Climate Changes, Is it happening or not? Options

[Crash]

In my eyes it is indeed changing, only by looking at this summer; It's been raining a lot, about half of July and June I think. And the temperatur has been colder than average, I must really say that it has been quite cold myself and we've had few days with temperatures more than 25C (in fact, I think we had like one or two days) Not many days have had temperatures over 20C either, think we had like 20 days. Summary; Wetter and colder summer.

Another strange this is the hell winter we had in 2006, until February it was warm, where it started snowing, and more and more. In March we had more than 1 meter (about 3 feet) and we were loaded with a temperature topping -25'C in March. It was a hell to walk to school in that temperature December and November have had temperatures up to 10'C here the last years, the usual temperature is around 0'C. This is a satellite picture for scandinavia march 2006. Even Denmark is covered with Snow, that country usually doesn't get much snow. (and it's march!) Seems like we get both warm and cold periods, with unstable weather.

This post has been edited by CrashKing: Aug 18 2007, 10:41 PM

[Clazzy]

We just had two months of rain. In summer.
Global warming is happening but the world will ignore it because it costs too much money to solve.

[Corsair]

Global warming is happening but the world will ignore it because it costs too much money to solve.

Pretty much. Nobody wants to spend money to fix it because well... it won't get them money. It'll only save the world.

[Crash]

It's not only giving money to it, everybody can help out by using climate friendly transport, grab a bike or walk to places not too far away (driving to your school a kilometre away is from lazyness. I try to be as friendly to the climate as possible; I bike anywhere close (anything closer than 10km pretty much) instead of asking my parents to drive me there. (I am driven with them, but that's only when we're going for a trip or shopping mostly) But I really don't do it to be climate friendly, it's more because of me liking to go places and bike around

Where money can help out is the part of making climate friendly cars, planes, boats etc. And of course climate friendly fuel. I don't know much about that but I think there is some climate friendly fuel, right?

This post has been edited by CrashKing: Aug 18 2007, 10:53 PM

[Clazzy]

It's not only giving money to it, everybody can help out by using climate friendly transport, grab a bike or walk to places not too far away (driving to your school a kilometre away is from lazyness. I try to be as friendly to the climate as possible; I bike anywhere close (anything closer than 10km pretty much) instead of asking my parents to drive me there. (I am driven with them, but that's only when we're going for a trip or shopping mostly) But I really don't do it to be climate friendly, it's more because of me liking to go places and bike around

That's quite naive. Individuals aren't the biggest issue, it's companies. Even if it was just people, companies wouldn't be touched because of the governments we are (mostly) all in. Capitalist governments are biased towards the right and will give preference to companies over people (which is why when a company is charged of manslaughter or negligence then they are merely fined). All this turning off electricity stuff won't help because it requires involvement from power plants themselves. Power plants will still run at full power, I suppose they probably have giant capacitors to store excess power but they're not going to turn them off for two minutes to save the planet. We can't really do anything to stop global warming until the people who are genuinely responsible start helping to fix it.

Where money can help out is the part of making climate friendly cars, planes, boats etc. And of course climate friendly fuel. I don't know much about that but I think there is some climate friendly fuel, right?

No fuel is climate friendly. It's like people saying how hydrogen power is the way forward, the hydrogen and oxygen have to be separated from the water, using power. The power comes from power plants, merely putting a strain on them rather than actually lowering pollution. Admittedly, modern power plants are far more efficient than cars (especially gas power plants, they get about 50% efficiency, a car is about 20% efficient) but it won't solve the problems of running out of oil (and therefore petrol and plastic) and won't ultimately stop global warming.

What I'm trying to say, really, is that it's a lost cause. Unless be pour trillions into stopping it, global warming WILL happen. Nobody will support that much money to solve a long-term problem because companies and governments plan for short/mid-term. When it does happen, perhaps it will just kill off a good portion of the population and fix the problem itself. Nature is good at restoring order, even after we damage it severely.

[Yoshi]

I also heard that nonetheless, global warming was inevitable to begin with; we're just speeding up the process.

[KingByng]

Well when Pakistan and India finally go at it, the dust and debris from the mushroom clouds will cool the Earth down a few degrees Fahrenheit (so only 1 or 2 degrees Celsius), global warming will be delayed by a few years.

[Corsair]

Well when Pakistan and India finally go at it, the dust and debris from the mushroom clouds will cool the Earth down a few degrees Fahrenheit (so only 1 or 2 degrees Celsius), global warming will be delayed by a few years.

I guess thats a... positive way to look at it

XD

[KingByng]

Well think about it for a second. Is it more realistic for 2 nuclear armed nations that hate each other going all out or large, heavily polluting corporations in a capitalist country to willingly go and lose possibly millions of dollars when they could make a cheap and polluting product much faster?

[wondle_donkey]

What I'm trying to say, really, is that it's a lost cause. Unless be pour trillions into stopping it, global warming WILL happen. Nobody will support that much money to solve a long-term problem because companies and governments plan for short/mid-term. When it does happen, perhaps it will just kill off a good portion of the population and fix the problem itself. Nature is good at restoring order, even after we damage it severely.

As always, Clazzy gets it. Even if we do something about global warming now, it will not be enough. Even though I am about as liberal as one can get, the line has to be drawn somewhere to actually be realistic. There is NO such thing as environment friendly fuel. If you live in the united states, you have probably already seen the commercials where people are claiming that "biodiesel is the way to save our planet." which is, of course absolute BS. Biodiesel is horribly inefficient and will in no way help us. These claims are only made to support the candidates running for election, because they know that people living in farming communities all over America (correct me if I'm wrong) will vote for whomever endorses biodiesel because they know it means more money for them.

I also heard that nonetheless, global warming was inevitable to begin with; we're just speeding up the process.

Thats somewhat true, but most of what you hear about "how the earth naturely cools and warms itself and its not our fault" is basically just standard rightist crap. At this point, anyone who thinks global warming doesn't exist shouldn't even be accounted for (as they have clearly shown themselves incapable of processing the most basic things) and the people who believe its not our fault may have a valid point, but either way, we need to do something about this, not just point fingers. We do that afterwards....

[Crash]

Well, the CO2 level increased after the industrial revolution as I heard, and so did the greenhouse effect with it. I think it's human's fault most of it.

And it might be a lost cause, we're also chopping down huge amounts of woods. If hydrogen cars are released and most of the planet use it, how much would that help? Would most of the CO2 go away? Money is what controls most and it mostly will.

Another thing to discuss is if the northern atlantic drift will go away if the north pole melts. From wikipedia:

"There is some speculation that global warming could decrease or shutdown thermohaline circulation and therefore reduce the North Atlantic Drift, most probably within the timescale of a few hundred years. This could trigger localised cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling (or lesser warming) in that region, particularly affecting areas that are warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, such as Scandinavia and Great Britain.[5] The chances of this occurring are unclear.[6]

At present, most available data show that Gulf Stream flow was stable over the past 40 years.[7] One report, based on a snapshot survey, suggested that the deep return flow has weakened[8] by 30% since 1957, which would imply a weakening in the North Atlantic Deep Water production.[9] However, this should have caused a temperature drop of several degrees in northwest Europe, which has not been observed. It was later discovered, using the first cross-Atlantic array of moored current meters, that variations within one year were just as large.[10] At least part of the apparent weakening of the Gulf Stream (if real) may be cyclical and connected to recent positive values of North Atlantic Oscillation.[11] Recent research[12] shows that Gulf Stream volume transport during the Little Ice Age was ten per cent weaker than today’s, implying that diminished oceanic heat transport may have contributed to the 16th- to the mid-19th-century cooling in the North Atlantic."

Now it wouldn't be comfortable in Northern europe would it?

This post has been edited by CrashKing: Aug 19 2007, 11:30 AM

[Wess]

i do believe in global warming but i wont think for a second we are the cause of it (or atleast not a major factor in it).
global warming is a natural process, there is prove of major climate changes throughout our history, i wont believe in the hipe, they have been beating this crap down our throuts for several years, now what is the effect... people think its a lost cause lol.
the major factor in this all is nature itself.

You either believe that the theory is correct or you do not believe that it is correct, and perhaps believe a different theory. No-one on the planet can truthfully say that they know what is causing global warming.

but i do think that we schould do something, its better then doing notting. but a well.

[Clazzy]

If hydrogen cars are released and most of the planet use it, how much would that help?

Read my above post. Hydrogen power merely shifts energy usage to power plants rather than cars.

Another thing to discuss is if the northern atlantic drift will go away if the north pole melts.

Yes, this has been known about for a long time. It's also been theorised that changes in the current take an extremely long time to show, so the current temperature of the stream is affected by human progress about forty years ago. If that's true then the damage might already be done. Besides, it could be worse.

i do believe in global warming but i wont think for a second we are the cause of it (or atleast not a major factor in it).
global warming is a natural process, there is prove of major climate changes throughout our history, i wont believe in the hipe, they have been beating this crap down our throuts for several years, now what is the effect... people think its a lost cause lol.
the major factor in this all is nature itself.

Yes, scientists are telling us this for no reason other than to generate hype about the concept of global warming. I don't know why people believe it less when the media starts reporting on it. Just because it's all over the news, it doesn't mean it should be ignored.

[Crash]

Oh I see now Clazzy. Yes, Global warming is probably a lost cause after all. I do wonder who will have the worst effects, it would be quite boring here if we get an average temperature 6'C colder than today, many hell of a winters to come in that case.

Winters with snow from September to May isn't what most of us wants.

There are alternatives to plastic though. But that won't work for everything nonetheless.

This post has been edited by CrashKing: Aug 19 2007, 04:05 PM