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Me and global warming | 354 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Me and global warming
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 26 2012 @ 03:02 PM EST
Me too. IMO it really is that simple. The sandwich board man in
Oxford St was right, "The End Is Nigh"

One minor quibble, I got the impression David Roberts was trying
to convince his audience that the Mad Max scenario was not inevitable,
that they could still do something to save themselves.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Me and global warming
Authored by: eric76 on Monday, November 26 2012 @ 10:02 PM EST
The way I see it, there are three big questions (or groups of questions) that
need to be addressed.

1) The first group of questions are about Global Warming itself. Is Global
Warming real? How much is due to man's activities? What is going to happen in
the future as a result?

Keep in mind that the panic over Global Warming is largely being driven by
models that are rather basic by necessity at this point in time.

As I understand it, most of the models, possibly all of them, pretty much assume
that unrestrained, the amount of CO2 we release to the atmosphere will increase
pretty much indefinitely. In reality, this cannot happen. We are probably not
all that far away from Peak Oil and Peak Coal. We are using both up faster than
we are find new strikes. What we do have will become more and more expensive
over time, even taking inflation into account, driving more and more research
into finding ways to use them more efficiently.

There are other issues of credibility for the IPCC as well. For example, there
was the hockey stick that was intentionally shown to the world in an effort to
panic everyone into believing Global Warming to be a really big thing. In
reality, it was nothing but a lie. In creating it to match their own hidden
agenda, they once and for all threw science aside.

And remember the claims that all the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt within
a few years? The IPCC read a remark that they liked and so they reproduced it
and quoted it enormously to drive their agenda without any thought to
independently verifying the remarks. Any independent verification would show
them just how wrong it was. Once again, they stepped far outside the realms of
science.

I can no longer consider the IPCC to be a scientific organization. As
scientists, they are nothing but frauds. They may be political, but they are
far from scientific. I don't know if they can ever restore their scientific
honor and credibility.

2) Once we know a lot more about Global Warming, we need to determine what can
be done about it that is effective. It is a massive waste of our time and
resources to try to fix a problem when we don't know what we are doing. To try
to fix it based on what little we know today can lead to nothing but our own
impoverishment. The winners will be those who don't waste their time on foolish
errands.

A great many of the people who are in a panic over Global Warming have already
indicated that they are not at all ready to accept effective solutions if they
are not "politically correct". If you are worried about CO2
emissions, one effective way to reduce them would be to turn to more nuclear
power. To their credit, there are some people who think Global Warming is sure
to be a disaster who would accept nuclear power to help reduce the CO2
emissions. But there are far more who would refuse to accept nuclear power no
matter how much it might help.

It might very well be that we can do more to reduce Global Warming by increasing
pollution -- in particular, pollution that would reflect more sunlight back into
space and thus reduce the amount of energy trapped in the atmosphere. Even if
that should turn out to be the most effective approach, don't bet money on
whether or not we actually pursue that.

3) Finally, there is the question I tend to pay attention to: IF Global Warming
is real and IF there are effective measures we can take to reduce it, should we
take those measures. In reality, Global Warming is very unlikely to be a major
problem and there is an excellent chance that it will be extremely beneficial to
mankind.

A warmer planet is a more productive planet. If this were not the case, then we
need to tear down all the greenhouses in the world so that we can increase food
production. Yeah, sure.

The higher CO2 would help as well. Most people aren't aware of it, but it is
reportedly a common practice for greenhouse owners to artificially raise the
levels of CO2 to help the plants grow better. There are studies about how much
the higher CO2 levels can help certain plants grow faster and bigger.

And there is the question of the return of the next period of glaciation. That
is what is truly scary. A period of glaciation would likely mean a far smaller
population with famine and starvation rampant among those who would manage to
stay alive.

Remember the "Little Ice Age". That wasn't much cooling at all, but
it caused enormous misery to many people who found themselves unable to grow
food. As I understand it, it became common in some areas to scrape tree bark
into a dust to use as flour to bake bread -- it was either that or starve.
There are a few trees that the bark of which can actually make a fairly tasty
bread, but scraping tree bark to make flour is not something we should wish for
ourselves and our future generations.

Global Warming means Life. It is Global Cooling that means Disaster, especially
if it ends this warm period and we return to a period of glaciation.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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