Global Warming Poll

[flytyer57]

(for instance it's snowing like crazy in Buffalo New York this year...primarily because Lake Erie was hotter than it ever had been going into the winter and the lake effect has gone nuts).

Having lived most of my life in the Great Lakes area, I can tell you that Buffalo, NY is no stranger to snow. As far back as I can remember Buffalo always got a lot of snow.

[gotmuddy]

Not quite.

The half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 100 years, not 8 hours. We're still tearing out the forests that take it out of the atmosphere and pouring in more from fossil fuels all the time. Based on the rate we're adding it to the atmosphere now (with no let up in sight) there's going to be a lot of GWI over the rest of our lifetimes.

you do not understand what I was talking about apparently. Compare the lifespan of man to the lifespan of the earth. 100 years to the earth is relative to minutes of your or my life.

[gotmuddy]

What you posted here is what you do when you know your points are in trouble.

I cannot see how my points are in trouble.

[Al Agnew]

you do not understand what I was talking about apparently. Compare the lifespan of man to the lifespan of the earth. 100 years to the earth is relative to minutes of your or my life.

But we're not talking about the lifespan of the earth, we're talking about what may happen during our own lifetimes that will have consequences throughout our children's and grandchildren's lifetimes. Yep, like I said before, the earth will repair itself after a fashion, but it could be far too late for us and a lot of other critters we share the earth with.

One of my nephews has a Phd in environmental science. Just spent a year studying the situation with plant communities on mountainsides in South Africa. Why South Africa? Because climate change seems to be more pronounced at this point nearer the poles, and South Africa is a good place to study the effects of it on wet mountain ecologies. He found that the plant communities have been "migrating" up the mountainsides. As the climate warms, plants that evolved to live in one zone of altitude are finding that zone too warm, and so they have to "move" up the mountain to find the same microclimate. Now plants don't just pick up and move, obviously. What happens is that the plants on the lower edge of the zone die, and the plants on the upper edge spread their seeds on up the mountain, where those seeds sprout where they couldn't sprout before. Problem is, if the climate changes too quickly, a lot of plants can't do that fast enough. If their whole zone gets too warm too quickly, they all die. And that's what is happening on those South African mountainsides. So, if in the next 10 years we would cut out most of our fossil fuel use, and in 20 years the climate would stabilize (neither of which is going to happen), it would still be too late for the plants on those mountains.

That's just one small example. The earth might be able to fix itself if we let it (which so far we have shown no signs of doing so), but it will be too late for a lot of species. Our children will inherent an earth vastly different from the one we have. And if my whole tipping point idea goes into effect, the earth could take many centuries to get back to what we are used to now...or perhaps NEVER get there.

[Al Agnew]

I love the "scientific" approach used by this person. What a farce.

Just had to respond to this...the only way to know for sure what will happen is to wait and see what happens. And that's obviously way too late. But what you say is a farce is what science is in cases like this. You look at the data, you do the modeling, and then you make your best assumption based upon what you're seeing. The question isn't the predictions, which are based upon real data and real modeling. The question is simply how good the data and modeling they are based upon is. A lot of scientists have looked at that data and modeling and come to the conclusion that it's good enough to make those predictions. A few have looked at it and come to other conclusions. But unless you're an expert in the field, I don't think you can just call it a farce. At this point neither you nor I nor the guy who wrote that can say FOR SURE whether it's right or wrong. But let's call it the best educated guess of a bunch of people who know a lot more about it than we do. The REALLY unscientific thing to do would be to say that stuff IS DEFINITELY going to happen.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I tend to think of it more like the last half-hour aboard the Titanic- despite overwhelming evidence the place crashing down all around you, let's keep the band playing, let's everyone remain calm, nothing to worry about...

Right on! That is the best one yet.

Hope you didn't hurt yourself.

I was doing two things at once. Not something you should try at home.

BTW, somebody thow GM a life jacket. He is in way over his head.

[gotmuddy]

Right on! That is the best one yet.

I was doing two things at once. Not something you should try at home.

BTW, somebody thow GM a life jacket. He is in way over his head.

I have never been good at e-arguments because they are as useful as tits on a boar hog. The funny thing is I am more prepared than most here to go back to pre-fossil fuel living.

I am not saying we have no effect on the world, but until we can come up with UNBIASED scientific evidence( the term scientific consensus is the biggest farce of all) I refuse to give up my way of life. I hate hearing about global warming "research" stations being setup next to AC units or on blacktop asphalt.

[Tim Smith]

you do not understand what I was talking about apparently. Compare the lifespan of man to the lifespan of the earth. 100 years to the earth is relative to minutes of your or my life.

No, muddy, the problem with your argument is that the clearing rate for CO2 is too slow to help us on the scale of contemporary human lives.

Climate is a long term geologic process, but this isn't a long term geologic/evolutionary issue. This is a contemporary issue that is beginning to affect us now.

The whole reason climate change is a popular debate is because of the effects and potential effects on HUMANS, on our KIDS and our GRANDKIDS.

[Tim Smith]

I cannot see how my points are in trouble.

Well your primary issue there was that you didn't make one...

...that and you've got a little testosterone issue.

[Outside Bend]

I am not saying we have no effect on the world, but until we can come up with UNBIASED scientific evidence( the term scientific consensus is the biggest farce of all) I refuse to give up my way of life. I hate hearing about global warming "research" stations being setup next to AC units or on blacktop asphalt.

That's the whole point of science GotMuddy, it IS unbiased. It'd be far more lucrative for scientists to work on the side of the fossil fuel industries to disprove global warming- funding is practically limitless, and is basically guaranteed. Compare it to a government grant, which typically don't run all that much, require a fair bit of oversight & accountability, and which can be bound up in bureaucracy, postponed, or dry up entirely. To me that these scientists aren't following the most lucrative money stream indicates it's not about personal enrichment, but that it really is about conducting good science.

That's just me, though.