cliffside!!!

[loki]

can we get a few things straightened out about theory and fact.

example

theory of gravity- our best put together concept of how it effects the universe, even though this theory breaks down the closer you get to the femto scale.

fact- there is gravity and we can put our best estimated # on it to many decimal points

now there are many facts that we can put together based on this "climate change" idea... there are surely several different theories of the same thing called climate change.

in the example of gravity, we had a very quick and semi accurate idea on how gravity existed on earth quickly after newton proposed the first theory. we've had several 100 years to refine that theory since then. climate change might have started....several decades ago, but is still a baby theory compared to gravity. don't forget how more simplistic gravity should be compared to how much you have to factor in for "climate change".

we don't have a theory of a "round" earth, that was proven in an experiment over 2000 years ago. the fact is easily provable. just like in the politics "lounge" we had a worse depression in 1920 and got out of it within the next year by doing the opposite what we did in the great one (same thing now), but there are still "ostriches" about that fact.

[balthazar]

...when a community in a third-world nation that highly depends upon cattle for their survival ends up losing cattle due to choking on a plastic garbage bag dumped into the ocean by a neighboring well-to-do nation...

What the hell are the cattle doing swimming in the ocean ??

Why are they drinking salt water ??

What kind of cows ARE these ??

[ShadowDog]

What the hell are the cattle doing swimming in the ocean ??

Why are they drinking salt water ??

What kind of cows ARE these ??

Heh, sorry, thought this one was known more. Waste from local landfills and wash-up from the ocean has contained plastic bags (mostly grocery and garbage bags) which drifts down streams into communities in India and African nations. Cattle simply grazing along the water line end up consuming the plastic. It has led to choking and intestinal blockage which ends up being fatal.

Anyhow, even if plastic bags I receive don't likely end up in the throat of a bull somewhere out east, I certainly understand the benefits of them disappearing altogether and choose not to receive them with my purchases.

[loki]

about the garbage landmass in the pacific. i say get a huge barge/ship, whatever out there with the waste to oil process and just start pulling it up and running it through.... should self sustain it's most if not all of it's fuel consumption from it's products. reclaim a lot of minerals and make fertilizer.... that would be something i wouldn't feel to bad about my tax money going to if it's not economical otherwise.

edit:

might have brought it up another place... but the rain fall in the southern Sahara/Serengeti? increasing... past several years, evidence being more grasses.

Edited February 5, 2010 by loki

[Blake Noble]

Many climate change deniers are the same crowd that doesn't believe in science, believe in 'intelligent design' and believe the earth is 6000 yrs old. They are delusional.

Wow. What a stereotype.

Time for me to take that pilgrimage to the Creationist Museum up in Petersburg, KY am I right?

Here is the premise of climate change theory broken down to the simplest points.

Fact: Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas, this isn't in dispute. We know that carbon dioxide will trap heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise escape into space.

Fact: We are pumping millions of tons of carbon up from the ground where it has been trapped for millenia outside the natural CO2/O2 cycle.

Fact: We are converting that carbon into carbon dioxide and delivering it to the atmosphere at a tremendous rate. Again, millions and millions of tons a day.

Fact: We know that even mild temperature changes can have drastic effects on weather patterns. A 2 degree change in ocean surface temperature is the difference between a category 3 and category 5 hurricane.

I already knew about carbon dioxide and its negative effects on the atmosphere. I sat through chemistry and biology classes in high school just like everyone else, passed them both, managed to stay awake. I have no argument to present regarding the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere because to do so would be futile, asinine, and just plain wrong. It's fact. And while I would never argue mild temperature changes can make significant alterations on weather patters, I still have my questions and reservations.

• Where is the indisputable link that shows man-made pollution is the sole cause of these temperature fluxes?
  
• How reliable is the testing that has lead us to our current conclusions on noxious gas emissions now versus the past? How are we so sure we are correct on CO2 levels before the Industrial Revolution and after? I see charts and graphs that show this huge WTF? spike beginning in the 1950s and I raise my eyebrow. There wasn't even testing that could show CO2 content in the atmosphere during the 1950s (and especially before that of course) so how do we know what the actual CO2 emissions were back then?
  

I'll give you that we are not done fully developing the theory... but nearly everything so far points to the results being very very bad if we don't reverse course now. I've not seen it so far, but has there been any "good" to climate change that isn't also accompanied with a "bad"? Has there been a "good" at all?

Time for a no-shit-Sherlock moment: Our planet going into another Ice Age wouldn't be good. And I will admit weather patterns from the last few years have been bizarre for brief moments in time. I believe it was around this time in 2007 there was a day in which it was 75 degrees one day, then in the 30s the next. Then again, record high temperatures in winter aren't exactly a new thing to behold.

But allow me to sidetrack for a moment: there's nothing we can do stop an Ice Age from happening, should it actually happen 20 years from now or 20 million years from now. There's one looming over the horizon regardless if we speed it up or reverse course and keep it coming as scheduled. This I think we do know.

I think that's why this whole thing has grown so out of proportion and that we're not going over things with a very fine-toothed comb. Humans are afraid to die. Humans have grown afraid of change. Those two fears are pretty huge fears and put the two together and you will watch people slowly go into a panic.

We have had Ice Ages on this planet before during the time of man and, you know, human beings survived. You know they (as in we) did it? They adapted to the climates. Some sought warmer temperatures to the south, others adapted to the cold frigid north. Has man really grown so comfortable with the way the world has been that he is no longer willing to adapt to survive? If so, then yeah, I guess the human species will become endangered, maybe even extinct. Humans are not an exception to the whole concept of "Survival of the Fittest" regardless if we did discover it.

I don't think humans will die out like the dinosaurs did as long as we still can adapt to our world no matter how it changes. With our advancements in technology it wouldn't be so damn hard. It wasn't the comet that killed all of the dinosaurs, it was the fact the remaining surviving dinosaurs didn't know how to adjust to the catastrophe afterward. Say we did get hit by a comet the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs humans could survive. Think about it.

Do I want another Ice Age or a comet to hit the Earth? No. But I know the human race has just as good of a chance of surviving either one as it does being wiped out by either one.

Personally, I'd rather not see the "end" of this experiment.

I never said I did either. Past changes in our climate are real. However, I will always take what someone says about the future of our climate beyond what we can safely assume with a grain of salt until I see cold, hard facts. I also think that with the way we are handling this particular study, we are leaving too much room for error. We are acting as if we know everything already when we have only begun to understand what could be going on. The future of our planet really is important and we cannot allow for the smallest mistake.

Edited February 5, 2010 by whiteknight

[Blake Noble]

For the post above, overlook any typos/editing oversights I might have made. There's a few big ones in there.

[Drew Dowdell]

Where is the indisputable link that shows man-made pollution is the sole cause of these temperature fluxes?

Where is there the requirement that we be the sole cause? What if we are just a catalyst?

How reliable is the testing that has lead us to our current conclusions on noxious gas emissions now versus the past? How are we so sure we are correct on CO2 levels before the Industrial Revolution and after? I see charts and graphs that show this huge WTF? spike beginning in the 1950s and I raise my eyebrow. There wasn't even testing that could show CO2 content in the atmosphere during the 1950s (and especially before that of course) so how do we know what the actual CO2 emissions were back then?

Ice cores

I never said I did either. Past changes in our climate are real. However, I will always take what someone says about the future of our climate beyond what we can safely assume with a grain of salt until I see cold, hard facts. I also think that with the way we are handling this particular study, we are leaving too much room for error. We are acting as if we know everything already when we have only begun to understand what could be going on. The future of our planet really is important and we cannot allow for the smallest mistake.

So why wouldn't we try and minimize our impact on environmental balance?

[loki]

Where is there the requirement that we be the sole cause? What if we are just a catalyst?

So why wouldn't we try and minimize our impact on environmental balance?

don't these take different sides ?

if it's balanced naturally, we are the sole cause. if we are the catalyst, then there was no balance before...?

[Drew Dowdell]

don't these take different sides ?

if it's balanced naturally, we are the sole cause. if we are the catalyst, then there was no balance before...?

uh. no.

expand your thinking a bit.

[67impss]

"Waste from local landfills and wash-up from the ocean has contained plastic bags (mostly grocery and garbage bags) which drifts down streams into communities in India and African nations."

I may be wrong but I was taught that rivers empty into the Oceans not the reverse. I understand that the confluence is a mix a so called brine water but... Any rancher that waters his herd in salt water... well you make your own conclusion.

[balthazar]

^^ That immediately came to mind, too, but pollution is a tangent to the main thrust of this thread; I let it lay.

[67impss]

[ShadowDog]

"Waste from local landfills and wash-up from the ocean has contained plastic bags (mostly grocery and garbage bags) which drifts down streams into communities in India and African nations."

I may be wrong but I was taught that rivers empty into the Oceans not the reverse. I understand that the confluence is a mix a so called brine water but... Any rancher that waters his herd in salt water... well you make your own conclusion.

Wash up drying on shore and blown inland which makes its way into streams, as well as the open sewage trenches in streets which carries local garbage are the main culprits. It is correct that a waste issue is parallel to that of global climate change, indirectly related. Original topic resumes...

Edited February 5, 2010 by ShadowDog