Global Warming....

[Guest Adara]

So, here are the findings of those scientists who met in Belgium:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17953433

“The poorest of the poor in the world — and this includes poor people in prosperous societies — are going to be the worst hit,” Pachauri said. “People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change.”

Aren't they always the ones that get it in the ass anyway?

The United States, China and Saudi Arabia raised the many of the objections to the phrasing, often seeking to tone down the certainty of some of the more dire projections.

I'm so utterly disturbed, and bloody well pissed off that the answers are looking us in the face and the US continuously ignores them.

Though, I have found out that though the US as a country has rejected Kyoto, dozens of US cities and several US states have adopted it anyway.

What do you all think off all this? This is not the kind of world I want my children to inherit....

[Guest echtrae]

All we can do is keep plugging away at trying to improve things.

[foeofthelance]

Why? Global Warming is actually a rather natural process. Just because it might knock off a few species is nothing to worry about. This is called natural selection and is something Mother Nature uses to encourage evolution.

Thirty years or so ago they were all ranting about Global Cooling, and how we were all soon going to be living in Igloos. They were wrong. Global warming is much the same. It is a natural process that comes and goes in cycles. There is evidence all over the place, most specifically in the various sedimentary rock layers. But that might be a tad counter productive. The sun is burning a bit hotter after all. Stands to reason that the things it heats might get a tad warmer too. Worrying about it really isn't going to do much, nor is there anything to be done about it, save for perhaps devoloping a sun-sized fire extinguisher. Actually, Global Warming may be a good thing, as we are sort of in the middle of an Ice Age period.

Now, does that mean humans aren't impacting the environment? No. But if you really want something to worry about, try the hole in the ozone layer, which is letting in cancer causing radiation. Now that is something we should perhaps do something about.

Will the face of the world change over the next hundred years? Yes it will. But it has been doing that for the last 4.6 billion years. It will continue to do so for about another 5 billion years or so. At that point the sun will probably go nova and obliterate the planet. This is as much the fault of humans as it is the fault of fruit flies.

[StoryJunkie]

at the rate oxygen in being used and the rate of deforestation causes any mathematician to give pause.

It's gotten too big for us to handle. funny how when this issue came up though, America suddenly decided to go to war. Think someone was trying to distract Americans from something important.? These are the people who can make the most difference. Why?

Oh, well, off to read another orgy update...

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

As foeofthelance said, it's a natural process, as is extinction. Hell, MASS extinction is even considered necessary for the good of the world. If it hadn't been for the destruction of most of the dinosaurs, we would still essentially be rodents, as would every other mammal on Earth. Destruction breaths creation. Two objects cannot inhabit the same space at the same time, so one thing has to be destroyed or moved for something else to go there. it's a balance. Out with the old, in with the new.

Far too many people want everything to stay exactly the same forever, which is simply impossible. Nothing is eternal. That which has begun must end.

[quamp]

Thirty years or so ago they were all ranting about Global Cooling, and how we were all soon going to be living in Igloos. They were wrong.

The global cooling that they were ranting about 30 years ago was due to a nuclear winter, which would happen after a nuclear war. That never happened. Sorry, but the warming trend has been going on for at least 50 years.

If one theory is correct, we may be in deeper trouble than imagined. One theory states that we've actually been in an ice age since the 16th century, and we're coming out of it now. However, due to man's buring fuels, we haven't felt it. Since man is burning fossil fuels at a greater rate than ever before, we could see the polar ice caps melt faster than anticipated.

You Canadians may get to enjoy the 100+ degree F (40+degree C) summers we have here in Texas, while us Texans have to endure twice that.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Anyone here been to Coney Island here in Brooklyn, NY in the last 20 some years? Apparently, just over ten years ago, when my boyfriend was little and his mom used to take him there there was about two blocks of sand between the boardwalk and the water, and you could walk under the boardwalk to get to the beach. Now, due to rising water levels, they pushed back the sand, bringing it up to the boardwalk's level so it doesn't flood the area when thetide comes in and during heavy rain. It's also worth mentioning that there's now only about a block's worth of distance 'tween the water and the boardwalk.

[redsliver]

You Canadians may get to enjoy the 100+ degree F (40+degree C) summers we have here in Texas, while us Texans have to endure twice that.

if you step up 40 degrees in the south of the States, Canada will be stepped up at least 60 Quamp. Its not equal, and the closer you are to the equator the less likely you are to feel the thermal consequences. Although the meteorlogical ones like superstorms will certainly be insane.

[Guest echtrae]

Global warming on other planets

Just thought I'd add to this a bit.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

So this suggests its more of a cosmic thing rather then planetary? Well... that makes sense since the Sun IS getting warmer.

WOO! NOT OUR FAULTS!

.... -cough-

Excuses...

[StoryJunkie]

well then, cosmic pilots such as myself should never be distracted by things like orgy threads. *sighs.* Back to steering the cosmos. Bye guys..

[Guest echtrae]

So this suggests its more of a cosmic thing rather then planetary? Well... that makes sense since the Sun IS getting warmer.

WOO! NOT OUR FAULTS!

.... -cough-

Excuses...

The warming may not be singly our fault, but we are still polluting the environment. We're like a caged animal that isn't bright enough to crap in just one corner.

[Guest Yhitzak]

The warming may not be singly our fault, but we are still polluting the environment. We're like a caged animal that isn't bright enough to crap in just one corner.

Woo hoo! Someone *finally* said what's needed to be said from the beginning! THANK YOU!

This global warming thing is a naturally hot-button issue, which is why so many people are on such extreme ends of this argument. The way I've always seen it, most of what is published as news is extremism. This is to say that what the media would have us believe is that the ice caps are going to melt tomorrow or that nuclear war would create an instant state of glaciers and icebergs. Neither of these situations is realistic. No one is claiming that global warming happens strictly because of humans or strictly because of natural environmental changes; both points happen to be true to a certain degree. It's determining these degrees that has everyone so up in arms.

Learning how to live within our environments has been a human struggle for as long as humans have been alive. Why should this point in time be any different? I don't think that anyone anywhere is arguing against the notion (in itself) of global warming, so what *really* is the problem? How to deal with it? Shit, man, sit back and strap yourself in, because this is going to be a *long*, hard ride for *all* of us.

Honestly, is cutting back on using fossil fuels really that bad an idea? Is wanting to preserve the environment such a bad thing? And is being concerned or showing concern in this arena really a political negative? I guess I just don't understand why so many people are opposed to acknowledging this idea as fact. You don't have to be a scientist or even terribly intelligent to have the power of observation or to realize that certain actions will yeild certain results. What I'm saying, I guess, is that it doesn't take a genius to figure out that dumping toxic waste in your back yard is going to spoil your land or that sending metal smoke into the air is going to create acid rain.

[StoryJunkie]

Beetle infestation in BC (Note the part about the absence of cold winters lately...)

Nifty gif of my province from 1959 - 2002 ...it's much worse in 2007 The green part are happy alive trees as seen from some CFM satellite feed. The red part is dead. Dead Dead Dead. Just a small note. There are 2 pulp mills in town (other mills are sawmills) One mill uses in one hour enough natural gas that the entire town put together uses in one year. The crunch is on the resident, not the commercial or industrial sectors of society. Also note: the mills were bought two years ago from their American owners by Japanese

Okay, do we panic now?

Now????

Now????

Do we panic now???

[Guest Agaib]

Why? Global Warming is actually a rather natural process. Just because it might knock off a few species is nothing to worry about. This is called natural selection and is something Mother Nature uses to encourage evolution.

Warming and cooling trends are indeed natural. However, there is definite evidence that humans are affecting the global climate, and its not really natural selection if it's not natural.

Some people seem to get the stupid idea that somehow humans are immune to extinction. We've just existed on this planet for less than an eye blink. It's not that unlikely that in the next few eye blinks that we'll have some other sentient species studying our bones and arguing over how smart we really were.

Actually, Global Warming may be a good thing, as we are sort of in the middle of an Ice Age period.

I don't really know where you got this bullshit, but it probably came from a exceptionally stupid interpretation of some scientific publishing. In any case, temperature and energy are all relative, if you're saying that the earth is colder than it has been as a mean, this may be true (I really don't know anything about this), but you're making a logical fallacy by assuming that the mean temperature of the earth (which has existed for a very long time) is equal to the mean temperature that humans are adapted to. I do hope this comment was a joke.

Now, does that mean humans aren't impacting the environment? No. But if you really want something to worry about, try the hole in the ozone layer, which is letting in cancer causing radiation. Now that is something we should perhaps do something about.

The hole in the ozone layer is directly related to the warming trend we're all worried about. Substances such as carbon dioxide and other gases cause the O3 ozone molecules to degrade into normal oxygen.

will the face of the world change over the next hundred years? Yes it will. But it has been doing that for the last 4.6 billion years. It will continue to do so for about another 5 billion years or so. At that point the sun will probably go nova and obliterate the planet. This is as much the fault of humans as it is the fault of fruit flies.

Despite what some people might tell you, there is a dramatic consensus among scientists studying this topic (You know, the ones that know what they're talking about.) that humans are affecting the warming trend, and that we'll see the affects of it within a few generations. So no it probably wont be a big problem for you, it most likely will be for your grandkids.

I'll apologize ahead of time if this sounds hostile. I'm just pointing out at which points I disagree with you.

[Guest Yhitzak]

Agaib Posted #15 on April 11, 2007 08:18 pm

Some people seem to get the stupid idea that somehow humans are immune to extinction. We've just existed on this planet for less than an eye blink. It's not that unlikely that in the next few eye blinks that we'll have some other sentient species studying our bones and arguing over how smart we really were.

I think that the case for humanity's intelligence is made right here. I challenge anyone to name me one other species that doesn't have the common sense to not shit in every corner of its cage, to not paint itself into the center of a room, to not actively destroy itself. Humans are one of the only species on the planet that allow and/or even encourage overpopulation. Most species that have gone extinct have done so because of the inability to adapt to extreme environmental changes, because they were hunted out of existence, or because they evolved into other species. Humans have become vastly unadaptable creatures. The more set in our ways we get, the more unadaptable we become. Take global warming, for example. This isn't a new topic; it's been discussed for hundreds of years and especially the last seventy, and *still* no one can agree on what it is, or if it even exists.

The more I think about, the more I think that this really comes back to personal involvement in something larger than *just* your own life, regardless of who you happen to be. There is this insistence from so many people that it's just a natural cycle for the earth the to undergo, that it's a nonexistent issue created by the liberal media (what a joke, an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms!), or that it's just small beans. Sure, maybe right now all of those things might be true, but generations from now, we *are* going to see the results of our actions, and it is *not* going to be pretty. Eventually, we're *all* going to see that by standing aside and saying, "It's not me. I can't be part of the problem because I'm just *one* person," we're creating more problems than we could ever hope to solve in any amount of lifetimes.

I really don't understand why so many people are so insistent upon saying, "It's not our fault." So what if it is? Is that really so bad? If we know what the cause is, doesn't that mean we can fix it, even if it takes many, many, many years?

[foeofthelance]

Actually, not so much our fault, so much as why fight it? If humans try and alter every change that takes place in the Earth's natural systems to suit humans as they are now, then we are in for a long, bitter, and eventually disappointing fight.

Instead of worrying about it, do what any rational group does when problems can be seen lurking on the horizon. Adapt to it. Sea levels going up? Don't keep dumping sand on beaches while looking for ways to halt the rise, look for ways to build on, in, or just really, really close to the water. Deforestation? Don't just keep planting trees in an attempt to keep up with or get ahead of the deforesting, but look for a new way of making the things that require trees, such as lumber and paper. Recycling is big part of this, I admit it. I just don't think that trying to prevent the changes is the wisest course. Those critters that didn't see it coming, and couldn't adapt, well they make pretty neat fossils to look at in the museums we've built. Those that have? Well, we still have plenty of alligators, sharks, turtles, rats, cockroaches, coeleocanths, and probably a dozen more species of all shapes and sizes that have survived mass extinction events. All because instead of trying to fight the future, they adapted to suit it instead.

I wouldn't really mind some higher intelligence checking out human fossils sometime in the far future. Just so long as they are descended from humans on the evolutionary ladder. After all, don't we study our own ancestors's bones?

[Guest Agaib]

Once more Foeofthelance you assume that we'll be there to look at their fossils. global temperature changes of just small proportions have the potential to destroy a lot of humanity, and eventual more extreme numbers have the potential to destroy humanity all together. Not in the course of a hundred years. Or even in the course of five hundred years. (I don't really know the numbers or estimations, I'm just admitting it may not be really soon)

Its more than likely that humans have affected the process of global warming. Just because global warming could be partly affected by natural cycles doesn't automatically make natural cycles the exclusive cause. People really need to stop making arguments made out of apathy.

People may not always be able to adapt changes in global temperature in a way that our resources allow. I don't mind either if some later species studies our bones, I do care somewhat what they'll think of how we treated the planet. In any case, if we kill ourselves its unlikely that they'd be involved with the human evolutionary ladder at all.

[Guest Yhitzak]

Agaib Posted #18 on May 27, 2007 08:41 pm

People really need to stop making arguments made out of apathy.

Nothing more really needs to be said about this topic, because this statement says it all. Thanks, Agaib.

Like I said before, even if global warming is total bullshit or whatever, what harm does it really do to anyone to curb consumption, etc? I mean... how is it bad to try and protect the natural world in which we live, regardless of the reasons for it?