Daffadils are up here in Pennsylvania. The flowers are very confused with this weather. John
I don't really understand those people that are skeptic. I mean on basis of what? And now we have a few years with strange weather including a winter with spring weather and suddenly they start to wonder. If you are going to base these things on your personal biased everyday experience then you will have problems understanding what is really going on.
In the UK, our so-called government appear to love nothing more than to find something else to tax and then tax it; so-called environmental taxation is a cop-out that offers not the slightest shred of a realistic solution to any problems, real or perceived, since the most that it could hope to achieve is to (a) garner yet further revenues from the well-off who can afford to pay the new taxes and continue acting as before, (b) punish the less well-off and (c) invite accountants and lawyers to charge even more for their services in assisting their better-off clients to minimise or avoid such taxes. ..I am at least as concerned about so-called "democratic" (i.e. elected) governments using any excuse and none for their rampant endeavours to increase their intereference in the lives of their electorates and to exert more and more control over them as I am in the possible effects of global warming.
Our goverment has, as per usual, hijacked a serious issue in order to exploit it as a fresh source of tax revenue (to prop up "unforeseen" expenditure like going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and propping up the failing accountancy trick that is PFI.)
Incidentally, facetious as it might sound, one of the prime sources of greenhouse gas production is bovine flatulence (so much so that I'm sure I read somewhere that the New Zealand government, in a move that Gordon Brown would be proud of, were considering a tax on it!).
If there is global warming occuring independent of the actions of mankind then we are making it worse. So we can 'control' it in that sense. So instead of strenthening climate change we maybe should be trying to stop it. Or at least stopping making it worse.
If there is global warming occuring independent of the actions of mankind then we are making it worse. So we can 'control' it in that sense. So instead of strenthening climate change we maybe should be trying to stop it. Or at least stopping making it worse.Or even if we shouldn't do anything about the climate itself. We should stop disrupting those parts of nature that will be hit by climate change the worst and that are already greatly damaged and weakened by human's reconstruction of the whole planet.Because that is what has already happened. Mankind has basically reformed the entire planet. There is not much land on earth that has been untouched by mankind. Even the places we rarely or never come, like oceans, Antartica, deserts and mountains, have been greatly influenced by man.
It may indeed be the case that certain human activity is enhancing climate change but, if one is to take such a notion seriously and approach it constructively, one must first ascertain which human activities, where and for how long and then balance their consequences against similar climatic metamorphoses caused other than by human activities before even beginning to figure out what passive and active steps humans could take, i.e. passively by ceasing or reducing any damaging parts of their activities and actively by indulging in other activities that might affect climate change positively.
This is by no means a straightforward issue, any more than its most appropriate solutions can be easily found. Only trustworthy climatologists, geologists, meterologists, physicists, chemists, etc. will be able to tell us the history and current facts as they can best see them. In the meantime, we do know that the earth has undergone a good deal of climate change unprompted by humankind over thousands of millennia, so it is at least certain that not all climate change can be ascribed to human activity.
Of course we should be using our brains in order to figure out whether anything positive can be done and, if so, what, where and when; humans owe it to themselves to do no less. That said, there is little point in trying to adopt semi-arbitrary belt-and-braces "solutions" unless and until the precise nature and degree of seriousness of the problem is ascertained with certainty.
There are also different problems, each of different seriousness to different geographical areas, associated in people's minds with climate change. The melting of the polar ice-caps will clearly raise the general water table and island nations such as the Maldives may disappear completely; to a Maldivian, that is fairly obviously a rather more serious prospect than the worsening of the harmful effects of air pollution over major cities. That said, there appears little if any evidence that steps to overcome one climate change problem are likely to make another one any worse.
The problem with some of the eco-fascists is that they preach that (a) all climate change is bad and caused exclusively by human errors, omissions, misjudgements and selfish greed and that (b) the only ways to combat its adverse consequnces is for humans to use less of the earth's resources and expect less from the earth than they do now. The problem with this attitude is that, if realised universally, its worst consequnces would be far less travel and communication, more starvation and malnutrition and a general worsening in human health and lifespan to the point that the populations of the world's richer countries would be reduced to the kind of poverty already experienced by some of its poorest - and all in order to "save the planet". Such a viewpoint might well make evangelical sense, but it certainly fails to stand up either to the laws of human decency or to scientific scrutiny. If we all travel less, eat less, farm less, manufacture less, etc., we will make no progress at all - rather the reverse, in fact. To say so is not at all to exonerate humankind from blame here, for human scientific progress should already have ensured that we have this problem covered before it becomes a problem - and this is, as we know, not the case.
You ignore the timeframe. Small (!!) parts of mankind are industrialized since about 150 years + - and most damage to the environment has been done within the past 50 years or so.What is that to earth? nothing. The natural cyclic change of climate takes a looong time. Under no circumstances can the global warming have any natural reason, because within such a small time such a big system like the earth's climate does not change that dramatically.
I'm not a friend of "lets talk, lets analyze, lets look at these statistics blabla". I think people have talked enough, we know the facts, we know that problem is not new, and we know solutions. Yes we know a lot of things. Are we doing something? No. I say no because what is done until now is not even 1% of what is needed and there is very little time until the whole situation is getting really ugly.
Well pollution of air and the melting of the polar ice caps are not symptoms of the same problem, but the melting is caused by pollution.Manufacturing less would not be good. But is extreme mass consumption good?
People (in the western world...) do not realize that the earth has limited resources, they are used to get anything at any quantity. This attitude *has* to be changed. But not only the attitude.
There are more than 6.000.000.000 people on this planet and the number is growing. Earth cannot support so many people, and you have to consider that only a rather small number (the industrialized world) is causing most of these problems. At our current level of development and for the next centuries it will not be possible for mankind to live in balance with earth, not even to a certain degree.
Concerning global warming, i think we have no reason to underestimate this problem. Saving the environment is not a bad thing, i think everybody agrees here. Even if sometimes "experts", or tv, or newspapers etc. exaggerate with the consequences (they're actually just looking farther into the future), sometimes that's necessary to draw peoples attention on this problem - they're not doing anything bad, they are not misinforming anybody. Yes people know about global warming, but they do not care. Shocking them with horror-consequences is obviously necessary in order to wake them up, because they won't like it when the situation becomes so bad that they experience serious consequences in their peaceful little world where - right now - no climate change is visible. (ok air pollution, but who cares, we got used to it).Global warming is a crucial issue for mankind.
I don't see why 'wasting money' preventing the destruction of the enviroment is worse than the other ways we waste money.
No. That's just the American government.Bush voters thought Bush supported Kyoto.Bush is a nice guy->We like to have a drink with Bush, he's a cool guy->Bush supports Kyoto->I will vote BushCities and states in the US are now supporting Kyoto independent of their government.Sadly China refused to sign Kyoto after the US refused to do so.If it were up to the American people the US would have signed Kyoto for sure. Dispite the propaganda campaign against the scientific concensus.
I do not "ignore the time frame" at all; I simply recognise that the earth has continued to undergo natural climate and other drastic and not-so-drastic physical changes over many millennia without the intervention of mankind, as well os those more recent ones in which mankind is said to have had a hand. Your indirect reference to the effects of the industrial revolution is, of course, correct and relevant, but just because certain "naturally occurring" changes to the structure, climate, etc. of our planet did indeed, as you rightly say, occur over long periods of time, they did not all do that, so there is no real reason to complain that, just because some of these may now appear to be occurring faster and more frequently, it's necessarily all humankind's fault.
Who should determine what consititues "extreme" in this context? "Mass consumption" will always continue to increase as long as research continues to be done - this applies as much to organic farming as it does to microchip manufacture, at least in principle. We as a race (human, that is) will always work towards things that might have been considered "extremes" to previous generations; that is human nature and the way things work.
No. As I mentioned previously, it is far less a case of limited and potentially inadequate resources per se as one of politically sensitive issues that may (and indeed do) risk potential imposition on the bility of certain resources; in other words, the world as a whole is almost certainly not "short of oil" as such, but may be or become short of immediate, direct and unfettered access to it for numerous reasons in various politically unstable and sensitive oil producing areas.
I used to think that this was true and certainly Malthus promulgated such a notion more than two centuries ago, but I do not believe that he got it all right and am accordingly by no means certain of this argument any longer (see above).
Not everyone has gotten used to air pollution, fortunately.
However, your point that global warming is indeed a "crucial issue for mankind" is undeniable, I think - as long as that very humankind does not then respond to it abjectly by saying either that it's all someone else's fault or no-one's fault at all, but instead addresses in practical terms how it should best be approached. As I have said, in my view, that approach should not be to fake some kind of return to the dark ages of pre-industrialism (for this would in any case be impossible - what's done's done - and anyone who stops doing it will always and inevitably be up against the next person who doesn't stop - as Robert Simpson said, we can't any longer listen to Bach without the ears tha have listened to Xenakis), but to consider what we can sensibly and usefully do to address it and ameliorate its possible adverse effects by using human ingenuity in order that humanity can continue to progress and use more and more of everything that is worth using without depleting resources. This is possible. One has only to consider, for example, the development of battery technology (which itself could have been even greater had the oil industry not tried to curtail it over decades) to recognise that personal production and use of electrical supply need not necessarily be a long way off, for all that it would - and hopefully will - serve to compromise certain of the obsessibely controlling interests of big governments and international industrial corporations.
it is said that He fills our cup 'overflowing.' seems to me that you can't outgive God. especially if you are truly concerned for others welfare. He always makes sure your needs are met.
Did you do that on purpose? I'm not from China!
Well do you have facts/arguments/sources for this? (I refer to "but just because certain "naturally occurring" changes to the structure, climate, etc. of our planet did indeed, as you rightly say, occur over long periods of time, they did not all do that")I never heard of this and from a logical point of view this does not make sense to me.Asteroids etc don't count, of course. Could you also explain what reasons/sources you have to believe that such a "fast climate change" is happening right now? And how do you differentiate it from the effects of the industrialization, how much of this is actually caused by nature, etc...This sounds extremely vague to me, you just say it is not necessarily the fault of humans but no arguments here. This is just an assumption.
And, most importantly, this is simply too much of a coincidence that such a period of fast climate change happens to be in the same time when humans started to industrialize (which only was 150 years which is, as we know, nothing to earth). Concerning this coincidence, it would be necessary to have *facts* about these fast climate changes and to know how often they occured in the past and what caused them, if you want to eliminate the possibility of a coincidence.There's also another aspect: When did that start? Did it start before industrialization? Why did mankind then not experience increasing temperatures already...a century ago? Or did it start after industrial revolution?
i mean the attitude of the western world, to consume even if it is not needed, to buy more than you need (eating more, changing mobile phones often, buying more clothes than needed, etc etc etc). Our system today works with that. Advertising is only made to make people want all these products and to buy them, because selling more = making more money (and that's what it's all about ) - whether people need it or not is completely irrelevant to industry.Undoubtedly this is extreme and *needs* to be reduced to a normal level. It does cause significantly more damage to the environment. (Just an example: 10.000 l of water is needed to produce 1 mobile phone...)
Concerning the oil, I've heard different arguments but I'm not 100% sure on this...i will look it up for some facts. I don't believe there are only political reasons for oil shortage (certainly that is also an issue), the world does consume huge amounts of oil and people are constantly looking for new oil fields (=> Southpole, Alaska) as old ones run short. But as i said, i'll read something about this...
There is no way back - progress in science caused global warming, more progress is the only way to overcome the problem.
As I do not have to hand precise evidence for the causes of all the changes in climatic conditions on earth since it first formed millions of years ago, I accept that what I have written is of necessity somewhat generalised and not obviously supported by specific detailed data; all I was observing, however, was that we do know that substantial climate changes and land mass movements have occurred on earth over millennia and that most of these have not been caused by human intervention. I think that it is generally accepted that those who ascribe such human intervention to climate change are referring only to climate change since the industrial revolution, since most such folk blame rampant industrialisation and capitalism for many of the world's ills, not least climate change.
The faster rates of climate change may indeed be more than a coincidence and I am not saying that human activity can necessarily be wholly exonerated from any responsibility for some of the changes that we are now witnessing, but in the light of all the past changes to the earth's surface and climate, it would seem somewhat absurd suddenly to blame mankind for it all.
I don't deny what you say here - but who should determine - and how - what a "normal" level is? It simply can't be done credibly, because that "norm" is changing all the time and at a rate far faster than our climate!
Your water example, however, simply doesn't hold water; not only do we not have an impending oil shortage but we also most certainly do not have a water shortage!
I did not suggest that there are already more than sufficient oil supplies without exploring and opening up new oilfields; my argument is that the earth has ample oil resources for decades to come, even at present and greater rates of use, but that various political situations are reducing and look set to continue to reduce the availability of oil. Do by all means read about this - but when you do, make a point of considering the reserves near Norway, in Kazakhstan, in South America, in Russia and in the Middle and Far East and then ask yourself which of those areas is capable of sustaining or likely to sustain long-term political stability to the point that its oil-producing nations might not restrict exports if they so choose, for purely political reasons.
Progress in science may have had a hand in some climate change but, as I have observed, some of that scientific progress has not been in the best interests of mankind; certain scientific expertise has not, for example, been directed at developing other energy sources and, if it had, no one today would be in any position to talk in the backward-looking way that some of them do about drastically reducing our needs in order to "save the planet".
I mean of course, climate changes did happen on earth and it is an absolutely normal thing. If the climate change we experience today was natural, I wouldn't complain, if it happens it happens. The point is, it is not natural because its so fast.
Well again: mankind is to blame for this simply because it is so fast. It really is that simple. I think you are ignoring a lot of facts here, I'm not making this up, i learned about it and this is proven. Unfortunately there are lots of people who still ignore simple facts and think they know better even if insufficiently informed. If my explanations are not enough i can't do anything about it, if you want, inform yourself about it or keep your opinion.True. I just wanted to point out this problem, it's clear that consumption needs to be reduced, to what extent is another thing of course. But that is a problem of our whole society and a very difficult issue.
Well *we* don't, our water comes out of the faucet. The world does have a water shortage.Seas (huge seas) disappearing or shrinking (=> Aral sea, but there are others), big areas in Asia and Africa do not have fresh water not only because of political problems and problems with infrastructure, but because rivers which used to have water during the rainy seasons have less or no water at all. Ground water levels all over the world are sinking (Europe, America also). The water in the rivers comes (as far as i know at least partly, there may be other factors) from glaciers, but these are shrinking and disappearing.
Industry uses lots of fresh water for production because it is taken from ground water or rivers. Everybodys toilet uses fresh water, the shower, .... And there are problems with cleaning dirty water because of shower gel and all that, a lot of water can't be re-used because of that.
Well, what i know is that there may be lots of oil, most of it is not accessible because it's to deep.On the rest...i'll read about it.
I just want to add that, even if there is enough oil, who cares, mankind must get away from it anyway ...
What i meant with progress in science was actually industrialization, factories, watts steam engine etc. So science is fully responsible for that whole climate problem.
(of course only if you accept my point with the climate change having no natural reason, but since you don't... there's no point in discussing this over and over again *g*).
So are you now saying that just because of the increase in speed of change, the natural causes of thousands of millennia have somehow suddenly given way entirely to the human activity causes? If so, I'd like to see some evidence from you as to why the naturally occurring changes have been forced to give up occurring on the basis that human-activated changes are somehow "better". Why do you believe that "natural" and "fast" are somehow permanently and irrevocably exclusive?
The Earth's average near-surface atmospheric temperature rose 0.6 ± 0.2 °Celsius (1.1 ± 0.4 °Fahrenheit) in the 20th century. The prevailing scientific opinion on climate change is that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" [1].The increased amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the primary causes of the human-induced component of warming. They are released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and agriculture, etc. and lead to an increase in the greenhouse effect
You seem to ignore not only the fact that I claim that no such reduction in human consumption is necessary to solve this problem but also the reasons why I say so; I have pointed out that, if viable alternative energy supplies had been researched, developed and implemented, no such reductions would be necessary at all. I do agree that it is humanity's fault that this work has not yet been undertaken at anything like fast enough speeds and to anything like sufficient extent.
You can't have it both ways. Whilst you are, of course, correct about the political problems that you mention here, the disappearing and shrinking of seas cuts little ice (sorry!) with those island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels. The shrinking of glaciers and the melting of polar ice increases, not decreases, the water table. I do agree that there remains a most serious issue with regard to the availability and distribution of clean desalinated water to humans that need it - and that is a problem that human scientific ingenuity must address urgently - but that is a very different matter from the notion of a global water "shortage", whether or not caused by "global warming", whoever may be responsible for that...
None of it was accessible until the first explorers bored holes into the earth's surface to tap into the resources; all current and future oil exploration depends upon this kind of activity. Do you believe that, even though the earth has these resources, they should not be tapped into by humans as a matter of principle?
If you really believe that, you must surely believe that industrialistion has somehow contrived to override thousands of millennia of naturally occurring climate and land mass change just because it can achieve these things more effectively; that, to me, seems hopelessly illogical and unsupportable.
No, indeed I do not accept that point. As you have nevertheless made it, I do feel obliged to assume, however, that your position is one of outright denial of all historical scientific evidence of any global climate change, land mass movements, etc. that are said to have occurred before the industrial revolution. I find difficulty in believing that you really think this, since you have made various intelligent and important points but, if you really do believe it, there is nothing more to be said beyond asking you how you think it is that a handful of enterprising 18th and 19th century industrialists managed to wrench control of the natural activity of the earth in a matter of just a few years and assume full responsibility for it therafter...
(where we differ is in both the extent to which this is supposed to be the case and the fact that I do not accept that this is in any sense indicative of humanity having superceded the earth's natural processes of change); it is really up to humanity to take much better advantage of the resources available to it than it has so far done - on this much I think that we still manage to agree.
Well i've said that already. As you said, climate changes happened often in earth's history. My claim is, that none of these raised temperature like we experience today *within 200 years*.https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.pngThe time scale below is the important part (=> millions of years).Also important: (from wikpedia, global warming)That's why i ask *you* to give facts and reasons why you do not accept the "prevailing scientific opinion" and what expertise you have on that issue to claim that.
In my opinion it is absolutely logical that such a big system like the earth's ecosystem can *not* change so much within such a short time. It's like between ants and humans: a second for a human is a much longer time for an ant (i know this is not very scientific, i hope you get my point).
There are so many factors, sunlight, greenhouse gases, wind, water...without intervention from outside (asteroids etc) these are things that change slowly, and if they change (they actually change constantly) it also takes long until there are measurable effects. Edit: Additionally, the effects are also pretty small.
You're right concerning energy. As i think about it, i realise that forcing the western world to reduce consumption takes even longer than doing the necessary research I still think reducing consumption is necessary because of social and personal reasons. I don't like that unnessecary and exaggerated consumption and i think it has negative effects on people. It is a way to distract people from important issues and problems....ok i know not good explained, you know...the language^^ i hope you get what i mean.
I'm talking about fresh water, not about the water that maybe one day will come over all Bangladesh...concerning fresh water, yes there are problems, lots of people do not have it because their region das not have fresh water any more...etc etc. I call this water shortage. It will become worse in the future. Some cities in Europe already forbade using too much water (for gardens especially) in some hot summers. What does that tell us?
Yes, because oil is bad for the environment and as i said, imo mankind should get away from it.Digging very deep also means high costs, after a certain depth it is not profitable anymore, there's also the issue with the heat in great depths.
It's the greenhouse gases that do this. Yes, i do think mankind has managed to do this in just 200 years. remarkable, isn't it? That just shows how much impact mankind has on earth. Consider there are 6 billion people on this planet, how many billion cars are there, how many factories, how many tons of CO2 over how many years?
Industrialization is fully responsible.
I also think that the formulation used in the quote from wikipedia above ("most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" [1].") is very deliberate since there are still many people out there who deny any human involvement at all
if you inform yourself carefully about the subject you come to the conclusion (at least i do, but others also) that this actually means 95% of the glolbal warming is caused by humans. I think thats scientifically justifiable.(=>statistics).
The sceptics deny everything of course, often these are the same people who are part of an industry that is rather ecologically harmful, earn their money with it etc.
To the question of how i think this is possible...with quantity. As i said, so many cars, so many factories, so many energy consumed, so many people.
As I have already made quite clear, I do not profess to have the scientific expertise to support every detail of what I conclude - either in those aspect of the subject I do agree with you or in those where I don't, but, while keeping as open a mind as I can on the issue, what I will say in the interim is that I do not accept that anything is unequivocally the "prevailing scientific opinion" just becase it says so in Wikipedia. If all the world's bona fide, trustworthy and independently unbiased scientists agreed on this subject, that would be a rather different matter, Wikipedia or no Wikipedia - but it appears that there is no such global consensus within the scientific community.
Whilst your argument about time-frames may well hold water to some extent, I cannot accept that "the effects are also pretty small"; look at the extent to which land mass and ocean patterns have changed over the millennia and you will surely not think such changes "small", any more than the climate changes either side of an ice age were "small".
I do get what you mean but I do not accept that ambulance drivers should have to give up driving just because some inconsiderate SUV drivers have over-used their gas-guzzling cars. Now I know that this is a ridiculous scenario, but the point of it is that reduction in car use to "practical minimum levels" simply cannot be achieved because there are, as I said before, no norms against which such vehicale use can sensibly be measured the world over.
I know exactly what you're talking about. What I'm talking about is that research and development needs to be undertaken to create and distribute clean water supplies for human use; there are indeed serious shortages of fresh water for human consumtion in various places, but my point was that there is no overall shortage of water on the planet (indeed, global warming warns us that there'll soon be much more of the stuff), so it's up to humanity to figure out how to put as much of it as possible to good use. Again, water metering is strongly advocated these days; what this means is that wealthier people will use ever increasingly higher proportions of the water made available by water supply corporations.
And just how much less greenhouse gas production do you suppose there would be on earth if even 25% of all cars, homes, factories, etc. depended upon non-fossil fuels for their energy consumption? An awful lot, surely?
What about those 6 billion + people, all breathing out carbon dioxide 24/7, then?
No - too much bad industrialisation and not enough good ditto may be partially responsible.
As you know, Ii am not one of the people who does this.
Leaving aside the old cliché that tells us that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics", there is not, as I have already observed, general agreement in the independent scientific community as to the extent either of climate change itself or of the extent to which human activity is responsible for it;
that is not at all to say that human activity has played no part - merely to point out that the extent of that part has not been determined to anything remotely approaching the unanimous agreement of the scientific community. Again, however, just because this agreement has not been reached should not be an excuse not to try to undertake the appropriate R&D.
So do you advocate the compulsory reduction of all of these categories? Population growth is indeed a problem if there are not the goods and services, food, energy, etc. to support enough people to live decent lives, but then we are not actually short of resources - we are short of the kind of work that can enable the right sort of resources to be used for the general benefit of humankind.
come on this is no argument. First, you say wikipedia is bad
It *is* the prevailing scientific opinion). I think it's your turn to get some sources or facts you trust and read this.
Secondly, you challenge every argument but do not give trustworthy sources or facts that support your view. That's no basis for a discussion.
Thirdly, it is very easy to say what you said about consensus withing the scientific community. This is a perfect argument because there is never consensus, perfect but false. There is never consesus because science is not indepentend. But it works somehow democratic: What the (in this case vast) majority says is true. But this is not some difficult physical theory we're talking about, there is enough compelling evidence, everything you want and because this topic is so easy, everybody can do some research here.
Africa moves 1 cm per year towards europe. The himalaya grows 1mm or so every year.Constant small effects over long time, what's the result?
well if you take the oceans into consideration no, theres no water shortage. *g*Ok you're right, of course there still is enough water. Shortage is the wrong word. (this does not apply to one continent, africa, where there really is shortage). But i see big problems for the future.
You forgot the plants. Also the fact that most of what we breath out is oxygen again.Well come on, it was obvious what i was refering to.
R&D?
I was just saying that it's the quantity that does it. I don't say people in china are not allowed to have cars (though i'm afraid of all of them having cars )
Actually our discussion reduces to my main point i was trying to make in the first post, that global warming is not a natural phenomenon and that mankind is responsible for the whole thing.I am *not* saying that there are no fluctuations between two years, decades or centuries. I differentiate between global warming as a phenomenon and maybe a slight warming which has natural reasons but is of no importance for that whole issue.There's nothing else left to say for me, besides that i agree with you that science should have done more but that's clear anyway.
Where precisely did I say that in so many words? My observation about Wikipedia was meant to convey no more (or less) than that just because someone has contributed some material there which alleges that there is a general consensus among scientists about this issue does not at all make it true.
Let us for one moment assume that you - and Wikipedia - are correct in that there really is an established and demonstrable consensus among the world's scientific community on this issue; why do you suppose that almost nothing is being done about it if all the world's scientists are confirming that all this is down to human activity and warning us all that the consequences of inaction will be dire? For the record, I am not at all supporting the lack of positive and constructive activity in dealing with this - I am just wondering why it might be that all the world's scientists are being so studiously and consistently ignored and sidelined by all the world's governments...
No, I do not challenge every argument at all. If you have read my posts carefully, you should (unless I have expressed myself very badly) have concluded that I believe that certain actiopns should have been taken years ago; I admit that I have not sought to address all the aspects of this problem, preferring instead to concentrate largely on those relating to energy production, but since that issue is closely connected with the "greenhouse gas emmission" aspect of the problem, I think that what I have written about nevertheless covers quite a large part of the subject as a whole.
You are of course quite correct in implying that not all scientists can or will give an entirely independent and unbiased view - but then I indicated my awareness of this fact already when I specifically referred to bona fide, trustworthy independent and unbiased scientists rather than the scientific community as a whole; there is still not yet overall agreement between these scientists about this issue.
Politically, it's probably moving much faster than this! But to return to addressing what you are writing about here - 1cm/year; that's around mile in every 161,031 years. Fast? AS to the 1mm. annual growth in the height of the Himalays, it would be absurd to assume (not that I am suggesting that you are doing so) that its every individual mountain rises, precisely and evenly across the range, by this amount above sea level every year - especially if sea level rise by more than this...
And I am saying otherwise. What would be your view on the car issue had the EV1 and/or similar projects come to fruition and the majority of people were going around driving electrically-powered cars (provided, of course, that there were also sufficient non-fossil-fuel generated sources of mains electricity for them to be recharged whenever necessary)?
There is - it seems to me - at least one more thing to say - and it is this; if mankind has truly done what some say is many thousands of years' worth of global damage in a mere two centuries or so, what hope do you suppose there may be that a world with a current population in excess of 6 billion can actually do anything significant to put this damage right in the very few years that those same people tell us remains available to us before catastrophe strikes?
It would be nice if you tried to understand what i'm saying rather than correcting me for every single word.
I really think that our only principal area of disagreement is in that you see a solution in reduced consumption, agricultural activity, population, etc. whereas I see one in proper husbandry of the vast available resources.
As a composer, I am well aware that I am a particular "social enemy" in that everything that I do plunders - or potentially plunders - valuable resources - brain energy, paper, ink, the flying of musicians around the globe and all those other manifold anti-environmental issues. "So what?", say I; should we all curtail our efforts in the so-called "interests" of humanity and our planet's future by ceasing to do what we do? I don't think so...
Whilst mine happens to be open to the possibilty of a different balance between the naturally occurring and the human-influenced effects
i think it would be ridicoulous to say mankind should make a step backwards.
I just wanted to point out what the reasons are (population, consumption, & quantity in general), because we surely wouldn't have the same problem if there were "only" like 1 billion people on the planet.
The irony is that we are part of the system responsible for this
Concerning the breathing out of CO2 24/7 i thought i replied to this. I just said that all the trees and plants on earth reduce this effect by transforming CO2 into oxygen again and i said that the CO2 we breath out actually isn't that much because most what we breath out is oxygen. (of course with 6 billion people it is still a huge amount).
until a century ago the production of oxygen on earth was always more than mankind and all the animals on earth could exhaust. (There was also much more untouched nature and still huge rain forests. And generally, the oxygen level increased constantly over billions of years). This changed with the growing population and the fact that industry (also cars, etc) consumes large amounts of oxygen for burning fossil fuel. However I don't know anything about whether the oxygen level on earth decreased or not, but would be interesting to know whether some research has been done on this issue.
if you don't have any scientific facts/views or sources that support your view your argument stands in the air imo. You say there are scientists who have arguments and facts that prove wrong what wikipedia calls the "prevailing scientific opinion". I'm not asking for a scientific approach on this from your side or anything too extensive, and i accept wikipedia or any other source on the internet as an argument we can then discuss. So if you find any (reasonably) trustworthy website, article or whatever that explains why mankind is not almost fully responsible for global warming that would be a very good start. That's all im asking for.
i'm very interested in discussing where we do not agree since ultimately, the purpose of a discussion is to learn something.
Fair comment; the only remaining problem here seems therefore to be whether one regards the world as being grossly over-populated or populated by people who consume far too much. It is clear that, even with the best efforts of a certain deceased Premier followed by those of a certain non-deceased President, the dwindling population of Iraq is far too small to bring about adequate global population reduction to overcome this problem, so either natural disasters or global wars look set to be the only likely solution that could reduce the world's population by just over five-sixths. Whilst I know that you are not necessarily advocating a specificy five-sixths reduction either in global population or global consumption in order to hope to overcome the problem you are discussing, is it remotely practical to expect the latter if the former does not happen? I'm not suggesting that you think it is so; I am suggesting that I think it is not so.
You are, of course, correct about the balancing effect of trees and plants but, whilst there is certainly some planting going one with the specific aim of reducing the extent of the problem, the speed at which trees are being cut down and not replaced - and not just in the traditional rain-forest areas - is, of course, far greater - and one part of this is to feed the needs of musicians who write and/or print music on paper so that they can travel the world in environmentally unfriendly planes and cars and play on instruments made wholly or partly from wood.
I have not read any research on this so do not know for sure either. That said, if the earth's oxygen levels have become insufficient, ways must be found to overcome this and one of those ways would have been to encourage R&D into the provision and use of non-fossil fuels for energy production.
I'll have to spend some time (when I can find some!) in doing just as you ask. I do not even say that Wikipedia is wrong to refer to a "prevailing scientific opinion"; I merely say that it is misleading for it to claim such an opinion without backing it up with facts.
I live next door to a distinguished geologist who believes that most of the climate changes occurring today are natural rather than man-made; I don't say that he is necessarily correct - merely that he has said it and quite vociferously and has at least two university degrees in a related subject.
I have no more time than you do for those who stick their heads in the sand and say that mankind has no responsibility whatsoever for this problem and, as I have observed, the possibility of substantial reduction in fossil fuel use ought in any case to appeal to many people regardless of their specific stance on the climate change responsibility issue because of the attraction of sustainability and, ultimately, lower costs of alternative fuel sources.
I hope consumption can be reduced with a change of our western way of life (i'm not suggesting to turn our whole system upside down).
But isn't this what already happens and what is heard even from officials (minister for environment for example, at least where i live) to reduce use of water, not to use the car for a 100 m way etc?
I exclude the developing world here since most of these people are not even near the western standard and deserve more wealth/higher living standards.
But since the distribution of wealth will change anyway in the future, i think in practice it will not be possible to reduce overall global consumption without reducing the population.
i think it would be interesting to know whether there is at least a very small decrease of the oxygen level during the last, let's say 100 years. I could imagine. But i think it's also difficult to measure.Another way would be to electrolyse the oceans
regardless of responsibility we have to do something.
Unfortunately it's the people with the power to change things who stick the head in the sand. (not all, but most).
This problem is related to the consumption problem, since money is the reason why almost nothing has been done so far to counteract global warming.
Oil Companies would love to see people driving big SUVs with 20 litres per 100km fuel consumption...
Topic: Global warming survey 