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Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 6:46 AM
Default Environmental Problems: Big Deal or Nothing Special?
We've all been warned about it: Global warming, deforestation, extinction of species, and everything inbetween. PETA, Greenpeace, and other organizations have been warning us about it. But what was some people's reaction?

"Nothing special, really."

But what about you? What do you say to these environmental problems? Are they something to worry about, or are they something unimportant?

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Personally, I think the environment is just as important as politics, celebrities, and such. We just don't know what's coming to us if we don't listen to these organizations. For example, Al Gore's movie (An Inconvenient Truth) has been warning us about global warming and its effects. Now, abnormal weather has been plaguing the world for some time now. Just think: If we don't listen to these warnings, we will regret it when the environment suffers. Because if nature suffers, we will as well.
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Instructor
#2 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 7:01 AM
I think, although you don't have to listen to every single organization/quote, we should ALL be aware of Global Warming and other environmental problems. I suppose it's part of being a human.

Just a few years ago, i wasn't really worried; it was just another topic discussed in school, just a few ads on tv. But as i'm getting older, and the world is literally changing, i think everyone should do something about it.

Okay, so i'm not those people holding pickets or handing out pamphlets, or even making compost heaps. But if we actually try and listen to these problems, we will all find that they are incredibly important. Even New Zealand, a country generally known for our beatiful nature, is becoming more polluted than we like to think. If NZ is this bad, then think about those cities and countries already known for pollution!

Although i don't exactly have a solution to stop Global Warming, just helping everyone accept and acknowledge this issue, then it'll become so much easier to step forward and take the environmental level one notch higher.

VERYONE should respect and appreciate the beautiful world that God has given us. It would be a disgrace to downright ignore these problems and make matter worse.

♣. Call Me Janne .♣
.
Looking for staff for a new sim magazine (based in S Korea)
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Test Subject
#3 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 7:11 AM
I think some solutions like "using a small piece of toilet paper" are foolish, when Downtown DC (my home) runs large fountains all year around, or the city buses that runs of hazardous and smelly gas.

We must always be aware of the enviornment, as many people seem to think its a rock. That just sit there and stay the same. When in reality, the world is getting older and we are responsible for putting pressure on its back. Its like horse back riding on an old lady. We need to work together and come up with better ways to utilize cars and gas in general.

Also note, that Bush did not sign the enviornmental Act. Asia have and they are upgrading to the good old H2O. We can do it too, but the money is not being provided to our reseachers to come up with safe methods of fuel. We are still stuck in the fossil fuels. Oil, Coal, and Gas.
Instructor
#4 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 7:20 AM
Too true. Maybe factories all over the world can become 0.2% less active every year. This will encourage recycling, and reduce energy rates/pollution.

♣. Call Me Janne .♣
.
Looking for staff for a new sim magazine (based in S Korea)
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#5 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 8:39 AM

I often see that people fail to see that the problem really is us, and that we're contributing to global warming, ect. I'm pretty sure nothing irritates me more than an ignorant person saying 'Global Warming is not real, it's never going to happen, so stop talking about it because nothing you say could open my eyes.' In some cases I don't think that it's because they're ignorant, though. I think that some people are just scared to accept reality and what's going to happen to us and our 'home' in the long run.

I think that most people see that we have time to reverse whatever will be thrown upon us because of what we're doing to Earth, now. And some have hope that maybe there's another place that we could call home, if we do screw up enough.

Most people don't believe that anything bad could happen to us. Even though we pollute and treat Earth like it has an over abundance of resources. If some people really opened their eyes to the cold hard facts, they'd see that Earth is not only becoming over-populated, but our natural resources are running pretty thin. I think it'd be a great idea if the politicians would actually agree to start making major changes NOW, rather than when it's too late. I think they're too focused on the money factor, when really, what's money compared to our planet shutting down on us?
Forum Resident
#6 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 3:08 PM
Time for the ice water on every ones global warming parade.

This article is out of, believe it or not. The NY Times. An extremely liberal news source.

Quote:
In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm

By JOHN TIERNEY - NY Times
Published: January 1, 2008

I’d like to wish you a happy New Year, but I’m afraid I have a different sort of prediction.

You’re in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change — and that these images are a mere preview of what’s in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet.

Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific. I don’t know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather.

But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, it was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm — by some measures, last season in the Northern Hemisphere was the calmest in three decades — the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all).

The most charitable excuse for this bias in weather divination is that the entrepreneurs are trying to offset another bias. The planet has indeed gotten warmer, and it is projected to keep warming because of greenhouse emissions, but this process is too slow to make much impact on the public.

When judging risks, we often go wrong by using what’s called the availability heuristic: we gauge a danger according to how many examples of it are readily available in our minds. Thus we overestimate the odds of dying in a terrorist attack or a plane crash because we’ve seen such dramatic deaths so often on television; we underestimate the risks of dying from a stroke because we don’t have so many vivid images readily available.

Slow warming doesn’t make for memorable images on television or in people’s minds, so activists, journalists and scientists have looked to hurricanes, wild fires and starving polar bears instead. They have used these images to start an “availability cascade,” a term coined by Timur Kuran, a professor of economics and law at the University of Southern California, and Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

The availability cascade is a self-perpetuating process: the more attention a danger gets, the more worried people become, leading to more news coverage and more fear. Once the images of Sept. 11 made terrorism seem a major threat, the press and the police lavished attention on potential new attacks and supposed plots. After Three Mile Island and “The China Syndrome,” minor malfunctions at nuclear power plants suddenly became newsworthy.

“Many people concerned about climate change,” Dr. Sunstein says, “want to create an availability cascade by fixing an incident in people’s minds. Hurricane Katrina is just an early example; there will be others. I don’t doubt that climate change is real and that it presents a serious threat, but there’s a danger that any ‘consensus’ on particular events or specific findings is, in part, a cascade.”

Once a cascade is under way, it becomes tough to sort out risks because experts become reluctant to dispute the popular wisdom, and are ignored if they do. Now that the melting Arctic has become the symbol of global warming, there’s not much interest in hearing other explanations of why the ice is melting — or why the globe’s other pole isn’t melting, too.

Global warming has an impact on both polar regions, but they’re also strongly influenced by regional weather patterns and ocean currents. Two studies by NASA and university scientists last year concluded that much of the recent melting of Arctic sea ice was related to a cyclical change in ocean currents and winds, but those studies got relatively little attention — and were certainly no match for the images of struggling polar bears so popular with availability entrepreneurs.

Roger A. Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, recently noted the very different reception received last year by two conflicting papers on the link between hurricanes and global warming. He counted 79 news articles about a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and only 3 news articles about one in a far more prestigious journal, Nature.

Guess which paper jibed with the theory — and image of Katrina — presented by Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”?

It was, of course, the paper in the more obscure journal, which suggested that global warming is creating more hurricanes. The paper in Nature concluded that global warming has a minimal effect on hurricanes. It was published in December — by coincidence, the same week that Mr. Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gore didn’t dwell on the complexities of the hurricane debate. Nor, in his roundup of the 2007 weather, did he mention how calm the hurricane season had been. Instead, he alluded somewhat mysteriously to “stronger storms in the Atlantic and Pacific,” and focused on other kinds of disasters, like “massive droughts” and “massive flooding.”

“In the last few months,” Mr. Gore said, “it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.” But he was being too modest. Thanks to availability entrepreneurs like him, misinterpreting the weather is getting easier and easier.


But I know, scientist around the world are all in agreement on global warming... aren't they?

So, the debate is over, right? The science is settled?

Well, according to a report just published at the United States Senate Committee on Environment & Public works website, over 400 prominent scientists from all over the world have "voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called ‘consensus' on man-made global warming."

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....ty.SenateReport

What is this madness? Over 400 prominent scientists from all over the world all saying that what we have been told, or believe about global warming is buckus. What madness is this.

Erasing One Big Astounding Mistake All-around
Test Subject
#7 Old 28th Jan 2008 at 8:33 PM
I know it's real and that saying it's 'very very bad' is a mere understatement - but it depresses me so to even think about it or discuss it. I do what I can, although I know it's not enough.
Test Subject
#8 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 2:44 AM
Well "we" as people can tell its real! California is getting weather like no other lol. Here in DC is right now its 56 degrees! The middle of Winter is 56 degrees! can you believe that? I will hate to live further down south. I also remember visiting Chicago in the summer of 2006 and it was BURNING in the Windy city! The tempeture was as hot as it is in DC. People from Alabama was sitting next to us in Wicked and quoted; "i could have stayed in Alabama with the weather like this!".

LMAO
Field Researcher
#9 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 3:10 AM
I'm all for cutting back on Carbon emissions (although I need a bit more convincing then a few years of the weather being weird). One of those things that is better to have and not need. But my personal opinion is that Al Gore's idea of the Carbon credits is almost identical to the indulgence systems of the old Catholic Church that Martin Luther was so upset as.

After all, for all his Inconvient Truth, Al Gore is about as ecofriendly as one hundred hummers running for twenty-four hours. His large house is very energy inefficiant, and I personally don't want to by "pardons" from a hypocrit of Gore's calliber. Rather, we can make tax cuts for buisness that cut back and what have you, but not bying pardons.
#10 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 3:45 AM
I don't neccessarily think that the global warming theory is completely due to man. We just add to whatever is there.

Part us, part earth.
Maybe.
=o
#11 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 3:47 AM
Quote: Originally posted by hszmv
Al Gore is about as ecofriendly as one hundred hummers running for twenty-four hours. His large house is very energy inefficiant,


and then he came to NZ, held a conference to give NZers a lecture about being eco-friendly, then drove off in a gas-gussling car :wtf2:
Scholar
#12 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 4:40 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Amish Nick
What is this madness? Over 400 prominent scientists from all over the world all saying that what we have been told, or believe about global warming is buckus. What madness is this.

That documents reminds me of the Dissent from Darwin, where 700 'scientists' claimed they are skeptical of Darwinian evolution and it requires more investigation. That led to the creation of Project Steve, which has 864 Steve or Stephanies (and derivative names) who agree with evolution. And that's just one name.

The number of climate scientists is certainly more than 400, and more than 4000 too. Probably up around 100,000. So I think that a 0.4% disagreement is not too bad for a consensus view.
Forum Resident
#13 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 5:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Doddibot
That documents reminds me of the Dissent from Darwin, where 700 'scientists' claimed they are skeptical of Darwinian evolution and it requires more investigation. That led to the creation of Project Steve, which has 864 Steve or Stephanies (and derivative names) who agree with evolution. And that's just one name.

The number of climate scientists is certainly more than 400, and more than 4000 too. Probably up around 100,000. So I think that a 0.4% disagreement is not too bad for a consensus view.

What they are not saying is that Global warming is not happening. All they are saying is that it is not as sever as we are told it is. Or to the degree that we have been told or led to believe.

Case in point.

Quote:
"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit," said Hendrik Tennekes ~ Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist


What I have pointed out, and continue to point out is that all we have been told, and continue to be told has been and continues to be exaggerated out of proportion. To a point of no longer being true. And to not accept what we are told, or accept their "Facts", you are demonized or attacked. But fact is, they won't stand behind or back up their own facts. You are instead forced to accept it on face value only.

Now onto other global importance. Every one had better pay attention who are trying to do good and use bio-fuels as much as possible. FOR YOU ARE DESTROYING THE PLANET! Bio-fuels are bad!!!

Quote:
Bio-fuel is bad for the planet, it takes more energy to make a litre of bio-fuel than it produces. It also means that more virgin rain forest is being burned to the ground to make room for cash crops such as palm nut, which is where a lot of bio-fuel comes from.

The fuel still has to be shipped at great expense to the point of use, and it is increasing the cost of food meaning even more virgin rain forest is cut down for production. A reduction in the Wests’ addiction to car fuel will see a reduction in the need and profitability of bio-fuel.

Erasing One Big Astounding Mistake All-around
#14 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 8:14 AM
Since when is science done by consensus?
Scholar
#15 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 8:40 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Reindeer911
Since when is science done by consensus?

Well, it isn't, but usually the consensus view of scientists is the result of a consensus of scientific studies demonstrating all coming to the same conclusion. It's not always true, especially in times of 'scientific revolution', but it is a good thing to look at when you don't know enough to make the decision yourself (as I freely admit is the case for myself).

Quote: Originally posted by Amish Nick
Bio-fuels are bad!!!

They are a niche fuel. I don't see them being the solution for fuelling our cars, trucks and buses, but perhaps they could be useful for cigarette lighters and plastic manufacturing.

Certainly this current biofuels craze is not helping things.
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#16 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 12:37 PM
Global warming is the product of gases like carbon monoxide, methane, and the like. What is it generally? Pollution! What's the solution? Why not use those hybrid cars? Sure, they're expensive, but I bet they'll become cheaper and cheaper as time passes.

This is just one of a thousand solutions to environmental problems. If only the president would listen...
...And please, do not complicate stuff. It's global warming. Ice caps are melting. Abnormal weather is happening. The problem is with us. That's all we need to know. No more statistics, please. You're just causing more panic. (But that doesn't mean I'm telling you to disregard the warnings released by the organizations I mentioned above.)

A little note: Sorry for this late follow-up, but the environmental problems can encompass many things (Example: Fur coat trade, Deforestation, Animal testing, vivisection, and the like).
Field Researcher
#17 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 2:38 PM
When matters of the Apocalypse are concerned, I keep a good level of nutrality. That way, when the world finally ends (because the world can only end once) I can jump to the group right (Be them Nostadamiuns, Mayan Calender makers, Scientists or Bible thumpers) and scream that everyone else is wrong.

As a student studying Meteorology, I have noted that the subject of "Freaky" weather has been un-touched by my teacher, who is a global warming proponant. One particually bad hurricane season is nothing special when compared to years of average or below average. California has always been a dry state, and climate models predict more, not less, rain in a global warming scenario. Also, the fact that the antartic ice cap is warm at the edges and cold in the center seems like what should be expected for an ice cap. And despite the artic Ice cap melting to an all time low by a noticable degree, ice else were is not dwindling at the same rate. From what I have been taught about the global warming hypothesis is that the distribution of CO2 is an even distibution and because of that, should be creating the same rise in heat as everywhere else.

Now, being the wonderful skeptic of all theories that I am, I can't help but notice several drastic looking levels in the past 30 years. Unfortunatly for me, being the kid of scientists and lawyers, I do desire a considerable amount of proof. For me, thirty years of computer models is not enough proof to determine a long term climate and changes. I know we do have analogs to garner an idea as to past tempuratures, but I'm skeptic on some (these include everything from core ice samples to wheat prices. While the former might be a more reliable sorce, the latter has several man made factors.).

Basically put, skeptics are not just people who don't believe, but people who feel that there needs to be more scrutiny into what we do know. One bad hurricane season followed by two normal or below normal seasons is not enough data for me (or any scientist I hope). That is not to discredit what might be above average CO2 levels, but it was some thirty years ago that alarmists were going in the other direction (global cooling).

I am also not impressed by the medievel christian-like atmosphere that surrounds those that do think this is a threat. The denial of scientific thinking contrary to the opinion is why Gallaleo was locked up for the last years of his life. You can hold your opinion, but out right denigning or writing off of those to the contrary is very unscientific. Science is about letting facts do the talking. If they don't do the talking for some people, they are allowed to question them with their own facts.
#18 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 5:39 PM
Quote: Originally posted by 1306
Global warming is the product of gases like carbon monoxide, methane, and the like. What is it generally? Pollution! What's the solution? Why not use those hybrid cars? Sure, they're expensive, but I bet they'll become cheaper and cheaper as time passes.

This is just one of a thousand solutions to environmental problems. If only the president would listen...
...And please, do not complicate stuff. It's global warming. Ice caps are melting. Abnormal weather is happening. The problem is with us. That's all we need to know. No more statistics, please. You're just causing more panic. (But that doesn't mean I'm telling you to disregard the warnings released by the organizations I mentioned above.)

A little note: Sorry for this late follow-up, but the environmental problems can encompass many things (Example: Fur coat trade, Deforestation, Animal testing, vivisection, and the like).


Problem is that hybrids are not really that practical yet UNLESS you do lots of city driving. I was seriously looking into buying a Toyota Prius recently due to concerns about energy costs and the possibility of a war with Iran... thing is, when I started doing the numbers for the kind of driving that I do, it just didn't look very good.

Cost: Expensive is about right. A base economy car in the U.S. runs ~$14k (not including fees) for something like a Ford Focus or Mazda3. The Prius on the other hand runs about $21 - 23K, and if you want to do the plug-in conversion (change the NiMH batteries to Li-Ion, and allows the car to drive something like 25 miles as a pure electric), then add about $10k to the price. That's pretty much the cost of a second car (or a hell of a lot of fuel) right there!

Another factor in the cost is depreciation... my understanding is that hybrids are the fastest depreciators, mainly out of concerns for battery life and cost of replacement.

MPG: A Prius that is carefully driven might see about 45 MPG on the highway during the summer, which is pretty good. However, real world numbers that I have seen would actually place an average more into the high 30s for mileage (this is for all seasons, combination driving, and that many if not most people aren't going to drive for the best economy). In comparison, something like the Ford Focus will see something in the low 30s for real world driving (again, personal observation). Now here's the kicker... I used to own a 5.0L Mustang with a 302 V-8, and that car actually would get 30 MPG (OK, 29.8 MPG) on the highway.

However, for somebody who does a lot of city driving or frequents the McDonald's drive-thru, then a hybrid really starts to shine MPG wise.

This incidentally is why I'm particularly interested in the Plug-in conversion... it would be no exaggeration for me to say that I would probably see about 300 MPG or so, since about 99% of my driving would be well within the battery limitations, so the engine would never turn on!

Performance: Well, in all fairness somebody who buys a Prius isn't looking for blistering acceleration or top end. Still, at least for me, I appreciate a car that can get out of it's own way.

New Technology: The technology going into the batteries and cars themselves is constantly changing and improving. Pretty much like PCs or anything else that is cutting edge, it means that there is both the obsolescence factor at work, and teething problems as new ideas are implemented. There are some interesting cars coming out for 2009, and one that has my particular attention is the Chevy Volt supposedly due out in 2010. Still, I personally have reservations about buying the first year of any new model... better to give the manufacturers a chance to work out the bugs.

Pollution: No such thing as a free lunch. Even though hybrids will save on pollution from burning gas, this is likely to be offset by the pollution caused by the manufacture and disposal of the batteries. Also, for electrics and plug-ins, this means that they will have to take power off of the grid... that's going to mean either coal or nuclear in most cases with their resulting pollution. The point here is that while hybrids will help reduce fuel consumption and pollution to some degree, it's not quite the panacea that people think they are.

This is probably worth a debate on it's own, but as said, I think that hybrids and electrics are still a few years off before they are economically practical.
Lab Assistant
#19 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 6:25 PM
My view is more of a simple common sense and logical look and approach to things and not the mass panic Gore and friends try to unload onto people.

The fact is that we all breathe air, so common sense and logic would dictate that we would all want companies and cars to pollute that air as little as possible while being able to remain viable for us to drive and have jobs.

We all drink water, logic and common sense dictates that we should all want to have clean waters to bathe and swim in as well as drink.

We still use paper and need wood. Keep the lands for those things available by replanting 1 for every tree harvested. Kinda like a parking lot for trees.

And cutting out dead growth and underbrush doesn't do the mass damage the fanatics claim it does. Not doing so then having thousands of acres burn every year pollutes.

The problem is this, the lead people have come out in such an off manner that people naturally take offense to them and will not support them or their cause

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self righteous sixteen year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time" - Neal Stephenson
Field Researcher
#20 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 6:42 PM
Actually, forest fires are very good for the enviroment. Smokey the bear is really promoting damage to forests. Forest fires clear away decaying plant matter and other detris that would be too much for decaying agents to break down. Many tree seeds will only start to grow after a fire. Unfortunatly, this means that man's homes are burned down as they move away from the city and into the forest, so Smokey wants you to prevent wildfires.
#21 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 7:06 PM
I just think this is the way things are supposed to go. We can put it off as long as possible, but we'll destroy the environment eventually anyways. I study A Level Biology and when doing about environment and populations, we were told that all populations follow the same shaped growth curve. It always plateaus off due to some limiting factor like food scarcity. So if a population of goats eat all the grass in a field, that means they've destroyed their environment, right? They've eaten all the food so they've caused an environmental crisis for their population. Same thing could be applied to using up all the oil or pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It's a big deal, but I think this is still nature running it's course because we're all part of nature no matter how we try to glorify ourselves as "creatures of superior intelligence". We're just stupid hairless apes and sooner or later we'll bump into a limiting factor which will stop our population getting any bigger. We can't stop it, we can only delay it.
[/pessimistic voice of doom]
Lab Assistant
#22 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 7:12 PM
Ah yes, global warming. I love that subject, just because my country will be water wonderland once that comes round (the Netherlands)

It is indeed like aryannaface said:

Part Earth x Part us = Global warming

We are after all living on a planet that fluctuates between ice ages and warmer periods. It is indeed very likely that we are still in the "coming out of an ice age phase" and it would therefore also be very natural for the climate to become warmer.

However the speed with which the climate is getting warmer is not "normal coming out of ice age speed". Or so it is claimed. It can therefore be said that the part us bit is the somewhat larger factor in that particular equation.

That would not have to be a bad thing, if there weren't 6 billion of us, which are all becoming more polluting by the minute.

Amount of pollution per person x People = Environmental damage

Living eco friendly won't save our asses anymore. It's too late for that, unless we all want to trade in our cars and homes and live like a poor person in Africa. (not meant as a rascist comment) Do we want that? No. Do those poor people want to live in poverty? No. So pretty soon we would have more than 6 billion people, all with 2,5 cars to their name.

^ whatever happens I can safely say...we're in for a bumpy ride and I'm going to laugh my way through it :D.
#23 Old 29th Jan 2008 at 7:17 PM
Hasn't global warming always been an on-going earthly process? I get the impression that global warming is a routine, more noticeable now because our entire planet is civilised. I think humans are contributing to global warming, but I also think that its a naturally occuring cycle that we are just accelerating, so the effects are more extreme and noticable. I think that, even if we were to cut down on fuel emissions and whatnot, the problem cannot be stopped. What I feel we need to do, instead of panicking and trying to reverse the problem, we should plan for the future and worst case scenarios. I'm not as knowledgable about global warming as I'd like to be but, that is my oppinion.
Scholar
#24 Old 30th Jan 2008 at 9:38 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Jacki
I think that, even if we were to cut down on fuel emissions and whatnot, the problem cannot be stopped.

If we had stopped 30 years ago, you are right that the warming would have continued until the early 90s. But these days, if it wasn't for greenhouse gases (most of which are released as a consequence of agriculture, transportation and industry), then the temperature should actually be falling. The sun is becoming slightly less intense, the sulfates and and volcanic particulates are still dimming the light received.

We need to stop now to avoid the CO2 levels hitting the 400ppm mark (they are currently at 385). At that level, there is a low chance of catastrophe (feedback effects, where more C02 causes the natural CO2 sinks to stop absorbing as much or release it again). However, if they exceed 450ppm, then there is a 50% chance of catastrophe. At 550ppm, it becomes quite certain.
Field Researcher
#25 Old 30th Jan 2008 at 12:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Jacki
Hasn't global warming always been an on-going earthly process?

Exactly. If we look back, we will see that it has happened before, before humans even existed. It's part of the evolution.
We may have speed up the process with all pollution and stuff but I believe it's natural and meant to happen sooner or later.
 
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