bobover3 (imported) wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:36 pm
Where's your evidence, other than the non-existant "consensus"? What of the fact that temperatures haven't risen for a decade, and scientists say they won't for perhaps decades more?
You and Riverwind may walk off arm-in-arm laughing, but don't forget to wear warm clothes.
One must first understand science to understand the effect of CO2 on the earth. You don't understand science, since you stand with the creationists, the intelligent designers, and the people who believe they are too stupid to figure out the harder subjects of life.
You can go pray for the world. I'll go build a smaller carbon footprint.
You can go look at the stars and draw pretty lines and create myths about them. I'll send probes out to find the origin of the universe.
You can watch and wonder as the oceans rise and crop viability moves northward and deserts expand and water dries up, I'll be doing something about that.
So they were grazing in in South West Greenland in Summer? Still could - look at Googls Maps.
But the Greenlanders chopped down all the trees faster than the trees could regenerate. Up there, trees grow VERY SLOWLY. No trees = no fuel. No trees = no lumber. No fuel = no more iron making, no nails or tools. No lumber = no ships or boats = no traveling or trading and much less hunting. No trees = lower soil stability, leading to erosion.
No trees = total end of the Greenland settlements.
Something similar nearly happened in Iceland too.
There is a moral in that story somewhere. Something to do with not consuming the earths resources unsustainably perhaps?
It's anyones guess what is next. The whole global warming will either be embraced or dismissed by our government shortly. The entire basis for "validating" GW is based on multiple factors only one of which being the fact that global warming exists.
Here is my guess.
The automobile consumes 25% of the average persons post-tax income in the US. Something will change, Global Warming is the primer for change, and may be the justification needed for some. (For those who still believe in Santa Claus and OJ please dismiss this entire rant as Global Warming does exist. In fact Santa is bringing you a new bike this year signed by the "Juice" himself.) But seriously, this country has a harder and harder time justifying it's insatiable appetite for energy to the rest of the world. It is unlikely that the earth can physically sustain rebuilding the East around the automobile, and provide cheap cars and fuel for all. Europe does not even come close to the "standard of living" here in the US, and judging by history we would have had another war by now if that was a viable option.
So more than likely an entire range of influences are going to solve the "energy crisis". The most important...Burningman. Everyone will be required to ride their bicycle to the desert and have gay sex! Once vaccinated for homosexuality the male will no longer want to work, or own a car for that matter. He will be content living in substandard housing smoking the best engineered pot in the world and having mind blowing sex or not!
Women will seek jobs closer to home and public transportation will flourish as young males are no longer joining gangs and dope dealing becomes state run buisiness. In fact public buses and trains will become a great place to round up, pack in and blow a load vs load on packin' and blow off a few rounds. Wow who would have though that the city bus would replace the church as a medium for group consciousness!
Of course resources will be drastically reduced as the average worker will not be wasting energy to go stand around eight hours for a check! And if all this fails...a nuclear power plant or two will be built.
...and remember the water and energy you save today could help create a family of seven moving to your hood soon.
Allow me to state my qualifications to pontificate on this subject. I am a geologist. I have studied paleoclimatology. I have also taught meteorology. I do, then, know something about it.
That said, let's get one thing clear. GLOBAL WARMING DOES EXIST. This has been known for most of the 20th century. By the 1940's, Alpine glaciers were known to be retreating. Oceanographic and geodetic measurements revealed that, throughout most of the world, sea level is rising, owing to the addition of water to the oceans from the melting of ice on land.
What causes it and how long it will continue are questions about which only the ignorant are sure. Accumulation of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere is only one of several processes contributing to global warming and the importance of this factor relative to others is very uncertain.
There have been major episodes of global warming before mankind was numerous enough to have an important environmental impact. From about 8000 to 4500 years ago, there was an episode of global warming, called the Thermal Maximum, in which Scandinavia had a Mediterranean climate. We had nothing to do with it and no one knows what caused it.
It represents a thermal spike in the deglaciation following the Wisconsinan or Würm glaciation . Neither glaciation nor deglaciation is a smooth process, there are interruptions and even reversals in the overall trend. These events are known as interstadials.
Except for the "mini-Ice-Age" of 1300 to 1800, temperatures have been rising unsteadily for the past 13,000 years. Is this the beginning of an Interglacial Age or is it merely an interstadial within the Wisconsinan-Würm Glacial Age ?
If this is the beginning of an Interglacial Age, we have before us a period of increasing temperatures for at least 37,000 years, followed by slowly and then more rapidly declining temperatures for at least 50,000 more years. In which case, global warming on a grand scale lies ahead EVEN IF WE NEVER BURN ANOTHER ATOM OF CARBON.
If the warm past 13,000 years and the present episode of Global Warming is only an interstadial within an Ice Age, then we have only a few thousand years before the glaciers return ! THAT is a much more alarming prospect than the predictable effects of Global Warming.
Glaciation and deglaciation have been going on for about 1.8 million years without any help from us, and they will continue to do so, as a consequence of causes which are unknown to us.
Aside from these large-scale natural processes, other factors also operate to cause increasing temperatures . Recent studies of the solar magnetic field have shown that
its strength is increasing. This tends to deflect cosmic ray particles out of the inner part of the Solar System.
Cloud formation is largely dependent on ionisation of oxygen, nitrogen and argon atoms in the atmosphere by collision with cosmic ray particles. Water will not condense to form cloud droplets unless it has something to condense onto. Ions formed by interaction of atmospheric gases with cosmic ray particles perform this function.
Less cosmic ray particles means less ions, means less cloud droplets, means less cloud cover, means less reflectivity, means more solar radiation reaches the surface, causing global warming. The importance of this factor is not yet known.
Carbon dioxide is identified as the most important "greenhouse" gas. We are urged to burn less fossil fuels to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. Almost no attention is given to natural sources of carbon dioxide.
It is very likely that not a day goes by in which there is not a volcano erupting somewhere on the Earth's surface. We are impressed by the lava and ash emitted by volcanoes, but, in fact, the largest part of the mass of matter emitted by a volcano consists of gases, of which carbon dioxide is the second most abundant.[The first is water vapour.]
We see homes and communities and acres of potential lumber and trees returning oxygen to the atmosphere being destroyed in forest fires. There is a major forest fire every year in the United States. We never think to consider that burning wood produces an abundance of carbon dioxide.
If not insignificant, the amount of CO2 produced by combustion of fossil fuels is
at least small compared to the natural sources discussed above.
If we never burned another atom of carbon, there would STILL be global warming. Perhaps it would be detectably less, perhaps not. We didn't start global warming and we don't have the power to stop it. But, shouldn't we DO SOMETHING about global warming. YES, we damned well should. The first thing to do is to stop wasting precious time playing the "blame game".
If we can't stop global warming, what can we do ? PREPARE for it. Be good little Boy Scouts. We must learn, and that SOON, to cope with the unavoidable effects of unstoppable global warming . We have done NOTHING about this. All we have done is waste time carping and blaming.
We have two choices. Either learn to adapt to climatic change or follow the mastodon, the cave bear, and the sabre-tooth cat into extinction.
Origen (imported) wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:47 am
So they were grazing in in South West Greenland in Summer? Still could - look at Googls Maps.
But the Greenlanders chopped down all the trees faster than the trees could regenerate. Up there, trees grow VERY SLOWLY. No trees = no fuel. No trees = no lumber. No fuel = no more iron making, no nails or tools. No lumber = no ships or boats = no traveling or trading and much less hunting. No trees = lower soil stability, leading to erosion.
No trees = total end of the Greenland settlements.
Something similar nearly happened in Iceland too.
There is a moral in that story somewhere. Something to do with not consuming the earths resources unsustainably perhaps?
Oh how wrong can you be?
Try for wronger?
At the time the Vikings were grazing critters in Greenland, the British were growing better quality wine grapes then the French. Grapes may have indeed been as far north as Viking, Vinland at that time. And lots of American Indians were leaving their homes and moving in these same years. All because of chopping trees in Greenland.
Try again.
Try some original thought and synthesis of ideas.
Science is not baby food nor should it be treated as a, faith.
sag111 (imported) wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:39 pm
If you all only knew what was heading our way you wouldent dream of worring about global warming.
If you are referring to the second coming of Jesus, orthodox Christian belief holds that Jesus was celibate, therefore, He never came the first time, and won't come a second time.
Bagoas (imported) wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:35 pm
Allow me to state my qualifications to pontificate on this subject. I am a geologist. I have studied paleoclimatology. I have also taught meteorology. I do, then, know something about it.
From about 8000 to 4500 years ago, there was an episode of global warming, called the Thermal Maximum, in which Scandinavia had a Mediterranean climate.
Even during the Atlantic Neothermal (8900 to 5700 BP [6,950 to 3,750 BCE]), which represents the Holocene climatic optimum, Scandinavia DID NOT have a Mediterranean climate, with winter rains and a long, dry summer. The Atlantic climate was uniformly warm and wet. You can pull out your copy of Huntley and Birks Atlas of Past and Present Pollen Maps for Europe: 0-13,000 Years ago, which you will recognize as the standard work on the subject and find no evidence in Scandinavia for Olea europaea (olives) or Quercus ilex (holm oak) which are standard Mediterranean flora. Vitis vinifera grows rather farther to the north and is not diagnostic of a Mediterranean climate; today it is still found in the Moselle Valley at the 50th parallel. The European forests were principally of oak (Quercus robur vel petraea) and elm (Ulmus spp.) but beech (Fagus silvaticus and Fagus orientalis), birch (Betula spp), linden (Tilia spp.), alder (Alnus glutinosa), hazel (Corylus avellana), and ash (Fraxinus excelsior) were also evidenced. The usual fauna consisted of red (Cervus elaphus) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), aurochs (Bos primigenius) and dwindling numbers of wild horses (Equus ferus). Few of these are typical Mediterranean flora or fauna, with its flora species of Quercus and Triticum, Hordeum and Panicum among the grasses and faunal species of Capra hircus and Ovis orientalis.
Ernie.