Nice example of something Ustwo never said.

And how would you know what that natural cycle is to know its not cutting it?

If there was a natural warming and cooling cycle (and I only say if as it applies the current trends, we know there IS one regardless) how would you know if it 'cut it'?

Saying things like 'profound changes' mean nothing, we don't even know what normal changes are. How long have we been studying this kind of thing with any precision? Decades at best, with a smattering of temperature data and some anecdotal reports.

I can make two claims with equal certainty. The earth as some point in the future will be warmer. Likewise the earth as some point in the future will be colder. We know this, it happened 1000's of times in the past, and quite personally I'm far more worried about humanity and the next ice age than humanity and global warming, but still both will happen to us.

To sit here and decide that we MUST be doing it based on what we currently know is almost a form of hubris. Some things, man just doesn't have that much say in, one way or the other.

Refer to the pretty graph I posted on the first page, that may help.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6995999.stm

The North Pole melting wouldn't be such a bad thing. Canada and Russia would stand to benefit. We could open up more trade routes and perhaps would have more territory for finding resources. Could you imagine finding a bunch of oil up there, maybe some diamonds?

Perhaps then you can explain the relevance of Ustwo's sunspot butterfly diagram without pleading that correlation implies causation. Ustwo seems to be suddenly reticent about the topic himself.

Just a general comment about the whole CO2 and greenhouse gas problem... Is everyone aware of the impact the world meat industry has in regards to greenhouse emmissions and environmental degredation? The meat industry generates more CO2 than all combined motorized transportion in the entire world (just under 20% of all sources according to the UN's FAO - check website for stats). This doesn't account for huge quantities of more dangerous greenhouse gases like methane, and numerous other nasty details that the meat industry unleashes on the environment.

Now I like a good steak any day of the week, but why is the single largest culprit in greenhouse emmissions never mentioned by environmental groups? Well there's PETA (check out their website too). Al Gore doesn't seem to mention this one in his "documentary" and tasty meat products were plentiful at Live Earth.

Faster than buying a Prius and installing flourescent lighting (which both depend on horribly toxic materials and processes to produce), going vegetarian would be the quickest single measure in the world that would reduce CO2 and greenhouse gasses immediately. ...however, the economic impact would be devasting.

At some time in history, I believe "Greenland" was named that for a reason.

Somehow, I find the opinions of those in a position to actually see all the Data a bit more compelling than speculative guessing by the masses. As complex as this issue is, we are forced to trust in the scientists that have the time, and resources to devote to its study:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/n...stm?globaloney

The Executive Summary on the status of the polar bear was just released to the US Fish and Wildlife Service on Sept. 7, and you can read it here:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special...ve_summary.pdf

As many of us here are aware, the USFWS proposed to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species act in January of this year. At that time they ordered the USGS to assemble the best science available on the viability of the polar bear population to inform recovery efforts. This Executive Summary is that report.

It is not good news. Here are some excerpts:

Their predictions are derived from a simple calculation of the environmental carrying capacity for the bear population:

This is a very optimistic analysis, as it ignores recent data that suggest the sea ice is disappearing at a much faster rate than assumed here, and it completely ignores other factors that can cause extinction such as genetic inbreeding and random drift, demographic stochasticity, environmental stochasticity, and hybridization with the grizzly bear. Even if a few polar bears are theoretically capable of subsisting on the dwindling habitat, the probability that they are wiped out by disease or chance climate fluctuation or just bad luck during any given year will be very high.

I think that by mid century, and perhaps well before that time, the population will be mostly genetically subsumed by the grizzly bear, since they seem to be hybridizing more and more frequently as the grizzlies migrate ever more northward with the warming climate.

Meanwhile, while we sit here yabbering, as of this month the Northwest Passage is navigable for the first time in recorded history.

SOMETHING is happening. And it's a bigger SOMETHING than humanity has ever witnessed before. It would be logical to see if it's something we can do anything about.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell we are powerless to change something as complex and overwhelming as a change in Climate. Instead we might work on adaptation and contingency plans. At this point it makes little sense to point fingers at the cause....but lowering emissions is a good idea from virtually every conceivable angle regardless.

Precisely engineer fine details of climate, no. But we certainly can strongly influence the global mean temperature, as we have been doing for the last 50-odd years.

And we can continue to do so in the future, as the IPCC has carefully shown in its physical basis report:

Attachment 16312

And here are the scenarios referred to in the figure:

OK. Which alternative included the people coming to understand each other?

Love conquers everything except hate, and understanding without love is not.

(I'll confess idiocy)

The easiest way to do this is to stop cuting all the Amazon forest. No one talks about that - just the carbon cars and planes produce. We can have balance but we keep cutting down the filtration/processing/conversion system!

Actually no one talks about it but Plankton are many, many times greater more responsible for CO2 fixation than the rain forest.

http://www.gdrc.org/oceans/fsheet-02.html

Not that I'm all for cutting it down, don't get me wrong, but once again I see a nature will balance aspect to which these scaremongers completely ignore anything which doesn't go their way. Increased temperatures will increase enormously the amount of water fertile to plankton, which will in turn enormously increase the carbon fixation rate.

I haven't had time to really sit down and sift through this thread in the last couple of days, but 'they' always forget the oceans here.

This is where the scare tactics, 'fear not facts' come into play.

These are the same type who said that cutting down rain forest would get rid of the worlds oxygen not long ago.

The rain forest could be utterly destroyed and not much would change, in 02 or in C02, as you said its mostly the oceans.

But this does cut to the heart of the environmentalists who support this kind of thing but are not just useful idiots like our boat climbers from another thread. They figure that you can't get stupid joe six pack to care about bio-diversity. He might not care that a species of frog is about to go extinct or the like, so lets scare him into supporting the cause. It doesn't matter if its honest or not.

The problem, besides being a liar, is that Joe Six pack might be uneducated but hes not completely stupid. Sooner or later the lie is discovered, and nothing changes long term.

As I'm sure everyone knows, its not just the north pole, but Antarctica is melting as well. With the loss of the the sea ice, the loss of the krill that live under it is almost certain. Why should we care???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krill

http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarc...al_warming.htm

Actually, check out the recent polls. About 60-70% of Americans believe global warming is real, caused by humans, and are concerned enough about it that they have made personal sacrifices to cut down their energy use.

It appears that Joe Six Pack has no problem at all telling the difference between the fringe loonies and the scientific consensus. And by loonies, of course I mean the global warming deniers :)

hahaha

It's all pretty simple to me. Global warming is real and so are the global changes in weather. The question is how much we had to do with it, and how much we can control it. The good news is theyre both linked. If we caused it then we can learn to control it and probably will. If we can't control it then all we can do is go on as we are and there isn't much to say.

If you've spent the time to watch the Al Gore global warming tour movie, take a while to watch these. (the entire 9 part series is on google video)
And this

Big Bald Ron wants us all to go watch The Great Global Warming Swindle, which is a very nice example of how not to do effective political propaganda: for example, if you display a phony temperature graph that “disproves” global warming, don’t say you got it from NASA.

"The original NASA data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find," Mr. Durkin said. You can't make this stuff up :lol:

And the list goes on, phony science, phony scientists. One truly wonders why people choose to be fooled by this stuff.

So, the director of the film used bad graphs. I guess that negates the climatologists with PHD's opinions, right?

Its all mans fault! Lets all turn off our computers and stop using cars!
Lord knows that mankind caused the last ice age to end, right?
This is a cycle. The world has always been cyclical in regards to temperature. But now, since MAN is here, its all MANs fault! This shit was going to happen sooner or later. Whether you and Al Gore agree or not, the planet would continue to get warmer if every single human on this planet died today. That's a fact. Nobody can change it.

Yup. Funny thing about data, you can pretend it doesn't exist as much as you want, but it still doesn't go away.

Yup, funny thing about all the other facts that are known that you don't seem to be concerned with.

Like the fact this is a normal cycle in the earth's temperatures.
Like methane contributes to this as well.
Like Atmospheric circulation bringing warmer air to the poles.
Like normal ocean currents bringing warmer water to the poles.
Like clearing sulfuric aerosols from two large volcanic explosions(1982 and 1991) are allowing more direct sunlight into the atmosphere.
Like increased solar activity, which is known to have a direct impact on temperatures.
Like differences in global orbits and the angle of tilt of the axis cause more direct sun to be shining on the planet, causing warmer temperatures.
Like cutting down large wooded areas which contribute to warmer temperatures.
Like water vapor in the atmosphere, which is responsible for trapping twice as much heat as CO2 emissions.


All of those factors, which with the exception of the loss of forests are 100% out of the hands of MAN, contribute to global warming.

> Big Bald Ron:

> Like the fact this is a normal cycle in the earth's temperatures.

Nope, as has been shown in this very thread.

> Like methane contributes to this as well.

So if we reduce our methane emissions, that will reduce global warming? I agree with that :thumbsup:

> Like Atmospheric circulation bringing warmer air to the poles.

Uh, atmospheric circulation can't cause global warming, unless you think that the earth is immune from the 1st law of thermodynamics.

> Like normal ocean currents bringing warmer water to the poles.

Ditto.

> Like clearing sulfuric aerosols from two large volcanic explosions(1982 and 1991) are allowing more direct sunlight into the atmosphere.

Aerosols disappear very quickly from the atmosphere. Mt. Pinatubo's were completely gone by 1994. Any effect on the global temp was a short blip.

> Like increased solar activity, which is known to have a direct impact on temperatures.

Except that solar activity has been declining (if anything) over the last 50 years, as was shown in this thread.

> Like differences in global orbits and the angle of tilt of the axis cause more direct sun to be shining on the planet, causing warmer temperatures.

Sure, and these changes in orbits occur over tens of thousands of years. They can't possibly explain the sudden increase in temperature during the last 25 years.

> Like cutting down large wooded areas which contribute to warmer temperatures.

Yep :thumbsup:

> Like water vapor in the atmosphere, which is responsible for trapping twice as much heat as CO2 emissions.

Sure, but water vapor's residence time in the atmosphere is very short, on the average of about 10 days. So it can't be a forcing. It is certainly a feedback, however. Whenever surface temperatures change, the water vapor adjusts very rapidly, maintaining a constant relative humidity. For example after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, temps declined slightly for 3 years and the water vapor declined also in response.

> All of those factors, which with the exception of the loss of forests are 100% out of the hands of MAN, contribute to global warming.

Except for the ones that don't contribute :)