Global Warming/Climate Change Discussion Thread

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[Swift]

^^^Very old picture.

 

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[GT4_Rule]

For what?

 

[Solid Lifters]

A bit old, but maybe some of you haven't read it, yet.

June 23, 2006 — For former Vice President Al Gore, a new report that the Earth is hotter than ever — and that humans are to blame — has only confirmed what he has long said about global warming and the need to protect the environment.

"The Earth has a fever and just like when your child has a fever, maybe that's a warning of something seriously wrong," Gore said on "Good Morning America" today.

On Thursday, the National Academy of Sciences reported that the Earth's temperature is at a 2000-year high and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." The panel's 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

Another report from the National Center for Atmospheric Research showed that global warming produced about half of the extra hurricane-fueled warmth in the North Atlantic in 2005, and natural cycles were a minor factor.

Not Too Late

Gore, who has put aside campaigning to crusade and educate Americans on the effects of global warming, is the star of "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary that chronicles his factual — sometimes funny, yet disturbing — slideshow lectures about climate change.

Although he believes the Earth has suffered irreparable damage, he also insists it's not too late to take action.

"This is man-made global pollution," said Gore, refuting critics like Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe's claims that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." But Gore adds, "We still have time to take action to avoid the worse."

Gore points out the increase in wildfires, the melting glaciers and gradual drying up of all continents as undeniable proof of global warming. The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the last 30 years and global sea levels could rise 20 feet by the end of the century, creating tens of millions of refugees, according to his documentary.

Gore said he advocates listening to the world scientific community and holding political leaders particularly President Bush — accountable. He also urged Bush to see his documentary.

"We need presidential leadership," Gore said.

Bush has said he has no intention of seeing Gore's documentary.

Make A Change

Gore said mentalities on the environment and global warming in both the Democratic and Republican parties have to change so that whoever runs for president will be able to implement changes.

On the June 4 edition of ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," the former vice president said he's content to stay out of the political arena, preferring to fight against global warming rather than run for the White House again.

Gore encouraged people to become part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem. He advocated becoming "carbon neutral" — reducing greenhouse gas emissions by planting more trees and curtailing getting behind the wheel.

"This has to come from the grassroots up because the politicians will not have the spine to face this unless the people start demanding it," he said.

 

[FoolKiller]

<snip> Bunch of stuff about Al Gore.

Because he is totally serial guys.

Go up just a few posts and you will see where danoff and I were discussing this recent report and its bad science and conflicting results.

Even in the story you posted Al Gore started off with hwo teh Earth was hotter than ever and it was our fault then rambles on boring us out of our heads for a while and mentions it is the hottest in 2000 years.

In other words, it was hotter before we started burning oil then cooled and is now warming back up, but it is definitely our fault now, despite the fact that no glopbal warming alarmist wants to even consider studying the catalysts for previous global warming epsiodes, such as volcanoes and other natural phenomenon that adds to the CO2 in the atmosphere.


Another thing is Gore talking about how hurricanes are worse than they have been in 30 years. First off, 30 years is not exactly a huge measurement compared to billions of years, and secondly, 30 years also happens to be the timeframe for the hurricane cycle. That is a convenient truth that Gore forgot to mention.


I also wonder if "An Incovenient Truth" has the part where Gore admitted in an interview that they knew Kyoto would not work when the wrote it. Or was that conveniently left out?

 

[Sage]

I&#8217;m going to repost something that Famine posted a couple months ago, which should have definitively ended the debate:

That is so proof that the whole Global Warming debate is hogwash. Do you see any correlation between CO2 and global temperature? If you do, then you obviously suck at reading graphs.

 

[Kylehnat]

If you do, then you obviously suck at reading graphs.

Sage, one of the things you'll learn in college is how to manipulate graphs to support your argument, no matter what your argument is. For example, if you compress the dependant variable's axis enough, you'll get a linear-looking correlation, even if you measured an exponential dependence. Or, you can conveniently snip out the part of the graph that doesn't fit your expectations (oops! I don't know what happened to the temperature data above 300 degrees! I swear it was in the Excel file, Professor Smith... ).

Anyway, most graphs that appear to end this debate once and for all are probably tailored by the author to look that way. It doesn't mean that they're wrong, but they're probably not as "right" as they appear to be. However, Al Gore's inconvenient film scores no points for the environmentalists, as facts inconvenient to the film's alarmist message were conveniently ignored.

 

[Danoff]

However, Al Gore's inconvenient film scores no points for the environmentalists, as facts inconvenient to the film's alarmist message were conveniently ignored.

I'm gonna have to disagree here. Al Gore's movie is very good at it's purpose, which is to convince vast numbers of people that global warming is happening and we're to blame. He's getting the message out to the masses, not trying to prove anything to folks who care about little details like scientific fact. He's scoring major points with the general public.

 

[Sage]

Sage, one of the things you'll learn in college is how to manipulate graphs to support your argument […]

Oh yes, I’m very aware of that – in fact, my whole point of posting that graph was to show how useless the “climate change in the past 30 years” graphs are, since the temperature changes on those graphs don’t even amount to a pixel on this one.

And in this case it doesn’t matter how much you compress or stretch this graph – the raw data simply shows no parallels, no matter how you juggle it.

 

[Danoff]

High gasoline prices driven by supply issues and concerns over future supply issues are a great way to encourage fuel efficiency.

This is way faster, and way higher quality than government regs would have produced.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/06/26/smart/index.html

 

[FoolKiller]

High gasoline prices driven by supply issues and concerns over future supply issues are a great way to encourage fuel efficiency.

This is way faster, and way higher quality than government regs would have produced.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/06/26/smart/index.html

I doubt that I will buy that. I like to stretch out and I tend to carry junk around with me.

 

[niky]

That thing is too small for practical use. And with Mercedes pricing, you'll still be able to buy a bigger, almost as efficient and definitely more versatile Honda Fit for the money. (And yes, you can definitely carry a lot of junk in one... ask someone who has to lug around a baby carriage, child seat and portable crib everywhere he goes.)

What I'd like to see is if the US public is ready to accept "slow" cars as a cure for fuel woes. I've long touted the incredible fuel efficiency of the Fit 1.3 CVT... I wonder if now is a good time for Honda to introduce 1.3 cars to the public? And will 0.6 and 1.0 full-sized superminis follow?

 

[FoolKiller]

What I'd like to see is if the US public is ready to accept "slow" cars as a cure for fuel woes. I've long touted the incredible fuel efficiency of the Fit 1.3 CVT... I wonder if now is a good time for Honda to introduce 1.3 cars to the public? And will 0.6 and 1.0 full-sized superminis follow?

WHOA!!! What is this crazy talk? SLOW cars? You will have to pry my cold dead hands from the steering wheel before you get me in a "slow" car.

My first car was a 1985 Plymouth Horizon (laugh now) and a steep hill was enough to drive me insane as my speed slowly dropped. If I can't accelerate uphill then I don't want to even look at the thing.

 

[niky]

I guess that's a major culprit for global warming... hills. If we got rid of all the hills on major roadways, and flattened all the mountains, we could probably cut gas usage by 20%.

 

[SRV2LOW4ME]

My first car was a 1985 Plymouth Horizon (laugh now) and a steep hill was enough to drive me insane as my speed slowly dropped. If I can't accelerate uphill then I don't want to even look at the thing.

Woah, your Plymouth Horizon only slowed down going up hill? Ours would slow down on downhills and die on flat surfaces. We were too afraid to take it up hills, pushing it on flat surfaces was bad enough.

 

[FoolKiller]

I guess that's a major culprit for global warming... hills. If we got rid of all the hills on major roadways, and flattened all the mountains, we could probably cut gas usage by 20%.

Same for trees:

Woah, your Plymouth Horizon only slowed down going up hill? Ours would slow down on downhills and die on flat surfaces. We were too afraid to take it up hills, pushing it on flat surfaces was bad enough.

I have never had a car towed more than that thing.

My second car was a 1988 Buick Somerset five-speed. I had some winners. At least with the stick I could make it go up hills. Unfortunately the digital speedometer stopped at 88 and just flashed, and the digital odometer at 200,000 miles said "full." I just assumed it was a Y2K sort of thing.

 

[Swift]

FK, that's pretty funny. Of course, it's actually logical in a way. Totally impractical, but logical.

 

[niky]

Ahhh.... digital speedometers... how 80's. Too bad they're coming back. It's a shame, really... it's much easier to read a stick and hash marks (analog) than a jumble of ever-changing numbers with your peripheral vision. With these new digitals, you have to take your eyes off the road and actually focus on the thing to read it.

Actually, if we paved over eery square-inch of bare earth with concrete (not asphalt), we could alleviate global warming by having all that nice gray-white concrete reflect sunlight back out into space.

 

[FoolKiller]

Ahhh.... digital speedometers... how 80's. Too bad they're coming back. It's a shame, really... it's much easier to read a stick and hash marks (analog) than a jumble of ever-changing numbers with your peripheral vision. With these new digitals, you have to take your eyes off the road and actually focus on the thing to read it.

They don't stop at 85 and start flashing do they? It should have at least made it to 88 so I could tell people it is trying to connect to the flux capacitor.

Actually, if we paved over eery square-inch of bare earth with concrete (not asphalt), we could alleviate global warming by having all that nice gray-white concrete reflect sunlight back out into space.

💡

 

[Zardoz]

Heatwave with a global grip

 

[Kylehnat]

Why all of the sudden this year, though? Last year was just fine...

 

[FoolKiller]

Why all of the sudden this year, though? Last year was just fine...

I'm sure we crossed some sort of tipping point or whatever they will say to explain it.

Oh, and don't worry, according to the article this will be cool in 2060.

This article cracks me up. According to it 130 people have died and they are having blackouts in California.

Didn't thousands die in France a couple of years back and are California blackouts new?

 

[Danoff]

Yup, it's hot out. And that proves?

 

[Zrow]

Yup, it's hot out. And that proves?

That it's summertime! Really, the idea that because this year it's really hot out, it must be those greenhouse gases is laughable.

I don't understand how people buy this so easily; surely people are a little more skeptical about things they hear?

 

[FoolKiller]

The only thing that surprised me about this article was it took this long for someone to say it. I expected this a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Touring Mars]

I've just been invited by a friend who works for The Times newspaper to attend a screening of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, the film (and book) about global warming... apparently we will have to watch the film, then go to the bar and discuss the film afterwards..., presumably so that our discussion (or parts of it) will be made into an article of some description.... so, I need to get reading this thread! (all 32 pages of it ) It could be interesting...

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it&#8217;s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

The website predicts "catastrophic consequences" and even has a page where you can 'pledge' to see this film (some 250,000 already 'pledged' - a tidy little earner, no doubt... but rest assured, a whopping 5% goes towards the 'Alliance for Climate Protection')... but the joke's on them, since I'm getting to go (with a friend if I want) for free, so there...

edit: Atleast one leading skeptic, Michael Shermer (founding editor of Skeptic Magazine), seems to suggest that the film is worth a watch..., writing in 'Scientific American' in June this year...

...I attended the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif., where former vice president Al Gore delivered the single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard, based on the recent documentary film about his work in this area, 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

edit 2: My mate just pointed the soundtrack to the film (which you can buy on the website) should have been called "Al Gore Rhythms"...

 

[Kylehnat]

edit 2: My mate just pointed the soundtrack to the film (which you can buy on the website) should have been called "Al Gore Rhythms"...

👍

That's just....wow.... That's such a nerdy joke for so many reasons

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm going to see this film (An Inconvenient Truth) on Monday night - I've been reading some of the reviews of the film and it certainly has made quite an impression... I suspect that it might be like a college lecture, but without the opportunity to ask the speaker any questions afterwards... which, in my book anyway, makes it slightly dubious from the outset... it will be interesting to see if there are any alternatives mentioned (let alone discussed) to the main thrust of the film, which seems to be that there is an 'undeniable' correlation between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and global warming. Judging from the website and trailers alone, this is an issue that has already been decided - the skeptics are wrong and the environmentalists are right...

 

[niky]

I'd like to hear a report on that... in a separate thread. Be interesting to see how a technical person would view the film.

👍

That's just....wow.... That's such a nerdy joke for so many reasons

Wrong, it's such a Touring Mars joke, it's expected...