To me this question is a little like asking if there's life after death. We can't know for sure till we're there so the question is relative. A climate model has obvious limitations. But the issue isn't the model. We know we are taking carbons that have been locked-up in the earth and adding them to the existing amount of carbons in the atmosphere. We know this has had an effect. The last quote is inaccurate. Global temperatures HAVE risen significantly since 1998. It is widely accepted that SOMETHING is happening, and a massive amount of data supports the theory that human action is the cause. The ill effect of the industrial revolution on the health of the planet is not only common sense, but backed by more than a century of observation. Exactly how our planet will respond is a guess. It's funny to me when people point to an increase in ice or decrease in average temperature in a particular region as an example of the wackiness of the global warming theory. What's actually happening is a fundamental change in weather patterns. This includes places cooling as well as other places heating up. Some theories even suggest that global warming will trigger an ice age. It is hard to predict - as your example of the inaccurate weatherman so aptly shows. But it is easy to note that drastic changes are happening. Not that the earth doesn't have its cycles, but that this one appears to be manufactured by a species - us - and is occurring at a pace unprecedented in the history of the planet. So ... are we over-hyping it? Is this paranoia? Here's my spin. Even if we're wrong and there is no real threat from Global Warming, it would still be the responsible choice to adjust our consumer mentality to reduce pollution and conserve our resources. But if Global Warming is a threat and we chose as a species to roll our eyes at it ... well, that's that; it's over. We fail and life goes into a big struggle for survival. I think what we're up against is a question of character. Can we as a species learn how to stop being addicts and start acting responsibly towards ourselves and others? We aren't creatures walking around on a pebble. We are fundamental parts of biological organism. Maybe we aren't facing an environmental apocalypse, but we're certainly mucking where we eat. I don't think its any kind of folly, or over-hyped paranoia to begin demanding from each other that we not spoil what we depend on. Global Warming or not - the air in Los Angeles in the summer time just isn't healthy. Ain't gonna hurt to fix it.
Global Warming? The very phrase now leaves me cold.
There is un-doubtedly changes in the weather systems, there are undoubtedly changes in the climate I have no doubt that we, the human species have contributed in some way.
I am tired of the political exploitation of the phrase 'Global warming', (I have a vivid memory of a senior UK politician giving a sincere, heartfelt interview about his concerns for the environment and demanding that the 'General Public' should consider our own behaviour, our travel. The Politician was giving this interview on a chartered executive jet flying him to the city of Manchester UK from the city of London UK in the spring of 2007).
I am tired of the commercial exploitation of the phrase.
Organic food costs an average of 15% to 2o% more than the usually produced food stuffs. The so called 'Environmentally Friendly' products in the stores are always more expensive than the products we all used to buy, but they still come in plastic and cardboard packaging, much more than is needed to transport it in.
I've listened to scientists hammer on about this gas and that pollutant. I've also listened to other scientists hammer on about sunspots effecting the oceans amongst other contributary factors.
The earth does go through climatic cycles and some of the cycles are extreme. Have we contributed to an extra extreme in this particular cycle? In all probability yes we have.
Is there anything we can do about it? In all probability no, there isn't.
Many, many people are changing their behaviour, buying smaller cars, recycling their household waste, installing energy efficient this and energy efficient the next thing.
Wonderful.
Bloody futile. Why? because a car is a car and it still produces carbon emmissions. An energy efficient lightbulb is still a lightbuld and uses energy, just as switching on the kettle for a brew does when we step back to proudly admire our new energy efficient this that and the next thing.
Recycling as much as possible is great, in the UK and here in europe, there are specially produce PLASTIC bags and bins for our recyclable plastics, boxes, paper, tins and bottles, all collected by huge gas guzzling lorries taken to either energy hungry recycling stations for sorting, (approx 60% of the waste is NOT suitable for recycling and is either incineratrd or put in landfill sites or dumped at sea from barges) then transferred on to other energy hungry factories for processing. Much of it is put in containers and put on gas guzzling ships to be transported to places such as India and China for processing whom we then accuse of being excessively polluting. Which they may well be but largely because we send them the bulk of our crap to process.
I agree that we can-not judge climatic change on local weather, as I write this it is literally teeming down with rain and has been for the last 16 hours, I think it has rained like this on and off since last November, I have a flooded utility room down stairs.
Last year at this time it was 36 degrees celcius. So? We had this same rain fall four years ago.
My own view is the earth is well into one of it's major climatic changes, changes that it has undertaken many times in its billions of years of existence. As mentioned earlier, I do believe we, the human race, have contributed to a possible acceleration of this change but, we are not the cause of it and we will not be able to stop it either.
Modifying our behaviour may make individuals feel better and lay claim to being greener beings but, as said, a car is a car and the emissions it produces may be less but, the production of the car, the processing of the raw materials, the fuel it uses... the same applies to all manufactured goods we purchase. It may well have a 'Green Badge' to wear, but the damage was done in the production.
We will not change as a race, we all enjoy our creature comforts too much and we are amongst the worst, we in this community, we travel the world. We will continue to travel the world until......
Wow, come extremely cynical views on here!
While I agree with the concept that climate change is a difficult topical to follow in the media, because for every article that proves one point, there is another to contradict it. I do believe, however, if you look at where most of these articles originate, the scientific community is generally in agreement that we have accelerated and caused the current issues, while the general media, politics and so forth want us to believe that it is all alarmist gibberish.
The fact that the weatherman was so distinctly wrong is an excellent example of jsut how bad our environment is changing. In the past several years, it is becoming extremely difficult for meteorologists to predict weather patterns because they are witnessing a level of unpredictability where storms materialize out of nowhere and reach unexpected strengths. These storms also disappear quicker than ever. Weather used to be much more reliable because they could accurately predict based on historical patterns and current atmospheric conditions. Today, the atmospheric conditions are out of wack and unknown and historical trends continue to be re-written each day.
I agree that a car is a car to some extent. And certainly selling your little used mid-80's Honda Civic to buy a brand new Smart Car might not have too much effect because of the production costs of the newer, fuel efficient car, you cannot tell me that switching from a Cadillac Escalade to a Smart Car would not, eventually lead to reduced emissions.
It is also a typical mentality that people will look at the record ice thicknesses that were achieved this year and ignore the fact that they were at record lows just a few short years ago. They did recover, temporarily, but the fresh water glaciers are not recovering. The thick sea ice will likely melt and be measured at record lows again this summer.
Perhaps there is little we can do to save the earth, but as incredibly smart creatures of this once green planet, you would think that we would try and prevent our demise. Even if you think that we are doomed to destroy our earth, would it not be the intelligent thing to try and extend out stay?
Think of it this way, an elderly person is diagnosed with Cancer. They are going to die from it if they do not receive some form of medical treatment. They are going to die no matter what, but the medical treatment extends their life by 2-3-4-5 years, it doesn't really matter, you take the treatment and enjoy those extra years.
The world is dying and we could give it the medical treatment it needs to live and sustain life for more years. Its just a matter of choice. Too bad most people seem determined to just let it die...
All systems wither and deteriorate. The earth has been dying for approximately 100,000,000 years. I don't think it's a question of humanity "letting it die".
I think it's interesting that you use the cancer argument; I would use the same analogy, only pointing out that in cancer, both the certainty of treatment and the cure, are moving targets. Very similar to the environmental question.
I mean, the common treatment for cancer--apart from surgery--is chemotherapy. It's never as simple as "your going to die, but this will give you three years", it's "You're probably going to die within 6 months to a year, but chemotherapy might cure you, or give you 1-5 extra years of weakened agony--oh yeah, and sign this paper saying your surviving family will pick up the bill"
Which I think is exactly how global conservation legislation sounds. "Well, the oceans are probably going to rise 1-5'' in the next 100-1000 years, but maybe outlawing SUVs will buy us another 50-1000 years."
I wouldn't say I'm cynical of global warming, but of the politics behind it. I mean, what exactly is going to kill "all of mankind"? Are we really preserving our life, or preserving our current status? Frankly, if the temperature estimates are right, we're going to seem massive tracts in the Canadian plate and Siberia---once barren areas--turn into arable land. Do we need to ban SUVs just in the hope that New York won't need dikes to stay in existence?
For my perspective, I'm doing my part...I drive a compact car, buy local, till my own garden, compost my garden trash, use only CFLs, recycle, reuse and reduce. But I don't believe it's right for me to force my neighbor to do the same (via legislation or fevered speeches), based on science that seems only slightly more verifiable than Jesus' resurrection.
My reasoning is this: last week, the weatherman said it was going to be cloudy and 50 today. As I type this, it's clear and 60 (and rising). I believe that weatherman had a lot of data with which to make that assumption. If a minor flaw/change in meteorological data can make that much of a difference in 7 days, what can it do in 20 years?
This is a popular misunderstanding of the difference between CLIMATE and WEATHER. Unforunately your reasoning here is very flawed as you are talking about something entirely different to global warming.
Weather and weather prediction is a very immediate phenomena, dealing with weather types (such as wind, rain, snow and sun) over the coming days or the past month. Weather prediction is notoriously difficult as the variables involved are immense.
Climate, on the other hand, in terms of climate change, deals with climate over greater time periods such as quarter centuries and rarely deals with prediction - it deals with hard facts gathered over time and draws conclusions based on that.
This is what causes a lot of confusion about the global warming issue. People read about colder weather than usual and assume it's against climate change/global warming when in fact it's something different all together.
What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded. (At the same time Antarctic sea ice-cover was also at its highest-ever level, 30 per cent above normal).
Again, this information has little to do with climate change because of it deals with just one particular and very short period. Over a 30 year period the results would have more meaning.
At the end of the day, none of us are experts. But this is science, there is no point for us to debate this any more than there is us to debate atomic theory. The scientific consensus is that the Earth is warming significantly due to our way of living and that scientific consensus hasn't been succesfully challenged by any other idea. The GW deniers tend to have a vested interest (Oil sponsored science, for example) and they have created a debate about something which isn't up for debate. What this is about is science - hard science. Let's leave it to the experts and listen to what they have to say.
Joined: 01-06-07
Watch the web for climate change truths
So a German study, published by Nature last week, claimed that, while the world is definitely warming, it may cool down until 2015 "while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions".
Let me preface this by saying that I drive a compact car (rarely), maintain a compost pile for my garden and have replaced all of my traditional bulbs with Compact Fluorescents (CFL). I reduce, I reuse, I recycle.
For far too long, I've listened to the IPCC and every other environmentalist tell me that the sky is falling. My neighbors truck is directly killing polar bears, and nothing but a complete return to the stone age and the accepting of environmentalists as our new masters will save us.
Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but the current "environmental crisis" has become the launch pad for unfounded stupidity that goes unchallenged. To quote the above article:
On April 24 the World Wildife Fund (WWF), another body keen to keep the warmist flag flying, published a study warning that Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it may soon reach a "tipping point" where "irreversible change" takes place. This was based on last September's data, showing ice cover having shrunk over six months from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million.
What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded. (At the same time Antarctic sea ice-cover was also at its highest-ever level, 30 per cent above normal).
I'm not going to say that global warming isn't happening because some sea ice came back. I'll continue to do what's reasonable within my life to limit carbon emissions based purely on the belief that, my life is just too excessive anyhow.
What I'm not going to do is call for/support legislation based on flaw data (read: emissions standards, vehicle size limits, etc.) My reasoning is this: last week, the weatherman said it was going to be cloudy and 50 today. As I type this, it's clear and 60 (and rising). I believe that weatherman had a lot of data with which to make that assumption. If a minor flaw/change in meteorological data can make that much of a difference in 7 days, what can it do in 20 years?
...a growing number of scientists are producing ever more evidence to show how those computer models are based on wholly inadequate data and assumptions - as is being confirmed by the behaviour of nature itself (not least the continuing non-arrival of sunspot cycle 24).
The fact is that what has been happening to the world's climate in recent years, since global temperatures ceased to rise after 1998, was not predicted by any of those officially-sponsored models. The discrepancy between their predictions and observable data becomes more glaring with every month that passes.