Common, but important.

I am aware that this issue is commonly discussed, but I'm curious as to everyone's view of it.

GLOBAL WARMING

Here is my view point...
Yes, it is happening, but no, we haven't started it. It has been proven that in the middle ages, there was a long lasting heat wave (lasting at least a hundred years) Scientists have found this in arctic lake sediments up near Canada Iceland and Norway.
Can we stop it? No, I don't believe so. I think that it's just a natural Earth occurance that we have (incidentally) sped up. When we try to "prevent global warming" we are actually slowing down what we have sped up, reducing the speed closer to it's natural state. I can clarify my view if anyone needs me to.

Now your turn!
NOTE: I request that all opinions be respected! (assuming) everyone is American, and we have the right to free speech.

Seems better in D&D.

Really, never believed in Global warning.
Although it could happen, we don't live on ice.
Ice melts = water = houses sink.
But what if it gets so hot that we um...go bye-bye?

Oh... Sorry
Anyway Shiny, yes the possibility is that it could become so hot that we essentially die. Then again, we ARE the human race. The most adaptable, dominate species technically speaking, we can do... Anything!

« Last edited by pkmn boy32 on Sep 3rd 2009 »

Its getting hotter every day in my opinion.

I feel lonely cause i live in Australia...but oh well unless the FBI tracks this no one will know Mwahahahahahahaha

We all know Global Warming is gonna happen.Its Inevitable for use of a better word. What we humans are doing are simply speeding up the process using the Enchanced Greenhouse Effect.We should stop burning up so many fossil fuels and look for a good renenewable power source like Solar Energy or Wind Energy. The fact that it should be 6 degrees celsius cooler shows what we did to the Earth. Now im not contradicting myself but im just saying we need to find a good energy source,stop burning so much fossil fuels even just taking public transportation is a start so we can watch ourselfs grow up and our kids grow up etc untill Global Warming is at its peak at which glaciers will melt killing out the polar bear species doing damage to the food chain. Sea levels will rise sinking small islands.Temprature will skyrocket so each day will be about 50 degrees celsius.We will have to live underground and will turn into mole people(no thats a joke).The planets doomed anyway because in 100,000 million(or something like that)years the Sun will explode head towards earth and destroy it along with Mercury and Venus(not sure about mars).If we can we need to rapidly have a incraese in technology. We need to master Dark Matter to help us find a planet that we can inhibit as a new earth then send at least 600 people over there then try to find a way to get everyone else there.

and that is what i have to say.

EDIT: feel free to argue

« Last edited by ShadowStriker64 on Sep 8th 2009 »

On 08-Sep-2009 ShadowStriker64 said:

I feel lonely cause i live in Australia...but oh well unless the FBI tracks this no one will know Mwahahahahahahaha

We all know Global Warming is gonna happen.Its Inevitable for use of a better word. What we humans are doing are simply speeding up the process using the Enchanced Greenhouse Effect.We should stop burning up so many fossil fuels and look for a good renenewable power source like Solar Energy or Wind Energy. The fact that it should be 6 degrees celsius cooler shows what we did to the Earth. Now im not contradicting myself but im just saying we need to find a good energy source,stop burning so much fossil fuels even just taking public transportation is a start so we can watch ourselfs grow up and our kids grow up etc untill Global Warming is at its peak at which glaciers will melt killing out the polar bear species doing damage to the food chain. Sea levels will rise sinking small islands.Temprature will skyrocket so each day will be about 50 degrees celsius.We will have to live underground and will turn into mole people(no thats a joke).The planets doomed anyway because in 100,000 million(or something like that)years the Sun will explode head towards earth and destroy it along with Mercury and Venus(not sure about mars).If we can we need to rapidly have a incraese in technology. We need to master Dark Matter to help us find a planet that we can inhibit as a new earth then send at least 600 people over there then try to find a way to get everyone else there.

and that is what i have to say.

EDIT: feel free to argue

Speak for yourself, if the North Alantic drift packs up like it might do we're going to end up colder, typical (England). I agree that we need to start switching our sources of energy, even for those that don't believe in global warming we are going to run out relatively soon and it will be better to deal with the problem sooner rather than later. It is though going to take a lot of effort and money to make the switch and I just don't think that many people are willingly to put up with that just yet, you would need to change people's minds before you start changing the planet.

99 of Greenhouse Gases come from volcanoes, 0.7 come from human intervention, 0.3 come from miscellaneous factors.

Humans aren't really doing much. We're contributing, but if we weren't it would make very little difference anyway. Pollution is the main reason as to why we should use less fossil fuels.

shadowstriker64 - 100,000 million years? Try a few billion. The Sun's not going boom anytime soon. In fact, even though I'm no expert, I'm fairly certain the Sun is only halfway through its lifetime maximum.

I know that as the starter of this thread, I shouldn't take sides... But shadowstriker just expressed perfectly my opinion! I couldn't have said it better.
Anyone willing to argue it?

On 08-Sep-2009 Volke said:

99 of Greenhouse Gases come from volcanoes, 0.7 come from human intervention, 0.3 come from miscellaneous factors.

Humans aren't really doing much. We're contributing, but if we weren't it would make very little difference anyway. Pollution is the main reason as to why we should use less fossil fuels.

shadowstriker64 - 100,000 million years? Try a few billion. The Sun's not going boom anytime soon. In fact, even though I'm no expert, I'm fairly certain the Sun is only halfway through its lifetime maximum.

Haven't got any percentages myself so I'll work with those, from those it does seem that we have little impact but the rise in temperature over the last few years has been great and I don't think there has been much in the way of an increase in volcanic activity to explain this increase.

Wow. Global warming.

I'll not make my long post until I find my book on it, but until then, you'll know why I don't think it's a big deal.

It's gotten .5 degrees Farenheit hotter. Over the last 100 years. Big deal? Not in my opinion. But overall, global warming would make sense, because the Bible states the earth will be destroyed by fire. Eh, maybe global warming has nothing to do with it, maybe it does. Just a thought.

Volke - I believe that scientists have predicted that the sun won't implode for at least 7-10 Billion years.
ShadowStriker64 - It will actually implode, leaving us with no surce of gravity and heat or light.

My view on Global Warming is that, yes it may exist, but I don't see any reason to worry. There are many things I am confused about, Global Warming being one of them, I know that apparently we are using fossil fuels that are polluting that atmosphere (This I agree with.) and that in turn this is destroying our O-zone layer (This I also believe in). But then - correct me if I'm wrong - this somehow creates global warming? This will then heat up the earth and melt the polar caps, flooding small islands?

Now here's my theory, if it is hot enough to melt the Polar caps and we have a damaged atmosphere, would it not also evaporate the water it then creates, rather then that water being turned into clouds it will then keep raising into space? Now I don't know if that's actually possible I haven't done much research. So rather then the fear of us all drowning shouldn't we be fearing drought?

I agree that we MUST find a source of renewable energy, not due to pollution, but due to the fact that we WILL run out and once that happens we are, to put it nicely, screwed.

NOTE ~ I haven't done much research into this topic, so a few of my views might be changed if I found out the proper facts, so feel free to contradict and discuss my views.

On 12-Sep-2009 Evee said:

Volke - I believe that scientists have predicted that the sun won't implode for at least 7-10 Billion years.
ShadowStriker64 - It will actually implode, leaving us with no surce of gravity and heat or light.

My view on Global Warming is that, yes it may exist, but I don't see any reason to worry. There are many things I am confused about, Global Warming being one of them, I know that apparently we are using fossil fuels that are polluting that atmosphere (This I agree with.) and that in turn this is destroying our O-zone layer (This I also believe in). But then - correct me if I'm wrong - this somehow creates global warming? This will then heat up the earth and melt the polar caps, flooding small islands?

Now here's my theory, if it is hot enough to melt the Polar caps and we have a damaged atmosphere, would it not also evaporate the water it then creates, rather then that water being turned into clouds it will then keep raising into space? Now I don't know if that's actually possible I haven't done much research. So rather then the fear of us all drowning shouldn't we be fearing drought?

I agree that we MUST find a source of renewable energy, not due to pollution, but due to the fact that we WILL run out and once that happens we are, to put it nicely, screwed.

NOTE ~ I haven't done much research into this topic, so a few of my views might be changed if I found out the proper facts, so feel free to contradict and discuss my views.

You sort of combined 2 theories together in your first part, your correct that fossil fuels are polluting the atmosphere but they aren't destroying the ozone layer, thats CFC's from things like aersoels and fridges.

As for water evapourating, we only need it to a few degrees above freezing point to melt the ice caps and its true some will evapourate but thats what happens anyway it will probably just rain more, and if it was hot enough to evapourate it quickly we wouldn't have to be worrying about much else anyway.

Agree with Craig... It would just come back as rain.
Views are still wanted, but now my second question... What is (in your opinion) the BEST renewable energy? I think any form of hydro power (electricity or not) is a great idea because (going with the melting ice caps thing) if all this water is gonna come, why can't we USE that? To be honest, I think that when people say "it's gonna suck when the sea level rises" they aren't thinking. If they are so dead set on finding a renewable source of energy anyway, why not think about what we are going to (eventually/essentually) have an excess of?
It makes sense to me

Global warming has just been popularized by the media. It's a natural cycle the planet goes through (albeit over hundreds of thousands of years). It won't affect me, I'm not bothered.

« Last edited by Repose on Sep 13th 2009 »

On 13-Sep-2009 Repose said:

Global warming has just been popularized by the media. It's a natural cycle the planet goes through (albeit over hundreds of thousands of years). It won't affect me, I'm not bothered.

Its true that the Earth goes through periods of warming and cooling, no-one is going to doubt that but it is the speed of the increase in temperature that doesn't seem to fit with the patterns. As for effecting you, maybe not but it is already affecting some people (mostly people who don't contribute to the effect) and its straight up selfish to view it as other people's problems, if we don't deal with it we will just force our children etc to deal with it when they is less chance to have some effect on it. Everyone is responisble for the consequences of their actions.

Some people say that the precious generations have screwed up in the past (aka, they "dropped the ball") so, it's up to this generation to pick the ball up and/or get it to go again. You never know, but what if this generation (us) DIDNT pick up the ball? We would be screwing our children by making them have to work twice as hard to clean up a mess they didn't make.

On 12-Sep-2009 super craig said:

You sort of combined 2 theories together in your first part, your correct that fossil fuels are polluting the atmosphere but they aren't destroying the ozone layer, thats CFC's from things like aersoels and fridges.

As for water evapourating, we only need it to a few degrees above freezing point to melt the ice caps and its true some will evapourate but thats what happens anyway it will probably just rain more, and if it was hot enough to evapourate it quickly we wouldn't have to be worrying about much else anyway.

I'd like to go out on what was said here, as this struck me as funny in a sense.

Point in short: CFC's have almost no effect on the depletion of the ozone.

When most people talk about the depletion of the ozone, they talk about the ozone layer over Antarctica, yes?

There are already chemicals floating around down there, and the annual polar vortex blows them up. Are these CFCs? For a long time, they were thought to be. Research shows though, that it's not CFC. It's Chlorine Dimer, otherwise known as ClOOCl.

How do I know this is just a result of the polar vortex, which annually takes place around October? Here's a chart. That's how.

There's no doubt that either of these two show a drastic drop in the Ozone layer.



Ok, so those were both in October. Now for a different month, say, February?


Oh yeah... Wow.... How massive a change.......


Since I'm too lazy to type out much of this, I'll just copy and paste from a source.

"Cost-benefit Analysis

The benefits of CFC restrictions:

* The ozone hole may be 20 less deep than it was before. Does this provide tangible benefits to people?

[T]he CFC ban will reduce the depth of the ozone hole (it won’t eliminate the ozone hole because it was there before CFCs were really popular) for four months of the year over a region of the world where very few people actually live. As a result, the ban on CFCs will not really save any lives. In fact, not a single malady has ever been linked to the “ozone hole,” so the elimination of CFCs will not even improve anyone’s life! (Wile, 73)

Thus, there are not any real benefits of restricting CFC use.

The costs of CFC restrictions:

* First of all there are the monetary costs. Civil Defense Perspectives explains the money that will be spent:

How much are Americans willing to pay to avert an increased risk of skin cancer? How many skin cancers are they willing to endure for the sake of having air conditioning or a home refrigerator? How much should the Third World be required to pay in terms of foregone economic development to reduce the risk of skin cancer for palefaced Americans? And how much of a decrease in the yield of certain crops is a tolerable cost of refrigeration, without which 40 of the world's food would spoil?

The wire services, the AAAS, and environmental activists do not ask these questions. They simply assert that substitutes for CFCs can be found.

CFCs are widely used because they are stable, nonflammable, nontoxic, noncorrosive, and relatively inexpensive. They are excellent for fire extinguishers and insulation. Most importantly, they are found in 610 million refrigerators and freezers, 120 million cold storage units, 100 million refrigerated transports, and 150 million auto air conditioners. Replacing just the refrigerated food transportation vehicles would cost about $150 billion. The equipment would have to be scrapped; the compressors are designed to be used only with a certain type of freon.

Freon substitutes are under development but not in widespread production. They will be under patent (the patent on freon has expired), and the cheapest is about 30 times more costly than the freon-12 that it replaces. The substitutes are flammable and possibly carcinogenic. In addition, they are suspected of being greenhouse gases (Nature 344:513-516, 1990). The same political activists who are pressing for the ban on CFCs want halocarbons (HCFCs) to be banned by the year 2000 to prevent global warming. (Orient, “Costs and Benefits”)

* The physical costs are also large, as Dr. Wile states:

Fires will last longer before they are put out, resulting in loss of property and death. Surgical procedures will be less sterile, causing more infection, which will cause sickness and death. Finally, refrigerators will be so inefficient that third-world food distribution will be reduced, resulting in starvation! Not only is starvation due to poor food distribution a concern, but so is food spoilage. Even one of the big supporters of the CFC ban (Robert Watson) has admitted that “… probably more people would die from food poisoning as a consequence of inadequate refrigeration than would die from depleting ozone” (Environmental Overkill, Dixie Lee Ray, Regnery Gateway, 1993, p. 45). (73)

There are many good reasons to lift the bans. Dr. Jay Wile sums up this point: “When they [CFCs] are completely banned…people will die” (73). The ban is bad for the American people."


Wow, nice? Wait, there's MUCH more. But beforehand, I'd like to point out this true, true phrase: "More people would die from food poisoning as a consequence of inadequate refrigeration than would die from depleting ozone". That was stated by one of the people who was FIRST to say "Ban CFCs."

Also, this:

" Chlorofluorocarbons were hailed as miracle substances when they were first invented. “CFCs were hailed as the wonder chemical because they were useful and non-toxic” (Wile, 74). They allowed safe and cheap refrigeration, air-conditioning, industrial solvents, surgical sterilizers, and aerosols (Cooper). These uses saved thousands of lives. In 1985, however, a phenomenon known as the “ozone hole” was discovered. Quickly the scientific community decided that chlorofluorocarbons were to blame, and governments and interest groups throughout the world began working toward the eventual elimination of chlorofluorocarbon use. Nevertheless, these measures were too hasty, were based on faulty scientific assumptions and scanty research, and failed to consider the costs and consequences of CFC elimination.

Now, because of these restrictions, costs of refrigerants, solvents, sterilizers, and aerosols have soared. This has contributed to the food shortage in Africa and led to enormous costs to the refrigerant, air conditioning, and refrigerator industries, to higher prices to any users of industrial solvents, to less sterile operations, to higher prices of inhalers and fire extinguishers, and to many other unnecessary evils. “CFCs are the most efficient refrigerants, surgical sterilizers, and fire-fighting agents in the world. When they are completely banned, refrigeration, surgical sterilizers, and fire-fighting will be less efficient. As a result, people will die” (Wile, 73).

These problems may be solved simply, without much cost to the economy or environment. How? Remove the restrictions! They are unnecessary. The ozone “hole” is not as big or as dangerous as some would have us believe, and it is not a proven fact that CFCs cause it. However, there are tremendous costs because of this ban. “How will America pay for the ban on CFCs, which might cost $800 per person per year?” (Orient, “Costs and Benefits”)"


tl;dr: Read up. There's no short-terming this.

http://www.godismyjudgeok.com/CFCs.php

nice point tbug

Evee the sun imploding is it basically dying.when stars(which our sun is, lets say 'special' to the other stars)die they release a supernova.Now usually it wouldnt affect us much because most stars arent big enough to reach us and damage us badly. But the sun is huge its supernova is gonna come along and wipe out mankind.Then something else will take mankind's place as the most dominant species on earth if earth is still there. then the cycle will repeat and some huge global disaster will destroy that species and another will take its place. Like the dinosaurs they became extinct and we took there place.

If we get a renewable energy source its probally wont be wind energy. It shows that one wind turbine(the thing that produces the wind energy)can only power one house. In a wind farm(a place with lots of wind turbines)it can probally create enough power for a small community. So wind energy is out of the question.

pkmn boy earlier generations have caused this but at least they found out what is happeneing to the earth. As we go along we get new technology so their relying on a younger generation to create better technology that doesnt pollute the enviroment etc

Wow. To be honest I'm impressed! You guys did you're homework