Hello, All: Been awhile since I've posted. Busy working and not out in the wild....:-( I'd like to ask if those on this web-site think: A) global warming is real? and B) Is it natural or is it man-made? Personally, I feel that mankind has contributed to "global warming" or perhaps I should say, "climate change". However, it is my personal opinion that mankind's contribution has been minimal as compared to nature itself. As an example, Krakatoa, which exploded in the late 19th century, has been said to have spewed more contaminates into the atmosphere than all expelled during the following century. I am asking, not as a politico, but as a person concerned with the "natural" world, "uncontaminated" by mankind. Do you think we are better off or not? Thanks!
Global Warming....Man-made or Natural Occurence
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I think that it really doesn't matter. We should all try to live in a way that looks after the world in the best way possible, whilst realising that how we live will create polution and waste. The world changes and has always changed, sometimes getting warmer - sometimes colder. We should simply adapt to this whilst doing our best to live without squandering her resources. This is, I think, a major part of the bushcrafters ethos.
Just my 2p worth.
Just my 2p worth.
I reckon that whether the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere is contributing significantly to climate change is somewhat irrelevant. You don't have to know about melting icecaps, tropical storm patterns, rising seas or droughts to judge that taking fossil fuels (finite resource used for much more than just cheap energy), then burning them and dumping the waste into the atmosphere (a finite volume that we all depend on, but whose operation we are only just starting to understand) isn't a great idea.
Cutting emmissions would be worthwhile just to conserve resources, improve the air quality and cut down on acidic rain.
As to the question of what I myself believe. I dunno. My gut call is that we aren't helping, but then, there has been a lot of hype spouted about the problem of changing climate and its a job to pull a conclusion from the sea of facts, opinions, conjecture and political agendas. Every so often some scientist points out something awkward, like that thing about Krakatoa, or some remark that all human civilization has developed during a period of abnormally settled climate, not the norm for the planet.
Cutting emmissions would be worthwhile just to conserve resources, improve the air quality and cut down on acidic rain.
As to the question of what I myself believe. I dunno. My gut call is that we aren't helping, but then, there has been a lot of hype spouted about the problem of changing climate and its a job to pull a conclusion from the sea of facts, opinions, conjecture and political agendas. Every so often some scientist points out something awkward, like that thing about Krakatoa, or some remark that all human civilization has developed during a period of abnormally settled climate, not the norm for the planet.
Shambling Shaman
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oh good god, not this again...
If you want to argue against the solid scientific consensus on this issue, start by getting a PhD in Climatology.
Citation needed! Current anthropogenic CO2 emissions are approximately 22.5 billion (with a B) tons per year. I can't even find an estimate for the amount of CO2 released by Krakatoa, but the long-term average for all volcanoes combined is 145-255 million (with an M) tons per year. So anthropogenic CO2 emissions are about 130 times greater than those due to volcanoes.
It has also "been said" that the Apollo moon landings were faked, and that the government is run by shape-shifting reptilian aliens. Don't believe everything you read on the internet - amazingly, some of it is not true! Hard to believe, I know...
If you want to argue against the solid scientific consensus on this issue, start by getting a PhD in Climatology.
Citation needed! Current anthropogenic CO2 emissions are approximately 22.5 billion (with a B) tons per year. I can't even find an estimate for the amount of CO2 released by Krakatoa, but the long-term average for all volcanoes combined is 145-255 million (with an M) tons per year. So anthropogenic CO2 emissions are about 130 times greater than those due to volcanoes.
It has also "been said" that the Apollo moon landings were faked, and that the government is run by shape-shifting reptilian aliens. Don't believe everything you read on the internet - amazingly, some of it is not true! Hard to believe, I know...
The population of the earth back in the 1880, was about a sixth of what it is today, meaning there was less ‘cropping pressure’ on the land. Meaning there were fewer people having to live on the flood plains or marginal land.
When Krakatao blew, the effects were long lasting. There was noticeable amounts of volcanic dust in the atmosphere for at least three years, some even say 13 to 20 years. So much dust in fact, that globally the temperature dropped 1.2 degrees C, and remained lower for 5 years, when the dust from the volcano created a solar radiation filter, effectively blocking out the sunlight. The increase levels in sulphur dioxide and sulfurous acid, didn’t help matters either, as this increased the reflectivity of the cloud layer in the high atmosphere.
That was nature, we humans are doing worse thing to the atmosphere, a study by Department of the Environment and Heritage, in 2005 for the Australian government found that 99% of all sulphates in the atmosphere are man made, from burning coal and oil.
All that is ‘by the by ‘ My take on the matter is, nature is warming up the planet, it does that in predictable cycles, we humans are merely accelerating the process, i.e. man made pollutants are speeding up a natural process. This warming up, on the whole, will not affect the earths atmosphere much in the long term. It, the earth, will warm and cool right up to the point the sun goes nova, will man survive the changing planet long enough to see it, at the rate we are going, I doubt it.
What we are doing is making it hard for those people pushed to the marginal land to survive. The poor will be driven off their land, by the rising water, it’s not just the human tragedy, the much needed land will no longer be there to produce crops to feed the population, increasing the ‘cropping pressure’ on the remaining land.
People in the near future will starve because our dependence on fossil fuel now.
My switching off the lights, turning down the heating, not driving unnecessarily, recycling, all that I can. May not help the planet, but it is helping my bills. That for me is another good reason.
In the end, I do my bit and if when I am dead I have left the world in just a tiny bit better shape, I’ll be happy.
I think this could be debated until we boil or freeze and it seems the scientific community are not doing much better Survey: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory
What I don't agree with is the fact that the mainstream media and governments take it as gospel that it is a man made problem when it is still being debated.
It seems to me more excuse for a nanny state with us being issued carbon limits and putting rfid chips in the wheelie bins to monitor our recycling, the slots for them are already there go have a look at yours!
Recycling is good and we should all do it but when vast profits are made by corporations at our expense that is not good and is it really going to help the planet or line someones pockets with our hard earned cash.
Why isn't more money being put into the development of "free energy devices" with zero emissions like the hydrogen cell or more advanced solar arrays or even looking into zero point and cold fusion devices. The reason is a lot of money is being made via oil,gas coal and nuclear energy which all contribute to the "global warming problem", and while money is still being made in such high quantities no energy company or government will do much to change the status quo apart from throwing up a few wind turbines and wave generators to make it look like they are doing something positive.
What I don't agree with is the fact that the mainstream media and governments take it as gospel that it is a man made problem when it is still being debated.
It seems to me more excuse for a nanny state with us being issued carbon limits and putting rfid chips in the wheelie bins to monitor our recycling, the slots for them are already there go have a look at yours!
Recycling is good and we should all do it but when vast profits are made by corporations at our expense that is not good and is it really going to help the planet or line someones pockets with our hard earned cash.
Why isn't more money being put into the development of "free energy devices" with zero emissions like the hydrogen cell or more advanced solar arrays or even looking into zero point and cold fusion devices. The reason is a lot of money is being made via oil,gas coal and nuclear energy which all contribute to the "global warming problem", and while money is still being made in such high quantities no energy company or government will do much to change the status quo apart from throwing up a few wind turbines and wave generators to make it look like they are doing something positive.
Errr, not really ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
... and on and on ... seems to me as soon as the debate went political it polarised to the exclusion of all other positions, this can never be good for science.
If you're interested, this looks like a good place to start ...
http://climatedebatedaily.com/
From what I had read I am pretty much a believer that the earth runs in cycles of hot and cold, periodically dropping into an ice age. I was also of the understanding that we are chronologicaly supposed to be on the way out of an ice age at the moment. We are supposed to be heating up.
Global warming is not the point really, the point is more has man's effect on the planet accelerated the process of global warming. Personally I would say yes it has, I also believe that most models used for prediction are wrong.
There are a lot of factors that have not been programmed into models and probably could not be programmed into models as many of them either haven't been considered as an issue or people don't know about them.
Global warming is not the point really, the point is more has man's effect on the planet accelerated the process of global warming. Personally I would say yes it has, I also believe that most models used for prediction are wrong.
There are a lot of factors that have not been programmed into models and probably could not be programmed into models as many of them either haven't been considered as an issue or people don't know about them.
No it isn't. Totally false.
Brendan said:
Oh god, not that piece of rubbish again. The key problem here is that the medical researcher who wrote that paper doesn't know anything about climatology, and so can't actually judge whether the papers he looked at supported the consensus or not. All he did was look for certain keywords in the abstracts, and if they weren't there, he concluded that the paper didn't support the consensus. He simply misrepresented or misinterpreted papers to get the result he wanted. (As a general tip, if it's published in Energy and Environment, it's probably a lousy paper. E&E is notorious as the place where bad ideas go to die.)
Brendan said:
It's being "debated" in much the same way that the Theory of Evolution is still being "debated" - on the one hand you have a very large number of serious scientists backed up by vast amounts of data, and on the other you have an assortment of cranks and ideologues who can't even construct a cogent argument. In the middle you have a media and public so scientifically illiterate that they can't tell the difference between the two. Even the theory of heliocentrism is still being "debated" (by some seriously crazy people).
Brendan said:
Because some people actually understand thermodynamics.
andy_e said:
Oooh, a wikipedia page. How convincing. Got any science?
leon-1 said:
No, we aren't. We're supposed to be cooling very slightly.
I really wonder why I bother sometimes. I fully expect someone to drop into this thread any minute to assert that the idea that summer is warmer than winter is just an assumption.
Can somebody else out there say anything on this subject which is actually true for a change? Please? Heck, I'd even settle for something that's wrong, but in an unusual or non-obvious way...
I challenge you to name one. Exactly how much do you know about climate modelling? Or are you just repeating something somebody said once that sounded good?
At least no one introduced the conspiracy angle ...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
One factor they failed to factor in was the melting of the swamps in Siberia releasing a large amount of methane into the atmosphere, it is only something that they have recently added to models.
Science and scientists don't know everything. You tell me they do and I'll call you a liar.
Methane feedbacks are included in the latest climate models. There is, of course, some degree of uncertainty about the precise magnitude of such feedbacks, but to say they're not included in simply wrong.
See, for example: "Response of Methane Emission from Arctic Tundra to Climatic Change: Results from a Model Simulation", T.R. Christensen (Dept. Plant Ecol., Univ. Copenhagen, Oster Farimagsgade 2D, 1353 Copenhagen, Denmark), P. Cox, Tellus, 47B(3), 301-309, July 1995. Or, if you'd like something more recent, try "Potential feedback of thawing permafrost to the global climate system through methane emission", O A Anisimov (State Hydrological Institute, St Petersburg, Russia), Environmental Research Letters 2 (October-December 2007) 045016 (and all its references).
Of course science doesn't know everything. What annoys me is when people who don't know what they're talking about assert that science doesn't know something that it actually does.
What annoys me is when people who don't know what they're talking about assert that the newspaper/website that they have only just googled know more than science.
Well done :You_Rock_ .
