What are your thoughts and views on global warming? This is a very hot issue at the moment and will be for the next 10 or so years, however global warming is only a theory and although it is most probably true. Anyway I am reading a book on it at the moment so I will be sure to post my views at a later stage.
I think it's real and happoning, I just don't agree we are completly to blame. We are a factor yes, but there are others too.
Global warming... Hmm.. I do think there is things happening, my town is like, well the winters have been different. But then again, written history only goes back so far so maybe this is all about the natural cycle of things. Sure, I think humans do have an effect on this earth, I mean, it's bound to happen, all that exhaust fumes from your car don't exactly disappear does it? I think the planet may eventually right everything but then again, there might be one stupid idiodic human who will press that giant red button and BAM! oblivion is seconds later. I could add more or less and actually make it see sense but it's 3:27am and I am finally getting tired.
I believe we are in a global warming cycle. The planet does go through such cycles periodically. As a species, I'm not convinced our activities have caused this rise, but they may contribute somewhat. People look for simple solutions,and find it easy to believe that greenhouse gases from human activity are the cause, so undoing all such activity is the answer. I think that is wishful thinking.
My understanding of global warming is that the earth gradually goes through warm and cool cycles and that the thickening of earth's atmosphere may have accelerated the process. I don't know though I'm not an expert. Look at the bright side. Scientists say that at the worst, if the ice caps melted the sea level would only rise 57-64 feet. That's a disaster but its not the end of the world right? I also saw the theory of The Day After Tomorrow on Mega Disasters and apparently most scientists don't think it could really happen. So we're not going to end up in Water World.
Because they think that if we could cut our greenhouse gas emissions, eveything would return to what it was before.
I like it. In the south-east of England we've had milder winters and warmer summers than we tended to a few years ago. The water shortages are bad news, but I'm sure that can be addressed.
We've had some harsh water shortages state side too. I can't drive by the local lake (Where our wtaer comes from) without noticing how little water there is in it. I hear Raleigh has it really bad. A few years back they needed to send water in trucks to keep it going.
Parden my ignorance, where is Releigh? (Is that a typo for Raleigh, North Carolina, or somewhere different?)
it's a fact of life we will have to adjust to... and, whether or not it's a natural occurrence that we couldn't have kept from happening, if steps aren't taken to lessen our species' impact on it, it will have its way with us, eventually... political/commercial agendas make a mess of all that is real, allowing those who profit in some way to turn truth into doubt, or fiction and worse... the global warming football is no exception... but, at some point, the games will all be played out and mama nature will do her thing, regardless of what any of us 'ants' want/think/need...
As do I. I believe that our greenhouse gas emitions etc etc have some sort of impact on the whole global warming saga, but i also believe that it's something quite natural. What caused the ice age? It couldn't have been us, we didn't know much about technology back then. So surely it must have been a natural occurance. Is it so hard to believe that this is to, but mildly worsened because we all love our cars and computers so much? Indeed, this is true as well. It would be pretty stupid if we just kept on burning up gasses like there's no tomorrow (which there may not be ), but again, it's also wishful thinking to assume that the situation will stop once we do stop polluting. We might alleviate a little bit of pressure but I dont really think we'll stop it all together.
'Once we stop polluting' - do you know how difficult that will be. I mean the kyoto protocol is a joke. I really don't see pollution going down in my lifetime.
well actually -i believe- Bill Clinton did, then along with the UK they lowered the original targets - but George Bush pulled out of it when he became president. But Global warming does need a global agreement, but just not the one they have just now, with no US, China or India, and not very challenging targets it's unlikely to do much.
Clinton signed it or really wanted to, but Congress said if it came before them they would never support it. So it was never voted on and thus the US is not a signatory. And China and India do support Kyoto. Because they don't have to do anything. As developing countries the Western world pays them money even as they continue to do whatever they want. Thats why Kyoto's a joke. Canada, some European countries, and a few other developed countries stupid enough to sign on do all the heavy lifting and destroy their economies by moving hundreds of billions to countries that produce 5 times as much pollution as they do. As for Global Warming in general. Its one of the biggest, most useless frauds in history that has done more to hurt the environmental movement then nearly anything else. Mars is suffering from global warming in the last decade. Its icecaps have retreated farther then Earths. Unless the Mars Rover is producing a lot of carbon dioxide this should be impossible following the ideas of the biggest proponents of global warming. The sun is currently going through a particularly active phase right now, that coincidentally started about the time that temperatures started to rise. In the sixties and seventies when temperatures were cooling off, and people were worried about global cooling, the sun was not as active, having a lot more sunspots then solar flares. From 1200ad to 1850 we actually had something called the little ice age. Priests in some mountainous areas of Europe held mass prayers, asking God to stop the glaciers from destroying pastures and fields. Witches were held accountable for the lengthening winters, and at about that time witch hunts started to become popular. Look at the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware theres a lot of ice chunks on the river. There hasn't been anything like that in the last 150 or so years. And it couldn't be entirely artistic license for the painter to put that much ice on the river. The world occasionally heats up and then it cools down. Now here is why I call global warming a massive fraud, and an environmental disaster. Right now the global warming activists want the first world to transfer 180 billion US dollars to various carbon credit companies and developing nations to counter act global warming. Do you know who controls the biggest carbon credit companies? Al Gore, and the other big name global warming activists. Where will most of the money go to. China, India, and a few other growing economic powerhouses. Why? Because they are developing countries, and can't be held responsible for any pollution they create. So these countries throw their money around and get support from various politicians and people who want to make money and gain popularity as environmentalists, hoping to get serious gains from environmental initiatives around the world that only help them. Europe which is a big supporter of Kyoto, has a sweet deal in regards to Kyoto. There Carbon production is based on the individual country. But their carbon credits can be shared throughout the European Union as if it was a single country. So France has a lot of nuclear reactors. They get excess carbon credits because of that. But they lose carbon credits from not having a lot of forests. Germany has excess carbon credits for having more forests but lose credits for their energy production. Since they are both in the E.U. they can swap the excess carbon credits with each other with none of the fees or annoyances that other countries suffer. They then go to Kyoto and say they have a zero balance emissions, and don't have to do one gosh darn thing. Whereas if the US had signed on, and Canada which has signed on, don't have that deal. We have to cut back our industries to the bone to achieve the Kyoto goals, or in Canada's case, pay approximately 50 billion dollars to China to get the necessary carbon credits. Do you see the problem here. Now why is the global warming debate an environmental disaster? Easy, its drawn focus away from everything else. In Ontario, we use a lot of coal burning energy. Its not the cleanest, and it does produce a lot of harmful chemicals, and carbon dioxide. Now for a few million dollars, these plants can be made extremely clean. With the proper filters an entire day of energy production would create as much smoke as a few hundred cars. Thats really, really good. It will help ease pressure on the environment, Ontario keeps producing electricity, and it buys us some time to create cleaner ways of producing energy. The environmentally friendly government refused to do this. Why? The filters wouldn't prevent carbon gases from entering the atmosphere. Since it didn't stop global warming, it's considered useless. Tens of billion dollars have been placed into initiatives to stop greenhouse gases (such as creating fuel from plants, which is actually a horribly bad idea). Tens of billions have been promised. And an unknown number of potentially useful projects have been stopped because they would produce greenhouse gases. If this money had been placed into developing cleaner technology, cleaning up water supplies, reforestation, stopping soil erosion, building and protecting nature reserves, improving farming in poor countries to prevent the horribly wasteful agricultural practices used in Africa and South America, and countless other projects, the world would be a healthier place right now. But all the attention is put on global warming, so if anyone says that maybe global warming should be secondary, they are shouted down, accused of working for the oil companies, and not caring about the future. I'm really glad that global warming is now coming under fire. It needs to be desperately rethought before we do anything truly stupid and start destroying our way of life needlessly, and ignoring many other much more dire situations.
Thank you, Domoviye. Very well put. I didn't want to put my neck out that far, but I agree with what you have said 100%. We as a species are pretty arrogant, even when it comes to thinking we have more impact on the global balance than we do.
Especially since cows farting produce more methane a far worse greenhouse gas than all of mankinds industry combined.
