I see today that even George W.'s best buddy Tony Blair is urging the US to change its stance on the Kyoto Protocol
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/01/26/davos.main/index.html
I categorically disagree with you on every point, vroom.
[quote]vroom wrote:
All these refutations, though vehement, haven’t really done anything to the statements I’ve made. Again, my statements are not very radical at all.
Unlike the OH MY GOD ITS A CONSPIRACY group which sounds suspiciously like how they describe left wingers, I’m very willing to concede we don’t know enough to make concrete claims.[/quote]
Yes we do. Did you read any of the FAQs and posts by Mage and BB at all?
NO it’s not. It is not a leap to realize our insignificance. The sun will rise tomorrow, believe me. Have you ever been to the ocean? Climbed a mountain? We are nothing, pollution-wise, to the eruption of even one small volcano somewhere. Now if you want to keep your local environment in a certain state, then you’re gonna have to do things a certain way to prevent them from changing. If you like swamps, don’t drain them. This thread is about global warming and the Kyoto Accord.
The global temperature has changed by less than one degree. We measured it. How is that not “concrete” enough for you? This is not rocket science, vroom. I think maybe you just have the ol’ Ultra-Liberal blinders on. 
[quote]The fact they share your opinion has nothing to do with whether they themselves are right or wrong. They, your supporting viewpoints, may be just as wrong. They too only have untested theories.
Perhaps we are in no immediate danger, but given that the earth is really a closed system, there is every chance that we can seriously screw things up. Given our history, of major screwups every time we venture into a new technology area, getting it wrong many times before we get it right, a little caution is in order.[/quote]
Once again you overestimate your own worth. We are very, very small contributors to the global clime. This will not change until there are a good couple of trillion more humans running around. Then, we might have to tone it down a bit. So far, we can’t make enough food and distribute it good enough to even support the bunch of folks we have already, so I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to worry about this. Perhaps the methane emissions from our cow population is something to keep in mind though. Especially if we increase their numbers in the increments that we might increase our own. Even though it sounds like I’m kidding, I’m being serious about the cow thing here.
Why should you have to make sense, vroom? It’s okay… let’s just make a list of mistakes that have nothing to do with the issue, spout them off as if they do, and then… look! Look at the pretty monkey! Look at the silly monkey!
[quote]I know these things aren’t directly related to global warming, but it shows a history of screwing up. Don’t make the mistake of thinking our leaders don’t screw up any more…
Heh, don’t be stupid![/quote]
I’m more worried about our leaders getting caught with an intern than screwing up our environment. I mean, c’mon: what kind of idiot gets caught like that? Have some damn game, man!
[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Once again you overestimate your own worth. We are very, very small contributors to the global clime. This will not change until there are a good couple of trillion more humans running around. Then, we might have to tone it down a bit. So far, we can’t make enough food and distribute it good enough to even support the bunch of folks we have already, so I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to worry about this. Perhaps the methane emissions from our cow population is something to keep in mind though. Especially if we increase their numbers in the increments that we might increase our own. Even though it sounds like I’m kidding, I’m being serious about the cow thing here.
[/quote]
At the height of the Buffalo Hunter’s heyday in the midwest, there were estimated to be more Buffalo running wild than we have cattle today. I think they farted back then too. But maybe buffalo farts are lower in methane than bovine farts.
I’m not a ruminant fart expert.
Or maybe not. Maybe I just wanted to write the word ‘fart’ 4 or 5 times. I’m all hopped up on NyQuil.
hspder- wake your own ass the hell up.
defacto- yes, emphatically yes, nations with “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market” are richer than ones that aren’t. Is South Korea richer than North Korea? Was West Germany richer than East Germany? Was Hong Kong richer than China? Is it still? Which one had “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a fee market.”
Which didn’t?
Wealth is “mostly limited by natural resources.” Really? Given that the former Soviet Union had a laundry list of mineral wealth that puts the that of the US to shame, why aren’t they so much richer? I’ll bet that wasn’t a big topic of discussion in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, or at the PC Ubermensch factory Stanford either.
Wealth is limited by a our ability to manipulate natural resources into things that we find useful. That is why some sand and copper ore can be turned into the Internet. That is why some guy obsessed with diving into bins of panties and his boss can turn milk and plants into Biotest products. “An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of captial goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market” will ceteris paribus kick the ass of one governed by ideas fashionable at Stanford and Berkeley.
Oh, and by your logic, cavemen, with all that ore and oil in the ground, and all of that fresh air to breath, were richer than we are today. I’m sure they had a longer lifespan than we do too.
“Low population density, temperate and diverse climate, and geographical position”- come to think of it, those ARE the things that make Hong Kong so wealthy. Well, the geographical might have something to do with it. All of those people escaping from the Worker’s Paradise created by Mao, a place held in reverence by at least of few members of the Berkeley faculty and in possession of “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are deterioned by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market” no doubt, had to go somewhere and be productive.
“it doesn’t mean it would EVER work remotely as well in other countries.” That notion is the product of a great mind trained at elite institutions? Big freakin’ ouch. This here country is filled with the flotsam and jetsam of other countries, and somehow capitalism works here ok. Why wouldn’t it EVER work in others? And exact what makes you think that you are qualified to make that blanket statement?
As I’ve told others before, if you are going to fling it, then try not to throw like a girl. It lands on you that way.
If you take the tone of a condesending ass, then at least write well, and have some slight, faint, passing notion of what the hell you are talking about.
You are funny in ways that you can’t comprehend.
To quote Vroom:
“…my statements are not very radical at all.”
“…overrun the entire planet with roads.”
“…killed off an amazing number of species.”
So, um, who got the contract to pave over Antarctica? Siberia? Outer Mongolia? Who did they have to bribe?
If we don’t even now how many species exist and within what timeframe, how can we know how many we killed? How do we know or not know if it was us or natural attrition? Such a thing must exist, no, or were dinosaurs and sabre-tooth tiger offed by cavemen?
Vroom- you are not sounding so reasonable, and again, “don’t be stupid.”
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Or maybe not. Maybe I just wanted to write the word ‘fart’ 4 or 5 times. I’m all hopped up on NyQuil.[/quote]
Dude, I’m impressed enough by the fact that you used the word “ruminant” in the way you did on account of the NyQuil buzz. That’s pretty damn cool.
Curious here: Are you drinking the “green death” flavor? That stuff really packs a whallop. I’ve noticed that the “inner child” pussy orange and cherry flavors they’ve been coming out with just don’t get me high like the old stuff.
Hey everybody, let’s keep it civil. (If that is possible.)
Anyway, what I have a problem with is the all or nothing beliefs everybody has. If I disagree with the alarmism, it does not mean I think we should cut down all the trees and burn them in one big bonfire. It also does not mean we should be doing nothing.
Somebody seemed to imply that if we disagree with the environmentalists, we must be in full agreement with the oil companies. This is wrong, especially since I believe that the oil companies are working with the environmentalists.
I know of at least one internal memo, that I read in the USA Today a few years back, where the oil companies talked about how they subtly supported the environmentalists to prevent the building of refineries in America because it helped keep gas prices elevated.
No, I don’t trust the political environmentalists, nor the oil companies that have our balls in a vice, and are working together in ways that seem to violate anti-trust/price fixing laws.
Is this link between the environmentalists and the oil companies a conspiracy theory? Somewhat, but there is proof of the connection, and I doubt that the environmentalists are knowingly working with them, just being manipulated a little. All the oil companies have to do is not fight very hard, but look like they are, and let the environmentalists do all the real work, and take all the blame as to why there are not enough refineries. They will actually fight if they need to.
In other words the environmentalists are just the patsies, and don’t even know it.
Then again what do you expect from a group of people who signed a petition to ban water? (Pen & Teller got a large group of environmentalists to sign a petition to ban dihydromonoxide, which is water.)
Dihydrogen monoxide:
- is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
- contributes to the “greenhouse effect.”
- may cause severe burns.
- contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
- accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
- may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
- has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
http://www.gumbopages.com/fridge/dmho.html
Sure this is a joke, but it shows how easily facts can be twisted into screwed up beliefs, especially when you don?t have all the information, or have faulty information.
Anyone keep hearing about all the benefits of soy? “And it’s good for the environment too.”
Actually I believe the last statement. I cannot think of a better use for soy then biodiesel.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
Hey everybody, let’s keep it civil. (If that is possible.)
Anyway, what I have a problem with is the all or nothing beliefs everybody has. If I disagree with the alarmism, it does not mean I think we should cut down all the trees and burn them in one big bonfire. It also does not mean we should be doing nothing.[/quote]
I don’t think that anyone here is saying “Who needs forestry? Everybody grab a chainsaw!”. My primary beef with this is the fact that everyone on the left in this issue seems to have bought into the lies perpetuated by a couple of assholes with PhD’s. This is a money-making scheme, nothing more… and it’s working like a charm.
These guys take all kinds of faulty data, show a few pictures of seagulls covered in oil slick, and then all of a sudden they have deep-pocketed bleeding hearts throwing money at them. It’s like taking candy from a baby. I want to stand up with a megaphone at the Oscars and shout: “We are not going to turn into the Gobi Desert! Stop giving millions to these jerk-off scientists!”
But hey… that’s just me.
Loth,
Sure, the garbage they posted in here. But that proves nothing. I can post a global warming FAQ of my own which you will believe just as much. Don’t you get it. Your “disproof” is as lame as the other “proof” presented for review.
First, this thread is about yet another form of pollution, its effects, and whether or not something should be done about it.
While I too am certain the sun will rise tomorrow, and in a cosmic sense I recognize our insignificance, on planet Earth there are billions of us. Many pollutions introduced by man, such as dioxins and PVC’s can be found throughout the food chain, including ourselves. We have the ability, in total, to effect our environment – you potentially acknowledge that yourself further below.
Would you care to quote the total gas production by a volcano, the constituents of that gas, and compare it to all automotive combusion, gas refinery release, coal plant combusion, and oil furnace output. Now, I don’t want some scientists estimate of possible volcano output, but a real measurement of a real volcano.
Well, less than 1 degree does sound insignificant. But neither you nor I know if it really is. Just because you have scientists claiming it isn’t, those are just theories as of those that claim it is significant.
Like I said before, I’m not arguing that I know we’re about to fall off a cliff. I don’t know why you are so sure that there is no danger, that we are so insignificant. You as one person may be, but as billions of people, that is a different story.
I’ll agree, the planet is used to teeming with life. I’m not talking about the mere fact that humans are alive being the issue. I’m talking about the things we as humans, en mass, do that other life on the planet doesn’t. As far as I know, no other animal builds coal plants, or other polluting processes, and runs them 24 hours a day 365 days a year. No other animals on the planet build cars, drill for oil, light fires and so on.
[Side note: I am aware of forest fires and so on, but generally they burn out at some point.]
I’ll agree, the earth is huge and able to absorb a lot of abuse. I’d rather not find out how much. However, you should agree that you don’t really know if we are, altogether, truly insignificant or not. You have no way to know, it is just your belief.
Don’t be stupid. These things were all instances of mankind thinking they were smart – just like you do – and it bit us in the ass. When we go and do something unique in the world, we are often unaware of the repurcussions it might have down the road. Your own stance is that no matter what we do there will be no repurcussions. Well, there are hundreds of lakes with no fish in them that show we do have an impact on the ecosystem. Acid rain is not a theory, it is fact. Go read up on it.
You don’t have to worry about it, people brighter than you and I are worrying about it. As soon as Bush and his final four years are up, we’ll hopefully have someone more reasonable in the states making policy. Reasonable in a sense of prudent. No overreaction necessary.
However, I think Canada is going to conform to Kyoto. The newspaper the other day talked of it costing us something like 84 billion to do so. If you think we are going to do this because of some conspiracy, you are out of your mind.
I seriously doubt any industrialized country out there is considering spending all kinds of money just because it would cost the US a lot of money as well. What a crock. Besides, as an economic point, if all these countries are spending money on this, it is economic equality if the US does so as well.
So, once again, apparently you have “proof”, it is all a conspiracy, we CANNOT impact the environment and anything that might have an impact on profit is inherently wrong.
Hahahahaha. Fine. The real answer will be somewhere between the myopic “we can’t have an effect” and the chicken little “we’ll all die tomorrow” stance. The interesting thing will be to find out where it really is… which may or may not happen in our lifetimes.
Great, so you concede the argument. Thanks.
vroom:
This thread is about global warming and the greenhouse effect. I believe you’re the only one arguing about other forms of pollution. (Probably because the whole global-warming thing is so weak.
Here’s a nice article taking down the whole “hockey stick” graph that everyone was citing a few years back, to go with the other info above: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/wo_muller101504.asp )
“Pollution,” as in releasing toxic substances into the environment – like sulphur, mercury, etc – and global warming, which is about water and C02 and other such substances that some scientists theorize will trap enough heat in the atmosphere to cause significant change in the overall global mean temperature.
Global warming is interesting, but in no way has anyone demonstrated that it should be considered a crisis, and receive and appropriate crisis response. Firstly, they haven’t demonstrated a significant effect. Second, they haven’t demonstrated causation. Third, they haven’t demonstrated why it would be a horrible outcome overall.
BTW, we do know quite a bit about the effects of such small changes in average temperature. Natural temperature cycles provide historical records of what happens with much larger temperature changes – and they were part of the natural cycle, in no way related to greenhouse gas emissions.
BTW again, what are you talking about with your “conspiracy” stuff. The politics of Kyoto is that other countries know we won’t sign it, so they can support it with impunity because it is just not going to happen. And it’s not just Bush – Kyoto failed in the Senate under Clinton. I believe the vote was 98-0, though perhaps McCain wasn’t there or changed his mind subsequently.
Here’s another on geological temperature records, from a nice Canadian professor:
Excerpt:
Let’s move to a little bit more recent geological history. There have been about 33 glacial advances and retreats through the last two million years or so. Through the last 10,000 years we have been in the Holocene interglacial, a warm episode between the last glaciation and the next one that will begin in the relatively near, geologically speaking, future. The last glaciation peaked about 18,000 years ago with the ice sheets retreating rapidly over just a few thousand years. Before that there was another interglacial that began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 10,000 years. In Europe that interglacial is known as the Eemian. Here in North America it is known as the Sangamon. As one goes back in time these intervals of about 10,000 years of interglacial interspersed with episodes of about 100,000 years of glaciation continue.
What I would like to draw your attention to is the level of CO2 levels, as preserved in prehistoric air bubbles, from very high quality ice core records from Antarctica. When researchers first looked at the results from these cores they observed a repeating correlation between CO2 and temperature through several glacial/interglacial cycles. However, when they began to look at higher resolution cycles they say something different. They observed that temperature would go up first comes up first, with CO2 coming up later. This correlation indicates that as one might expect as temperatures warm biological productivity increases resulting in more CO2 in the atmosphere. The lag between CO2 and rising or falling CO2 levels is something like 800 years.
I teach a general climate change course. To get the significance of this correlation over to the students I use the following analogy. I tell the students that based on these records if you believe that climate is being driven by CO2 then they probably would have no difficulty in accepting the idea that Winston Churchill was instrumental in the defeat of King Harold by Duke William of Orange at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. If you can believe that this historical temporal incongruity could be feasible then you can have no problem believing that CO2 is what’s driving Earth’s climate system.
In conclusion, the geologic record clearly shows us that there really is little correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. Although CO2 can have a minor influence on global temperature the effect is minimal and short lived as this cycle sits on top of the much larger water cycle, which is what truly controls global temperatures. The water cycle is in turn primarily influenced by natural celestial cycles and trends.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Sure, the garbage they posted in here. But that proves nothing. I can post a global warming FAQ of my own which you will believe just as much. Don’t you get it. Your “disproof” is as lame as the other “proof” presented for review.
[/quote]
Did you check out the detailed answers on the website?
This was not just some quick slapped together Q&A session, but a well thought out, and researched article.
Just because you disagree with something does not mean you can just dismiss it.
This statement works both ways.
Wow, thanks for the news flash Sherlock!
To be just as insulting, perhaps you missed it, but I was pointing out previous mistakes in judgement when people assumed human activities weren’t dangerous.
[quote]vroom wrote:
This thread is about global warming and the greenhouse effect.
Wow, thanks for the news flash Sherlock!
To be just as insulting, perhaps you missed it, but I was pointing out previous mistakes in judgement when people assumed human activities weren’t dangerous.[/quote]
If that’s the case you make egregiously bad analogies.
[quote]vroom wrote:
All these refutations, though vehement, haven’t really done anything to the statements I’ve made.[/quote]
Vroom, it’s not so much that your thought processes and logic are so incredibly ironclad as to be irrefutable. In fact, it is sometimes so nebulous that it’s impossible to find a specific point to rebut. You take both sides of the issue, proceed to conclude that the “truth” must be “somewhere in the middle,” and still manage, in this case anyway, to come down on the side of the “sky is falling” crowd, all the while posturing as moderate, cautious and thoughtful. For added support, you call people “conspiracy theorists” and "stupid, " which lends no backing whatsoever to your positions. To sum up, debating these issues with you can be like wrestling pudding.
Bandgeek, I think this point nails it, but not the way you might expect. I’m not on the “sky is falling side”, I am indeed in the middle.
Scientists making sky falling claims are working on theories. Scientists making refutation claims are working on theories.
I am however suggesting caution, as humans have a long and glorious history of making assumptions and screwing up when they do so. This doesn’t put me on “either side” you know.
If you are open minded and of the sky is falling persuasion, my nebulous post might let you see the other side. The converse is also true for those of the absolutely no possibility of danger crowed. However, it would require some sort of openmindedness, which is obviously in pretty short supply these days.
Stop thinking “I am either with you or against you”… and it will make a lot more freaking sense.