InsideTech

The global warming scare is a lot of nonsense. Yes the earth is warming. BUT:

1) this warming is part of the natural warming and cooling cycle of the planet and

2) for all the publicity the subject has garnered over the past decade, consciously or unconciously, man's total impact on the overall scheme of things is about as significant as a fart in a huricane either way.

Sure, there are lots of things we can and should do to help keep our environment cleaner and healthier, but it is pure arrogance to believe that man can have any influence over the grander plan. The planet as a whole is going to do what it is going to do with or without us. Nature will always find it's ballance eventually. We as a species just may not survive to see it.

Quoted from a post by Czar in "Joke of the Day" forum:

Scence Fair

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science related to environmental issues. In his project, the young student urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

And for plenty of good reasons, since it can:

cause excessive sweating and vomiting

it is a major component in acid rain

it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state

accidental inhalation can kill you

it contributes to erosion

it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes

it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical. Forty-three said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that dihydrogen monoxide was water.

The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?"

 Thanks Czar!

Global warming is just the latest fad in religions.

This pretty much sums up my view:

Phreadd says ...

Global warming is just the latest fad in religions.

 

I agree. However, I think it is older generations reflecting on how things were when they were younger. Yes there are more religious people leading the charge. I think the reason is as we get older and have a few close calls we tend to be more sensitive to death and what happens after we die. Of course after we die who is left here will be a consideration. In other words would you want to leave an environment that future generations could not deal with. Time and Mother Nature will heal this process. Time and Consumption are the two big factors. I try to do my part to consume less but I am not to worried about it. My truck burns a quart of oil a day and uses 5 gallons of gas a day or 8 miles to the gallon. I just use it to go to work though.

Phreadd says ...

SUTTONDAVE1 says ..

I think it is older generations reflecting on how things were when they were younger. Yes there are more religious people leading the charge. I think the reason is as we get older and have a few close calls we tend to be more sensitive to death and what happens after we die.

I think you're wrong there. As an official old fart, most people my age (48) and older that I know see it for what it is. It's a scare tactic designed to manipulate the masses. As we get older, we become much more accepting of our own mortality and we don't get rattled nearly as easily. We just become sensibly cautious. Don't get me wrong, we still don't like the idea of our mortality, we just become more resigned to the inevitability of it. We also have a better perspective of the part death plays in the natural order of things.

From our perspective, it mostly seems to be younger, more impressionable people championing the cause.

As I stated with the first post in this thread:

 

Yes the earth is warming. BUT:

1) this warming is part of the natural warming and cooling cycle of the planet and

2) for all the publicity the subject has garnered over the past decade, consciously or unconciously, man's total impact on the overall scheme of things is about as significant as a fart in a huricane either way.

I agree with you somewhat, however at 48 I would not consider you an old fart. I was referring to people pushing 60 or over. I also got thinking about what you said about a scare tactic to manipulate the masses. I think that is the key. The majority of people are not educated past a high school diploma and it seems also the undereducated appear to be the target audience for global warming. The educated have either figured it out on there own or at least have the knowledge to head them in the direction they think is right.

Wow, is the tech community really so one-sided on such a big issue as this?  Also, where are the facts?  If you wiki global warming, you will find that the largest objective analysis of the veracity and cause of recent climate change was conducted by the IPCC, a conglomeration of hundreds of scientists (formed by the UN) which examined published research from climatologists, meteorologists, geologists, etc., world-wide to provide a conservative estimate of man's involvement in global warming, and the risks posed by it.  Guess what they found?  Recent climate change is real, it's man-made, and it will continue to accelerate.

As for what that means, "Increasing global temperature is expected to cause sea levels to rise, an increase in the intensity of extreme weather events, and significant changes to the amount and pattern of precipitation, likely leading to an expanse of tropical areas and increased pace of desertification. Other expected effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, modifications of trade routes, glacier retreat, mass species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors."

Now, to respond to Phreadd; of course the planet is going to be fine, and that comedian was setting up a straw man by proclaiming that's what environmentalists are worried about.  No, it's us humans that we're worried about.  And if you, like him, don't give a damn about our eventual extinction because it won't affect you personally, then I would appeal to your sense of sympathy: how would you like it if you were born into that world, maybe a century down the road, and you knew from the history books that the reason you have to scrape to get by is because your selfish great-grandparents didn't care enough to turn off a lightswitch when they left the house?

Also, I don't think the difference between the old and young ideologies is one of awareness of mortality, I think it's one of what we feel our obligation is to help those less fortunate.  If you see someone in a wheelchair trying to reach an item high on the store shelves, you have two possible responses.  One is, "man, that sucks, I'm glad I'm not him!"  So you keep walking.  Another is, "well, if I were that person, I would hope others would take pity on me and help me out, in some little way which would hardly inconvenience them, but I would really benefit from."  So you take down the item and give it to them, then keep walking.  If you don't think you should ever help anyone (and consequently, that no one should ever help you) then the first response if perfectly legitimate.  If, however, you are smart enough to know that some day, you will need help, the second response is the right one, whether it be applied to the poor person in the grocery store, or the poor person 100 years in the future.

If you truly just don't care at all about others, I have no problem with that, it's your business.  I'm a pretty selfish and lazy individual, too, I'll admit.  I do have a problem with people trying to pass off selfishness and sheer laziness as wisdom.  Because if there's nothing you can do to stop global warming as a "natural cycle," then you're not obligated to do anything to help.  That's my opinion.

 Oh, and one more thing, about this comment regarding warnings of global warming:

"It's a scare tactic designed to manipulate the masses."

Who's doing the manipulating, exactly?  Are all those scientists doing it, eager to create a need for more climatologists?  Yes, that must be it - them and all their stockpiled resources and positions of power.  Oh, wait, they don't have any.  You can ask Bush's former director of the EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement, who quit after being circumvented by the administration in order to pander to oil lobbyists.  No, it's the big corporations who are doing the manipulating, because they stand to lose big money if they're forced to clean up their act.  So it's in their best interests to brainwash voters like you into thinking that global warming doesn't exist.

An ignorant target populace, indeed.

If it aint broke, don't try and fix it!

While I agree that humans have always been humanocentric (we were created in the image of an omnipotent being?  Really? ), I think it is more than a stretch to term our will to self-preservation as "arrogance."  Animals, after all, do all they can to preserve themselves, and no one's ever called them such names.  You don't think the dodos would've simply laid down to die in a moment of zen if they suddenly learned how to fly, do you?  Also, if we're doomed to die, then why don't you stop walking the next time you see a car about to run you over?

"Because my dying through stupidity isn't an inevitability."

"But you're going to die one way or another, right?"

"Yes, but not necessarily today.  I'd like to stay awhile."

"So where's the line?  When does it become 'inevitable,' to the point where you gracefully stop trying? "

"You just know when the time comes."

"So do you know global warming will be our demise?"

"No."

"So why shouldn't we try to fight it?"

"Because we don't have the power to."

"How do you know?"

"I guess I don't for sure, because I'm a humble human.  Nobody does, no matter what those stupid scientists say."

"Oh, then maybe we could try something?"

"Yeah, I suppose so.  I never really thought that far; I was too busy fighting the rampant hubris which is present in our immortality-craving society."

"Right.  Good luck with that."

So, you see, though you can be assured that humans will eventually become extinct (through what higher power you know that, I'm not sure) there is nothing indicating that it has to be soon, and that global warming will be our end.  On the other hand, that doesn't mean not acting won't lead to our demise, through sheer apathy.

Also, I don't really get how you think "fleas on a dog" can "meddle" in anything, if we can't really effect a change.  Besides, I'm not saying that we should start creating giant algal blooms or put tons of salt in the air, like some.  I contend that we have a pretty good idea of what we did to create global warming, so there's a fairly obvious remedy: cut back on CO_2 emissions.  That means stricter regulations on industry, vehicles, power usage, general oil consumption, etc.  It's not rocket science.

I also don't understand how you can avert your eyes to the real changes we have made in our biosphere.  Maybe you don't recall any concerns about CFCs, or maybe you just assumed that "the earth takes care of itself, blah blah blah" and that the widespread ban on CFCs preceding the slow recovery of the ozone layer was purely incidental.  But if you actually took the time to learn what was happening, and if you understand the concept of an enzyme, you would realize that human activities can and do produce very real effects on our environment.  The biosphere isn't all that big, relatively speaking.  "The skin of an apple" is the analogy science teachers use.

Next, I think your rather metaphysical comment that "there's always more we don't know" is not only irrelevant, it's down-right misleading.  People have been saying that about the brain for ages, and now we've gotten to the point where we can direct a live mouse with the arrow keys, we can encode sound through cochlear implants and send it directly to the brain, and we have machines which allow thought-controlled speech and cursor movements.  Hell, we even found the key to life: DNA.  Has the gravity of that statement ever struck you?  You're completely ignoring the fact that there are some things we know, for all practical purposes, even about such complex objects as the ecosystem, our own bodies, and even the universe at large.  For example, CO_2 is a greenhouse gas, and its presence in the atmosphere is a large factor in global warming, as it has been for billions of years. 

There, don't you feel better?  Now you know something!

I will grant that there are quite a few things we can and should do to keep our world cleaner and healthier and conserve our resources. We can always do more, but the world didn’t start with us, and it certainly won’t end with us.

So we can and should clean up our world, out of, you know, neighborliness.  "We can always do more"?  So why in the world aren't we?  Perhaps because it's about as high a priority on people's minds as cleaning my own room is, possibly owing to some of the justifications you espouse (through reasoning with your gut, not your senses).  In this case, saying that you agree about what we should be doing, without agreeing about why, renders this comment hardly more than lipservice in my book, and likely those of many others, who will take away from your messages that they should feel fine about polluting.  However, thank you for being kind enough to step outside of your humanity in order to bring us this message from the clear-thinking depths beyond.

The reason I'm angry is that I feel this is an issue of preventable suffering, a humanitarian issue, which you are poo-pooing.  By speaking in such generalities about the extinction of "the human race," you distance yourself from the concrete suffering of individuals, of people who don't have the resources to simply "adapt to nature" -- not because they don't work; they work harder than you or I would ever dream of just to survive -- but because they had the pure misfortune of being born in 3rd world countries.  It won't be your  farm that withers and dies from desertification, or your child that comes down with malaria in the expanding tropics, or your house destroyed by a typhoon.  As always, it will be the people at the bottom who feel the hurt most, and I find your complacent assurances that we'll all be "just fine" offensive, to say the least.  I've already said that I'm a selfish person, and I don't do nearly as much as I could to help.  But I do respect those who are helping, and I wish to encourage others to do the same.  By dismissing the notions of (1) there being anything wrong, and (2) there being anything we could do about it, even if there is, you are effectively saying that all those people trying to help are wasting their time, and that anyone who does is a fool.  While I grant the chances of you dissuading any prospective environmental activists on a forum placing global warming under the category of "silly notions" is slim, I still get the urge to slap your smugly self-assured rhetoric silly.

And do you really believe you're any less "indoctrinated" than I supposedly am?  Just how many right-wing chain-mail letters go through your inbox, into your head, and out again, I wonder?  At least, all that pre-digested knowledge of yours explains why you haven't even bothered to glance at the IPCC's findings, since wikipedia and most scientific institutions of the industrialized world are clearly the biased ones here.  I prefer getting my info from the most-cited studies on google scholar rather than from junk mail, thank you.

As for fear-mongering, I would like to draw a parallel for you to an eerily similar situation from recent history.  And no, I didn't pull this from the Washington Post, or Crazy Green Evangelist Weekly, or any other form of leftist pap-spoonfeeding news you would like to dismiss it as.  This is an analogy I came up with all on my own, because I'm a big boy and I can think for myself. 

Several decades ago, very few people thought smoking was bad for you.  Oh, sure, there were a few studies here and there by those fear-mongering scientists, but most people reasoned with their gut, as you are doing now.  The logic goes something like this: "I was smoking yesterday, and I felt fine then.  I'm smoking today, and I feel fine now.  So if I smoke tomorrow, I'll probably be alright."  Of course, the tobacco industry did all in their power to support this view, since "the studies are inconclusive" on the health effects of smoking, and "there is debate among scientists."  Man, that sure sounds familiar.

Of course, then we learned that smoking causes several varieties of cancers, there were multi-million dollar lawsuits, and now every carton of cigarettes bears a warning of impending death, should you decide to smoke.  But instead of having non-smokers wear gas masks, forcing them to "adapt" to the changes in their environment, non-smoking zones went up everywhere.  Because decent people don't infringe on others' right to breathe.  This is what can and should happen with pollution.  There are few potential "smoking areas" in the global environment, but industry just has to deal with it.

Now, here's a thought if you really wish to have productive discussion.  I give you a link to an academic paper explaining why man-made global warming isn't a figment of my imagination.  I know you bounce back and forth between, "it doesn't exist" and "it doesn't matter," but I'm going to hold you to the first view right now, since it's both the first and last one you voiced.  You tell me why the study's faulty.  Then, you send me a link to a similar study showing why it's really a "natural cycle," and I'll see if I can find any faults.  If there isn't a clear winner in this debate after that, then I guess we really should just agree to disagree, and it's all a big matter of opinion.  I just have this nagging suspicion that I'm right, and you're wrong. 

Of course, if you're tired of the subject at this point, I'll understand.  Scientific writing is dense and boring compared to e-mails and forums.  But if you don't take me up on this, I will consider it an implicit admission of defeat.  Just a heads up.

Here's another:

http://nov55.com/gbwm.html

spyderfreek says ...

The reason I'm angry is that I feel this is an issue of preventable suffering, a humanitarian issue, which you are poo-pooing.  By speaking in such generalities about the extinction of "the human race," . . .

 

Actually, I applaud your humanitarian motivations, I'm not knocking them. I simply believe that warnings of the catastrophe you feel so certain is comming are based on seriously questionable science. The issue of global warming is politicly motivated and has no basis in reality.

Global warming is real, so is global cooling, so is global not really doing anything. The fact is the earth has changed, is changing, and will always change. There is nothing we can or even really should do to stop this. Let the earth run its course, instead of trying to create conflict. People want our climate to remain the same because that is what they are used to, but the truth of the matter is we (we being humanity) just arrived in a particularly nice period of time. If we were born during a particularly hot or cold period of time people wouldn't be wailing about the climate, because they would be used to their present living conditions. But we aren't, and now that there is a possibility of change, no one knows how to deal with it. People who are worried about global warming can be scared, they just shouldn't spread that fear to everyone they come into contact with. Build yourself an underground and shelter and hang out down there for a few centuries, don't try and change how everyone else is living. There is little to no reason to take any drastic measure to stop global warming, most of the facts people produce on global warming are false or bording on the edge of falsehood.  Why don't people worry about the ice age that is bound to follow it. Sea levels are still the same, the glaciers have actually had a growth this year, the weather seems just as crazy as it has ever been! Global warming is happening, it is inevitable, but it is also a natural cycle of earth. As long as we are worrying about consquences of the future, why don't we think about stuff that is also going to happen in the distant future, like los angeles splitting off from california and drifting off the coast of Alaska, or monkeys eventually enslaving the human race.

Phreadd says ...

man's total impact on the overall scheme of things is about as significant as a fart in a huricane either way.

 

Speaking of this, livestock farts are responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.  Oops, sorry, that one slipped.

There are 1 billion reasons in China why what we do here in the USA, good or bad, will not effect change in the grand "scheme" of Global Warming.