Back in 1990 the then President Bush Sr. declared that there was no such thing as global warming and all the tree huggers were wrong. I was very upset with the old boy, ignoring all the evidence that says otherwise.

BUT

Throughout our history there have been several times where the weather has taken a strange turn. When this takes place the winters go haywire the summers are hotter then normal and ("O MY GOD, GLOBAL WARMING").

The big problem with this whole topic is that we may be right, we may be experiencing global warming and we may be the cause and we should be doing something about it. Then again 99.99% of all plant and animal life that has been on this planet is extent. Ten thousand years ago we were in an Ice Age, what is it going to be like in ten thousand years from now. Because when your talking global weather/warming you cant judge it on 10 or 20 years, its takes thousands.

SO

Are we experiencing global warming, I Don't know and neither does anybody else. Having said that, we may be experiencing global warming and should be doing everything we can to stop it, but, I think our ability to stop global warming if that is what the planet wants to do is going to be just about as effective as stopping a volcano. Remember the old ad were the line is "its not nice to fool mother nature". We not only don't know enough about how to stop Global Warming even if it really exists.

Personally

I really don't know, I will do my best to help stop global warming, but I really don't think it will make any difference and in 5 years from now when we go into this cold spell where everything not only goes back to normal it does so with such a force that 10 years after that someone will wonder what all the talk was about this global warming thing when it looks like were going into the next ice age.

I know its all cause and effect, and when that does not explain it all there is still that butterfly in the far east.

River

Well, I think it likely that we are going in to a period of global warming. I don't think it will be so clear at all times - we are likely to experience a patch of colder winters and summers now and again - but the trend seems to be there. What the cause is, is not so clear to my mind.

In the last part of the tenth century, some icelandic sailors settled at Greenland - which was then really green - and their families continued to live there until the end of the so called Medieval Warm Period, and disapeared around the fifteenth century. At about the same period, the Inuit people returned - they had disapeared around 200 AD when the glaciers retreated.

Now i think that the primary cause of the current global warming is the cyclic effect behind these same phenomenon here. And it is astronomical in nature - just as was the topic of another thread.

But even so, adding greenhouse gasses to the athmosphere may be influencing the situation for the worse, so it's not "all clear" even if the cause is astronomical.

However the debate is very touchy and difficult - there is a lot of the feeling that Francis expressed in the other thread: "human behaviour must have somehow made the Gods angry and we must therefore carry out sacrifices to placate them".

Sacrifice? Someone round up the virgins!!

Oh BOY!

Read about the mini-ice age around 1300 A.D. (http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/history_health.html)

This site (http://www.iceagenow.com/) says to blame the sun...

Read about when the Sahara Desert was a green jungle... (http://www.leemsilver.net/challenging/c ... Mother.htm)

A CAPRICIOUS MOTHER

It is not just other living things that can cause pain and suffering among human beings and other animals. Mother Earth herself can be entirely capricious and uncaring. Once upon a time, there was a forested paradise as big as the United States with an abundance of trees, including giant shade-providing acacias and hackberries, and verdant green shrubbery and grasses.1,2 The drenching rains were heavier in the summer, although the humidity was high all year long. Dotting the countryside were freshwater lakes and rivers with an abundance of fish. Along the shores, and in the shallows, antelopes, giraffes, elephants, and hippopotamuses lingered. Occasionally lions and tigers came out of the forests and made their presence known. Sophisticated civilizations of people were here too, raising cattle, hunting wild game, and planting crops. On the rock walls, they painted pictures of themselves engaged in these and other common activities. Throughout this vast homeland, for hundreds of generations, life was good.

Read "Bad Astronomy and Universe Today" (http://www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/)

Of course, you can take this crazy S.O.B.'s (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/geo ... stern.html) word for it, but don't expect too much, afterall, he carries the sirname of a Frenchman...

BEWARE! If you follow the crazy Frenchman's advice this is likely to turn the world upside down. If this comes to pass, we will be living in TURNOVIA (http://worlddreambank.org/T/TURNOVIA.HTM)

Bush says in the state of the union address that "Climate change is real" What's this? Chimneys in the Jungle??!?!!! (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html) Maybe that is not all that George was implying that should be smoked...

Sounds like somebody has got your Goat, or at least they want to... (http://forum.mg.co.za/printthread.php?B ... &type=post) Hey! What in the hell is a pice, anyways?

Will somebody look at this site (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... n-drought/) and tell me if Natalie is buried in "Wood's Hole"?

OF COURSE!!! It's in The Bible... (http://www.askelm.com/prophecy/p050701.htm) Isn't EVERYTHING?!??!!?!?:shakemitk

Scientists expect that continued climate change may seriously impact farming ... WELL....DUH!!

Read about it HERE! (http://greenermagazine.blogspot.com/200 ... chive.html)

O.K.? What's Next?

Singing Volcanoes? (http://www.odysseymagazine.com/pages/ss/earth.asp)



Is the shifting gulfstream (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/25/D8HR4K6G0.html)causing more deserts?

Is the climate of the world political? (http://climate.weather.com/blog/9_11592 ... commentary)

Mother Earth says It's the Goddamned Capitalists! They are "at it" again! (http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/e ... index.html)

Are we today living in a climate of fear? (http://www.cato.org/pubs/books/climate/023-68.pdf)

Why!... all we have to fear is,... FEAR ITSELF! (quote FDR)

Click here (http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_Man.html) to see why Global Warming can be good for you...by the Hoover Institution stink....er, make that think! YES! think tank...

But what if the Sahara Desert turns into a lush, green jungle (http://fwcon.wordpress.com/truth-about-global-warming/) because of Global Warming? According to the site above...

Chaos theory says that certain mathematical equations give very different results if you change things only a tiny bit. Our weather models are one such equation. If a butterfly beats its wings in Africa, it can cause a storm in Chicago according to our models. Tiny, minute changes, undetectable, unpredictable, and unknowable, affect our weather more than we can understand.

:-\ Well, River...

This is where I came in...

One more thing about smart people...

I.Q. is like the numbers on a measuring cup. The numbers show only the capacity. Also, quality is at least as important as quantity. A bucket full of mud is still full of mud.

Check it out here...

A-1 (imported) wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:56 pm (http://www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/

t-171.html)

Don't let them 'muddy up' the waters because you think that "they" are smarter than you...unless you happen to enjoy swimming in mud...

So there are two questions: is there global warming, and, if so, how much are humans contributing? Each requires an answer.

We may not want to add to global warming, but if it's going to happen anyway, we need to know what to do. I've heard little discussion of this question. Politicians and political people seem to be concerned wholly with humans as a cause of warming. This is understandable - if people get scared, they'll be willing to hand extraordinary power to the politicians to save them. Throughout history, identifying external threats has been one of the chief vehicles to political power. Bush had al-Qaeda; Gore & Co. have global warming.

The fact that warming is being politically exploited doesn't mean it isn't happening. Understandably, people are much happier with the idea that it's just a few selfish corporations and SUV drivers, etc., who are to blame. Then Al Gore can put them all in jail, and the rest of can go back to listening to the Super Bowl on small, environmentally friendly, radios powered by hand cranks.

A much darker picture is painted if we admit that the world may warm regardless of what we do. I don't hear this being discussed. The political witch hunt may be distracting us from what needs to be done. I hope we don't wake up too late.

You are all right, it is a two part problem,

however its hard to be convinced that we have global warming when its 5f outside. But I am doing my share, I don't heat my house above 61f except for a couple hours before bed. I drive less then 100 miles a month, and when I do go out I try to make as many stops as I can in one trip.

River

Weather phenomena are statistical - it's the average temperature that may be changing, and such a change would happen slowly over many years. As it is, every time there's a hot day, someone will say "See! Global warming," and every time there's a cold day, someone will say "See! No global warming." Global warming doesn't mean every day will be hot, and of course there've always been hot days.

I've always remembered this cartoon from some paper. (Unfortunately I don't have the picture as such...)

There's a lot of snow. And one guy is shoveling his driveway. His breath is a big cloud of vapor in the cold. Next to him there is a factory with billowing smokestacks. In the big panorama window the CEO holds a sign that says "Support global warming". The shoveling guy makes his thumbs up virgorusly. The caption says: "It's all about timing the message" or something like that.

Unfortunately I think a lot of the debate has been like that - use what ever opportunity presents itself, the end justifies the means. Use some fierce storms that hurt people, use the melting of polar ice caps et.c. to scare people. Use the polar bears - say they are threathened by extinction when infact they are not.

There's no room for reflection and nuances - no room for criticism to gradually work out the kinks in the rough draft - all the things we know that make the decision process in a democracy work.

Mankind takes itself WAY too seriously...

Do you really think that we could put enough chemicals or particulate matter into the atmosphere to effect a significant change in what is happening anyway?

About the only thing that can do that is a volcanic super eruption or an asteroid strike.

Yes, global warming is happening.

No, mankind is not holding a smoking gun. The evidence that mankind is guilty of causing global warming is shakey and circumstantial at best. This is just another theory just like those spouted by Karl Marx and the rest. It is so much bullshit and it is all self-serving...

Are you all too young to remember the days of coal and steam? Don't you remember how the great cities of europe were stained permanently with soot from burning coal? Ever see pictures of 19th century England?

This is another case of self-administered 'blame us' tantamount to a Leftist Munchausen by proxy aimed at the Western world in general and America in particular.

IF America wants to help the world it needs to take steps away from private transportation and toward public transportation. It needs to push electric automobiles and forget reparing the roads thus subsidizing the trucking industry.

Rail and air are the way to go and electric cars should be used for short distance transportation.

But maybe this global warming is the lie-du-jour that is designed to force people into making these needed changes.

The big question for Americans (and some Europeans) is why does our government keep lying to us and why do we continue to tolerate it? We might as well be living under Muslim Shariah law because the lies are lies are lies so what makes the difference?