Global Warming Full of Hot Air

[jenai]

The Bali conference has come and went, resulting in more talks for the next couple years.

At one point the Dutch delegate Yvo de Boer who is in charge of the environment got so overwrought he had to be escorted out, crying like a baby.

However, the UN is not listening to the scientists who study this kind of thing.

"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, doesn't show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming," wrote David Douglas, a climate expert from the University of Rochester, in New York, lead author for an article in The International Journal of Climatology.

"The inescapable conclusion is that human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming."

To demand 40 percent reduction in twelve years (by 2020) would turn any nation into a 3rd-world nation, and contribute MORE to climate change due to return to subsistance farming and associated slash burning (i.e. cutting down trees to build homes and heat fires in the winter).

sarcasm(){
"IMHO any national leader willing to comply with such PC global warming initiative should warn the UN, the World Bank and NATO that should compliance cause economic chaos and associated civil unrest NATO should step in to prevent civil war and World Bank should not obligate them to repay any loans to keep that nation from sinking into 3rd-world status."
}

Edited:

Scientists who oppose the global warming hypothesis: List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, global warming is still a hypothesis, that is, it is not and never was fact. As well, global warming was voted into existence by UN delegates, who add to greenhouse gases everytime they hold a conference.

If anything, a slight cooling has been happening since 911, due to less solar activity and possibly slight impact on atmosphere current caused by human activity.

[ebbomega]

Arguments are on both sides of the fence for this. That's the idea of science, is that most of what we learn is a guess, and we hang onto that guess until it's refuted by experimentation, and then we revise the guess.

But one of the big things we gotta pay attention to here is risk management. Not asking "is it possible that it's us that's contributing" but moreso "What can we do to minimize our impact?"

Here's a great video:


Basically there are four possible outcomes.
1) We are affecting it and we do something to fix it - world comes out ok
2) We aren't affecting it and we do nothing to fix it - world comes out ok
3) We aren't affecting it and we do soemthing to fix it - world comes out ok, we spent a bunch of effort we didn't need to but we're still alive and kicking
4) We are affecting it and we nothing to fix it - we fuck over the world's resources and society as we know it ends

It's not a matter of which one is more plausible because at this point we just plain don't know. It's a matter of FOR THE LOVE OF BOB LET'S MAKE DAMN SURE THAT LAST POSSIBILITY DOESN'T HAPPEN.

[miss.myra]

Whether or not global warming is full of hot air, we cannot ignore that our lifestyles and our dependency on fossil fuels is not good for the planet in some way and that something has got to change, or future generations are pretty much fucked. It's silly that as 'evolved' as humans have become, they still depend on non-renewable energy resources and generate SO MUCH WASTE in their day to day lives.

[Grapes]

Originally Posted by miss.myra

It's silly that as 'evolved' as humans have become, they still depend on non-renewable energy resources

Non renewable energy resources made our society what it is today. When they run out, our world will become something completely different.

The "evolution" you speak of sprang from the abundance of oil and the power we've drawn from it.

Ebbo, I'd drawn those exact If/Then scenarios myself.. might even be posted in some CV thread somewhere. Great minds eh.. :P

[Grapes]

Oh and the phrase "Global warming full of hot air" is fast becoming a cringe-worthy cliche

[esoter1c]

[kir mokum]

if you understood the concepts of exponential growth you would understand how stupid these arguments are. example: we will consume more oil this year than the total amount of oil we have consumed since we discovered it. next year we will consume even more. the same concept applies to population and pollution.

and then there's the ad lazarum arguments which can just be thrown in the garbage.

[Grapes]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

if you understood the concepts of exponential growth you would understand how stupid these arguments are. example: we will consume more oil this year than the total amount of oil we have consumed since we discovered it. next year we will consume even more.

And then what?

Finite resources don't really allow for perpetual exponential growth, do they?

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by Grapes

And then what?

peak oil leading to skyrocketing prices, power station failures, death of the Suburban lifestyle as we know it... a few other things but that's basically it.

We've never had to deal with a lack of natural resources before. This is new territory for people...

[tiedye]

But nothing serious... right?

[ebbomega]

Where's Killface when we need him?

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by Grapes

Finite resources don't really allow for perpetual exponential growth, do they?

exactly. and that's what all of western philosophy and economic theory is based on.

[kir mokum]

[esoter1c]

[Grapes]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

exactly. and that's what all of western philosophy and economic theory is based on.

I love hearing constant talk of how important "growth" of the economy is.

Yep it'll just grow and grow and grow. No come uppance!

I wonder if they would need to look up sustainability in the dictionary.

[jenai]

I think the poor know what sustainability means.

They tend to use the least amount of resources and pollute less than the majority of people above the poverty line.

Even so, giving a beggar spare change will not reduce pollution since illegal drugs cause a lot of unnecessary pollution during their manufacture. However, offering to buy them coffee or a chicken wrap from McDonald's is a saner alternative.

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by jenai

I think the poor know what sustainability means.

They tend to use the least amount of resources and pollute less than the majority of people above the poverty line.

sustainability < or = 0% growth. i don't think the poor have any sort of advantage in understanding that.

Originally Posted by jenai

Even so, giving a beggar spare change will not reduce pollution since illegal drugs cause a lot of unnecessary pollution during their manufacture. However, offering to buy them coffee or a chicken wrap from McDonald's is a saner alternative.

you are on crack.