Global Warming...fact or global conspiracy?

Back in the 70's, I was taking several Geology classes in University. Incidentally, I am not a geologist. I was just taking a few courses in a topic that interested me. At that time, a prevalent theory about climate change held that our planet was facing an imminent Ice Age.

We have since learned that, due to man's intervention, we have inadvertently reversed the prevailing trend towards a Glacial Period in our planets' climate. We are now facing a contrary situation. Earth's climate, we are told, is becoming warmer.

Furthermore, we are told that this course cannot be reversed (again. sic). This impending age of increasing temperatures, melting glaciers and polar ice caps cannot be stopped. Climate Change can, however, be somehow delayed or mitigated.

Now we find ourselves, as a planet, promoting efforts that, when viewed with a different paradigm, can easily be deemed as being ludicrous as a bulwark against the inevitable. Through the Kyoto Accord, we see one side of the planet sacrificing their economies in an effort to stem their greenhouse gas emissions while the other side of the world is given, literally, a ca rte Blanche as to their emission levels. Speaking in realistic terms, this is an unrealistic approach.

The we find ourselves, collectively, assuaging our supposed guilt about our extravacances; airplane travel, SUV use, home and business power usage , by purchasing carbon offsets. A means to counter-balance our personal and collective greenhouse gas emissions through the funding of what amounts to 'planting a tree to receive a social indulgence for taking a flight to Hawaii'. Does this really do anything to delay the, as they put it the inevitable?

Could there be forces that have recognized a genuine global disaster afoot and, recognizing it's inevitability, are seeking to gain profit from the situation? By profit, I mean to gain from this Global Warming Alarm to position themselves to survive whatever might be coming; on a personal level for the short term or ,collectively, on a national or societal level?

Of course global warming is inevitable. Our climate may be going through a natural phase of warming but the obscene amounts of green house effect gases we've been injecting into the atmosphere has created a snowball effect that will have unnatural consequences. It's inevitable not because we can't do anything about it, but because we won't. Our $$$ addicted system has too much momentum to give up on fossil fuels before they run out...

I was under the impression that global warming will, ironically, lead to an ice age. Regardless of if it does or doesn't, the current practices we have in place to create energy through the consumption of fossil fuels is unsustainable. Something must be done.

Originally posted by speaker
I was under the impression that global warming will, ironically, lead to an ice age. Regardless of if it does or doesn't, the current practices we have in place to create energy through the consumption of fossil fuels is unsustainable. Something must be done.

I heard that if the north pole,greenland and northen canada all melted the massive increase of fresh water in the north atlantic would stop the gulf stream leading to a freezing of north america and europe, but i'm not sure about an ice age ?

Excellent thread Benevolent Tyrant.

I my opinion the point is that, yes the earth goes in and out of ice ages, that we have no clear idea of why and how and when these patterns occur but either way we can take responsibilites for ourselves. We do not need to create so much waste and pollution. We have the power, through our pockets and our lifestyles to create change. We need to demand recycling, we need to demand less packageing, we need to demand that companies do not emit effluence into our water ways and air.

We forget that the very thing that makes this world go round lies in our pockets. It is us the consumers, that create the market forces. Vote with your pocket and we can change the destruction that we are inflicting on this planet.

Originally posted by KilgoreTrout
We forget that the very thing that makes this world go round lies in our pockets. It is us the consumers, that create the market forces. Vote with your pocket and we can change the destruction that we are inflicting on this planet.

Well put Kilgore Trout. Well put.

Money and power are the influences behind many of the actions that our societies, our governments are taking at this time. In spite of the fact that the Earth is facing what appears to be certain disaster, the arguments on "who did what" or "who caused what" still are being fought.

Then, I see actions to "save the environment" or "save the planet" being carried out that are anything but beneficial to the well-being of the planet and it's inhabitants. A case in point are CFLs.

CFLs , to put it simply, are a "new" form of flourescent light bulb meant to replace Thomas Alva Edison's hallowed light bulb. It seems that the CFL light bulb is able to provide similar lumens of light as the incandescents while utilizing only a fraction of the power.

To this end, for example, the government of Ontario, in Canada, recently made political hay out of newly enacted legislation that would ban the incandescent light bulb in a decade. The suggested successor of this ban on incandescent lighting is the CFL and fourescent lighting.

I have read some statistics on this particular law that states that should Ontario replace the estimated 85 million incandescent light bulbs with CFLs and increased use of flourescent lighting, enough energy would be saved to provide power to over 200,000 additional homes! Wow!

Here's the rub. Although switching to CFL's and increased flourescent lighting would, indeed, save millions, even billions, in energy costs and consumption, this move towards CFLs and flourescent lighting is only opening up a new environmental Pandora's Box.

It would appear that the politicians failed to tell us that each CFL and flourescent bulb or tube has, as an integral element, significant amounts of mercury. An average amount of mercury found in a four foot flourescent bulb, for example, has 2 - 4 grams of mercury! A CFL light bulb might also contain similarily measurable amounts of mercury (though in the milligrams).

When one considers that there are 85 million light incandescent light bulbs to be replaced in Ontario alone, that's a lot of mercury! Now lets' multiply this knee jerk reaction to save the planet by ten fold ....try a hundred. Any way that one looks at it, it's a lot of mercury that, ultimately, will find itself into landfills and, eventually, into our groundwater.

link to dangers of CFL's and flourescent lighting


The point I am, at long last, trying to make here is that the fact that CFLs and flourescent bulbs contain mercury is and never has been a secret! The Companies obscure the dangers with the promise of cheaper, longer lasting light bulbs with a similar amount of lumens without mentioning that in industrial usage, a flourescent light bulb or tube might cost as much two thousand dollars to clean up in a safe manner! How many broken flourescent tubes have you ever cleaned up? A better question would be, "where did you dump the remnants with the mercury that it contained?"

Politicians, likewise, know that CFLs and flourescent bulbs and tubes contain mercury. In the case of these politicos, however, they obscure the dangers of these bulbs with the pretense of "doing something" to save the environment, to prevent global warming and to, ultimately save YOU money! But to further pollute the planet with this highly toxic material -- mercury -- is only adding gas to the fire.

It's all of the money...the buck and the power that these people can ultimately use in society.



[edit on 5/4/2007 by benevolent tyrant]

I recommend watching the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle
video.google.com...

This documentary explains that the sun makes the earth hot. Various scientists present proof that "global warming" is being caused by the sun and not co2 levels.

These scientists also discuss the fact the global warming by co2 is a political vehicle rather than a factual one. All scientists have to do is slap the words "global warming" onto their projects in order to receive funding for it. Furthermore, many politicians are gaining approval for their agendas all in the name of "global warming". A lot of these political agendas have absolutely nothing to do with the environment but the agendas are approved simply because the proposals include the words "global warming". Global warming due to human activity or co2 levels is a lie that governments propagate for political and financial maneuvering.

Scientists and officials that speak out against global warming are ostracized. They lose funding for their work. They lose their certifications and jobs. They are blacklisted.


[edit on 5-5-2007 by checkers]

Originally posted by checkers
Scientists and officials that speak out against global warming are ostracized. They lose funding for their work. They lose their certifications and jobs. They are blacklisted.

Scientists who said Artificially Induced Climate Change (Global Warming)
had this done to them up until only a few short years ago.

It's gone from a covering-up AICC conspiracy, which there was somewhat
of, to a AICC not being real conspiracy.


I would'nt be surprised if that so called documentary was payed for by
people who will lose money from people realizing that we are destroying
the planet and creating AICC.

[edit on 5/5/2007 by iori_komei]

Originally posted by checkers
I recommend watching the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle
video.google.com...

This documentary explains that the sun makes the earth hot. Various scientists present proof that "global warming" is being caused by the sun and not co2 levels.

If you want to be misled on the important points , maybe. Durkin et al. didn't even know that humans produce more CO2 than volcanoes.

Did you bother to check how robust their 'proof' was? There is no proof that the sun is the sole cause of current climate change. It is a factor, but not the only one. One of the other significant factors is increasing greenhouse gases (CO2 et al).

linky

I still cant come to terms on the fact humans can destroy a planet in less that 100 years through pollution.

I can come to terms on the fact Earth IS getting warmer. But from Earths history, I cant find anything out of the ordinary. Everything I ever looked at, shows the world heading into a Ice Age, and then warming up to extreme dry spells. I cant help but feel that this is just a natural occurrence on Earth.

And to further my beliefs, Mars is shown to be heating up almost at the same pace as Earth. If Mars had two major Ice sheets and a water mass of 71% covering its surface, im more than convinced, Mars would be exactly on pace with Earth in terms of temperatures rising from the early 60's, is that due to pollution?


Someone please show me the flaws in my thinking.

But I do believe once our ice sheets are reduced past 30% from their current state. We will see Hurricanes, dry spells, torrential down pours, and other environmental disasters we have never witnessed in our lives. And once that day comes, may god have mercy on every life lost, we will be in for the greatest fight in our history, something we stand no chance against, Mother Earth.


Edit:

Here is one graph that shows temperatures from 400,000 years ago. You can look up any graph of Earths temperature history, and it can't be debatable, everyone agrees, Earths climate changes is first unpredictable and second unstable.

Its been well recorded, throughout history, the Medieval age, showed dry spells, and growing diseases through out Europe.

There's a really interesting graph that shows the four major Ice Ages this planet has endured, after each Ice Age, it showed the Earths average temperature rise through the roof.

The way I see it, the first Ice Age was really cold, second, slightly warmer, third decent, fourth considered the "little Ice Age". At one point the Earth was almost 70% tropical, now I think we can reach in about 30 years, 80-90% tropical.

Im no scientist, but from these graphs what im getting is, the colder the Ice Age, the lower temperatures after. The warmer a Ice Age the higher the temperatures rise after.

Now again, im no scientist, but to me what that looks like is something cosmic, something with the way Earth rotates on its axis, Earths rotation around the sun, maybe we're getting closer, by 100 miles. On average every 100,000 years the temperature drops, why? It cant be cause of humans are polluting the air the past HUNDRED years. Cause this has been going on since the beginning of time.

I think we're fooling ourselves just assuming its cause of us. There's no hard evidence to prove this. CO2 might be responsible, but its sure as hell not cause of us, CO2 has always been in our atmosphere.

I really think we're just getting out of this "little Ice Age" when the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt, and heading into 100,000 years of a tropical Earth. That sounds nice, but the transition will cause horrible effects.




This is all in my opinion

[edit on 5-5-2007 by Praafit]

Originally posted by Praafit
I still cant come to terms on the fact humans can destroy a planet in less that 100 years through pollution.

Considering we pump the atmosphere full of chemicals that were either
never there in the first place or in small trace amounts, and add more of
other gasses to it than almost every natural event ever has, it's not hard
to imagine.

I can come to terms on the fact Earth IS getting warmer. But from Earths history, I cant find anything out of the ordinary. Everything I ever looked at, shows the world heading into a Ice Age, and then warming up to extreme dry spells. I cant help but feel that this is just a natural occurrence on Earth.

Yes, the Earth does in fact have natural warming cycles, but we are in
one of the hottest, and computer models show that continual pollution
will make it hotter than any natural cycle.

And to further my beliefs, Mars is shown to be heating up almost at the same pace as Earth. If Mars had two major Ice sheets and a water mass of 71% covering its surface, im more than convinced, Mars would be exactly on pace with Earth in terms of temperatures rising from the early 60's, is that due to pollution?

The Martian warming cycle is based on a completely different
phenomenon, one which does not even occur on Earth.

Mars has natural dust storms, those storms kick up the soil and expose
the dark rock underneath that normally receives very little heat/sun in comparison to normal, the dissipation of this heat causes more storms
that are even more powerful until eventually Mars is engulfed in a
planetary storm, after which things start going back to normal.

Originally posted by iori_komei

Yes, the Earth does in fact have natural warming cycles, but we are in
one of the hottest, and computer models show that continual pollution
will make it hotter than any natural cycle.

But thats what im talking about, sorry I edited my post, to clarify myself better. But this natural cycle your talking about shows that our last Ice Age wasn't that cold.

So okay, now in our last Ice Age you have say what, Ice that goes as far south as Canada, entering some of the States as we know it today. This is totally different from the first ice age that reached down to at least six of the planet's seven continents, which back then were huddled together around the equator.

One would imagine it would take alot longer for the Earth to warm up with Ice Sheets spreading across Earth close to its equator then it would when its melting ice sheets from parts of the States, Canada and Europe.

Ice reflects the suns rays, with more ice its harder for the Earth to warm up slowing down the process of melting down the Ice Sheets. But NOW, cause of the lackluster Ice Age we had, melting those Ice Sheets isn't so difficult, the sun now has alot of ocean to work with, and I think what we're seeing now is the effect of not a cold enough Ice Age. In turn we see temperatures rise that normally have never occurred on Earth before, breaking how you said it the "cycle"



Again, im not 1% convinced global warming has anything to do with Man and their greedy ways.

Originally posted by Praafit
Again, im not 1% convinced global warming has anything to do with Man and their greedy ways.

So far this thread has discussed the issue of whether or not climate change or "global warming" is man-made or naturally occuring. The point that I am trying to discuss is a slight variation.

Whether or not climate change is due to natural causes or is man-made, the question that I am pondering is simple;

Supposing that climate change is inevitable --and this seems to be the case -- are there people, organizations or industries that have positioned themselves to profit from this change?

The news items that have led me to this train of thought have been articles that, for instance, call former Vice President Gore a "Profit of Doom". Gore, as some may know, has deflected criticism regarding his own, personal, energy use by announcing that he purchases "carbon offsets" -- from his own company!

In my mind, I view Gore's activitites, "alerting the world" to the dangers of climate change as being tainted because he has positioned himself to profit directly from his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and his international speaking tour in support of the film.

Furthermore, I note the knee-jerk reactions of some governments; i.e., the Ontario Canada government specifically. In an effort to reduce energy consumption, the Ontario government has mandated that incandescent light bulbs be outlawed in favor of flourescent light bulbs (CFLs). On the surface, this appears to be a great idea but -- and this is a big BUT -- the new CFL's pose a real and present danger in themselves!
CFL's contain significant amounts of mercury! When disposed of properly, this danger might be mitigated however think about you typically do with a burnt out lightbulb. Do you think that you will do anything different when a CFL light bulb burns out? It will probably end up in the trash which, in turn, will end up in a land fill. The mercury will inevitably end up in the ground water.

The thing about the CFLs that raises my concern is that their mercury content is not a secret. People know about this but, in this case, this knowledge has all but been ignored. Why? For profits? Short term gain?

Originally posted by benevolent tyrant
The thing about the CFLs that raises my concern is that their mercury content is not a secret. People know about this but, in this case, this knowledge has all but been ignored. Why? For profits? Short term gain?

It's been known for a long time that fluorescent bulbs use mercury. The trade off is between mercury released from fossil-fueled power plants (dozens of tonnes in the US) and that contained in CFL bulbs. As long as they are recycled properly, shouldn't be an issue. It won't be long before LEDs become the norm anyway.

Originally posted by benevolent tyrant

Originally posted by Profit
Again, im not 1% convinced global warming has anything to do with Man and their greedy ways.

So far this thread has discussed the issue of whether or not climate change or "global warming" is man-made or naturally occurring. The point that I am trying to discuss is a slight variation.

Whether or not climate change is due to natural causes or is man-made, the question that I am pondering is simple;

Supposing that climate change is inevitable --and this seems to be the case -- are there people, organizations or industries that have positioned themselves to profit from this change?

The news items that have led me to this train of thought have been articles that, for instance, call former Vice President Gore a "Profit of Doom". Gore, as some may know, has deflected criticism regarding his own, personal, energy use by announcing that he purchases "carbon offsets" -- from his own company!

In my mind, I view Gore's activities, "alerting the world" to the dangers of climate change as being tainted because he has positioned himself to profit directly from his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and his international speaking tour in support of the film.

Furthermore, I note the knee-jerk reactions of some governments; i.e., the Ontario Canada government specifically. In an effort to reduce energy consumption, the Ontario government has mandated that incandescent light bulbs be outlawed in favor of fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). On the surface, this appears to be a great idea but -- and this is a big BUT -- the new CFL's pose a real and present danger in themselves!
CFL's contain significant amounts of mercury! When disposed of properly, this danger might be mitigated however think about you typically do with a burnt out light bulb. Do you think that you will do anything different when a CFL light bulb burns out? It will probably end up in the trash which, in turn, will end up in a land fill. The mercury will inevitably end up in the ground water.

The thing about the CFLs that raises my concern is that their mercury content is not a secret. People know about this but, in this case, this knowledge has all but been ignored. Why? For profits? Short term gain?

I wont disagree with you that global warming is turning into a hot market. BUT I think that's the least of mankind's concerns.

If anyone remembers anything about the medieval ages, its two things, the increase in temperature around the northern Atlantic region, and diseases. Black Death, Influenza, Leprosy, the Plague, Smallpox and many more. Mankind never seen such loss of life from these plagues and true now medicine has come a long way. But we're still not up to par in terms of where we should be. Sars, Avian Flu, both thought to have been under control, what happen.


Now we're facing Dengue Fever, Dengue fever has already infected victims in the US. When Texas suffered an outbreak of the disease in the mid 90's. Doctors have a hard time diagnosing it and even harder time treating it since there is no real vaccine to it.

Malaria outbreaks throughout the U.S the past 3 years.

These are just SMALL example, and im worried we'll meet the same fate as most people living in the Medieval ages.

As the temperature rises, we'll see more and more of this in the news every year. And if what im thinking is correct, Earth will see temperature rising to highs it has never seen before in its history.

And the REAL scary thing is, if I am right along with the thousands of scientists. Earth will be trapped in this tropical era for hundreds of years.

Making me strongly think about investing in some type of pharmaceutical company.


But that's just my two cents.

And again it has been shown that a doubling of CO2, which hasn't happened, will only increase temperatures 0.014 C.

CO2 is not the most prominant or msot important heat trapping GHG, water vapor is, not only does water vapor traps more than twice the amount of heat than CO2 does, but it exists in the atmosphere in more abundance.

The troposphere is where most of the warming is occurring, and we know for a fact that the contribution to heating for water vapor is 95% while the contribution of heating by CO2 is 5%, yet the "let's blame mankind crowd" can't say a peep about water vapor because about 99.9 % of it is natural.

Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere is around 5 percent from carbon dioxide and around 95 percent from water vapor.

www.eia.doe.gov...

Not to mention again that temperatures began increasing and continued increasing 260 years before CO2 levels even began to increase, yet we are led to believe by the same crowd that tried to bury the Medieval Warming, the Little Ice Age and even an older event known as the Roman Warming period trying to claim the 20th century warming has been the highest when dozens of other research done around the world show these events were not only global, but the MWP and the RWM were warmer than the 20th century warming.

The whole claim that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of the current warming has been backed for years with science that does not stand to scrutiny. For years the IPCC used the famous "Hockey Stick Graph" of Mann, which showed an almost linear temperature trend for the past 1,000 years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I's model referred to that as the "business as usual'' scenario. As it turns out, the chemical model used was inconsistent with the past century's record; it would have predicted that we would already have about 400 parts per million by volume. An improved model developed at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg shows that even the "business as usual'' scenario does not double carbon dioxide by the year 2100.

www.cato.org...

Then as that graph was somehow accepted by the IPCC, Mann produced another graph which showed an almost linear temperature trend for the past 2,000 years, yet all of Mann's data has been discredited, but now Mann has associated with some of the other "let's blame mankind crowd of scientists", and they have extrapolated two of Mann's graphs, even though his data and graphs were discredited and even the IPCC does not use the so called "Hockey Stick Graph" anymore. They use two of Jones' graph, and a few other graphs that when separated they show a different picture to the claims of the "let's blame mankind crowd.

Mann and associates are not only wrong, but they have been tyring to decieve the world. The current warming of the 20th century has not been the warmest for the past 2,000 of even 1,000 years. But not only did they try to bury these two wamring events of Earth's past but also they tried to ignore the LIA, claiming this event was also not global, but as I already said, dozens of other research contradicts their claims.

Accumulation and 18O records for ice cores from Quelccaya ice cap. The period of the Little Ice Age stands out clearly as an interval of colder temperature (lower 18O) and higher accumulation. Such evidence demonstrates the Little Ice Age was a climatic episode of global significance. From World Data Center for Paleoclimatology

academic.emporia.edu...

The five scientists determined that the mean temperature of the Medieval Warm Period in northwest Spain was 1.5°C warmer than it was over the 30 years leading up to the time of their study, and that the mean temperature of the Roman Warm Period was 2°C warmer. Even more impressive was their finding that several decadal-scale intervals during the Roman Warm Period were more than 2.5°C warmer than the 1968-98 period, while an interval in excess of 80 years during the Medieval Warm Period was more than 3°C warmer.

ff.org...

A team of scientist from Austria and Germany located three stalagmites in the Spannagel Cave located around 2,500 m above sea level at the end of the Tux Valley in Tyrol (Austria) close to the Hintertux glacier. The temperature of the cave stays near freezing and the relative humidity in the cave is always at or near 100%. The stalagmites grew at a rate between 17 and 75 millionths of a meter per year and are nearly 10,000 years old.
...............
The stalagmite is screaming to us that many periods in the past 9,000 years were warmer than present-day conditions!

www.worldclimatereport.com...

Climatic changes during the past 1300 years as deduced from the sediments of Lake Nakatsuna, central Japan
................
The sediment record from AD 900 to 1200 indicates hot summers and warm winters with less snow accumulation, whereas the record from AD 1200 to 1950 is characterized by high variation of temperature, with three cool phases from AD 1300 to 1470, 1700 to 1760, and 1850 to 1950. The warm period from AD 900 to 1200 corresponds well to the Medieval Warm Period, and the second and third cool phases are related to the Little Ice Age.

www.springerlink.com...

Current warmth seems to be occurring nearly everywhere at the same time and is largest at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Over the last 50 years, the largest annual and seasonal warmings have occurred in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Most ocean areas have warmed. Because these areas are remote and far away from major cities, it is clear to climatologists that the warming is not due to the influence of pollution from urban areas.

www.nasa.gov...

The Arctic shelf is currently undergoing dramatic thermal changes caused by the continued warming associated with Holocene sea level rise. During this transgression, comparatively warm waters have flooded over cold permafrost areas of the Arctic Shelf. A thermal pulse of more than 10°C is still propagating down into the submerged sediment and may be decomposing gas hydrate as well as permafrost.

www.agu.org...

Mankind 'can't influence' climate

By Simon Kirby

April 11, 2007 11:47pm

Solar activity a greater climate change driver than man
'0.1 per cent of carbon dioxide due to human activity'
Geologist says he doesn't care if no-one agrees - Video

MANKIND is naive to think it can influence climate change, according to a prize-winning Australian geologist.

Solar activity is a greater driver of climate change than man-made carbon dioxide, argues Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide and winner of several notable science prizes.

www.news.com.au...

Are we overlooking potential abrupt climate shifts?
Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.

Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earthvs climate can shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different patterns that can persist for decades to centuries. In addition, these climate shifts do not necessarily have universal, global effects. They can generate a counterintuitive scenario: Even as the earth as a whole continues to warm gradually, large regions may experience a precipitous and disruptive shift into colder climates.

www.whoi.edu...

The above is just some of the evidence which clearly debunks the claim that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of the current warming.



[edit on 8-5-2007 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Praafit
...........
Now we're facing Dengue Fever, Dengue fever has already infected victims in the US. When Texas suffered an outbreak of the disease in the mid 90's. Doctors have a hard time diagnosing it and even harder time treating it since there is no real vaccine to it.

Malaria outbreaks throughout the U.S the past 3 years.
.......................
As the temperature rises, we'll see more and more of this in the news every year. And if what im thinking is correct, Earth will see temperature rising to highs it has never seen before in its history.

This has been proven to be false, as the disease carrying mosquitoes of Malaria and Dengue fever can thrive very well in cold climates and even in the Soviet union they have had epidemics of such diseases.

in the aftermath of the First World War and in the midst of civil war, the 1922-1923 epidemic in the Soviet Union caused more than 10 million cases and at least 60 000 deaths;

www.rbm.who.int...

Malaria, Dengue fever ect have happened in warm and cold climates, but it was the introduction of the pesticide DDT which eradicated such diseases from most of the world, except that now environmentalists want to ban DDT from third world countries, even when epidemics of these diseases keep happening in third worl countries frequently.

[edit on 8-5-2007 by Muaddib]

We have a stark choice:

Either we believe in AGW and start developing new technology, stop wasting energy as if it were free and limitless, and develop more efficient machines and means of generating energy without using using fossil fuels.

Or we don't believe in AGW, and start developing new technology, stop wasting energy as if it were free and limitless, and develop more efficient machines and means of generating energy without using using fossil fuels.

So what's the problem?

(Or we can stop developing new technology and assume that fossil fuels will last forever and that countries like Russia and Iran will always be on nice friendly terms with Europe and the USA. I don't consider that to be an option open to any semi-sentient species))

Of course, in the meantime other human activities will continue causing regional climate change anyway, particularly changes to rainfall patterns. But who cares about that?

(btw the idea in the 70s that a new ice age was imminent has been consistently misconstrued in certain circles. We still believe a new ice age is imminent (although latest research suggests it may be 20,000 years away and not just a few thousand as was thought the case in the 70s). )


The only possible conspiracy is that someone is trying to scupper the development of all this new technology for financial reasons ..... the Russians and the Iranians certainly have the motive

One thing stands out to me making this whole mess nothing more than a conspiracy. The money. There havent been any solutions proposed outside of the radical 'take us back to the stone-age' crew that do not involve moving money. Its like a gian laudering scheme on a global level. There is absolutely no way idiotic things like carbon credits or new taxes will have any effect on the environment whatsoever. Then theres the wonderful mercury bulbs. Yeah, landfills of glass and mercury wont cause any problems. After all mercury is in our vaccines so it must be good for you. But what about ethanol? I suppose thats all fine and good if you dont mind turning Texas into a big corn field and using just as much oil as we use now to make up 10% of the imports with ethanol. So we use just as much oil as we use now to create an amount of ethanol equivalent to 10-12% of our imported oil that gets burned. Sounds like we'd be working really hard just to put more emissions in the air.

If these people were really serious about cutting emissions we'd see a great push toward nuclear energy at the very least.

I feel bad for all of the genuine granola people who are jumping all over this bandwagon with good intentions at heart. Theyre just being used by politicians and global elite to help convince the majority of the public that limiting their travel, forfieting their expendable income and giving away liberties will prevent some magical end-of-days scenerio on par with the return of the messiah.

Its all bunk. The Earth is going to do what its going to do with or without us. If half of us want to give their lives away to some global socialist order thats their perogative, just dont be surprised when I shoot the taxman standing on my front steps and dont be surprised when youre all alot poorer, alot less free and the Earth hasnt changed one bit or at least hasnt given back that 7/10 of a degree it apparently warmed within a 100 year period.

Im not buying it and the blind zeal that so many have for this 'cause' freaks me out.

At the most simple level why did all of the candidates at the democratic debate each take their own private jet down? They were going to the same place. They dont care because there isnt anything to care about. Just a new way to impose a tax a new tactic to trick the public into voting for them. Theyre all crooked.

Wasnt it Al Gore who first said we wouldnt ratify Kyoto? Youd think if it was so important to our existance Gore would be all on it.

Its a big game and everyones playing it to gain from it. It makes me so mad The only losers will be us. Its sad how many of us are helping them take advantge of us.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
One thing stands out to me making this whole mess nothing more than a conspiracy. The money. There havent been any solutions proposed outside of the radical 'take us back to the stone-age' crew that do not involve moving money.

Read the IPCC Working Group 3 SPM - released last Friday:

www.ipcc.ch...

Now where's the conspiracy? The solutions for mitigation of global warming are all common sense things any half sentient species would be doing anyway. Shame humans aren't even half-sentient ...... (I believe we're currently 351st most intelligence species on the planet)

If we work on mitigating the supposed effects of AGW then, certainly in the medium to long term, everyone wins even if global warming doesn't even exist!

The only people who stand to lose out are those who want to keep us tied to primitive technologies and resources. But I don't really believe it's all a conspiracy by OPEC

Why spend £100 a month on electricity and use a polluting petrol engined car when you could be spending £25 on electricity and running a car that costs half as much to run and doesn't make pedestrians choke in the street?

[edit on 8-5-2007 by Essan]