All in all, let's say humans did not exist right now...would we be up for an automatic ice age in the next ten thousand years or so? I mean, I don't think anyways that humans are capable of causing a global warming. In my book, on Earth, there never has been, never will be. I mean certainly, we've been polluting, causing the death, destruction and extinction of thousands of carbon-based life forms. But should we really treat it as an oncoming crisis? We ain't capable of producing a global warming. Way too advanced for us, babe. Environmentalists are out over their heads, and so is Bush (nothing political here meant or implies, folks.)
What's the story here, behind this all?

Global Warming is a real threat. We are currently in the middle of a heating trend in the earth's cycle. With the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, the planet could actually get warmer during this cycle than it has ever been before. The hottest days on record have been within the last six years. Humans have polluted the earth with green house gasses. It has been predicted that in addtion to the natural warming of the earth, we could be in for a very hot time indeed since the average temp could go up as much as 5 degrees. (incidently since the ice melting to the north, the ocean currents could be disrupted causing colder winters in some parts of the world).

Many wetlands, coral reefs, etc. are already in danger.

Without the greenhouse gasses, we would just be experiencing another normal warming trend before an ice age cycle. It looks like this might be a VERY warm trend. And, sorry to say, humans are responsible for the green house gasses, we are partly responsible.

Thirsty anyone?

Mm-hmm. And tell me, what would be the future history of the earth if the dime-thick O3 layer really were to disappear completely.

Without the greenhouse gases we'd be frozen ball of rock. Water vapor is, by far, the most abundent greenhouse gas. CO2 is a must for plants, which in turn converts it to oxygen. I think humans are only contributing to the natural hot/cold cycles Earth has.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

There is evidence that there has been global warming over thousands of years, but we (human beings) are adding to this in a big way, i saw a tv interview about 5 years ago and this boffin was saying that if we dont stop cfc's and burning coal in the next 10 years it will be too late to stop the damage being done to the earth....
Well i think it is too late now, what with the icebergh's breaking up at an incredible rate than normal.... The damage is done, it is up to our children and there children to sort this mess out.... if it isnt to late

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ŠTRÒÑÓMY~ÑÕW

On the other hand, something spiritual is going on here...as the polar Antarctic ice cap melts, the frozen soil will appear to us for the first time in tens of hundreds of millenia. For me, this is a long anticipated day, which, with current rising of global warming, will come much sooner, possibly, hopefully, within my lifetime. Who knows what we will discover beneath that barren layer of ice?

Kneeknocker, re-If we can't fix it, the "children" won't be able to. Are they going to get any smarter than us? Or, just so desparate for a solution that they actually DO something about it.

I think we arrived at this point by just stumbling along without a plan. Having a solution and a plan and doing something proactive can accomplish positive benefits faster than it took to create the problem.

And StarLab, I've seen your train of thought expressed by lots of other people. It usually goes:

1) I don't believe "climate change/greenhouse effect" is happening
2) Well, maybe some of the evidence is compelling
3) Well, maybe climate change is happening, but maybe it won't be a bad thing.

The biggest phrase I've heard in the vein of #3 is, "maybe the extra CO2 will stimulate plant growth.

Well, if that was true, the plants would grow, and the CO2 would be taken up...right? So, how come the CO2 levels aren't dropping?

The absolutely consistent thing about the attitude of the nay-sayers, is that they don't want to do anything about it. Watching the news, debating it endlessly, conjecturing whether it is a good thing or a bad thing...takes no effort, requires no action and, accomplishes nothing.

Just as a mental exercise, accept the premise as true, that we humans can affect things on a planetary scale, and ask yourself if you can do something to reduce the production of greenhouse gases. And try something, anything.

Because let's face it, if you don't think that 6 billion plus people can affect the environment of a whole planet, then you might as well forget about a handful of people Terraforming Mars, or anywhere else.

We are intelligent powerful creatures, or, we are impotent. Pick one.

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Pre-Quote: 'To survive one has to experiment. When the environment changes, the traditional way of doing things doesn't work.'

Quote:
"It's the outriders, the organisms that seem to be maladjusted before the change, which are the only ones that survive these changes...in that way a species continues."

Carl Sagan

Actually, my first vein went something like this: was planet earth really due for a global warming around this time anyways and humans are just making it a bit more severe, or was this current global warming never really supposed to happen now?

I think we both know what would happen. But too much of anything, including greenhouse gases is not necessarily a good thing.

Venus seems to have a lot of greenhouse gasses. It makes the planet bright and quite beautiful in the sky, but it does not necessarily make it livable.

I think a lot of people need to take a reality check: the warming of the earth, even by a degree can wipe out many species on the earth. This happens with the natural cycle of the earth. Because of the added human effect, it is suppose to raise more than the warming cycle usually does. (most scientists say probably 4 degrees versus the usually 1 degree). It is a safe bet that more than a few species will die. They have no place to run. The current global warming is NOT normal. We are not just making it a bit more severe, we are making it a lot more severe We are talking about real starvation of both people and other life forms.

Although there might be a lot of things to find underneath the polar ice and glaciers, I am not sure worth what we would lose in exchange. Whole islands will be under water causing massive devestation.

If something is not done now (and with so many people thinking that someone else will take care of it, or it is not really a "problem" it looks pretty bad), the damange to our earth will be irreversable.

Nature is supposed to put out 220 something billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere a year. We put out something like 5 billion tons a year. If we disappeared off the face of the planet, the Earth's CO2 balance would barely be affected at all. Either it absorbs the CO2, or it builds up in the atmosphere. +/- 5 billion tons doesn't make a whit of difference - there is nothing special about human CO2.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=258277
I got these numbers from this source. I'll need to check later to make sure they are reasonable numbers. For some reason, billions of tons seems a little too large compared to the Earth's atmospheric mass.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2023835.stm

http://www.42explore.com/globewrm.htm

Here is a couple of links for you. The first one was from the BBC about the manmade causes of global warming. The second link actually looks at both sides and has links to other sites both pro and con. The internet is a wonderful thing; you can almost always find a website to support any view you take.

I like to look at past evidence and both points of view before making up my mind and, sorry, I still say that humans have contributed to global warming on a large scale.

btw...we contribute is many ways, like coal, gas, and oil burning, deforestation, cattle(good ole Mc Donalds), gaslines, and even rice paddies, fertilizers and other chemicals which are released in our atmosphere. The earth is use to absorbing some Co2...but we have added a lot to the equation.

Global warming due to human influence is so minimal as to be insignificant. However the earth is warming very slowly due to natural causes. It is warming from sun's activity and from recovered balance from the mini-ice-age some centuries ago. I look forward to warmer evenings here in Alaska with great expectation, though I'm not holding my breath.

The REAL QUESTION has to do with change. Does climate change mean that earth is in jeapardy? If someone considers this true then the earth has been doomed from the beginning, for the ONLY law in the universe that no one questions is change. Those who wish to freeze the earth in some unnatural existence have no comprehension of the nature of our universe.

Claims of the early death of our world is as old as mankind. Nothing is new in these claims, only the cause changes from year to year and century to century. The hubris of some humans that claim we can alter our complex atmospheric processes on earth so easily worry me. Especially when they keep coming back to their answer, radical change of our political and economic system.

I'm with ASEI and Alaskan that we aren't the cause. We have actual written records for about 150 years on enviromental and weather data. Of that only the last few decades, using computerization, have we gathered truly comprehensive data. We only recently discovered things like el nino and la nina, and the mechanisms that control them (we think), and we're supposed to believe that we already know all there is to know about the climate?

My opinion is that this is a part of a natural, cyclic process that goes from hot to cold and back of tens of thousands of years. The last ice age wasn't the first. For the last few million years we've had minor ice ages every 40,000 to 100,000 years. We are 10,000 years past the last ice age. It is very possible that the world is getting warmer only because its a part of the natural cycle, and we still have about 10,000 more years of warming until the cycle turns back to cooling.

Incidentally, based on the current climate models, Texas is supposed to become wetter with a milder, but more tropical climate. Sounds good to me!

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...and we'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere; and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys...

I've looked at Algenon's sources. I would prefer ones that put reasonable numbers out there. Percentages of growth do not demonstrate that we have had an effect. Because certain groups or agencies claim certain things sometimes certainly doesn't mean they are facts.

The comparison between natural and human carbon dioxide emmissions provided me with a degree of scale that I could work with to look at exactly how much influence we have.

5 billion tons/220 billion tons = 0.0227 human/nature emission ratio. We have a marginal effect,
Another source somewhere said that it was 20 billion tons for mankind.
20/220 = 0.0909, not entirely insignificant, but not earth shattering either

My argument is that if the earth could absorb 220 billion tons of CO2 for millions of years, it can probably change to absorb 225 or 240 billion tons/year. All that is required is a bit of suboceanic plant growth. It wasn't as if the earth has had a fixed capacity to handle a fixed output : both have changed over time. The capacity to deal with carbon dioxide, plant matter, grew to accomadate the carbon dioxide state in the atmosphere.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

1) It's not just CO2

2) Micro-organisms like the one responsible for the Bubonic Plague like it warmer. Saw that on a PBS documentary called "Catastrophe!" And there's molds, fungus, mosquitoes...all kinds of life forms to take advantage of the additional warmth.

3) I still think it's possible to make more money without producing the greenhouse gases.

It's really kind of strange that on the one hand, if tens of thousands of scientists believe we are causing climate change and suggest that we change our ways, lots of folks are resistant to lift a finger and do anything. Those same people then say they don't mind if the climate changes for the entire planet, even if millions to billions are affected by extremes in the weather, from flooding to severe heat in the summer.

Is more pleasant weather for some in Alaska worth the cost of tens of thousands of lives in Europe and India during the recent heat waves?

As the changes in the climate become more severe, more people are becoming concerned. As they look for alternatives, new opprotunities for business will flourish.

I'll say it again, more money without producing the greenhouse gases.

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Pre-Quote: 'To survive one has to experiment. When the environment changes, the traditional way of doing things doesn't work.'

Quote:
"It's the outriders, the organisms that seem to be maladjusted before the change, which are the only ones that survive these changes...in that way a species continues."

Carl Sagan

The problem is that all these scientists are so tied up with a socialist political agenda (abstain from industrial production/consumption peasant!) that it is extremely difficult to tell when they are telling the truth, or lying through their teeth. A lot of other scientists say that they aren't sure we are the cause.

You saw the numbers on actual CO2 emmissions. Numbers are very difficult to pin down in these debates, no one likes to talk about relative quantity or establish perspective in their doom prophecy. It is more a matter of weaving morose visions of the future and telling people if you don't do x, this will happen.

0.09 If there is a problem, we are a microscopic component of it.

And plagues of locusts and fire and brimstone.

Not with industrial processes it isn't. Our productivity is enabled by artificial work, which is enabled by gigawatts of portable energy. The available energy/person, and therefore the available per capita productivity would be decimated if we lost our energy capability. Our economy would collapse. We would literally be living in the middle ages again.

People can live with climate change - we have throughout our entire history. We cannot maintain our modern civilization without portable energy. In a sense, climate change will cost us less than refraining from fossil fuels - a rational decision.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

It works both ways ASEI. Scientists working for the petrochemical companies should be suspect as to their slant on how data is interpreted.

Plus, I had kinda hoped that not all of the 50,000 scientists who believe in climate change are socialist politicians and anti-industrialists. I thought they liked Science.

You know, you don't have to believe climate change is happening and, you don't have to do anything about it. As far as I'm concerned, if educated and intelligent people (like yourself) with the best potential for creative problem solving don't want to participate in solutions, then fine.

I couldn't be happier.

You won't be in the way or provide any competition. That leaves fewer of us to be creative and make a profit off of anyone who is concerned.

So, thanks! I have worked hard for many years on energy-efficient solutions. I'm going to enjoy keeping the booty to myself.

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Pre-Quote: 'To survive one has to experiment. When the environment changes, the traditional way of doing things doesn't work.'

Quote:
"It's the outriders, the organisms that seem to be maladjusted before the change, which are the only ones that survive these changes...in that way a species continues."

Carl Sagan

For those of you who asked, here is a better link. It answers a lot of the questions everyone raised:


http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/g....cfm?pageID=498

I agree with Tom2Mars. Scientist have been warning us about the problems for a long time. I, for one, will want to problem solve a good solution so my children will have a future. It will already be difficult with the natural cycle of the earth getting warmer without contributing to the problem.


But I do not really think we will agree, which is fine because most theories take time to evolve and be accepted. Even Einstein had a problem with the theory of the expanding universe and even made a variable so the equations would fit the Steady State theory instead of the "Big Bang". Maybe with time I will see it your way or you will see it mine, but I still think we need to do everything we can to stop the destruction of the earth that is obviously happening.

It is critical that we have a viable concept of how to develop alternative energy sources before we exhaust the fossil fuels which are needed to develop the alternatives. The ecosphere of the earth is a complex system, its analysis is extremely difficult, and our ability to anticipate sudden chaotic excursions from the norm is very near zero. I think we should anticipate both catastrophic warming and cooling. There is convincing evidence that global icing occurs every 10 to 15 thousand years which means we are due for one; however, we have tweaked he system by the addition of CO2 and can't be sure which way to lean or how fast either catastrophic extreme will develop. I believe most scientists are telling us what their honest analysis of the data is suggesting to them. Predicting the weather on a daily basis is difficult enough; predicting climate trends is way over our heads, but still we must try and we should hope to be right now and then.

Take a look here for how heavily weighted our energy production is in favor of fossil fuels. It is surprising how small the contribution from hydrothermal and wind is. This table reveals at a glance that developing the alternatives before we run out of fossil fuels is strongly essential. Energy Production Ratio (EPR) of each new source must remain above unity (e.g., the energy production from one unit of coal must always be larger than the energy required to make it available to the furnace that uses it) and the larger the better. Not all coal reserves meet this requirement; I'm not sure about petroleum reserves. It is not obvious that advocates of each of the alternatives has really grasped how difficult the transition to alternatives is going to be; emotional hyperbolism will not help. We are all in this single lifeboat; if it must be rocked, do it gently.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

I gotta put that in my list of Great Quotes. That'll rival Einstein, that will... B) :P
No, really, I like it! I think you have a good point, GH, in the rest of what you said too. You really ARE the Schwartzinegger of the Forums!