Global Warming

I call Shenanagens on global warming.

 

I don't think theres any question we are destroying the earth. But god damn, imo we need those ice caps to melt, because before global warming kills us, we are gonna be out of water anyways.

 

Al Gore believes there is a half man half pig half bear. I don't wanna see any documentary on that man.

Edited May 31, 2008 by Ruby

I kinda think

covers all the bases pretty well in this vid regardless of which side of the debate you stand on...I think the title is kinda silly but good stuff regardless. Edited May 31, 2008 by Feanore

Belief in gloval warming IS a religion Shorty, as it requires faith to believe in.

 

It's a movement designed to do 2 things.

 

Take away freedom, and make certain companies lots of money by imposed regulation, all in the name of a vast hoax.

 

Gotta love it.

 

I already have a religion thanks though. ^_~

So... The bulk of the world's scientists are engaged in a vast global conspiracy?

 

That belief would require more faith than I can muster! Particularly since they have nothing to gain. Sure, individual researchers get grants for further study... But the whole scientific community? Surely someone who attended one of the conspiracy meetings would blow the whistle, right? Or an email telling them what lies to sell us would slip out?

 

I'll agree with you that I personally can't prove AGW exists, any more than I can prove aerosols deplete the ozone layer or that cigarettes cause cancer. In all of those cases though, I do have faith in the scientific community's position.

 

What companies profit from the belief in AGW? Makers of hybrid cars and alternative energy producers? We need those anyway regardless of emissions, because the fossil fuel supply about to run out. Makers of industrial stack scrubbers? We need those anyway, to control smog and acid rain.

 

AFIK any measures we would take to counter AGW would have real, tangible, immediate benefits even if man-made global warming is all a big lie.

 

It does have to be a globe-wide effort though. Instead of letting India and China off the hook, the US and Europe need to help them with stack-scrubber and cleaner energy technology. They are in the process of building out a vast energy and transportation infrastructure that could double that of the rest of the world in a reduculously short time. If the bulk of it is powered by new coal-fired plants... That scares me on a bunch of levels...

Coal is cleaner than it used to be. i say use the resources at our disposal.

 

I do not think I should have to reduce my quality of life for something that is not FACT.

 

There is nothing in this debate that can proven beyond the benefit of a doubt. Therefor if this were a trial in a court system, it would be thrown out.

 

Mind you, I'm not saying go out and kill the planet, don't progress. no i'm not.

 

I'm just saying, do not take away my freedoms, do not deny me resources that our right in our backyard that can lower the amount of $ i pay at the pump daily in the name of it. Don't tell me I have to spend $5 on a lightbulb that if broken in my house I would have to call in hazmat to cleanup, and tell me it's better, when I could get better light for $.75....

 

It's like pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining....

 

Thats a slap in the face. Environmentalism today IS a religion. It takes alot of blind faith to believe and follow.

 

Like I said. If things can be done that do not impose regulations, rules, sanctions, new taxes on me, or takes away from my freedoms or quality of life in any way. shape or form, i am ALL for it.

 

if it does any of those things, you can shove it.

 

Just my honest opinion. <3

Like I said. If things can be done that do not impose regulations, rules, sanctions, new taxes on me, or takes away from my freedoms or quality of life in any way. shape or form, i am ALL for it.

 

If it does any of those things, you can shove it.

 

So as long as nothing affects you, people can try and save the environment. That's NIMBY to a perfect degree. Sure the world may be burning, but as long as it doesn't inconvenience you, we're gold!

 

I do not think I should have to reduce my quality of life for something that is not FACT.

 

Environmentalism today IS a religion. It takes alot of blind faith to believe and follow.

I hear this a lot, and I'm convinced it's said by people who just don't understand science. The same folks who say, "So and so is a THEORY not a FACT." Blind faith doesn't work in science, because other scientists call you out on it. Every time a scientist makes a claim, its results have to repeatable. That a nobel laureate and a well trained orangutan come up with the same results under the same conditions with the same data. There's no faith in that.

 

Mind you, I'm not saying go out and kill the planet, don't progress. no i'm not.

 

Yes, that is exactly what you are saying. You are saying that we can only move to improve the world as long as you aren't inconvenienced to the least, even to the point of buying a lightbulb that will pay for itself in a year.

 

 

As an aside, what evidence would it take for people to switch their position? For me, it would be the majority of worldwide scientists to provide data that humans have no effect on global climates.

Coal is cleaner than it used to be. i say use the resources at our disposal.

 

I do not think I should have to reduce my quality of life for something that is not FACT.

 

There is nothing in this debate that can proven beyond the benefit of a doubt. Therefor if this were a trial in a court system, it would be thrown out.

 

Mind you, I'm not saying go out and kill the planet, don't progress. no i'm not.

 

I'm just saying, do not take away my freedoms, do not deny me resources that our right in our backyard that can lower the amount of $ i pay at the pump daily in the name of it. Don't tell me I have to spend $5 on a lightbulb that if broken in my house I would have to call in hazmat to cleanup, and tell me it's better, when I could get better light for $.75....

 

It's like pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining....

 

Thats a slap in the face. Environmentalism today IS a religion. It takes alot of blind faith to believe and follow.

 

Like I said. If things can be done that do not impose regulations, rules, sanctions, new taxes on me, or takes away from my freedoms or quality of life in any way. shape or form, i am ALL for it.

 

if it does any of those things, you can shove it.

 

Just my honest opinion. <3

Unfortunately humankind is incapable of progress without either a carrot or a stick being involved. We are just far to fractious and greedy a species to make any change that doesn't either pad our pockets or save us from imminent harm.

Governments are vastly imperfect, but they do by and large keep the civilized world civil. Take away the regulations, rules, sanctions and taxes (a fair summary of what government is), and the machetes come out.

 

We need that stuff to protect us from ourselves. Without them, there can be no progress towards anything that isn't an extremely short-term need.

I'm personally a strong proponent of environmental progress, so I'm all in favour of diverting some of our resources in that direction. I just love walking through the trees, sunning and swimming at the beach - And nobody our age can debate that we are rapidly eroding those simple pleasures through polution and depletion of resources, right? I remember when we could go for a swim without getting sick and broiled.

 

More taxes on heavy poluters, more encouragement for people to curb their SUV and bike to work - I'm all for that kind of legislation, applied intelligently so as to guide the public and businesses to the resonsible decisions we need them to make.

 

The very best point that Gore makes in "An Inconvenient Truth" imo was that the conflicting stories we are getting about Global Warming today are strikingly similar to the debate about smoking as of just a few years ago. At the time smokers made the same complaints - "I have the right to smoke wherever I want", and "We can find scientists who say that the link between second-hand smoke and cancer can't be proven", etc.

Honestly, none of the charts from the documentary (some of which were misused and provided easy ammo to the No side) or dramatic pictures of drowning polar bears had nearly as much impact on me.

We are a species of convenience, way too resistant to believing... inconvenient truths!

 

Heaven help us from a world run by big corporations who care about nothing that doesn't provide short-term profits! I worked with upper management in one for 10 years, and it wasn't pretty. Environmental lobbyists lie and exaggerate too, absolutely - But in our world they are a necessary counterbalance to the self-serving propaganda being fed to us by powerful industrialists.

All this crazy dance of lying lobbyists does seem to make things work, although it's hard to comprehend how exactly!

As an aside, what evidence would it take for people to switch their position? For me, it would be the majority of worldwide scientists to provide data that humans have no effect on global climates.

I don't think anyone even claims that humans have no effect. Look at a smokestack, watch the crap spewing out of it, and ask yourself "Do I think that has a good, bad, or neutral effect on the environment?"

The debate, as I understand it, is really about whether the effects that we do have are serious enough to be worried about. But nobody seems willing to quantify where that line is, so the whole debate is impossible because either side can be right and wrong at the same time.

 

If the global temperature rose 10 degrees, the icecaps completely melted and Florida and California were mostly underwater... Well, I live inland in Canada. I'd have to stay inside a little more in August, I could play golf until Christmas instead of October, and the value of the farm my parents own would skyrocket. So why would I care, right?

I live in the DC metro area, and we've had a colder than average year this year and haven't had more than a few inches of snow *total* all winter for a few years now... Not only that, but global warming should be increasing the total amount of arable land, and each historical warming period (yes, there have been ones before, and yes, more severe) have all resulted in highly productive periods for the human civilizations who existed at the time.

 

Ice ages are the problem, really. Ice ages are MUCH harder to cope with for living organisms - just ask the Neanderthals. Where I live here in Maryland was underneath a mile or two of ice during the last ice age (which carved out the lovely Cheasapeake Bay during the glacial retreat when that ice age came to a close). Huge ice sheets are a hell of a lot harder to handle than more arable land and more rainforests...

 

I fully support global warming and will be doing my best to contribute to it! I pledge to increase my carbon footprint each year, to the best of my ability. This, I promise.

 

Gotta do my part!

Edited June 2, 2008 by Gilgalad

Well, I'm kind of just jumping into the conversation.. But I'll take a crack at this.

 

I think global warming exists, definitely. There is proof of it, and the thought of it is very scary. However, I think that people are taking this way too seriously, and are reacting harshly to this. Global warming is a natural thing, have we sped it up? Most likely. But we've done plenty more things than warm up the earth. The earth will take care of itself, and if it doesn't, then we'll be able to take care of ourselves in time of need.

 

However, the fact that people don't look at it this way, we're spending too much time and effort into something that can't be altered, and if it could be it wouldn't be a positive thing. What we're doing to prevent it is a good action, and there really isn't too much more we can do. We're spending more time trying to fix this, in which will be something that won't have an effect on us generations to come, instead of solving more immediate problems. World hunger, diseases, necessary education, and plenty of more things. I'm actually pretty sure some guy brought that up on O'Reilly the other day, I wasn't paying too much attention to it, but the guys arguments in what we're over-concerning ourselves with just seemed to make sense.

 

Anywaysies.. Hm.