IHADAV8.com - Turbo Buick Tech, and Nonsense
General => IHADAV8 Playground => Topic started by: 87natty on March 13 2007, 12:46:53 AM
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From the Babylon of Gilgamesh to the post-Eden of Noah, every age has viewed climate change cataclysmicall y, as retribution for human greed and sinfulness.
In the 1970s, the fear was "global cooling." The Christian Science Monitor then declaimed, "Warning: Earth's climate is changing faster than even experts expect," while The New York Times announced, "A major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable." Sound familiar? Global warming represents the latest doom-laden "crisis," one demanding sacrifice to Gaia for our wicked fossil-fuel-driven ways.
But neither history nor science bolsters such an apocalyptic faith.
History and Science
Extreme weather events are ever present, and there is no evidence of systematic increases. Outside the tropics, variability should decrease in a warmer world. If this is a "crisis," then the world is in permanent "crisis," but will be less prone to "crisis" with warming.
Sea levels have been rising since the end of the last ice age, most rapidly about 12,000 years ago. In recent centuries, the average rate has been relatively uniform. The rate was higher during the first half of the 20th century than during the second. At around a couple of millimeters per year, it is a residual of much larger positive and negative changes locally. The risk from global warming is less than that from other factors (primarily geological).
The impact on agriculture is equivocal. India warmed during the second half of the 20th century, yet agricultural output increased markedly. The impact on disease is dubious. Infectious diseases, like malaria, are not so much a matter of temperature as of poverty and public health. Malaria remains endemic in Siberia, and was once so in Michigan and Europe. Exposure to cold is generally more dangerous.
So, does the claim that humans are the primary cause of recent warming imply "crisis"? The impact on temperature per unit CO2 goes down, not up, with increasing CO2. The role of human-induced greenhouse gases does not relate directly to emission rate, nor even to CO2 levels, but rather to the radiative (or greenhouse) impact. Doubling CO2 is a convenient benchmark. It is claimed, on the basis of computer models, that this should lead to 1.1 - 6.4 C warming.
What is rarely noted is that we are already three-quarters of the way into this in terms of radiative forcing, but we have only witnessed a 0.6 (+/-0.2) C rise, and there is no reason to suppose that all of this is due to humans.
Indeed the system requires no external driver to fluctuate by a fraction of a degree because of ocean disequilibrium with the atmosphere. There are also alternative drivers relating to cosmic rays, the sun, water vapor and clouds. Moreover, it is worth remembering that modelers even find it difficult to account for the medieval warm period.
The Real Crisis
Our so-called "crisis" is thus neither a product of current observations nor of projections.
But does it matter if global warming is a "crisis" or not? Aren't we threatened by a serious temperature rise? Shouldn't we act anyway, because we are stewards of the environment?
Herein lies the moral danger behind global warming hysteria. Each day, 20,000 people in the world die of waterborne diseases. Half a billion people go hungry. A child is orphaned by AIDS every seven seconds. This does not have to happen. We allow it while fretting about "saving the planet." What is wrong with us that we downplay this human misery before our eyes and focus on events that will probably not happen even a hundred years hence? We know that the greatest cause of environmental degradation is poverty; on this, we can and must act.
The global warming "crisis" is misguided. In hubristically seeking to "control" climate, we foolishly abandon age-old adaptations to inexorable change. There is no way we can predictably manage this most complex of coupled, nonlinear chaotic systems. The inconvenient truth is that "doing something" (emitting gases) at the margins and "not doing something" (not emitting gases) are equally unpredictable.
Climate change is a norm, not an exception. It is both an opportunity and a challenge. The real crises for 4 billion people in the world remain poverty, dirty water and the lack of a modern energy supply. By contrast, global warming represents an ecochondria of the pampered rich.
We can no longer afford to cling to the anti-human doctrines of outdated environmentali st thinking. The "crisis" is the global warming political agenda, not climate change.
Philip Stott is an Emeritus Professor from the University of London, UK. For the last 18 years he was the editor of the Journal of Biogeography. For more information about the debate series, go to www.iq2us.org
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Exactly!
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I think when Robert finds a tree hugger chick, we should tie her up until she divulges the inside scoop.
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No tree huggers for me unless they want to go down with the tree. I'll be clearing land someday soon.
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Thank god I listen to Rush Limbaugh and know all this shit already. :cool;
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Thank god I listen to Rush Limbaugh and know all this shit already.
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Should I worry more about global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels, or should I rather worry about the diminishing supply of fossil fuels? The messages provided by the gloom and doom media are confusing me.
The real problem is increasing world populations and diminishing natural resources. It does not take much common sense to realize that such a scenario is real, and very unpleasant. Famine, disease, pollution, increasing global and regional conflicts, can all be expected to increase.
The strongest shall survive, I suppose, unless the politicians get involved.
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Zap, you have been watching too much Mad Max.
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You can never watch too much Mad Max. :cool;
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You can never watch too much Mad Max. :cool;
I.m with Zap on this one ! :supz:
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Mad Max
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlR27KbbYc
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Mad Max
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlR27KbbYc
You'll love this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JnnsLMrlo4
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I heard that the issue of global warming is big, but some people are taking it to extremes....
http://www.roadtripamerica.com/roadside/Baker-Thermometer.htm
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huh, huh, huh....they said "Erected by a Baker"..
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huh, huh, huh....they said "Erected by a Baker"..
:weedman: Uhhh, BUSTED ! :rofl;
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huh, huh, huh....they said "Erected by a Baker"..
:weedman: Uhhh, BUSTED !
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Baker is slang for
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Baker is slang for
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You also said "erected". Do I need to define that for you too ?
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You also said "erected". Do I need to define that for you too ?
I know, dont worry about that....lol :rofl;