All of mid-western Canada and part of the north-central U.S. is in a cold snap the past few days. In December, before Winter has officially started, temperatures are ranging as low as -50 fahrenheit in areas that don't typically get that cold at this time of year. Windchills are worse. Meanwhile near the start of the southern hemisphere's summer, one of Australia's mountains has gotten a dusting of snow.
We're slightly above average temperature here in the northeast U.S. right now at 36 fahrenheit as daytime highs...but will cool into the low 20s in a couple of days, which is more seasonal. However, we actually had an early cold snap back in late September/early October where we went below freezing at the beginning of autumn.
Stories of record cold have been hitting all over the globe in the past year, and the cooling trend has existed for a decade (hence the researchers at Hadley Research Center needing to falsify their data as attested in the leaked e-mails). Yet we're still told man-made global warming is "urgent" and next year is "predicted" to be the hottest on record. I saw the big headline declaring that...wonder how hard I'll have to dig to find out that it really wasn't anywhere close to the hottest on record by year's end (incidentally, after NASA, Hadley, NOAA, and the fourth main temperature recording agency whose name escapes me were forced to revise data a couple of years back, the hottest year on record is 1932, but they still claim it was 2005 anyway, even though before the revision the data said it was 1998). _________________ <(: @ >
i do question whether that is a setup, but dismissing the honesty of the video here is my view
dont over complicate the global warming stuff, its an excuse for governments to increase tax revenues... simple as that... dont worry about earth, our universe and sun will destroy it before us humans... climate change, lol, i believe the climate has always been changing, actually ever since the ice age the earths temp have been increasing - kinda makes sense if you ask me
as for that green peace lady, i thought she was kinda nice... im just booking my flight to Norway now
The earth has warmed a little, but I think the real fear is that CO2 levels, which I hope everyone at least believes does trap heat in the atmosphere, are the highest they have been since the Cretaceous "hotbox" (but nowhere near those levels yet; 385ppm vs. 1200+ppm).
The truth is though, there's nothing that can be done to reverse it; the earth rids of CO2 in trees via respiration (we aren't exactly helping on that front), weathering rocks, and making carbonate rocks (think limestones) (and that's not happening fast enough). So I do agree that all this commotion about it isn't helping because by the time the CO2 returns to previous quaternary levels, humans will probably have gone extinct.
I do however, believe that much money should be given to solar energy research (fuck all the other alt. energies, they're money sinks); not only would this help stop putting ridiculous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere but it is completely renewable and would be dirt cheap once proper technology is developed.
there's no doubt that man's exploitation of natural resources is not good for the planet, leaving aside the debate about climate change, the whole problem is driven by market forces. The thing that f*cked me yesterday was Barrack Obama turning up on the *last day* of the two week climate change conference. The president of the world's biggest polluter (for many years) has the arrogance to turn up at the eleventh hour and think that he's doing the world a favour by negotiating some pathetic 'accord' which quite frankly is nothing but a joke to many countries (http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=3070)
I think the problem with this issue is that it's all so vague, and has been poorly communicated by politicians who have only a tenuous grasp of an extremely technical and multi-faceted topic.
...this is exaserbated by scientists who, I think are trying to prove the unprovable. The earth is an enourmous although finite body, floating in a vaccuum, subject to so many variables, and natural phenomena which each have an affect o each other, and so make it beyond our ability to accurately measure, and therefore quantify the proportions of the curent global conditions which are due to human activity.
This being so, how can you measure by how much we need to alter behaviour?
It has been said that it is arrogant to believe that humans can affect so large a system as the earth, but it must surely be ignorant to believe we have none.
However, the thing that irks me is how the terms CLIMATE CHANGE, GLOBAL WARMING, and MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING have been employed as interchangeable terms, used euphamistically for each other without regard to the meaning of those terms. With so much confusion, it is not hard to see why people are unwilling to make such big commitments in altering behaviour given that nobody can say anything much definite about it.
Climate change refers to the global conditions as a whole, and while it is subject to local or regional climates, it is calculated as an average of the whole and is only a statement of comparison of global conditions between one point in time and another... this will occur regardless of human activity but CAN be affected by it.
Global warming (or cooling) is a statement about the TREND of that change, again subject to a comparison between two points OVER TIME, and is very much subject to what extent of time you look at, as both these half-wits in the video amply demonstrate, and if you want to find a trend that supports your arguement you can... just alter the slice of time!
again, this will occur regardless of human activity, but may be affected by it.
Man-made global warming is a statement that says definitively that our activity affects these trends and conditions, and as mentioned, can only be quantified by measuring the affect of all human activity against ALL possible natural factors from the sublime to the ridiculous- planetary allignment causing stresses on the earth, even galactic allignment? solar activity, the temperature of earths core, rate of rotation of it, and the earth as a whole, the fact that the moon moves further away from us each year by an inch, and it's subsequent effects on the tidal syatems on earth etc. etc. etc.
I think that Mark Twain (?) said something about how damaging was the thing you believe absolutely that just aint so. isn't something like the reverse also true? ... that which may absolutely be the case, but you can never prove.
do we sit around doing nothing until it can be proven when it's too late to do anything, or take action based on the most educated assessment we can? this is the real question.
But then, what would we regard under these circumstances as sufficient proof one way or the other?
....incidentally, the video proves something else
... he who asks the questions has the power, he who has the answers hasn't asked enough questions
Sophistry and rhetoric on either side prove nothing, only how clever you are in arguing, and are not to be confused with socratic method, which aims to find the TRUTH, regardless of wether you like it or not.
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