The responsibility of global warming

As a regular visitor to this site, I have encountered a few noticable threads about global warming, usually with great criticism from certain people.

So I want to ask this question. If global warming is occurring, regardless of its cause, do humans have a responsibility to curb its effects nevertheless?

 

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There is a discussion on going in UK that as Carbon Dioxide is an acid gas, and is reportedly "acidifyng" the Oceans [Exeter UK Climate Change Conference] it is therefore "acidifying" everything else in contact with the atmosphere, including Virus. The 'Flu virus is well known in medical science to prefer more acid conditions, and is discouraged by alkaline [less acid] ones, eg the action of Amantadine.
So the same mecahnism as is reportedly causing Global Warming is also possibly encouraging the spread of Viral Infections ?
Something for the Montreal UN Conference to discuss ? The EU Environment Commission have knonw about this theory since 2003.

 

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Well, first one has to answer successfully if humans know what the resulting consequences would be if they did so. I don't think humans have that kind of understanding/knowledge of the earth's weather cycles, do you?

What if we stopped global warming only to discover that the "cure" resulted in deadly viruses and diseases to multiply at astronomical rates and began to kill humans by the millions?

Baron Max

 

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Definitely! If we in one country are producing green house gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) that are causing global warming that affects other countries, then we need to be responsible for our actions and stop doing it! When you do something that affects the health and well-being of someone else, then you are responsible for that affect, and should suffer the consequences. Just like a crime, as it is, you should be punished accordingly and forced to stop that suffering infliction.

 

Name me one country that does not use energy, coal or othwerwise, producing these gases.

ONE.
Simple assignment, Valich. Name one.

 

Yes...

 

Antarctica, countless small island-countries in the Pacific. Either way, those of us who blatantly and irresponsibly produce massive amounts of global warming pollutants should not do so without a responsible humanitarian consideration for those other countries that produce very little and/or are actively trying to protect the environment and their health by limiting their production.

If we produce an acidic atmosphere eminating from our factories and autos, and wind circulation causes acid rain to fall down on another country, then we are responsible for the production of that acid rain and we are responsible for the destruction that it causes by destroying forests in that country.

Do you pee and poo in your neighbors yard? Or let your dog do so? If so, that's illegal.

 

Personally, I figure that our present climate isn't the 'right' one. Naturally, our planet should be far warmer and should hardly have any icecaps. Only two million years ago, there was temperate forest at the very northmost tip of greenland. Look back at the charts and you will see that we are currently at one of the coldest points seen by the planet for a very long time. It usually evens out at a level well above the unnatural temperature we think of as 'normal'.

If we aren't doing it or if we only have a marginal role, why screw with things. It seems rather selfish of us to force the planet to stay at what our species has become used to at the expense of everything else.

 

The point is that we ARE doing it. We have direct correlation data that concisely show increases in global warming with increases in OUR production of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide since the Industrial Revolution. And as a result of this human-induced global warming (and the reduction in the ozone layer) we are destroying the habitat of other species. We are killing them.

See postings on "World Ice Caps are Melting!" in the Earth Science category:

"Snows Fails to Fall in Arctic Tundra:
"In recent years, snows have failed to fall as normal across large parts of the barren land dotted with low birch and pines. Evidence that humans are pushing up global temperatures is growing ever stronger, ranging from a shrinking of ice in the Arctic to a warming of the Indian Ocean. In September, polar ice contracted to its smallest size in at least a century, according to measurements by space agency NASA and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Reindeer are especially vulnerable when winter snows do not fall. Snow is cold for people but for reindeer it is a soft winter bed. Lack of snow makes it hard for reindeer to feed on lichen because the plants can get covered by sharp ice, which cuts their soft muzzles.

Less bone-chilling winters have helped some pests to thrive, like beetles and worms that destroy Arctic forests. In northern Russia, frogs have been spotted more often on the tundra and some birds are not even bothering to migrate."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/scienc...reut/index.html

I also read about seal populations diminishing in the Arctic and polar bears being unable to walk out far enough to get them because the ice is now too thin. This is a growing problem for Inuit Indians in Labrador and Greenland too. They can no longer walk far enough out onto the ice to get the fish they need for sustenance in the winter.

 

One question: Why is our current, unnaturally cold climate moe 'right' than the one two million years ago.

 

I'm looking at a climate chart that extends back 600 mya. We are currently in a climatic warming trend since the last major glacier period 15,000 years ago. The Earth was formed about 4.5 bya, however during the last 600 million years there have been at least four major glacier periods (cold climates?) that were colder than the one 15,000 mya.

I don't understand the use of the words "unnaturally cold climate." Or the use of the word "right." The consensus is that we should do what will help people to survive, and that means stopping global warming.

 

Ice ages have and will occur again. That is a normal function of the planet. But they are temporary aberrations that are corrected as the planet shifts back to equilibrium. Lets look at the whole Daisyworld Theory; a system of living things attempts (without conscious or directed effort) to remain at a state with the highest possibility capability to support life. Having one whole continent and huge chunks of the rest in the world frozen in ice or stuck in some perpetual tundra is not conducive to this end.

The Paleocene (65-56 million years) was downright steamy and had subtropical jungles in Greenland when it was in about the same place it is now. There were temperate rainforests and even the poles. The Eocene (56-34 million years) was much warmer and was actually marked by one of the greatest periods of global warming possible. The Oligocene (34-23 million years) was generally warm. The Miocene (23-5 million years) was the home of massive savannas and hot-weather grasslands, the product of another spot of global warming.

Only at the Pliocene (5-1.8 million years... a pimple on the world's ass as far as time goes) does things get really cold in the time since the K-T extinction event. Glaciers literally eat everything north of New Jersey and everything is basically screwed over. There are some quick adaptations done by survivors from the previous eras. Mammoth, some other rare and lucky members of the members of the megafauna, etc. And we still haven't quite shrugged off its icy embrace yet.

You say we shouldn't concern ourselves with how things would normally be and that we should focus solely on what will help members of our own species survive with greatest ease. Well fuck humans. There are six billion of us already and more coming every day. Survival does not seem to be very high on our agenda today.

 

Clockwood:

I enjoy how you somehow label the climate during an Ice Age as not being in 'equilibrium'. What justification do you have for doing so?

 

i voted the last option (conspiracy/hoax) and you will too when you read:
"angels don't play this haarp"

 

I don't think there is any question that the human extraction of carbon is causing unprecedented global warming. If it was just a natural thing, then no, there is nothing we should do about it, but if that were true, it would not be so severe, and it wouldn't be any problem.

Every nation on Earth, but mostly the industrialized ones, should put the resources we now have to bear on the problem. It would be wrong to outlaw burning fossil fuels right away because we need this power, if only to develop alternatives. There is alot we could do in terms of effeciency, but in this time of McMansions, the personal Motorcoach bus, and a Republican government, I think we're fucked. If we stopped producing any carbon right now, global warming would continue for hundreds of years.

We should:

1. Rebuild our train and light rail infrastructure.
2. Develop and build many new nuclear power plants.
3. Increase effeciency standards for cars, houses and appliances.
4. Subsidize solar energy research and solar panel manufacture.
5. Ratify the Kyoto Treaty as an example to the world.
...

Soon the point will be moot. There won't be cheap fossil fuel to burn, and we won't have any alternatives but the horse, bicycle, and farming, and the problem will solve itself, as long as we don't burn down the forests to keep warm.

 

spidergoat:

No no no. Don't you understand, it's all CONSPIRACY! The scientists are all lying, and the politicians are all telling us the God to honest truth! You know that correlation between the increased production of greenhouse gases, and the increase in global temperature? Yeah, well... I'm just saying, it's all a CONSPIRACY! (TM)

 

read the book

 

spidergoat and valich,

You two in particular seem convinced that humans are to blame for "global warming", but I was under the impression that there is actually a very big question as to rather "global warming" is being caused by humans at all. I have seen reports telling me that a vast majority of scientists in the Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society don't agree that global warming is caused by human actions. That was a while ago so maybe opinions have changed since then. I have also seen much more recent reports indicating that satellite measurements actually show a decrease in global temperature. Still other reports I have read seem to claim that "global warming" correlates rather well with solar activity. I am a scientist and this doesn't sound like scientific consensus to me. I regret to say that I have none of these references available to me at the moment. Let me ask this question then: how are you two so convinced that global warming is indeed happening and that it is caused by humans? Please feel free to be as technical as you like in your response.

Assuming for a moment that humans do not cause global warming, but that it is actually happening, shouldn't we be very careful before we tamper with such a complicated system for own perceived benefit?

 

We are already tampering with the climate. If we stop sending greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, there is no way this will hurt any natural process.

There is not a big question about wether the current warming trend is caused by humans. I know this by reading New Scientist, National Geographic, and other scientific magazines. Certainly the Earth's climate is variable, but recent studies of the arctic and antarctic climate and ice cores show an unprecedented heating and rise in CO2.

But, there is a deliberate compaign to confuse the public on this issue. The most environmentally damaging industries are also the most profitable.

 

I'm just not convinced that scientists are convinced. If the facts are so clear, why is there disagreement? Why do many reputable scientists insist that global warming isn't being caused by humans? Accusations as to the motives of the researchers have been thrown about on both sides of the issue, so I just don't understand how you can be so sure that one side is right and the other is wrong.