Earth on Brink of Ice Age

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]Vegita wrote:
Also the rising ocean levels would wipe out all the pricks who live in the major cities on the coasts. I would love to see these city dwellers get displaced and have thier whole existance changed in a year. No more walking around acting like a prick to everyone. You actually have to work for food and water and shelter and you now get to have less than everyone else since you have no skills.

V[/quote]

lol! wtf are you talking about? You have me cracking up here. I never knew we were such assholes here in Boston. Well, now I know. hahaheehee!

42

The biggest stupidity in the global warming scare is the insistence, by the fear-mongers, that the Earth is actually positive-feedback and at a tipping point such that just a little more, and all is lost.

Where do they get this? Because their computer models act this way.

This is always a stupid reason to conclude anything.

It’s especially stupid in this case because many millions of years time has shown otherwise. Even a supervolcano does not result in going past a tipping-point where all is lost.

43

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The biggest stupidity in the global warming scare is the insistence, by the fear-mongers, that the Earth is actually positive-feedback and at a tipping point such that just a little more, and all is lost.

Where do they get this? Because their computer models act this way.

This is always a stupid reason to conclude anything.

It’s especially stupid in this case because many millions of years time has shown otherwise. Even a super volcano does not result in going past a tipping-point where all is lost.[/quote]

Too true, I do think we have the ability to tip the earth into a particular stage, but eventually, all things will revert to their polar opposite. Unless Humans decided to “on purpose” create a stimulus to the environment that made the shift permanent. If left to it’s own devices, the earth will continually fluctuate between periods of warm and cold, nothing humans do will permanently change anything.

V

44

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Also the rising ocean levels would wipe out all the pricks who live in the major cities on the coasts. I would love to see these city dwellers get displaced and have thier whole existance changed in a year. No more walking around acting like a prick to everyone. You actually have to work for food and water and shelter and you now get to have less than everyone else since you have no skills.

V

lol! wtf are you talking about? You have me cracking up here. I never knew we were such assholes here in Boston. Well, now I know. hahaheehee! [/quote]

Travel to anyplace outside of Boston and take a survey. You might be surprised. :wink:

V

45

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Also the rising ocean levels would wipe out all the pricks who live in the major cities on the coasts. I would love to see these city dwellers get displaced and have thier whole existance changed in a year. No more walking around acting like a prick to everyone. You actually have to work for food and water and shelter and you now get to have less than everyone else since you have no skills.

V

lol! wtf are you talking about? You have me cracking up here. I never knew we were such assholes here in Boston. Well, now I know. hahaheehee! [/quote]

You have not heard of the term “Masshole”?

46

[quote]Rockscar wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Also the rising ocean levels would wipe out all the pricks who live in the major cities on the coasts. I would love to see these city dwellers get displaced and have thier whole existance changed in a year. No more walking around acting like a prick to everyone. You actually have to work for food and water and shelter and you now get to have less than everyone else since you have no skills.

V

lol! wtf are you talking about? You have me cracking up here. I never knew we were such assholes here in Boston. Well, now I know. hahaheehee!

You have not heard of the term “Masshole”?[/quote]

Shit. You got me. We must be assholes then. No doubt about it. And all this time I thought that term was referring to Barney Frank’s anatomy. :wink:

47

I live in Illinois. According to my elementary school teachers when I was 7, there used to be a mile thick glacier right where I am now standing. It melted. I don’t think anyone was driving SUVs then. I wonder how the climate could have changed without our intervention! Impossible!

48

And how is it that Greenland was green not so long ago, and Siberia a pleasant place, then both got frozen over again?

I thought that once the permafrost started thawing, that was it, doom had arrived: runaway positive feedback!

49

My sources in the scientific community inform me that Global-lukewarming is the real threat.

50

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
lou21 wrote:
All I’ll say is we only have one Earth why risk it just because you wanna get fed?

Your entire post is really quite hilarious. But I just want to know what on earth you mean by this ^^. [/quote]

It was referring to the guy lucsa who stated I he didn’t give crap so he was going to get fed.

And clearly the post of the only person who was an advanced degree in a subject related to the debate is hilarious. I often wish people would stop ramming up jumbled re-hashes of ten year old publications, that were considered dubious at the time anyway…

51

[quote]Vegita wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
The biggest stupidity in the global warming scare is the insistence, by the fear-mongers, that the Earth is actually positive-feedback and at a tipping point such that just a little more, and all is lost.

Where do they get this? Because their computer models act this way.

This is always a stupid reason to conclude anything.

It’s especially stupid in this case because many millions of years time has shown otherwise. Even a super volcano does not result in going past a tipping-point where all is lost.

Too true, I do think we have the ability to tip the earth into a particular stage, but eventually, all things will revert to their polar opposite. Unless Humans decided to “on purpose” create a stimulus to the environment that made the shift permanent. If left to it’s own devices, the earth will continually fluctuate between periods of warm and cold, nothing humans do will permanently change anything.

V[/quote]

Um a super volcano can. Have you ever heard of the Siberian traps? 95% of life wiped out. By a super volcano geologists do not mean Mt. St Helens or even Pinatoboa. We mean something an order of magnitude bigger again.

52

“global-lukewarming”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I am going to steal that phrase!

53

[quote]lucasa wrote:
lou21 wrote:

In quantum physics maybe. Observing the climate does not significantly perturb in.

Right, so we spontaneously realized this concept of climate without using any prior resources or a larger societal structure. Given the same amount of time Euclid would’ve conceived of Lorenz attractors and black-body radiation without burning all of the CO2. Given the debate between Angstrom and Fourier (when it arguably was an experiment) I doubt this in the highest degree.

However taking CO2 level to crazy heights is very exciting. The geological record shows this was combined (NB correlation does not imply causation) with a whacking great temperature spike the last time it occurred at 55Ma. This Paleo Eocene Thermal Maximum is associated with the same scale extinction event as the more famous 65Ma event).

There is also a fairly strong correlation between CO2 levels and temperature throughout the more recent glacial and interglacial periods. At the moment we should have ‘high’ (about half PETM) CO2 levels. During the glacials CO2 is lower. We have artificially pumped CO2 up to almost PETM values and it will be far higher before it is lower.

Human civilisation may or may not survive such conditions. I won’t try and predict the future. All I’ll say is we only have one Earth why risk it just because you wanna get fed?

Human civilization certainly has the overwhelming potential to survive such conditions, especially in contrast of the gamut of equally plausible conditions we couldn’t possibly survive. And once again, calling it an experiment is a gross oversimplification, as if we could just set the temperature lower and that won’t cause more problems (note the less illusory falls in temp. and CO2).

The goal isn’t just to get fed:
‘The goal is not to say: ‘OK, everybody uses less energy, don’t heat your homes, don’t light your homes, don’t use AC.’ That is not the goal. The goal is to have a standard of living that is carbon neutral and works well with the world. And I think it’s possible.’ -Steven Chu

So heat your home, light your home, use your AC, just be more efficient about it.

Will do.
[/quote]
I don’t even know where to start you clearly miss understood the sarcasm in my statement about it being an experiment!

I agree. Why the hell should anyone be cold, uncomfortable or unable to move freely? It does however make sense to do so in a way which doesn’t run a risk of damaging the planet.

54

[quote]JamFly wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
I’ll act like there’s a problem when the politicians do the same.

Um western one’s are doing…

Bullshit.[/quote]

The only reason we’re not doing more is China and India won’t corporate. So any cut we make will be met by there increases. Even the bloody Americans politicians are on board at the moment.

55

[quote]lou21 wrote:
JamFly wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
I’ll act like there’s a problem when the politicians do the same.

Um western one’s are doing…

Bullshit.

The only reason we’re not doing more is China and India won’t corporate. So any cut we make will be met by there increases. Even the bloody Americans politicians are on board at the moment.[/quote]

There is only one threat to this planet

56

[quote]lou21 wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
The biggest stupidity in the global warming scare is the insistence, by the fear-mongers, that the Earth is actually positive-feedback and at a tipping point such that just a little more, and all is lost.

Where do they get this? Because their computer models act this way.

This is always a stupid reason to conclude anything.

It’s especially stupid in this case because many millions of years time has shown otherwise. Even a super volcano does not result in going past a tipping-point where all is lost.

Too true, I do think we have the ability to tip the earth into a particular stage, but eventually, all things will revert to their polar opposite. Unless Humans decided to “on purpose” create a stimulus to the environment that made the shift permanent. If left to it’s own devices, the earth will continually fluctuate between periods of warm and cold, nothing humans do will permanently change anything.

V

Um a super volcano can. Have you ever heard of the Siberian traps? 95% of life wiped out. By a super volcano geologists do not mean Mt. St Helens or even Pinatoboa. We mean something an order of magnitude bigger again.

[/quote]

Um no, a supervolcano will not alter the Climate of the earth permanantly. If they did, then the ones which happened in the past would have locked the planet into a specific state and it would remain there to this day. A supervolcano (like the one which will eventually erupt at yellowstone) will put volcanic gasses into the upper atmosphere and it will stay there for months, effectively reflecting much of the suns energy for that period. Much will perish during this time period and the earth will cool drastically, but once the ash and gasses come out of the atmoshphere, the suns energy again warms the planet and the earth gets back into it’s cycle. It may jump it to another part of the cycle, but it will continue to cycle nonetheless.

V

57

[quote]Vegita wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
The biggest stupidity in the global warming scare is the insistence, by the fear-mongers, that the Earth is actually positive-feedback and at a tipping point such that just a little more, and all is lost.

Where do they get this? Because their computer models act this way.

This is always a stupid reason to conclude anything.

It’s especially stupid in this case because many millions of years time has shown otherwise. Even a super volcano does not result in going past a tipping-point where all is lost.

Too true, I do think we have the ability to tip the earth into a particular stage, but eventually, all things will revert to their polar opposite. Unless Humans decided to “on purpose” create a stimulus to the environment that made the shift permanent.

If left to it’s own devices, the earth will continually fluctuate between periods of warm and cold, nothing humans do will permanently change anything.

V

Um a super volcano can. Have you ever heard of the Siberian traps? 95% of life wiped out. By a super volcano geologists do not mean Mt. St Helens or even Pinatoboa. We mean something an order of magnitude bigger again.

Um no, a supervolcano will not alter the Climate of the earth permanantly. If they did, then the ones which happened in the past would have locked the planet into a specific state and it would remain there to this day.

A supervolcano (like the one which will eventually erupt at yellowstone) will put volcanic gasses into the upper atmosphere and it will stay there for months, effectively reflecting much of the suns energy for that period. Much will perish during this time period and the earth will cool drastically, but once the ash and gasses come out of the atmoshphere, the suns energy again warms the planet and the earth gets back into it’s cycle.

It may jump it to another part of the cycle, but it will continue to cycle nonetheless.

V[/quote]

not permanently true. I agree. But in a way that is rather fatal to those living on the planet at the time, yes!

Which is point of this global warming debate. No one but lay people and some scientists with funky models really think a permanent change will occur. But one that it likely to upset our modern agriculture is well and truly possible in the next 500 years…

58

[quote]John S. wrote:
lou21 wrote:
JamFly wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
I’ll act like there’s a problem when the politicians do the same.

Um western one’s are doing…

Bullshit.

The only reason we’re not doing more is China and India won’t corporate. So any cut we make will be met by there increases. Even the bloody Americans politicians are on board at the moment.

There is only one threat to this planet[/quote]

Too true!

59

[quote]lou21 wrote:
John S. wrote:
lou21 wrote:
JamFly wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
I’ll act like there’s a problem when the politicians do the same.

Um western one’s are doing…

Bullshit.

The only reason we’re not doing more is China and India won’t corporate. So any cut we make will be met by there increases. Even the bloody Americans politicians are on board at the moment.

There is only one threat to this planet

Too true![/quote]

Lou if you think man made climate change is about saving the world you are naive.

Man made climate change is a political agenda used to manipulate and control the masses. The grand peur orchestrated over climate change affords governments an opportunity to impose unimaginable restrictions on their populations.

The “science” behind it is flawed, the normal scientific process is reversed: the conclusion is preordained and the UN team of tame scientists are expected to construct the evidence to support the conclusion.

You say the politicians are “onboard” after a decade of lecturing us here in the UK about the evils of using personal transport, and the need to go by bus train or cycle, we now have government ministers wanting to find ways for us to buy more cars.

Furthermore, they want us to do this on borrowed money… what about global warming? You couldn’t make this up.

Lou I recommend this recent blog by one of the few ‘real’ conservative journalists remaining in the UK on climate change.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/01/07/global_warming_al_gores_convenient_untruth_freezes_over

60

[quote]JamFly wrote:
lou21 wrote:
John S. wrote:
lou21 wrote:
JamFly wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
I’ll act like there’s a problem when the politicians do the same.

Um western one’s are doing…

Bullshit.

The only reason we’re not doing more is China and India won’t corporate. So any cut we make will be met by there increases. Even the bloody Americans politicians are on board at the moment.

There is only one threat to this planet

Too true!

Lou if you think man made climate change is about saving the world you are naive.

Man made climate change is a political agenda used to manipulate and control the masses. The grand peur orchestrated over climate change affords governments an opportunity to impose unimaginable restrictions on their populations.

The “science” behind it is flawed, the normal scientific process is reversed: the conclusion is preordained and the UN team of tame scientists are expected to construct the evidence to support the conclusion.

You say the politicians are “onboard” after a decade of lecturing us here in the UK about the evils of using personal transport, and the need to go by bus train or cycle, we now have government ministers wanting to find ways for us to buy more cars.

Furthermore, they want us to do this on borrowed money… what about global warming? You couldn’t make this up.

Lou I recommend this recent blog by one of the few ‘real’ conservative journalists remaining in the UK on climate change.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/01/07/global_warming_al_gores_convenient_untruth_freezes_over

[/quote]

Yes a journalist just the kind of expert we should be listening to on science! The Telegraph’s treatment of science is more comparable to The Sun than to reality.

Having said this I do agree that political agendas seem to shape rather too much of the publicity about the scientific debate surrounding global warming. In my opinion Al Gores inconvenient truth is undoubtedly a thinly disguised way to maintain some kind of public position. The treatment of motorists in the UK over the last few years has more to do with tax revenue and our governments desire to monitor ever aspect of our lives than desire to protect the planet.

Maybe you’re right. They are on board as long as the economy is good.

The recent change of rhetoric couldn’t be any more obvious, it’s classic economics and politics: pain today (recession); or possible pain in the future (mass starvation and re-location of entire countries’ populations)? Any democratic government has to take the pain tomorrow option (hence also our outrageous budget deficits).

It is a shame however- the economic stimulus could easily be provided by massive investment in alternative energy sources. After all 50% of the young population of Britain have degrees now right (and the rest all have apprenticeships in useful skills :wink: so we’re perfectly placed for being a world leader in an emerging engineering and manufacturing sector. But seriously government stimulus of new industries rather than just trying to make people buy more cars would solve both issues.

Anyway I would suggest to anyone trying to understand the geological data to study a degree in geology taking some climate modules along the way. You’ll see that the story is far from clear. However on balance suggest that we should be more careful with out planet and not just assume we can do whatever the hell we want to it without consequence.

So yeah we should drive smaller cars and take the bike more- but there’s no damn reason not to drive if you have to!