A Brown Christmas?

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Not to be an a-hole. But who is saying this? I have heard lots of scientists say that we are causing global warming and lots of media saying the opposite. There is one I trust more than the other. But if you or anyone could point me in this direction because I would like to read something that takes a logical standpoint on the opposite side.

There are scientists on both sides of the equation. I would venture a guess that most scientists have not taken a firm side and, instead, talk about evidence for one side or the other, none of which is conclusive.

The media isn't making everything about the longterm trends and CO2 measurements, etc. up.

It is foolish to believe that we have absolutely no effect on the environment, and definitely have nothing to do with global warming.

It is also foolish, however, to be absolutely certain that the fact that temperatures are rising is due solely to human influence.

I've seen studies (from a biology lecture, not tv) which show projected temperatures over the last hundreds of thousands of years (using CO2 levels and something else I don't remember) which show a clearly defined pattern of temperature change on Earth, as it goes up and down, repeating itself every...400,000? (something like that) years. We are currently on the upward swing of the cycle, hence the rising temperatures.

That is not to say that we aren't making it worse - we might be. But it's naive to think that all the scientists are on the same side, and it is only the media pretending they're wrong.

edit: here's one article speaking against blaming CO2 for temperature change: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO...balwarming.jsp

[SpitFire40]

Originally Posted by Table 5

hmm, whom should i believe? the vast majority of the scientists in the world who have countless experience and knowledge about the subject.....or JB from Calgarypuck who is probably just tired of hearing about global warming, and therefore chooses to ignore it.

this one's going to be tough.

Believe who you want to believe... It was just an opinion Al Gore.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by SpitFire40

Believe who you want to believe... It was just an opinion Al Gore.

LOL

I thought that was pretty funny.

[Superfraggle]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0615071248.htm

found a better article here. Apparently it's a 100,000 year cycle

Essenhigh attributes the current reported rise in global temperatures to a natural cycle of warming and cooling.

"Today, we are simply near a peak in the current cycle that started about 25,000 years ago," Essenhigh explained.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by Superfraggle

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0615071248.htm

found a better article here. Apparently it's a 100,000 year cycle

Essenhigh attributes the current reported rise in global temperatures to a natural cycle of warming and cooling.

"Today, we are simply near a peak in the current cycle that started about 25,000 years ago," Essenhigh explained.

What you mean all the scientists in the world dont support this unbreakable theory of man made global warming? I am shocked.

Sarcasm aside, I dont care what people or scientists or media or fear mongerers or Cp posters say, there is not enough evidence to cleary say this warming is a human consequence.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by kipperfan

What you mean all the scientists in the world dont support this unbreakable theory of man made global warming? I am shocked.

Sarcasm aside, I dont care what people or scientists or media or fear mongerers or Cp posters say, there is not enough evidence to cleary say this warming is a human consequence.

So we shouldn't do anything to reduce our impact? The consequences for humans should be ignored becuase we have come to realize that we leave less of a footprint then previously thought? Stop patting yourselves on the back. Science hasn't given us a free pass.

You need not go very far to see what has happened in a very short time. Drive hwy 93 and look at the forrest that has been ravaged by the pine beatles for the last three or four years because of warming temperatures.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Superfraggle

edit: here's one article speaking against blaming CO2 for temperature change: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO...balwarming.jsp

That article was written in 1998

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0615071248.htm

found a better article here. Apparently it's a 100,000 year cycle

this one:2001

You'd be hard pressed to find anything recent (in the last couple years) by a reputable source that still opposes the idea that man is changing the climate.

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

That article was written in 1998



this one:2001

You'd be hard pressed to find anything recent (in the last couple years) by a reputable source that still opposes the idea that man is changing the climate.

How is it that the year they were written discredits them? Do you have more recent articles contradicting them? In two minutes of searching, I found two articles on the subject when doubt was expressed that any existed. I am not going to waste my time right now trying to meet your changing standards. It is clear that you aren't going to accept another viewpoint without overwhelming proof. Believe what you choose. I'll keep an open mind, personally.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by Barnes

So we shouldn't do anything to reduce our impact? The consequences for humans should be ignored becuase we have come to realize that we leave less of a footprint then previously thought? Stop patting yourselves on the back. Science hasn't given us a free pass.

Which part of my post leads you to believe that is my point?

I am all for reducing the human impact on the environment, but at the same time I'am not willing to say humans have caused the currently environmental abnormalities this world is expierencing.

[MagicallyAdept]

Originally Posted by Superfraggle

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0615071248.htm

found a better article here. Apparently it's a 100,000 year cycle

Essenhigh attributes the current reported rise in global temperatures to a natural cycle of warming and cooling.

"Today, we are simply near a peak in the current cycle that started about 25,000 years ago," Essenhigh explained.

Everything goes through cycles and we get cycles within cycles. over a long period of time the world changes, we are just measuring our climate in really short periods at the moment and attributing it to something we have all heard about. The sun goes through cycles and the Earth does not follow the exact same pattern round the sun every year so little changes like that will change things like climate. Lets wait another 1000 years and then we can see if we can predict the next cycle :P

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Superfraggle

How is it that the year they were written discredits them? Do you have more recent articles contradicting them? In two minutes of searching, I found two articles on the subject when doubt was expressed that any existed. I am not going to waste my time right now trying to meet your changing standards. It is clear that you aren't going to accept another viewpoint without overwhelming proof. Believe what you choose. I'll keep an open mind, personally.

5-8 years ago, there was still some legitimate scientific opposition to the idea of Human caused global warming. It seems that now there is almost complete consensus in the scientific community, that it is not just a cycle and humans are causing it. Only the most obviously biased of organizations are sticking the belief that we are just in a natural warming cycle.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)]. IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../306/5702/1686

[worth]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ixnewstop.html

Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades but have questioned whether a brighter Sun is also responsible for rising temperatures.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that humans don't have an impact on the environment. What we are saying is that there can be other factors which can be more significant in the contribution to the changes.

Sure, pollution and greenhouse gasses are bad. It should be our responsibility to reduce them whether they are affecting our climate or not. But I think to soley say this is the result of human activity is rediculious. And i'm not a conservative.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by worth

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ixnewstop.html



I don't think anyone here is arguing that humans don't have an impact on the environment. What we are saying is that there can be other factors which can be more significant in the contribution to the changes.

Sure, pollution and greenhouse gasses are bad. It should be our responsibility to reduce them whether they are affecting our climate or not. But I think to soley say this is the result of human activity is rediculious. And i'm not a conservative.

That article is all over the place. This is why it is hard to base opinions on global warming from the media. The media likes to give black and white answers, while scientists don't.

Originally Posted by Jounrnalist

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.
A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Originally Posted by Scientist

both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

And of course you have the right wing politician that debunks it without offering any evidence or other cause.

Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it.....
They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by SpitFire40

Nothing is better than a nice snowy evening, especially during Christmas

Except if you are like my electro mechanically enhanced, eliptically mobile friend Flames_Gimp. You should have seen the time I made him do snow angels. By the time he was finished I had already grown tired of the whole thing and had gone inside to watch the entire Star Wars movie collection. I don't know why he was so mad at me. Snow angels are fun...

[Cowperson]

Airplanes and global warming article in today's USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztra...ion-usat_x.htm

Aviation and the environment are on a collision course. The number of airline flights worldwide is growing and expected to skyrocket over the coming decades. Aircraft emissions pollute the air and threaten by 2050 to become one of the largest contributors to global warming, British scientists have concluded.

Remember the days after 9/11. No airplanes. None. Scientists had an unprecedented opportunity for study.

Cowperson

[Flame On]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Airplanes and global warming article in today's USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztra...ion-usat_x.htm

Aviation and the environment are on a collision course. The number of airline flights worldwide is growing and expected to skyrocket over the coming decades. Aircraft emissions pollute the air and threaten by 2050 to become one of the largest contributors to global warming, British scientists have concluded.

Remember the days after 9/11. No airplanes. None. Scientists had an unprecedented opportunity for study.

Cowperson

Above north america.

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

5-8 years ago, there was still some legitimate scientific opposition to the idea of Human caused global warming. It seems that now there is almost complete consensus in the scientific community, that it is not just a cycle and humans are causing it. Only the most obviously biased of organizations are sticking the belief that we are just in a natural warming cycle.



http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../306/5702/1686

You're confusing "humans are causing global warming" with "humans are contributing to global warming". I don't doubt that opposition has all but disappeared to the idea that humans are contributing to global warming. It is mistaken to believe that this is the same as the entire scientific community agreeing that humans have caused it. The fact that we are contributing to it does not do anything to disprove the theory that we are in a natural warming cycle. In my mind, I think it is likely that both are true. As for the bolded sentence, I'm not sure what your criteria are for "obvious bias", but the lecture about the natural warming cycle I referred to was last winter semester. 2006. Is that recent enough? Or is my prof just "obviously biased"?

[Sparks]

For anyone who thinks global warming is part of a natural cycle, you need to watch this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnfe7Cnwfm4

(From An Inconvenient Truth).

It's obviously in a lot of people's best interests to tell you the problem isn't our fault, even though that is clearly not the case.

[Devils'Advocate]

Blah, blah, blah, blah...it really wouldn't matter if the science was incontrivertable (which is pretty much the case; see above sciencemag link). There are *HUGE* *HUGE* industries out there paying billions of dollars to confuse the issue. On the flip side, there a millions upon millions of people who grasp onto any of the rogue naysayers, even the ones financed by oil and gas, even when the bulk of the evidence is against them... simply because they enjoy a high standard of life BECAUSE we are ignoring Kyoto.

After I left "An Inconvenient Truth" I stopped watching my power consumption. Why bother? The human species will continue to lie to itself until it is too late. It really is naive to believe otherwise.

But the s*** isn't going to hit the fan for another 50, maybe 100. We'll be long gone or nearing the end of our run. It's our children and our children's children that will have to deal with the issue. The naysayers causing the problem will never have to pay for their crimes. Just the way the world works. There really is no use fighting against this tide, just ride the wave and see where it takes us.