Thread: GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE TRUE/FALSE

Originally Posted by Stubear

Whatever you think of their politics, it was really the facts of the article I was going for. Though I can understand the sentiment! I distrust The Guardian it must be said.

I may have gone off on a bit of a tangent. My point really was that I dont think "global warming" has been latched on to by the politicians simply because they have a desire to save the polar bears. I rather suspect they are using it as an excuse for hammering car drivers and generally meddling in peoples lives. They do so like to do that..! I dont believe for an instant that making SUV drivers pay more for fuel will stop anything. Might help the budget deficit a bit though.

The other point was that there is no way we CAN keep things constant, even if we had the power to. Climates change regardless of what we do and taxes will no more stop it than they will stop a meteor strike.

In terms of invention due to fossil fuel shortages, I agree with you. We ARE going to run out of them eventually so we'd better be ready with an alternative.

But here again, governments pay lip service to it with wind turbines (because thats a result now; "Look at all the turbines we built") rather than investing in more efficient methods of energy production, such as hydrogen fusion. No government is prepared to sink millions of pounds into R&D programs that might not pay off for 20 years because they'll be accused of wasting money and get booted out for spending the cash and not getting results.

Well, the facts don't prove or disprove anything either. Like I said, the facts only suggest an extreme weather event. Global warming isn't just about heat waves, there will be cold extreme weather events as well, as the dynamic of the globes climate shifts.

You're right, some of what is happening, in this country at least. Is wrong. Totally wrong. Road fund license is something I find marginally insulting to my intelligence. However, politicians and tax? what more do we need to know on that one.

Again, I don't think the name of the game is to keep thing constant. I think that is one of the most damaging approaches to managing anything. sustainable, how ever, is something I can go for. Wind turbines, in their current form are a joke. But that is partly due to the fact we still approach renewable energy like we do energy from fossil fuels. Big and infrequent. We should be thinking little and often. I would like to see wind turbines along the barrier of every motorway in the country. Small ones. and loads of them.

Either way, it's not at all a good idea to think we can just keep going like this. So lets change.

I submit that you are just making stuff up. Which is fine with me, but you just lost my further contributions on this discussion.

Have fun, guys.[/QUOTE]

rather than doing a little research, you have accused me of making things up or the same implication of being a liar, that statement was last made in a publication called "short skirts cause quakes" a series of small books that listed many hundreds of so called true science facts that were proven wrong.
many are laughable by todays standard, nevertheless were once thought of as fact.
i guess i made the following true science facts up also:
1. the earth is flat
2. in order to cure someone of disease they must be bled to rid the body of any malady
3. the sun revolves around the earth(which people were put to death for not believing in this)
4. any type of nuclear bomb explosion will cause a chain reaction destroying the world
5. that radiation will be too much for man to take and therefore make space travel to the moon impossible
all these were proven wrong as will global warming!!

I think there's a distinction that should be made between humans are doing bad things to environment and global warming. Yes, we're doing irresponsible things to the Earth. To discuss the global warming "issue" I ask you all to read this :
Anthropogenic Global Warming - Fact or Hoax? An editorial by James A. Peden

It's a long article but highly worth reading.

Originally Posted by claytor

I think there's a distinction that should be made between humans are doing bad things to environment and global warming. Yes, we're doing irresponsible things to the Earth. To discuss the global warming "issue" I ask you all to read this :
Anthropogenic Global Warming - Fact or Hoax? An editorial by James A. Peden

It's a long article but highly worth reading.

I am about half way through it. Very nice write-up. The discussion of CO2 absorption is quite interesting.

Originally Posted by claytor

I think there's a distinction that should be made between humans are doing bad things to environment and global warming. Yes, we're doing irresponsible things to the Earth. To discuss the global warming "issue" I ask you all to read this :
Anthropogenic Global Warming - Fact or Hoax? An editorial by James A. Peden

It's a long article but highly worth reading.

Are we doing irresponsible things to the Earth? or to ourselves?

Frankly, I don't think the Earth gives a damn one way or the other. Once the Earth's environment becomes inhospitable for us (which it may eventually become regardless), it may be very advantageous to another form of life. This seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

We seem to consider humans as somehow apart from the rest of nature. As though our ability to form synthetic substances, and manipulate other Earth native materials into "other" things, is un-natural. I don't see how our creative ability is any less natural than bees forming honey from nectar.

Our ability to manipulate substances can result in the formation of things that are harmful to us, and other living things. Maybe that is our purpose. That's just what we do. Just like birds build nests, bees make honey...man utilizes the Earths resources to perpetuate his species, and in the course of doing so, changes the environment, one way or another. Just as bacteria probably did millenniums ago making it possible for our succession, and then life, in some form, goes on. Maybe it's just our destiny.

Originally Posted by honedright

We seem to consider humans as somehow apart from the rest of nature. As though our ability to form synthetic substances, and manipulate other Earth native materials into "other" things, is un-natural. I don't see how our creative ability is any less natural than bees forming honey from nectar.

Valid point. We are creatures not known for our strength but our ability to use/create tools and problem solve. I suppose by "irresponsible" I meant dangerous to others. Then again, what is 'dangerous'. In the same respect as you say 'natural' what is that?

My point was to separate the environmentalism from the belief in global warming.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

rather than doing a little research, you have accused me of making things up or the same implication of being a liar, that statement was last made in a publication called "short skirts cause quakes" a series of small books that listed many hundreds of so called true science facts that were proven wrong.

all these were proven wrong as will global warming!!

Well, a popular book about science isn't exactly the same as a scientific publication. The bits about scientific claims of the earth being flat or the sun revolving around it tell me that your standards for 'science' greatly differ from mine. (I actually can provide you many actual examples where the opinion of the majority of scientist was wrong and that's the beauty of this approach - the popular opinion of the community does not make something right or wrong.) But pursuing this tangent seems unnecessary, so I'd rather keep it more to the topic at hand.

Your argument is then logically false. You are asserting one of the following (or both)
- 'there are examples where science was wrong, therefore this example is also wrong',
- 'there are examples where science was wrong, therefore science has no credibility whatsoever.

On the first point I think you can see the fallacy:

Code:

A \in B
C \in B
does not establish any relationship between  A and C

On the second point, if this is the case, you should just conduct a poll because that will tell you exactly what people believe and the arguments don't have to have anything to do with any observables. I can vote yes or no depending on my interpretation of a random Biblical passage, or by flip of a coin, or based on what I ate for lunch and it will all be equally valid as there is no need for any objectivity.

I think this is more than enough to convince you that argument is bad.

Here are the objective questions:
- how much is the systematic change of the earth's average temperature over the last 100 years or so?
- how much are the fluctuations of the earth's average temperature?
- based on these changes what is a reasonable prediction for the future changes to the environment?
- are these changes going to affect people negatively?
- can humans do anything to decrease any negative effect?
- if possible, is it politically feasible for humans to do anything.

The arguments on these that I've read in this thread are rather superficial, which just illustrates that the the questions are hard and most people here are not all that interested in figuring it out, or just lack the expertise to do so.

With the exception of the last question - political arguments are just that, there needs not be any need for something to happen, or there may be a great need and something can still not happen.

It is a bad argument to say that since there are things outside of one's control (eruptions of vulcanos, solar activity) then he needs not be concerned with even trying to control something. The scientific approach will at least estimate the probabilities and the amount of any uncontrolled effects before making a judgment if something is worth controlling, or not.

Originally Posted by honedright

Once the Earth's environment becomes inhospitable for us (which it may eventually become regardless), it may be very advantageous to another form of life. This seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

Yes, this is absolutely true. But at the same time humans try to get more pleasure out of life, that's why any negative changes in the environment are fairly relevant topic.

Heard it has something to do with that giant fireball in the sky.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

rather than doing a little research, you have accused me of making things up or the same implication of being a liar, that statement was last made in a publication called "short skirts cause quakes" a series of small books that listed many hundreds of so called true science facts that were proven wrong.
many are laughable by todays standard, nevertheless were once thought of as fact.
i guess i made the following true science facts up also:

1. the earth is flat

The first reliable modern appearance of that "fact" in western society is during the "anti-Darwinism" crusade in the 19th century.

Fact 1: The ancient Greek already had a pretty accurate knowledge of the shape and size of the planet, we're talking centuries BC here.

Fact 2: 13th Century swordmaster treatises show that the spherical shape of the planet was pretty much accepted during the middle ages... widely accepted enough to be included in non-scientific literature.

Fact 3: According to literature of the time, the scare in Columbus' trip wasn't running off the map but running out of provisions as most navigators were absolutely positive that his "guesstimation" of the distance to India through the west was awfully wrong. Which was the case. The "scare of falling off the edge of the world" bit was made up by an author around 1830, funnily enough people have been running with that fiction ever since.

Fact 4: Until very recently, there was a very serious Flat Earth Society in America. The founder died and a parody of the society now exists under the same name.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

2. in order to cure someone of disease they must be bled to rid the body of any malady

That is true, however remember that the alternative was to pray for divine intervention or pay the church for divine intervention.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

3. the sun revolves around the earth(which people were put to death for not believing in this)

Once again, something that was drummed up in the silly war between faith and science in the 19th century.

According to the literature around the time of Galileo, his trouble with the church had nothing to do with heliocentrism itself but two factors:

1: he tried to attribute to himself discoveries made by the Vatican's own astronomers
2: he tried to mix up science and faith in the demonstration, and might have said a few silly things in the process.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

4. any type of nuclear bomb explosion will cause a chain reaction destroying the world

That was one of the outcomes in the bet made prior to the test.

The outcomes on which you could bet were:
0kt, a dud
1kt
2kt
...
18kt [the winner]
Destruction of the state of New Mexico
End of the world through ignition of the atmosphere (which had been calculated to be almost impossible)

Originally Posted by 59caddy

5. that radiation will be too much for man to take and therefore make space travel to the moon impossible

Try making the hop to the moon without adequate radiation shielding and you'll prove this fear wrong... or not.

That is actually one of the problems limiting human exploration of the solar system... radiation shielding for long trips means hauling more mass, which means you need more energy to put the whole lot in orbit. One of the proposed solutions is to actually use the water reserves as a radiation shield by storing it between two layers of the hull.