January 22, 2008 at 9:36 pm
An interesting video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg
Whatever your position on GCC, be it activist/skeptic/total ignorance I think you will find this video (and the others by the same person) very interesting.
Also, on another note, the pentagon has made a major study into this subject;
So, look up these, discuss. I just wanted to start a healthy debate.
By: Norman D Lands - 23rd January 2008 at 10:55
Um, it’s more complex than you might like.
A international climate panel, the IPCC, issued a statement that there is a 90% chance that the warming we are seeing (the warming is pretty much accepted as real) is caused by human activity, like dumping into the atmosphere.
See this site:http://www.ipcc.ch/
So we have a
Part A: is there a very recent warming trend – yes. IMO.
Part B: did humans do it (implication being humans can undo it)? less certainty, the IPCC says a 90% chance humans did it.
And there is a more slippery Part C:
What will happen? – the answer here is that any answer you see is at least partial speculation by experts or maybe something derived from a model. While speculation from a climate expert is absolutely better than what you & I can come up with, it is very far from established scientific fact.
For example:
While rising sea levels will do exactly what is described, see the policymaker’s document, the extent of the possible rise (based on the assumption that things stay warm) is hard to forecast well. The IPCC provides uncertainty guidance for policymakers to allow them to get a handle on the policymaker’s document contents, and assess the threats they perceive.
The difference between a sea level rise of 6″ versus 2 feet (as a contrived example), is the displacement of extra millions of people living in low-lying areas near the sea – parts of Florida, or New York City, for example. And loss of infrastructure a long with it. In theory.
So – bottom line – it’s as much political as scientific, and I think if humans caused it we are in deep doo-doo. Human governments that fix things other humans broke have a horrible track record. Humans fixing things they did not break also has a bad rep. It’s a lose-lose thing IMO.
By: frankvw - 23rd January 2008 at 10:44
Ok, I’ll bite.
As much as I couldn’t be bothered to watch videos on that matter, I’m also quite annoyed to see the insane amount of taxation we get imposed because of things like CO2 emissions, … If they served a useful purpose like developping other ways of propelling vehicles, thus reducing dependency on oil it would be ok, but it of course gets diverted to all other kinds of things.
We can of course all go live in caves to offset the pollution produced in China, India, and 3rd world countries, or maybe we can wait for palmtrees to grow here (can’t wait ! 😉 ) Or all this is just a huge hoax to get us to pay more tax.
Don’t know, don’t really care.
By: jbritchford - 23rd January 2008 at 10:14
I notice the great bacon question in the GD forum has alot more interest that the future of the planet and all those who live on it. :confused: