An Inconvenient Truth

[Mensa]

Here's a more rececnt article:

 

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed020807b.cfm 4 days old, ftw.

 

Correct, they do "offset" and it is called a "carbon footprint".

 

Here's how they offset. Tell the gullible masses that a .7 ° C climate change over the last century is apocalyptic, and get them to change their lifestyle.

 

A note about the "predicted global famines, floods, etc." Meteorologists can't even predict weather over the next 5 days, let alone the next 50 years. What are you worried about?

 

And these "computer models". Exact data from a year... say 1950 was input into these computer models. Now logically, they should spit out the weather for that year. You guessed the punchline though, the computer models were completely wrong.

 

Sry for spelling... it's been a long day...:o

[fermentor666]

First, you are not updating for technology, which has been advancing at an exponential rate. Technology has caught up to the weather. And global warming is not "new". It's been predicted and announced for thirty years now, and in general those predictions have become true. There is no debate about whether or not global warming is happening: it is happening. The debate is about whether or not it has anything to do with humans. And that debate is pretty much non-existent aside from a handful of scientists who are mostly funded by companies that are implicated in furthering environmental damage.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Simulator

 

Those computer models are as good as the computers they run on. It's not a guessing-game anymore, the technology has caught up. Look up Moore's Law.

[fermentor666]

Oh and by the way, your link to the Heritage Foundation is retarded.

"Funding

 

With an annual budget of nearly $40 million, Heritage relies on large contributions from a bevy of individual donors, corporate benefactors, and right-wing foundations. Donors have included Coors, Scaife, General Motors, Ford Motors, Proctor & Gamble, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, Mobil Oil, and Smith Kline Corporation."

 

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1477

[russell jones]

Here's a more rececnt article:

 

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed020807b.cfm 4 days old, ftw.

 

Correct, they do "offset" and it is called a "carbon footprint".

 

Here's how they offset. Tell the gullible masses that a .7 ° C climate change over the last century is apocalyptic, and get them to change their lifestyle.

 

A note about the "predicted global famines, floods, etc." Meteorologists can't even predict weather over the next 5 days, let alone the next 50 years. What are you worried about?

 

And these "computer models". Exact data from a year... say 1950 was input into these computer models. Now logically, they should spit out the weather for that year. You guessed the punchline though, the computer models were completely wrong.

 

Sry for spelling... it's been a long day...:o

 

Global warming is to some conservatives what the 911 conspiracy is to some liberals.

[fermentor666]

Not only that but this dude is talking about meteorologists when global warming is being studied by biologists, chemists, environmental scientists, the whole lot. It's not just about guessing that SUVs will make it a hot summer this year.

[fermentor666]

Dammit, those bastards got me again!

[Bunyip]

Firstly, Mensa, you're 95% wrong. The IPCC (http://www.ipcc.ch/) said this a few weeks ago:

The Working Group I report was published on February 2, 2007. Its key conclusions were that:

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal
  
• Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations
  
• Hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century (pages 13 and 18)
  
• The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC

 

 

 

 

Secondly, this is kinda funny:

 

THE US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.

 

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday).

 

...

 

The US response says the idea of interfering with sunlight should be included in the summary for policymakers, the prominent chapter at the front of each panel report. It says: "Modifying solar radiance may be an important strategy if mitigation of emissions fails. Doing the R&D to estimate the consequences of applying such a strategy is important insurance that should be taken out. This is a very important possibility that should be considered."

 

...

 

The US submission complains...that overall "the report tends to overstate or focus on the negative effects of climate change".

 

 

Click For Full Article (2 pages)

[fermentor666]

That sounds like a pure ridiculous idea. Big sheets of glass in the sky? What about all the plants, trees, and such that need unfiltered sunlight? Plus, what's going to keep these plates of glass from smashing down into the ground?

[the.crooked]

 

 

 

 

Secondly, this is kinda funny:

 

THE US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.

 

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday).

 

...

 

The US response says the idea of interfering with sunlight should be included in the summary for policymakers, the prominent chapter at the front of each panel report. It says: "Modifying solar radiance may be an important strategy if mitigation of emissions fails. Doing the R&D to estimate the consequences of applying such a strategy is important insurance that should be taken out. This is a very important possibility that should be considered."

 

...

 

The US submission complains...that overall "the report tends to overstate or focus on the negative effects of climate change".

 

 

 

This is absolutely amazing. It is funny because it is a blatant attempt at redirecting research monies to obviously ineffectual ideas. Thus assuring that our reliance on archaic fuel technologies remains. ahh fuck all this. i get too riled up even talkin bout this stuff.

[El Mamerro]

^That one in particular is pretty ridiculous, but WIRED brings up a good point about all these crazy ideas.

[Bunyip]

True, some 'geoengineering' ideas could produce favourable results and do deserve some R&D merit. But it seems like another example of the human ego shining away at its most brilliant. It seems these huge engineering ideas would perhaps benefit only one species, us. Until we acknowledge that the world doesn't revolve around humans and our 'marvelous' capabilities, and disgregard the notion that anyone with an environmental conscience is a 'greeny' or worse, a 'hippy', then we have a long way to go. The shift we must take is equally as big psychologically as it is behaviourally in my opinion.

[El Mamerro]

Yeah, most of the geoengineering ideas I've read sound to me like they would create havoc in some unexpected way or another. I think the situation is critical enough though that some resources, like the computer models and simulations currently being used to basically state the now obvious, should be applied to modeling the environmental effects these geoengineering ideas would cause. I don't think they should be immediately discarded and unfunded from farfetchedness, they're probably not THE answer, but they could be AN answer... we'd probably learn a whole lot more about the way the Earth works with this type of research.

[StephenHarper]

Firstly, Mensa, you're 95% wrong. The IPCC (http://www.ipcc.ch/) said this a few weeks ago:

The Working Group I report was published on February 2, 2007. Its key conclusions were that:

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal
  
• Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations
  
• Hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century (pages 13 and 18)
  
• The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC

 

I'd say IPCC is just as biased as the oil company funded global warming deniers, and therefore not really anymore reliable. And in regards to "Global warming being caused by natural climatic processes alone," that statement is misleading. Obviously we've had some effect on warming, the question is how much.

 

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16806

[Bunyip]

yeah i realised that, i was mainly using the quote to try and disprove Mensa's non-belief of human induced climate change. true that the question is exactly how much, and in terms of bias, its getting harder and harder to find a credible and reliable source which reveals what will happen and why, without the politics/money making etc. if anyone knows of a site which possesses these credentials feel free to let everyone know..

[n_igma]

people still talk about gore?

[russell jones]

I don't trust politicians whose names are violent verbs.

[fermentor666]

[russell jones]

64 points to Fermentor.

[fermentor666]

:) .

[the.crooked]

Here is something interesting that I was thinkin about last night. Gore started an investment firm with someone and it's name is Blood & Gore. Now beyond the name it is an interesting start up. It is a holdings corporation which will invest in green energies, etc. The thing I find interesting is the connection between creating the urgency of the market and also gaining a hold of its developing infrastructure.

 

While I do not think it is some insidious plan of his, I do think it is rather brilliant, if a little shady. To push so strongly for such a fundamental move in our energy infrastructures and to create a corporation devoted to the investment of such a move in that niche market is nothing short of diabolical.

 

My view is this: Let him make his money. Regardless of how much he personally stands to gain from the coming changes in the energy market, he is still doing something good.

 

 

just a thought.

[Larry Pubes]

blood & gore eh? that would be gnarly, but i believe it's actually called ' Generation Investment Management'.

[the.crooked]

Touche. I got the name from an article I read little under a year ago in Time. I suppose they scrapped that name.

[the.crooked]

either way, the point remains the same

[Larry Pubes]

either way, blood & gore would be 100% more gnar.