Climate Change: It's bad and getting worse

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by Wyzaard, Jun 25, 2011.

  1. Wyzaard

    Wyzaard Banned

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    "The rate of ice loss in two of Greenland's largest glaciers has increased so much in the last 10 years that the amount of melted water would be enough to completely fill Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes in North America.

    West Texas is currently undergoing its worst drought since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, leaving wheat and cotton crops in the state in an extremely dire situation due to lack of soil moisture, as wildfires continue to burn.

    Central China recently experienced its worst drought in more than 50 years. Regional authorities have declared more than 1,300 lakes "dead", meaning they are out of use for both irrigation and drinking water supply.

    Floods have struck Eastern and Southern China, killing at least 52 and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands, followed by severe flooding that again hit Eastern China, displacing or otherwise affecting five million people.

    Meanwhile in Europe, crops in the northwest are suffering the driest weather in decades.

    Scientific research confirms that, so far, humankind has raised the Earth's temperature, and the aforementioned events are a sign of what is to come.

    "If you had a satellite view of the planet in the summer, there is about 40 per cent less ice in the Arctic than when Apollo 8 [in 1968] first sent back those photos [of Earth]," Bill McKibben, world renowned environmentalist and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences told Al Jazeera, "Oceans are 30 per cent more acidic than they were 40 years ago. The atmosphere is four per cent more wet than 40 years ago because warm air holds more water than cold air. That means more deluge and downpour in wet areas and more dryness in dry areas. So we're seeing more destructive mega floods and storms, increasing thunderstorms, and increasing lightning strikes."

    So far human greenhouse gas emissions have raised the temperature of the planet by one degree Celsius.

    "Climatologists tell us unless we get off gas, coal, and oil, that number will be four to five degrees before the end of this century," said McKibben, "If one degree is enough to melt the Arctic, we'd be best not to hit four degrees.""

    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/2011622132049568952.html

    So... anyone still drinking the Denier kool-aid?
     
    AshenLady and (deleted member) like this.
  2. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    McKibben is an idiot with no understanding of climate or science. The weather is unusually dry in some places, wet in others. Duh. When has it not been like that?
     
  3. cassandrabandra

    cassandrabandra New Member

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    yep.

    but most of them will change their minds sooner or later - no matter how shrill their protests get.

    and probably pretend that they never were deniers.

    climate change will have more significant impacts over the next fifty years or so regardless of what we do.
     
  4. jackdog

    jackdog Well-Known Member

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    another "YOU ARE DOOMED ! " opinion thread without substance or basis, how boring
     
  5. Wyzaard

    Wyzaard Banned

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    Ummm... this isn't a substantive rebuttal.
     
  6. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    you didn't open with a substantive post.
     
  7. savage-republican

    savage-republican Well-Known Member

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    I guess La Nina is no longer the source of this years weather in the States? Seems to me this is exactly the weather we had in 93' when we had La Nina. Fail, massive massive Fail.
     
  8. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    That's true. The sky is falling, Run for your life.
     
  9. jackdog

    jackdog Well-Known Member

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    seems as if in the best case warming has stopped and the climate will remain steady for a while now and in the worst case we are entering a cooling phase

    there are plenty of real issues the AGW cultists can expend their energy on. A few suggestions

    • Over-fishing of the oceans.
    • Destruction of native habitats.
    • Slash and burn agriculture.
    • Pollution of inland and coastal waters by agricultural and industrial run-offs.
    • deforestation of rain forests
    • Poaching of endangered animals.
    • Lack of clean water in much of the third world.
    • Preventable diseases, especially among children lacking basic immunization.
    • Under-education of girls.
    • Enslavement of children and often their Mothers.
    • The selling of virginity of girls.
    • Poverty and impoverishment.
    • Killing of innocent civilians in wars of retribution
     
  10. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is no global warming, despite the evidence, and every thicko in America is agreed about that, so they must be right. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad - and thick!
     
  11. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    Of course it is. It identifies the fact that the alleged "bad change" in the global climate is merely climatic variability much as it has always been.
     
  12. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    Thanks for that, JD. Isn't it odd how the hysteria of their anxiety over a self-evident non-problem is proportional to their indifference to genuine problems that cause real environmental degradation, real loss and waste of natural endowments, and real human suffering and death?
     
  13. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why do right wing Americans think they know better than climatologists, and on what basis? It seems quite remarkably arrogant until you realise their masters want to keep on polluting and destroying our earth, and have therefore instructed the serfs not to notice.
     
  14. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    Funny you should mention destruction of native habitats. That is exactly what man is doing...destroying his native habitat.

    You will see more and more people on less and less land.
    Man will do to himself what he has done to the native animals.

    Yes... you are correct... the above issues need to be addressed.

    It is probably too late to stop global warming anyway.

    Greed wins.
     
  15. Wyzaard

    Wyzaard Banned

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    Source?

    They're good ones, no doubt... and AGW is bound to exacerbate conditions concerning half of them; in addition, changing destructive agricultural policies would address a few of these AND AGW.

    Source?
     
  16. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    can you present the evidence that demonstrates causation ?
    Nobody else can, but you appear to be extraordinarily on top of things. I am positive that you are up to the task.
    Thank you in advance.
     
  17. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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  18. Joey_Sac

    Joey_Sac New Member Past Donor

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    Any one who denies there is a climate change problem on this planet has not been watching the television network news since January, 2011. The facts are obvious, there is no need for discussion, or this thread.

    It would be nice to see a thread on what our options are, and what we are going to do about climate change, but as long as the planet continues to have it's head up its ass things are only going to get worse.

    [​IMG]
     
  19. stretch351c

    stretch351c New Member

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  20. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    Hehe. My nomination for Unconscious Self-Refutation of the Month.
    The facts are obvious to anyone who looks at actual empirical data: while there is certainly bad weather here and there, as always, there is no climate change problem.
     
  21. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    easy, first figure out what the causes are, then we can have a discussion.
    It will require removing head from ass however.
     
  22. cassandrabandra

    cassandrabandra New Member

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    I have tried to discuss this on a number of occasions Joey, but it always get sidetracked into a platform for denialists to peddle their lies.

    Of course there are heaps of things we can do, but people would rather put their heads where your post so adequately demonstrates they are prone to do than discuss what is really happening.

    I expect that a lot of the denialists here will have changed their tune by the time they are my age - and wish we had acted sooner.
     
  23. _Inquisitor_

    _Inquisitor_ Well-Known Member

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    There is no global warming, despite the evidence, scientific consensus and regulations made by American lawmakers, not even mentioning basic education one can recieve in schools and universities. This is a fact.
    Another fact is is that idea of global warming taught in schools and universities, explained by MSM and the scientific community is paranoid as it has no more relation to the observed reality than the "summer of recovery".

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aIhh9nFYv4"]YouTube - ‪Black Sabbath Paranoid‬‏[/ame]
     
  24. los2rec

    los2rec New Member

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    Is it a mistake to make the assumption that if we humans are the biggest reason for climate change then we can control it to some degree? Individually, we people can plan ahead and make time dependent decisions, but as a group we are machines. There are 2 types of people, those who believe in climate change and those who don't. This is enough to make a bet, and those of us who accept it can plan/invest in a way that we profit from it. If our bet pays out, we will control the guys who bet against. There is no human or political movement that can ever get strong enough to make a change in the direction the human race is going, the direction is set by technology and those who have ownership stakes in it, whether this is for or against climate change. Ready to call your price?
     
  25. cassandrabandra

    cassandrabandra New Member

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    On an individual bass this is true - however the cost of not addressing the issue is more than the individual can handle.

    The people of La Paz and El Alto, for example, have a relatively low carbon footprint - through economic necessity - and yet thet are already paying a price:

    http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20090506/bolivias-chacaltaya-glacier-melts-nothing-6-years-early
     

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