Global warming

Anyone see the speech by Al Gore on Global Warming & the environment? If not, you should

You can watch it or read it. The images are pretty powerful so given a choice I'd recommend watching it. It's about an hour and twenty mins.

Tell global warming to the people up in Maine who are living through 40 below zero temps right now

LF

It's not that cold here right now; only 20 below

Actually, Global warming could be colder winter temperatures for parts of the world. At least at first.

You guys should really watch it. In a nutshell (ie: over simplified) , global warming means melting of the polar icecaps that now act as a big mirror, reflecting (forgot %) a large % of the suns energy. Without that mirror, the earth will absorb that energy which will whack out the earths entire weather system.

Which means, if the glaciers keep melting (as they currently are, at an accelelrated rate), we are all in deep deep doodoo. All the data is right there in the speech along with many very telling images as well as input from people like Carl Sagan.

If you say you care about the future of the planet, I challenge you to watch this entire speech.

Here is a link to a great site with just about all the info you could need on Global Warming:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Kyoto.html

As a side note to Americans, our current administration rejects the Kyoto Treaty. If you disagree with this decision you should contact your representitives and tell them how you feel.

The reflectiveness of a non-luminous astronomical body (such as a planet) is called its 'albedo', normally expressed as a percentage or as a number between 0 and 1. Earth's albedo is 0.39.

All of which I know only because of the liner notes of Vangelis' album, Albedo 0.39 ... which has the most boring title track you ever heard.

Part of the problem of global warming is, we probably can't stop it.

It's happened at least 2 dozen times in the last 3-4 million years. We have ice ages, and we have global "summers", if you will.

Yes, I imagine us belching out our smog from factories isn't helping much, but the simple fact of the matter is it's going to happen. We came into the world just as it was thawing out of a major ice age (the Great Lakes were shaped out of that one, I believe). It's what let the indians cross over into North America (Bering Strait).

Now the earth keeps getting warmer, and warmer... I don't think 100-ish years of pollution is going to break the earth, but whatever.

It'll go up, it'll go down, we can't do much about it.

And the kyoto treaty was silly... it penalized industrialized countries, but completely ignored the polluting 3rd-world nations, who produce a good deal of crap in the air too. In other words, they got a thumbs-up, while American jobs went on the wayside due to factories shutting down. It was one of the few things I agree with Bush II on.

LF

LF you really must watch the speech. That this is in line with history is not true.

Correction: our current administration rejects common sense, ethics, and the idea that there are *no* WMD in Iraq.

LF, much respect to you, however, are you an expert in this field that would allow you to make such an assertion? I'm not either, which is why I listen to the experts, whom all agree that while the earth does have a natural cycle, we have increased the pace of cycle well beyond its normal rate.

well.. I don't support or dis-support (is that a word?) the kyoto treaty. I just like that website as it seems to have a lot of good information from both sides of the issue.

The fact is, there is no proof that Global Warming as it is being "preached" (for lack of a better word) is really happening. There is also no proof that it is not happening. That's the issue I deal with. It either is or is not happening. Regardless, there are things we should be doing to preserve our way of life and our resources on this planet. I am however against any fanatical suggestions.

So that is my take on the Global Warming issue. As for Al Gore; I believe him to be a major liar and a not so great person, so I will not bother reading his speech. Though I'm sure some will find it very interesting.

Lordfly is right. Earth has been warming for the past five centuries or so, since the "Little Ice Age". There's little if any evidence that human activity has much to do with it.

So Al Gore says otherwise; so what? Al Gore isn't a climate scientist. These people are climate scientists; they are the signatories of the Leipzig Declaration, opposing the Kyoto treaty.

Kyoto had as much to do with economic competition against the United States as with any real climatological science.

ack. forget it. im jumping in my Hummer and driving 22 miles to the 7-11 on the corner.

Al Gore isnt the scientist. He is delivering a message, he is a messenger. The message is from very respected scientists around the world.

If you guys want to turn a blind eye thats up to you. If you want to disbelieve the message because you dislike the messenger again thats up to you. The science and the images dont lie.

As for the links posted. I believe Carl Sagan over (Republican dominated FCC) network television weathermen any day.

Selective blindness, thy name is Misnomer Jones.

The signatories list contains about four screenfuls of academic researchers, and only 2/3 of a screenful of broadcast meteorologists (several of whom have academic and government credentials listed as well). Your screen resolution may vary.

And the Leipzig Conference was held in 1997, when the FCC was still governed by a pro-Kyoto Democratic administration.

(Edit: Snarky finish deleted. Sorry about that.)

Pot-kettle-black

So, looks like we're doomed.

Anyone bidding on that new sim?


Obligatory On-topic Information (OOI): The field of political science isn't really scientific and politicized science is even less so. Call me reactionary but I'm never more sceptical of science than when it's being flogged by a politcian. Especially in an election year.

Is this speech better than the one where Al claimed he invented the Internet?

I am not entering the "there is or isn't global warming" argument.
This however is not true. As Mark Twain said (I think, paraphrased) : "There are three kinds of lies; lies, d*** lies and statistics".

Statistics and images can be manipulated in so many ways it isn't funny. Really, it is not. A large part of many government and business jobs (not even counting marketing and PR) is manipulating the data to look like what you need it to look like.

The reason we value experts is not because of evidence and facts and statistics. If statistics and images never lied we wouldn't need experts. The fact is that images, data and statistics when taken out of context, or in the right context, can mean anything at all. It is only the experts who have the experience to have the context to put that data into. That is why it is the opinions of the experts that we care about and that matter. It is their interpretations.

I guess what I'm saying is we use experts - people who have years of study and experience in a field - as a filter to push all the data through and get a result. Different experts have different knowledge and experience through which data is sifted and thus we get differing oppinions.

I am not saying things can't be proven (which just means the majority of the experts agree). I'm just saying that pictures, graphs, statistics and numbers do not prove anything. They have very little meaning unless put into a context that only an 'expert' can place them in.

Man thats a long ramble for what I wanted to say.

hehe. i love spirited topics like this one.

so, questions for y'all:

- do we put pollutants in the air?
- are the pollutants bad for the environment?
- is the planet getting warmer?

our contribution may be negligible, but it *is* a contribution. until we stop contributing, you can't really come up with a good explanation.

Logic flaw Juro.

They don't connect and you aren't showing causation, merely corelation. Your third statement is a complete leap, un connected to the second. You need a link showing that the harm we do (number 2) in some way causes the warming of 3. Also, without context, is 'planet getting warmer' a bad thing? I'm not saying it is or isn't just that your line of logic doesn't answer that.

Besides thats not the argument. The argument is whether the harm done to the environment is causing a significant change in the natural cycle of the earth.

Ama,

I guess I was trying to point out how silly it is to debate the ethics of placing pollutants in the air.

I guess it's OK to continue as we are unless they can specifically show causation.

I never said that. If your line had been

- do we put pollutants in the air?
- are the pollutants bad for the environment?
- are we hurting the environment?

Then the answer is of course. That is a correct logic flow. Saying that pollutants are bad, and we pollute therefore we are causing global warming is making several extremely large leaps (whether true or not). More data is needed to support that, is all. I'm not saying the data is or isn't there, is or isn't right, is green or is blue. Just that if those are the only facts being offered or looked at, then it doesn't match up.

However, a fair portion of that pollution is of a type known to cause a greenhouse effect. It follows theoretically, (we know what effect large amounts of CO2 SHOULD have) and practically if you look at an extreme case like Venus.

Correlation does not prove causation.... however, causation can be proven from known effects in a given case.