Wherein we talk about whether global warming is happening, and to what extent, and what it all means. I know politics will creep into this eventually but I'm going to try and refrain from it in my posts since I like talking about the science a heck of a lot more.




Alrighty. I'm not contradicting myself - I said we need more evidence to prove global warming. Right now it is a reasonable hypothesis that I feel is correct. But I'm not going to tell somebody else that I know for sure it is correct. I was trying to make that distinction clear in my post. The evidence indicates that it's possible, even probable, but not yet definitive.

You deal with these levels of uncertainty a fair bit in natural science due to the fact that some natural systems are too complex to predict their behaviour easily. Climate is definitely one of these. Most people want to boil it down to a simple yes or not answer, but that's an oversimplification to say the least. For another explanation of what I'm talking about.... this comic is so true it hurts:





People are telling you to do what now? Has your life been impacted by other peoples' awareness of global warming, or are you just concerned that it will? Would that be such a bad thing?

Your still not differentiating whether its human made or not. It seems like incredible arrogance on the part of the human race to assume (even though we haven't even existed on the planet for 1% of its lifetime and completely ignoring one HUGE factor involved in heating the sun) that we humans have even the capacity to affect the climate in any significant way.

Yes yes carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas blah blah, but guess what, water vapor is an even more powerful green house gas. I agree with Pine that there are vastly many complex variables that we don't even come close to understanding yet, which is why we need to relax and take a deep breath before we go around saying we're the bringers of our own demise.

This is where politics comes into play and this is why I call this thing for what it is, a hoax. A group of people are using this as a tool to gain power and control, and anyone already in power who wants to stay in power and get votes simply jumps on the bandwagon. All you do is use fear to gain control. Nazi Germany did it, the Catholic Church did it, and the global warming alarmists are doing it.

Found this article today, which reinforces what I say and the fact that the Sun is the global warming alarmists 'Elephant in the room' that they have to ignore for their theories and power grab to work.

http://www.physorg.com/news165402599.html

I think you might be jumping to some conclusions there. I'd like to quote and then paraphrase the key part of that article:



In other words, sunspots don't affect solar radiation output very much so the amount of solar radiation striking the atmosphere doesn't vary too much, but the effect that small variation has on global climate is not well understood.

If I understand correctly, you take issue with the fact that climate models are ignoring a potentially vital part of the puzzle that could potentially disprove the global warming hypothesis. However, since the real effect of sunspots is poorly understood, they could also potentially have no effect on climate, or global warming could be going on independent of the effect of sunspots. We don't really know.

However, it's not arrogance to assume that we can affect the climate in a significant way, more than it is to assume that we can't. Through deforestation, we already have unquestionably affected the weather in tropical zones where moist microclimates depends on forest cover to recycle moisture by holding it like a sponge and then evaporating it back into the atmosphere. Incidentally, we are also killing off plant and animal species right now faster than during the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.

To me it seems arrogant to assume that we can do whatever the hell we want on the Earth and everything will turn out all right over the long term. The facts on global warming are suggestive but vague. The reason people are getting so worked up about it is that the potential consequences are huge! Obviously hysteria is bad, but as I said before, it's certainly worth taking seriously.

Oh, and who are these global warming alarmists anyways? I haven't heard global warming mentioned in politics for awhile now tbh.

The global warming alarmists are green community organizers (who would all love to see us living in trees with no technology and no showers), companies that produce "green" technology (obviously they want to make a dime), and politicians in hippy districts (who want to stay in office). And you must not be listening to the news much because I hear about it or read about it on a daily basis still, although thankfully the voice of opposition is starting to get louder now that we can't afford any of this ridiculousness.

And you made my point for me by quoting that article. At best the "science" and facts backing up your argument are unknown AT BEST. So how come people like Al Gore and all the rest of his useful idiot followers are saying its already a fact?

The problem I have is that people want us to live in mud huts and increase our cost of living and do away with our comfort of living in order to appease this "crisis". Changing our livelyhoods in such a significant way without any proof to back it up is a big problem in my book.

http://www.physorg.com/news168791411.html

maybe people will stop running around like chicken little now.

no, cause they'll find something else to be scared of

True words. If you wanna get people on a large scale to do what you want, scare them away from what they're doing now.

Shouldn't be anyone left buying into this sillyness.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

lol
me and my buddy were told by one of our history teachers that this was all a crock from the start of the "eco movement" he showed us movies and documents form around the world that all refuted most of the so called evidence as too convenient

personally i think that climate change is normal but this man made global warming is hardly possible compared to what nature it self can do

Yeah I'm all for having a legitimate discussion about warming and cooling, but I never bought into this religion that humans were heating the planet because of our industrial advancements or technological improvements.

I've seen too many weirdo hippies that would love to see us all living in tree houses to buy into that crap. Not to mention all those loonies always leave out the one thing that has the most influence on the heat that reaches Earth, that being the fucking SUN!!!