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Arguably one of the most controversial issues of the 1990's through the present, Global Warming seems to come up in politics, popular culture, and in car commercials.
Well, in the 70's wasn't it global cooling? It probably is a farce but that doesn't mean we shouldn't limit greenhouse gas emissions, look what it did to China, someone I know came back and said the trees were white because of it and it really would be terrible for the whole world to be like that. Think of all of the animals that would die because of us. Hopefully, we'll stop using oil altogether soon.
Arguably one of the most controversial issues of the 1990's through the present, Global Warming seems to come up in politics, popular culture, and in car commercials.
Is Global Warming upon us? Or is it all a farce?
I'm pretty well convinced of global warming and attendant climate changes. While much of the data is being challenged (to varying degrees of success), driving though the Promenade de Glaciers in Canada with "before" pictures showed me directly some of the impact of the warmer conditions. So, too, the pictures of the Alps and the Himalayas. The 'retreat' of the glaciers over the last 80+ years is extreme. That the 'retreat' has accelerated over the last 20 years is also indisputable.
So, to me, that would appear to leave three questions:
1) Is the global warming caused by humanity?
2) Are the effects of global warming something action by governments, scientists, and individuals can have any impact upon?
3) Even if we can, should we try consciously to change the environment?
Is the global warming caused by humanity? While I am fairly well convinced that it is caused by our industry, our cars and trucks, and our carbon emissions, I am less convinced that it matters if we caused it, 'merely' contributed to it, or are 'victims' of a natural phenomena.
It's happening. The water levels are rising and land is being lost already. Given that, I am left with questions 2 and 3.
Are the effects of global warming something action by governments, scientists, and individuals can have any impact upon?
We know we can influence our levels of carbon emissions - we already have. We know we can change how our coal plants work, our fuel economy, and many other items.
Can we have enough impact to make a significant difference? I sure hope so. Even if our changes only slow the progress of the warming, that will provide world governments additional time to deal with the consequences (whether or not they use that time wisely). Certainly, we are more likely to make sufficient impact if we try to than if we just hope that things will improve! So...
Even if we can, should we try consciously to change the environment?
I am not one of those who see a nobility in permitting nature to destroy lives, nor do I see this as a viable way to reduce the world's population. (Effective is not the same as viable.)
The cost in lives would be huge - far greater than most people imagine. I don't mean just the loss of coastal lands, per se, though that is more than bad enough. I mean, also, the wars that will be triggered as a result of:
a) Loss of water to the south Asian sub-continent from the loss of the glacier-fed river waters;
b) Loss of land, causing massive refugee movements and land-grabbing;
c) Progression of increasing diseases as the carriers move more readily than their predators.
I'm pretty well convinced of global warming and attendant climate changes. While much of the data is being challenged (to varying degrees of success), driving though the Promenade de Glaciers in Canada with "before" pictures showed me directly some of the impact of the warmer conditions. So, too, the pictures of the Alps and the Himalayas. The 'retreat' of the glaciers over the last 80+ years is extreme. That the 'retreat' has accelerated over the last 20 years is also indisputable.
So, to me, that would appear to leave three questions:
1) Is the global warming caused by humanity?
2) Are the effects of global warming something action by governments, scientists, and individuals can have any impact upon?
3) Even if we can, should we try consciously to change the environment?
Is the global warming caused by humanity?
While I am fairly well convinced that it is caused by our industry, our cars and trucks, and our carbon emissions, I am less convinced that it matters if we caused it, 'merely' contributed to it, or are 'victims' of a natural phenomena.
It's happening. The water levels are rising and land is being lost already. Given that, I am left with questions 2 and 3.
Are the effects of global warming something action by governments, scientists, and individuals can have any impact upon?
We know we can influence our levels of carbon emissions - we already have. We know we can change how our coal plants work, our fuel economy, and many other items.
Can we have enough impact to make a significant difference? I sure hope so. Even if our changes only slow the progress of the warming, that will provide world governments additional time to deal with the consequences (whether or not they use that time wisely). Certainly, we are more likely to make sufficient impact if we try to than if we just hope that things will improve! So...
Even if we can, should we try consciously to change the environment?
I am not one of those who see a nobility in permitting nature to destroy lives, nor do I see this as a viable way to reduce the world's population. (Effective is not the same as viable.)
The cost in lives would be huge - far greater than most people imagine. I don't mean just the loss of coastal lands, per se, though that is more than bad enough. I mean, also, the wars that will be triggered as a result of:
a) Loss of water to the south Asian sub-continent from the loss of the glacier-fed river waters;
b) Loss of land, causing massive refugee movements and land-grabbing;
c) Progression of increasing diseases as the carriers move more readily than their predators.
So, yes, we should try, in my opinion.
This is an excellent post! I couldn't have said it any better myself.. so I say .. what they say!
I think we should also help to fund Levees in Africa if Ocean levels continue to rise. A lot of those countries are far too poor to build good quality levees and most of their populations are on the coast in low lying areas like river deltas, Egypt and Nigeria in particular. Here is a population density map of Africa.
http://na.unep.net/globalpop/africa/images/p00.png (broken link)
Fromwhat I read, and my backround (weatherman in military, spent time at the South Pole talking to scientists...) it seems to be a little of both.
Normal climate changes are clearly underfoot and this spat of global warming was going to happen. Does the effect of man play a part- I think there is no question about it.
What to do?
1) Be responsible personally. I really think there is value in trying to "live green". However, this can be overdone.
2) Be responsible outside of home- at work, in the community... I don't mean political activism, but playing another small part as we can where we may go.
3) Encourage our politicians and other policy makers to seek creative and enviromentally safe practices on a regional, country and global scale.
Where's my spot to vote? I say it's a farce. The glaciers have now receded to where they were 600 years ago and man was doing nothing at that time to cause it.
I do a LOT of reading on the Weather Forum. I had commented on my temps being below average so often that global warming just didn't seem to fit for my area. Some people felt it existed on a wider scale then just my little world. But we have members from England, France, New Zealand, Australia, and most states in the U.S. If there is anything phenomenal going on, it's global cooling. Yet, I don't believe in that either. IMHO it's just the earth going through it's normal changes and that's guided by our Creator.
I respect the views of others on this, BUT one of the things that bothers me is when a documentary starts out like, "Global warming is real and is now an undisputed fact...." That's just absolutely not true and there are many accomplished scientists who don't believe in it. For some reason or other, they've remained fairly silent the past few months even though their views haven't changed.
There are just so many people who are making fortunes because of this "new discovery".
But isn't it wonderful that it's making us more conscious of how we treat our earth?
Humans are always looking for excuses. "Global Warming" is just another doctrine designed to move the masses. Scientific data suggests that global surface temperatures are increasing, yet atmospheric temps are not changing. While being responsible with how you use energy is a good thing, I know that "global warming" will be used as another way to give special compensation to the select few.
When I hear about glaciers melting and huge slabs of ice breaking off of Antarctica, not to mention the ice at the north pole melting earlier and earlier each spring, I think there's little doubt that global warming is a reality. The speed at which this warming is occurring leaves little doubt that it's due to the burning of fossil fuels. Also, although this may sound like a doomsday prediction, in my opinion, this process has gone so far as to be irreversible. We're left to deal with the consequences in whatever form they will take. Wave "goodbye" to the polar bears!
Where's my spot to vote? I say it's a farce. The glaciers have now receded to where they were 600 years ago and man was doing nothing at that time to cause it.
As far as I remember:
1) The period of Alpine glacier retreat went from ~900ACE to ~1200ACE, during the Medieval Warm Period, which would make it 800 years ago, not 600. Around 1250, those glaciers started to expand again. (Scandinavian glaciers have a different time scale, and, at least by my memory, we have too few details to know what the Andes glaciers were like at the time.)
2) The point at which our glaciers got to the point of matching the glacial levels just prior to theLittle Ice Age was in 1950. There has been considerable retreat from there. Similar data was gathered in Canada, though the scientists were less exact about when in the 20th century the prior level was reached. (B.H. Luckman, 1993).
From The Independent (2006, emphasis mine):
Quote:
Professor (Lonnie) Thompson (of Ohio State University) said the research was based on nearly 50 scientific expeditions to seven mountain glaciers over the past three decades, including the Huascaran and Quelccaya ice caps in Peru, the Saja-ma ice cap in Bolivia and the Dunde and Puruogangri ice caps in China. He said: "We have a record going back 2,000 years and when you plot it out, you can see the medieval warm period [from 1000 to 1300] and the little ice age [from 1600 to 1850]. And in that same record, you can clearly see the 20th century and the thing that stands out is how unusually warm the last 50 years have been. There hasn't been anything like it, not even in the medieval warm period.
"The fact that the isotope values in the last 50 years have been so unusual means that things are dramatically changing."
The most dramatic evidence comes from 28 sites where [b]the retreating ice has exposed plants that have been frozen and preserved for between 5,000 and 6,000 years by the glacier's base.[b]
The glaciers are beyond where they were prior to the Little Ice Age or at any point during the Medieval Warm Period.
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I say it's a farce. The glaciers have now receded to where they were 600 years ago and man was doing nothing at that time to cause it.
