Planet in Peril

[Katahu]

How many of you saw the CNN special presentation on Wednesday? When I saw it, I was moved by how much this whole global warming thing has affected the least fortunate countries. Deforestation and poachers causing plants and animals [some of which might contain the cure for cancer and such] to become extinct, small islands populated by thousands of poor residents slowly sinking into the Pacific, etc. It's amazing to see how global warming is affecting poorer nations right now and how it will affect more stronger nations later on.

For those of you who haven't seen it, you can download it from iTunes as a two-part video ($1.99 for each part).

[ThatOnePerson]

I still think "global warming" is a bunch of rubbish. But thats another story

[C]

I'm sure the residents of the last ice age (thankfully spared the hysteria of the modern mass media and scientific academia) weren't to concerned about global warming...

[Fozzer]

Over-population is the biggest worry at the moment...

..and I have added to it in my time... ...!

I was the last male in my Family Line in 1934...

Since becoming sexually active in 1954.... [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]...Woo-Hoo!......

.....I have just worked out that since then, with all my Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren, I have helped to increase the population of this tiny Planet, to the tune of....

23...at the last count...and going strong!... ...!

From 1 to 23.....How's that for being busy?... [smiley=thumbsup.gif]...!

F....going to have a lie down now....I'm exhausted!.... ...!

[born_2_fly]

I still think "global warming" is a bunch of rubbish. But thats another story

Ditto.

Well, on some level.

Yes Global temperatures are rising, thats not debatable. But the face this is prolonged/caused by humans is yet to be proven thoroughly enough for me to believe.

Alex  ;)

[DONTREADMYUSERNAME]

I don't understand how we humans can be so sure that we are causing global warming. I mean think about it.... Humans have been around in their modern Cro-magnon (modern Homo sapiens) form for about 40,000 years. The earth has been here for 4.5 billion years. Thats 40,000 compared to 4,500,000,000. How can be so sure that we are responsible. I mean how do we know that this is not something natural for the Earh, it is generally accepted that the Earth goes through centuries long ice ages, then why can't the earth go through warm-er ages? The last ice age was 2 million years ago, humans were primative Homo erectus then. We saw ice and snow cover the Northern Hemisphere and said "Ice cover land, must be a Ice age". Well over the last 20 years the average global temperature has risen .5 degrees Celsius (see the graph). Thats not much, not much at all. I understand that it may melt a little more ice, thus possibly rasieing the water level, a little, but this is not easy to see. So maybe before the last ice age there was a rise in temperatue, similar to what we are seeing now. Back then primitive man did not have the capabilities to see what was happening so they never fully relized that anything was going on. Thus it never being recorded. Also, as you can see in the graph the earth was actuually COOLER than the norm before 1980.... We cant jump to conclusions too quickly.

So what I'm basically saying is that we should stop being so paranoyed, and maybe study the facts more. I mean between all this political mud slinging and left wing tree huggers proclaiming that every natural disater is a result of global warming, we should step back and conduct several non partisan scientific analaysis and really focus on the scientific part of it.

We need to remeber that it is still the THEORY of Global Warming, and has yet to be proven. It is possible that the .5 degree celsius rise of the temperature is NOT responsible for ANYTHING that may or may not be happening in our world right now.




By the way, before you ask, this pic is from Wikipedia, not some right wing extremist web site

[Ashar]

Global warming...Although it worries me, I don't bother about it seeing as I can't do anything about it...How do you remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

[Celtman]

Global warming...Although it worries me, I don't bother about it seeing as I can't do anything about it...How do you remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

Plant more Trees

[Mobius]

Global warming...Although it worries me, I don't bother about it seeing as I can't do anything about it...How do you remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

Engineers!  That can be taken in many different ways, and I mean for it to be taken in every possible way...


Personally, my view is this:  The earth is getting warmer, it's happened before, therefore it's bound to happen again, but we didn't cause it.  We may be aggravating it, but I don't know and nobody knows for sure, and any effect we have on it is not as drastic as people make it out to be.  Whether or not it's happening though, it's causing two distinct things to happen:

1.)  One, people are becoming more conscious about efficiency and how much stuff they use, which isn't a bad thing at all.  With people becoming concerned about how much gas they use and things like that, they want better engineered products, which means job security for me.  Also, it's stopping people from tossing their bottle of pop out the window when they're done with it, which I can't complain about either.  I enjoy being out doors away from all the idiots I'm around everyday, so whenever I come across some piece of garbage someone has left behind, it pulls me out of my happy, ignorant bliss and right back to the idiots I'm trying to get away from.

2.)  It's making loads of money for Al Gore and his buddies.  Al Gore's 'slide show' really kicked the global warming debate off, and when it did, people starting feeling guilty about driving their gigantic SUV's around all day.  So Al conveniently set up a small organization for people to purchase Carbon Offsets from so they can drive around guilt-free.  It seems odd though that someone who has issued such dire and time sensitive warnings about the planet will happily sell you a certificate to let you spew more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  The profits from these carbon offsets go partially to funding research and partially into the  profits of the organizations that sell them, which Al Gore happens to be part owner and chair person of - what an "Inconvenient Truth". Source

Also, all these celebrities line up behind the 'green' people.  But tell me this - What kind of qualifications do actors and musicians have that make us so sure they know what they're talking about?  People are in the business of making money, and global warming is one of the biggest money makers there is.  Celebrities will put their support behind whoever will pay them the most, as will news agencies, and most of the population of the world, and with the population of the world feeling like it's cool to be more and more liberal, the conservative views will become less and less popular with the "cool kids".

So, to sum it up:  

Temp. of Earth [smiley=smiley_up.gif] = $$$$ [smiley=smiley_up.gif]

As one of my professors states:  "I'm all for saving the planet, but we can't be so stupid about it"  

There's just too many stupid people out there that will believe anything...

[krigl]

I'm not sure why people take it for granted that science enables us to clone things,  send spaceprobes to Neptune, cure diseases, build huge aircraft... and yet when a bunch of scientists who have been researching for decades step up and say 'these gases that we produce are warming the Earth and this is, for example, extremely likely to melt the ice caps' - and at the same time the ice caps are melting, flooding and storm intensity seems to be increasing etc everyone suddenly loses their faith in science. They would rather believe that, although we've been polluting the earth like mad for 200 years, nothing is going to happen due to it.... and that recent phenomena are just a coincidence. Lucky politicians....probably things will hold out for a few more years till they're dead and gone anyway.  

Of course pollution of the atmosphere and disruption of natural processes is a bad idea.... a shift of 1 % over a century and  a half is an extremely fast change - the Earth's systems are delicately balanced. 1 or 2 degrees is the difference between snow or rain for example, or if a type of animal decides to breed, or not.  Let's wait and see until...when? Until it's too late? A cunning plan. Even if it turns out to be a lot of fuss over nothing, cutting down on pollution and treating our home with more respect really might be a good idea, as we don't have any more Earths to move to.

[DONTREADMYUSERNAME]

I think that there is just not enough evidence for me to say with all of my heart "Humans are the sole reason for global warming, and the increase of natural disasters is a direct result of global warming." We've only begun keeping weather records for 200 years(and not very accurately for most of that time). And the first 100 years were only in large cities like London, New York etc... How do we know exactly what the intensity of natural disasters should be? What if the first 175 years of weather tracking was during a slow period in terms of natural disasters? What if the last 25 years are just a coincedence? Lets face it. The earth has, is, and always will be changing and we have no knowledge or power to change that fact. Its just not enough evidence for me....

[Ashar]

Global warming...Although it worries me, I don't bother about it seeing as I can't do anything about it...How do you remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

Plant more Trees

De-forestation is taking place at a faster rate than at which trees grow...You can chop down a tree in 5 minutes, but it'll take close to five decades for its replacement to grow

[ThatOnePerson]

If you look all through history there has been climate change, with and with out humans. I guess the cavemen got too rambunctious with there suv's and froze the earth

[Sir_Crashalot]

Whether the temperature here on earth is rising or not, whether it's caused by the human population or not, I think there are more important matters to worry about. But unfortunatly we cannot discuss them here......

Crash

[Ashar]

Whether the temperature here on earth is rising or not, whether it's caused by the human population or not, I think there are more important matters to worry about. But unfortunatly we cannot discuss them here......

Crash

True :-/