Is global warming/climate change a crock?

[Daniel]

Was having a bit of a read of some article on the net today and I've come to think that there's a good chance that Climate change/Global Warming is a crock of youknowwhat.

Last night I'd been watching some program about how if you look at certain patterns in the bible the bible has apparently predicted many assasinations and world events such as the twin towers attack and so on. Obviously a lot of people don't agree with this and set about disproving it and have since found similar messages in books like Moby Dick and other popular novels. So basically you can prove anything with pattern because patterns are fricking random and when you've got something as large as a climate on a planet then if there isn't a drought in Australia there's bound to be a severe flood or a hurricane somewhere else you can blame on climate change. Do people simply see stuff that's happened and then go "oooh there are more baseball games going on now than there were last year so that's what caused it!" or are we seeing real science in action?

As someone commented in the comments page below. How did they not predict the warm 2006 or the exceptionally wet summer of 2007 in the UK if global warming is having such a profound effect on the worlds climate. I simply think stuff is happening and Scientists are trying to find a reason why it's happening so they can be the one that proved that "Climate Change" exists and their picture can be next to that of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein in the book of "Scientists who actually discovered something real which didn't turn out to be wildly wrong later down the line"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08...ooding_plants/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08...ments/#c_54161

Here they also talk of there being vineyards (vineyards need warm weather of course!) in Northern England which would be impossible today so obviously the earth was rather warm at some stage in the very recent past and there was no industrialisation going on at this point either.

http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=16396

Thoughts?

Has anyone actually proved that CO2 in the amounts in the atmosphere is actually enough to cause this warming on the earth and is there any proof that this will be the end of us?

I personally think it's all a crock of poo

[tinchote]

I personally think it's all a crock of poo

You're gonna get some friends show up in this thread soon :


Anyway, I agree with you. In particular when I know that some of the evidence is not such. For example, my Inuit friends tell me that in the last two winter, ice melting was slower than usual. They also tell me that the starving of polar bears has little to do with GW and a lot to do with hunting quotas being established in the 80s, leading to overpopulation and thus to starvation. A last example very near to me is that this last winter in Argentina has been the coolest in 45 years.

I have been interested for a while in the wording "climate change": I don't really know what they mean by that. Do they mean that climate didn't change in the past? That doesn't make any sense. So, climate is changing, from what to what? I'm lost here.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Daniel, join the growing club of skeptics and realists who wonder where the heck did this new religion come from?

The problem isn't that there is or isn't climatic warming, it is that there are too many fanatics that seem to think that their answers to the question are the only ones that count, and that you are not allowed to contest this "Truth" or become part of a heretic class.

I have no idea if the Earth is actually getting warmer across the board. It is just about impossible to quantify, but there is a few things that are noticeable:

1) Winters in my part of Canada seem to be warmer with less snow. Is this permanent? Is this something I should worry about? Maybe, maybe not, but my summer this year was no warmer than most, and the stats back that up. Spring was slow in getting going around here, so does that mean this year is a wash? Heck, in the end, likely a year or two fluctuations mean very little. Real substantive Climatic altering evidence may not show itself for HUNDREDS of years. I think to base a lot of this crap on what has gone on in the last 20 years is nonsense, yet that is what this new religion is doing.

2) The earth was a lot warmer, and then a lot cooler than it is now, and that is in the period of the late first Millenium (warmer) until the Middle Ages, where it stayed cool up to about the 1800s. Evidence of this is from historical accounts, and the fact that Vikings landed in Newfoundland's north coast and called it Vinland and reported grapes growing. Now anyone who has been to L'Anse aux Meadows, where the settlement's ruins are would know that it is a damn sight colder there now than it ever was around 1000, so what can you conclude? One thing is for sure, we didn't have an industrial economy back then, so it wasn't greenhouse gas emissions from man.

Daniel my friend, be prepared to batten down the hatches for all the abuse you will take from those who believe in this crap universally. When you use facts and logic, you are called names, and then the caveat is always tossed out there "We cant take a chance that CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming, so wouldn't it make sense to be prudent?" I agree if you an show me how to knock down CO2 emissions without costing me or everyone a ton of money and kick our economies into a tail spin? If not, then some more prudent public policy and research is in order. I don't have any faith in the IPCC studies for there is so much research being done by people who are not sold on this theory who have found flaws with it, and they are a lot better educated than I, a common layman.

[Drew]

I don't really know what to think about it. I'm sceptical about global warming being caused by man, but I can't help but thinking it's not such a bad idea to try and clean up our act anyway.

[Daniel]

i agree. Efficiency, energy conservation and air quality can only be good things.

[NoFender]

I just look at the # of ice ages our planet has been through, and I ask, What guy with a factory,a Hemi, and a can of hair spray started those???

When Mother Nature decides to turn it off, she will, and there's nothing Al Gore can do about it.

No, it's not right to dump chemicals in our water, and No, it's not right to pollute, but sometimes these Green freaks go way over board.

[Hondo]

I don't really know what to think about it. I'm sceptical about global warming being caused by man, but I can't help but thinking it's not such a bad idea to try and clean up our act anyway.

I bow to the smartest post I've seen anywhere about global warming.

I believe the climate is changing as part of it's natural cycles, not the influence of man.

[MJW]

C02 problem - plant for forests, rip up the asphalt and have gravel roads. Make motorsport carbon neutral.

[BDunnell]

I don't really know what to think about it. I'm sceptical about global warming being caused by man, but I can't help but thinking it's not such a bad idea to try and clean up our act anyway.

I agree with you to a point, but I do believe that there is enough evidence of man-made climate change to make it credible. I know that, equally, there is scientific evidence to the contrary, but I don't personally buy into it.

I am certainly very sceptical of the way in which, coincidentally, many enthusiasts of things that pollute, whether cars, aeroplanes or whatever, happen to believe that global warming is a myth. This is no coincidence. I am not really levelling this at anyone here, but it seems to suggest that one's opinion on the issue is often based more on one's interests than anything more solid.

[Alexamateo]

... rip up the asphalt and have gravel roads...

just fyi. Gravel roads are actually more expensive to maintain, not to mention they throw a lot more particulate matter (dust) into the air.

Now, if what you are trying to refer to is not to have 8 lanes of steaming asphalt cutting through the countryside, a solution could be to have no more than say three lanes contiguous seperated by planting strips of trees and shrubs. Then though you would get people complaining about safety when cars run off the road and crash into the trees so what do you do? All life is a trade-off.

Back on topic. The earth is warming, man probably contributes it to it some, but not to the extent the doomsday predictors would have us believe. Regardless, if carbon emissions are a problem, they are working the wrong side, because China and developing countries are not going to stop progress. If it truly is a problem, they should work on ways to remove it after it's been emmitted not before.

Another thing is this. What is the proper temperature for the planet? The Vikings settled in Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period(800-1300AD), and those settlements had to be abandoned when the earth cooled and entered The Little Ice Age(1300?-1850) The Viking colonies died out in the 1400's because they couldn't grow enough food to sustain themselves anymore. We may come to find out that the warming now opens up great swaths of Canada and Siberia to agriculture in order to feed a growing planet population. THere is always a tendency to focus on negative aspects, when there could be many positives also.