Earth Day "facts" From The Past

[1337 k4th0l1x0r]

And after I wrote that I read this jewel on Drudge: [url="http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/360625.html"]http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/360625.html[/url]

And from the guy a last week: [url="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882720657033391.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries"]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1208827206...in_commentaries[/url]

[Piccoli Fiori JMJ]

Climate change makes my head hurt. I'd rather talk about environmental justice. But the earth system is far too complicated to totally understand. We aren't still even sure of all the things that factor into making things go. I'd have to say that yes, there is a lot of alarmist doom and gloom media and bias out there. I'm in a class that all we talk about is climate change and the media and the 'other side' of the debate. It is all interesting stuff, but we really cannot truly understand how it all works.

[jeffpugh]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1507228' date='Apr 23 2008, 12:51 AM']We've got a foot or more of snow outside right now, and I spent an hour trying to get a neighbor's car unstuck. He was completely buried in the snow. I don't know about global warming, but climate change I'll buy. I've threatened to run away to my mother's house if it doesn't warm up soon.[/quote]
We got flowers and leaves here. For reals

[quote name='Justin86' post='1507316' date='Apr 23 2008, 07:45 AM']I personally would love to see an ultra-handsome d u s t cloud cover the earth myself.[/quote]

Lawl... I was doing driver's ed today... we were going down a country road and saw these grey clouds of something in the air... I thought they were like smoke clouds, but when we got closer, they were ominious clouds of bugs overhead. Climate change? Maybe... apocalyptic bug catastrophe?






maybe

Edited April 25, 2008 by Sacred Music Man

[CatherineM]

Back in Oklahoma, it would rain mud when too much red dust (the ultra-handsome) got into the air.

[zwergel88]

[quote name='1337 k4th0l1x0r' post='1509209' date='Apr 24 2008, 10:22 PM']You can care about the environment and do things for it without buying the whole global warming story. Who's to say that the Earth wouldn't be better off a little warmer?[/quote]

I personally will be really mad if the Earth gets any warmer, and that is why I freak out when people don't take global warming seriously. If you are cool with the polar ice caps melting and most of the coastal cities ending up under water forever changing the ecological makeup of the earth then that's just fine.

Global warming makes sense scientifically. It doesnt' matter if not evereyone is 100% convinced, its at least something that everyone should take 100% seriously. Why does this have to become a partisan issue?

[1337 k4th0l1x0r]

[quote name='zwergel88' post='1509275' date='Apr 25 2008, 12:13 AM']I personally will be really mad if the Earth gets any warmer, and that is why I freak out when people don't take global warming seriously. If you are cool with the polar ice caps melting and most of the coastal cities ending up under water forever changing the ecological makeup of the earth then that's just fine.

Global warming makes sense scientifically. It doesnt' matter if not evereyone is 100% convinced, its at least something that everyone should take 100% seriously. Why does this have to become a partisan issue?[/quote]
If all the polar ice pack melt, it's a serious problem, but would a small to moderate temperature change melt all the ice or just some of it? Would the ice that it melt cause a drastic rise in sea levels? Would any increase in sea levels be mitigated by higher average dew points (dew point indicates the moisture level in the air)? The ice pack on Antarctica is actually getting thicker. The Arctic Ice cap could melt entirely and not affect sea levels as it significantly melts and reforms every year.

I want you to put some serious thought and consideration into what global warming means. If the things described happen, yes they would be serious. However, most of their arguments are begging the question. They state that global warming causes significant drought and coastal flooding and since those things are serious problems, global warming must be taken care of. Not many in the environmentalist community take the problem truly seriously. Suppose global warming has a significant natural component beyond our control and will cause many of the problems described by global warming proponents. If we're devoting much of our efforts to deal with manmade global warming then we very well could be setting ourselves up for massive famine and energy shortages by scaling back our ability to produce food and energy in economical manners. There's also the possibility that an increase in temperatures will increase rainfall and arable land area with no appreciable increase in sea level. This might help end global hunger.

The truth is scientists don't know all that much about the Earth and to state that somehow the current temperature of the planet must be maintained is laughable and arrogant.

[CatherineM]

My husband has been to the South Pole. He actually took the papal flag there, and got to present it to John Paul in 1996. I asked him about the ice sheet getting thicker in Antarctica, and he said that could be caused by warming. Antarctica is actually one of the driest places on Earth, and when it warms up some, it changes dew points or something, he kind of lost me there, and it causes more precipitation. I've learned living here near the North Pole, that it snows more when it is warmer. We don't get snow at -40 (although when it is that cold I don't go out so it could be snowing like crazy and I wouldn't know it), but we just got the deepest snow of the season when it was only -10.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='zwergel88' post='1509275' date='Apr 25 2008, 05:13 AM']most of the coastal cities ending up under water forever changing the ecological makeup of the earth[/quote]
I certainly don't deny that climate change is happening, I think the question becomes to what extent we are causing it. Coastlines have been changing for ages, with coastal cities disappearing before (eg: Alexandria in Egypt, parts of Greek islands, etc: it's a major reason that underwater archaeology exists). Now obviously if things were dramatic enough to rapidly cause this even more, that would definitely be cause for worry.