Global Warming Debunked

[jeffpugh]

Only because I'm slow tonight... so you're saying don't act as if we're causing global warming (I realise we're not...)

[Anomaly]

[quote name='XIX' post='1357580' date='Aug 12 2007, 09:29 PM']Global warming or no global warming, I look at what comes out of the exhaust pipes of a car and say to myself "Gee, I don't want that in my lungs!"[/quote]Not to mention what comes out of a horse's exhaust pipe either. I wouldn't want that on my shoes, much less my lungs. And have you seen what comes off a camp fire? OMG! We need to be eating raw vegetables.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Anomaly

[morostheos]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1357377' date='Aug 12 2007, 08:31 PM']fidei: while this does not debunk global warming necessarily, such that the science still needs discussed amongst scientists, it is a clearcut story about a computer glitch which miscalculated the temperatures. Global Warming activists use the "hottest year ever" as a trump card to show that it couldn't just be another climate cycle and that it must be in line with carbon emissions. That particular trump card has been trumped by this fact, and that changes the whole discussion drastically. No, we're not qualified with the science; but we can see when the proof someone proposed for their theory is clearly disproven, and this was offered as basically the most definitive proof any global warming activist could drum up: that the earth had not been as hot for thousands of years until we started emitting carbon.

all the scientists have been working with faulty data, and that's a really big deal.[/quote]

I have both my bachelor's and masters degrees in environmental science, and I've studied global warming pretty in depth, and I can tell you that the "hottest year ever" is very far from a "trump card" for global warming. Individual hot years have very little to do with long-term climatic changes, on its own that data proves nothing, other than it was a hot year. So it's not a really big deal at all. Of course its good that someone caught the computer glitch and the data was fixed, but it is a huge overstatement to say that all the scientists have been working with faulty data, since pretty much all studies of climate change look at climatic trends rather than individual years.

btw, I think that the whole carbon credit thing is a huge scam and actually contributes to greater environmental problems rather than helping b/c its seen as a "get out of jail free" card for living lives of excess and wasteful consumerism. In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II reminds us that environmental destruction today is not an isolated issue to be considered on its own but originates from consumerism. Therefore, the evils of consumerism cannot be fought effectively without taking the problems of environmental degradation today into account.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1357377' date='Aug 12 2007, 02:31 PM']Anyway, I'd like to close with a comparison of your argument, don't know whether you'll like it or not, depends on your other politics. It is nonetheless an accurate comparison which illustrates how both arguments are not in line with logic. You saying "whether or not global warming is really happening or what it's causes are, we should still cooperate with the policies proposed in reaction to global warming" is nearly exactly alike to any republican warhawk saying "whether or not Sadam has weapons of mass destruction, we should still take him out of power"[/quote]

That depends on the primary reason for removing Sadam from power. If the WMDs are just an incidental reason, then it doesn't matter if he had them. The main reason we should cooperate with envrionmental causes (the reasonable ones anyway) is to care for the gift of God's Creation. Any other reason is just incidental, and might motivate others, but ultimately our motivation for anything should come from God.

It's also part of our pro-life worldview, as pollution and smog is often harmful to us and sometimes deadly.

[saint_wannabe]

[quote name='Justin86' post='1357183' date='Aug 12 2007, 12:26 AM']Ok, if I actually have to explain to you why just because it's really hot where you are does not indicate a [i]global[/i] warming trend you quite simply need rehab.[/quote]
thats not nice.
k then go ahead explain. normal temperature for this time of year is 28-30s NOT in 40s

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='saint_wannabe' post='1358371' date='Aug 13 2007, 08:10 PM']thats not nice.
k then go ahead explain. normal temperature for this time of year is 28-30s NOT in 40s[/quote]

Long story short, the measured temperature is only the final piece of data. The weather is a lot like the economy. You could look at one piece of data, like the unemployment rate, and observe that as inflation increases, unemployment decreases. That relationship is called the Phillips Curve and it was the premise of how the Federal Reserve set interest rates during the 50s and 60s... until gradually during the 60s, unemployment increased even as inflation went through the roof. Economists learned the hard way that the economy isn't quite that simple

The same goes for temperature. Many factors affect it, and just like with economics, we don't fully understand all the complex relationships involved because true scientific study is nearly impossible. In order to use the Scientific Method, you must isolate everything in a self-contained environment, where you have one variable, and figure out how that variable affects everything else. With chemistry and biology, you can do that with test tubes and labs. But with meteorology and economics, there is no lab that can contain an entire weather system or a society of people exchanging goods and services. That's why so much of both sciences is open to debate and opinion, until time finally shows us the outcome of things. Some events, like storms, are observed frequently enough that we learn how to predict them. But long-term weather patterns are in a whole different league.

So the big question scientists have to answer is, how much does the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere affect temperature? We know there is an effect, but we don't know how much because carbon dioxide is only one factor among many (maybe some we don't even know about) that would have to be isolated in order to fully understand how all those relationships are interacting right now.

Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to take reasonable measures at limiting our footprint on the environment. Maybe in 100 years, we find out that we were silly to think that humans could ever produce enough carbon dioxide to warm the earth so much, but I wouldn't want to bet on that and be wrong.

Edited August 14, 2007 by LouisvilleFan

[Winchester]

[quote name='Cathoholic Anonymous' post='1356669' date='Aug 11 2007, 03:21 PM']Do you realise what would happen if the ice caps melted? There would be floods. On a large scale. Catastrophic floods. As in 'lots of people homeless and very poor' floods. I hope that was just a bad joke on your part rather than a serious attempt at reassurance.[/quote]
On the other hand, many would have suddenly valuable ocean front property.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1358488' date='Aug 13 2007, 11:36 PM']Long story short, the measured temperature is only the final piece of data. The weather is a lot like the economy. You could look at one piece of data, like the unemployment rate, and observe that as inflation increases, unemployment decreases. That relationship is called the Phillips Curve and it was the premise of how the Federal Reserve set interest rates during the 50s and 60s... until gradually during the 60s, unemployment increased even as inflation went through the roof. Economists learned the hard way that the economy isn't quite that simple

The same goes for temperature. Many factors affect it, and just like with economics, we don't fully understand all the complex relationships involved because true scientific study is nearly impossible. In order to use the Scientific Method, you must isolate everything in a self-contained environment, where you have one variable, and figure out how that variable affects everything else. With chemistry and biology, you can do that with test tubes and labs. But with meteorology and economics, there is no lab that can contain an entire weather system or a society of people exchanging goods and services. That's why so much of both sciences is open to debate and opinion, until time finally shows us the outcome of things. Some events, like storms, are observed frequently enough that we learn how to predict them. But long-term weather patterns are in a whole different league.

So the big question scientists have to answer is, how much does the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere affect temperature? We know there is an effect, but we don't know how much because carbon dioxide is only one factor among many (maybe some we don't even know about) that would have to be isolated in order to fully understand how all those relationships are interacting right now.

Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to take reasonable measures at limiting our footprint on the environment. Maybe in 100 years, we find out that we were silly to think that humans could ever produce enough carbon dioxide to warm the earth so much, but I wouldn't want to bet on that and be wrong.[/quote]The point is, all the world economies can't do 'everything'. Being good stewards of our resources means that we should use our intelligence. Instead of going off in 'panic mode' and investing in fad technology such as using ethanol (which is more expensive, uses food growing resources, and does little to reduce carbons), we study more efficient and safe nuclear technology, develop safe storage of nuclear waste, allow the technology required to further integrate wind turbines into the US power system. Or, just charge more money for "carbon credits" governemtns to waste. For example, I had to pay $350 Carbon Tax to the United Kingdom as a tax for my plane ticket (times 6 people) and there was about 160 people on the plane. What did they do with that money? Don't you see the potential to scam and waste alot of money without any real benefit?

By the way, you will see the US start building nuclear plants like France and the UK within 5 years. Invest in Westinghouse while you're young. :wink:

[fides quarens intellectum]

i hope you are right about the US - i'm all for efficient/safe nuclear tech!

personally, i still think we're experiencing warm(er) weather because we are still coming out of the "Little Ice Age." just a thought. God is in control, though.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1359177' date='Aug 15 2007, 12:38 PM']By the way, you will see the US start building nuclear plants like France and the UK within 5 years. Invest in Westinghouse while you're young. :wink:[/quote]

I was curious about the Westinghouse connection, and if Wikipedia has their facts straight, Westinghouse Electric is now a subsidiary of Toshiba. If you seriously wanted to invest in this trend, go with USEC (USU). It got pretty hot last year with all the excitement about nuclear energy as the best way to meet our need for power without choking ourselves to death, so naturally it got way overvalued, so it's down nearly 50% from the high

[quote name='fides_quarens_intellectum' post='1359217' date='Aug 15 2007, 01:27 PM']personally, i still think we're experiencing warm(er) weather because we are still coming out of the "Little Ice Age." just a thought. God is in control, though.[/quote]

I ran across an article or blog post a few months ago that showed Time magazine articles related to global warming/cooling from the past century or so. At the turn of the 20th century, scientists were concerned about global cooling, predicting that huge glaciers would someday cover New York City, but by the 1920s and 30s, the cocern was global warming (with a lot of same reasons we hear today: overpopulation, carbon dioxide, etc.). By the 70s, it was back to global cooling, and it's again switched back. That's caused me to think that perhaps, just as there are short-range patterns of warming and cooling that we call summer and winter, that our planet also experiences longer-range patterns of overall warming and cooling... and perhaps there are even longer trends that extend over thousands of years, resulting in events like the Little Ice Age.

[Justin86]

[quote name='saint_wannabe' post='1358371' date='Aug 14 2007, 09:10 AM']thats not nice.
k then go ahead explain. normal temperature for this time of year is 28-30s NOT in 40s[/quote]

Um, how about because you're only measuring the temperature in [i]one area[/i] and not the [i]globe[/i]? Just a thought...

I'm not nice. Never claimed to be that, and as a matter of fact, Christian charity aint always that either.

[abercius24]

I understand that NASA only began keeping records of the weather beginning in the 1960's. That's not a good subset of the greater population of weather patterns to really be making judgements about how it should or should not change. I mean, look at the Great Flood. I'm sure Noah wasn't worried about global warming at that time, yet a worldwide disaster occured anyways! Weather is too random and unpredictable to make such dogmatic statements as do the global warming proponents.

[XIX]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1357712' date='Aug 12 2007, 09:00 PM']That's when the Mayans predicted the end of the last age of history. Considering they were right about the end of their own age, people fear the date 12-21-12, the last day of the last age and thus the end of the world.

I think it's gonna be a combination of Y2K and the extinction of the bees.

Again, that's all well and good, but there's legitimate discussion to be had. Just because you'd like there to be less pollutants or whatever doesn't justify the histeria-machine that is global warming activism. Stick to truth.[/quote]
I concur totally. I don't think GW is a huge crisis, but I do think the general environmental problem is a good reason to limit AC, buy a hybrid with 55 MPG, etc.

[XIX]

[quote name='saint_wannabe' post='1358371' date='Aug 13 2007, 06:10 PM']thats not nice.
k then go ahead explain. normal temperature for this time of year is 28-30s NOT in 40s[/quote]
Simple. An extremely small sample size.

[abercius24]

[quote name='XIX' post='1362351' date='Aug 18 2007, 10:23 PM']I concur totally. I don't think GW is a huge crisis, but I do think the general environmental problem is a good reason to limit AC, buy a hybrid with 55 MPG, etc.[/quote]

Considering how poor they are constructing vehicles today, I don't think buying a new car will save you money in the end. Even with a good warranty, you'll spend extra money compensating for the inconvenience, not to mention lose tons of money on the depreciation of the vehicle.

Edited August 19, 2007 by abercius24