"Global Warming" or "Interesting Debate On Munk"

[Bob The Mercenary]

I'm not trying to start a fight, but some people tell me there's droughts everywhere. Then others tell me the reason we are getting so much snow this year is because the extra heat is causing more water to evaporate and condense over land. Some say more snow than usual is global warming's fault, then others say too little snow is also global warming's fault.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Ibian

The hypothesis goes that we have warmed up the planet. Some people want to cool it back down. Cool it down too much - this could simply be to the levels it had before we did anything of consequence - and anyone who has studied the planets history knows what could happen.

...Okay, let me explain this again then.

We are not finding ways to 'cool down' the earth, we are trying to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels that are creating the environmental damage that is resulting in global warming.

Your theory basically states that if a house is too warm to the point of giving the people inside heatstroke within the hour, we can't turn the thermostat down because then it might get too cold and freeze the pipes. So before doing anything we need to properly see what will happen.

You understand how ridiculous this sounds?

Originally Posted by Bob the Mercenary

I'm not trying to start a fight, but some people tell me there's droughts everywhere. Then others tell me the reason we are getting so much snow this year is because the extra heat is causing more water to evaporate and condense over land. Some say more snow than usual is global warming's fault, then others say too little snow is also global warming's fault.

Global warming is not just the fact that the earth is getting warmer - it is the climate and natural order of heat/cold getting thrown out of whack.

I'd come up with an example but I'm not that good at it and I'm sure SMB or Sithdarth can do better.

[Ibian]

If you just wanna stop further warming then we have no issue. However, there are very real plans to actively cool things down. Removing co2 from the air by various means, creating artificial cloud cover, and other far more radical plans than that. It's these people i take issue with.

And yah, turn the heat off in a house in the middle of winter and the pipes just might freeze. Cold countries suck like that. Shuffling oil home on a daily basis one quarter barrel at a time is not fun at all.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Ibian

If you just wanna stop further warming then we have no issue. However, there are very real plans to actively cool things down. Removing co2 from the air by various means, creating artificial cloud cover, and other far more radical plans than that. It's these people i take issue with.

That's because we've already done enough damage that maybe some drastic measures are in order to get it under control since it's become blatantly obvious that the government isn't going to do jack shit about cutting off the fat bloodsucking slob that is the oil companies.

If we can't turn down the heat we'll go get fans and ice cubes, you understand?

Originally Posted by Ibian

And yah, turn the heat off in a house in the middle of winter and the pipes just might freeze. Cold countries suck like that. Shuffling oil home on a daily basis one quarter barrel at a time is not fun at all.

Wooooooooooooooosh, point going right over your head.

But no seriously let's all go back to how we might freeze the earth if we stop warming it up. Because the Earth didn't already have carbon emissions to counteract that which resulted in the ecosystem it totally had up until we created gasoline and fucked it up.

Seriously man you're just grasping at straws. I don't know what the fuck kind of excuse "What if we overdo it?" is when the CO2 emissions are such a dire problem but it's sure as shit a limp one.

[Ibian]

Since the current topics seem to have petered out i have a question. Recently there was a meeting in Copenhagen by the worlds leaders to try to reach a new and improved Kyoto agreement. I have not seen anything about that in any news outside my country, and i'm wondering if any of you have heard anything about it?

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Ibian

The hypothesis goes that we have warmed up the planet. Some people want to cool it back down. Cool it down too much - this could simply be to the levels it had before we did anything of consequence - and anyone who has studied the planets history knows what could happen.

The implications are what they are. It's not my theory, i'm just working with what i'm given.

Okay, to put this bluntly, that idea is extreme to the point of being positively unfathomable. You're saying that working against carbon emissions, which are going to take a LONG time to get back under control, is going to deep freeze the planet? I'm sorry, Earth is a mite larger than that. To fully reverse all the warming we've done and overshoot it multiple times would take an error of such gross proportion that the entire planet would deserve to die to spare all other life in the universe from our stupidity.

Originally Posted by Bob the Mercenary

I'm not trying to start a fight, but some people tell me there's droughts everywhere. Then others tell me the reason we are getting so much snow this year is because the extra heat is causing more water to evaporate and condense over land. Some say more snow than usual is global warming's fault, then others say too little snow is also global warming's fault.

And both would be true, because it deals in wind and water currents, as well. It's not just a matter of warming, but also includes those currents, precipitation, overall temperature, effect on plants and animals, sea level, and likely other factors I'm not thinking of. Temperature is not in a bubble. It has broad effects on an entire web of global systems.

[Ibian]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Okay, to put this bluntly, that idea is extreme to the point of being positively unfathomable.

So is the idea that a catastrophic percentage of animal and plant species will die, or that we humans will be unable to adapt to whatever changes might come. Quite frankly, this hysterical paranoia is one of the bigger reasons to be a skeptic.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Ibian

So is the idea that a catastrophic percentage of animal and plant species will die, or that we humans will be unable to adapt to whatever changes might come. Quite frankly, this hysterical paranoia is one of the bigger reasons to be a skeptic.

It WOULD be, if that was actually what anyone was saying, and I'm pretty sure we touched on this.

Humans WILL be able to adapt to whatever we end up with. We have such amenities as air conditioning.

Sadly, many plant and animal species will not, and those are what are currently part of what's propping up our cushy lifestyles right now. Nobody is getting cooked like lobsters in twenty years, but it may be too late to reverse the change. Global warming isn't about a giant wave of heat blasting over the planet. It's about the temperature slowly rising and humanity at some point being unable to fix the mistake and watch as the world slowly ceases to be the one we're familiar with. Sea levels will rise, plants will die off, as will animals as their natural foods leave them.

Global warming is less like a bomb and more like a disease, and I'd rather apply the remedy to it before it's too late.



Your problem is that you're sensationalizing this. Every example you've provided is almost comically extreme, when nobody is dealing in those terms. I think you need to step back and actually look at what everyone is saying.

[Ibian]

Originally Posted by Bob the Mercenary

I'm not trying to start a fight, but some people tell me there's droughts everywhere. Then others tell me the reason we are getting so much snow this year is because the extra heat is causing more water to evaporate and condense over land. Some say more snow than usual is global warming's fault, then others say too little snow is also global warming's fault.

From one of the links in the first post:

George also told us that 2.1 billion people are going to be in water stress because of global warming. That’s true. He failed to tell you that studies by Nicholls also show that if there was no global warming there would be 3.6 billion people in water stress. Actually, global warming in that particular area means that there will be less water stress, not more. Why? Because there will be more water vapour in the atmosphere.

It's complex. Quite frankly we don't know enough and people on both sides are lying for a variety of reasons, or simply unable to properly spread the information to the right people (which is difficult under the best of circumstances).