an excellent reference on this perhaps a year ago – a very, very detailed analysis – but unfortunately this forum is really not an archive. Things disappear all the time. My post cannot be found with a Google search of this site, and so I have to suppose the thread does not exist anymore. I don’t recall where/how I found the study in the first place, and I am not an organized person who saves such things after having read and understood them.

I will however try to find for you the same thing again or a suitable substitute.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
FYI and FWIW and FTR I have heard that the size of the average dinosaur was that of a sheep.[/quote]

For comparison, what is the current average size of a mammal? I would guess it is somewhere down towards Rat size or smaller. If you take all current animals you are talking beetle size or smaller.

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[quote]HG Thrower wrote:
This entire argument (or at least the argument that we NEED to commit economic suicide and redistribute all our money to the third world) hinges on two assumptions: >>>[/quote]

It hinges on the desire to castrate the United States and force her to return all the money and resources she stole from the rest of the world. We have to get this sooner or later. Nothing these destroyers are doing is about anything else other than hatred for this nation and the zealous longing to finally see her brought down to size and reinvented according to their hippified version of reality. I’ve been saying this for 20 years.

Anybody who thinks these leftist fanatics give a shit about the poor or the environment or healthcare is in for the most spine joltingly rude awakening in the history of the world.