Moderators: Bill_Abner, ScoopBrady
Flooding along the Mississippi is nothing new. There were horrible floods along the river in the mid-90s, yet no one attributed those to global warming.wco81 wrote:Didn't the Mississippi overrun some small towns in Iowa or Illinois just this past summer?
Some of it is a scam. I don't think anyone here thinks that everything is a scam but to think that there are not people out there misleading the public seems a tad bit naive. There are plenty of environmental zealots, as there are religious zealots and plenty other types of zealots.macsomjrr wrote: It's probably a little bit of all three:) Honestly my initial outrage was in response to people going far to the opposite side of this issue calling it a scam. Just crazy.
Not that it matters but I grew up in Europe and have travelled a lot during my life. Does that make my opinion less "asinine" to you now? Didn't think so. Never been to China though...
I would love to see some evidence from the anti-climate changers that man isn't having any effect of the world's atmosphere. Legitimate evidence. Go google crazy! Let's have an intelligent, well-reasoned discussion on the topic instead of just pointing fingers and getting personal.
pk500 wrote:Flooding along the Mississippi is nothing new. There were horrible floods along the river in the mid-90s, yet no one attributed those to global warming.wco81 wrote:Didn't the Mississippi overrun some small towns in Iowa or Illinois just this past summer?
I guess we weren't exposed to Al Gore's brilliance at that time. Therefore, we didn't know that those floods were our result of climate change.
Take care,
PK
Jack, THERE'S NOTHING TO DO. There's no looming environmental threat that we either created, nor have the power to stop. Hell, one of the 'symptoms', so called, of the whole GW shenanigans is a hurricane. How much luck have we had stopping one of those? Tornado? Earthquake? Flood? And, though we can't come CLOSE to eliminating or even slightly hindering one of the SYMPTOMS, we're going to do something about the "underlying cause"?!? Really?!JackB1 wrote:Of course the Earth will survive. But what's wrong with trying to leave the Earth as is for our grandchildren's granchildren? I'm sure Planet Earth's not too worried...but we as human's should be.Teal wrote: The earth has been around for millions of years. People? Not so much. How in the hell the earth can survive some of the mammoth asteroids, global floods, ice ages, herculean volcanic activity, and yet not be able to withstand a puny human is beyond me.
Dismissing it as some partisan b.s. is just wrong. Is it the most pressing issue at the moment? Not unless you are a polar bear in the Artic. Why should we ignore it until it is nipping at our heels? The longer we do nothing, the harder it will be to reverse our damage.
Water has only gone back up the MIssissippi once and that was caused by an earthquake.wco81 wrote:Never claimed the Mississippi flooded in the past because of climate change.
Obviously the areas around it has seen several periods of torrential rain.
Question is, could it flood from climate change in the future, as rising sea levels inundate many coastal cities.
Is there some geological or hydraulic principle which says water can only flow down a river out to the ocean but never flow back the other way?
I know Al Gore is a pompus ass, but he's not the only person in the world who thinks that global warming is a threat we can and should do something about. This is a report card by two NSIDC scientists on how accurate or inaccurate the science used in Gore's movie was:pk500 wrote:I guess we weren't exposed to Al Gore's brilliance at that time. Therefore, we didn't know that those floods were our result of climate change.
Take care,
PK
Plenty of links on accuracy of his movie. A google search for "Inconvenient lies" only yielded - Results 1 - 10 of about 1,800,000 for inconvenient lies. (0.14 seconds)Feanor wrote: I know Al Gore is a pompus ass, but he's not the only person in the world who thinks that global warming is a threat we can and should do something about. This is a report card by two NSIDC scientists on how accurate or inaccurate the science used in Gore's movie was:
http://www.nsidc.org/news/press/2006070 ... iefaq.html
This thought process is what drives the global warming craze. This 'what if you're wrong?' scenario. It's the only thing that gives this nutty junk science any legs at all. Well, that, and a healthy dose of science fiction.GTHobbes wrote:Teal, it amazes me how you can be so certain of your opinion. What if you're wrong?
I wouldn't want to be Bill Maher if he's wrong in his opinion about religion. And I wouldn't want to be living on this planet in 100 years if you and Bush are wrong in your opinion about the causes and effect of global warming.
The only reason you think it's a craze is because the policy implications of global warming go against your political ideology.Teal wrote:This thought process is what drives the global warming craze. This 'what if you're wrong?' scenario. It's the only thing that gives this nutty junk science any legs at all. Well, that, and a healthy dose of science fiction.
Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change". Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science. Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature. In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations".
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise". The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue".
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.
The year that Al Gore uses less than 5 or 10 times the energy of my family is the day I'll take it seriously as a pressing issue.JackB1 wrote:It is a partisan issue. Find me one republican that thinks it's a pressing issue or one democrat that thinks it's nonsense.JRod wrote:And it sounds people are just arguing global warming along partisan lines. Like it's even a partisan issue.
Oh, I could be convinced, if only someone would show something CONVINCING for a change, rather than all this circumstantial 'evidence' that proves precisely nothing.GTHobbes wrote:Rodster, that's good news...thanks for posting.
Teal, funny you should use the phrases "nutty junk science" and "science fiction.". Again, I've heard Maher and George Carlin say the same thing about religion, so it seems like you're in some pretty select company when it comes to people who are sure of their opinion.
I'm sure there were also people who were similarly sure of their opinion when it came to the world being flat, civil rights, etc. Sometimes there's just no convincing people otherwise.
Very true, Leebo. And Jack, thanks for proving my point.Leebo33 wrote:The year that Al Gore uses less than 5 or 10 times the energy of my family is the day I'll take it seriously as a pressing issue.JackB1 wrote:It is a partisan issue. Find me one republican that thinks it's a pressing issue or one democrat that thinks it's nonsense.JRod wrote:And it sounds people are just arguing global warming along partisan lines. Like it's even a partisan issue.
Yeah but he buys carbon credits.Leebo33 wrote:I don't even mean it as an attack on Gore. It's just that if the world's most notable spokesman on climate change can rack up $30k in home utility bills then it CAN'T be that dire can it?
This Christmas my wife bought me calorie credits so I can fit into my clothes next year.XXXIV wrote:Yeah but he buys carbon credits.Leebo33 wrote:I don't even mean it as an attack on Gore. It's just that if the world's most notable spokesman on climate change can rack up $30k in home utility bills then it CAN'T be that dire can it?
You can stack those on the shore to hold back the impending floods.
No, I'll throw in all the Hollywood types living in mansions as well.wco81 wrote:So really, you're going to decide on the issue based on the behavior of one particular individual?
I was raised Catholic and still believe in God, so I'm not saying I share their opinion (that God is science fiction). But I guess we can agree to disagree on the whole global warming thing.Teal wrote: And I don't mind your opinion on religion; in fact, in large measure, I share Carlin and Maher's opinions on organized religion. So nice try at an attack, but no biscuit.
