I personally find the whole climate change debate confusing due to a mixture of half-truths, conflicting data and the lack of actual solid debate.

I think ATS Mix could be the ideal format for two individuals from both sides of the argument to each present their cases (with counter arguments) so we can make an informed decision about what is actually going on.

Thats about it.

We could be partly to blame, or to put it another, we could be relevant in the final equation, if not decisive. But it is NOT CO2 emissions related, that is just a tax scam the elites are trying to pull to further reduce our collective standard of life.

If we are responsible it is because of deflorestation (which is mostly corporate, talk to any brazilian) and urbanism (which I consider a micro desertification, our cities take up too much space and have too little plant life, which makes them hotter and dryer than if it were a natural environment).

Besides climate change we are of course responsible for pollution and species extinction, but that's a somewhat seperate problem.

But one conclusion I do have: corporations are more responsible than individuals, and corporations are elitist organisations in both function, design and loyalty. So it is time for elitists themselves to be held responsible for what they are knowingly doing to this planet, not just middle class or the poor. The middle class does not know better and the poor often does not have a choice, but elitist led corporate enviromental destruction is unexcusable.

Climate change.... No.

Creating an unbalance in mother nature yes.

Good old mother earth can fix any problem thrown at her..... and in my opinion her future doesn't include us humans.(or very few of us anyway)
We are raping her to the point where she is going to have to correct herself, and I believe that the solution will carry the side effect of erradicating a good portion of the human population.

Look at the extremes in the weather, quakes and volcanos. Sure we might be at the end\beginning of a new cycle but I think karma is going to give it to us hard.

You could be right, but we are in a phase change fractal cycle atm, so we could still pull off a 180º and go green. The key is energy, if we manage to break the tecnoblockade and get out all that nice tech the oil industry, the military complex and our governmental (with emphasis on mental) systems has kept from us by burying it in patent offices and atributing absurd private property rights, we could in less than a decade change our total impact on this planet and get out of the false scarcity economy.

I believe we live in a world of infinite energy, only our forced ignorance is keeping us from a new era of prosperity and environmental harmony.

Very sound theory that I agree with, but it will do us no good if we don't start living off of a balance between the resources and people. Our population is growing exponentially and many places are using more resources(water for example) than it could sustain. Instead of puting on population limits that would god forbit not give growth in this area, they pull resources remotely to sustain its increased capacity. Now we have farms that needed irrigation that are loosing water supplies to industries and over populated centers. Our water tables our dropping or are being polluted to the point where we are slowly poisoning ourselves. A balance needs to be found and people need to wake up to the current situation and the future we are destroying for our children.

I'm sure you have heard the analogy of put a frog into a boiling pot of water and they'll hop out, but put a frog into a cold pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil and it will just sit there. Well the pot is boiling and jumping out isn't an option.

So... Frog soup anyone?

Short answer is a resounding no.
It's subjects like this that make me wish I knew how to do links and cut and paste.
I learned a long time ago that if you really want to find out what is behind a movement, follow the money. I can direct you to a web-site that has arguments from both sides but don't know if can put it here. If you U2U I will give you the address.

I don't believe the overpopulation meme. This planet could probably sustain 20 billion or more of us, with an ecological society and good organisation. If we had clean and cheap energy ofc. The reason we are failing with less than 7 billion is terrible leadership and terrible technological choices as well as a pyramid shaped social structure that only really caters economically to the people at the top. If things were less centralised, if information were free, if we had the sensible people selected for positions of authority and influence we could do far better.

Even as bad as things are now our population growth will probably flatline at around 9 billion and start slowly declining from there. And you're right about Earth being able to take what we throw at her, life would survive any man made catastrophe and probably be back to full bloom in less than 100 000 years. So we should worry more about getting our act together than treating the planet as a rape victim with considerable negligence to the people of this planet.

Great Idea, UK. I think a sort of debate on the ATS Mix on this subject could be very effective.

I also subscribe to the theory that the human race is at least contributing a little to climate change, but I could definitely be persuaded otherwise.
That a climate change is happening, however, is most certainly apparent. Whether we are the cause or not, we should be doing all we can, especially in the field of science, to stop or reverse this effect.

Originally posted by Zepherian
..., life would survive any man made catastrophe and probably be back to full bloom in less than 100 000 years.

While it is probably be true that the Earth will spring back up, will our civilization do the same without irreversible damage to its culture and heritage?
Maybe this has happened before...

Well, we could blame ourselves, sure.

But that would leave us wondering where the Governments of the world stand in all this, and whether or not they are using their powers to their full effect in dealing with the problem.

I don't think they are, by the way.

We can blame ourselves for not taking more action, but we really should be blaming the Government for it's incompetence.

I love nature and am all for protecting our natural resources but global warming is a different animal. I'm not on the Al Gore bandwagon. Nope, don't convict me of heresy just yet. Think about this.

Quote from encyclopedia
"The last glacial period is sometimes colloquially referred to as the "last ice age", though this use is incorrect because an ice age is a longer period of cold temperature in which ice sheets cover large parts of the Earth. Glacials, on the other hand, refer to colder phases within an ice age that separate interglacials. Thus, the end of the last glacial period is not the end of the last ice age. The end of the last glacial period was about 12,500 years ago, while the end of the last ice age may not yet have come: little evidence points to a stop of the glacial-interglacial cycle of the last million years."

Going to factual geological data, it has obviously been much colder on earth. For example, the last glacial cycle. It has been much warmer before as well. The temperature of the earth changes in cycles to extreme degrees. It is probable that we have contributed to the rate of the recent temperature increase to a small degree, (That increase that has been going on since the end of the glacial period. ) but that is what it has been, contribution. The actual Global warming we are experiencing started 18000 years ago.

What I disagree with is the idea that we can slow the increase or this insanity that we can even stop it or reverse it.
The green movement plans on spending literally trillions of dollars to "Stop Global Warming" which is actually not possible.
It makes much more sense spending the trillions of dollars getting ready for what is already happening than to throw it away by trying to stop the world from continuing a cycle that it has been in for tens of thousands of years.
Global warming is real. The inhabitants of the last ice age could have told us that. This major disaster-hate ourselves for being evil-pay indulgences to the carbon priests-BS that we are dealing with now will not help. It merely lines the pockets of the fear mongers. The carbon that is injected into our atmosphere every year by volcanoes exceeds what we put in with industry. Another interesting fact. Mars has gotten warmer in proportion to the warming of the earth. I assume we haven't got major industry there yet. Anything in common? Big glowing ball in the sky?
Should we just do what we want and pollute to our hearts content? No. Of course not, but we can be reasonable. We cannot stop the cycle. We can try to slow our contribution to it but what lengths should we go to? Remember those pesky volcanoes and that big ole glowing ball in the sky? It will happen anyway. Just not quite as fast if we're lucky. Just as fast if we're not. In reality we'd be trying to put out a housefire with a squirt gun. We'd go broke trying to stop warming while we should be getting ready for it.
The media has done a good sales job.
It is very fashionable to go 'green' even though green nowadays takes more money and petroleum industry based product than ever to qualify as green. It is about HUGE PROFIT. Try this. Stand back and take a real look at who has what to gain from green. You might want to start with GE, for example, and the lobbies that it runs. Green is very profitable these days.
Politicians and big business stand to get filthy stinking rich with Global Warming Solution but they won't be able to stop it. They already know that though. They still want that cash though. Those taxes, tarrifs, carbon fees, Church of Nature indulgences.... you will pay.
Why not use the money to clean up coastal pollution and waste sites before the changes happen. Establish better ways to live and survive with the coming changes. Get real energy alternatives into action like nuclear. (stop grinding your teeth, I can hear you it's much better nowadays, read up on it)
Use the time to make positive steps in agriculture that benefit the earth and not the big agriculture fat cats wallets. Do good things for small farmers that can sustain healthy agriculture without billions of tons of chemicals each year. Use more efficient methods to accomplish our goals without profit based waste. Get real mass transit for cities like Houston Texas for gods sake! (tiny toy train-9 $figures-useless- another story).

We don't need to make Al Gore and his buddies rich going green. We need to make sense, but we won't. It is all about the money and the game.
Mother Nature never asked for a percentage or stock options.
If you want to make positive change, prepare for the future.
If you want to waste trillions building a pantheonic cult under the guise of stopping the earth from doing what it was already up to in the first place, well....go green.

If you check the whole solar system is heating up, it's because of the gravational changes that are being caused by the alignment of 12/21/2012.
This why the Mayan calander ends it won't work any longer, the celestial bodys will be different after 12/21/2012 when we cross back over the milky way and are on the other side, need new calander new gear. Wewill align with center of mily way 12/21/2012 the planets are going into closer orbit to sun because of gravity effect and in turn gaining energy get warmer. It does not matter what we did it's natural cycle, 3000 scientist say same thing, if need links can get them. We are being lied to about this also.

Illusionsaregrander: You're wrong. We have the energy the sun hits us with, we have geothermal. We have electrolised water as hydrogen and oxygen, we have a whole lot of stuff. We have wind. We have waves. We have sensible biofuels, not just corn based. We have enough landmass, even without cutting down the forrests and leveling the mountains.

What we don't have is sane, rational, choices. Because we are being lead by sociopathic pennycounting morons. Because we are being turned into sociopathic suicidal pennycounting morons.

Im up for this, but will have to work out how to do the Mix thing,

Anyone want to debate against me, I propose and will show overwhelming evidese that to believe we can add the pollutions to our environment and NOT affect even if only a in small way the Climate is very very naive!

Will get a mike sorted tonight/tommorrow,

anyone for its all natural and will Mix it up?

U2u me

Elf

LOL... used to be called "Global Warming" but now there is a shift to "climate change" so that this theory can be utilized no matter what the outcome.

Anyway, here is the deal...
man made carbon may or may not be impacting us but as already stated, there is no irrefutable proof.

The whole "religion" is controlled by what? Wait for it..... Money & power.

The entire carbon credit scam is nothing more than empowering more "paper traders" to get rich buying and selling carbon credits. They in turn fund the politicians. The "corrupt" rich get richer and the "people" get stuck with the bill. This is another cover for stealing more taxpayer money and lining the pockets of the "corrupt" elite. Also, look at the power they acquire... to tell everyone what they can and cannot do under the guise of "heresy".. oops I mean environmental impact.

This is the biggest cash cow since the military industrial complex and actually is a much bigger power grab. (Look at all the bribes it will take to get anything done!)

The UN also loves this since they lost the battles of taxing international travel (and many others) and now have a way to increase their corrupt influence into the mix.

Hey, I would love to have a car that utilized electrolysis to burn water but I do not see that happening. Please remember the motivation here. Once they pass these laws, they will never go away… climate change will never go away. There will be to much money in it.

First, buying and selling carbon credits doesn't remove one molecule of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Second, carbon credits weren't designed to lower emissions. They were designed to shift emissions around. Practically speaking, they will delay the day when we start lowering them.

Their present purpose is simply to permit developed countries and their industries to keep emitting carbon, so long as they pay a huge financial price for it by subsidizing the developing world. (So, our prices and taxes go up to make other people rich... joy)

Meaning, so long as we pay that price in higher energy costs.

In theory, it's the "cap" on emissions that's supposed to lower them -- both Kyoto's global cap and the caps developed nations set in operating "cap-and-trade" carbon markets. (But reality is no lower CO2 as the cost for the "credits" is just paid by us and the credit traders make a fortune... just like oil futures a few months ago but this has a more "concentrated" circle of profit.)

I want to say this is just a tax but it really isn't as it is more of a corporate "paper trader" windfall profit that we pay for that does nothing but make these elite rich at our expense for actually doing nothing to cut CO2. So we pay to enrich someone else for no purpose at all.