Global Warming, we are the babe in the woods.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Whatssnew The oceans, fires, volcanisim is a constantly changing factor. Therefore there variables. Can you provide charts that show a period of time that are long, in millons of years.

Your ignorance shines like a beacon. On a micro basis, yes, all those things vary unpredictably, day to day. Likewise, on any given day my heart rate may increase or decrease based on random events and activities, and no one day will be exactly the same as another. But on the macro basis, my heart will still beat at a steady given rate spectrum that can be averaged out to a very specific and constant number.

Likewise, the fact that a 1 degree change in global average temperatures over a period of 50 years is considered massive informs us that the global average remains extremely consistent, regardless of the random and dramatic weather changes that seem so arbitrary day to day in Ourtown, USA. On a macro level, volcanism, fires, storms, ocean currents, etc. average out to extraordinarily consistent levels year in and year out. Heck, the difference in global temperatures now and at the depths of the Ice Age are only around 8 degrees F.

So for instance, globally, volcanic activity, even despite the occasional major eruptions, has remained consistent for millions upon millions of years. Hurricane seasons may vary slightly from year to year, but they too remain consistent within a clear margin... the monsoons come and go as they have for eons, glaciers ebb and flo, Ice Ages come and go like millenial clockwork.

Once again, the ONLY thing that has varied dramatically out of the global rhythm has been the very recent addition of massive quantities of man-made pollution.

Quote by: Whatssnew Can you provide charts that show a period of time that are long, in millons of years.

Sure....

Quote by: Sparkd Now, consider the most obvious major change within this last hundred thousand year cycle: the rise of human civilization. As was mentioned earlier, take a look at how the graph changes quite dramatically and no longer follows the original pattern. The conclusion then is that the advent of human civilization (and the technology that comes with it) must also contribute to climate change.

It's not about Human civilization, Spark. Anyone familiar with the hyperbolic curve knows that for 99.9% of human history, human population has remained consistantly small and our affect on the macro environment has been no more or less than othar species... even less in some cases.



It's only within that last 200 years or so that human population has exploded. But what people don't comprehend is that along with that population explosion, there's been a mirroring explosion in industrialization and our capacity to pillage and pollute the planet. Where it once took tens of thousands of years for around 30 million human beings to move from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, and thousands more to transition to the Iron Age. It's taken the chronological blink of an eye to go from the Age of Sail to the Steam Age, to the Automobile Age, to the Industrial Age, to the Jet Age to the Nuclear Age to our current 6 billion globally industrialized human beings producing billions of tons of atmospheric pollutants.

Worldwide volcanic activity produces an average of about 150 million tons of sulfur dioxide every year. (It's not even a greenhouse gas) Humans produce around 24 BILLION tons of CO2. That's ON TOP of what nature has been producing at a regular rate for millions upon millions of years. Anyone wanna figure out what percentage increase that is?

You don't think humans can affect the global environment??? Look around you... the great oceans are being polluted, with expanding dead zones, the once boundless fisheries are over-fished and disappearing, great coral reefs are dying, massive deforestation and desertification, equivilent to the lsize of Nevada every year, rivers and seas drying up, and the very water tables beneath us being altered.

But to the clueless layman, it's like counting stars... they can't conceive of it so they simply dismiss it. Well, we won't be able to dismiss it within a few decades, but neither will we be able to do anything about it then.

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[xyzer]

Sonart, you are obviously a victim of too much mainstream media nonsense..BMI Special Report -- Global Warming Censored

However, you aren't any different than many of rest of the politicians and press mavens who love to exaggerate and rarely count the costs of their proposed folly. They preach more taxes and restrictitions as they fly around the world peddling carbon credits.

Face reality..climate change is constant. Your graphs show that and that there have been many colder epics in the past. CO2 is about 1% of the earths atmosphere and human contributions some small fraction of that? The UN Climate Panel even commented several years back if humans abruptly cut their energy use it would still take several centuries to feel any effects.(that translates to a big maybe)
Glaringly evident to those who stiop and face reality, is the fact that though human (energy)fossil fuel use has risen in the last half century we have had several decades of global cooling including the last 10 or so years? If it is a fact that humans have been spewing more CO2 into our atmosphere why is it cooling??? Could something else be in control and the overwhelming influencer of warming and cooling? Could it just be the sun? Doesn't that make more sense?

[sparkd]

Quote by: Sonart It's not about Human civilization, Spark. Anyone familiar with the hyperbolic curve knows that for 99.9% of human history, human population has remained consistantly small and our affect on the macro environment has been no more or less than othar species... even less in some cases. It's only within that last 200 years or so that human population has exploded. But what people don't comprehend is that along with that population explosion, there's been a mirroring explosion in industrialization and our capacity to pillage and pollute the planet.

I thought that part could be inferred from what I said, but I'm glad you clarified. Still, does anyone really expect our ancestors from even five hundred years back to have power plants burning fossil fuels 24/7? And we know that cars and railroads were not even part of society yet.

Quote by: xyzer CO2 is about 1% of the earths atmosphere

If this is so, it can be argued that CO2 is just one proxy.

Quote by: xyzer we have had several decades of global cooling including the last 10 or so years? If it is a fact that humans have been spewing more CO2 into our atmosphere why is it cooling

That's my only trouble with this whole global warming debate. Scientists disagree and then the results never seem to match up. Of course, there is a slight bias here that can explain some of that. After all, you want to focus on data that supports your position as we do here on this forum. And I know that it seems just so obvious (to either side), but if I were to take a much more detached point of view, I will really need to know which evidence to accept first. It is important to have this down before we make any inferences.

Quote by: xyzer If it is a fact that humans have been spewing more CO2 into our atmosphere why is it cooling??? Could something else be in control and the overwhelming influencer of warming and cooling? Could it just be the sun? Doesn't that make more sense?

When you ask about the sun, are we now taking as given the assumption that the planet's atmosphere is warming? Moving on then... If the graphs from earlier are accurate, don't you see it as too much of a coincidence that the sun just happens to start playing a role the same moment humans begin to flood our planet with factories and autos? If the sun is involved, we probably did something in the last hundred years or so to make her mad like this.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Xyzer Sonart, you are obviously a victim of too much mainstream media nonsense..BMI Special Report -- Global Warming Censored

Well by golly, what an incredible surprise that you'd link up to a Free Market think tank for your propaganda... er... information. And what's their non-scientific beef? Gasp! The media isn't presenting enough "alternative opinion" on global warming.

How ironic. Recall that one of the points Al Gore presented was research that showed that, from random sample of around 900 peer reviewed research papers, 100% of them supported the consensus of anthropogenic global warming. Conversely, from a random sample of mainstream media sources, something like 50% made a point of giving equal weight to alternative viewpoints, apparently in order to attract readers/viewers by whipping up controversy.

Since then, however, the scientific consensus that global warming is real, that we caused it and that it's happening faster than predicted, has become SO overwhelming that even the mainstream media can't deny it.

Alas, that leaves poor schmucks like Xyzer caught in what I call the crossroads of dogmatic ideology, morality and reality. I compare it to religious conservatives and the issue of homosexuality. For centuries, religious conservatives, because of their dogmatic ideology, felt free to condemn homosexuals as immoral. Which, of course, was irrefutable because religious conservatives had taken upon themselves the mantel of arbitors of what is and isn't moral.

Over time, however, REALITY has since determined that homosexuality is a condition that individuals are born with, out of no choice of their own, and, further, it's a condition that harms no one. Well, by their own ideology, condemning someone for a harmless physical condition over which they had no choice would not only be cruel, it would be immoral.

Can't have that, since that would make their dogmatic ideology itself immoral and that's impossible. The only solution? Reality is wrong, homosexuality isn't a condition, it's a choice, and therefore, can remain immoral!

Same with global warming. Based on conservative, free-market dogmatic ideology, government regulation of the free-market isn't just wrong, it's downright immoral!!! Along comes the REALITY of global warming, a massive threat to life on earth as we know it. It would be downright IMMORAL not to take steps to stop or slow climate change, but that would mean requiring the Free Market to change the way it does business, and if they refuse, compelling change through government regulation, and, based on dogmatic ideology, that would ALSO be immoral.

Dang! Can't have that, so the only way to maintain the moral superiority of dogmatic ideology is simple... Global Warming isn't happening. Problem solved.




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[Matt W]

*sighs*

How about we all go in the main thread dedicated to this topic, hmm?

Global Warming