Oh didnt you know climate change is real!!!

Oh and turns out its naturally occuring (how dod you think the first ice age occurred!!!)

And were trying to stop by closing off the o-zone layer???

thats so stupid because if we do that then the earth heats up extra fast!!!!! and we all die that way

Congratulations, you have learnt the facts of life!!!!!

Originally posted by Marmota monax
Consider: The suggestion that global warming is responsible for the spread of malria does not pass the logic test.

Malaria is on the rise because the UN and cohorts outlawed the use of DDT in areas where malaria is previlent in favor of the implementation of new programs that use screening and better housing to protect those at risk. The result has been a huge increase in malaria deaths.

So let me get this straight. To you, a rise in temperature that allows the spread of the malaria carrying mosquito thus enabling a rise in infections, "does not pass the logic test." However, somehow, using toxic DDT which has extreme adverse affects on bird populations seems more logical? Dude, get a grip.

Originally posted by Marmota monax
Early America had a serious malaria problem without the benefit of global warming. (try this goggle search "malaria in early america" )

Did you happen to notice that the OP's post indicated a rise in malaria infections in Italy and not in America? It seems to me like you AGW debunkers are just grasping at straws and looking for anything that supports your debunking, whether it makes sense or not.

Originally posted by Marmota monax
The earth may very well be warming but it is not because of a man-made situation.

Why is this such a hard concept for you to grasp? I mean, I give you kudos for at least admitting that the earth is getting warmer (much better than some on this site). However, denying the impact of increased CO2 production is naive at best. Again lets look at the FACTS.

1. The earth is getting warmer.
2. Humans are creating greater CO2 concentrations than we know to have ever existed in the last 650,00 years. (and expect the concentration to more than double in the next few decades)
3. Scientists have proven a direct correlation between CO2 concentrations and global temperature.
4. Thus when we (mankind) produces alarming levels of CO2, we (mankind) will be creating global warming.

I mean, do you have to be a rocket scientist to see the connection?

Originally posted by Marmota monax
The earth has gone through periods of warming and cooling several times in the past. Consider that the "Little Ice Age" ended in 1850 and the "Medieval Warm Period" allowed the best wine grapes ever grown to multiply in England.

I have done my best in this tread and others like it to dispel the myth of the medieval warming period. This period is also known as the Little Climactic Optimum. The problem with the idea of the MWP is that it only takes into account temperature records present in Europe. You see, when determining global temperature levels it is necessary to use temperature data from many sources on the planet. Essentially, the data set is too small to make any conclusions. However, luckily scientists do have a more accurate prediction about the global temperature during medieval times.

By taking ice core readings and doing tree ring studies on a global scale, we know that the global temperature during medieval times were comparable to those present in the early to mid 20th century and thus, less than they are today. Essentially, the idea of a medieval warming period is a FARCE and should not be believed.

Originally posted by Marmota monax
Mars is warming too, as is Pluto, yet to date, no humans have been found at these locations

This idea is quite controversial and has little data to support it. Again here, given that we have only recently had the ability to gauge the temperature of other planets in our solar system and lack an ability to gauge historical temperatures, we really have no idea about the cyclical nature of their temperatures (unlike our own planet)

Originally posted by Marmota monax
Droughts happen, if you live at 1 foot above sea level you may have to move at some point, and we'd be a little full of ourselves if we claimed the ability to cause global warming.

Why is it arrogant to claim mans ability to cause global warming? We know that a handful of pollution producing factories in the midwest have created acid rain that threatens the ecosystems across entire swaths of the northeast. We also know that CFC production has contributed to holes in our ozone.

Both of these scenarios illustrate man's ability to alter global conditions. Why would our massive over production of CO2 be any different?

Originally posted by BluegrassRevolutionary
[
Here are three facts that I feel make the AGW issue quite obvious.

1. The earth is getting warmer.
2. Humans are creating more CO2 year after year and these concentrations are higher than any year that we can measure dating back 650,000 years.
3. There is a direct correlation between CO2 concentrations and temperature levels.

To me, these three simple FACTS make this debate rather simple.

[edit on 31-12-2008 by BluegrassRevolutionary]

Facts? I see no facts presented. I am not assuming you can not defend these sweeping "facts" with some form of logical, scientific proof - but please incorporate them into your post. Presenting these 3 talking points as fact is seriously lacking in anything other than belief and faith in what has been covered in the media.

Sorry to disagree, but snippets of opinion are not scientific proof, and therefore deniable.
Most global warming adherents seem to have missed the the note that the scientists supporting disastrous climate models that have failed in every case to predict climate have given up on "global warming", it is now called "Global Climate Change" and can explain either colder or warmer scenarios on a human time scale.
Climate is constantly in flux, and subject to various cycles, though for the most part of the last few million years was much colder for long periods of time.

Also evident are planetary and solar evolution.
We have less than 1/2 the atmosphere currently compared to the Jurassic.
The Sun is the "coldest" and least active as it has been observed in the last 90 years.
If 1 year of reduced solar output can reverse all recordable signs of projected warming theory, I submit that said theories are not robust enough to survive.

Originally posted by Long Lance
bad threads make for lots of replies.

sunscreen is killing corals, too and unlike global warming, the effect can actually be proven experimentally, which is as you'd probably put it, a lot more scientific...

You mean that experimental studies can be undertaken to assess the influence of sunscreen on coral bleaching, but that this couldn't be achieved for temperature influences on bleaching? lol

Have you actually bothered to look for such studies? Or do you just assume that is the case? Are these scientific enough?

First published online March 14, 2008
Journal of Experimental Biology 211, 1050-1056 (2008)

The effect of thermal history on the susceptibility of reef-building corals to thermal stress

Rachael Middlebrook*, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and William Leggat

Centre for Marine Studies and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

* Author for correspondence (e-mail: r.middlebrook@uq.edu.au)

Accepted 16 January 2008

The mutualistic relationship between corals and their unicellular dinoflagellate symbionts (Symbiodinium sp.) is a fundamental component within the ecology of coral reefs. Thermal stress causes the breakdown of the relationship between corals and their symbionts (bleaching). As with other organisms, this symbiosis may acclimate to changes in the environment, thereby potentially modifying the environmental threshold at which they bleach. While a few studies have examined the acclimation capacity of reef-building corals, our understanding of the underlying mechanism is still in its infancy. The present study focused on the role of recent thermal history in influencing the response of both corals and symbionts to thermal stress, using the reef-building coral Acropora aspera. The symbionts of corals that were exposed to 31°C for 48 h (pre-stress treatment) 1 or 2 weeks prior to a 6-day simulated bleaching event (when corals were exposed to 34°C) were found to have more effective photoprotective mechanisms. These mechanisms included changes in non-photochemical quenching and xanthophyll cycling. These differences in photoprotection were correlated with decreased loss of symbionts, with those corals that were not prestressed performing significantly worse, losing over 40% of their symbionts and having a greater reduction in photosynthetic efficiency. These results are important in that they show that thermal history, in addition to light history, can influence the response of reef-building corals to thermal stress and therefore have implications for the modeling of bleaching events. However, whether acclimation is capable of modifying the thermal threshold of corals sufficiently to cope as sea temperatures increase in response to global warming has not been fully explored. Clearly increases in sea temperatures that extend beyond 1–2°C will exhaust the extent to which acclimation can modify the thermal threshold of corals.

Plant and Cell Physiology, 2004, Vol. 45, No. 2 251-255
© 2004 Oxford University Press

Short Communication

Repair Machinery of Symbiotic Photosynthesis as the Primary Target of Heat Stress for Reef-Building Corals
Shunichi Takahashi1, Takashi Nakamura, Manabu Sakamizu, Robert van Woesik2 and Hideo Yamasaki3,4
Faculty of Science, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, 903-0213 Japan

Abstract

In a coral-algae symbiotic system, heat-dependent photoinhibition of photosystem II (PSII) leads to coral bleaching. When the reef-building coral Acropora digitifera was exposed to light, a moderate increase of temperature induced coral bleaching through photobleaching of algal pigments, but not through expulsion of symbiotic algae. Monitoring of PSII photoinhibition revealed that heat-dependent photoinhibition was ascribed to inhibition of the repair of photodamaged PSII, and heat susceptibility of the repair machinery varied among coral species. We conclude that the efficiency of the photosynthesis repair machinery determines the bleaching susceptibility of coral species under elevated seawater temperatures.

Photosynthetic response to elevated temperature in the symbiotic dinoflagellate Symbiodinium microadriaticum in culture
R Iglesias-Prieto, J L Matta, W A Robins, and R K Trench
+Author Affiliations

Department of Biological Sciences and the Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.

Abstract
Elevated temperature (28-34 degrees C) has been hypothesized as the primary cause of the loss of algal endosymbionts in coral reef-associated invertebrates, a phenomenon observed on a world-wide scale over the last decade. In past studies of this "bleaching" phenomenon, there has been an underlying assumption that temperature adversely affects the animal hosts, the algae thereby being relegated to a more passive role. Because photosynthesis is a sensitive indicator of thermal stress in plants and has a central role in the nutrition of symbiotic invertebrates, we have tested the hypothesis that elevated temperature adversely affects photosynthesis in the symbiotic dinoflagellate Symbiodinium microadriaticum. The results, based on analyses of light-mediated O2 evolution and in vivo fluorescence, indicate that photosynthesis is impaired at temperatures above 30 degrees C and ceases completely at 34-36 degrees C. These observations are discussed in the context of possible mechanisms that may function in the disassociation of algal-invertebrate symbioses in response to elevated temperature.

Damage to photosystem II in symbiotic dinoflagellates: A determinant of coral bleaching
Mark E. Warner*,†,‡, William K. Fitt†, and Gregory W. Schmidt*
+Author Affiliations

*Department of Botany and †Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
Edited by Eugene P. Odum, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, and approved May 4, 1999 (received for review February 10, 1999)

Abstract
Coral bleaching has been defined as a general phenomenon, whereby reef corals turn visibly pale because of the loss of their symbiotic dinoflagellates and/or algal pigments during periods of exposure to elevated seawater temperatures. During the summer of 1997, seawater temperatures in the Florida Keys remained at or above 30°C for more than 6 weeks, and extensive coral bleaching was observed. Bleached colonies of the dominant Caribbean reef-building species, Montastrea faveolata and Montastrea franksi, were sampled over a depth gradient from 1 to 17 m during this period of elevated temperature and contained lower densities of symbiotic dinoflagellates in deeper corals than seen in previous “nonbleaching” years. Fluorescence analysis by pulse-amplitude modulation fluorometry revealed severe damage to photosystem II (PSII) in remaining symbionts within the corals, with greater damage indicated at deeper depths. Dinoflagellates with the greatest loss in PSII activity also showed a significant decline in the D1 reaction center protein of PSII, as measured by immunoblot analysis. Laboratory experiments on the temperature-sensitive species Montastrea annularis, as well as temperature-sensitive and temperature-tolerant cultured symbiotic dinoflagellates, confirmed the temperature-dependent loss of PSII activity and concomitant decrease in D1 reaction center protein seen in symbionts collected from corals naturally bleached on the reef. In addition, variation in PSII repair was detected, indicating that perturbation of PSII protein turnover rates during photoinhibition at elevated temperatures underlies the physiological collapse of symbionts in corals susceptible to heat-induced bleaching.

Heat stress causes inhibition of the de novo synthesis of antenna proteins and photobleaching in cultured Symbiodinium
Shunichi Takahashi†,‡,§, Spencer Whitney†, Shigeru Itoh¶, Tadashi Maruyama‖, and Murray Badger†,‡

Abstract
Coral bleaching, caused by heat stress, is accompanied by the light-induced loss of photosynthetic pigments in in situ symbiotic dinoflagellate algae (Symbiodinium spp.). However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for pigment loss are poorly understood. Here, we show that moderate heat stress causes photobleaching through inhibition of the de novo synthesis of intrinsic light-harvesting antennae [chlorophyll a–chlorophyll c 2–peridinin–protein complexes (acpPC)] in cultured Symbiodinium algae and that two Clade A Symbiodinium species showing different thermal sensitivities of photobleaching also show differential sensitivity of this key protein synthesis process. Photoinhibition of photosystem II (PSII) and subsequent photobleaching were observed at temperatures of >31°C in cultured Symbiodinium CS-73 cells grown at 25–34°C, but not in cultures of the more thermally tolerant control Symbiodinium species OTcH-1. We found that bleaching in CS-73 is associated with loss of acpPC, which is a major antennae protein in Symbiodinium. In addition, the thermally induced loss of this protein is light-dependent, but does not coincide directly with PSII photoinhibition and is not caused by stimulated degradation of acpPC. In cells treated at 34°C over 24 h, the steady-state acpPC mRNA pool was modestly reduced, by ≈30%, whereas the corresponding synthesis rate of acpPC was diminished by >80%. Our results suggest that photobleaching in Symbiodinium is consequentially linked to the relative susceptibility of PSII to photoinhibition during thermal stress and occurs, at least partially, because of the loss of acpPC via undefined mechanism(s) that hamper the de novo synthesis of acpPC primarily at the translational processing step.

That's all I could really fit in a single post, I'm sure I could fill a few more.

hilarious yet depressing, isn't it?

Just hilarious. But pseudosceptics do that to me.

[edit on 2-1-2009 by melatonin]