Anyone who has seen the Gore movie saw one of his 4,000 graphs showing how there have been seven or more ice ages. Logically, there has to be another then, right? LOL. If those graphs were correct, then there WILL BE ANOTHER ICE AGE. When this happens, billions of people will die. So shouldn't we be encouraging Global Warming to counter the next Ice Age?
Actually, this was not an uncommon belief as recently as a couple of decades ago. However, global warming has already progressed past the point of simply stabilizing earth's temperature and, if left unchecked, will eventually kill just as many people as a new ice age would.
Yeah. Probably after all humans have died off from the effects of global warming, and gaia re-adjusts herself.
LOL. Yeah, we'll all be dead due to that extra degree of warmth and those extra few inches of sea level.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Give me a break. Let's turn on the way back machine to June 24, 1974: There's always some disaster looming to these purveyors of eco-doom. The ever present disaster (which never comes) always has the same solution: Destroy Capitalism, Destroy the US economy. It's good for what ailes ya! Whether the temperature gets one degree warmer, or one degree cooler; it's a disaster either way!!!!!! Our only hope is that the temperature stays exactly the same. Otherwise, we're all as good as dead. PS Shouldn't this be in earth science?
You might like to know that some ice caps which have been melthing reveal new species of ocean life. But at the time, many are dying. How much is unknown.
Maybe you should stop watching news. Might decrease all that stress. It's harder to resist progress than work toward a solution to fixable problems or things that could become problems. You recall the early 70's? You really believe we had no pollution then either?? You'd LOVE Mexico City.
No. We'll all be dead in a few hundred or few thousand years due to the MANY extra degrees of warmth and extra few KILOMETRES of sea level... if we do nothing. Great advances have been made in climatology since 1974. Your attempt to dismiss the situation as a gross exaggeration not worth worrying about might be more reassuring if it actually had a scientific basis.
If global warming really happens, will everyone move up north and fight to the death for property on the north pole?
No, of course not. Humans are wonderful, non-violent, loving, compassionate, non-greedy, helpful, and caring. So they'll all help one another to live happy, peaceful, non-violent lives all together while hugging and kissing and loving all of the other people. Ain't that nice? Baron Max
And he'll invite us all up there to live in peace and harmony and goodwill for all. Won't it be wonderful? Baron Max
Since humanity just emerged from an ice age, there is no danger of that happening again any time soon (from natural reasons). Technological advancement is a bigger factor. Just look at how society changed in a mere 2-3 thousand years. The fact that Earth has been cycling through ice ages on geologic timescales means that it is (or was) meta-stable. There is no sure way to predict the effects of greenhouse gasses and deforestation on this process. Nothing like humanity has ever occurred here before.
I wonder if all that CO2 in the air is caused by the vast numbers of hippo-critters all talking and breathing? Baron Max
Don't the purveyors of doom also say we're going to run out of oil in fifty years? So, regardless of what we do, our CO2 output will decrease at that time, rather than in hundreds or thousands of years. Or are you saying they're wrong about "peak oil" too? And as you pointed out, science and technology has improved a lot since 1974. Do you not think it will continue to improve? Our assuming we are going to continue using oil or coal for thousands of years is like some whaler from a couple hundred years ago wondering what we would do for energy once whale blubber ran out. Technology will improve. New and better sources of energy will be discovered. Our taking draconian measures now will do far more harm than good. I'm all for doing reasonable things. Using compact flurescent bulbs, insulating my house, getting cars with better gas milage. But I'm not in favor of a policy that would cost 12% of GDP for each degree of temperature change. What about you? Do you use compact flurescent bulbs? Do you have low E windows? Solar panels? Geothermal heat? What's the MPG on your car? As Al Gore recently demonstated: if you're going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk.
Yes, our CO2 output will eventually decrease, but way before then, if we burn every scrap of available fossil fuels, that may be disasterous, but we may need to in order to develop new technology and build new infrastructure. Technology isn't the same thing as energy, and there is simply nothing on Earth that can match the ease of extraction, transportation, cost and energy density of oil. We will simply no longer to be able to run society as we know it on anything other than fossil fuels, so we may as well plan ahead. What is the cost of thousands of people dying because they can't heat their houses in the winter, or cool them in summer? Personal responsibility is great, but will amount to nothing if we don't change our basic way of life institutionally. If we don't, mother nature will change it for us, and it won't be nice.
If you're right, then we're screwed no matter what we do. But there are many alternatives. Nuclear, wind, biofuels, geothermal, who knows what else we haven't even discovered yet. As oil gets more expensive, alternative fuels become more economical. Look at the astounding progress in technology we made during WW2. If pressed, we'll come up with something viable. Regardless, bankrupting ourselves now will decrease our options, not increase them. I'm all for research, but how can we afford research when the economy has been destroyed by draconian energy restrictions?
I read that some scientists think that we are still in an Ice Age right now, but we are in a temporary spike in temp. If this true we will go back to the Ice Age very soon, in which case we are all screwed.
No, because there's no land at the north pole. Once the ice melts, it will all be ocean there. I don't know about peak oil. But 50 years more pumping of carbon into the atmosphere can't be good. The problem is that there are entrenched interests with a lot of political and economic clout, who are actively working to prevent the development of technologies that might help alleviate the problem. Your faith in science is touching, but I'm not so sure. Yes, yes and yes. Not as low as I'd like it to be.
