Whats your opinion of it? I seriously dont think people realise how serious it is. I get a really bad impression of America for there lack of support for fighting against it but still play a huge role in it with so much pollution.
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Whats your opinion of it? I seriously dont think people realise how serious it is. I get a really bad impression of America for there lack of support for fighting against it but still play a huge role in it with so much pollution.
tempratures around the world will rise 1 degree ooooooooh i'm scared.
Oh god, I hope that was meant to be ironic.
its so sad why did we have to be born just as this is happening i am forever trying to force people to do somthing about it,im only a kid though so people dont listen to me then i talk in a manner in which it sounds like their superior is talking and it makes them listen.
The humans have made an awful mess and now we need to switch to solar tidal and geothermal energy but no-one is i personaly think we arnt gonna make it in time
The main interest to me is to cut down on all the unneccessary pollution, recycle etc.
i do environmental science ay uni so i have to see it in different perspectives.
global warming is happening and to some it seems that they have nothing to do with it. a rise in 1C is quite bad. more rain, more storms worse drughts more world hunger. the oceans will rise because of the melting ice caps. this will throw off the gulf stream causing britain to become like russia. plus most of the south coast of the uk will become covered in water.
another point is that we are overdue on an ice age. the weather will get slightly warmer before it goes right down. conpaired to the weather millions of years ago when the dinos were about temps were about 5-10C higher.
I think that it is a risk and that people really should take it seriously. and not to take the micky out of it.
Of course it's happening. I remember how it used to, y'know, SNOW in winter, not RAIN.
I think the current prevailing attitude of "I'll be dead when it gets serious, therefore I don't care" is a dangerous one, but one which, crudely, I guess you can't really condemn people for having - if they choose not to take heed in the topic, then that is up to them at the end of the day. While the Kyoto agreement has been elemental in getting the ball rolling, the targets should have been much higher. Alot of people live very luxurious lives without even knowing it, and if relitively minor sacrifices were made on a national scale, I think this is a problem well within our grasp of solving.
Although the melting ice caps and general temperature rise is a worrying issue, I've heard that the most important issue, as mentioned by boris, is how the gulf-stream will be disrupted, but sadly I don't know anything about that in detail.
This is probably misguided, but personally I think the depletion of the ozone layer is more concerning at the moment.
Ozone: definately bigger issue. Radiation causes things to die, and actually probably has a bigger effect on climate change than the crap being pumped into the atmosphere. Besides, what we're seeing affecting the weather today is not global warming. That takes more time than what you might think. 1 degree every 100 years, that's the average increase- hardly a cause for concern.
What we're seeing is known as *heat pollution*, which has to do with the amount of heat energy produced on the planet itself. Stuff like nuclear plants and household appliances and winter heating of homes. The energy leaks out and actually does heat the entire neighborhood. If people turned off all energy producing devices and spent a year without them, most temperatures would slide comfortably back into average again.
That being said, the effect on the oceans will actually cut global warming back down very quickly. More heat= more algae= more oxygen= drop in temperatures. Nature is self-correcting and self-regulating, it compensates for stuff like this. You should be more concerned of the direct harm we're causing to life on this world, not the affect on temperatures.
I don't know about all of you, but I get the impression that people are getting hysterical over this issue.
I'll link to a few threads from a message board I visit regarding this issue:
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...global+warming
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...global+warming
I hope the mods don't mind :) .
A sea-level rise of just one metre will submerge a lot of small Pacific Ocean islands. I'm talking about entire cultures being forced to relocate. Sure, that kind of change wouldn't affect the US much, but the projected rise of several metres would significantly impact on virtually every landmass. [q=udsuna]Ozone: definately bigger issue. Radiation causes things to die, and actually probably has a bigger effect on climate change than the crap being pumped into the atmosphere.[/q]The ozone layer blocks ultraviolet radiation. UV rays don't contribute to climate change, but they are a big deal. I live in New Zealand; the Antarctic ozone hole is right above us. It's summer down here. If I go outside without wearing sunscreen, I'll get burned in less than a quarter of an hour. I wear sunglasses on any sunny or cloudy day to prevent UV from making my eyes worse than they already are. Skin cancer rates are rising in the area.
And it's entirely because of the decades of pollution churned out by the industrialised nations. They aren't affected; due to air currents, the ozone hole is over the sparesely populated and generally quite pristine South.
However, progress has been made. Chlorofluorocarbons, the biggest destroyers of ozone, have been almost completely phased out. The ozone hole is slowly closing.Temperatures rose more than that during the twentieth century; that's why there's concern.Quote:
Besides, what we're seeing affecting the weather today is not global warming. That takes more time than what you might think. 1 degree every 100 years, that's the average increase- hardly a cause for concern.
Nice in theory, but it's not that simple. Algae aren't the only life affected by heat. The planet's temperature rise will first affect the polar ice caps, causing huge amounts of fresh water to be released. This'll cause the rise in sea levels. The temperature change will disrupt ecosystems, too - habitat and food-source change being a big factor. It would take one heck of a load of algae to redress the balance.Quote:
That being said, the effect on the oceans will actually cut global warming back down very quickly. More heat= more algae= more oxygen= drop in temperatures. Nature is self-correcting and self-regulating, it compensates for stuff like this. You should be more concerned of the direct harm we're causing to life on this world, not the affect on temperatures.
Interesting... but I've never once heard this mentioned by a scientific establishment. It's well known that suburban life - buildings, infrastructure and so forth - causes distinct 'microclimates' within large cities, but that does not have a significant effect on the world as such. The energy output of computers and toasters is absolutely insignificant compared to the sun's energy and the chemical emissions of heavy industry.[q=Darlon]I don't know about all of you, but I get the impression that people are getting hysterical over this issue.Quote:
What we're seeing is known as *heat pollution*, which has to do with the amount of heat energy produced on the planet itself. Stuff like nuclear plants and household appliances and winter heating of homes. The energy leaks out and actually does heat the entire neighborhood. If people turned off all energy producing devices and spent a year without them, most temperatures would slide comfortably back into average again.
I'll link to a few threads from a message board I visit regarding this issue:
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/v...=global+warming
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/v...=global+warming
[/q]I read those threads, and was somewhere between amused and frightened.
In spite of what those 'experts' believe, there is overwhelming scientific belief in the existence of global warming. Most scientists in the relevant fields are convinced that it is occurring and that it poses a grave threat. This widespread public belief that "global warming is a controversial, disputed issue" is just media-perpetuated nonsense. TV news programmes don't offer facts, they create sensation and controversy. That's how they make money. People buy into what they say, and then start repeating slogans like "but many respected scientists say global warming isn't real!" when the opposite is, in fact, true. There's a strong urge to deny that anything is wrong. "Bah, those same stupid scientists said that the world was cooling, back in the 1970s. What do they know!?" Deny and discredit, and believe whatever makes things easier.
The reality is that the majority of qualified scientists take the threat of global warming seriously. However, their opinions and their research will make it difficult for some guy to make money, so steps will be taken to silence their warnings.
Thanks for the response Big D. It was the type of information I was hoping for.
On a practical note, it was, this morning, -6°C (21°F) here in Paris, around -9°C (16°F) in the outskirts, and it went down to -24.9°C (-12.8°F) at the coldest last night in France. Overall, we broke low temperature records from 1971. So you'll understand that right now, hearing about global warming makes me chuckle.
Umm... I wasn't saying UV directly caused global warming- but it does have this nasty habit of killing animals and plants, which does directly increases global warming. And yes, I'm talking about a LOT of algae. All the algae in the oceans. Already responsible for about half the oxygen production on this planet. At least by the '02 estimates- I'm having trouble finding more up to date info. Boost the temp by a couple degrees, and the growth rate of these will almost double. Increasing oxygen by rates that might even become dangerous in and of themselves. But, it will replenish the ozone right quick. This is possibly the singular thing that controls most of the global climate changes, the changing of the algae ratios.
Thats pretty uninformed. Global warming causes all kind of effects. Not just heat.Quote:
On a practical note, it was, this morning, -6°C (21°F) here in Paris, around -9°C (16°F) in the outskirts, and it went down to -24.9°C (-12.8°F) at the coldest last night in France. Overall, we broke low temperature records from 1971. So you'll understand that right now, hearing about global warming makes me chuckle.
I'm not a climatologist or even a weatherman, so go ahead and take this with a grain of salt, but global warming could very well freeze over Europe, or at least England. The idea is that England is as far north as say, Novia Scotia (I think) or Norway, but has a temperate climate because of warm water running up from nearer the equator, which carries warm air with it. The reason this happens is because hot normally runs to cold. The idea goes that as temperatures around the arctic increase, there becomes less of a temperature difference, and so the warm water stops flowing up there. Since that stops the current of warm air running up to warm England, it freezes over like Siberia. Something along those lines anyway.
Anyway, I can definitely see it in action where I live - when I was young, it never rained in winter, only snowed. The past couple years, however, during winter it has rained more than it has snowed. Hell, even the pentagon feels its a national security issue.
If i want to drive a huge truck that spits out pollution like crazy, im gonna. because THAT my freinds is the american way.
The same thing happened in my country in December. It was relatively cold and wet for the entire month. About a million people wrote letters to the newspapers crying :OMG IT R COLD N RAIN IN NEW ZEALAND DAT PROVES DAT THER R NO GLOBOL WORMING OMG!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Endless
An anomalous, short-term weather pattern in one part of the world doesn't destroy the general trend of higher temperatures. Besides, more chaotic weather has long been predicted as a consequence of global warming.As algae grow faster, so too do their predators grow... balance like that is anothe side-effect. It's like how the seal population in Antarctica exploded when krill began to flourish after whales were nearly annihilated by humans. If there are more algae, there'll be more creatures eating algae. There have been a few experiments where large amounts of iron were added to the sea, to promote algae growth as a means of reducing atmospheric carbon. It was promising - the algae bloomed - but there were concerns about what effect this'd have on the wider ecosystem, i.e. nutrient deprivation, blocking sunlight to lower levels of the ocean, and so forth.[q=Super Christ]I'm not a climatologist or even a weatherman, so go ahead and take this with a grain of salt, but global warming could very well freeze over Europe, or at least England. The idea is that England is as far north as say, Novia Scotia (I think) or Norway, but has a temperate climate because of warm water running up from nearer the equator, which carries warm air with it. The reason this happens is because hot normally runs to cold. The idea goes that as temperatures around the arctic increase, there becomes less of a temperature difference, and so the warm water stops flowing up there. Since that stops the current of warm air running up to warm England, it freezes over like Siberia. Something along those lines anyway.[/q]That's the biggest threat from global warming. The actual problem would come from the polar ice caps melting and releasing huge amounts of dense, fresh, cold water which would disrupt the warm Gulf Stream currents.Quote:
All the algae in the oceans. Already responsible for about half the oxygen production on this planet. At least by the '02 estimates- I'm having trouble finding more up to date info. Boost the temp by a couple degrees, and the growth rate of these will almost double. Increasing oxygen by rates that might even become dangerous in and of themselves. But, it will replenish the ozone right quick. This is possibly the singular thing that controls most of the global climate changes, the changing of the algae ratios.
However, this idea was used and exaggerated in a movie - The Day After Tomorrow - so the general public will now refuse to take it seriously:p
Ironic, ain't it? Global warming lowers water flow which then proceeds to freeze over the coasts, constrict flow even more, and cause an ice-age. Truly, the laws of equal and opposite reaction hold no limits.
Maybe I should have put "global warming" between quotes. It's the denomination that makes me chuckle (and the fact it relies on meteorological/climatorial prediction over the next hundred years, when we can't forecast the week's weather, but that's another debate). I'm for the Kyoto agreements and working towards limiting pollution, it can't hurt, and if it clears the smog, it's all good. :p
As far as I know, investigations blaming the gases we produce as a cause of the global warning are not definite, maybe probable, but many scientists defend this warming is a natural change, similar to the end of the ice age, for example. However, I believe it is important to take into account the fact it may be due to pollution, even if evidence pointing to it is not prefectly definite and such, it is still to be taken into account.
I also wonder about the political dimensions around this investigations. Seriously, I do not believe science is neutral, and I believe many interests are behind some theories. What do I mean? Well, not long ago I was reading in Libertad Digital (Digital Freedom...duh)- wich is the most right-winged news source you can get in Spain- how a journalist complained about the idea that global warming was a cause of gases, accusing this as an outdated theory that was kept by the left winged in order to blame capitalism and modern industry on this problem. Under the same suppositions, I could do an oposed accusation and say the attempted refutations of the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect are some capitalist scientific conspiracy, but I'd like not to stoop to that, I don't want to be the left winged version of Libertad Digital. However, I think we should take into consideration many of the theories around global warming may be feeded by interest: I am not going to say wich are and wich are not, because I do not know, but I'd just like to point that idea out, I mean, it's sad, but many times science is there to defend the interests of some. This could be another case.
About the freezing temperatures, well, now Spain is suffering a cold wave. It was snowing in Barcelona the other day, and that is not normal: however, this was due to Siberian winds coming through the Pyrenees and freezing our asses. I have been ill all week, I am not used to this temperatures, and I can't resist them very well. However, this has nothing to do with global warming. For example, this October it felt like damn summer, I could say this year autum was really short. Many people blamed this on global warming, then again, it was winds from the Sahara desert, wich are really damn hot.
What's my point? That just because in your country temperatures suffer dramatic drops and increases, it does not mean it is related to the existance or non existance of global warming. It may just mean it's a metheorological coincidence, winds coming from a cold or warm place. Spain, for example, suffers a lot from this, because we are between the Sahara and the cold north.
However, it can't be denied temperatures are growing. A few years ago I went to see my family in Chile, and we went to San Rafael, a glacier in the frontier between Chile and Argentina. You could see the rocks had been painted with years, the rock that was more far away from the ice had a "1976". It meant that in 1976, the ice was on that point, and trust me, it was really far away from the rock. The last sign was 1997, and the ice was close to there, but the distance was still considerable, of a few meters (It was 2002 then). OK, it may not seem like much, but apply those little meters of ice to the whole globe, and you can see it's something to worry about, and that maybe the Kyoto treat should be taken into account by Mr. Chimp.
Mr. Chimp, as you so eloquently put him, does not care about global warming as he believes the rapture is coming :p
At the very least, a significant amount of his party does, and he's catering to them.
You guys ever consider China to? Population over 1 billion, emerging economic power, consumes twice as much as USA (soon will go way over that) and etc. Just imagine when China eventually catches up with the U.S. and also let's not forget India's growing economy.
We should just genetically alter trees so they grow at a faster rate then the rate we the world, cut them down. Also get alternative energy source then are dependence on foreign oil, like the hydrogen engine that's being developed right now, and yet being improved/implemented also.
I also want to say, even though Humans/ Animals have been emitting gases for thousands of years into our atmosphere. Maybe its not global warming, maybe were still in an end to a Ice Age, where the Polar Ice Caps still have yet to melt. It could be a normal cycle, just like earth quakes and volcanos.
That seems almost like a good idea. The only problem is that these fast growing trees would probably choke out natural trees, and I myself wouldn't want to be responsible for the extinction of the redwood, or the oak. Now, if these trees were also genetically engineered to be sterile in a reproductive sense, then it'd probably be a good idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by noname
I only glanced through the thread and I agree it is a serious issue, the funny thing about it is that not much is being done. For example the USA alone produce 25% of CO2 ommissions. Also Canada, since signing the Kyoto Deal, well it increased by 17%. So yes it is a danger that is indeed affecting us, but we need to take more initiative *knows beign a hypocrite by saying that*. Fior example Iceland rellies on thermal heating. A major problem is car exhaste. If the hydrogen could be perfected and efficient than that would help greatly. A bad thing though, CFC's stay in the atmosphere for about 100 years, so it is not all gone, we got a while yet. Also there is no one way to ensure that the world will become pro-environmental. We have seen this in the past, for example DDt. Though a potent insecticide, it is now more or less banned internationally. Still there are places in the world that do use it. Like udsuna said, Nature, will eventually balance itself out, either by whiping out the human race, if it didn't already destroy itself by then. The scriest bit is that "The Day After Tomorrow" seems pretty realistic at times. I mean could we actually cause that? (My answer is probably yes...)
BTW someone mentioned Novia Scotia, did they mean Nova Scotia, and if so that is a province in Canada, and is more south than my New Brunswick.
Yep, nature always finds a way. If we kept up current trends for another couple centuries or so, we'll see a climate much the way it was when our saurian friends roamed the earth. Of course, that could easily suck for us humans. We don't *really* know WHAT to expect of that, and it's possible we'll be royally screwed.
Personally, I don't think it'll be that big a problem... of course, I'd rather not find out in the first place. I'm in illinois- we'll probably be spared the scariest of it. The areas closest to oceans will be the hardest hit.
Oh, and SoL.... relying on that movie to learn about climate shifts is like watching Jurassic Park to learn about dinosaures.
My answer is definitely not. I have never heard of ANY "natural disaster" movie that hasn't made an outright mockery of physics.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Summoner of Leviathan
There wasnt any doubt from the creators that the events in the movie could not happen in our lifetime. The point was eventually if things keep up it will happen. That was around the time the movie was released that global warming was discovered to be happening twice as fast as originally estimated.
Umm... try "could not happen ever" and you'll be closer to accurate. That movie was at somewhere between dramatization and complete science fiction. It leans towards the latter. The floods and flash-freezes are simply impossible under ANY weather conditions. The random super-storms *might* be possible, but water levels, at least, take years to rise and fall.Quote:
Originally Posted by Destai
And giant tidal waves are NEVER caused by the weather. Those are all earthquake related.
I never said that was how I learned about them. I learned a long time before I saw the movie. What I said was based on what I have actually learned in school, and what I have heard. My reference to "The Day After Tomorrow" was just to say, what if that happened? I know better than to believe every thing I see from the mass media.Quote:
Originally Posted by udsuna
responding to udsuna
I meant how the weather would become that destructive even in places like New York.
I think it's obviously a very serious issue that governments need to do more to combat... instead of waging pointless wars on foreign shores with little or no justification - yeah , you know who you are !!!!