Is It Time To Care About Global Warming?

[Malcolm Tucker]

Well, is it? We are pressured here to change our ways, to go green. Well what do you think. Is it time for a change?

[Mzor203]

DUH! If you can't see it by now, you must be blind. Living farther north,I am seeing huge changes in my area even over three years.

[Jesse]

HELL YEAH IT IS!!! I too have noticed dramitic changes take place here just in the past couple of years. In fact, my subdivision has struck a deal with my power company to instead of us drawing power from the coal powerplant that we have here, that we now will get our power from a wind farm. Just one small step that we've taken to help slow down/stop global warming.

[Requin]

To be honest, we don't ACTUALLY know that Global Warming exists. I think it does but a similar event happened years ago when our average tempuratures kept going up, but it suddenly dropped again, so all we can do is wait.
BUT our planet is in a state, we need to do something, but even if NORMAL people do something we will never make a dramatic change if our governments do fuck all. Our leaders are destroying our world by not keeping buisness and stuff on a leash.
AND apparently, even if the WHOLE of Europe reduced it's carbon emmisions completely, the USA and China would make it up within about six months. SO my message is that we need to do something, no our leaders need to do something.
But mainly the big countries like USA and China becuase they produce the most, but of course the governments won't becuase they know they'll get fined by the EU for not lowering it. It's all about money i'm afraid. :-(

[Nihilus]

Hell Ya!!!! AxLr Ya global warming exists!!!! Why is the polar ice caps melting? Ya Global warming. Its getting to be in the 110s over the summer(heat) and like 5 years ago it would be in the 90s. There are many things you can do to slow down global warming like ride your bike and get food that is localy grown or made. That makes it so big componies don't have to ship food all away across the big country. Its time to act.

[Jesse]

To all those saying that "Global warming doesn't exist. The climate has warmed and cooled off in the past, nothing to worry about". That is true, and I can't argue that. But, we should be in a state of cooling right now, not warming. The Earth's orbit is changing from a circular, to slightly more oval. Which in the past, has signaled cooling. But right now we're warming. Now what could cause that......... Oh yeah! Global warming.
I want you all to take a look at this graph:
http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/images/carbonDioxideLevels.jpg

The green is CO2 levels, and the red/blue is the average global temperature.
As you can see, the temperature pretty much follows the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, now take a look at the present day, as you can see, CO2 levels are at least twice as high as they have ever been in the past. Do you see where we're going here? It's going to get very hot, very very fast. Now take a look at that graph again, you still can't tell me that global warming doesn't exist. If you can truly look me in the eye and tell me that it's just some goverment hoax or conspericy theory, then I feel sorry for you. Listen people, we need to do something now, BEFORE it's too late. We have the power to virtually stop global warming all together. We just need to do it as a planet, not as a country, state, or city, but as a planet.

[Camazotz]

Its pretty much over now. We shouldve started caring about global warming years ago. All we can do is dramaticlly stop polluting.

[thesphinx]

There is no concrete proof that global warming is caused by humans.
It is still a big problem though that needs to be dealt with.

[japanman]

bah i say we need to just forget about this might be natures way of eliminating us and if you bielive it then do like carlos 'DO SOMETHING ABOUT!!' seriously i dont care about it but i know ppl who do but they dont do anything about i mean do soemthing.

[[[chickaroo92]]]

... It's called nature.
Besides, if you really care about the environment in which you live in, how about using less gas, use brown tissue paper, instead of white... recycle more, and use those energy saving light bulbs.

Also, although "Global warming" seems to be a huge issue, there are other things (issues) that can be more important. And, I really don't think that all of these events are caused by Global warming... it's just earth's way of telling us to take care of her/him.

[Maverick]

My personal prediction is that years from now we'll look back on this and realize this global warming hype was just a fraud.

[japanman]

i agree mavy

[[[chickaroo92]]]

My personal prediction is that years from now we'll look back on this and realize this global warming hype was just a fraud.
Why can't people just realize this now?
It's just so unrealistic...

If they care so damn much about the environment, they really don't have to make up stuff, like Global warming... gosh.

[japanman]

Chay thats exactly how i feel lol

[0=]

Regardless of your personal feelings on the issue it would be prudent to take preventative measures and say "I told you so" when nothing happens than to ignore a vast majority of scientists in favor of personal feelings and opinions. It's illogical to base decisions on personal belief and opinion in favor of many expert opinions. Prevention would save our economy, anyway. If the United States took a major role in the production of fossil fuel alternatives our economy would improve. Simple supply and demand. Instead we're going deeper into debt fighting in the oil-rich middle-east.

[Malcolm Tucker]

Look at it this way: Nearly every coastal country has oil reserves off their coasts. Huge ones. And it's a coincidence that the US are at war with the one which happens to have Al-Qaeda. If oil is contributing to Global Warming, then I say waste it. For then in 20 years there will hardly be any global warming cause there'll be no fossil fuels.

[0=]

That's stupid. CO2 doesn't instantly disappear from the atmosphere. Burning all the oil in the world is the opposite of what needs to be done.

[Nihilus]

Ya what 0= said. We need to plant more plants and tree than burn all the oil!!!!

[Requin]

Ok, sorry if people got me wrong.
I think it does exist but as maverick said, there's a POSSIBILITY that it doesn't. And as i said even if it doesn't our planets in a mess anyway.
My main point was that we need the big superpowers like america and china to go green, otherwise, as i said, no matter what we (normal people) do, the amount of CO2 that they produce is the greatest in the world and would cancel out our efforts.
WHAT WE ALL NEED TO DO IS STOP USING CARS, OR AT LEAST NOT USE ONES THAT USE LOADS OF C02, AND STOP USING PLANES. - That is what we need to do. :-)

[thesphinx]

I really don't think that CO2 is as big of a problem as the other toxic chemicals that are in the cars exhaust.
Termites alone produce almost as much CO2 as our cars.

[Electric Cheese]

Here's my Two Cents.

No matter how green one country is, nothings gonna happen unless the whole world chips in.

back on topic:
Fact of the matter is, people are lazy, and you'll always get those who are either so used to their current way of life that they don't bother adjusting their lifestyle to be more green, or those who have the "I'm not gonna be alive in the future, so why should I bother" attitude.

[Mzor203]

Okay, I must say I just lost my respect for a couple people here. You're obviously blind if you can't see this.

Yes, the earth goes through warming and cooling periods, always has, always will, but if you look at graphs of the temperature, it takes hundreds of years to complete this cycle. This has only been happening over the last thirty or so years.

You can't deny that we are emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, loads and loads of it, waaaaaaay more than has ever been put into the atmosphere in "recent" times (geological recent times). And if you are trying to believe that carbon dioxide doesn't keep heat inside the atmosphere, you have problems. It is no coincidence that the last couple years up here things have been going ballistic, rivers flooding, freak snowstorms on days that seem to be quite warm, etc. In the last decade, tornado activity in the U.S. has spiked incredibly, this year has thus far been a record year for tornadoes! And it's not gonna stop! Hurricanes and typhoons, too, are increasing in numbers and power.

The thing is, if we sit around doing nothing because we think, "It will sort itself out", that's just being lazy. There are so many things that everyone could do to help this situation, and if everyone got off their butts and started doing something about this problem, we could be well on our way to fixing it.


I thank you to everyone who is smart enough too see this problem, and especially those doing something about it.


EDIT: Oh, and Tom, what simply needs to happen is we need to get the world governments to start doing something about it. They have the power, they are just too scared to use it. Too scared of change. Maybe for a good reason, but still.

[japanman]

Wow that actully wat i think about global warming too i agree with rex.

[Maverick]

Okay, I must say I just lost my respect for a couple people here. You're obviously blind if you can't see this.
What is your respect worth when you can't tolerate a difference in opinion?

[thesphinx]

The reality is we don't know that much about our earth and its cycles to really say what is going on, the earth is warming, yes but we don't know if its from us.
I believe that we should take action anyway to stop pollution and to hopefully get a better fuel source but we just don't know enough.

[Mzor203]

What is your respect worth when you can't tolerate a difference in opinion?


Difference in opinion? I think this at this point it is simply denial.

As I said, you can't deny that CO2 traps heat, and you can't deny that we are emitting thousands of millions of tons of it into our atmosphere.

Things on a scale so large as the earth take much longer than a couple decades to happen like this.

Also, I see the only place you attacked me was one that had nothing to do with the actual issue. You failed to debate my actual argument. ;)

[Maverick]

You failed to debate my actual argument. ;)
Yeah, I was feeling lazy...:D

[Mzor203]

So debate it. That is what the forum is for.

Unless you care to back down?

[Maverick]

Hmmm might as well. I don't have anything else better to do.

I am not going to cite a bunch of facts, charts, and such but make a common sense argument. Sure scientists (not all) support that global warming is real but when you look at the past the expert scientsts then weren't always right about everything. As time passed and technology got better we understood more about everything we know in existance. Scientific theories have been abandoned, refined, or disproven throughout scientific history. So to simply say scientist back it doesn't guaruntee its accuracy.

Computer models and projections mean nothing. When weather experts can't accurately predict a 5 day forecast, where a hurricane is going, or how active a hurricane season will be, it makes me skeptcal on predicting many years down the road of what it is supposed to happen.

Many people who believe in global warming criticize those who don't believe or are skeptical of not seeing the facts when they've done very little research on their own. Many just see one side and one argument of the cause with the doom and gloom to go with it. At the very least one should consider both sides rather than rushing to believe one side and one argument.

I am not going to debate wether it is true or not because I am simply not qualified. But what I can do is keep an open mind. I won't jump on some bandwagon. I did for awhile then I realized there was no need to be so gullable for something I wasn't even sure about.

[0=]

Well, considering we have nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain by switching to clean energy it just makes sense, with or without global warming, to do it. Oil production peaked a few years ago, so it doesn't even matter if CO2 is a problem. Oil will always become more expensive and harder to procure now. The byproducts and conditions created in oil-producing regions are also extremely unstable and unhealthy. Burning coal for electricity not only releases CO2, but plenty of particle pollutants and can cause acid rain. The mining of coal destroys the landscape and displaces wildlife. Deforestation causes loss of habitat for species and, in the case of the rainforest, it's impossible to undo the damage. Global warming is a very minor reason to cut carbon-producing activities. Even without global warming the planet is screwed if we don't change our ways. Changing would also create many jobs, new sectors, and financial opportunities that can potentially restore our economy and make us independent from foreign energy sources, thus eliminating the need for further energy wars. It doesn't matter if man-made global warming is occurring; there are many other reasons to cut the carbon.

[Mzor203]

Well, considering we have nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain by switching to clean energy it just makes sense, with or without global warming, to do it. Oil production peaked a few years ago, so it doesn't even matter if CO2 is a problem. Oil will always become more expensive and harder to procure now. The byproducts and conditions created in oil-producing regions are also extremely unstable and unhealthy. Burning coal for electricity not only releases CO2, but plenty of particle pollutants and can cause acid rain. The mining of coal destroys the landscape and displaces wildlife. Deforestation causes loss of habitat for species and, in the case of the rainforest, it's impossible to undo the damage. Global warming is a very minor reason to cut carbon-producing activities. Even without global warming the planet is screwed if we don't change our ways. Changing would also create many jobs, new sectors, and financial opportunities that can potentially restore our economy and make us independent from foreign energy sources, thus eliminating the need for further energy wars. It doesn't matter if man-made global warming is occurring; there are many other reasons to cut the carbon.


Exactly. I like this guy.

Anyways, the thing is, we're seeing ourselves, especially me up here, proof that something is going on. You can't attribute this to the normal cycle of climate, so what is it?

[Maverick]

Why can't it be considered a cycle of climate? The Earth's temperature has never been constant in its existence. There was the Ice Age and the Medieval warming period. In the 1970s there were fears of significant global cooling which was obviously proven to be false.

Changing energy isn't going to happen overnight. Doing so is going to require a lot of money and time. I think once oil prices get high enough there will be a greater demand for alternative energy and the markets will provide it. No one will want to provide such a widespread market yet while people are still comfortable using oil.

[Hyper]

Heres what I think about oil..

Prices go up & up, those who hold the oil reserves will do all they can to make sure a alternative energy source will not be created.

Even if it is created there is a huge chance that the people who hold that alternative energy make their price even higher than the oil company's price..

In otherwords its a circle of monopolies and fat bastards who want more money.

I rather think global warming exists.. But yeah popo summed it up quite well.. My paranoid mind just believes it wont happen any time soon, my paranoid mind tends to believe that once the oil reserves end and the world stops some fat bastards will come out with their alternative energy source and charge twice as much as the oil companies did at their peak and cause a whole lot of s**t

Of course alternative energy sources already exist.. We just lack good ones for transportation

[0=]

Well, for cargo at least. We would need nuclear fusion power to procure enough hydrogen to use in internal combustion engines because it takes more energy to split the water molecules through electrolysis than you get out of the hydrogen. For the average consumer electric works fine. New batteries go a few hundred miles and take half an hour to charge.

[Mzor203]

Heres what I think about oil..

Prices go up & up, those who hold the oil reserves will do all they can to make sure a alternative energy source will not be created.

Even if it is created there is a huge chance that the people who hold that alternative energy make their price even higher than the oil company's price..

In otherwords its a circle of monopolies and fat bastards who want more money.

I rather think global warming exists.. But yeah popo summed it up quite well.. My paranoid mind just believes it wont happen any time soon, my paranoid mind tends to believe that once the oil reserves end and the world stops some fat bastards will come out with their alternative energy source and charge twice as much as the oil companies did at their peak and cause a whole lot of s**t

Of course alternative energy sources already exist.. We just lack good ones for transportation

This is a good point, about the fat bastards, lol. The thing is, even today we keep finding more oil reserves, we're running out, but they are still there. As long as everyone thinks there could be oil left somewhere, these fat bastards will continue on with this, which is a problem.

Ant I will quote a line from Wikipedia's article on the whole 1970's global cooling thing.

"The general public had little awareness of carbon dioxide's effects on climate."

People were mislead, simply because some studies showed the climate was cooler over the previous years.

Sorry I don't have the time to completely tear apart your argument, but I am kind of busy today.

[Maverick]

We aren't running out places to find oil. Speaking for America, we haven't done new drilling for over 30 years. There are more places we can drill for more oil but every time someone even thinks of doing drilling, the environmentalists object to it and threaten with lawsuits and lobby legislation to prevent the drilling.

If people were mislead then what's not to say we're being misled now? Or if its being overblown? I think we have a right to be skeptical and at least question what we are being told.

[Hyper]

We aren't running out places to find oil. Speaking for America, we haven't done new drilling for over 30 years. There are more places we can drill for more oil but every time someone even thinks of doing drilling, the environmentalists object to it and threaten with lawsuits and lobby legislation to prevent the drilling.

If people were mislead then what's not to say we're being misled now? Or if its being overblown? I think we have a right to be skeptical and at least question what we are being told.

Sorry I don't get your point really..

Oil will end its as simple as that. Either it ends tommorow, in 50 years or in 500 years it'll end and we should rather be trying to replace oil while we still have it.

[Mzor203]

Oil won't technically ever end... It's always being produced slowly underground, but once we use up our current reserves, it will be millions of years before there is enough to actually utilize.

And Ant, that's not true. Recently, someplace near the Great Salt Lake, some bozos were given permission to set up drills and will be starting when it's possible. It is a smaller operation, apparently, and I can't find the article for the life of me, as it was a couple months ago and was on the radio, but it's possible.
Which pisses me.

[Maverick]

Sorry I don't get your point really..

Oil will end its as simple as that. Either it ends tommorow, in 50 years or in 500 years it'll end and we should rather be trying to replace oil while we still have it.
Once shortages come and/or prices go up too high, I'm sure solutions will arise when they become necessary. While oil is steady flowing and prices are at a reasonable level the next thing won't become mainstream yet. There are plenty of people coming up with new ideas and solutions under the radar but until oil doesn't become feasible anymore, its not going to transition in the speed that you like it.

Oil won't technically ever end... It's always being produced slowly underground, but once we use up our current reserves, it will be millions of years before there is enough to actually utilize.

And Ant, that's not true. Recently, someplace near the Great Salt Lake, some bozos were given permission to set up drills and will be starting when it's possible. It is a smaller operation, apparently, and I can't find the article for the life of me, as it was a couple months ago and was on the radio, but it's possible.
Which pisses me.It was mainly off-shore drilling that got banned by the Congress.

[Mzor203]

It's not going to transition very quickly because people are either:

1) Too lazy.

2) Scared to change.

Either way, it's rediculous (Gah, can't spell it).

Whether or not global warming exists, we're still destroying our environment, and we need to shape up.

The thing is, since the environment is obviously going through a warming phase, putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is only going to push it along - and that could mean sea levels that we haven't seen for over millions and millions of years! At this point with the arctic ice being melted at such a rate and the water absorbing more and more heat, we ave a positive feedback loop that we just aren't going to be able to stop. If we don't do something quickly - and it may already be too late - we are going to have a serious problem everywhere in the world. I could launch into a speech about every bad thing that will happen, as I've only touched on one, but I'll spare you because I know some people will not appreciate it.

[Maverick]

You don't understand how markets work. Right now there's no incentive on a profit sense for the consumer and the energy companies to transition right at this moment. Why would they want to spend money prematurely when there's no current incentive to do so? Oil is still working for most people so there isn't going to be a rush until its absolutely necessary.

[Mzor203]

Off-Topic: OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG THE SKIN IS BACK!

On-Topic: I understand this, what I am saying is that people have to make new, cleaner happen anyways, no matter what's happening with the market.

[Hyper]

You don't understand how markets work. Right now there's no incentive on a profit sense for the consumer and the energy companies to transition right at this moment. Why would they want to spend money prematurely when there's no current incentive to do so? Oil is still working for most people so there isn't going to be a rush until its absolutely necessary.

So the whole world evolves around money..

Why couldn't it be so that scientific development that could benefit humankind is always being funded, not just when we desperately need it or when we could make money from it.

[0=]

Why couldn't it be so that scientific development that could benefit humankind is always being funded, not just when we desperately need it or when we could make money from it.

Because everyone's going to hell. :)

[Mzor203]

So the whole world evolves around money..

Why couldn't it be so that scientific development that could benefit humankind is always being funded, not just when we desperately need it or when we could make money from it.


Exactly my point. The people who don't care about the environment and don't care about anything but getting themselves cash from oil are the ones who are going to kill us all. Eventually new clean energies will emerge, but if it's put off too long, we're going to have major issues. People have gotta think beyond just the market and the numbers, they have to think about the future of this planet.

[Antares]

It was time to care about it 10 years ago. People are just stupid and ignorant sometimes. Its sickening.

[marine_sniperman35]

Uhm no. I couldn't care less. To me, Global warming is a huge fucking scam. Here's how I know. Right now, I live in Denver Colorado. Its 10:03 PM and 60 degrees outside. Up in the mountains, in breckenridge, it's 46 degrees. Last saturday, they opened a ski resort for the weekened in JUNE because there was still 3 feet of snow, and there still is 3 feet of snow up there.
So im not to concerened.

[0=]

Personal experience and one season is a stupid thing to base a decision on in this case.

[Ryandel]

DUH! If you can't see it by now, you must be blind. Living farther north,I am seeing huge changes in my area even over three years.

Agreed, Like seriously, the winter didn't start till late November. The winters being -10°C below than the normal -30°C. Not to mention the summer heats, and the constant tornado watches in my area. And the area I live in is practically Tornado less. (Manitoba Area)