Poll: Earth SoS -..-..-..-

[jpoon]

Oh. You're one of those people.

Climate change is a natural phenomenon and can't be stopped. End of story.

It takes thousands and thousands of years for this cycle- ice age to thawing
and we realise that we have only been burning greenhouse gases for just a couple hundred years
it is a bloody big coincidence that it is happening specifically now- when we are putting all that stuff into the atmosphere

and it's effects can be reduced enough to stop serious damage

I'm with Naturalized on this one. Global warming is a bunch of bullshit designed by the global elites to shackle everyone on the planet with a Global carbon tax. Hope you're ready to pay up for breathing...

there are a million things the government can make up taxes on, there is so much proof pointing towards it, co2 is a greenhouse gas and guess what- deforestation, factories, power stations produce it
sure noone likes taxes but if global warming is a conspiracy then the government will have to have spent a helluva lot making it this well known

What I find fucking amazing is that people act like co2 is a pollutant. Dont forget that co2 to plants is like oxygen to us! The more co2 the better off plants are going to be on this planet.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

What I find fucking amazing is that people act like co2 is a pollutant. Dont forget that co2 to plants is like oxygen to us! The more co2 the better off plants are going to be on this planet.

Oxygen is toxic to humans at high enough concentrations [http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=msds+oxygen&d=76820531845464&mkt=en-CA&setlang=en-CA&w=e468d82e,f0ac6aad]. Just sayin' that more isn't always better... sometimes there is such a thing as "too much of a good thing."

The problem is the rate at which plants can absorb the CO2. They can only grow so fast... a limitation in part because they're solar powered, amusingly enough. (CO2 absorption basically shuts down at night because there's no light to drive photosynthesis.) If we emit CO2 faster than the plants can absorb it, it's going to build up in the atmosphere; and that's what scientists are seeing, actually. That's not debatable, because the build-up has been measured and isn't in dispute.

What those objecting to anthropogenic climate change base their arguments upon is that there are other factors at play like natural CO2 emissions, axial tilt, pre-industrial glacial retreats, etc. Ten years ago I too was skeptical of the arguments on global warming... but ten more years of evidence has convinced me that we're at least partly responsible.

-- Steve

 

[Internet Kraken]

"I don't care."
My thoughts exactly. I understand that it is a fairly important topic but talking about it won't help. At all.

Not necessarily. There are some environmental problems that could be solved if more people were aware of them. For example, on of the main causes of plastic pollution in the ocean is people not disposing of their trash properly. If more people were aware of the impact this has and the dangers of plastic pollution, we could probably reduce it.

I don't want to sound like a humanity-hating asshole-envronmentalist, but no one is going to do it. All ecology essentially does is annoy us to the point where we don't give a crap about the environment at all.

And that's exactly why this is a problem. People are lazy, and they won't follow simple steps to help solve these problems.

Then they blame the government when these problems start having a direct effect on their lives.

omg... I'm tired of all these environment things! global warming is natural it has happened before and it will happen again there is nothing we can do except shoot up the inevitable!

Global Warming isn't the only environmental issue. There are other ones that we are capable of solving.

Would have been so much better if humans never learned how to make CHOICES. Think about it. Humans are the only creatures that can go up to a horse and decide whether to eat it, ride it, sell it, or worship it.

Then our species would have never advanced, and we would not have the luxuries we now consider to be necessities.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

The planet is fine. If anything, the temperature is decreasing.

Reference.

I can't remember, but my point was that so many theories are thrown around that we have n clear sight of what it is we're panicking over. I believe that the planet is fine. The planet has been around for a couple of billion years and has endured millions of natural disasters, inwards and outwards. Humans have been around for a couple of million years, and most of the time they have been just as much burden as any other animal. And industrialization came around 200 years ago. So I don't think we have much effect, and I don't think we can d much about it. The planet is way bigger than us. Also, wouldn't the planet build some defence against it's own substances?

 

[Nickolai77]

Oh. You're one of those people.

Climate change is a natural phenomenon and can't be stopped. End of story.

Oh. You're one of those people.

Actually, until human industry took off it was abnormally stable and we prospered as a species, now we've re-released the carbon, it has started up again.
We've undoubtably affected out planet.

Well no, the temperature of the planet does vary. For instance there was a "mini-ice age" in around the 1600's, and a "medevil warm period" in the early middle ages. So, it is quite difficult to establish if we are in another natural warming period, or indeed this warming period is artificially induced. Rather like nature and nurture.

Here's some graphs-

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

This graph would support the notion that there is artificial global warming. However what's interesting is that the temperature changes are gradual, unlike what we see towards the 20th century where the temperatures increase sharply.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

However on this graph the recent rise in temperature seems only a minor blip, and is dwarfed by the rising temperatures that which occurred 11,000 years ago. The significance of anything is all a matter of scale.

My position is, better safe than sorry. It is possible that the temperature of the planet is naturally increasing, and human activity is increasing the rate of temperature rise unnaturally. I'm all in favour of developing new technologies to reduce CO2 emission's, just in case we are actually contributing to rising temperatures. However, the best (and most realistic) approach to combat climate change is not to revert back to the middle ages as some radical climate change fundementalist's seem to imply, but develop new technologies and improve on existing technologies making them more efficient at reducing CO2 emmisions.

 

[grimsprice]

Your years are off, there werent people 200 million years ago... Or we would have already solved this problem quite a while ago.

Thank you. I had to go to page 2 post 60! to find someone mention his butchered timeline.

Apparently the earth was created 4.5 Microgastria-Limb Reduction Defects Association... years ago???

Yes, there were aquatic lifeforms before the Cambrian explosion.

And as previously said, humans only appeared a couple million years ago (depending on what your definition of 'humans' is).

OT: Its true shit is going to hit the fan, and a loooooooooooooooooooooooooot of people are going to die. I'm pretty sure our species will survive though, and we'll know all the science and stuff we will need to continue. Hell, we should have a working FUSION power plant in the next 20 years. and a working pure electric car soon as well. I'm not worried.

 

[Desert Tiger]

A state in America wants to enforce an electric car-only rule, despite the fact that this would mean more fossil fuel being burned (where do they think electricity comes from? REALLY?)

Farm animals contribute more methane to the environment each year than fossil fuels.

Climate change is a natural occurance. The ice age wasn't caused by raptors driving their SUVs.

 

[grimsprice]

Sun? Conditional and extremely expensive.

The sun isn't conditional in space *****!

http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2009/09/03/space-based-solar-farm-mitsubishi/

 

[Nmil-ek]

Oh. You're one of those people.

Climate change is a natural phenomenon and can't be stopped. End of story.

100% on the spot climate change is a natural phanomenon, however there is utterly no doubt burning thousands of chemicals that dont or would never naturaly appear in nature is having an effect. The argument is not are we causing it, it's what effect are we having are we speeding it up? Is there an alternate effect, are we causing irreversible damage and hwen you weigh up the benefits of being precautious or spending money on possible preventations rather than the possible if nots it's worth the investment.

 

[fudgebo]

The earth will still be here no matter what we do, so esentially climate change is to save our silly asses

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Farm animals contribute more methane to the environment each year than fossil fuels.

I doubt that, myself, but it's beside the point in any case. The carbon emitted by farm animals is derived from plants, which are taking the carbon out of the air and not from underground sources. That's a closed loop.* It's not adding carbon, it's just moving it around.

Fossil fuels are taking carbon out of the ground; they're adding to the total in the atmosphere, not just moving it around.

Climate change is a natural occurance. The ice age wasn't caused by raptors driving their SUVs.

Some of climate change is indeed natural; examples have been listed above. But not all of it, and our bit (however big or little) is always in the "warmer" direction instead of the more random wobbling-about you see from other causes.

Also, raptors were dead for more than 64 million years before the most recent ice age hit.

-- Steve

*except for the petroleum-based fertilizers used to grow animal fodder, but IIRC that volume is much lower than the volume we burn as fuel and the bulk of fertilizer-derived carbon could be rather easily captured and stored in the form of stalkage.

 

[BlackJack47]

-snip-.

Oh. You're one of those people.
I am not only referring to climate change, and thanks for your constructive input, I found it rather amusing.

Not a problem.

But seriously, humanity does not deserve this planet so I really couldn't give a damn.

Oh noes our planet is dying. We have to do something. /sarcasm

Chances are humanity will not be on this Earth at the end of the century because we will have nuked the hell out of each other. I for one would rather live my life with no regard to the planet because I'm human and as a human I am a worthless waste of Carbon, water and other assorted elements.

Spoiler

Angst Alert

This is a problem for everyone, we should do our best to save this planet. If you don't think so, you haven't done enough research and do not own a functioning brain /rant.

 

[G1eet]

I think switching to alternative power sources is vital...

Nope.
They are terribly expensive, and Wind Turbines disrupt wildlife, along with Tidal Power generator screwing up the tides.

Nuclear Power is the way, but only if we can get rid of the waste without dumping it in the sea.

Nuclear fusion plants might be the answer. If only the implementation was a bit more practical than it currently is.

At least they're working on it, even if it means allotting exorbitant amounts of power to fire lasers down pipes and mirrors to make the equivalent of a hydrogen star.

On topic- Earth has been through worse things than human intervention and come out smelling like roses. Confound it, do none of you remember the Permian extinction? What many people don't realize is that many things are being done in the grand scheme of things. Sure, progress has been slow, but what with this new "green" movement, it's founding a generation of treehuggers and hippies. I don't say that pejoratively; I love the prospect of people not treating the environment like shit.

People need to stop worrying about the little stuff, and see it in a much bigger perspective.

P.S. I read State of Fear a while back, so I've tended to look down on people that say global warming is the worst thing to happen to us since Hitler, and if we don't do anything in the next five seconds, it means that a bajillion people will die in ten years.

"OMG teh sky is falling! Wut do we do?"

"Wear helmets."

 

[Yokai]

Switching to alternative energy sources and converting cars from gasoline to electric would be a huge help.

 

[G1eet]

Switching to alternative energy sources and converting cars from gasoline to electric would be a huge help.

But then we'd have an even larger demand for electricity. And most electricity today is still generated mostly from fossil fuel sources.

Source:

<spoiler=If you can find a more recent projection, be my guest. It'll still have relatively the same amounts>http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://repreneur.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/29/energy_sources_2.gif&usg=AFQjCNEAcbwqJXwlqiMQKW_OEO3jBFXE-g

Edit:

snip

I think we've found the Escapist's source for anything ecological.

Has this all been rattling around in your head, or did you go out and search for all of that?

 

[Yokai]

Switching to alternative energy sources and converting cars from gasoline to electric would be a huge help.

But then we'd have an even larger demand for electricity. And most electricity today is still generated mostly from fossil fuel sources.

True. But correctmeifI'mwrong, we'd end up using less fossil fuel if we made the switch, since there are so many cars on the road.

 

[ottenni]

I think switching to alternative power sources is vital...

Nope.
They are terribly expensive, and Wind Turbines disrupt wildlife, along with Tidal Power generator screwing up the tides.

Do wind turbines really disrupt wildlife? I mean you would have to be a redshirt to get hit by one of those things!

 

[Inverse Skies]

the global temperature is growing 1.6-3.5C every year.

May you please clairfy where this statistic was from?

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

"I don't care."
My thoughts exactly. I understand that it is a fairly important topic but talking about it won't help. At all.

Not necessarily. There are some environmental problems that could be solved if more people were aware of them. For example, on of the main causes of plastic pollution in the ocean is people not disposing of their trash properly. If more people were aware of the impact this has and the dangers of plastic pollution, we could probably reduce it.

I don't want to sound like a humanity-hating asshole-envronmentalist, but no one is going to do it. All ecology essentially does is annoy us to the point where we don't give a crap about the environment at all.

And that's exactly why this is a problem. People are lazy, and they won't follow simple steps to help solve these problems.

Then they blame the government when these problems start having a direct effect on their lives.

Even though I see that the ecological problems do exist, I hate environmentalists. They say that no one does anything about the world yet they don't do anything too. At least people who don't give a crap are honest that they don't do anything but most of the environmentalists are just posers.
P.S. No offense to anyone who cares about the world. It is just what I've learned from my experience with those guys.