Global Warming

Global Warming

Do you people believe in it?

Or do you think its just another media beat up?

Media Beat up? Over 200 eminent scientists make up the IPCC. Hope you cn find a member of Yellow Fever with the cummulative insights to argue against their evidence!

Cummulative insight:

"Global Warming" seems to encompase so many things. Ozone depleteion, melting polar caps, deforestation, pollution, overpopulation, resource depletion. The term global warming seems to come up whenever any of these topics are addressed so it seems to be alsways on the tele.

Im a "denier" & proud of it !!  IF there is a climate change i dont think it's due to man but a natural cycle.  How many years of data has the "believers" have?  About 50yrs, as opposed to millions of yrs of geological data.  And it's a convenient bandwagon for the Greenies to jump on.  Carbon footprint, food miles/kilometers...what a load of bollocks!!

i think it's much more convenient for many businesses to ignore global warning actually...they have much more at stake in the short run
Cosimo2008-04-07 11:07:15

As far as i can tell, its all cause and effect. Any action taken has a direct effect on yor surrounding environment - so of course we have caused change.......adverse or otherwise our existance has caused the plant to change. According to the Greenies our habitual over population is killing the planet.

Its basic maths. resources are finite. at the moment consumption exceeds the planets abilty to restore what we consume. eventually we will burn/evaporate every resource on the planet = game over.

Sounds like the Chelsea recruitment policy...

Chelsea probably contribute 40% of global warming

But we didn't have millennia of humans pumping CFC's into the atmosphere. I certainly think that would have an unnatural impact as opposed to the normal impact.

Given that I got sunburnt playing golf , wearing Factor 15, with cloud at 100ft and drizzle certainly ain't normal in my books.

On the other hand, you are Scottish. You'd probably get sunburnt during a six month winter night in the Arctic circle.

For a Scot, a lighter shade of blue is considered a tan.

Well I don't buy it. I think its greenies doing what greenies do best, Making the world a worse place for everyone else.

Ah, the naievity of yoof.

I just have questions like... Pure Genius2008-04-08 15:26:18

The Arctic is one big Ice Berg.  The Antarctic is land.

What I don't get is the massive mistrust of greenies. I can understand concerns over environmentalism slowing progress, but I hardly see any likelihood of a giant conspiracy to force everyone to stop bathing and eat tofu. Almost every environmentalist I know simply advocates responsibility and sustainability, which is common sense, not "the greenie agenda".

The other way to look about it is considering who gains from which argument being considered correct. Global warming a myth? Businesses opposed to it gain billions of dollars. Global warming considered fact? Everyone, greenies involve, gain an increased responsibility to counter the problem.

The majority of them are underwater, yes. But Antarctica is on land. So that's a large chunk of land-based ice.

The Arctic is the floating one.


Personally, I'm kinda undecided. I've heard reports from both sides, but my thinking is that global warming (the act of the globe getting hotter) is more likely to lead to an iceage than a desert...

But I'm a mathematician. What do I know?

basic physics. water expands when heated. When frozen it also expands due to crystalization.

UberGunner2008-04-08 18:21:02

i think the term 'global warming' may not be the best one...climate change might be better, but that could mean anything I guess - um, 'pollution change'?

I think it's real. the data is there and all those people are smarter than me so I'm sticking with them.

But I'm sure on this last point you would want to clarify that higher levels of UV in NZ are for reasons unconnected to global warming
HarryHotspur2008-04-08 22:44:55

phil_style2008-04-09 03:35:16

I'm a believer.  Next time you see a scientist on TV or Radio denying it, Google his name.  Find out who "research" company he belongs to, who he is funded by, and what qualifications he has.  I think you'll find that, while most of them are scientists, they have their degree in a science that is completely unrelated to global warming.  Furthermore that they are funded by Mobil or BP etc. (If you don�t believe me watch the documentary called "the denial machine". you should be able to download of the internet somewhere). In summary, most of the scientist denying it aren�t really scientist but quacks and hacks.  And yet these small portions of �scientists� get equal time on TV debates.

2ndBest2008-04-09 09:03:42

unless the bush administration starts preaching about global warming i'm gonna believe in it. frustr8dstriker2008-04-09 12:30:05

its pretty much undeniable that the earth is heating up, its just the fact that people seem soo scared about it that gets me. i guess i side with the 'its just part of the earth's cycle' group.

It's the earth's menstral cycle. Hurricanes are PMS.
Cosimo2008-04-09 13:15:29

I tend to agree with you, but i think that it is important to remember that most significant scientific discovery is based on disestablishing previous 'truth' claims.

While consensus that GW may be due to people (I think the IPCC even qualify this with a 70%    probable'assertion')it is the extent to which it may be a problem that is the big unknown. We probably all know the scare tactics employed by people such as Al Gore in his documentary, but the debate about what constitutes 'tipping point' is alive and kicking and very much unresolved.

Oh yes, also check out the blogs of Phillip Stott as they are a great read: he has been unfairly labelled a denier, which is not really the case: but he does question the climate change discourse with alacrity.

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog.html

He has long denied links to big business, but I see he recently presented at a Tory conference, which ruffles my feathers somewhat.HarryHotspur2008-04-09 16:37:51

For all doubters, can we afford to ignore the possibility that it is happening?

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg

And the thing that is scary is that there are many tipping points which could speed up the process and make it impossible to slow down. An example is the Albedo effect, the ability of the surface to reflect heat/light from the sun. As the sea temperature warms and ice melts, there is less ice to reflect heat/light from the sun. The dark water has a low Albedo and can absorb heat from the sun, warms the seas and resulting in more ice loss and so on.

And just to clarify, all floating ice displaces the same amount of water that is stored as ice ie. if you took a glass of water and added an ice block, when that ice block melts the water level wont change. The main concern are glaciers and ice on land that if they melt would result in sea level rises.

Just off the top of my head, if there is just a small change in average temperature, lets say ~1c, you could see huge human migration due to sea level rises, increased disease such as malaria due to warmer weather, desertification of arable land, more extreme weather eg. stronger hurricanes as more warmth in the water increases the energy in hurricanes etc.

Edit - Back on topic: Yes I think that we have had an impact on the Climate. We are reducing the earth's ability to absorb gases such as CO2 by reducing our forests. We are using carbon sinks that have been stored for millennia such as coal and oil and releasing them into the atmosphere. To think that we cannot change the climate we live in is naive.
Bullion2008-04-09 17:04:48

There is a new theory out. That although we are contributing, the earth is currently in it's warming up cycle and will one day then head back into an Ice age. We might be helping it speed up, but it is also a natural cycle. Don't ask me who said it, it was on the discovery channel a month or so back.

Maybe a case for nuclear power.  We have to consider it.  No carbon emissions.  Might be a slight problem of getting rid of the waste, but it can be recycled.  Greenies say we're not allowed to dam our rivers, mine coal for power stations, wind farms are an eyesore, wave/tidal power facilities will damage the marine enviroment, etc etc.  Due to popular belief nuclear plants don't "blow up" like nuclear bombs do.  Chernobyl was due to human error, someone did not follow procedures.  Boy, I bet I've put a cat in amongst the pigeons.

Yes it is clearly a natural cycle. But we are also helping to speed that cycle up...No need to panic about it as itll happen eventually anyway? We cant stop it...only try not to contribute to it!

Chernobyl was absolutely horrendous, though. And most car crashes are due to human error - they happen all the time. The waste can be recycled? i didn't know that

Thats the problem: NIMBY - not in my back yard. Wind farms are great, but people dont want them and I totally understand why "greenies" are against mining coal. Coal is probably the worst pollutant in terms of non-renewable carbon based fuels, and on top of that they are destroying a habitat.

Personally I am 50/50 on nuclear power, even James Lovelock who proposed Gaia hypothesis, has suggested that this is the way to go. A lesser of two evils if you like. At the moment there are ways or reprocessing some of the waste, though it is very expensive and risky. Also, depleted uranium is used in weapons as it is very hard and can pierce almost any armour. In southern Iraq cancer rates have increased by about 600% since the invasion 5 years ago due to the use of depleted uranium shells.

Personally I would like to see more development on wave/tidal systems, in sunnier climates more use of the sun for energy and in windier ones more wind farms. Hopefully in the near future building design would improve the efficiency of water usage and minimise heating/air conditioning as well having to generate its own power supply for at least heating water and possibly more.
e.g.
http://i.treehugger.com/images/2007/5/24/bahrain_wind_turbine.jpg
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/11/23/prefab-friday-contruisons-demain-green-prefab/

Waste of time taking one factor though - climate change is a result of an incredibly complex system. I was talking to a friend in the MfE who, 3 or 4 years ago experienced 'expert' climate modellers presenting their version of NZs future climate. Apparantly all their assumptions were wrong as their models were based on global patterns, rather than being ammended for the NZ setting. The science is still very contestable - and some of the certainties conveyed by policy makers, in my opinion, belies this.

However, I would still try to reduce my 'footprint' rather than dismiss the essential consensus.

Oh yeah, there is a lot going on, just an example.

I think it is more a case of mitigating risk. Not many of us on here are scientists who could argue the finer points of climate science. But we should be discussing the risk involved and steps to take to mitigate that risk.