Global warming

Ama: gotcha. Your point is valid and well made, unlike my prior post. And I agree that your logic flow is, well, more logical. Not to mention supported.

Also, I know you didn't say that. I was making my own pissy comment. Pardon that, for sometimes I get hot under the collar with those who seem (to me anyway) to bury thier collective heads in the sand.

Valid points which I'm not arguing. Again I only criticized that exact logic flow. That polluting is bad for the environment and the earth is getting warmer do not directly lead to the conclusion that polluting is causing global warming.

- There are kinds of pullution that don't make the earth warmer
- The earth would/could get warmer without pollution

Even besides that his argument didn't even state that pollution did cause 'greenhouse effect' or global warming - just that it was bad for the environment.

Whether the conlcusion is right or wrong I am not even touching. I only said that it was a logic flaw, that what he was showing didn't prove in any way at all that pollution caused global . Aside from that I commented that I didn't think it was even disputed whether pollution caused global warming or not but rather whether the global warming caused was significant enough to significantly effect the natural warming and cooling cycles of the planet.

[edit] Ahhh hehe, I am so bored at work. I like to argue logic on message boards, not issues. Logic I can convince someone of or help fix, it is extremely rare that any argument on a forum will change someone's stance on an issue. I actually do believe global warming is a problem and that our pollution is significantly adversly effecting it. Just arguing logic here.

And it's a valid point. Correlation does not prove causation. Basic logic.... and that statement will sound familiar to people for a reason. It's a basic logical rule in exactly those words. Anybody who's studied statistics has had exactly that sentence driven into their heads as much as any economist has had 'supply and demand' driven into theirs. It's a fundamental rule.

However... if you're looking for causation.... correlation can narrow down the search quite a bit.

Maybe it is more appropriate to say: polluting is *contributing* to global warming?? Then we'd just have to figure out how much of a contribution.

Even if pollution doesn't cause global warming, it still isn't good.

The two best things you can do for mother earth:

1) Develop less harmful substances and use the more harmful substances less often.

2) Procreate with smart and strong people to better our genepool.

I actually think that is pretty much the argument right now. How much is it contributing? Is it contributing enough to significantly effect then natural cycles of the earth?

I noticed that earlier in this argument people kept refering to what the 'experts' said or believe. Problem is, even top scientists can't agree if/and/or how much human activity is contributing to global warming.

Oh, and someone mentioned CO2. Don't we get much more CO2 from volcanoes every year then we produce ourselves, or am I thinking of something else. And what abuot all that methane from farting cows?

this planet is simply too fragile. we need this:

Pffft. Small time.

Now a Dyson sphere, on the other hand..... THAT'S security.

I can't see how anyone can say that "all experts agree" on this issue. From the Kyoto link Pendari posted:



And there's much more like this here:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoQuestionsAnswers.html

I didn't look deeply into the sources they used, but right now I see no compelling reason to believe that it's all propaganda.

(Whoa, was that a simultaneous post with Ama?)

Oh yea, like that survived well. Didnt' you watch the movie? hehehehe

Now now Ama.... to be fair here a lot of the blame for that goes to the incompetant engineers that designed in a direct line from the power generation system to the surface. Oh, and the fact that Tarkin was an idiot.

If we have learned anything in this country it is that you cannot legislate morality. Each and every one of us has the capability to use MANY fewer resources without making our lives unbearable. Am I being preachy? No, not really. I fully admit to leaving my computer running when I could just as easily power it down, I could walk to the store and I could remember to turn out the light when I leave a room. A nation's foreign policy always follows the national interest, and so long as people care more about buying a huge behemoth vehicle, just for the pleasure of writing it off their taxes and care more about cheap gas to fill it with than the children in Iraq or Nigeria no different than our own who wind up paying for our greed...things will not change. Having said that, the Kyoto Treaty might have been a good thing but it was essentially corrupted, unfair, unrealistic and unworkable. We can do better, though likely we won't.

Besides, you all seem to think the end of the world would be a BAD thing.

It has to start somewhere. People feel like they alone cant make a difference. Thing is, if all the people thinking they alone can't make a difference *CAN* if they all stepped up and ant least tried.

We are apathetic and lazy as a nation. People love to complain but when it comes down to actually doing anything very few actually act. Hawk & dove theory... we're all becoming hawks. Me, me mine.

Community is a much better way. People working together towards a common goal can be quite powerful.

What bugs me more than anything is the blatant double standards.

Celebrities will go and produce ads spouting rubbish about saving the environment, stop buying SUVs, reduce your energy consumption, etc... (it's rubbish unless you DO IT YOURSELF)

Then they'll jump into their private jet and fly back over to California for their next gig: "if you drive an SUV, you are supporting terrorism!".

If celebrities want us to change our ways so bad, they can start with themselves. They are supposedly a "role model" for alot of people anyway.

Celebrities are lame excuses for role models anyway. A better role model is a parent, teacher, coach or some other stand up person in the community.

Yes, not all of these people suggested WILL be good role models (there are bad people all over) but most celebrity role models (speaking sports here mainly) are manufactured and really
corporate advertisements in disguise.

I think there are really very few celebrities that walk the walk of their talk.

All of the top scientists don't believe that global warming is mostly caused by humans. Some believe that it is a natural occurence and that it will eventually correct itself. I don't remember where I read that at though.

Yes, celebrities are mostly trash and I love bashing them at any opportunity I get. It's fun.

I'd love to see a "celebrity bash" thread here. That would be cool.

I have problems with global warming theory. My main one is that scientists have lots of computer models that show how bad things will get in ten years. However, no one has yet put ten year old data into such a model and had it predict what things are like **today**.

I do tend to believe that humanity is adversely affecting the environment. The United States is certainly the greatest "offender" in waste and pollution. This effect is certainly weak compared to the greenhouse gasses emitted by biomass and the ozone-destroying fluorocarbons released by volcanic activity. The effect is slow - I instantly suspect the credibility of anyone who says the effects of global warming will be catastrophic, which implies quick and is aimed more at an emotional than an intellectual reaction.

Far be it for me to claim to be a conservationist: I have a computer (ecological disaster to develop and to construct), I use it to play Second Life (using electricity generated by the burning of fossil fuels). I do think that in the long run, people should be more concerned about what they do as individuals to reduce their impact on old Earth - it will only absorb so much pollution, and whether we reach that limit in 100 years or 100 centuries, it will happen.

I think that when a politician or actor pronounces the world's doom it hurts the conservation effort, because such speeches are pretty much universally about politics and not about the environment. Believers will go on believing, others will become more cynical about the subject. The Gore speech mentioned in the first post of this thread is a good example: it was heavy on placing blame on the current administration abuses while ignoring equally agregious policy decisions of the former administration. It was weak on saying how ex-Vice President Gore himself did (not advocated, did) better in the past or would do in the future. It appealed to the "wouldn't it be nice" crowd and did not mention what people would have to give up in order to achieve the lofty goals.

Conservation means living in a house that is no bigger than you need, riding bicycles or walking more, giving up a big TV, using the same phone for decades, sweeping instead of vacuuming. Gore will be doing none of these things; he lives in a mansion, rides in motorcades and has a household staff to take care of the housework. Note well: as former Vice President of the United States of America, he is not only entitled but forced to have such things. But I would much more likely to believe <insert politically active celebrity name here> if that person would count up all their earnings, take a generous $100,000 per year allowance to live on, and donate the rest to the cause they are supporting.

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Are vegans allowed to store their veggies in refrigerators powered by oil from dead dinosaurs?

Are you so sure about that? Many south american, and eastern european countries are ecological disater areas. Some Asian countries have some major problems too. Untreated sewage, dirty air, etc. You can find it everywhere.

Absolutely correct, Devlin, we are far from being the sole offenders. We are almost certainly not responsible for the worst individual events - I have seen the pictures of eastern europe after the Soviet Union fell and no longer hid such things from the world. Forests that look worse than the set of any horror-fantasy movie <<shudder>>. Places where even rats no longer could live ( Jeez, there were rats on Bikini atoll when we finally went back after the H-Bomb test!). However, the United States uses more energy per capita, and produces more pollution based on size than any other nation.

We get away with it by several means. We are good at polluting in other countries. We do have strong environmental laws that, while not preventing pollution, ensure that companies try to make it appear less threatening. An ecological disaster in Thailand (for example) looks bad because it is not so well hidden. It is more likely to be spilled sewage or heavily polluted air (which if left to itself and not aggravated would rebound in months or years), whereas the US pollution might take the form of invisible and scarcely detectable chemicals in our water supply (which might not even show up for decades after the polluting practice has stopped). Also, Thailand is about 1/3rd larger than California, but has nearly twice the population. A single pollution incident is much more noticible in Thailand, more likely to be seen by a lot of people.

I picked Thailand at random. I do not know what their environmental history, policy or agenda is, and I do not know of any specific ecologic event in that country.

Thailand pretty much dumps anything and everything. I was there among the people for 2 years. You see a lot.

Having been to several countries in Central and South America. I can tell you that this is just not true. At least about pollution; we do waste a lot, here. If anything, Mexico is the very worst polluter by a magnitude. Most of that pollution is the result of companies in the US moving their dirty industries to Mexico, it's true, but there's no excuse for Mexico City. The Phillipines are pretty bad, too, really.