demagogue on 12/3/2009 at 17:59

---

Where does this come from? The Panel is "intergovernmental", so the scientists were selected among every UN State Member, and even then they had absolute freedom from their sponsoring states. And it was a consensus document.

Are you saying the governments of the world can't agree on a single damn thing except they can organize to corrupt the incredibly complex science of climate change among thousands of independent, ego-driven scientists?

Edit: Stitch said it better. This is one of those faux debates that doesn't actually exist as a real disagreement about the science. The real debate is about the best policy reaction. Now that's a live and important open question; that's where our energy needs to be.

DDL on 12/3/2009 at 18:55

---

Global warming != everything gets warmer. That's why they started calling it 'Climate Change', so people wouldn't keep saying stuff like this.

If you heat up the planet 'on average', you will in fact alter all kinds of oceanic currents, jetstream windspeeds, and the like, meaning that some places get far warmer, others get OMFG ITS COLD.


Seriously though: whether humans are driving climate change or not is moot, because we're doing it by BURNING UP ALL OUR FOSSIL FUELS, which we cannot, and must not, continue to do. We need to start thinking (now!) of ways to generate power without 'burning shit we dug up', because that shit isn't going to last forever. Might as well push it with a green agenda anyway, since people might actually listen to that one. People are horribly short-sighted.


EDIT: I fucking love the thread tags on these forums :D

Volitions Advocate on 12/3/2009 at 19:37

---

ugh, theres so much crap to wade through.

Part of the problem here is the misinterpretation of viewpoints.

The people advocating the climate change crisis are accusing those against it of saying there is no such thing as climate change.

Climate change is real. the Earth is dynamic. Nothing stays the same.

My argument is that Humans are not the cause of it. I don't doubt that carbon emmissions could help warm things up by a few hundredths of a degree. The thing is most of the scientists who claim to be experts on climate change have continually been wrong, and nobody calls them on it. by now we're already supposed to be 3 or 4 degrees above what is "normal" according to many predictions but we're not even 1 degree higher than what they concluded was normal. An error ratio of 400% is pretty damn big and devastating to a project.

The reason I have such an adverse reaction to the "crisis" language is that there's been no manifestation of this crisis in the decades we've been talking about it. People are going to cite things like Katrina and the SE Asian tsunami. except hurricanes happen.... every year, and its not the hurricane that did the damage to N.O. it was the levee's right? and the Tsunami was Geomorphological... which has nothing to do with global warming.

So in the mean time people keep saying crisis, and other people who are listening that believe it go into crisis mode. People are going to get hurt. Economies are going to crash because established methods are goign to be cut off rather than manageably and responsibly phased out. Fanatics are going to jump off roofs etc.

Eugenics anybody?
Y2K anybody?

How many millions of people died because of the Eugenics theory?

DDT was banned because of a percieved threat that didn't exist. DDT was so safe people were eating it. And it had nothing to do with the thinning of Birds of Prey eggshells. But it was banned because of media hype and misinformation. And as a result much more deadly and dangerous (but widely accepted) pesticides were used that caused cancer, poisoned food and fertile land.

People are going to be so hung up on a phenomenon that they're going to take extreeme actions to counter it, when first of all, its futile, because it will happen with or without our help, and second of all it's not necessarily a harmful thing. Waterworld will NEVER HAPPEN!

some places will get colder, some will get warmer etc. Its goign to happen no matter what.


Canada is a big place. And its happened from St Johns to Calgary. Thats a very BIG isolated area. I don't buy it in this case.

I'm having trouble with these graphs because I"m not very good with a GIS and Nasa's website has changed a bit. I'll give you something concrete when I figure this out.

It still doesn't explain why the philanthropers who are funding these agencies are still using their private jets to go to environmental conferences.

Volitions Advocate on 12/3/2009 at 20:17

---

its actually "i once read" not "i once heard"

It's a lot of stuff to dig up. I'll admit that. Its also enough material I'll have to write a whole essay on it, which I dont have the time for immediately. I'll do what I can, but If you're as interested as you seem to be, you'll get right to work as well to prove me wrong I'd assume.

Nothing gets proved when both sides of an arguement simply accuse and don't work to prove themselves.

Nicker on 12/3/2009 at 20:49

---

Of course Climate Change is just one of the devastating effects of our fossil fueled economy. Fortunately for detractors there is enough ambiguity in the rhetoric that they can continue justifying the accelerating but unsustainable production and consumption of petroleum products.

Quite apart from affecting the climate, industrial CO2 is (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7936137.stm) acidifying the oceans, and threatening to crash the whole oceanic ecosystem (if we don't achieve that by killing off all the large predator species first).

Of course we could, to paraphrase another famous denier, (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/SS6JS8RH0.DTL) "let them eat plastic".

And then there is the issue of irresponsible production, especially in developing nations, where much needed petro-dollars encourage unregulated drilling and extraction practices. Even in the west we have issues like the (http://www.tarsandswatch.org/) Alberta Tar Sands, an enormous wasteland with tailings ponds perched within spitting distance of the Athabasca River, a huge and crucial watershed.

So about now the climate change deniers are due to chime in - 'Aha! You are just using this illusory climate change to justify your secret, anti-industrial agenda!' - as if the connection between increased CO2 production and industrialisation is a brand new secret. And as if trying to sweep the greater issue of environmental degradation under the rug wasn't a secret agenda itself.

hrrrr :mad: