Global climate change...

[LTb1ow]

Lets have at it...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091211/wl_afp/australiaantarcticaiceberg

http://www.michaelkeller.com/news/news575.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5664069/Polar-bear-expert-barred-by-global-warmists.html

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/11/un-security-stops-journalists-questions-about-climategate/

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17835


What do you guys think on this topic?

I am all for humans stopping our pollution of the planet but doing it in the name of "global warming" is not looking so good any more these days...

*Keep politics out of it please*

[Frosty]

Those that spread these lies will soon be seen for who they are. Once people wake up and do some actual research they'll realize that this is nothing more than fear-mongering(hmmm, wasn't a certain someone accused of that years ago?).

This is NOTHING more than a select few gaining more money and power. This is about moving towards a one world government under the guise of saving the polar bears. This is about redistribution of wealth(hmmm, why are we, and a few other rich countries, being asked to kick in $10 billion/yr to give to "poor" countries to help with "climate change"?).

I'm all for keep mother Earth clean, we live here. But to ram this "crisis" down our throats is ridiculous. Thirty years ago the "crisis" was global cooling. In '96(the first Earth Day) scientists said by now we'd all be cannibals because crops/food would be scarce. Hmmm, I don't know about you guys but I'm happily eating corn, broccoli and meat. I haven't been forced to eat my neighbor(though she's old and wrinkly, probably not too tender lol lol). Every few decades there's a new "crisis" with a new name but the same ultimate goal.

There's no debate that the Earth is getting warmer(and cooling in the last few years) but what the debate should be is WHY! Al Gore and his cronies say the debate is over....hmmm...really? Those that question him are nothing more than Holocaust deniers and flat Earth believers according to his camp. Really? It's over because some douche bag politician with MILLIONS UP MILLIONS OF DOLLARS invest in this stuff says so? I don't think so.

We should do our part to keep our country clean...but at the expense of more government power, control and to destroy our economy? NO THANKS. Unfortunately this IS a political issue...as it's being brought into our law and more importantly our economy.

[transmaro93]

how can you keep politics out when its completely fabricated from a political stand point...

[Frosty]

I find it funny that these protests turned violent with almost 1K people arrested over in Copenhagen yet some of the protests here were ridiculed and those that took part were insulted...yet ironically they were peaceful.

Anyway, it's impossible to keep politics out of this topic...because it's politics that drive the science. Those that don't fit into the political model are silenced or discredited to the point where they have no voice. That's slowly changing as people are waking up.

It's just a shame that science can be manipulated to fit an agenda or be manipulated for a big pay day.

[Frosty]

BTW, here's a good link to MANY links....long, long reading.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/blogwatch/BlogWatch-Greatest_Scam_in_History.pdf

[SamhainZ28]

IBTL :dancinglock:

[LTb1ow]

Why would this be locked?

Keep it informative and mature... no need for a lock.


Nice link Frosty, I will read some of it after finals.

[Frosty]

No need to lock it, no one brought up a particular party or leader(aside from Al Gore but his name is completely relevant).

[91chevywt]

I still don't think there is enough evidence to prove it is at the fault of human beings for "global warming." The earth goes through heating and cooling cycles throughout its life, whos to say thats not whats happening. Theyre all theories. There is a theory that the elevated levels of CO2 comes as a by-product of the overall warming of the earth but you won't hear about it in the news.

That being said, I still think it is important to keep cars clean. Pollution down at the ground level is totally different from CO2 in the atmosphere. Breathing in Carbon Monoxide and Hydrocarbons is not something we should go back to. Cars are the cleanest they have ever been and making nice power to boot

[BigAls87Z28]

I belive that the earth goes through changes, but no doubt that we have had a large hand in advancing things.
It has nothing to do with politics. People will always have difference of opinions. For thousands of years, people thought the earth was flat, that the Earth was the center of the universe. That the moon was made of cheese.

[Z28 Heritage]

I belive that the earth goes through changes, but no doubt that we have had a large hand in advancing things.
It has nothing to do with politics. People will always have difference of opinions. For thousands of years, people thought the earth was flat, that the Earth was the center of the universe. That the moon was made of cheese.HAHAHAHAHA:rofl:

[Z28 Heritage]

I just think the earth is going through changes. But what ever!

[BigAls87Z28]

One of your links had a link inside to go to another related topic titled.."Environmentalists to blame for 9-11 deaths"

Total fail. Most sciencetists, and I mean 95%, beilve that we have much to do about global climate change.
I can find someone that still thinks that the Arc saved millions of animals from dying off too. Doesnt disprove it.

[98tadriver]

we are coming out of an ice age. its not "global warming" pollute away!

[BigAls87Z28]

I guess NASA and NOAA are just branches of the liberal elite since they have done nothing but act superior with thier advanced "rocket science" and what not.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/

Read'em and weep.

A Dec. 3 Rasmussen survey found that only 25 percent of adults surveyed said that "most scientists agree on global warming" while 52 percent said that "there is significant disagreement within the scientific community" and 23 percent said they were not sure. The truth is that over the 13 years covered by the CRU e-mails, scientific consensus has only become stronger as the evidence for global warming from various sources has mounted. Reports from the National Academies and the U.S. Global Change Research Program that analyze large amounts of data from various sources also agree, as does the IPCC, that climate change is not in doubt. In advance of the 2009 U.N. climate change summit, the national academies of 13 nations issued a joint statement of their recommendations for combating climate change, in which they discussed the "human forcing" of global warming and said that the need for action was "indisputable." Leading scientists are unequivocally reaffirming the consensus on global warming in the wake of "Climategate." White House science adviser John Holdren said at a congressional hearing on climate change: "However this particular controversy comes out, the result will not call into question the bulk of our understanding of how the climate works or how humans are affecting it." The American Association for the Advancement of Science released a statement "reaffirm[ing] the position of its Board of Directors and the leaders of 18 respected organizations, who concluded based on multiple lines of scientific evidence that global climate change caused by human activities is now underway, and it is a growing threat to society." The American Meteorological Society and the Union of Concerned Scientists have also reiterated their positions on climate change, which they say are unaffected by the leaked e-mails.

– by Jess Henig

[NastyEllEssWon]

i hate how humans think that we're so high and mighty that we can kill the great big earth. its our biggest downfall. the earth doesnt need us....we need the earth. once we become too big of a threat to the earths environment itll just kill us all and cleanse itself for the next set of life to ''dominate'' the earth.

[HeadlessNorseman]

I believe global warming(and a directly related cooling process) predates humanity and civilization by a few billion years? even IF we are accelerating it, its going to happen anyway. The real answer is to drastically reduce the human population of the earth. That would solve everything.

[Frosty]

Al it absolutely is political, it doesn't take a scientist to see that(no pun intended). It's absolutely about power, $$$ and control...always has been.

Now, that's not to say we don't contribute because it'd be ridiculous to say we don't. However everything is such a crisis. Look back through the last 30-40 years and see how the "crisis" has changed....that's the problem I have. I have no problem keeping our Earth clean, we should...but it just seems when science is wrong they come up with another crisis or change it to make it more appealing. It's all about how you market it. You get the masses to believe a fallacy you can pretty much do whatever you want...including moving towards a more unified world system...sorry, we should march to the beat of our drum...

[LTb1ow]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BD4D020091214?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&rpc=22&sp=true


Heh, irony at its best.

[BonzoHansen]

Lots of good stuff on this lately. This guy seems reasonable. Opinion piece in today's WSJ.

Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming
Investing in energy R&D might work. Mandated emissions cuts won't.

By BJORN LOMBORG

Copenhagen

The saddest fact of climate change—and the chief reason we should be concerned about finding a proper response—is that the countries it will hit hardest are already among the poorest and most long-suffering.

In the run-up to this month's global climate summit in Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Consensus Center dispatched researchers to the world's most likely global-warming hot spots. Their assignment: to ask locals to tell us their views about the problems they face. Over the past seven weeks, I recounted in these pages what they told us concerned them the most. In nearly every case, it wasn't global warming.

Everywhere we went we found people who spoke powerfully of the need to focus more attention on more immediate problems. In the Bauleni slum compound in Lusaka, Zambia, 27-year-old Samson Banda asked, "If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?" In a camp for stateless Biharis in Bangladesh, 45-year-old Momota Begum said, "When my kids haven't got enough to eat, I don't think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about." On the southeast slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, 45-year-old widow and HIV/AIDS sufferer Mary Thomas said she had noticed changes in the mountain's glaciers, but declared: "There is no need for ice on the mountain if there is no people around because of HIV/AIDS."

There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn't mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions.

Take malaria. Most estimates suggest that if nothing is done, 3% more of the Earth's population will be at risk of infection by 2100. The most efficient global carbon cuts designed to keep average global temperatures from rising any higher than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a plan proposed by the industrialized G-8 nations) would cost the world $40 trillion a year in lost economic growth by 2100—and have only a marginal impact on reducing the at-risk malaria population. By contrast, we could spend $3 billion a year on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for new therapies—and within 10 years cut the number of malaria infections by half. In other words, for the money it would take to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives.

Many well-meaning people argue that we do not need to choose between tackling climate change and addressing these more immediate problems directly. We can, they say, do both. If only that were true. Just last week, activists from the international aid agency Oxfam reported evidence that European countries were planning to "cannibalize" existing development aid budgets and repackage them as climate-change assistance. According to Oxfam, if rich nations diverted $50 billion to climate change, at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment. And what would we get for that $50 billion? Well, spending that much on Kyoto-style carbon-emissions cuts would reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years.

Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can't use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/Aids prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation. This does not mean that we should ignore global warming. But it does raise serious questions about our dogmatic pursuit of a strategy that can only be described as breathtakingly expensive and woefully ineffective.

As I write this in the Bella Center in Copenhagen, I am surrounded by delegates, politicians and activists engaged in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Almost every one of them is singing from the same hymn-book: The world's nations must commit themselves to drastic, immediate carbon cuts if we are to avoid the worst of global warming.

The tune may be seductive, but the lyrics don't make any sense. Even if every major government were to slap huge taxes on carbon fuels—which is not going to happen—it wouldn't do much to halt climate change any time soon. What it would do is cost us hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars, because alternative energy technologies are not yet ready to take up the slack.

Over the last several centuries, the world economy has exploded and the human condition has improved immeasurably because of cheap fossil fuels; we're not going to end that connection in just a few decades. Just before the summit convened, political leaders from a number of major nations were lauded for announcing carbon-reduction targets that are in fact economically, technically, and politically impossible to achieve. We saw the same thing at the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro and then again a decade later in Kyoto. And just like the promises made back then, the vows being made now in Copenhagen are sure to be broken by future administrations. Pretending otherwise is fraudulent.

There was one positive sign in Copenhagen last week. Someone leaked a draft text of a proposed climate agreement that would break away from the deeply flawed Kyoto model (which exempted the developing world from having to promise anything) and compel both rich and poor nations alike to agree to specific carbon cuts. The leak caused great dissension and infighting among delegates, reflecting a realization—at last—that cutting carbon emissions is not going to be easy.

Of course, I would like to see the politicians move even further away from the Kyoto approach. Instead of making far-fetched promises about greenhouse gases, how about a concrete commitment to green energy research and development? Specifically, we should radically increase spending on R&D for green energy—to 0.2% of global GDP, or $100 billion. That's 50 times more than the world spends now—but still twice as cheap as Kyoto. Not only would this be both affordable and politically achievable, but it would also have a real chance of working.

In order to make this kind of shift, leaders will have to stop papering over a consistent record of failure and instead recognize that the Kyoto approach is going nowhere. In this sense, the likely failure of the Copenhagen summit could end up being a blessing in disguise. If we are serious about helping the world's worst-off inhabitants, we are going to need to rethink our approach completely.

Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007).

[BonzoHansen]

Lots of good stuff on this lately. This guy seems reasonable. Opinion piece in today's WSJ.

Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming
Investing in energy R&D might work. Mandated emissions cuts won't.

By BJORN LOMBORG

Copenhagen

The saddest fact of climate change—and the chief reason we should be concerned about finding a proper response—is that the countries it will hit hardest are already among the poorest and most long-suffering.

In the run-up to this month's global climate summit in Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Consensus Center dispatched researchers to the world's most likely global-warming hot spots. Their assignment: to ask locals to tell us their views about the problems they face. Over the past seven weeks, I recounted in these pages what they told us concerned them the most. In nearly every case, it wasn't global warming.

Everywhere we went we found people who spoke powerfully of the need to focus more attention on more immediate problems. In the Bauleni slum compound in Lusaka, Zambia, 27-year-old Samson Banda asked, "If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?" In a camp for stateless Biharis in Bangladesh, 45-year-old Momota Begum said, "When my kids haven't got enough to eat, I don't think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about." On the southeast slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, 45-year-old widow and HIV/AIDS sufferer Mary Thomas said she had noticed changes in the mountain's glaciers, but declared: "There is no need for ice on the mountain if there is no people around because of HIV/AIDS."

There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn't mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions.

Take malaria. Most estimates suggest that if nothing is done, 3% more of the Earth's population will be at risk of infection by 2100. The most efficient global carbon cuts designed to keep average global temperatures from rising any higher than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a plan proposed by the industrialized G-8 nations) would cost the world $40 trillion a year in lost economic growth by 2100—and have only a marginal impact on reducing the at-risk malaria population. By contrast, we could spend $3 billion a year on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for new therapies—and within 10 years cut the number of malaria infections by half. In other words, for the money it would take to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives.

Many well-meaning people argue that we do not need to choose between tackling climate change and addressing these more immediate problems directly. We can, they say, do both. If only that were true. Just last week, activists from the international aid agency Oxfam reported evidence that European countries were planning to "cannibalize" existing development aid budgets and repackage them as climate-change assistance. According to Oxfam, if rich nations diverted $50 billion to climate change, at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment. And what would we get for that $50 billion? Well, spending that much on Kyoto-style carbon-emissions cuts would reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years.

Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can't use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/Aids prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation. This does not mean that we should ignore global warming. But it does raise serious questions about our dogmatic pursuit of a strategy that can only be described as breathtakingly expensive and woefully ineffective.

As I write this in the Bella Center in Copenhagen, I am surrounded by delegates, politicians and activists engaged in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Almost every one of them is singing from the same hymn-book: The world's nations must commit themselves to drastic, immediate carbon cuts if we are to avoid the worst of global warming.

The tune may be seductive, but the lyrics don't make any sense. Even if every major government were to slap huge taxes on carbon fuels—which is not going to happen—it wouldn't do much to halt climate change any time soon. What it would do is cost us hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars, because alternative energy technologies are not yet ready to take up the slack.

Over the last several centuries, the world economy has exploded and the human condition has improved immeasurably because of cheap fossil fuels; we're not going to end that connection in just a few decades. Just before the summit convened, political leaders from a number of major nations were lauded for announcing carbon-reduction targets that are in fact economically, technically, and politically impossible to achieve. We saw the same thing at the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro and then again a decade later in Kyoto. And just like the promises made back then, the vows being made now in Copenhagen are sure to be broken by future administrations. Pretending otherwise is fraudulent.

There was one positive sign in Copenhagen last week. Someone leaked a draft text of a proposed climate agreement that would break away from the deeply flawed Kyoto model (which exempted the developing world from having to promise anything) and compel both rich and poor nations alike to agree to specific carbon cuts. The leak caused great dissension and infighting among delegates, reflecting a realization—at last—that cutting carbon emissions is not going to be easy.

Of course, I would like to see the politicians move even further away from the Kyoto approach. Instead of making far-fetched promises about greenhouse gases, how about a concrete commitment to green energy research and development? Specifically, we should radically increase spending on R&D for green energy—to 0.2% of global GDP, or $100 billion. That's 50 times more than the world spends now—but still twice as cheap as Kyoto. Not only would this be both affordable and politically achievable, but it would also have a real chance of working.

In order to make this kind of shift, leaders will have to stop papering over a consistent record of failure and instead recognize that the Kyoto approach is going nowhere. In this sense, the likely failure of the Copenhagen summit could end up being a blessing in disguise. If we are serious about helping the world's worst-off inhabitants, we are going to need to rethink our approach completely.

Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007).

[LTb1ow]

So, why are we responsible for other countries again?

[BigAls87Z28]

I guess for the same reason we jump into everyone's party when they do something we dont like or it doesnt mesh with what we belive.

I guess its ok to launch into decade long wars and invade countries, but when we have to fork over a few million bucks to make sure that our planet is green, I guess thats out of the question?

As one of the richest and most powerful countries, we have taken upon ourselves to make sure that everyone is working together.

I dont see trying to make the planet green or improve on climate change, that means we want a global goverment? But lets face it, thats what will happen in the future. Maybe not now, not in 50 years, but in the not too distant future we will all come together. But thats another deal.

If anything, going green could help improve jobs, and I belive that we should move to make this country into a much more efficent country. Power grids, high ways, communications, cities, mass transit, etc etc. Not because of any political reason but that America should be the ****in best at everything.

[Brendan713]

i have to hear about this crap all day long in school. Yes the earth is warming up but a 3 thousand years ago the polar ice cap was touching North Carolina we would be flipping a **** if we knew about it we would think the world was going to end. It is impossible to keep politics out of this ******** topic because i agree with who ever said it above that the world is being taken over with the polar bear watch or something similar. The problem is that this global warming has happened before and the only thing that we are doing is speeding it up whoopie fricken doo life sucks so suck it. With in the next ten years sea levels will rise so get out of beach front property in eight years lol any qyestions comments PM me

[BigAls87Z28]

Uh...the polar ice cap was touching North Carolina 3k years ago? So 1k BC, you are saying that the Ice cap stretched down that far, that means that Europe as well would be coverd in ice.

Its not just a simple warming. Once the ice cap melts, and the desalinization of the oceans will cause massive massive weather changes. The current of the Atlantic ocean, and other oceans, will stop and weather will be pretty much be anyone's guess as to what will happen next.
Right now, we can predict hurricanes because of these currents. We know hurricanes start off teh coast of Africa, ride across the Atlantic, up through the Carrebian, and into the Gulf or east coast.
This wont be the case.
Lets not forget that what might hapen when all the carbon dioxide that is trapped on the ocean floor will come up, adding to the already **** storm...pun intended...

That is what we will happen either way, so just get ready for it.

[transmaro93]

uhhgggg i cant even get into this one with you al on the boards because ill get this thing locked

[BonzoHansen]

the world is being taken over with the polar bears
:lol:

[BurninrubberGT]

global warming is the biggest croc ever

[BigAls87Z28]

Actually I belive the biggest Croc is like 25ft long.

[Frosty]

Actually I belive the biggest Croc is like 25ft long.

CRIKES! :rofl:

[LTb1ow]

Actually I belive the biggest Croc is like 25ft long.

See Al, heres the thing. While saving the world is very very noble of the human race and all.... who are we to declare what is "best" for the world's climate?

[BigAls87Z28]

We as Americans? Or We as in Humans?
I dont think America, as we are the 3rd most poluting country in the world, and #1 out of major industrialized nations. (China and India are 1 and 2 repsectivly)
Whats best? Well we have scienctists that spend amazng hours reading, studying, and testing ideas over and over again. These people are, as we have declared as a race, as some of the smartest people on this planet.
Most of those people, the ones we say are the smartest, say that we are doing bad things and that we are a huge part of the destruction of the Earth.
I, and we as humans, have to take what they say as gospel. If you dont want to belive in science, then thats up to you. Me, on the other hand, have pretty much left it into the hands of the people that know what the hell they are talking about.

Lets put it this way..
If I were to build an engine...would I go to the guy that builds them for a living? That has spilled countless blood sweat and tears into building some of the greatest engines on the planet?
Or am I gunna talk to you?

[LTb1ow]

We as Americans? Or We as in Humans?
I dont think America, as we are the 3rd most poluting country in the world, and #1 out of major industrialized nations. (China and India are 1 and 2 repsectivly)
Whats best? Well we have scienctists that spend amazng hours reading, studying, and testing ideas over and over again. These people are, as we have declared as a race, as some of the smartest people on this planet.
Most of those people, the ones we say are the smartest, say that we are doing bad things and that we are a huge part of the destruction of the Earth.
I, and we as humans, have to take what they say as gospel. If you dont want to belive in science, then thats up to you. Me, on the other hand, have pretty much left it into the hands of the people that know what the hell they are talking about.

Lets put it this way..
If I were to build an engine...would I go to the guy that builds them for a living? That has spilled countless blood sweat and tears into building some of the greatest engines on the planet?
Or am I gunna talk to you?


Well, I would talk to me. I am cool and ****.

Scientists can be wrong you know, you seem to have too much blind faith in things, cough mesi.. erm you know. :lol:

It bothers me that the GW guise is being used to clean up humans mess, instead of just doing that under the pretense that as parasites, its kinda dumb to poison your host if you want to survive.

[BigAls87Z28]

I dont have blind faith, but I have to trust them to a certain extent.
If not, I would be Amish.

[NastyEllEssWon]

I dont have blind faith, but I have to trust them to a certain extent.
If not, I would be Amish.





you should be amish