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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
 Posted - 04/13/2006 : 21:21:11 [Permalink]
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As for atheists caring about global warming, in addition to having a son whom I certainly care about, I for one am hoping some of that longevity research will pay off before I die.
I do think we should only be screwing with things after we understand the consequences, not before. It will be great if the CO2 fends off the next ice age but not so good if it triggers the next one instead. |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 10:10:30 [Permalink]
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This is an interesting article going around.
http://www.festinalente.co.uk/stuff/files/coolingworld.pdf
I am not saying that global warming is not happening, but maybe we need to pull back the throttle a little about the immanent disaster that is going to happen. It also shows that you can have a period of time where global temperatures decrease while greenhouse gas emissions increase over the same period. Unfortunately, I think that the topic has become a political issue instead of a scientific issue. |
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 10:31:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Robb:
Unfortunately, I think that the topic has become a political issue instead of a scientific issue.
That is exactly what the scientists have been saying for years now...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 10:33:22 [Permalink]
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Robb, that is a 30 year old article.
Science has progressed a lot since them. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2006 : 14:38:30 [Permalink]
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Mab said:
quote:
Robb, that is a 30 year old article.
Science has progressed a lot since them.
Don't you mean that the liberal anti-corporate conspiracy to harm the world economy by needlessly restricting CO2 emissions has come a long way since then?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2006 : 05:38:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Robb global warming doesn't say that the temperature from month to month will increase. Nor does it say that the temperature decade to decade will increase. But overall, on periods lasting well over 50 years, it will increase. And that is what we have observed. Don't make the mistake of "It's really cold today, so there's no such thing as global warming."
We know that the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the hotter our earth will get. We know we have been spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the 1900s. We know that the average global temperature has been increasing since then. Come on.
I will say it again: I am not saying that global warming is not happening. I thought this article was kind of funny that in 1975 global cooling was a concern. I agree that CO2 gasses contribute to global warming but I am not convinced that it is the only factor.
The sad thing is I don't see a viable solution to the CO2 problem in the near future. Nuclear power is the only alternative I see that can reduce CO2 emmissions but this brings its own problems as well. Fuel cells for cars are great, but getting hydrogen distributed throughout the U.S. would take years and we need fossil fuels or nuclear energy to produce the hydrogen. I think solar power for homes can work, if they are affordable. Wind power can help but the wind turbines are expensive to maintain. It will take a combination of technologies but I don't see it happening in the near future, so CO2 gasses will continue to be a problem.
What would happen to the environment if all pollution stopped today? Could the trend be stopped? or are we past a point of no return? |
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2006 : 07:52:19 [Permalink]
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To add more confusion to this there is a episode on NOVA about this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
I will be watching it tonight. Basicly there is a scientist that is worred that as the polulsion in the air drops, the greenhouse affect will rise. Don't know what to make of that. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2006 : 07:52:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Paulos23
If this artical is correct, it is no longer a question of if it is happening, it is happening. The next question should be, what now?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/26/coverstory/index.html
The Science of Climate Change
Senate Floor Statement by
U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe(R-Okla)
Chairman, Committee on
Environment and Public Works
http://inhofe.senate.gov/floorspeeches.htm
And then click on "climate change" July, 28, 2003 for the whole speach. Also you can read the update from 2005 from this same list
As you can tell from my personal highlights that this is somewhat of long read but well worth it. Enjoy...
Personal Highlights:
Appell's next point deserves special emphasis, because it demonstrates the sheer lunacy of environmental extremists:
"[Global warming] would be chaos by any measure, far greater even than the sum total of chaos of the global wars of the 20th century, and so in this sense Blix is right to be concerned. Sounds like a weapon of mass destruction to me."
Appell and Blix sound very much like those who warned us in the 1970s that the planet was headed for a catastrophic global cooling. On April 28, 1975, Newsweek printed an article titled, "The Cooling World," in which the magazine warned: "There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production-with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth."
In a similar refrain, Time magazine for June 24, 1974 declared: "However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades."
In 1974 the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, stated: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade." Two years earlier, the board had observed: "Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end...leading into the next glacial age."
But in fact the issue is far from settled, and indeed is seriously disputed. I would like to submit at the end of my remarks a July 8 editorial by former Carter Administration Energy Secretary James Schlesinger on the science of climate change. In that editorial, Dr. Schlesinger takes issue with alarmists who assert there is a scientific consensus supporting their views.
[Refer to Chart 5] "There is an idea among the public that the science is settled," Dr. Schlesinger wrote. "...[T]hat remains far from the truth."
I believe that the balance of the evidence offers strong proof that natural variability is the overwhelming factor influencing climate.
Without proper knowledge and understanding, alarmists will scare the country into enacting its ultimate goal: making energy suppression, in the form of harmful mandatory restrictions on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, the official policy of the United States.
The Clinton Administration, led by former Vice President Al Gore, signed Kyoto on November 12, 1998, but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification.
According to WEFA economists, Kyoto would cost 2.4 million US jobs and reduce GDP by 3.2%, or about $300 billion annually, an amount greater than the total expenditure on primary and secondary education.
In July, the Congressional Budget Office provided further proof that Kyoto-like carbon regulatory schemes are regressive and harmful to economic growth and prosperity.
But the CBO found otherwise: "The government could use the allowance value to partly redistribute the costs of a carbon cap-and-trade program, but it could not cover those costs entirely." And further: "Available research indicates that providing compensation could actually raise the cost to the economy of a carbon cap."
Despite these facts, groups such as Greenpeace blindly assert that Kyoto "will not impose significant costs" and "will not be an economic burden."
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"Providing energy from sources other than biomass (wood and dung), such as coal-produced electricity, would bring longer and better lives to the people of the developing world and greater opportunity for the preservation of their natural ecosystems. Let me assure you, notwithstanding the views of extreme environmentalists, that Africans do indeed want a higher standard of living. They want to live longer and healthier with less burden bearing and with more opportunities to advance. New sources of affordable, accessible energy would set them down the road of achieving such aspirations.
"As in Africa, ideas for limiting energy use, as embodied in the Kyoto protocol, create the greatest hardships for the poorest among us.
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Despite the fact that neither of Byrd-Hagel's conditions has been met, environmentalists have bitterly criticized President Bush for abandoning Kyoto. But one wonders: why don't they assail the 95 senators, both Democrats and Republicans, who, according to Byrd-Hagel, oppose Kyoto as it stands today, and who would, presumably, oppose ratification if the treaty came up on the Senate floor?
And why don't they assail former President Clinton, or former Vice President Gore, who signed the treaty but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification?
Dr. S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Virginia, who served as the first Director of the US Weather Satellite Service (which is now in the Department of Commerce) and more recently as a member and vice chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere (NACOA), said that "No one knows what constitutes a 'dangerous' concentration. There exists, as yet, no scientific basis for defining such a concentration, or even of knowing whether it is more or less than current levels of carbon dioxide."
The Kyoto emissions reduction targets are arbitrary, lacking in any real scientific basis. Kyoto therefore will have virtually no impact on global temperatures. This is not just my opinion, but the conclusion reached by the country's top climate scientists.
Dr. Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, found that if the Kyoto Protocol were fully implemented by all signatories-now I will note here that this next point assumes that the alarmists' science is correct, which of course it is not-if Kyoto were fully implemented it would reduce temperatures by a mere 0.07 degrees Celsius by 2050, and 0.13 degrees Celsius by 2100. What does this mean? Such an amount is so small that ground-based thermometers cannot reliably measure it.
Dr. Richard Lindzen, an MIT scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, who has specialized in climate issues for over 30 years, told the Committee on Environment and Public Works on May 2, 2001 that there is a "definitive disconnect between Kyoto and science. Should a catastrophic scenario prove correct, Kyoto would not prevent it."
Similarly, Dr. James Hansen of NASA, considered the father of global warming theory, said that Kyoto Protocol "will have little effect" on global temperature in the 21st century. In a rather stunning follow-up, Hansen said it would take 30 Kyotos-let me repeat that-30 Kyotos to reduce warming to an acceptable level. If one Kyoto devastates the American economy, |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 07:58:37 [Permalink]
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Well I watch the Nova show and it was very interesting. Once you remove some of the extrem predictions and just focus on the science and evedence shown it still is a tad scary. In a nutshell, scientests found that partical polution (smog, smoke, dust, jet contrails, etc.) was preventing some of the suns energy from reaching the surfice of the earth, and therefor masking the full affect of greenhouse gasses.
The biggest piece of evedence for this was the three day grounding of planes after 9/11. They found that the mean temp went up 1 degree C for that period. Very scary and it throws all current climent models out the window. As we reduce the amount of polution in the air, we should see an even more rappid increase in earth temp. As much as 5 to 10 C by the end of the century buy current models. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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trogdor
Skeptic Friend
198 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 20:13:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Paulos23
To add more confusion to this there is a episode on NOVA about this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
I will be watching it tonight. Basicly there is a scientist that is worred that as the polulsion in the air drops, the greenhouse affect will rise. Don't know what to make of that.
I turned my TV on at 8:00 to see this and ended up watching a vary interesting piece on lowering populations of sea lions. |
all eyes were on Ford Prefect. some of them were on stalks.
-Douglas Adams |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2006 : 22:09:08 [Permalink]
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You balance the world
on the tip of your nose
like a sealion with a ball
at the carneval
Jethro Tull - Sealion |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2006 : 07:52:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by trogdor
quote:
Originally posted by Paulos23
To add more confusion to this there is a episode on NOVA about this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
I will be watching it tonight. Basicly there is a scientist that is worred that as the polulsion in the air drops, the greenhouse affect will rise. Don't know what to make of that.
I turned my TV on at 8:00 to see this and ended up watching a vary interesting piece on lowering populations of sea lions.
Well it was on at 8 Tuesday night for my area. Different PBS stations tend to have different schedules with very little rime or reason. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2006 : 10:25:37 [Permalink]
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| Wow Bill, you've reached a new low of Rushdom. People never cease to amaze. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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