Global Warming - Yes/No - Causes?
 

I have an opinion on this but its not really the most informed.

So people who have some hard facts come on in.

From what I can see:

Yes the planet is warming up. But I see no proof thats its the result of cars, planes, or cow flatulence. I see some logic to the idea that its a natural cycle that we cannot do much about anyway. I also see a lot of people drinking the koolaid on this one.

But like I said I dont really know a whole lot in that regard.

So hit my ignorant ass with some facts. Or not. Whatever.

the earth has gone through many climate changes and has had many inconsistent riffs in between, all before humans.

I do think it is a natural cycle, that is absolutely proven, but I still don't think that is an excuse to continue business as usual. We do still need to change our energy usage habits, and go to cleaner energy/transportation. It surely can't be helping nature. That said, I'm not a green freak or anything, but I do think change is needed, so why not use global warming as an excuse.

It's all because I removed the cat on my gas powered garage door opener.

Global warming = bullshit

Very informative... now what exactly are you talking about? Global warming as in global temperature rising, or global warming as in the media hyped definition and reasoning? One is bullshit, the other is not.

Ok, let me rephrase that. "global warming" as propaganda to sell prius and shit like that with the intent of "going green" is nothing but marketing.

Like it was mentioned before, the Earth has gone, and will keep going, with this weather fluctuations- Note that climate shifts were also recorded well before the industrial revolution.

EDIT: Not long ago I've heard on the radio that the lead scientist in charge of the study of climate shift as a result of human interaction with the enviroment concluded that we are not the main cause for the such weather changes.

Also has anyone read "Save the planet, eat your dog"

So to follow up, what do you think about the "green movement"? Surely no one is against clean energy and cleaner running transportation. I often hear the same complaints about the marketing scheme, but never hear anyone actually say what they think about the message, or meaning of the "go green"... thing. It pisses me off that they treat people like they are stupid (and most of them are, they just take the bullshit they are fed and believe every word of it) and lie to us, but recently I have realized there is really no point to be upset about it. In the long run it's a good thing, though I think the urgency they are pushing is a bit far, and stressful on our current way of life. Eventually we have to accept new means of producing energy, and try to forget about fossil fuels, and this little media driven movement is helping to push that, so whatever.

I agree that going green is better than "let's pollute". However at times it seems that is misused to make those less informed believe the world is going to literally lit up if you drive a V8.

Also, looking at new ways of energy production? I think we're gonna have to wait till oil runs out and the big money ballerz (Bush :giggle:) have no more business in the industry. Then we can use nuclear power, but remember nuclear power is EVIL

Sadly I agree. I don't see us breaking away from our current usage habits. Nuclear is really THE ONLY way for the US and most of the modern world to go. Anything else would simply take too many plants to support the huge demand for energy that most of the modern world creates. Nuclear isn't dangerous, as any disaster that has ever happened was gross human error (dumb shits turning off valves to try and boost output a little, ect.) and has become much more efficient with being able to recycle fuel. But like you said, it won't be happening any time soon. The people in power like to talk big and make up nice stories, but they all know they are full of shit.

Somewhat related. I had an EXCELLENT idea a few nights ago. Why not just put nuclear waste into orbit until we think of a better way to dispose of it... fine idea until the primitive methods we use (rockets) blows up on launch and spreads it everywhere, or the storage container/ship malfunctions and it burns up in orbit and spreads fallout all over the globe. In my defense I was a bit out of it, and realized my severe flaws right away.

Try to explain that to a regular Joe. The regular consensus is, nuclear = boom = radiation = death

People put the word nuclear with the image of nuclear bomb, which is not the case.

I just don't see how people think we are going to be able to keep up with demand with wind or solar. At least not realistically and affordable. According to the handy dandy wiki, the US now employs roughly 100 plants for 20% of our needs. With wind, you would have to blanket the country with turbines, just not going to happen. Eventually we will HAVE to go nuclear whether people like it or not, it just has to happen.

But related to the topic of global warming, nuclear is about as clean as you can get.

AND, another after thought. I love that a lot of the other modern nations are using nuclear, and building more all the time (China) and yet lately the US has been really falling behind on "leading the way" in this respect, in more than just energy. We used to be pioneers and forged the way, now we play it safe and follow other people, and don't risk anything, yet we continue to lose everything.

We are definitely contributing to global climate change. We fucked the ozone pretty good. Still I think the earth has a natural cycle, we are experiencing the warming stage.

I have no cat converter, I'm the cause.

Where is all this data I haer so much about that makes me such a regressive prick for being skeptical? I am serious here, is there some USGS data or Oceanic/Atmosphereic data or NASA or what? I can do a Google search and get the phone book, so I guess I am being a science newb and asking for help narrowing it down.

For instance, I have seen the graph below a few zillion times now. But it does not talk about the heat island effect, or what causes the trend. Frankly if there was not a half degree fluctation per century I dont know how ice ages would happen. Say the average temp in Kansas is 50 degrees F right now, and in an ice age its 15 F. Say ice ages happen every 10,000 years (by the way this is 100% out of my ass hypothesis) to go from 50 to 15 at .5 degrees per century, you need 7000 years, and thats assuming a linear scale when it seems to me that you would likely have a more sine wave function type of deal. Arent we just about due for another climate shift according to the geological record?

Wind and solar resources are such a joke, yet people gooble that shit up like is candy coming out of Hustler's cock.

I like the Corrected data...looks more inflated.

With me being a chemist I can vouche for this being a bunch of crap.

Reason number one: temperatures from around the world were not recorded until later in history and they base all of their data on the periods that were. That's like looking at the stock market after it started to pick back up and saying things are awesome! Get real...

Reason number two: some of the scientists openly admitted that they left data out of their reports to make the theory of 'Global Warming' seem more plausible. Being in the science field this is utter bullshit and really pisses me off to no end. So since they admitted this they changed their theory to 'Global Climate Change'. Weak...

Reason number three: the media is a lot of peoples only source of information as they would rather use the internet to look up porn. The media is going to tell you what someone else wants them to tell you, end of story. If this is your only source of information, you need to pull your head out of your ass and learn some facts for yourself. Read a report....

Reason number four: where the fuck is the sun in all of this? Most people don't understand that there are cosmic radiation waves that come off from the sun and strike all planets throughout the solar system. This happens in cycles... Guess which one we are currently in?

Reason number five: The hole in the O-Zone layer is there, however, cosmic ray do not make direct contact with this area. That and UV radiation is what the O-Zone protects us from. Neither make direct contact so the ill effects are minimal. If you ever hear someone saying the O-Zone layer is growing, kick them in the crotch. Seriously... There is a reason it is only over the poles. Anyone know the reason? I do....

That's enough for now... This 'fairy tale' has pissed me off to no end and will continue to do so until the mass majority of people stop buying into it. I'm just glad to see that all you guys are educated enough to make your own opinions on things and not listen to the media for everything. Kudos.

Also, Nuclear Energy FTMFW!!!

^^ Well tell that to a society that indulges itself of ignorance. More people know where to rent 24" spiners than simple physics and chemistry.

Nuclear is and has been the way to go, but no one wants to deal with melting plants. (sarcams implied)

Well, not like anybody cares to read my opinion, but here we go. Global Warming is bullshit, as stated above. Ever noticed that as soon as human intervention was proven false that they changed it to Climate Change? Of course during my massive post, someone else already mentions this... ha ha. FML

How much research do these asshole tree huggers do into the process of creating this so-called green energy? Last time I checked, recycling post-consumer products created more pollution than actually using and originally manufacturing said product. Go ahead and drive your Prius. I'll drive my polluting F250 SuperDuty around for 235K kilometers and still pollute less. Research has proven that the amount of pollution created to blast, mine, process ore, manufacture, transport and sell just ONE BATTERY is still more than to manufacture, build, transport, sell and drive for over 190K MILES a single V6 Toyota Camry. So hold your heads up high and punch yourself in the face a few times for being an ignorant assfuck. I won't even touch on the fact that the only part of those batteries that can be recycled is the plastic lid. But hey, they don't even disassemble that because it's hazardous to workers.

Oh, and whoever had the stupid idea of using space to dispose of nuclear/physical waste is a fuckin' retard. Sure, you can say, "Who cares? Nobody's using it. It's a HUGE space and we'll never fill it up. What else is it good for?" First, we thought the exact same thing about this shit rock that we live on right now. Why do you think this world has so many landfill sites? Why do you think there is so much water pollution? Because some retard had the exact same thought. The usable human space around this planet is very finite and it will fill up a lot faster than our naive minds think. That's a stupid idea. Just think of 100 years down the road what it will be like. Want to head out in to space for an exploration mission? Sorry, can't do that. We gotta clear you a path first through all the space junk the retards of the last 100 years have been putting up there. That's a temporary fix that will never work. Would you use masking tape to try and plug a hole in a fuel line?

It's already been proven that the human race had/has no direct impact on this planet's climate. Since the 1700's, this planet has been getting progressively warmer in some areas and progressively colder in others. Simple research into the matter will tell you so. Why is the media and user-oriented research only focusing on areas that are getting warmer? What about the places that are getting colder? The last time they took temperature readings from water-stationed beacons (I think it was in 2007) there were only two that showed an increase in temperature since this whole Global Warming thing showed its ugly head, which were right off the East Coast by Newfoundland. It's a money grab that targets the gullible, ignorant, naive people of the world. Unfortunately there's a lot of stupid people in this world. Oh, and what about these carbon credits? Anyone care to touch on this? Ha ha ha, this boggles my mind. Carbon credits... :facepalm:

I don't even know what else to say, my ADHD is getting the best of me. thagr81 has some good points.

The government controls the media and the media controls the masses. Do the math. Pull your head out of your ass. Move on.

The only reason being they don't understand the difference and consequences of nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.

Agreed fully on the SIMPLE physics and chemistry aspect portion of this statement. I learned this information in two days in my Environmental Chemistry course in school. Most people see any type of science and just shit their pants and run away...

Sarcasm was picked up on... On that note, South Carolina is currently building a new nuclear power plant. w00t!

Agreed fully with your entire post man!!! The reasoning they use for the above quoted material is that it is due to the melting ice flow hitting those beacons. :facepalm:

Bah ha ha ha, yes, because the current in the Ocean is that sporadic and unorthodox that it ends up EVERYWHERE. You know, this really wouldn't bother me this much if people weren't so inclined to plead ignorance and jump on the band wagon. *sigh*

Exactamundo. Now go out, ask a random person, what the difference is??. The funny thing is that there's so much "concern" about "going green" and "polluting less", yet ignorance still surround the subject.

Anyone that has at least sat in a physics class will agree that nuclear power is the best source of energy nowadays; ossil fuels, wind and solar power are much more expensive and less efficient- somewhat like having a supercharger instead of a turbo :giggle:

Also with all this bullshit laws that "everyone" should graduate highschool IMO lowers the stardard of education, because the system has to accomodate dumb motherfuckers. Thus leading to a society that growns more ignorant and stupid everyday.

Im moving to the rant thread :vash: lol

Truly the best news I've heard all day. Nuclear is the way forward. And I hate that so many dolts pronounce it "new-cue-lar."

Global warming was always about money. This was freely admitted by many researchers over the last several years. A crisis always receives more funding than an anomaly. If you score hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional research grants for your university you get a big chunk of that as a professor. Shake your money maker.

Additionally, corporate tie-ins to news/media outlets corrupt any pretense of validity to reporting or documentaries. Did you know that the Discovery Channel, who for years has been running scary "documentaries" regarding the future of the planet, is owned by General Electric? General Electric is poised to make huge gains selling their expensive "green technologies" if only people are frightened enough to justify the exorbitant price tag. General Electric also owns NBC, CNBC, and the incredible MSNBC, all places where this green agenda is pushed. Do you remember the NFL football game when they did the halftime show and halftime report with most of the lights off to save energy? That was sponsored by the geniuses at General Electric's marketing department. I went along with the theme and shut off my fucking TV.

Always follow the money. The truth is usually buried under a pile of it somewhere.

P.S. The great lakes were carved out by glaciers that were several miles thick. I personally think the glaciers were done in by dinosaur farts and caveman campfires, but I can't prove it without some more research money.

Agreed on Nuclear Energy being the future. Duke Energy was actually planning to build two facilities right near my hometown of Gaffney, SC. w00t! However I found this website: http://www.bredl.org/nuclear/WSLee.htm Fucking tree-humpers...

Bah ha ha ha. Don't type that too large; the government might actually consider it.

BREDL: 5. Duke failed to show the plant could withstand the largest potential earthquakes.

Ha ha, persistent bastards, yeah? I like this one the best. How can you demonstrate the largest potential earthquake? I can think of a potential earthquake that would cripple an entire continent. Does that count?

And are they serious about the carbon footprint? Are they not watching the news coverage on the recent oil spill? I'm pretty sure that takes the cake. :vash:

Tree-huggers are the reason I took my cat out.

I'm still confused as to whether some of you guys are claiming the fact that the planet undergoes temperature fluctuations, and the climate is changing is bullshit, or if you are still referring only to the media spin and what the government wants everyone to believe.

I think both :ugh:

It is my belief that the planet undergoes temperature fluctuations... That's it and that's all. It's called equilibrium. All things try to rest at it, but usually fluctuate around it. While it is getting hot now, if equilibrium is still in affect (chemisty/physics says it will be), the planet will re-adjust by cooling off. Can anyone say Global Freezing? Maybe I should write a scientific article about it and start letting the grant money roll in... Hmmmmm.

80% of France's power comes from Nuclear. Why cant we do it? And the people from before are right, every nuclear accident has been TOTALLY operator/human error. Read up on Chernobyl. The reactor itself tried to stop the accident 3 times if I remember right, but they wanted to stress test the reactor so they disabled the safetys so they could look all badass, and then it melted.

We need to find a way to create enough power with Fusion. I wrote a paper about it my freshman year, it is real neat stuff (tons of fuel, nearly 100% clean, it uses small amounts of fuel). only problem is how much energy it takes to sustain/start with current tech, and the heat generated.

If only the general public was not so stupid.

OK, so you aren't arguing that "fact". So you just don't agree with the cause of it. Even though it is natural, the man made absolutely can't be helping matters. More greenhouse gas does equal more trapped heat, which moved the global temperature drop closer and closer, and possibly increases the severity of it when it does happen. So what is so bad about letting them continue with their little make believe story, which is actually to an extent driving change towards energy efficiency and cleaner energy, and changing the way that people think (in a mostly good way). Not to say that we can stop it, but we can at least not make it worse and help use up our planets resources and destroy it. Wow, I almost sound like a hippy, green person... though I'm not.

Also, I think volcanic activity plays a bigger part than anything in causing cold periods or ice ages. I'm not a geologist and don't really know volcanic records at all, but it seems over the last 100 years or so, we have been having an increase in big activity.

The climate is changing, that much everyone knows. But, it's not due to human intervention/manipulation. We as a species do not possess the necessary technology to interfere with natural, global, climate change. Global Warming is the media spin that fucked everyone up the ass as far as carbon credits, pollution laws, CARB stickers and blah blah blah.

Cardriverx:
The problem with nuclear energy is the same reason we call an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imagery) an MRI. When in fact that is not what it's true origin name is. In our Analytical Lab we have an instrument called an NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance). This does the exact same thing an MRI does at the hospital only the MRI is a little larger. If you were to call an MRI an NMR people would lose their fucking mind... Seriously, they would. Could you imagine someone suing a hospital because they were exposed to something with the word "nuclear" in it. However, the same person would most likely say, "Hell yeah doc. Let's take an X-Ray of this." :facepalm: Ignorance is bliss...

Edited for other replies while typing the one above:

The majority of the greenhouse gases (Carbon Dioxide) are trapped over the arctic circles where UV and Cosmic rays/energy do not have direct contact. This minimizes their effect on the region. Will it make a difference? Maybe, but I doubt you could measure it... Want to stop Greenhouse gases? Stop breathing or destroy a civilization... Seriously, it will cut down on it quite a bit. I do however think it is good that they are looking for new ways to make cleaner energy, but solar, wind, and electric are not the way to go and never will be.

Greenhouse gas, really? Can you find any scientific proof that hasn't been perverted or fabricated by the government to prove that? Anything I find still hasn't been able to definitively prove that Greenhouse gases are to blame for anything or that they even successfully trap in heat.

It has more to do with the overall albedo of the planet, which is basically its reflectivity. More so than the actual capability of the gas to trap and hold heat. At least that is what I think. Maybe there is a less media hyped word for greenhouse gases. I honestly think the planets temperature cycles are too complex for most people to even grasp. You have atmospheric albedo, albedo of surfaces on the planet (light vs dark colors), out gassing from volcanic activity, actual ash and particles in the atmosphere from volcanic activity, other shit I know I'm leaving out. It all adds up to a very complex cycle. Change just one of those and you can really mess up the stable cycle the earth has kept. Which is why I think it's important to stop dumping pollutants into the atmosphere, even if by itself it's not that dangerous. In the grand scheme of things that we don't understand, who knows what kind of havoc it could cause.

Sure, but there is still no scientific proof that Greenhouse gases contribute to any sort of temperature fluctuation.

^ This is fact. However, it is a nice theory. Emphasis on theory.

Well, I'm out for the night to Charlotte, NC. Driving my catless Audi A4, exhaling deeply, and farting the whole way there. You guys have fun and play nice while I'm gone. :makeout:

Why wouldn't it? If you make a surface more reflective, you are reflecting more energy than you absorb. Meaning less of the suns energy gets to the surface of the planet. Of course this would indicate an overall temperature drop... like I said, it's too complex for us to currently fully understand.

?

I like this thread. A good conversation that requires a little brain usage. We don't have enough of these around here.

Word. Funny, that is almost the same exact thing my physics professor said

It doesn't have to do with reflection... It is how the energy 'excites' the molecules. When they are hit with energy they vibrate sending energy out of the molecule. This is how Fourier Transfer-IR's work. This is their theory behind why they do not allow heat to escape. Well... One of them. Maybe I should have said hypothesis instead of theory. :dunno:

I'll just continue the debate with this:

Why are global temperature beacons suggesting a normal pattern (which is not an overall increase, however) as opposed to the drastic (used relative to time-frame and historic readings) increase in temperature like the Greenhouse Theory suggests?

Hum, I learn something new every day, ha ha.

How large of a scale of time are you talking about? Not saying you are doing this, but a lot of people look at a 100 year record and say they don't see anything. "It's all bullshit", but you have to look at a much larger scale to see any kind of pattern. Or maybe that isn't what you are asking. I'm still half asleep, just crawled my lazy ass out of bed. Need a little time to get my brain working.

Holy, must be nice. I'm almost off work, ha. And I'm going by the last 300-310 years where accurate readings could be established.

Lucky about just getting out of bed... I'm just now getting off work. UBER-WEAK! Later guys.

In any case, what I was asking is why temperature beacons aren't supporting the Greenhouse Theory, rather challenging it instead.

You sure? I guess that does make more sense though now that I think about it. The albedo on the surface does play a part though, if the atmosphere doesn't. At least in a sense of allowing a warming or cooling trend to accelerate exponentially. Imagine as ice starts to melt, you have less white reflective surfaces, meaning even less is reflected, and temps rise further, and more melts, ect.

Honestly, I don't know much about any of the "formal" theories than many people support. Anything I have said is just stuff I'm kind of coming up with off the top of my head that makes sense to me. I prefer to learn the smaller things and connect it all myself to make the overall broad idea. On something like this, I don't think anyone really knows what they are talking about anyway. Like I said, I think it's too complex to just make a simple thing of it.

Back to your question, don't scientists also use things like ice cores to get temperature data over much longer periods? The actual ice would only be a local record, but I would imagine they get other markers from atmospheric conditions that allow them to make pretty accurate guesses at less local climate conditions.

This debate is giving me a headache. Good debate. Until tomorrow, gentlemen.

Very complex indeed. And yes, they use them for certain things, like sedimentary deposits, nutrients and other stuff that isn't related. Temperature beacons are essentially everywhere and scientists pull data from your local weather balloon as well. Even still, with all of the compiled data, the Greenhouse Theory (or hypothesis, or whatever we're calling it now) still doesn't have any weight to it.

And done. No more until tomorrow, k bai!

Sweet. I have not posted because I have been away from the comp for awhile, and frankly I have been too busy reading to want to actually write anything.

Where it seems to come out is this:

We really dont know exactly whats happening in the atmosphere, and beyond that we dont really know how much of what is happening or not happening is due to us.

However, for a number of non-global warming reasons, controlling emmisions is a good idea. Probably not too smart to risk economic ruin over it or subsidize hybrids, but a basically good idea.

Nukular powar (could resist, it annoys the shit out of me too) is obviously the best source of emmisionless tech, but due to ignorant backward assed people who probably wear tinfoil hats, it has a lot of obstacles to overcome. This must be changed. The electric cars might actually make some sense, provided battery tech is up to it and we dont wreck whole areas of the planet mining rare-earth elements needed for them.

The electric-powered car is older than the ICE-powered car. Stupid corporations charging everyone out the ass for technology that is over 100 years old. Stupid tree-huggers that buy into that crap, stupid economy that jumped on the bandwagon and shit all over itself... :facepalm:

As for the nuclear (ha ha ha) subject, do you think some people might have a different outlook on reactors if they knew the underlying issue regarding the Chernobyl melt-down? Or would that not have any sort if weight in one's argument?

I think it would matter. Honestly (I am a optimist no matter how hard I try to beat that down) it seems to me that people are begining to really question the specifics of things a lot more in recent years as a general trend. More to the point, they are not nearly as willing to accept someone screaming about waste storage and 3 mile island as a expert with an informed opinion. Most people I talk to are shaking their heads and asking why we dont have more nuclear power.

IIRC Chernobyl failed due to a coolant pump issue that basically meant no fresh water through the system and also a absolutely stupid beurocratic reluctance to shut down the reactor due to the need to keep the ting going and the hassle of of getting it warmed up again. Bad mix. And totaly 100% avoidable.

^^They might have been a little bit of Vodka in that mix too ;)