Climate Change and Global Warming

[Tobbeh99]

Hi I've recently been more involved with the "environmental movement", have myself donated some money to some environmental organisations and have started reading some interesting articles about it. And I thought that I want to have some discussion about it here on NSM, as I don't think I'm the only one concerned about it. I also think it's a topic that is lacking on the site, I mean we got a politics topic, a religion topic and various other topics, but not one dedicated to the serious threat of global warming. So if people are interested feel free to express your opinions about it.  

[Sebastian]

Run for the hills.

[SlowPokemon]

Run for the hills.

[TheDreamingHawk]

My grandmother thinks it's all fake due to some bogus thing she heard on fox news (HATE that channel with every fiber of my life) about it happening hundreds of years ago and therefore its nothing but a cycle... Even though the proof is as clear as day and it was never this bad hundreds of years ago.

By her logic we should expect the continents to break up again in 5 billion years due to it being a "cycle". Stuff like this is why I feel that I lost my grandmother to that trashheap of a news channel.

[Dude]

Run for the hills.

[Dudeman]

Run for the hills.

[mikey]

I think the biggest cause of CO2 release in the atmosphere (in the US) is because so many freaking people drive to work with just themselves in the car.  You've got hundreds of millions of working americans driving themselves and nobody else and that's the first thing that's got to change.

[Maelstrom]

Here are the facts:
Humans have spiked levels of CO2 in the atmosphere above their natural level.
We are experiencing a large shift in weather patterns, unlike we have in recently recorded history.
It is possible for CO2 to cause a runaway greenhouse effect.

It doesn't take an idiot to link these together, but it's also impossible to say exactly how much CO2 levels have impacted the globe. Thus, man-made global warming isn't irrational, but it's fairly impossible to prove as we have exact weather data from such a short timeframe in the span of the Earth's age.

[FireArrow]

yay Maelstrom

As my economics teacher says, it's an issue of "How much are you willing to sacrifice now in order to maybe prevent a possible disaster of unknown capacity." I remember reading things when I was younger like "Florida is gonna be underwater by 2020" and that doesn't see very close to happening yet. At the same time things don't look to bright (or maybe too bright?) if they continue on their current trend. My opinion is as a species we should take collective measures against it because regardless of how terrible the future may or may not be if we do nothing, it's pretty apperant conservation efforts are needed for polar bears and penguins :c

[mikey]

for some reason I keep mixing FA and maelstrom around
one of you ought to change your avatar to not a person because I think that might be the problem

[Tobbeh99]

Run for the hills.

Seb, Slow and Dude! WTF IS GOING ON WITH YOU 3 GUYS!!!??? I don't get it, you seem so scared and afraid, it seems very much like that you think that if I started some "global-earth-green-stuff-movement" that it would destroy the entire planet Earth! And I personally DON'T think it's the case! (If there is something you guys would like to discuss with me, that don't has to do with global warming, please send me a message or something, maybe skype if you want to.)

I think the biggest cause of CO2 release in the atmosphere (in the US) is because so many freaking people drive to work with just themselves in the car.  You've got hundreds of millions of working americans driving themselves and nobody else and that's the first thing that's got to change.

I agree a lot with you Noc. According to most scientist (or actually websites I looked at), it seems as the Earth had a stable climate until around year 1900. And then you ask yourself: What happened then? And after a lot of thinking I come to the conclusions that several factors seems to be the answer to the question "What caused and is causing the climate changes?" Here are the ones I found:
-The industrial revolution: The change in industry has lead to more pollution, even though not as bad as before, it is one cause I think.
-The increase in wealth-fare in particularly the west: think about it, before they didn't even have airplanes, not even ships and trucks! Those let out great amount of CO2, and maybe also other bad substances which are harmful to the nature. the increase of wealth also contributes to a larger trade industry and that more people just in general spend more money and shop all kinds of stuff, which obviously takes resources from the nature.
-The change in trade/the different politics: I think it's very fare and accurate to say that free-trade and agreements like that have contributed to the global warming. It basically encourages people and particularly companies to spend money and invest in order to spree their business and broaden it to different countries and that leads to more people spending money and buying stuff from, yet again, Mother Earth! I haven't read much history, but I believe that the trade, back in the days, was more protectionistic. Maybe you had a company selling fruits and vegetables, but it was probably in a smaller scale, like in your country, or maybe to the neighbor country as well, not around the entire globe. And I think it's a difference in the sense that it requires much more transports to have a global business, imagine all the trucks, ferries, airplanes needed to send goods to other countries. And what does it take to make a truck, ferry or airplane move? -That's right energy, and historically in the sense of fossil fuel.     

So those are the main reasons I think, which Meal sort encapsulated in his post.

yay Maelstrom

As my economics teacher says, it's an issue of "How much are you willing to sacrifice now in order to maybe prevent a possible disaster of unknown capacity." I remember reading things when I was younger like "Florida is gonna be underwater by 2020" and that doesn't see very close to happening yet. At the same time things don't look to bright (or maybe too bright?) if they continue on their current trend. My opinion is as a species we should take collective measures against it because regardless of how terrible the future may or may not be if we do nothing, it's pretty apperant conservation efforts are needed for polar bears and penguins :c

I think you bring up a very valuable post FireArrow! "Fixing" the earth is not going to be an easy task, we'll have to have EVERYBODY (more or the less) with us in order to make it. And I think it's important to visions about what you want to achieve, BUT the vision must be followed with great reasoning and intelligent understanding of WHAT is the problem, defining problems and goals and in that way working for a better future!

[FireArrow]

Seb, Slow and Dude! WTF IS GOING ON WITH YOU 3 GUYS!!!??? I don't get it, you seem so scared and afraid, it seems very much like that you think that if I started some "global-earth-green-stuff-movement" that it would destroy the entire planet Earth! And I personally DON'T think it's the case! (If there is something you guys would like to discuss with me, that don't has to do with global warming, please send me a message or something, maybe skype if you want to.)

There are people in this forum that think Global Warming is a hoax/a natural phenomenon unrelated to humans and similar disagreements have exploded in the past. So long as people don't post unless they're OK with someone disagreeing with them and don't express their disagreement in immature ways I think we're fine.

[SlowPokemon]

It was mostly a joke because I thought someone would come in claiming global warming didn't exist and it would turn into a big argument thing, etc., basically what FireArrow said.

[mikey]

There are people in this forum that think Global Warming is a hoax/a natural phenomenon unrelated to humans and similar disagreements have exploded in the past. So long as people don't post unless they're OK with someone disagreeing with them and don't express their disagreement in immature ways I think we're fine.

lol who thinks that

[FireArrow]

I remember some people back in the debate thread so you can go through the lovely task digging through that if you're actually interested