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  1. #1
    Know the dark side Member Askthepizzaguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Vuk View Post
    This is the biggest load of BS I have ever read. What do they teach kids now adays?
    Feedback is a real phenomenon, they'll teach you about in real science classes in colleges. Which are schools for adults.

    Allow me to explain one basic feedback process. Did you know that certain chemicals are found inside forests, and inside the ground itself? It's true.

    When great amounts of ice melt as a result of warming, less heat gets reflected back into space. Which, in turn, causes more ice melting. It's a minor feedback process in itself.

    But, when the temperature changes enough, or deforestation occurs, and certain places such as rainforests which are massive repositories for carbon begin to deteriorate, less carbon gets absorbed by plantlife, and the dead plantlife turns back into carbon.

    And, when certain other processes take place, carbon which is in the very soil itself gets released into the atmosphere, and because carbon is a greenhouse gas (not hocus-pocus, but an actual fact you can't argue with) that causes the planet to retain more heat.

    So you see, processes that occur when the planet gets hotter, cause it to get hotter still. That's why the Earth was once covered almost entirely with ice, but the slight tipping point where it began to melt, released a whole heck of a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, turning an ice world into one with rainforests and deserts.

    That was caused by feedback loops. These are real phenomena. It can drastically affect the planet. You know, causing ice ages, or causing hot periods, both of which can cause mass extinctions and greatly affect farmland, which is important to species which base their entire economies on the ability to farm food. Because without farms, we'll have difficulty feeding the billions of people on the planet. It's hard to farm in ice, or where there's no water, like in deserts. Or how about underneath the rising ocean, that's a difficult place to grow crops.

    Seriously, you sound like the wacko religious fanatics, hiding in their basements, awaiting the end of the world. I guess apocalyptism has never went out of vogue.
    The difference being, religious fanatics believe the world is going to end because a zombie will rise and smite us with chariots.

    Scientists believe the world could become less hospitable to human life due to real processes which are hard to ignore, since they've factually happened before. Several times. Science and history... who knew?

    It's the difference between knowledge and wacky magic.

    I am having a hard time thinking of how to seriously reply to this, because I cannot convince myself that you'd believe it!
    Dude, you're drinking the cool-aid. Try water, it is a lot more satisfying.
    I seem to recall telling you something like this recently, except I spelled Kool-Aid correctly.
    Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 04-14-2012 at 10:29.
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  2. #2
    Know the dark side Member Askthepizzaguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    You can learn more about feedback processes here.

    One of the reasons such feedback processes might be accelerated is because, while natural emissions from forest fires and volcanic activity, and other normal events have been playing into this since long before man got involved, it's only been during the most recent years of the industrial revolution that we've been adding to it with the burning of fossil fuels.

    These sources of carbon aren't just on the surface being naturally released or deposited, they're being dug up and released into the atmosphere by the tons. So you've got carbon from deep below the surface, in addition to the carbon on the surface, being released simultaneously, and not by a naturally occurring process, but by the combined efforts of an industrialized species across the planet, each contributing to the burning of fossil fuels.

    That is, fuels that come from under the rocks. Carbon, under the rocks, going into our air. From a solid or liquid form, into a dispersed gas. But no less present.

    That would be a significant change in the biosphere. And it's not just carbon, we've got plenty of other things we dump into the air constantly.


    Now, if the Earth gets naturally hotter, or cooler, depending on how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, or how much of it is trapped inside plants or below the surface, as part of a natural process that is unrelated to mankind, that would be one thing. We'd still be headed toward heating or cooling periods.

    But what if we double or triple the effect by adding to that process with CO2 that wasn't going to be naturally released? And what if, every minute of every day, we continue doing so, for decades, or centuries?

    Let me put it another way. Forest fires happen from time to time. Perfectly natural.

    Now, suppose we dump a billion drums of oil and gasoline into the forest, to dispose of it. Well, a forest fire might naturally occur. But since we've contributed to the natural process with an unnatural amount of fossil fuels, the fire might be a little bit hotter this time. In fact, it could burn so hot that it sterilizes the soil and it could cause not only the forest to burn down, but it could take a while for anything to grow there again.

    Can mankind really affect the environment? Well, we do dam up rivers, which can wreck entire ecosystems. And that's just a river. We do dump toxic pollutants into the ground and water and release it into the air. We have hunted things to extinction or otherwise caused extinctions. And we're changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, which if altered enough causes world-wide effects, effects which are real and have occurred before by natural processes. But here, we're adding to it, and not by an insignificant amount.

    It's easy to paint scientists as alarmists, because we've got plenty of those. People who are convinced that the world is coming to an end.

    Well the world is going to be just fine. But even minor environmental disasters like an oil spill, or flood, or drought, wreak havoc on entire populations. And these are "disasters" so small, the earth as a whole doesn't even notice. It's just part of normal life on Earth. It's just that when we dump countless tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we don't have a real good idea of how to undo that process. And furthermore, while it might take years or decades for us to see serious effects, we've already seen minor effects. And global temperature change, even slight change, can cause massive effects.

    You know, there's not a whole lot of temperature difference between freezing and near-freezing. But when we're talking about ice sheets that are thousands of years old, and we're talking about near-freezing, then we're also talking about that ice sheet disappearing completely. And that is not a minor event. And that is only one event, among thousands, which will re-shape the entire planet. Deforestation, rising oceans, deserts expanding, and the shifting of locations for good farmland. Sure, you might farm more in Greenland, but you'll farm a lot less in the middle of the United States, for example.

    Even minor changes can destroy ecosystems. It doesn't have to be temperature; Every one of them has a tipping point. Too little oxygen in parts of the ocean causes dead zones where fish do not live. It's a minor change from a tiny amount of O2 and not enough. Very minor. But dead zones in the ocean do occur, and many are expanding.

    But we're not really talking about minor changes. An increase in the median temperature of the planet by 10 degrees will make things quite different. Life is kind of delicately balanced like that.

    I remember watching a documentary where they discussed how certain honey bees react to a wasp entering their nest. Most are defenseless, but a certain kind of honey bee has a defense; they surround the invading wasp and simply wiggle their bodies to generate heat. The wasp dies at a certain temperature. The honey bees die at a temperature one or two degrees higher. They use that to nearly kill themselves, but definitely kill the wasp. It is only a matter of a degree difference. So if the temperature on an average day in July is 90-100 degrees, and it increases to 100-110 degrees, and all of a sudden there are no more honeybees in an entire region, that could affect our ability to pollinate using honeybees, which is kind of an important part of our ability to feed ourselves, because bees do it much more efficiently than we do. That's one aspect out of countless thousands of how temperature change can cripple ecosystems and economies and nations, and species.

    A couple degrees difference causes extinctions and can make things a lot harder on us. 10 degrees will render the world pretty unrecognizable, and largely inhospitable for most of us. Droughts and famine are bad enough, but if they didn't end because it was a fairly permanent change in the biosphere, that will ruin nations. Some nations don't have much land to farm as it stands, and if the climate changes such that they have none, what's the solution? What's the quick fix? How is that not a big deal?

    Just wondering, because it's not something we lay schmucks are likely to solve, considering the scientists which we consider our brightest minds haven't been able to think of a solution, with decades of thinking about it.

    I guess it's easy for people to dismiss things as nonsense without knowing much about it. I know I am not an expert. But I also know that there are people who are experts, and they've explained it to me using college textbooks, documentaries, news articles, and other repositories of knowledge, that the problem is not imaginary and is not an easy fix. It's sort of like cancer. Preventing or detecting cancer early is the solution... trying to fix cancer when it's advanced to a certain stage has been mostly futile. Maybe that will change, but for now, it's the case that prevention or early detection is your best solution.

    When it comes to removing countless tons of carbon from the atmosphere because the planet is too hot, the best cure is prevention, not actually trying to cure it. The alternative, which is a combination of ignorance, denial, and prayer, isn't much appealing to me.
    Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 04-14-2012 at 11:35.
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    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    10 degrees?? Oh dear, yeah that is sure to have an effect. Luckily for us the 0.2 degrees celcius rise in the past hundreds year has almost none.

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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragony View Post
    10 degrees?? Oh dear, yeah that is sure to have an effect. Luckily for us the 0.2 degrees celcius rise in the past hundreds year has almost none.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

    Global warming is the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's average surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.[2] Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain that most of it is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.[3][4][5][6] These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all major industrialized nations.[7][A]
    So, not 0.2 degrees, but 0.8 Celsius or about one and a half degrees Fahrenheit which is the scale I'm referring to. Mostly in a few decades, not centuries.

    Now, that represents an acceleration. That means a change in the rate at which something happens. If that continues to accelerate, then you could see temperature changes of multiple degrees difference within a few decades, or less. If it does not accelerate, it doesn't really matter, because you'll still get the same effect, just a few decades later.

    So, if we're talking really insane and unrealistic numbers, which assume no feedback, acceleration, population growth, or economic development, (which would represent a dramatic shift in not only global birth rates, economics, and um.... the laws of physics) then yeah, it will take longer than I'm talking about. And yet, it will still happen.

    Instead, we look at projections, which take into account that a more developed society will have more people using fossil fuels, or more of them, than we presently do. We also see a larger population than we presently have doing that. Because unless people stop having sex or using fuel, that's what's going to happen. We also see feedback within the biosphere due to changes in temperature and chemical composition of the atmosphere, which is what you'd have to factor into things to begin to predict events.

    Differences in temperature are small on the order of a year or decade, sure. And, you know, sometimes it snows, which conflicts with the idea that the earth as a whole is getting warmer, because even when global temperatures change, for some unknown reason, there are still seasons. That makes it hard for some people to understand climate. That's why people have to go to school and study this stuff to begin to know what they're talking about.

    A lay person can hear a climate skeptic point to a piece of data and say that it's all alarmist nonsense. Fooling people with data is quite easy to do, especially when the provided data are inaccurate. But even the real data doesn't mean much to the average person, because they don't know what it means.

    You can hear 1.4 degrees and go, so what? The temperature changed 30 degrees between lunch and midnight. Nothing is really happening.

    But that's not climate. When we're talking about climate, 1.4 degrees median difference matters. And especially because it's not going to be 1.4 degrees, it's going to be more than that, because we're talking about a mathematical progression, not static numbers in a static system. 1.4 represents the eventual 5 or 10 degrees difference, easily. 1.4 plus 1.4 plus 1.4 equals 4.2, and that's just for starters. That's again not factoring in population growth or economic trends, or feedback loops, or the acceleration of the trend. That's not hard for most people to comprehend, but it's easier to suggest that it is meaningless than to explain how it is not meaningless.

    Climate scientists (or lay advocates such as myself) need to convey pages of information in order to make their point, skeptics can pick a number, take it out of context, and cry conspiracy theory/alarmism and they don't need to use facts or reasoned arguments to make their point. It's simpler, and simpler appeals to simple people.
    Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 04-14-2012 at 12:31.
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  5. #5
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Fahrenheit/celcius mixup de moi. But It stopped, so the cummulative effect just isn't there. Instead we will more likely get the mini ice-age of ultimate doom, it's chilling.

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    Know the dark side Member Askthepizzaguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    I have traveled for one second, and I have traveled just over three percent of the distance to my eventual destination, increasing the rate at which I travel by double every second, as a steady curve. In how many more seconds will I reach my destination, or 100% of the distance?

    The answer is, approximately five seconds. But I'm not even 1/25th of the way there. It's not easy to conclude that my journey is 1/6th over.

    Just take the number 100 and divide it by two six times, and you'll see that 3 percent can actually be 1/6th of the way there, assuming a certain rate of change.

    As with accelerating trends in climate, which represents a rate of change, if I've only gone 14 percent of the way to my eventual destination of 10 degrees difference, in a matter of 30 years, then this isn't a big problem to most people. But realistically, I am much further along than it appears.

    It's not blindingly obvious, but it's mathematics, due to rate of change.

    What the precise rate of change is, with regards to climate, is up for debate. But if we assume a steady change for no reason whatsoever, 14 percent is still a significant progression towards the end result of 10 degrees difference. That's the completely unfounded and entirely unreasonable assumption of steady change. There hasn't BEEN steady change. So it's actually worse.

    I can't tell you how much worse it is, precisely. But I don't think 1/4th or 1/3rd of the way there is an unreasonable assumption to make, considering the relatively dramatic shift and recent changes. If we're not assuming steady change, then even a minor acceleration can put you at 1/4th progression, with only 14% of the distance traveled.

    Debatable is the rate of change, not debatable is that the earth is warming, and that the warming is becoming more rapid. Even if it weren't becoming more rapid, the end result is still nasty. But it is becoming more rapid.

    Deniers would have more plausibility if they were trying to argue that it won't get bad for 100-200 years. They'd still be wrong, but at least they could use bad math to argue their point, which is better than nothing at all. Instead, they argue total nonsense entirely.
    Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 04-14-2012 at 13:00. Reason: double /= 50%
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    In the shadows... Member Vuk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy View Post
    The difference being, religious fanatics believe the world is going to end because a zombie will rise and smite us with chariots.

    Scientists believe the world could become less hospitable to human life due to real processes which are hard to ignore, since they've factually happened before. Several times. Science and history... who knew?

    It's the difference between knowledge and wacky magic.
    First of all, that 'zombie' is a religious figure of extreme importance to many millions of people. As I have gotten infractions many times for insulting a certain prophet, my guess is saying things like that are against the rules. You may want to show some respect.

    The difference between knowledge and wacky magic? lmao, I can't tell you how funny that is. Of course everyone thinks their beliefs are factual. Christians bracing for Armageddon throughout history have also based their beliefs in 'fact'. The corruption in the world around them, the fact that God exists and that the all of secular history bears that out, the fact that current events coincide with prophecy, etc, etc.
    Now you may argue that those are facts, but I would argue that the voodoo science of global warming is not factual either. Point is, everyone thinks that the facts back up their wacko apocalyptic beliefs and that everyone else is just a superstitious peasant. Greek 'science' and observation backed up a lot of BS too, so it is not just religion. Don't forget that eugenics and race science was supported by 90% of the scientific community, and if you argued with it, you were arguing with science. They taught it at schools, and had plenty of 'scientific' data and arguments to support it, that were plenty water-tight looking to fool the average bozo college student. Are we forgetting all the science backing up the fact that by 2010 half the landmass on earth would be covered in ice? How did that turn out? People went to college and learned a bunch of BS voodoo science like you have to make it look real, but that did not make it any more factual, did it?

    It is all scare tactics. You may not like being compared to those fanatical religious people, but you are no different. Since the beginning of large, organized societies people have profited from end-of-the-world scares. They were orchestrated in Europe a few hundred years ago so that the people behind them could profit, and that is just what is happening now. The only thing that has changed is what they lie about. They used to lie and say that religion supported their arguments (which it didn't), and now they lie and say science does (which it doesn't). Both are very complicated subjects that even the most knowledgeable do not come close to fully understanding, so it is incredibly easy for them to make you believe whatever they want you too. I could argue with you all day about the 'why's', but I am not getting in to that, because I don't have the time and I would not change your opinion anyway. Suffice it to say, I think you should be a little more critical of what you believe.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV View Post
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Are we forgetting all the science backing up the fact that by 2010 half the landmass on earth would be covered in ice? How did that turn out?
    No such claims were ever put forth.

    I think you should be a little more critical of what you believe.
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  9. #9
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    No such claims were ever put forth.
    They most certainly were, about 50 years ago.

    I think it's increasingly clear that the Climate-change lobby has basically lost the popular argument, there are several reasons for this, none of which are directly linked to the science.

    1. Fatigue: Banging on about something like this year in year out ends up turning people off, you become part of the background noise people just tune out. The fact is, humans can only plan ahead a few years at a time in their own lives, although we can concience of works completed in our children's or grandchildren's day we aren't good with far off danger. This is probably an evolved trait, there's no point worrying about the snow six months from now when you have the current drought.

    2. Loss of trust: Scientists have been caught several times fundging figures, and making outlandish claims. I seem to recall that around the year 2000 is was claimed their would be no Northern Ice cap by 2020, that now looks highly unlikely, and in fact the mediun size of the ice cap has been constant for 50 years or so, although it has become thinner in recent decades. Fluctuations during the Roman and Medieval period are still mostly ignored, despite there being ample evidence for previous repaid changes in temperature of several degrees over a few centuries. The problem is further compounded by lack of accurate date even 100 years ago.

    3. Lack of any actual plan: This is the big problem, there has been no concerted effort to answer the question of how we will generate energy in the future, Japan showed how precarious Nuclear Power is and right now we have no convincing alternatives to fossil fuel. Instead, we get unrealistic demands for individual users to limit their personal usage when the real issue is industrial and gimmicks like those stupid lightbulbs that don't work properly and contain Mercury.

    4. Wrong message: The message currently is, "The End will be Nigh, at some point." In fact, the end has been Nigh several times, several times we have broken supposed temporal or quantative polution limits at which point the whole Earth is supposed to go "Bang", take a look at Sci-Fi 30 years ago and you'll see films about people leaving Earth because Acid Rain, something nobody is all that worried about these days.

    On the other hand, pumping loads of crap into the atmosphere is pretty much the definition of a Bad Idea if we want our children to live here. We shouldn't be polluting the environment, but that should a no brainer Climate Change or no.
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    Member Member Greyblades's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    I have found myself unable to sympathise with the enviromentalists when they tell us to "turn off your needless lights" when I am surrounded by shops that keep thiers at supernova after closing time, and even at 3 AM. I have yet to hear anyone propose a nighttime blackout on the highstreets.
    Last edited by Greyblades; 04-16-2012 at 15:35.
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    Senior Member Senior Member gaelic cowboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Greyblades View Post
    I have found myself unable to sympathise with the enviromentalists when they tell us to "turn off your needless lights" when I am surrounded by shops that keep thiers at supernova after closing time, and even at 3 AM. I have yet to hear anyone propose a nighttime blackout on the highstreets.
    Thats simply answered by a bit of common sense in reality.

    How many shops are there where you live and by how much are they outnumbered by residential dwellings.

    What year were said residential dwellings and business mostly constructed in the same area.

    These two questions will answer a lot of your concerns.
    Last edited by gaelic cowboy; 04-17-2012 at 19:03.
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    In the shadows... Member Vuk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy View Post
    Thats simply answered by a bit of common sense in reality.

    How many shops are there where you live and by how much are they outnumbered by residential dwellings.

    What year were said residential dwellings and business mostly constructed in the same area.

    These two questions will answer a lot of your concerns.
    Questions do not provide answers, they only demand more.
    You realize it is all BS don't you? Two of my bros are electrical power engineering technicians, and they told me that when power plants are looking at how much power they need to generate, they do not even take residential usage into account because it is so insignificant. The vast majority (I don't know off-hand how much, but my guess is well over 95%) of power generated is used for industrial purposes, and then stepped-down for residential usage. Have your lights on all day, don't have 'em on at all; it makes no difference. The entire amount of power that is generated for non-industrial use is completely insignificant.

    If you wanted to save energy, you would have to do it on the manufacturing and industrial side of things. That is where real power is used, and if you wanted to make any real change, that is where you would start. Of course no one ever tells you that the environmental impact of producing something like a Prius instead of, say, a gasoline powered Focus far out-weighs the difference in environmental impact of running them.
    The largest environmental impact is not made by the consumer, but the producer. If you wanted to lessen your impact on the environment, you focus on buying things that were produced with the smallest environmental impact. For instance, over the long term, standard incandescent light bulbs have a lot less impact on the environment than modern ones. Why? The manufacturing. Have you ever taken one of those things apart? Chip boards, diodes, inductors, capacitors, etc, etc. You gotta use your brain. Most of the environmentally friendly BS out there, actually has a much bigger impact on the environment being produced, for small savings being used. They normally do not last as long, and therefore many more have to be produced in the same time period, making them have an even greater environmental impact.

    Of course all of this is neither here nor there, as the entire problem we are trying to solve is not a problem. It is amusing, nonetheless, to see idiots running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to solve a none existent problem, and accomplishing the exact opposite of what they intend.
    Last edited by Vuk; 04-17-2012 at 19:55.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV View Post
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    Member Member Greyblades's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy View Post
    Thats simply answered by a bit of common sense in reality.

    How many shops are there where you live and by how much are they outnumbered by residential dwellings.

    What year were said residential dwellings and business mostly constructed in the same area.

    These two questions will answer a lot of your concerns.
    Ok I understand the first one, number of housing and subsiquent power usage far outweighs number of shops but the second confuses me.
    Also it doesnt really help much seeing as these 9-5 shops have thier lights on at full blast, all night, for no apparant reason, the only one I could think of is attracting attention for advertisment purposes and that really becomes moot after midnight.
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    Clan Takiyama Senior Member CBR's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    They most certainly were, about 50 years ago.
    Even if we assume that 50 years ago the scientific consensus supported cooling, so what? Better theories backed by new data has a tendency to shift scientific opinions about most stuff.

    A survey of studies made from 1965 to 1979 showed a clear majority talked of global warming and not cooling.

    A New York Times article from 1956:

    According to a theory which was held half a century ago, variation in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide can account for climatic change. The theory was generally dismissed as inadequate. Dr. Gilbert Plass re-examines it in a paper which he publishes in the American Scientist and in which he summarizes conclusions that he reached after a study made with the support of the Office of Naval Research. To him the carbon dioxide theory stands up, though it may take another century of observation and measurement of temperature to confirm it.
    He mentions humans adding 30% of CO2 in every century while it is more like 50 or 60% now.

    Fluctuations during the Roman and Medieval period are still mostly ignored
    They have not been ignored. Global Signatures and DynamicalOrigins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly and here is the public release for a quicker read

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    Senior Member Senior Member gaelic cowboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Vuk View Post
    First of all, that 'zombie' is a religious figure of extreme importance to many millions of people. As I have gotten infractions many times for insulting a certain prophet, my guess is saying things like that are against the rules. You may want to show some respect.

    The difference between knowledge and wacky magic? lmao, I can't tell you how funny that is. Of course everyone thinks their beliefs are factual. Christians bracing for Armageddon throughout history have also based their beliefs in 'fact'. The corruption in the world around them, the fact that God exists and that the all of secular history bears that out, the fact that current events coincide with prophecy, etc, etc.
    Now you may argue that those are facts, but I would argue that the voodoo science of global warming is not factual either. Point is, everyone thinks that the facts back up their wacko apocalyptic beliefs and that everyone else is just a superstitious peasant. Greek 'science' and observation backed up a lot of BS too, so it is not just religion. Don't forget that eugenics and race science was supported by 90% of the scientific community, and if you argued with it, you were arguing with science. They taught it at schools, and had plenty of 'scientific' data and arguments to support it, that were plenty water-tight looking to fool the average bozo college student. Are we forgetting all the science backing up the fact that by 2010 half the landmass on earth would be covered in ice? How did that turn out? People went to college and learned a bunch of BS voodoo science like you have to make it look real, but that did not make it any more factual, did it?

    It is all scare tactics. You may not like being compared to those fanatical religious people, but you are no different. Since the beginning of large, organized societies people have profited from end-of-the-world scares. They were orchestrated in Europe a few hundred years ago so that the people behind them could profit, and that is just what is happening now. The only thing that has changed is what they lie about. They used to lie and say that religion supported their arguments (which it didn't), and now they lie and say science does (which it doesn't). Both are very complicated subjects that even the most knowledgeable do not come close to fully understanding, so it is incredibly easy for them to make you believe whatever they want you too. I could argue with you all day about the 'why's', but I am not getting in to that, because I don't have the time and I would not change your opinion anyway. Suffice it to say, I think you should be a little more critical of what you believe.
    None of that is even remotely connected to what was put to you in the first place.

    The picture below explains what we have being talking about.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    The process is affected by the input which then gives an output that then influences the original input by means of feedback.

    Basically what people have been trying to get you to understand is that change happens all the time and our very presence has an effect on it.

    Incidently this does not have to mean that man is doomed at all, so you can dispence with the theories that we are doompornographers. However we are part of the eco-system that is both caused by and a cause of the climate back on itself.


    Naturally this means because we have an outsize effect on our environment we therefore logically affect the climate.
    Last edited by gaelic cowboy; 04-14-2012 at 22:06.
    They slew him with poison afaid to meet him with the steel
    a gallant son of eireann was Owen Roe o'Neill.

    Internet is a bad place for info Gaelic Cowboy

  16. #16
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    The only constant is flaggalism. During the medieval warmth, as the name suggests, it was warmer than it is now despite a total lack of a industrial age. Apocalyptic religions are nothing new and charlatans have always benefitted from faith. What happened to the hole in the ozon layer, was it fixed. Of course not people just lost interest because they stopped hearing about it. Enter acid rain. People lost interest because they stopped hearing about it. Enter global warming, people are losing interest because of the financial crisis.

    Hoaxes have cycles they come and go. But always, always, down with capitalism

  17. #17
    Senior Member Senior Member gaelic cowboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragony View Post
    Hoaxes have cycles they come and go. But always, always, down with capitalism
    My acceptance Climate Change was influenced by my time in college by learning things like engineering science or later on with thermo and fluid dynamics.

    Not Doompornography
    They slew him with poison afaid to meet him with the steel
    a gallant son of eireann was Owen Roe o'Neill.

    Internet is a bad place for info Gaelic Cowboy

  18. #18
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    Quote Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy View Post
    My acceptance Climate Change was influenced by my time in college by learning things like engineering science or later on with thermo and fluid dynamics.

    Not Doompornography
    Sounds fascinating, I would love to hear more but I have been dead since 2000. It was the acid rain that did it, it led to major food-shortages and ultimatily resulted in WW3, the world burned it was a nightmare

  19. #19
    Member Member Hax's Avatar
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    Default Re: Houston we have problem

    First of all, that 'zombie' is a religious figure of extreme importance to many millions of people. As I have gotten infractions many times for insulting a certain prophet, my guess is saying things like that are against the rules. You may want to show some respect.
    So basically, you demand respect when someone insults your personal religious figure, but you're not willing to extend the same kind of respect to other religious folks. That's cool. I'm not a Christian, but I don't know, I'm not sure he would have wanted people to go around and insult other people. Might just be me.
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