Global Warming Debate

[hectorberlioz]

So the general consensus is that it IS happenening, and here at least, the debate is whether it is man-made.

My personal opinion is that when the earth warmed in previous times, it was not because of the SUVs. So I guess I'm among the doubters that it is man-made at least.

Also would like to post this link:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...n_id=&Issue_id

and this one too:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...n_id=&Issue_id

I also think there is room to doubt that it is happening at all, and whatever this weird weather is, it may not be weird, it may be that we only have Al Gore fresh in our minds.

# Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930's the media peddled a coming ice age. From the late 1920's until the 1960's they warned of global warming. From the 1950's until the 1970's they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate's fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.
# The National Academy of Sciences report reaffirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1850. Both of these periods occurred long before the invention of the SUV or human industrial activity could have possibly impacted the Earth's climate. In fact, scientists believe the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings grew crops in Greenland.
# What the climate alarmists and their advocates in the media have continued to ignore is the fact that the Little Ice Age, which resulted in harsh winters which froze New York Harbor and caused untold deaths, ended about 1850. So trying to prove man-made global warming by comparing the well-known fact that today's temperatures are warmer than during the Little Ice Age is akin to comparing summer to winter to show a catastrophic temperature trend.
# Something that the media almost never addresses are the holes in the theory that C02 has been the driving force in global warming. Alarmists fail to adequately explain why temperatures began warming at the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, long before man-made CO2 emissions could have impacted the climate. Then about 1940, just as man-made CO2 emissions rose sharply, the temperatures began a decline that lasted until the 1970's, prompting the media and many scientists to fear a coming ice age.
# A letter sent to the Canadian Prime Minister on April 6, 2006 by 60 prominent scientists who question the basis for climate alarmism, clearly explains the current state of scientific knowledge on global warming. The 60 scientists wrote: "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary." The letter also noted: "‘Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise."
# In 2006, the director of the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks Alaska, testified to Congress that highly publicized climate models showing a disappearing Arctic were nothing more than "science fiction."
# "Geologists Think the World May be Frozen Up Again." That sentence appeared over 100 years ago in the February 24, 1895 edition of the New York Times.
# A front page article in the October 7, 1912 New York Times, just a few months after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, declared that a prominent professor "Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age." The very same day in 1912, the Los Angeles Times ran an article warning that the "Human race will have to fight for its existence against cold." An August 10, 1923 Washington Post article declared: "Ice Age Coming Here."
# By the 1930's, the media took a break from reporting on the coming ice age and instead switched gears to promoting global warming: "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise" stated an article in the New York Times on March 27, 1933.
# The media of yesteryear was also not above injecting large amounts of fear and alarmism into their climate articles. An August 9, 1923 front page article in the Chicago Tribune declared: "Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada." The article quoted a Yale University professor who predicted that large parts of Europe and Asia would be "wiped out" and Switzerland would be "entirely obliterated."
# A December 29, 1974 New York Times article on global cooling reported that climatologists believed "the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade." The article also warned that unless government officials reacted to the coming catastrophe, "mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence" would result. In 1975, the New York Times reported that "A major cooling [was] widely considered to be inevitable."
# On February 19, 2006, CBS News's "60 Minutes" produced a segment on the North Pole. The segment was a completely one-sided report, alleging rapid and unprecedented melting at the polar cap. It even featured correspondent Scott Pelley claiming that the ice in Greenland was melting so fast, that he barely got off an ice-berg before it collapsed into the water. "60 Minutes" failed to inform its viewers that a 2005 study by a scientist named Ola Johannessen and his colleagues showing that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice and mass and that according to scientists, the Arctic was warmer in the 1930's than today.
# According to data released on July 14, 2006 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the January through June Alaska statewide average temperature was "0.55F (0.30C) cooler than the 1971-2000 average."
# In August 2006, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist who heads the space research sector for the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted long-term global cooling may be on the horizon due to a projected decrease in the sun's output.

from here

[Nurvingiel]

There is no debate Hector, humans have definitely contributed to global warming.

Even the UN agrees on this!

There is no room for doubt about the existence of global warming either. Sorry bud, but it really is happing. It's quite a disaster and I wish it wasn't happening, but it really is.

About the first link: those guys sound like a bunch of rent-a-scientists to me.

About the second link: Bill Nye the science guy and a weather channel host are probably not the most qualified individuals to debate global warming. Personally I'd rather see publishing scientists who are up to date on the issue debating.

Here's a good link.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

There is no debate Hector, humans have definitely contributed to global warming.

You didn't say that on purpose to annoy me did you?

Even the UN agrees on this!

Even the UN is the one perpetrating the misconceptions about it.

There is no room for doubt about the existence of global warming either. Sorry bud, but it really is happing. It's quite a disaster and I wish it wasn't happening, but it really is.

Explain the medieval warming that most undoubtedly DID happen without SUVs. Did too many cows fart at once?

There is plenty of room for doubt, and if you ask me, saying that there isn't is comparable to Nazism, IMO

"NO! There is no room for debate! The World IS flat!!!"

About the first link: those guys sound like a bunch of rent-a-scientists to me.

Compared to Al Gore, the greatest scientist ever, I'm sure they do.

About the second link: Bill Nye the science guy and a weather channel host are probably not the most qualified individuals to debate global warming. Personally I'd rather see publishing scientists who are up to date on the issue debating.

Nurv, the former President of the/some meteorological society says that it is a bunch of overblown BUNK. That guy was at the TOP of "the weather world".
And of course he is now cursed by the same organization he headed.

I just want you to know that the full consensus is not only on one side of the scientists, while the rest of them are just whackos. Heck, Michael Crichton thinks its a huge scam. Amateur scientist there, though he did go to medical school, but the point it is that you can hardly pin HIM down as an "ignorant fundamentalist".

[hectorberlioz]

I honestly don't think humans, with the very small amount of space [comparitively] we inhabit on earth, have the capacity to generate enough of a difference to our planet's weather.

Sure, in smog filled Chicago man-made global warming seems a reality, but when you're out in some super-high African mountain, I think you'd start to realize that we sure think we're big stuff when we aren't.

That is not to excuse smog pollution, I'm just as much for reducing polluting emissions as anyone else.

[Lizra]

There is no debate Hector. (((((((echo)))))))))

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

You didn't say that on purpose to annoy me did you?

Would I ever do a thing like that?

I didn't say that to annoy you, it's just that responsible, reputable scientists have reached a general consensus that global warming is happening, and that humans have influenced it. So there isn't much to debate on whether or not global warming is happening.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Even the UN is the one perpetrating the misconceptions about it.

Like what?

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Explain the medieval warming that most undoubtedly DID happen without SUVs. Did too many cows fart at once?

Haha. The temperature of the Earth naturally fluctuates (see: Ice Age), but humans have exacerbated whatever natural warming may have been going on during the 20th and 21st century.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

There is plenty of room for doubt, and if you ask me, saying that there isn't is comparable to Nazism, IMO

"NO! There is no room for debate! The World IS flat!!!"

Oh come on Hector, don't break Godwin's law on me.

I generally try not to quash debate, or say that there is only one way to think. In this case though, humans are contributing to global warming, and global warming is happening.

It is akin to insisting the world approximates a sphere. There is no debate there either.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Compared to Al Gore, the greatest scientist ever, I'm sure they do.

Ahahaha, well played Hector, well played.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Nurv, the former President of the/some meteorological society says that it is a bunch of overblown BUNK. That guy was at the TOP of "the weather world".
And of course he is now cursed by the same organization he headed.

What guy is this?

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

I just want you to know that the full consensus is not only on one side of the scientists, while the rest of them are just whackos. Heck, Michael Crichton thinks its a huge scam. Amateur scientist there, though he did go to medical school, but the point it is that you can hardly pin HIM down as an "ignorant fundamentalist".

Michael Crichton isn't ignorant, and if he went to med school i bet he's very intelligent and knowledgeable in science. However, he's not an actively publishing scientist in a field relevent to this issue, so, he can go ahead and be as skeptical as he wants, but his opinion holds very little weight in this case.

Edit:

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

I honestly don't think humans, with the very small amount of space [comparitively] we inhabit on earth, have the capacity to generate enough of a difference to our planet's weather.

You'd be surprised my friend. There's a couple of important factors involved as to why we have the unfortunate ability to influence our planet's weather.

1. CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, so it's the result of many years of pollution, not just the current year, that is sitting in the atmosphere. The property of CO2 that contributes to global warming, as you probably know, is that they do not allow heat from the Earth to radiate. Instead, the radiation is trapped inside the atmosphere, which is why it's called the "Greenhouse effect" - because this is the same effect of the glass in a greenhouse.

2. Humans have a truly amazing capacity to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. Coal-burning power plants are one of the worst offenders. I'm looking at you China, and Ontario, and hundreds of places all over the world.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Sure, in smog filled Chicago man-made global warming seems a reality, but when you're out in some super-high African mountain, I think you'd start to realize that we sure think we're big stuff when we aren't.

A high African mountain like Mount Kilimanjaro? The one that whose permanent ice and snow is disappearing at the rate of about one and a half feet per year? That high African mountain? Link. In this case, we actually are big stuff.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

That is not to excuse smog pollution, I'm just as much for reducing polluting emissions as anyone else.

Absolutely. Even if global warming weren't happening, there really is no excuse to pollute the way we do. It's just that global warming makes it quite a priority that we stop as of about 50 years ago.

[The Gaffer]

In my view those arguments are completely idiotic. SUVs in the Middle Ages. Get a grip man.

You can't have 100% certaintly about something like this. The oil lobby has successfully exploited this to undermine any efforts to date to do anything about it. In the main, it's only people who don't understand science that are fooled by these tactics. I hope the Right is satisfied, greedily supping at the oil teat while the flood waters rise.

The debate is over. The question now must be what can be done.

[Nurvingiel]

Aw give Hector a break man. His arguments aren't completely idiotic, many people have probably thought the same thing. If we happen to know something about global warming, we can share this knowledge without giving him too hard of a time. </Mom lecture>

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

The oil lobby has successfully exploited this to undermine any efforts to date to do anything about it.

On a completely unrelated note, Exxon Mobil made $40 billion dollars profit last year.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

In my view those arguments are completely idiotic. SUVs in the Middle Ages. Get a grip man.

Hey, I think SUVs in medieval times is stupid too

So what do you mean get a grip? Do you know what caused the warming then?

You can't have 100% certaintly about something like this. The oil lobby has successfully exploited this to undermine any efforts to date to do anything about it.

Funny, I thought all the conspiracy was all on the global warming hysterics side....

In the main, it's only people who don't understand science that are fooled by these tactics.

Assertions assertions....

I hope the Right is satisfied, greedily supping at the oil teat while the flood waters rise.

How dramatic.

The debate is over. The question now must be what can be done.

The Debate IS over. There is just NO WAY that something else causes global warming even though we have reason to believe that there is. America, you can't escape from this one!!!!

So before you slapdash more assertions and certainties in the vein of THEDEBATEISOVER Gaffer, give me some REAL reasons why this time Global Warming is man-made.

I don't know if you guys remember, but there was some fairly recent news that came out saying that cows, of all people, caused more global warming than suvs. It was then that I knew that global warming, at least man-made, was junk. I'll look up the link...

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I didn't say that to annoy you, it's just that responsible, reputable scientists have reached a general consensus that global warming is happening, and that humans have influenced it. So there isn't much to debate on whether or not global warming is happening.

And they are who? Al Gore, Kofi Annan...thats two

Haha. The temperature of the Earth naturally fluctuates (see: Ice Age), but humans have exacerbated whatever natural warming may have been going on during the 20th and 21st century.

Ok, let's say we exacerbated it. The question is weather...er, whether, starting from the premises that global warming has happened before, whether it is dangerous at all.

Temperatures during the 1930's were warmer than they have been in the past few years.

What guy is this?

MIT professor Richard Lindzen.

Michael Crichton isn't ignorant, and if he went to med school i bet he's very intelligent and knowledgeable in science. However, he's not an actively publishing scientist in a field relevent to this issue, so, he can go ahead and be as skeptical as he wants, but his opinion holds very little weight in this case.

He has more weight than either me or you individually, on this matter.

You'd be surprised my friend. There's a couple of important factors involved as to why we have the unfortunate ability to influence our planet's weather.

1. CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, so it's the result of many years of pollution, not just the current year, that is sitting in the atmosphere. The property of CO2 that contributes to global warming, as you probably know, is that they do not allow heat from the Earth to radiate. Instead, the radiation is trapped inside the atmosphere, which is why it's called the "Greenhouse effect" - because this is the same effect of the glass in a greenhouse.

2. Humans have a truly amazing capacity to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. Coal-burning power plants are one of the worst offenders. I'm looking at you China, and Ontario, and hundreds of places all over the world.

It is a possibility, but it is a slim candidate among other factors.

A high African mountain like Mount Kilimanjaro? The one that whose permanent ice and snow is disappearing at the rate of about one and a half feet per year? That high African mountain? Link. In this case, we actually are big stuff.

Undeniable, but perhaps not the first time. Does Al Gore know that Kilimanjaro lost insurmountable amounts of ice, say, during the 1400's? Do any of us?

[Lizra]

Hector....you amaze and depress me. Honestly....Since you've started posting a lot in general messages, (you never used to) I'm getting the impression you briefly pull your head out of the sand to read Mallard Fillmore, and then quickly stick it back in again. Sure, I'm a liberal atheist, and you're a whatever you are.....but seriously dude, Get a grip is right. I sincerely believe everything the Gaffer has posted......and imo, it is shameful to waste anymore time in denial about global warming (Hell. it was shameful 20 years ago! ). Enjoy the oily milk.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

And they are who? Al Gore, Kofi Annan...thats two

No Hector, actual scientists. Trust me. I really don't have time to look up a huge pile of names of scientists you haven't heard of, but trust me, there's a general consensus.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Ok, let's say we exacerbated it. The question is weather...er, whether, starting from the premises that global warming has happened before, whether it is dangerous at all.

Temperatures during the 1930's were warmer than they have been in the past few years.

If the 1930s is your example, than obviously global warming is dangerous, since it was during the 1930s that there was a very, very serious drought in the USA and Canada, leading to widespread crop failure, the loss of top soil, and widespread unemployment, starvation, and hardship.

We don't want to look at isolated incidents (though they can indicate a general warming trend), we want to look at overall trends.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

MIT professor Richard Lindzen.

Okay. (Why did I ask for his name again?)

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

He has more weight than either me or you individually, on this matter.

Why? I'd argue that as a Forestry student, I know more about global warming than he does.

Sure, he's more famous than you and I (even though you are the illustrious Entmoot Prez), but that doesn't mean he knows squat about global warming.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

It is a possibility, but it is a slim candidate among other factors.

Other factors like what?

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Undeniable, but perhaps not the first time. Does Al Gore know that Kilimanjaro lost insurmountable amounts of ice, say, during the 1400's? Do any of us?

I don't know, did it?

If it did, it certainly build up its snow pack again since that time. Now, it's losing ice but the mean temperature of the Earth is actually rising. It's projected to rise between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius, which is a smoking big deal. Mount Kilimanjaro would only be able to restore its ice pack if the Earth experienced a general cooling trend.

That certainly may happen, but meanwhile, humanity will be in a lot of trouble for reasons that I will outline later in this post.

The way in which carbon dioxide is added to the air is very important in the greenhouse effect. When people burn fuels, carbon dioxide is not the only gas that is released. Many other gases are released as well. Some of these gases tend to reflect light rather that absorb it. This actually reduces the amount of energy absorbed by the earth, causing a net cooling effect. It could be that any increase in the greenhouse effect due to human-produced carbon dioxide is offset by the cooling caused by the other chemicals associated with human activity.
-Exploring Creation With Biology

Originally Posted by tolkienfan

So the build up does not neccesarily come from humans. If you take from that 3% the cooling gases we add, would there be a significant change in the greenhouse gases added to the air? What would be a significant change anyway? From the standpoint of the greenhouse effect, we really do not know.

Link to the text's site

I'm sorry Tolkienfan, but the author of your textbook has absolutely no understanding of global warming whatsoever. This is unfortunate, but it's best that you know, because now you can look for a textbook to study from that isn't complete rubbish.

Sorry to be so harsh, but... cooling gasses? I wish it was true. I really do. But if wishes were fishes then we could have a viable cod fishery in the Atlantic provinces again.

Allow me to outline why this textbook is not providing accurate information:

"When people burn fuels, carbon dioxide is not the only gas that is released. Many other gases are released as well."
Yes, other gasses like chlorine, which are a catalyst (something that enables a previously impossible chemical reaction) in the reaction of ozone (O3) breaking down into oxygen (O2) and an oxygen cation (O-). The chlorine allows the ozone to break down: O3 -> O2 + O

"Some of these gases tend to reflect light rather that absorb it."
Dr. Wile: There's a magical gas in the atmosphere that stops global warming! It's shiny! It reflects light!
Sensible people: But Dr. Wile, whether or not there are gasses that reflect light is totally irrelevant. The problem with global warming is that radiation (the transfer of heat) from the Earth is not able to leave the atmosphere because of CO2 and other "greenhouse gasses". Heat and light are two completely separate things.
Dr. Wile: ...... shiny!!

Please forgive the sarcasm. But nothing pisses me off more than abusing the trust of young people by teaching them absolute bollocks in high school. (I'm assuming you're in high school because this is a high school text book.) You have been lied to my friend, and I think that really stinks. It's totally unfair to you.

I can't believe this guy has a PhD in nuclear chemistry. (He does, I looked it up.) You'd think a chemist would know the difference between heat and light, two completely different entities. Maybe he does, he just didn't feel you high school kids needed to know they are two separate things. Man, I hate that crap.

"This actually reduces the amount of energy absorbed by the earth, causing a net cooling effect."
First of all, if this were actually occuring, it could be observed. What has been observed is the exact opposite. Second of all, if the Earth were experiencing a net cooling effect, we'd be in as much trouble as we are right now with the net warming effect. Imagine what would happen if the average temperature of the Earth dropped by 2 to 6 degrees Celsius! Yeah.

"It could be that any increase in the greenhouse effect due to human-produced carbon dioxide is offset by the cooling caused by the other chemicals associated with human activity."
I can't believe this guy is actually arguing that random other chemicals that he doesn't name (at least not in that quote) are somehow off-setting the effects of global warming. That is totally irresponsible, not to mention incorrect. This phenomena has obviously not been observed at all.

Also, claiming that people don't have a hand in global warming is a totally irresponsible attempt to say that then we shouldn't have to mend our polluting ways, since it isn't exacerbating global warming.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

The people who have looked at all of the scientific evidence in an impartial way say it is "over 90% likely that current climate change is being caused by human activity".

That's worth repeating.

Lizra, I heart you.

[Earniel]

I was thinking of making a thread about it, but I see you've beaten me too it.

While the earth has been through warmer and cooler periods in the past, I do think humans have a hand in this one. I'm not saying we're the only ones to blame, but if the warming had been a recurring thread, human behaviour certainly augmented it. The weather and climate are tricky and difficult subjects.

Never mind Al Gore, sir David Attenborough has made some pretty damning documentaries about it too, and on conservation, he's one man who's opinion I trust. Not to mention that his documentary chilled my blood and not in a good way.

That reminds me, I still have to watch the conclusion of the BBC's climate change computer project where they had dozens of computers running different climate modules.

[The Telcontarion]

This documentary on global warming is amazing. First aired on channel 4 in england it gives the history of the global warming debate and the actual reasons why the earth is warming up, ie the sun. Facts, fact, facts.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...arming+Swindle

[The Gaffer]

Nope. Try lies, lies, lies.

It was basically a rehash of the same old discredited nonsense.

So it’s the same old conspiracy theory that we’ve been hearing from the denial industry for the past ten years, and it carries as much scientific weight as the contention that the Twin Towers were brought down by missiles. The programme’s thesis revolves around the deniers’ favourite canard: that the “hockey-stick graph� showing rising global temperatures is based on a statistical mistake made in a paper by the scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes(11). What it will not be showing is that their results have now been repeated several times by other scientists using different statistical methods(12); that the paper claiming to have exposed the mistake has been comprehensively debunked(13) and that the lines of evidence used by Mann, Bradley and Hughes are just a few among hundreds demonstrating that 20th century temperatures were anomalous.

Further, the programme maker has previous:

More damagingly, the only way in which Durkin could sustain his thesis was to deceive the people he interviewed and to edit their answers to change their meaning. Following complaints by his interviewees, the Independent Television Commission found that “the views of the four complainants, as made clear to the interviewer, had been distorted by selective editing�.

Source: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007...ies-of-denial/

[The Gaffer]

El Tel, you already posted that. It's basically discredited nonsense and the guy who made it is a known fraudster.

Here's how I replied: http://entmoot.tolkientrail.com/show...&postcount=158

[The Telcontarion]

This is what the whole global warming is really about:

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may...population.htm

C02 is not a bad gas. It has been shown, the more co2 the more plant life there would be which would result in more o2; more o2 means longer healthier life, for all wild life on the planet.

A rise in co2 always follows a rise in temperatue, not the other way around.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by The Telcontarion

This is what the whole global warming is really about:

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may...population.htm

C02 is not a bad gas. It has been shown, the more co2 the more plant life there would be which would result in more o2; more o2 means longer healthier life, for all wild life on the planet.

A rise in co2 always follows a rise in temperatue, not the other way around.

Interesting theory, and I've certainly seen Malthusian elements as part of this debate.

I have to take issue with the "co2 good gas" theory, though. As a mammal, rather than an Aspen, I'm in favor of oxygen over co2. As a member of the species that does the most playing around with my environment, I'm constrained to acknowledge that we've paved, logged and generally spoken for a lot of the area that might ordinarily have gone into restoring a balance between the two. This presents real challenges, particularly when we start discussing where we would like the oxygen to come from and it revives a lot of issues around colonialism. Many countries with rain forest, for example, want to know why they should remain without development opportunities so that people in the US can eat beef and run their air-conditioning all the time. I think that's a fair question. Henry George, an American economist who devoted most of his work to a theory of how land use policies could more equitably reflect social justice, talked about this as "the disappearance of the frontier". Everyone had big fun as long as the population could push out and start in on new land, but what happens when the land is all accounted for? How do you credit the work of people who didn't happen to grab some first? Have we, as a species currently confined to one planet, just about reached our "frontier"?

My suspicion is, based on what I know of history, that poor and disadvantaged people will wind up bearing the brunt of either global warming OR efforts to slow it down. People do not have trouble getting the new Lexus through emissions testing, I notice. They even have special dispensations for rich people cars. So the solutions are still in flux.

But what is the downside to carrying reusable grocery bags and using lower wattage bulbs? Even professional environmentalists get snarky about corporate "greenwashing" (I could link you, to hear them whine ) but surely discussion of our impact is good by any standard. It's the "examined life", kwim?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

But what is the downside to carrying reusable grocery bags and using lower wattage bulbs?

This is a key point. Even if global warming was all hogwash, we live on a planet of limited resources. Things which we can't simply create out of thin air. It is also doubtful that technology will advance anywhere near enough in the next few hundred years to be able to reasonable gather these things from off-planet.

Basically, we are ultimately screwed no matter what we do, but some conservation now will extend the lifespan of our current race dramatically.

[The Telcontarion]

By ANDREW SWALLOW - The Timaru Herald | Saturday, 19 May 2007

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.

"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.

"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.

"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."

Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned.

"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?

"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

The original link is here