Global Warming - Global Catastrophe Global Warming

[Chesso 0]

To be honest, it is very difficult to say, as is my experience on the subject up till now.I mean, just because I felt it was cooler 10 years ago by leaps and bounds (I was a different person, my body was different, I was technically in a different location, living under different conditions etc).I can most certainly say we aren't helping in general by any means at this stage, from what I know, but I don't think it is quite the end of the world yet lol.

[iGuest 3]

The earth isn't going to have fireballs rocketing around it, and not everything will become a barren wasteland, but that doesn't mean it'll be good.Lets look at the end of the ice age (can't remember which one this was). Two thirds of the earth's polar ice caps melted, and sea levels rose 120m, forming different islands, separating continents. E.g. Britain became seperate from europe, and Asia became separate from North America.With Global Warming, something similar would happen, better in some ways than the last big warming, and worse in others. It wouldn't be as dramatic as the last one, there isn't enough ice to do that (Well, there probably is, but the chances of all of it melting are really low). The difference is, at the end of the ice age, the climate changed from freezing cold and harsh, to just right. This time, it's changing from just right to really hot.It definitely isn't the end of the world, but it's the start of a very hot world.As for whether global warming was man-made, or naturally occuring, I think that it was getting hotter naturally, but we simply made it a lot worse than it was going to be.

Edited October 22, 2007 by Habble (see edit history)

[Chesso 0]

Wouldn't we just evolve beyond the conditions to some degree along the way.It's happened all throughout time, evolving and/or adapting to different habitats and what not.Sure were all not going to survive I suppose, but we all have to go at some point, and there isn't any indication there will ever be complete abolishment of mass death anytime in the near future if ever, something is always going to be around the corner somewhere.If we survived past major events, I don't see why not this one, then again we rely on our own creations so much, if they failed us now, we would be in deep do do wouldn't we lol.

[iGuest 3]

Good point. But evolution doesn't happen overnight, it could be millions of years before we've evolved enough.

[Chesso 0]

Somewhat yes, but don't forget we adapt (I would somewhat consider this a progressing evolution during the stages of life), where we adapt/evolve to better suite or handle our surroundings.Some of this adaption/evolution change during life would surely pass onto future offspring, it could explain the diffeerent races, colours, sizes etc we have in humanity.Whites haven't been in either America or Australia all that long compared to African migrates and such, so we haven't been as adversely affected by the region, not to mention all the changes made and technology we use which shields us from a lot of heavy exposure to the sun etc.

[jbitkill 0]

The Earth soon is going to be plastered with Water. Floods because the polar caps melting. More thunderstorms. It is the equator expanding. Might in the UK, by 2050, we'll have hurricanes maybe. We're getting tornados now!The line of weather in the UKThunderStormTornadoTropical Storm (coming soon to UK)then Hurricanes!xxxx-jozh-xxxxSave the world for the better!

[iGuest 3]

I'm doing a climate change project from sose, and I got some figures, and did some calculations, and worked out we have enough fossil fuel to last us 40 years, if we keep using them at the same rate we're doing now...Kinda scary, when you think we're using more and more each year, and this number could be much less.

[Skalman 0]

heres some creepy facts:Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline when oil is over US$60 a barrel. Sugarcane is the best crop because you harvest the sap not the seeds.Oil palms are the best and cheapest producer of vegetable oil. Biodiesel is a chemical blend of ethanol and vegetable oil.Sugarcane and oil palms convert sunlight to motor fuel. They both grow best in the hot wet tropics, that's where tropical rain forests always dominate.A good farm in the tropics can produce 2000 gallons of ethanol a year (7500 litres) or it can produce 1200 gallons of palm oil (4500 litres).So the green movement establishment, insists we fence off every square inch of stinking jungles to protect some possibly endangered yellow spotted butterfly. Rubbish. In truth they're really blindly protecting oil barons and oil sheiks.How to make the switch happen? Place a tariff on every barrel of oil to keep it above $65 a barrel. Remove all taxes and tariffs on biofuels from anywhere. Then, if you like use money from petroleum taxes to subsidize local farmers to easily compete with imported biofuels. And we can also keep our cars. pretty scary........

[iGuest 3]

Alternative fuels aren't exactly hard to switch to, I mean, we've all heard of cars that use vegetable oil for fuel, and one person invented a car that ran off water. He sold the patent to a big car company (Can't remember which one), and what did they do with it? They burnt all the plans and everything. It could have put them out of business.

I found this really good site that'll show what places will be like if the sea levels rose, it uses Google Maps, so you can look at pretty much anywhere.

http://flood.firetree.net/

[Bostwik 0]

I think it is real, but I think it will probably be many many years before anything major happens.

[iGuest 3]

It depends what you mean by "many years". It probably wont be as long as most people think. major things are happening now. In Australia we're going through the worst drought on record, and there aren't any signs of it ending any time soon. We are burning more and more oil and coal, putting more and more CO2 and greenhouse gases into the air. We are doing this faster and faster, and when we don't have any more left to burn, there will be a major crisis. Many people just don't realise how much we rely on oil and non-renewable energy at the moment. If we all switched to Solar energy and started using environmentally friendly products, this wouldn't have as big an effect.

[iGuest 3]

Yes the global warming is a real effect, but most dangerous is that we are underestimating its effects.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in 1950s. It is thought to have been caused by an increase in particulates such as sulfur aerosols in the atmosphere due to human action. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has been estimated to be of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960â1990. The trend reversed during the past decade. Global dimming has interfered with the hydrological cycle by reducing evaporation and may have caused droughts in some areas. Global dimming also creates a cooling effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.

[docduke 0]

A long time ago, some sage said if you want to know why people are doing something, "follow the money." It is alleged that Al Gore is making much more money off his activities in the "Climate Change" scare than he could ever make as President. It has recently been demonstrated that Greenpeace is making a lot more money, now that it has climbed on the "Climate Change" bandwagon.

 

Personally, I find compelling the argument that the sun is the primary driver of Earth's climate. Interestingly, the test of this hypothesis will come relatively soon (the next few years). Both Russian and Scandanavian scientists have predicted an unusually quiet "solar cycle" or two coming up. If you want to track this, watch the sun directly, or take a look at indirect views of both sides of the sun. (Scroll down about half a page and look in the left column. The "Far Side" of the sun is "visible" through internal seismic waves.)

 

The "next" solar cycle has begun, but it is unusually quiet. The first (reversed-magnetic-field) sunspot appeared a few days ago, then promptly disappeared, which is unusual. It will take a while to determine whether this is just a statistical fluctuation or a really quiet solar cycle. Recent astrophysical theories predict that a quiet solar cycle means more clouds, more rain and a cooling Earth surface. This is what caused the "Little Ice Age," related to Maunder Minimum between 1645 and 1715.

[srgates91 0]

I believe that global warming is real but i don't believe that it is being caused by humans. between 900 and 1300 AD, there was an extreme warmth of the planet. The earths temperature fluctuates constantly. It's just a normal cycle of earth. And what's with all the hype about the poalr ice caps melting and flooding the planet? It's not gunna happen. God promised that he would never flood the earth again and when God makes a promise, He always comes through with it! I mean, yea we need to monitor our polution to an extent, but the media is blowing this entire thing out of proportion! If people would just do some research, they would know whats going on in the world and why it's happening. This is clearly an example of yellow journalism similar to the exadurated journalism during the Spanish-American war. The two competing newspapers, the New york journal run by William Randolph hearst, and the New York World run by Joseph Pulitzer, made exadurated reports about Spanish attrocities in Cuba. There is definately evidence of global warming but it is just a natural cycle of earth. There is no need to take this to an extreme.