Global Warming
 

Since the original global warming thread deteriorated into a debate about the merits of unions...

I was a skeptic of global warming, swayed by the many corporate 'think tanks' who spread such skepticism into the media's reporting. Here is what made me change my mind:

A car is a fire. Literally, its engine is a fire. So is the water heater in your house. And your neighbor's house. And their neighbor's house ad nauseum. So is the electric plant in your region.

Now imagine an interstate highway. It's a chain of fire from California to Maine. Now consider how many interstate highways we have in America. Now think about the rest of the developed world. Most of the east coast is on fire.

Now consider every hotel in your town. How many hot showers people want to take? How many lights are left on all night? Now think about every hotel in the world, all running lights 24/7. Think about all the coal being burned to keep those lights and water heaters hot. Consider all the CO2 being emitted just by every house, hotel, and automobile, and then throw in airplanes. Starting to get the picture?

Now, the radius of the earth is 6400 km, that is, from hte center to where you're standing. The atmosphere is slightly more than 30 km thick, from where you're standing to where a TV satellite is in orbit and you can no longer breath. This is like putting a bed-sheet (ok, 2 bedsheets if you insist) over a basketball. Other estimates put the atmosphere (in miles) at around 40 miles. Even this generous assessment is not much... 40 miles isn't even the distance from Charleston, SC (where I live) to the state's capital. Sure, we have trees and forests and rainforests, but far fewer than before and certainly not enough to compete with our ever-increasing output of CO2/heat energy.

Now, since the 1700s, when mankind began industrialising, we have steadily, at times exponentially, increased our rate of CO2 production. That's really just Europe and USA. Then throw in Japan, India/Africa/South America, and now China (who every day demands and uses more energy, all supplied by petrol and coal). Then look at the cars that Americans drive: Hummers. Blazers. Tahoes. Excursions. Denalis; I could go on... When's the last time you walked to the bank and took your own cart to the super market? When's the last time you even walked to your friend's house? We crave more energy and produce more CO2 while being told that solar and wind power are 'insufficient' or 'temporary' or 'too expensive.'

Now read the news. Almost every day (not exaggerating!) I find a study about Greenland melting, record high temperatures, birds not migrating at the proper time of year, the possibility of age-old ocean current patterns changing within my lifetime(!).

Can I blame American people? Not really. We are given slick marketing campaigns with corporate backing to make us doubt what we're doing is harming the planet. Meanwhile, NO REAL SCIENTIST IN THE WORLD who has been published in a peer reviewed journal disputes the findings that human beings are destroying the planet. The only 'scientists' who actually refute the evidence are those hired by corporate 'think tanks.' No kidding, these think tanks are actually funded in whole or part by ExxonMobil/BP/Shell/GM and anyone else whose finger is in the pie of energy consumption.

Our government, however, is AT LEAST complicit in its policies (or lack of them), with those who would call global warming a myth. They don't make any suggestions on how Americans can lessen energy usage (enery-saving light bulbs, car-pooling, public transport, urban living) nor do they give much incentive... Unless I'm wrong, there is no tax incentive for you and I to buy solar panels for our homes or even wind-mill generators (which can seriously offset the cost of electricity, Edison proved it)

The following books were written by serious academics, not partisans with political agendas (although the titles are suggestive), and all in some way connect to the issue of global warming:

Internal Combustion
The Republican War on Science
Culture of Fear
Collapse: Why Human Civilisations Choose to Fail or Succeed

I repeat, these are not crazy partisans in pursuit of an agenda (Ann Coulter and Al Franken wish they could hold the jockstraps of these writers), these are SERIOUS academics and journalists whose experiences and research have led them to plausible conclusions.

Global Warming is a real phenomenon that is going to change the world within your lifetime. Birds in Britain and Scandinavia no longer migrate when they are supposed to, causing an overlap with the hatching of certain worms and caterpillars which ends with most birds going hungry at hatching time because these worms and caterpillars have already developed into cocoons. Shipping companies (corporate interests) look forward to melting ice caps in order to halve the transit time from North America to Europe.

Al Gore's film was self-serving and over-dramatic at times, but everything he talks about is true and taking place even as you read this. The evidence is before you...

Re: Global Warming
 

Not to mention we've had the warmest November and December ever and today was 50 deg in central mass on January 5 and the Pats are hosting a playoff game sunday where it's gonna be sunny and 55. I was framing in my t-shirt today. I wouldn't be surprised to see the mother ship drop down from space and make us all happy again.

Re: Global Warming
 

Nicely put, will get criticized or sidetracked.. think two things:

1. Global warming gets to be a hang up, and anything anecdotal like the current weather in Denver, and better terminology is climate change. Once it is framed as GW, there will always be anecdotal evidence which will sidetrack any argument.

2. Said before and will say again, that this whole thing reminds me of the Tobacco Stuff in the 60's and 70's, when those companies knew the effects, but did not want to cut into their profit margin. I suspect that there are oil industry insiders who are concerned, however are seduced by the big bucks or their research is manipulated.

There is something going on, perhaps it is cyclical, but no doubt in my mind that the actions of men are making the change more pronounced and happening faster.

Re: Global Warming
 

Nothing is forever, not even the world, but I would suggest that Gore make a visit to the UN and see if those crooked bastards can help in this, or is it just the Bush/America that is polluting the planet. Will the Earth start to cool now that we have Aunt Nancy grinning on the news each evening?

Does anybody know where Uncle Teddy is, all these party's for Auntie Pelosi and Uncle Teddy is nowhere to be seen?

Re: Global Warming
 

Well I just don't want to contribute my $150, or so, a year for smog checks when I don't contribute to global warming. The reason I b!tch incessently about it isn't that I wouldn't like changes but instead of stupid crap like smog checks, I want something real - an alternate form of energy. Basically, put up or shut up. Solve the problem or admit we can't.

Check out China :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...=1811&ito=1490

Do they have smog checks ?

Re: Global Warming
 

Did Haliburton cause this one?

The global transition from ice age to greenhouse 300 million years ago was marked by repeated dips and rises in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and wild swings in temperature, with drastic effects on forests and vegetation, the researchers reported in the journal Science.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features...a-news-science

Re: Global Warming
 

you can help solve the problem. Drive less, or drive a more energy efficient car, use more efficient appliances, write your congressperson asking for tax incentives on solar and wind power at home...

Harry, the UN does have things out there to make the effort. Ever heard of the Kyoto Treaty??? USA isn't the only nation, but it is by far the world's worst offender of energy waste and the biggest contributor to the global warming phenomenon.

Germans are of a mind-set that that if each person does his/her part, then everyone is contributing to a greater good. Pretty much all Germans recycle (a bit manic about it, really), they only buy those energy-efficient lights for their homes, they've developed a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon... I could go on... If we all made little sacrifices and did our parts, we could save HUGE amounts of energy and money. Wouldn't it be nice to see those electric companies complaining because they didn't make giant profits this year at the expense of the environment and public health?

Finally, we DO have a clean alternative. Nuclear power. Everyone is scared of radioactive materials being transported through their towns and they have no idea how safely packaged it is. Trust me, the materials are NEVER coming out of those barrels and they've been tested under extreme conditions, probably even dropped off of cliff faces or high buildings. If a train carrying that stuff crashed in your back yard it would not make you sterile or leukemic (sp?) In the NC mountains the government built a HUGE storage facility for radioactive waste, considered the most advanced of its sort in hte world, and NIMBYs (whose concern is warranted, but who wouldn't listen) woulnd't allow it to be transported so it sits there, empty, a waste of millions, maybe a billion dollars.

do we have any nuclear techs on this website?

Re: Global Warming
 

If you're going by her last quote, we are not putting random spikes in the CO2 levels, we are only increasing it steadily.

We also know that around this time frame the world experience a massive meteorite impact and that the continents would have begun breaking apart. And if this is also when life on earth exploded onto the scene, then it stands to reason that there were lots of animals exhaling CO2 into the atmosphere.

"CO2 goes up and temperature goes up. It drops and temperature drops," Montanez said.

The above quote would be a smoking gun for man-made global warming. We are, as I said, endlessly increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. There is no spike, just a curve getting steeper and steeper

Re: Global Warming
 

Re: Global Warming
 

Please explain previous ice ages on the planet Earth, and how Greenland used to be Green, and how the internal combustion engine (and all your imaginary little "fires" up and down the east coast) contributed to same.