Global Warming:The Politics and Science of Fear

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Don't fee the troll, James. Starve it of attention.

 

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I always thought that global warming was really identifying the change in sea temperatures and how they are effecting places on the planet that had previously NEVER thawed.

Just a few degrees is enough to melt icecaps and cause dramatic changes. Thats why the Polar Bear is even more of an endangered species since it's habitat is in danger, in fact you could find information on Alaska's Arctic Tundra thawing so much that they began having problems with shipping things on roads, since Trucks were sinking into what was once permafrost.

As for snow occuring on a peak, you should take into consideration how weather systems work. For snow to exist it requires for water to be evaporated into the air, with global warming this is obviously increased and creates high pressure fronts. When fronts merge you get various weather like Rain torrents, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards and of course droughts.

What I mention here isn't of course rhetoric after all the weather systems around the world are under constant observation by Meteorological institutes world wide. They have vast archives of data stemming back many years and with this data is the reason weather prediction has come as far as it has. That information shows climate trends and even shows climate reactions in regards to specific environmental accidents, atrocities and changes.

(For instance the Kuwaiti oil fires, St Helena Erruption, Florida's forest fires to name a few)

 

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I had to laugh at how most of the alGore supporters showed up to see/hear him rant in gas-guzzling SUVs, vans, and trucks. What a bunch of hypocrites

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http://www.zombietime.com/gore_in_marin/

 

There are three types of people who attempt to predict the future: religious prophets, fortune tellers, and science fiction writers. Prophets typically claim that a diety has given them advance information and often use general terms rather than giving specific dates, etc.. Some people claim Nostradamas predicted some of the events of the 20th century.

Science fiction writers admit they are only speculating and aren't claiming to provide an exact forecast or specific outsomes. H.G. Wells writing in the late 19th Century predicted airplanes, super highways, television, computers, etc.

Fortune tellers claim to be able predict specific events or happenings to specific individuals.

Scientists don't claim to be able to predict specific futures for complex situations because they recognize that too many variables can affect outcomes.

In 1896 Svante Arrhenius attempted to predict temperature changes based on changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere. He underestimated the increase in atmospheric CO2 and overestimated the temperature change. Last year climatologists overestimated the number of hurricanes and told residents of Southern California they would have a wet winter instead of a dry one.

The people who claim they can tell what will happen with climate during the next decade are really just glorified fortune tellers masquerading as scientists. They may really believe their predictions, but climate is too chaotic to predicted in advance.

 

I think global warming is just a shield for the use of nuclear power, some thing that is far more deadly and is (known to be dangerous to life) not just
now but for thousands of years, we can do some thing about N power now,
we can not do any thing about GW now if it is even in our power.

 

Oh and may be one should read Ask a scientist about global warming.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askasci/1993/environ/ENV032.HTM

Author: Eric Dallman
Text: Pam, such a seemingly simple questions require unfortunately
elaborate answers. Since you have asked two questions, I will split my answer
into two sections: *** What is causing global warming and what can we do to
stop it? Well, first of all, it is not exactly clear if there is indeed global
warming at all. The phenomenon of global warming was discovered when data from
various weather stations was compared from year to year. There seemed to be a
trend of increasing temperatures at most of the data collection points. This
indicated that the planet was warming at an alarming rate. If you think about
it, a rise in temperature of a few degrees or so at 50 or 100 points on the
earth does not mean that the earth is getting hotter. It means that the data
points are getting hotter. Most of the original data was collected in the
forties and fifties at locations in or adjacent to urban areas. As time went
on the areas of data collection became more urbanized. Logically, more people
and buildings produce more heat. Data collection at remote sites that did not
become urbanized did not indicate any warming at all. However, when all the
data was averaged, a very frightening picture emerged. The planet seemed
doomed. Because of the uncertainty of the original data (due to changes in
population at the data collection points), many new weather stations were set
up and an international committee was established to study global warming.

 

WHAT??? That has to be the most unique argument I have read in a loooooong time.

Why is it then, that most scientists who believe in global warming suggest using wind farms and, eventually, solar arrays for the majority of our power?

Oh, and I grew up near three nuclear power plants and I totally only glow in the dark on major holidays.

 

There has been exactly one nuclear accident that resulted in a loss of human life, Chernobyl. That was caused by a bad reactor design. Proportionally, coal fired power stations have caused more deaths.

 

GW is a proven fact, hence the amount of CO2 in the Oceans ..which was the last plank in the sceptics argument.

there ARE indeed bigger problems...large populations from africa, s.america and anywhere nr the Equator will migrate North to your city..make sure you have enough housing, Sandy ;-)

 

Well Britan is investing in nuclear, big countries like the US may go wind farms
and solar but i doubt it.

Who knows how many have died from radiation poisoning? and the long term problems of waste disposal.

 

Radiation poisoning is simple to solve; simply keep people away from the fuel and waste, and keep them shielded.

The long term waste can actually be recycled into more nuclear fuel in a special type of reactor called a Breeder Reactor. The US does not have any of these reactors because of some trifling political issue likely related to one of the SALT treaties. If more were built, the 40000 year waste from ordinary reactors gets used up (generating electricity with no CO2) and turned into waste that lasts for only 200 years. That waste can be safely sent to the areas designed for storage of the 40000 year stuff.

There is enough nuclear fuel for 1000 years of electricity generation using breeder reactors.

 

Well, the greenies should be lauding nuclear and fusion research. They are among the cleanest reliable power sources available. In fact is goes Solar, Hydroelectric, Nuclear, and Wind in terms of cleanliness and reliablilty.

We should also increase research into Hydrogen burning and alternate methods of CO2 absorption.

Not just becuase they MIGHT contribute to global warming, but becuase we will need the methods to colonize the moon and mars in the not too distant future.

However Ethanol is a terrible idea. How can we justify ewasting acres of land growing fuel when we still have hungry starving people in this world. Ethanol should be put on hold until the stvation rate on this planet drops below .1%.

 

They already are.

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And England is having snow? It's almost June

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http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007230784,00.html

Damned global hot air.

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Does anyone here know the science of global warming, or are you all just talking out of your respective asses? All politics aside, I'd like to know what the science is---it seems that more and more scientists are beginning to doubt the anthropogenic global warming argument.

Anybody? Or are you all just content to talk past each other?

 

We could of course err on the side of caution. I find it odd how much behavior we try to teach our children to question cannot be questioned if it is carried out by corporations.

A little caution does not lead directly to a Gulag.

 

Are you truly as dense as you portray yourself, Sandy?

Global warming does not mean that every spot on the Earth will be warmer than some reference point for that spot on every second of every day of the year. That dumba$$ argument is a red herring set forth by the Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. That argument, like Limbaugh himself, is utterly lacking in integrity and legitimacy.

Global warming simply means that the temperature of the Earth averaged over the entire surface of the Earth and over the course of the year has increased. Even the legitimate global warming sceptics do not debate this. In this sense, global warming is a fact. The legitimate sceptics respond with

• So what. The natural variation in the climate is orders of magnitude larger than the measured global warming.
• Who cares. The fear-mongers focus on penguins and polar bears. Sceptics don't give a hoot about penguins and polar bears. What are the consequences of global warming to humanity?
• Big deal. Even if the measured global warming is completely attributable to mankind, it was worth it. The standard of living has increased immensely over the last fifty years at the cost of a paltry fraction of a degree increase in the mean global temperature.

 

These are the same liberal moonbats who were decrying global cooling in the 70s. We weren't fooled then and we're not fooled now.

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Sandy,

You are proving my point. You are a mindless conservative wingbat.

Just because some liberal moonbats said stupid things 30 years ago doesn't make climatologists wrong today.

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Ben,

While I am not a climate modeler, I do model other non-linear systems. Just because a system is non-linear does not mean analysis is hopeless or that divergence is a necessary result. Non-linear systems often have pseudo-stable orbits (google "stable attractor").

One way to analyze non-linear systems is via simulation. Simulation is very important for studying the weather and the climate. The system (weather or the climate) is non-linear. Moreover, the initial state and the dynamics are not perfectly known. Stating results based on a single simulation run would be simply wrong. Climatologists don't do this. They instead use Monte-Carlo analysis: They run their simulations many, many times over and analyze the results statistically.

 

If it turned out that everyone here was completely ignorant and spouting foolishness (and you ignored the many links in the many threads, some of which connect to high class technical papers etc), how would it affect your judgment?

What's your default? That a 50% boost in atmospheric CO2 levels would have serious effects, or that it wouldn't?