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More on Global Warming

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by dmc, Aug 2, 2007.

  1. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Well the ozone part you're mostly right about. The problem with greenhouses gases is that you can't just ban carbon dioxide emissions the way we did CFCs. Well we could, but every animal on the planet (including people) would be in Violation of the EPA.
     
  2. T2Bruno

    T2Bruno The only source of knowledge is experience Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    A reduction would be the rule which leads to a secondary question -- would reducing carbon dioxide emissions or regenerating carbon dioxide into oxygen be better? Would planting a few billion trees be more beneficial in the long run? My vote is actually both.
     
  3. Keneth Gems: 29/31
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    Global warming isn't a myth, but it is often grossly exaggerated. From the data, it's clear that we are currently inside a warm period, which needs to be taken into account (you can't just look at the last 50 years and scream bloody murder). Obviously, we are having an effect on the climate, but the extent of that is uncertain at best. That is not to say we shouldn't take steps to reduce the harm we're causing. Reforestation and overall reduction in carbon dioxide emissions can only ever be a good thing.

    Of course, this is all just fanciful musing of the people living in the developed part of the world.
     
  4. Beren

    Beren Lovesick and Lonely Wanderer Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I'm in the process of reviewing two books by Inuit authors on the whole subject of global warming. I may as well get out of the way that I'm not completely sold on there being a crisis caused solely by artificial influences. But I'm reviewing the books with an open mind.

    I have to say, they make a persuasive case for it though. The Inuit have had a pretty sophisticated knowledge of how to live in the Arctic north. How to navigate the ice to avoid falling through and falling victim to hypothermia, how to predict the weather by shifts in the wind and wildlife movements so that hunters don't get caught in a deadly storm that can happen at any moment, and so on.

    The Inuit are now saying all of that has been thrown way off. The ice is softer, and they can no longer get a handle on what ice is safe to cross and what ice presents a danger of falling through. They can no longer predict the weather, so taking a hunting trip presents a now much greater risk of getting caught in a storm. The ice and snow is no longer solid and durable enough with which to build temporary snow houses that allow hunters to take shelter from the wind during hunting trips. The Inuit are genuinely convinced that global warming is real, and it has made past lifestyles far more dangerous in ways that they never were before.

    Thing is, if there was anything like this before, it would have been noteworthy enough to have made itself a lasting presence in Inuit oral histories.

    I've published academically on Aboriginal oral histories before. Some oral histories have matched perfectly, for example, with scientific accounts of events like earthquakes in British Columbia. If natural global warming in the past was of such a degree that it had such profound effects on the Inuit lifestyle, trust me, there it would be in the oral histories. And yet the Inuit, up until the 20th century, had lived the same life styles for millenia, and there is no mention of of any such phenomena that had such profound repercussions for their basic survival in times past.

    Like I said, I'm not completely sold on man-made global warming and how it's going to destroy the world. Yet objectively, it's pretty hard to dismiss what I'm reading about out of hand.

    Food for thought ...
     
    Blades of Vanatar and Taluntain like this.
  5. The Great Snook Gems: 31/31
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    I love it.

     
  6. pplr Gems: 18/31
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    Haven't been back as recently as I'd like to be as I've go other stuff to do but I'm glad I dropped in for this particular moment as it gives me a chance to point something out.

    Should anything Investor's Daily puts out be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to Global Warming?

    They do a pretty good misrepresentation of what was said.

    Take the first paragraph of the editorial Snook linked to.

    "It was eight years ago this month that the United Nations said we had eight years to do something about global warming. If not, the planet would be in trouble. Well, here we are, and no climate disaster has befallen Earth. And none is on the horizon."

    Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/blogs-cap...ars-to-fight-global-warming.htm#ixzz3aePCRX8c
    Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook

    Notice the implication that a disaster was supposedly going to hit the Earth within 8 years. So if 8 years pass then no problem right?

    Wrong.

    First I would point out there are already a list of things going wrong and made worse during the past several years by Global Warming but lets stick with the implication civilization has to collapse, an entire major nation (not a few islands in the Pacific) has to sink under an ocean, or something else really big and obviously world map changing has to have happened or else Global Warming isn't happening.

    And within 8 years..

    Lets look at what Investors' Daily Editorial (note editorials are not something the newspaper can be held accountable for a lack of accuracy) referred to..

    "The report said global emissions must peak by 2015 for the world to have any chance of limiting the expected temperature rise to 2C, which would still leave billions of people short of water by 2050."

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/may/05/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment

    So if there was no problem in the past 8 years it took to reach 2050 then we are good.. err.. wait..

    But 2050 is in 35 years??!

    2015 Was the point we were supposed to do something by. 2050 is when we pay the price by (though it can still get worse than huge water shortages after that according to the article).

    The problem is buy now & pay later. And the editorial is claiming if we don't feel most of the problem right after we have bought then there isn't one.

    Are most problems behind you or don't exist if you buy something on credit, are enjoying it, and have yet to pay most (or any) of the bill?



    Put differently-and someone who drinks more often than me can correct me if I'm wrong-most people don't have a hangover in the middle of their 1st or 2nd drink. Even after they have had several and are drunk the hangover is really noticed when they are sober later.

    This editorial pulls something like a bait & switch.
     
  7. The Great Snook Gems: 31/31
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    But, but, but this can't possibly be true. I thought all the polar bears were drowning.

    updated-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/

    Sorry, I normally like to post the text of the article, but Forbes has disabled copy and paste (the bastards).
     
  8. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    Heh. Maybe we are actually in for this: Link

    One of my favorite "bad" movies of the past couple of decades.
     
  9. pplr Gems: 18/31
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    It is an "editorial". That way the writer can lie all he wants and then claim it is only his opinion.


    Gotta love this bit which I take the time to quote.



    Compare it to a different quote from somewhere with more integrity & probably more data too.

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

    Now I don't even trust that the Forbes guy has the right numbers but I would point out that if he did it is likely because Antarctic & Arctic sea ice are in 2 different situations. Global Warming can help increase the amount of Antarctic sea ice (say if land ice becomes sea ice-decreases the amount of the former while increasing the latter). But it pretty much has just decreased the amount of Arctic sea ice.

    And the data shows Arctic sea ice is below a real average (put together a few decades from 1981-2010).

    So it looks like the Forbes guy snookered the Snook here.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2015
  10. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    That is nonsense.
     
  11. pplr Gems: 18/31
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    Simple test to think about how this may happen.

    1. Put an ice cube on a table.
    2. Slide ice cube off table edge.

    Question: Has the amount of ice on the floor increased while the amount on the table decreased?
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2015
  12. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Question: Your floor and table are already covered 2-feet-thick with ice cubes. Would you be able to tell that an ice cube on the table slid off onto the floor if you didn't see it happen?
     
  13. ralfy Gems: 1/31
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