"As far as global warming, I don't know what planet you live on, but the facts look pretty much deciseive from where I sit."
I think most reasonable scientist would agree with this:
We are pretty sure that today's global temperature is higher than at any time since the time of Little Ice Age. We also know there was warmer period before the Little Ice Age, and it's uncertain whether this period was warmer or cooler than the present.
Now you could argue with the above, e.g. there is evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer. Or you could accept this:
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of unusually warm weather around 800-1300 AD, during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented.
It was initially believed that the temperature changes were global. However, this view has been questioned; the 2001 IPCC report summarises this research, saying "… "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Etc. Though it should be noted that the Hockey Stick has be debunked, though wikipedia is still clinging to it.
My point is that most scientist would accept that there is enough uncertainty that there is doubt as to whether today's temperature were warmer or cooler than the Medieval Warm Period.
But there are some things regarding the past that there is much more certainty. For instance, most scientist would agree that in terms of the last few tens of millions of years, that the Earth climate has been cooler.
And that during the last 500 million years, our present time could characterized as having low level of CO2, and cooler temperatures. In other words in the past it has been so much more warmer that even though we can't precisely know the temperature, the ballpark is NOT 2 or 3 degrees but instead is at least 10 degrees warmer. And the CO2 level are NOT somewhere around .02 to 03% but are as high as 1% or higher and lasting at this range for thousands to millions of years.
This should do a lot to dismiss the idea that Earth could be endangered by CO2 levels rising by 10 times the current level- not to mention being overly concerned about the possibility of CO2 levels doubling- btw there is no indication that CO2 will rise to .08 to .1% within the next Century- it's possible but so is it possible of alien landing on Earth within the next Century. I think an signifcant size impactor would have larger chance, and more importantly would have far more affect than global CO2 rising to .08% within the Century.
Finally, the more important aspect is that CO2 has not been a factor in the past of causing warming, but instead is more likely a result of global warming- warming trends warm the ocean and a warmer ocean releases CO2.
It's unreasonable to assume that the rise of .6 C over the last Century is caused solely by human activity, it would SIMILAR to claiming that the Medieval Warm Period and/or Little Ice Age were also mostly caused by human activity. One can also break this down further by saying that of the .6 C global increase in temperature, only a small part of this increase could due to global CO2 increase and that the CO2 increase due to human activity is only a part of this increase.
As one example, some consider the rise in the amount of methane in the atmosphere as a significant factor in increasing Global temperature.
One might also ask, would you rather [if you had a choice] that global temperatures have risen by .6 in the last Century as compared to say a .2 C decrease in Global temperatures? I would pick the .6 C increase- because I see no bad consequent from this .6 C increase over the last Century, nor do I see any damage if over the next Century temperature were to increase another .6 C. And since we were recovering from the Little Ice Age, I see no reason why we should expect an increase as much as .6 C in the next Century- though I grant that is possible, but a rise of say 1 C would still not have any bad consequences- the steep rise would be a concern though. In other words if global temperatures were to rise by 1 C and stay at this temperature for centuries, I wouldn't see any problem with it [greenland or Antarctia aren't going to melt- and vast areas will probably become farmable].
Now let's transport ourselves into the future of 2030, let's assume that computers have improved slightly [and maybe Windows has a stable platform:)] that decades of further study has been done regarding climate, Iran hasn't started a nuclear war, aliens haven't shown up yet, no impactor has hit, and rap is considered "classical music".
Let's say that from now until 2030 global temperature has risen .3014 C. This would be a dramatic increase [more than anyone who isn't a nut is predicting] in global temperature, greenland wouldn't be melting and sea level would probably have risen by at most around 6". My question is would we be in better situation to do something about global warming then as in comparison to doing *something* about it now?
Or, what happens if instead global temperature has risen .0119 C. Is there some danger that people won't be concerned because they aren't as smart then as they are now? What if global temperature has dropped by .005 C? [it's already dropped further than this as compared to 1998- what if 2007 is hotter than 1998 but by 2030, 2007 was the hottest year]
Now, suppose by 2030, USA is almost at the same level as France is today in relying on nuclear energy. Suppose India is at our current level of dependance on nuclear energy. It's wouldn't matter what kind cars we were driving [or flying] the USA would have reduced emission of CO2, AND keep in mind the main difference between France and US regarding nuclear power is we have laws which restrict them from being built and used. And that was the political effort by the same crew of characters belonging to the Global warming lobby, they thwarted efforts to have more nuclear energy in this country. SO let's first undo the damage from that movement, BEFORE we even considering listening to any else they are advocating.
Current Events » in reply to re: politics
re: politics
The whole thread (30 posts)
- Stem cells from amniotic fluid
- how soon until these can be used to make clones?
- Flip side: the first "embryo bank"
- What would get the politics out of the issue...
- Get rid of Fundamental Christian politicians who can't separate
- re: politics
- re: politics
- Far from it.
- re: politics
- re: politics
- re: politics
