General Discussions

**Learning Newbie** · 10-12-2007, 12:04 PM

Quote:

for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change

**CSS4Life** · 10-12-2007, 12:29 PM

While I don't want to wreck this thread before it's really begun, critics do say there is an alternative way of interpreting the increase of CO2 and the temperature increases - that rather than CO2 being the cause of climate change, it is the result. I can't remember the specifics, but that was something suggested in a documentary, "the great global warming swindle" (I believe it's on YouTube).

It should also be noted that volcanoes and other natural causes contribute a lot more to CO2 emissions than we do - that was also their argument, but is generally accepted and has been proved.

**fastreplies** · 01:38 PM

Quote:

for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change

Hear, hear!
Al, you're my man, baby. Way to go!

fastreplies

**serandfae** · 10-12-2007, 01:19 PM

I have to go with Whym here. I'd be far more concerned about the CO2 and ozone we're putting around our cities in the form of smog. The earth will survive us; it's more a question of whether our species will survive its own ingenuity.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-12-2007, 01:49 PM

Tim Daily, aka serandfae, just hit the nail right on the head. Earth will survive. It's been around a few billion years before us, and it'll be here long after the human race dies out. Earth is in no danger. It's us who are ****ed.

It's very true that CO2 isn't something humans invented. It's one of many greenhouse gasses, and volcanoes and other events have been releasing it since the dawn of our planet. In fact that's how the islands of Hawaii were formed. But I can't believe that in any given year volcanoes emit more greenhouse gasses than industry. Can you share the hard data on that? I would wager a guess if you add up all the CO2 spewed out by volcanoes since the beginning of time, 6 billion years of them probably outweigh 150 years of industrialization. But if you look at 2006, or any year, I would be shocked if in the same time frame industrialization wasn't the primary culprit.

I think many greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and others, are both the cause and result of global warming. For example there's a lot of methane trapped under the Arctic ice sheet. When the ice melts the gas will be released into the atmosphere. That's an effect of previous warming, but a cause of future warming. Just like the ice itself reflects much heat in the form of sun light back out toward space, while water absorbs it. Again this is a result, but also a cause.

It's called a feedback loop.

**fastreplies** · 10-12-2007, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serandfae

I'd be far more concerned about the CO2 and ozone....

CO2 and Ozone - 2 pixels of the Big Picture called Global Warming

fastreplies

**serandfae** · 10-12-2007, 02:12 PM

Read the whole post. Y'know, I'm one who has pushed for years for recycling, knowing that in the US we throw away enough aluminum a year to rebuild our entire commercial airfleet for instance. I'd even be for mining landfills for resources and fuel. But I also remember when fellow environmentalists pushed for McDonalds to stop using styrofoam clamshells, because they were so bad for the environment. They caved and switched to paper. But you can't recycle greasy paper, and it takes up more space in landfills. Styrofoam is recyclable, and if it is thrown away compacts. And nothing degrades in a landfill. Why didn't these activists push McDonalds to recycle? Hmmm....

So forgive me if I don't just jump on the bandwagon just because Al Gore got involved. I prefer to look before I leap.

**Aadriyah** · 10-13-2007, 12:11 AM

Congrats to Al Gore!

**swiftmed** · 10-14-2007, 11:25 AM

Congratulations al gore, but i do have to agree with the following post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastreplies

CO2 and Ozone - 2 pixels of the Big Picture called Global Warming

fastreplies

**Kyrnt** · 10-14-2007, 01:54 PM

Congratulations to Al Gore for achieving new heights of collective fear mongering, alarmism and your successful attempts to alert the world to the fact that the world is changing -- despite the fact that the world has been changing..... forever.

I haven't seen this much mass mind control since.... well, here's hoping they don't start handing out armbands.

**ForrestCroce** · 10-14-2007, 02:47 PM

I don't think in a time when we're told to buy duct tape to prevent Iraq from killing out children with "a mushroom cloud," or that terrorists are going to blow up airports from 50 miles away with a match, that Gore exactly reaches "new heights" of fear mongering.

The planet has been changing since it formed. Human life expectancy has been less than 30 for most of our existence. Neither of those has anything to do with the unprecedented change in the atmosphere since industrialization and the changes to the climate it's provoked.

In Seattle, you almost can't find a house or apartment with air conditioning, because we never used to need it. But for the last five to ten years, it's hell in the summer without one. The permafrost is melting. Native species are being pushed out of the arctic by warm weather kin, polar bears are drowning in search of food, the northwest passage is open year round for the first time since it was discovered in the middle ages.

I normally leave my politics at the door, but this is a great deal more important than who's president. When LA and Houston are buried under enough smog to block nearby mountains from sight, and the smog is unquestionably from human industrial activity ... and this is one in a million examples, I don't understand how anybody can look at all of the changes mankind has brought on, how cause and effect works, and then come to any other conclusion?

**Learning Newbie** · 10-14-2007, 11:44 PM

Every scientist in the world except 2 have a consensus. They figured this out using the very same Scientific Method that brought us television, the internet, and the internal combustion engine. My cell phone works, and I really don't think I'm smarter than the people who made it, when it comes to physics.

**SeanB** · 03:05 AM

Al Gore should be congratulated, like any other politician, for finding yet another way to line his own pockets. Only a fool would say we should not be environmentally friendly - cut pollution and waste, but you have to be pretty naive to think that Al Gore is doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Global warming and cooling are cyclical and have happened many times in the history of the earth. Hello, Ice Age? Gore, inventor of the inter-net, is taking advantage of people's gullibility.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597 (note the author: Mr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT)

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noe...a-media-s-help

There was a similar paranoia in the 1970's that global cooling was leading to another ice age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Environmental responsibility should be important to all of us, but when hundreds of millions of dollars are finding their way into the pockets of a few profiteering individuals, I have to have some scepticism.

Now in fairness, I do have to say that some of Gore's critics are idiots. People like (Bush-bot) Sean Hannity, who claim Gore is a hypocrite because he flies in private jets rather than commercial airliners, when traveling and speaking on global warming, and therefore pollutes even more than the average polluter. What kind of moron expects a former Vice President to fly in a commercial airliner? Can you imagine what a hassle that would present to all the other passengers who would first have to be cleared by secret service before being allowed to fly on the same plane as Mr. Gore? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8yf7ea4D_Q

**Learning Newbie** · 10-15-2007, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

Al Gore should be congratulated, like any other politician, for finding yet another way to line his own pockets. Only a fool would say we should not be environmentally friendly - cut pollution and waste, but you have to be pretty naive to think that Al Gore is doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Global warming and cooling are cyclical and have happened many times in the history of the earth. Hello, Ice Age? Gore, inventor of the inter-net, is taking advantage of people's gullibility.

The Draft Gore movement has never been stronger, but he's ignoring them. Gore really has a good position for himself. He has everything to loose by going back into politics at this point. Mainly respect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

There was a similar paranoia in the 1970's that global cooling was leading to another ice age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

The similarities are remarkable. In the 1970s we realized that particulate matter in the atmosphere was reflecting sunlight away from our atmosphere, and cooling the planet. People feared the onset of an ice age. We acted on the best science available, lowered the particulate matter concentration in the air, allowed more sunlight to pass through, and avoided catastrophe. The similarity is that the science was 100 % correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

Environmental responsibility should be important to all of us, but when hundreds of millions of dollars are finding their way into the pockets of a few profiteering individuals, I have to have some scepticism.

Could you expand on this, please?

You'll be happy to know I refuse any support to Michael Moore (haven't seen his new movie, Sicko, and I applauded Peta for condemning him as a hypocrite) since learning and verifying that he owns a lot of stock in Haliburton. If you have info about green spokespeople getting rich from polluters, I'd be very interested to learn more.

**SeanB** · 06:24 PM

Gore may not be "in" politics, but he certainly hasn't forgotten the art of the graft.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Could you expand on this, please?

Did you read this one?
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noe...a-media-s-help

Funny how the media joins in the hype:

As far as a concensus, it just does not exist. Just this week, Dr. William Gray gave a lecture at North Carolina criticizing the global warming hype:

Quote:

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".
Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.
His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.
"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."
At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing."
Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.
But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.
However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.
"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.
During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.
He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.
"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.
He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.
"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

About Dr. Gray, from Wikipedia:

Quote:

William M. "Bill" Gray (b. 1931), Ph.D., is a pioneer in the science of forecasting hurricanes. In 1952 he got a BS degree in Geography from George Washington University, in 1959 he got a MS in Meteorology from the University of Chicago, where he went on to get a PhD in Geophysical Sciences in 1964.
Gray pioneered the concept of "seasonal" hurricane forecasting — predicting months in advance the severity of the coming hurricane season. Gray's prognostications, issued since 1983, are used by insurance companies to calculate premiums. [1]
Gray is Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU), and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Gray is noted for his forecasts of Atlantic hurricane season activity.
Professor Gray served as a weather forecaster for the United States Air Force, and as a research assistant in the University of Chicago Department of Meteorology. He joined Colorado State University in 1961. He has been advisor of over 70 Ph. D. and M. Sc. students. His team has been issuing seasonal hurricane forecasts since 1984.
After the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Professor Gray announced that he was stepping back from the primary authorship of CSU's tropical cyclone probability forecasts, passing the role to Philip J. Klotzbach. Gray indicated that he would be devoting more time to the issue of global warming. He is a controversial figure to global warming proponents as he does not subscribe to anthropogenic causes for global warming.

**fastreplies** · 10-15-2007, 08:40 PM

Nobel Prize Committee is not a body of incompetent novices good only for
fastening Medals to people’s chest. There is good reason why they have had
honored Al Gore and now it doesn’t matter if you like it or not, his name has been
written forever into the History Book.

fastreplies

**SeanB** · 10-15-2007, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastreplies

Nobel Prize Committee is not a body of incompetent novices good only for
fastening Medals to people’s chest. There is good reason why they have had
honored Al Gore and now it doesn’t matter if you like it or not, his name has been
written forever into the History Book.

fastreplies

Hmmm, former Vice President of the USA...I'm pretty sure his name was already written in the history books.

It's been argued that the Nobel Prize committee is just another way to push the liberal agenda. Personally, I don't know and don't care, but I'd be amazed if money didn't sometimes change hands during the selection process as people "campaign" in order to win.

**fastreplies** · 10-16-2007, 01:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanB

Hmmm, former Vice President of the USA...I'm pretty sure his name was already written in the history books.

It's been argued that the Nobel Prize committee is just another way to push the liberal agenda. Personally, I don't know and don't care, but I'd be amazed if money didn't sometimes change hands during the selection process as people "campaign" in order to win.

There is very good reason why pigs never judge kanolies competition

fastreplies

**Kyrnt** · 10-16-2007, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastreplies

Nobel Prize Committee is not a body of incompetent novices good only for
fastening Medals to people’s chest. There is good reason why they have had
honored Al Gore and now it doesn’t matter if you like it or not, his name has been
written forever into the History Book.

fastreplies

What a ferociously weak argument. Might I remind you that one Adolf Hitler was Time's Man of the Year in 1938. Now I recognize that Time does not entirely base its Man of the Year ("Person" of the year for you historical revisionists out there)... but certainly there is an implication that here is the person who has made the biggest impact on our world in the past year. Doesn't that sound familiar to Nobel?

I am hopeful that with some proper direction you may receive my greatest hope for you: an education.

Warmest regards.

**Learning Newbie** · 10-16-2007, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyrnt

What a ferociously weak argument. Might I remind you that one Adolf Hitler was Time's Man of the Year in 1938. Now I recognize that Time does not entirely base its Man of the Year ("Person" of the year for you historical revisionists out there)... but certainly there is an implication that here is the person who has made the biggest impact on our world in the past year. Doesn't that sound familiar to Nobel?

I am hopeful that with some proper direction you may receive my greatest hope for you: an education.

Warmest regards.

Your argument has a fundamental flaw. It doesn't recognize that Time Magazine and the Nobel Prize panel are distinct from each other. Seriously. You just spent a paragraph saying that because Time chose Hitler 70 years ago the Nobel is worthless today. And then told somebody else to become educated.