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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
 Posted - 04/29/2001 : 04:13:38 [Permalink]
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Cont from Previous
I can tell you that reversing the damage caused by global warming whilst it may be possible is going to be very much more expensive then switching away from fossil fuels, add to that the fact that when the damage is reversed fossil fuels will have to stop being used otherwise the damage will have to be repaired constantly, it becomes clear that Global Warming must not be allowed to happen.
Thats the way the market works, short term rewards are more important then long term, and individual good more imporant then collective good.
NOTE: Can the post word limit be made longer?
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Dog_Ed
Skeptic Friend
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2001 : 04:32:50 [Permalink]
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I mentioned a book by Oregon's State Climatologist which has a good overview of data on global warming. The book is The Climate of Oregon
From Rain Forest to Desert
by George H. Taylor and Chris Hannan
http://www.orst.edu/dept/press/ClimateOR.html
To reiterate the main points I remember from data in the chapter on global warming:
1. The Earth is getting warmer but it is not yet as warm as it was during the Medieval Warm Period.
2. Atmospheric CO2 has increased far above any Pleistocene levels found so far.
"Even Einstein put his foot in it sometimes" |
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Tiptup
Skeptic Friend
USA
86 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2001 : 17:55:16 [Permalink]
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bestonnet_00:
The scientific consensus is growing rapidly in favour of global warming being caused by humans,
I do not see this vast consensus that is supposedly growing in favor of humans being the cause of Global Warming. I see a lot of alarmist scientists screaming that the sky is falling, but they are nowhere near being a majority or "rapidly growing" from what I have seen.
The ten hottest years on record (which started in 1860 when we finally got reliable measurements) have all occurred after 1973, annual temperatures even in places away from cities have been rising, polar ice caps are melting, cracks have appears and their is ice going missing, it wouldn't take all that much to raise sea level 10 metres, El Nino has been staying longer.
Yes I agree that the icecaps are melting, but you give no evidence that humans have caused this. In fact, just awhile back I heard a news piece that talked about a study at the South Pole. As I remember, the study concluded that the polar cap has been melting at this steady rate for at least hundreds of years. That would have been long before the industrial revolution. Since I have a bad memory I'll have to search around for specific names and such regarding the study.
we know that small fluctuations in the suns output can't have much effect on earth
Ohh, we KNOW this do we? In the twentieth century we have rediscovered Chaos Theory and have ideas about butterfly wings affecting global weather patterns, but you "know" that small fluctuations in the sun can't affect the earth's climates. Just how small are these fluctuations that you speak of?
As for your mentioning of Venus and why it is hot. The fact that it is closer to the sun greatly affects the energy it absorbs. Sure on an astronomical scale there is basically little difference, but as far as life forms and similar climates, you wouldn't be able to put the earth in Venus' orbit and expect us to survive.
In actuality the sun should roast the earth whenever it faces it, and then freeze to ice on the dark side. Fortunately the earth has an atmosphere that regulates itself to keep us nice and comfortable. If it weren't for greenhouse gases, life would have an incredibly hard time surviving, much less humans.
CO2 has always been on the earth. It is a byproduct of many processes that keep it working. Sure we produce this gas when we refine things, but so do many other natural machines. As others stated earlier, one cannot make the inference that we are the cause of global warming through CO2, when our output is incredibly far less than certain volcano explosions. With all of the hard evidence showing that we humans don't have as large of an effect as thought, and no data showing that we are causing an unnatural rise in temperature with our small addition of greenhouse gases, we shouldn't make hasty decisions that could be more harmful in the long run.
Now I agree that refinement of fossil fuels is a rather nasty process. We scar the land and air when whenever we do this. I'm all for finding more efficient and productive sources of energy, but in the meantime, we shouldn't be cutting off our own arms. Burning fossil fuels is a necessary process until something better is implemented. Personally I think we should have been investing more in nuclear energy. Also the idea of creating a safe fusion reactor isn't impossible, we just haven't figured out how to do it yet.
Sure there may not be 100% proof, but there is generally considered to be about 95% proof of it, and since the consquences are very bad, we should reduce CO2 production until it can be proven that CO2 is not the cause and that something else is.
Yeah, I could use that argument to say that we shouldn't try your ideas of socialism, because the Soviet Union fell. Hey communism might not have been the cause but until we find the real one, dabbling in socialism is too dangerous.
Humans cannot be afraid to take risks. Life thrives on being successful, but you cannot be successful by hiding in a cave because you don't want anything to change, or you want everything to be fair. In case you haven't noticed life isn't...
Yes we humans affect the earth when we produce and are successful; many times this is not in a way that is beneficial. But I would argue that the gains have been far better than the losses. Its how life works, we work to produce wealth because the wealth is more important to us than the cost of working. Sorry Chicken Little, I'm going to go out today; no guts, no glory; no loss, no gain; you win some; you lose some.
There is more then enough proof to justify a ban on constrution of coal power and to ban coal power research, there should also be government programs to speed up a switch to nuclear power and research into SPS, reserach into alternative fuels for cars which don't release as much CO2 should also be conducted and economic incentives provided for people to use them.
I agree with all that completely. All I would add is that a cleaner engine doesn't necessarily mean different fuel. The best example for this is the electric car. Sure it runs on electricity, but that has to come from somewhere. Imagine if we all switched to electric cars. You would get a huge increase in demand for electrical power plants. Something far better than an electric car would be a vehicle that burns gasoline far more efficiently. There is more chemical energy in gasoline than the combustion engine is able to tap. With better technology, we will hopefully get better engines.
My life and my right to actually go out to a day that isn't 40 in winter is far more important then the profits of exxon-mobile or other petrolium companies, anyway I would prefer the fossil fuels used to make plastics and other products,
One of the things I hate most about socialist thought is the misuse of the term "right". As an individual it is your right to choose to prefer 40-degree days in the middle of winter. (Oh man, here in Minnesota I wish there had been a day above 30 this winter, it was longer and colder than usual.) Unfortunately as an individual, you do not have the right to have the winter or any other weather pattern you prefer. Again, there are no guarantees in life. You can get warm and fuzzy feelings when you think of everyone having their lives when, where, and how you think they should, but you have no right.
Another thing I hate about socialist thought: the ignorance of how any economy works. I don't know if you were referring to Exxon and Mobil's profits because you were bringing up the idea that they have been gouging customers, or just because we are talking about fossil fuels, but I cannot stand all of the "liberal" nuts who complain when they see that gas companies make higher profits when there is a shortage of their commodity. Essentially if everyone and their grandma are going around buying SUVs and guzzling gas like there is no tomorrow, then naturally a gas company would have increased profits. Why? Because when people are willing to pay more to ensure that they get a particular product over someone or something else, the person or company that sells the product will make more money. Add to this a production shortage of gasoline and you get prices that fly sky high. High profits only occur because of demand and shortage, rarely because of gouging.
as for my political position, I am left wing, becasue thats the one that has been proven to work, left wing policies have almost always worked bet |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 04/29/2001 : 23:09:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
...as for my political position, I am left wing, becasue thats the one that has been proven to work, left wing policies have almost always worked better then right wing ones.
Hmm...examples? Actually, if you do have examples, maybe start a thread in the Politics section...
[I should clarify a bit: to split politics into 'left' and 'right' is a ridiculous oversimplification. There are so many different facets of thought, so many different combinations of ideas that can be implemented. I can't label myself easily. I'm mostly Libertarian (anything else is immoral), with a sprinkling of 'left', and a sprinkling of 'right', and a sprinkling of a whole lot of 'in between' /sigh It's so much more complicated than we seem to make it...]
I'm completely at a loss as to why this issue is so politicized. If the evidence is there, it's there. If it's not, it's not. Which is it?
Edited by - tokyodreamer on 04/29/2001 23:14:07 |
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2001 : 04:18:22 [Permalink]
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Nothing on the greenpeace site in which scientific arguments are used? Haven't seen http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/industry/reports/sceptics.html I suppose?
The American Geophyiscal Union issued a statement at http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change.html is against Bush's anti-kyoto stand
First of all the CO2 level has gone up 25% since the pre-industrial era, which is pretty good proof that something has changed since then and now, also worth noting is that there was almost no rise before the industrial age started, claims that Human's have not caused that are bullshit unless you provide an alternate explanation.
Second Solar activity is an ad hoc argument which is unsupported by evidence, maybe it is true, but we haven't got any proof for it.
quote:
IPCC WGI (1996, p 115) : Recent observations and theoretical calculations imply that the radiative forcing due to changes in the Sun's output over the past century has been considerably smaller than anthropogenic forcing.
Page: 118 : The available evidence indicates that natural variations in the radiative forcing, due to volcanic eruptions and changes in solar output, may have been
important in determining some of the decadal scale variations in global climate over the past 150 years. Nevertheless, the cumulative radiative forcing due to human activity remains large compared to these and on this evidence such radiative forcing would be expected to have played a more significant role in determining the long-term trends in climate over the past 150 years.
If about 2,500 scientists can come to that conclusion then there is a pretty good case for it.
I can calculate the amount of extra energy venus Recieves from the sun only 1.91 times the energy, the reason it is so hot is because of the runaway greenhouse effect, it does have a slow rotation, but its atmosphere is so thick as to give it almost uniform temperature.
Saying that CO2 is natural doesn't really affect me, for the simple fact that I already knew it, just because something is natural doesn't mean it is safe, it may be safe in certain concentrations but above those concentrations it becomes very dangerous (this is very common), this is what CO2 is like, and a 25% increase is something that could be very dangerous, you say that the costs of stopping it would be too high, but they aren't, switch to nuclear power, and switch cars over to electric or Hydrogen or some other fuel.
As for pollution of electric cars, yes if they get power from a coal plant they will, but the coal plant is more efficent then the car and has far better pollution control, it would also make it far easier to convert cars to nuclear power.
Cont...
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2001 : 04:19:29 [Permalink]
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Cont from Previous
Also may I remind you that capatilism has been a failure when it is unregulated (how libertarians want it), the environment is destroyed, people are exploited, poverty is common, etc.
That is why libertarian nations don't last very long, sure there may be some, but you can't have propserity without taxes.
Life thrives on taking risks, but not risks of the whole species, extinction is not something I like the idea of, a group of people can and should take risks, but if the majority don't accept the risk there isn't anything you can do about it, then will probably just make your coal plant shut down (explosives can really come in handy).
So far we have got more then we have damaged, but it wont last forever.
I have the right to clean air, saying I don't is saying that I have no right to live.
Take away my right to live and I will make sure I get it back, if I have to destroy the worlds economy to do that then the worlds economy will crash, personally I would rather a switch to nuclear energy, switching to more liberal policies, increased money for space programs.
As for rights, libertarian rights are paper rights with no practical use, for rights to exist they have to be enforced, I will be willing to do what is needed to be able to walk around outside without wearing a respairator.
Collective action is often better then individual action.
There is a very good article at http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/35/goodstein-e.html on the true costs of environmental regulation, much much lower then what denialists and propoents claims.
As for what to do with SUV's, simple, ban them.
Most of the people who drive them drive like maniacs, they are a danger to everyone on the roads and most people don't use them as intended, if people have need for such vehicles they should have to be licenced seperately to drive them, for all intents and purposes they are light trucks.
Libertarians don't seem to know about market failures, which happen quite often.
The Northern European Social democracies are in fact amoung the most properous countries on the planet, they have very strong governments, unions and regulate their industries very well, their pollution levels are quite low, they have higher standards of living, and their productivity is catching up very quickly with the US, they also have far lower crime rates and according to the UN a higher freedom index.
As for the issue being politisied, thats becuase capatilism is a leading cause of environmental destrution, thats what the evidence clearly shows.
Cont
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2001 : 09:48:37 [Permalink]
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From your Greenpeace link (I must have missed that part, I really did look!):
quote:
The Climate Sceptics are a handful of scientists, many directly subsidised by the fossil fuel lobby and promoting what numerous mainstream scientists regard as blatant misinformation on climate science, thereby contesting the urgent need to tackle the problem of global warming.
What blatant nonsense! This kind of demagoguery won't get anyone anywhere. It is completely dishonest to imply that there are only a 'handful' of scientists, and that they are lying to us because they are in the pockets of the oil companies. That kind of stuff happens in isolated cases, but do you think that there are NO ethical scientists that do research for the oil companies? It's kinda like the Area 51 ufo 'coverup'. How many people are keeping the secret? Or could it be that the scientists who claim that the computer climate models are far from accurate actually believe that their data is correct, as oppossed to taking oil money to keep quite?
[deleted wrong information]
Edited by - tokyodreamer on 04/30/2001 10:02:44 |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
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sega
Skeptic Friend
USA
73 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2001 : 18:19:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Cont from Previous
As for socialism, if your using the common definations then it works quite well in Northern Europe.
Have a look at http://members.aol.com/jimn469897/warming.htm#WEB
Comparing the socialism of small scandinavian countries simply does not wash on a global scale or with large nations such as the US. Denmark has 5 million people for christs sake. The majority of the population is Danish with the majority of immigrants living in Copenhagen. It May work there, but not here. As for fanatical words and points of view, bestonnet_00 has shown that emotional responses to real issues lead to threats of violence. The Hezbolla and Bob Jones University have much in common with you. Different points of view, same fanatacism. The only way environmental issues will be solved is through truth, and compromise. Yes even the greenies will have to compromise, but all I hear from many of them is the same sensationalist claims and spear rattling. It also leads to violence and destruction as seen by the ELFs actions. If the Sierra Club, earth first and others would merely work with the public and major environmental offenders to educate and cooperate to get good things done, a whole lot would change. remember your physics, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I hope you are volunteering your time and physically helping to better the environment in your hometown.
Sega
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2001 : 00:58:26 [Permalink]
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As for the Scientists funding, sure some of them do come to the opposite conclusion though honest reserach, but most of the groups are heavily funded by industry (which has a habit of saying that the sky is falling about any new regulation), compared to those that believe in global warming the denialists are a minority and pretty close to a handful, in fact even the industry funded bodies have watered down their research and many in them are starting to accept Global Warming.
As for socialism working in Denmark et al, it works well there and would work well in most other places, the best ear in US history was the New Deal era, which was when US economic politics were left-wing, now with those right-wing policies everything will be doing downhill.
As for extreamism, I probably wouldn't do most of them, but if it gets bad enough I would, and I'm pretty sure that most other people will, afterall there is proof that global warming is being caused by us and that global warming is bad.
Because of the need for public protection, proof for anything that is likely to be unsafe is the opposite of how it normally is, its up to the coal plant owners to prove that their CO2 doesn't cause global warming, its up to the chemical companies to prove that the chemical that is believed to cause cancer doesn't.
Get it?
Otherwise the market would be flooded with death traps, which people don't want.
As for extreamism, it is the denialists who don't seem to care about CO2 that are extreasist, allowing people to die or temperatures to rise just for a bit of extra money is callous, immoral, and would be a criminal act in any place that had a good legal system.
The environmental groups exist to work with the public and thats what they do, as for the major environmental offenders, they wont change after talking to someone from an environmental org, only way to change them is to make it profitable or to require them to change.
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sega
Skeptic Friend
USA
73 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2001 : 12:47:43 [Permalink]
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[quote]
As for the Scientists funding, sure some of them do come to....
Ok, bestonnet_00, I can see that you have set your mind, We are causing global warming, and semi socialism which works in a tiny country of 5 million will work in a country the size of all of europe.
Let me ask you this, do you have a passive and active solar home or if you live in an apartment have you done everything you can to save money? Do you own a car or do you take public transportation, do you recycle everything that comes through your hands, where is the most threatened ecosystem near your home and what are you doing to help save it? Do you refuse to use styrofoam and other non reusable forms of plastic, and do you encourage others to do all of the little things that when taken as a whole will help the problems? If you do not honestly answer these questions, you are not being true to your statements. Adopting socialism and strict environmental policies will cause a whole lot of people to give up a whole lot. Before you ask others to do so, ask yourself if you are willing to give these things up first as an example for the rest of us, and prove to them with science that what you say is true. You probably can't give up many of your comforts, and you still havent proven your point on global warming. All I am hearing is "most scientists this, and most scientists that" well I know many scientists doing research on climate here in Nevada at the Desert Research Institute, and not a one would make the statement, the earth is warming solely or in grat part due to the activities of man. less than 100 years of surface temperature measurements are not enough to make a sound conclusion, and Ice core data has shown that warming and cooling cycles are the norm, prior to the industrial revolution. Have you ever heard of methane Hydrate? Look it up. A large release of this was responsible for a global warming period in the late pleistocene. A release of this could occur tomorrow and cause a warming of up to 10 deg celsius over a 10 year period, and we'd be able to do absolutely nothing, except to adapt or die. I am also a scientist, although not a climatologist, and I know better than to make statements which cannot be defended with precise and carefully performed experiments and data collection.
Sega
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2001 : 01:33:49 [Permalink]
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Thats the problem, we only have one earth to experiment on.
Although in public health and environmental issues its those who release chemicals that aren't GRAS that have to prove that they are safe, thats how it works in the drug industry (legal ones only), it saves many lives.
Remember absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so those who are putting the CO2 into the atmosphere have to prove it isn't harmful (we already have some proof that it is).
In environmental and health issues the standards required a far lower then for most science because in these issues people can die, and we are trying to take the route that will cause the least deaths.
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sega
Skeptic Friend
USA
73 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2001 : 13:24:13 [Permalink]
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[quote]
Thats the problem, we only have one earth to experiment on.[quote]
Ok, what about what you are doing for the environment in your own life bestonnet_00? Are you ll talk and no responsibility? will you support laws that will force others to do what you are not willing to do in your own life?
I'd like to know.
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2001 : 13:41:14 [Permalink]
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I don't think Bestonnet or anyone else was advocating a return to an agrarian culture. This doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything either.
It's a fact that big business has to have its arm twisted to do anything at all and will complain every step of the way and make wild claims about how our economy will be ruined.
Well, we have twisted the arm of big business and they have had to pollute less and contrary to the claim that our economy would go into the toilet we prospered and have less emissions than we did before.
I do think we have a right to a clean environment and that big business should not be allowed to do whatever it wants to our world. They can implement the means to emit less pollutants. It just means less profit. I say that's tough, deal with it ; )
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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