Which will win: Global Warming or Ice Age?

There's a debate going on about our changing climate.

Do you believe we will see the globe warm, causing glaciers to melt and oceans to rise 20 feet?

Or ...

Do you believe global warming will do something fun, like kill the natural flow of tropical ocean waters northward, leaving everything north of about the 50th parallel in an ice age?

There isn't really a debate going on. Not much of debate anyway.

Who cares, we will all be long dead dead either way.

Don't bet on it.

Did anyone watch the latest NOVA about global dimming?

Sounds to me like we have already past the point of no return on global warming. 20 or 30 years from now the Earth will be in full blown ecological collapse, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Here is a link to the preview, if anyone is interested:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/preview/i_3310.html

OMFGASPEROIDS!!!! It was on friggin TV!!!!!! IT'S TRUEEEEE... IT''S TRUEEEE... RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!!!

Does any of this have to do with that movie 'The Day After Tomorrow'?

That was a very STUPID movie that made no sense science wise.

CLICK

how about this?

it's quite shocking

well depends on what sort of time scale you wanna limit yourself to.

over the next couple hundred years, yeah, sure the earth will heat up, but it's done that before, millions of years before mammals were even happenin'.

or you could look at the really long term scale, and see that there's been thousands of ice-ages in earth's history. the past 10-12,000 years has all just been an inter-glacial period, called the Holocene Epoch.

it's all good though, glaciers give us cool things to look at, like Yosemite, and stuff.

oh well, i'm looking forward to riding dolphins to work...

under the sea, under the sea...

http://greenspin.blogspot.com/

-Kiamat Dusk

you had better watch yourself..that sort of rational approach to our planet could get you looked upon with disdain

Does that mean everyone can just shut the fuck up about it then?

I remember reading about or seeing something on TV that we are long overdue for another Ice Age. I don't remember where it was though.

Everywhere?

Global warming to me is a no-brainer. I have no idea why some people are still saying it doesn't exist. The global data is there, temperatures averaged over area and year have been going up.

I've lived in one megacity all my life and it doesn't take a thermometer to say the average temperature is up. I'm in the tropics and I used to never need air-conditioning.

the question isn't about the empirical evidence that shows changes in the earths climate..

the question is whether or not the changes are directly related to the activities of humans or if they are a part of the naturally occurring cycles the earth experiences.

If it's natural, then we are wasting our time worrying about it. If it is caused by human activity then we have a giant political, social, economic and environmental issue.

So, if you think the Kyoto treaty is the answer to global warming, I have to ask...How do you know it will help the situation?

True, the problem is we don't know which factor is causing it. What I was lamenting was that there are people who don't even believe it's happening.

If it's caused by our pollution, overpopulation, and deforestation we definitely have to do something about it.

If it's natural then 1) why make it worse. 2) it doesn't preclude a man-made solution.

At any rate, like Pascal's wager, it's safer to side with the Kyoto treaty whether or not we are the cause and whether or not it will work. Better to side with something that might not work but also might work rather than do nothing.

It goes with my philosophy in life ... err on the side of caution.

So to answer your closing question "how do you know it will help the situation" I have a counter-question "how does one know it WON'T help the situation" and "what harm can it do to the situation?" The arguments against it are all economic and nothing to do with environment.

So erring on the side of caution ... whether it's by nature or us ... do something.

Economic reasons are important..


To err on the side of caution can have its own negative consequences that we may not want o suffer.

With so much uncertainity about exactly what will and what will not have an impact, I don't think any sweeping changes that arent driven by free market economics may not be in our (the worlds) best interest.

I'm curious about how you feel about the growing industries in India and China. Do you think those nations would find it in their best interest to impose regulations that stifle their industrial growth? I bet they are looking forward to taking advantage of all energy related possibilities they can find with little regard for climate change.

A little bit of both? Some places will warm up and others cool down.

Global warming will do sooo much more than just raise sea levels. Global climate change will devastate food production, industry, communication, day to day living. There won't be an economy to worry about. Civilization as we know it will collapse.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest very strongly that humans are the primary cause. You just have to look at it with a unbiased eye. Let the data suggest the cause, instead of trying to make the data support your cause. I don't think the data leaves much doubt as to what the primary cause is.

Even if it were natural causes, you will still be dead. That doesn't worry you?

Well there is quite a bit of evidence to show the warming is already in process. The melting of the polar ice cap is easy to quantify.

Now, does that mean civilization will colapse? That the economy will end? that mankind will die out due to the greenhouse hell effect?

Well .. probably not. Humans will most likely adapt.

As has been mentioned climate has changed often in the earth's history and also often during mankinds existance on earth.

And there is CO2 levels have actually been higher than current at times past.

But , that does not mean that Mankind did not accelerate/ inflate or even cause this latest warming trend. We most definitely influenced it in some way.

But to those who think even the flooding of most coastal areas will destroy civilization - please look back in history. Humans and other life on earth is adaptable and will certainly survive Global warming.

How easily we do and how bad it will get, is a different matter entirely.

Global warming will win - It's already got a headstart.

What worries me is that you are willing to pursue a "no regrets" policy that has substantial economic consequences for the whole world as a reaction to a highly debatable subject. Your "evidence" is not incontrovertible.

How about some common sense. wha about a realistic approach that encourages investment in new technologies that reduces greenhouse gases when they make economc sense.

The US already spends more money on research than the rest of the world combined, and leads the world in new emission reducing technologies.

At the same time, I can see both sides of the "US needs to cleanup" theory.

On one hand, what you say is true. On the other hand, we have the largest GDP in the nation, and when you look at per capita money spent on it, we fall behind.

On one hand, the Kyoto treaty is flawed for the US. It sets a flat % for every country to reduce emissions by, rather than creating standards for everyone to meet. This is silly, because if I'm a country that pollutes 10x as much as another with the same population, and we both drop say 20%, I'm still polluting over 8x as much as the other country.
On the other hand, we didn't offer any alternative to Kyoto - we could have easily said, "we won't sign Kyoto, but we will set these XYZ standards to go for instead."

On one hand, global warming is a reality and we can't prove 100% that it's mankind generated. On the other hand, we can't really prove anything with science - but we do try and listen to what the overwhelming majority of scientists are saying. And even if it's not our fault, we could perhaps slow down the global warming trend by conserving more and polluting less, giving us more time for humanity to adjust to warming temperatures.

And, we are pretty wasteful in America. It'd be a good idea to be more clean just for that sake.