The real inconvenient truth

[matthewk]

I'm with Tool. Learn to swim.

You spelled "a" wrong, and swimming won't do anything about the problems listed above me by wco81.

You spelled "Arctic" wrong.

Hmmm. Maybe not. Let's see:

The millions of people who live in coastal areas of the world that would be negatively affected if enough of the Artic vodka ice melts to raise sea levels.

That makes more sense than anything else he's written.

[JackB1]

Climate change has been happening without mans assistance every single day of the earths existance and it aint stopping for anyone or anything.

Get over yourselves.

The earth will be here long after all the blowhards are long gone.

You are correct. The planet will survive, but don't you care about the long term survival of your own species? It is a proven fact that we as humans are fully capable of effecting our planet as a whole, but this "we can't do anything about it" stance sure is easy to assume, isn't it?

[matthewk]

Climate change has been happening without mans assistance every single day of the earths existance and it aint stopping for anyone or anything.

Get over yourselves.

The earth will be here long after all the blowhards are long gone.

Carlin nailed it a long time ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q3upFx4FcA

[Feanor]

I post serious links that detail the negative consequences of melting glaciers and rising sea levels and you advise people living in coastal areas to take swimming lessons.

I think it's pretty obvious who's talking sense and who's talking nonsense.

[pk500]

You are correct. The planet will survive, but don't you care about the long term survival of your own species? It is a proven fact that we as humans are fully capable of effecting our planet as a whole, but this "we can't do anything about it" stance sure is easy to assume, isn't it?

A terrorist with a nuclear weapon poses much more of an immediate threat to the human species than climate change. Same with famine, genocide, disease, etc.

Again, concern about the environment is not misplaced. But the hysteria surrounding climate change is.

Take care,
PK

[Feanor]

If people's homes are put underwater by global warming they can learn to swim, and if a terrorist attacks the United States with a nuclear weapon the people can duck and cover.

There's an easy solution to all these problems, you just have to be clever enough to figure it out.

[JRod]

You are correct. The planet will survive, but don't you care about the long term survival of your own species? It is a proven fact that we as humans are fully capable of effecting our planet as a whole, but this "we can't do anything about it" stance sure is easy to assume, isn't it?

A terrorist with a nuclear weapon poses much more of an immediate threat to the human species than climate change. Same with famine, genocide, disease, etc.

Again, concern about the environment is not misplaced. But the hysteria surrounding climate change is.

Take care,
PK

There have been instances of rapid climate change in the past. We aren't talking thousands of years, maybe a generation or two.

It's funny that there is so much vehemence toward climate change. Like it's a bad thing to care about where we live. It's a little hypocritical to say well I care about the lives of others but where we live is not as important.

What would be so wrong about acknowledging there is a human footprint on climate change. Nothing, this isn't like how to tackle the bailout. This is IF we are wrong about climate change, we could irrevocably do damage to things that will impact life. I'm not talking about wilderness refuges in Alaska, but food production, tidal changes, CO2 scrubbing down by large forests, human living patterns.

There are no negatives to worrying about the impact we have on the earth. Well that is unless you are in industry and have to spend money to no pollute. The hubris of saying we are in a cycle and humans don't affect the earth.

[JRod]

And it sounds people are just arguing global warming along partisan lines. Like it's even a partisan issue.

[GameSeven]

If people's homes are put underwater by global warming they can learn to swim, and if a terrorist attacks the United States with a nuclear weapon the people can duck and cover. There's an easy solution to all these problems, you just have to be clever enough to figure it out.

"Learn to swim" is an obviously facetious retort, used to counter the perceived hysteria by the GW adherents. Are you suggesting that the likelihood of a terrorist attack of significant measure is worthy of the same derision? More to the point, is the consequence of GW so inarguable *and imminent* as to be a greater threat than the many other threats of today?

[bdoughty]

It's funny that there is so much vehemence toward climate change. Like it's a bad thing to care about where we live. It's a little hypocritical to say well I care about the lives of others but where we live is not as important.

Do you even read what people write before calling them a hypocrite? I think PK has been pretty straightforward about this. It is not like the guy is running around dumping recyclables in the street and laughing at mother earth.

Is it such a bad thing to be skeptical? Heck, lets look at how many millions of dollars were spent determining that aerosol hair spray was bad for the ozone layer. Do we even have a good answer to that? I know the stance was changed on this numerous times.

This is also coming from the same people who once proclaimed, as fact, that Pluto was a planet. Then they "changed their criteria" and now it is not a planet.

Sound familiar?

[Feanor]

"Learn to swim" is an obviously facetious retort, used to counter the perceived hysteria by the GW adherents. Are you suggesting that the likelihood of a terrorist attack of significant measure is worthy of the same derision? More to the point, is the consequence of GW so inarguable *and imminent* as to be a greater threat than the many other threats of today?

It's a facetious retort by someone who had no answer to the completely non-hysterical IPCC report of potential problems for coastal areas caused by rising sea levels that I linked to, and was mocked accordingly. I made no comparison between the likelihood or seriousness of a nuclear terrorist attack in the US and rising sea levels in coastal areas, just to the ineffectiveness of the proposed solutions.

[pk500]

It's funny that there is so much vehemence toward climate change. Like it's a bad thing to care about where we live. It's a little hypocritical to say well I care about the lives of others but where we live is not as important.

Here's an example why there may be some resistance to the theory of global warming:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02 ... rmometers/

Science organizations, including NASA, show varying Earth temperature change. Some measurements even show the Earth's temperature slightly dropping.

Also, consider this quote from the story link above:

>>>The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.<<<

That was an alert from the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1922. Yet somehow be Earth survived the last 86 years despite a global cooling scare in 1924, a global warming scare in 1933, another global cooling scare in the early 1970s and now this global warming scare.

There's nothing wrong with taking care of the environment. But using hysterical, "the sky is falling" tactics to do that is wrong.

Take care,
PK

[pk500]

It's funny that there is so much vehemence toward climate change. Like it's a bad thing to care about where we live. It's a little hypocritical to say well I care about the lives of others but where we live is not as important.

Like death and taxes, you can always be assured of selective reading by JRod.

John, nowhere have I said that damaging the environment is a good thing. But yes, I do care more about people who are facing death within weeks or months from a horrible disease than the possible melting of the ice caps in another 100 years.

Take care,
PK

[bdoughty]

And it sounds people are just arguing global warming along partisan lines. Like it's even a partisan issue.

Take a little time looking at voting records on environmental issues. You may notice a partisan trend or two.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

[wco81]

Most of the discussion around the world on this topic is sober. That's because there's nowhere near as much contention around the essential science.

It's only in the US, where a segment of the population, excluding most of the scientists, resist or reject with a certain vehemence. And that certainly has elicited some strident responses from the American population which believes there's urgency.


The species wouldn't be threatened but civilization as we know it would be. When a number of prominent coastal cities are gone, you're not just losing a lot of expensive homes with ocean views. You're losing vital ports and distribution centers through which we get goods, including food.

We'd be lucky if only distribution was affected. Production, including agricultural output, would certainly be hit as well.

And greater competition for fewer resources leads to?

[matthewk]

I post serious links that detail the negative consequences of melting glaciers and rising sea levels and you advise people living in coastal areas to take swimming lessons.

I think it's pretty obvious who's talking sense and who's talking nonsense.

And of course the grownup response is to quote me in your sig.

[Naples39]

So? Maybe in 1979 it was too high. Who's to say what level is optimal?

I hear the Vikings are still pretty pissed that the arctic ice cap expanded so much since their heyday about 1200 years ago and covered some ancient Viking towns in a sheet of ice.

[matthewk]

"Learn to swim" is an obviously facetious retort, used to counter the perceived hysteria by the GW adherents. Are you suggesting that the likelihood of a terrorist attack of significant measure is worthy of the same derision? More to the point, is the consequence of GW so inarguable *and imminent* as to be a greater threat than the many other threats of today?

It's a facetious retort by someone who had no answer to the completely non-hysterical IPCC report of potential problems for coastal areas caused by rising sea levels that I linked to, and was mocked accordingly. I made no comparison between the likelihood or seriousness of a nuclear terrorist attack in the US and rising sea levels in coastal areas, just to the ineffectiveness of the proposed solutions.

You want a non-facetious retort? I wanted to stop reading after "second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979".

The measurements began in 1979. So we have a total of 30 years of data form this one source and that's enough to sound the alarm bells? Again, how do we know this isn't normal for the planet? We've only got 30 years of data out of billions.

Humans do not have any kind of God given right to live on the coasts in condos. Some people act like everything in nature must be the way we prefer it. Nature doesn't give a s**t about what we want.

BTW your link doesn't even mention anything about problems for coastal areas based on rising sea levels.

[macsomjrr]

It's tough to argue against blatant ignorance like this. Luckily the rest of the world and our next president appear to be more serious about the threat of man's impact on this planet and appear to be inclined to do more about it. You guys can vent and get mad about this all you want but smarter people than you are figuring out important solutions whether you like it or not.

[Feanor]

BTW your link doesn't even mention anything about problems for coastal areas based on rising sea levels.

You must have looked at the other links I posted and not this one, even though you quoted my sentence that preceded it.

The millions of people who live in coastal areas of the world that would be negatively affected if enough of the Arctic ice melts to raise sea levels.

http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ ... g2/292.htm

The millions of people who live in coastal areas of the world that would be negatively affected if enough of the Artic ice melts to raise sea levels.

I'm with Tool. Learn to swim.

But I'll quote some of the report here. Just in case:

Box 6-3. Potential Impacts of Climate Change
and Sea-Level Rise on Coastal Systems

Biophysical impacts can include the following:

* Increased coastal erosion
* Inhibition of primary production processes
* More extensive coastal inundation
* Higher storm-surge flooding
* Landward intrusion of seawater in estuaries and aquifers
* Changes in surface water quality and groundwater characteristics
* Changes in the distribution of pathogenic microorganisms
* Higher SSTs
* Reduced sea-ice cover.

Related socioeconomic impacts can include the following:

* Increased loss of property and coastal habitats
* Increased flood risk and potential loss of life
* Damage to coastal protection works and other infrastructure
* Increased disease risk
* Loss of renewable and subsistence resources
* Loss of tourism, recreation, and transportation functions
* Loss of nonmonetary cultural resources and values
* Impacts on agriculture and aquaculture through decline in soil and water quality.

[bdoughty]

It's tough to argue against blatant ignorance like this. Luckily the rest of the world and our next president appear to be more serious about the threat of man's impact on this planet and appear to be inclined to do more about it. You guys can vent and get mad about this all you want but smarter people than you are figuring out important solutions whether you like it or not.

Macsomjrr, are you in college by any chance?

[macsomjrr]

It's tough to argue against blatant ignorance like this. Luckily the rest of the world and our next president appear to be more serious about the threat of man's impact on this planet and appear to be inclined to do more about it. You guys can vent and get mad about this all you want but smarter people than you are figuring out important solutions whether you like it or not.

Macsomjrr, are you in college by any chance?

Haha. No.

Bdoughty, did you go to college by any chance?

[Feanor]

Lol, I knew that was going to be the response.

[bdoughty]

It's tough to argue against blatant ignorance like this. Luckily the rest of the world and our next president appear to be more serious about the threat of man's impact on this planet and appear to be inclined to do more about it. You guys can vent and get mad about this all you want but smarter people than you are figuring out important solutions whether you like it or not.

Macsomjrr, are you in college by any chance?

Haha. No.

Bdoughty, did you go to college by any chance?

Interesting, I would have pegged you for one. Such anger and bitterness toward others who differ in opinion, plus the whole "rest of the world" gibberish. Maybe you should spend some time in the "rest of the world" before making such asinine claims. Try China, they would love you there.

Yes, I did go to college.

[JackB1]

And it sounds people are just arguing global warming along partisan lines. Like it's even a partisan issue.

It is a partisan issue. Find me one republican that thinks it's a pressing issue or one democrat that thinks it's nonsense.