Government help: Is it too late to stop Global Warming? - Help.com

Never too late. Although the work it will take will require almost the whole world to work together, and THAT I think is near impossible, it’s not too late. Hey, it aint water world yet is it?

Why doesn’t the ozone hole move around the earth?

Cause I taped it down a few years back . . .

Thats actually a good question, I wonder if the gravity caused by the earth casues the o-zone to follow suit?

Wikipedia here I come.

What do you mean with the “gravity” thing?

We don’t have public transport where I live; and to walk to dance or Church would be very hard.

I guess that’s one way to look at it, I. Now I know what Hitler felt like…

I AM too good to ride a bike!

I ride a unicycle.

Anyway, um…I think it’s too late to stop global warming. I DO NOT think, however, that it’s too late to slow it down so that the consequences aren’t so bad.

Hey.. This is Ex - Penguin but im at school and found this post so i just want to make sure that i get notices if anything happens on it.

I’ll log on later and give my opinion - I have also seen the film “An Inconvinient Truth” and am also involved in many organisations and such..

So yeh - Talk later

i think we bigger issues to wrry about right now… people dont know WHO THEY ARE… www.chrisguzman.org

no it is not too late. the atmosphere can rebuild itself if we give it some time. but because we keep destroying it and creating such large holes….

So not only are we having our OWN environmental crisis of the decade, but we never really solved the last one? Wonderful.

well, when you say ‘is it too late?’, the question itself needs a little clarifying. Certainly some level of climate change has already occured, and massive areas of glaciers have melted as you saw in the film. Also, for a couple of years, species have been becoming extinct at approximately 1,000 times the natural evolutionary rate. So, it is obviously too late to stop things that have happened.

In addition, because the heating/cooling cycle of the earth has a fifty-year time constant, there is some level of additional climate change that is now unavoidable. Even if we stopped greenhouse emissions completely tomorrow, we still have not yet felt most of the effects of the emissions to-date. And certainly stopping (or even holding constant) greenhouse emissions tomorrow is not going to happen.

Hydrogen is being hyped as a solution for the problem. It is not really what it is cracked up to be and is not panning out as advertised. To create hydrogen takes energy, and we still must figure-out where THAT energy comes from (gas, oil, nuclear, etc.). Once it has been created, it can be combined with oxygen to give back a little less than the energy that was needed to create it.

The real answer (which most paranoid people do not understand and hence do not want to accept) is nuclear energy. This highly regulated field is perfectly safe in America and creates NO greenhouse emissions. No one has ever died from nuclear energy here, and it has been providing 20% of our electricity for decades. We would rather DESTROY THE EARTH, than deal with the storage of a few tons of high-level waste, which would safely buy us about 300 years until fusion could become viable. What other American industry can say it has never killed anyone.

Wind, solar, hydro are nice and nifty, but they only can make a very small dent in the problem. We use truly massive amounts of energy.

Special crops may come on the scene - expecially with the bio-science boom that is happeneing. They would create fuel through photo-synthesis and clean the air, then their fuel gets burned in the car or whatever and pollutes at a level equal to the cleaning. But the viability remains to be seen.

I mean ‘especially’, lol.

On ozone depletion, we have regulated and almost eliminated CFC’s and the two holes are actually a little smaller now. This was a success of our country and government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_de…

But climate change is much more serious, and already happening. Also, scientists are now saying that climate change may itself impact the ozone layer in a few more years.

I just looked at the ozone article again. I mistakenly said the holes were smaller when I was really looking at the gaseous concentrations.

Thanks C.M.

Couldn’t we just somehow produce more ozone with the nuclear stuff?

We have PLENTY of ozone, it’s a poisonous pollutant produced by the burning of gasoline. The problem is logistics: How the hell do you gather it, get it up there, and make it stay?

Exactly.

yea. exactly. i agree with the egger.

However, given the sluggish, dogmatic nature of current political systems, I don’t think it WILL be stopped until it’s too late for many of the world’s species and geographical features.

First of all i want to thank you for replying to my post cm, anyways i was watching cnn today and this topic came up, big time actually i want everyone in the forum to look at this clip and tell me what you think, it is really sad

go to www.cnn.com/video

then look under the sci-tech catagory, there is a story called Shrinking Islands, click it

yea. it is a real problem.

its only just beginning. thank the republicans.

Thank everyone. You can’t just blame people you don’t like for the things you don’t like. In one way or another, we’re all responsible. That includes you, me, and everyone else.

no, you blame the people who cause perpetuate the problem. that is sorta the definition of the word blame. A reporter recently asked the interior secretary if the administration would admit to global warming now that polar bears are on the endangered species list. his two-stepping was funny.

“That includes you, me, and everyone else.” Still think the people fighting to stop it deserve less blame than the people fighting to perpetuate it. But call me crazy and we will just blame everyone.

Less blame is still blame. You made it sound like it’s all their fault and you had nothing to do with it.

Well, I wrote my congressmen in support of the Kyoto agreement. I drive very fuel efficient cars. I worked to get our country using safe nuclear power. I have admitted for many years that since ALL climatologists agree global warming exists and is being caused by humans, then we need to act.

The Republican party on the other hand still denies that we even know whether people are causing it. The Bush administration just censored release of reems of governement climatology data which show the danger. Republicans pushed through deregulation of plant emissions and consistently undermine attempts to bring our vehicle emissions standards up to the level of the rest of the developed world.

Sorry, but I am not to blame. Period.

Okay, whatever you say… But I think we all have some way of negatively affecting the environment.

Can we keep U.S. politics out of this? We DO have a consensus that global warming is happening, we DO have a consensus that one of the causes is rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and other compounds we’re putting into the atmosphere at ludicrous rates, and so we SHOULD do everything we can to slow the amount of those pollutants that we, personally, cause to be put into the atmosphere.

When i watched the film “An Inconvinient Truth” I was truly amazed that the issue of global warming has not been taken more seriously.
People go about their everday lives with a care - Just waking up in the morning and decided what to wear that day is the hardest decision for them.
Yet, every day the situation that our world is in continues to worsen - There are those optimistic people who believe that the Ozone Layer is slowly repairing itslef, which is not impossible, but will take many many years to happen. At our current rate we will be ruining the Earth faster than we can even think about rebuilding it.
As for Nuclear power - Yes, it has been considered alot, but the bad outweighs the good.. Is it really worth producing energy to live on (Even without the greenhouse gases) when at the same time thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste is produced and we have no where to dispose of it?
There is no safe way of disposing nuclear waste, and there probably never will be.
So by saving our World now, we will be killing it later.
As for politics.. If the people cared enough, we’d do more about it. Its not just politicians that have the power to change this, we also have a voice.

I think “the inconvenient truth” really did hit the nail on the head, While i believe it’s possible to slow the damage to teh earth i do not believe we are at present in a positions to stop it (unless some radical new form of free energy arises and is immediatley available for free on the consumer mrket). I rthink the issue now it maintenance of the damage but i do think it’s ‘inconvenient’ to do so and sometimes just plain impossible the entire infostructure of the devloped world is now absolutley dependant on technologies which cause harm. and while we talk about how we want to amke changes we are right this second using computers which derive power from polluting power facilities. i really dont think turning off our leaf blowers will help now, i think a radical government controled enforcment is nescesarry to enforce energy saving behaviour.

So tell me, Amoebus, are you one of those who believes that the environmental dystrophy going on now is a sign of the Rapture and isn’t something we should try to stop, or are you just so paranoid that you’ll believe one scientist over the scientific community at large if believing that one scientist will let you keep your conspiracy theories?

i dont understand amoebus, what is it that you are suggesting?

C.M Theisen,
Thats true, i hadnt thought about that..
More what i meant was that it shouldnt really take a film with a famous person in to make people take more notice. I think i worded it badly - Im not feeling too great today.

Amoebus,
I read the article.. And strangely enough i agree with it.
I know Mr Gore made a few mistakes.. But he really has raised the issues and made people think for a second time about the problems surrounding climate change.

Im off for now.

Uhh…amoebus…
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/…
More specifically,
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/…

Look Hard
Michael D. McCaffrey - Yarmouthport, Mass.

Richard Lindzen’s continuing campaign to downplay the threat of global warming and other alarms sounded by Vice President Gore suggest that he is trying to make those who differ look like shrill deceivers. Much of his career has been devoted to trying to debunk this. In the process he has acquired enemies who accuse him of warring against good science rather than global warming.

People would like to avoid the flat earth society; we all want to be on the side of Copernicus. [Even if] It is an open question as to whether we are destroying the world, the mere probability suggests we look hard at how we live.

To be sure, not all of the finest workings of the climate system are yet fully understood to the finest grain. However, all of the basics are absolutely clear. Global warming is real, human activities are causing the problem, many of the solutions are available to us now, it is not too late to avoid the worst, and all we need to get started solving the crisis is the political will to act.

This is what prompted the national academies of science in the 11 most influential nations on the planet to come together to jointly call on every nation to “acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing”. They added that the “scientific understanding of climate changes is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action”.

Not a single peer-reviewed study conducted between 1993 and the present challenged the consensus that the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity.

This is referring to hundreds of scientific articles. It’s the consensus we are taking about. Not anything more or less.

Linzen’s article tries to skirt this level of consensus by referring to other issue where agreement is not so clear.

So, it is irresponsible to make claims about consensus that go beyond this. But, at the same time we should not try to deny this level of consensus.

oh, my post beginning with “To be sure…” was a quote, not my own comment.

I just read an article by the author of the study, here are his exact findings in his words:

Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that “most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.”

He says that Lindzen is old and has become basically isolated among thousands of scientists. Global warming deniers also seek him out for articles.

So, there IS a consensus.

Again the national academies of science in the 11 most influential nations on the planet have jointly asked all nations to “acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing”

and “scientific understanding of climate changes is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action”.

I dont know what else you need to understand that this is a major problem.

913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all?

Yea, they dont. That’s a new thing in the last 6 years.

No, amoebus. I have been travelling to a lot of countries and they all say the same thing. We used to love and respect America, but now we dont. Many people have hosted me and told me. Sorry, you live in a fantasy world. Our image and respect has plummeted like a rock. I think you are just too unaware of things to see what is happening.

Well, I have to get to work. See you.

First of all, Al Gore is a politician. Not a scientist.

“what is it that impresses you the most about those reports? in other words: how does that support your position?”
Well, for starters, the fact that it’s a STUDY, not just the opinion of one scientist.

So why do you believe it isn’t true? Because one scientist says it isn’t and your religious authorities support him instead of everybody else?

“what could motivate a pol to say such a thing?”

His motive is to save the world as we know it (which is threatened, as we know by: overwhelming scientific consensus, melting icecaps, polar bears getting close to extinction, overwhelming international consensus, increasing weather variablility, increasing hurricane activity, melting and melted glaciers, huge iceshelves in greenland falling into the ocean, the hottest years on record…)

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0…

And I live in Los Angeles, and there’s always fog on the beaches in summer now, starting 2-3 years ago, when there never was before. If somebody’s ruining my beaches, something needs to be done.

Consensus amoebus:

In 1988, the World Meteorological Assn. and the United Nations Environment Program joined forces to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. The panel has issued three assessments (1990, 1995, 2001), representing the combined expertise of 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, and a fourth report is due out shortly. Its conclusions — global warming is occurring, humans have a major role in it — have been ratified by scientists around the world in published scientific papers, in statements issued by professional scientific societies, and in reports of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society and many other national and royal academies of science worldwide.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0…

Amoebus, have you ever heard of the Kyoto Protocol? It has been signed by and ratified by 169 countries by now; basically every eligible country besides the U.S. (we were going to before Bush Jr. was elected) and Australia (Howard is, in the opinion of all Australians I’ve talked to, in Bush’s pocket).

In other words, there are TWO-COUNT-THEM-TWO countries in the world that refuse to regulate their emissions to protect the climate and environment in general, and that’s mostly because of people like you who have the vote in America.

How’s that for a consensus?

All five of the hottest years since modern record-keeping began in the 1890s occurred within the last decade, according to analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Actually, amoebus, that depends on what method you use to determine “big time polluter”. On a per capita basis, the United States is the world’s biggest polluter, biggest energy consumer, etc. Our standard of living (especially that of the extremely wealthy) is irresponsibly high, and it’s having negative consequences. It’s time for us to join reality and cut down on our excess.

And that one guy is not able to get these opinions published in any scientifically peer-reviewed journals

Some scientists thought that 1998 would be the hottest year ever due to El Nino. But 2006 was the hottest year on record, with 2005 being the second.

OK, if you want the sources:

my source for this is the BBC:
All five of the hottest years since modern record-keeping began in the 1890s occurred within the last decade, according to analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
http://www.thewe.cc/contents/more/arc…

My Source for this is the washington post:
Some scientists thought that 1998 would be the hottest year ever due to El Nino. But 2006 was the hottest year on record, with 2005 being the second.
“Climate Experts Worry as 2006 Is Hottest Year on Record in U.S.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/…

Then provide them!

Your own governement Amoebus. Read the second paragraph.

According to the government’s National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth — which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year’s Day — was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases, and there’s a broad scientific consensus that is producing climate change.”

Give us a link.

Oh, and the current trend is far beyond “natural cycles”. I’m looking up the source on that right now.

First, you misspelled the word “consensus”.

Second, you can’t just say “my scientist is right and the rest of them are wrong”. Tell us exactly what the flaws are in the consensus of the world’s scientific community regarding global warming. Give us links backing it up.

Oh, and the easiest way to find data on the scientific consensus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_w…

Click a few of those. Those are far from all of the groups that disagree with your professor. Just a VERY partial list.

What is it about “Oh, and here’s another” makes you think he is not calm?

No, I simply don’t see how we’re supposed to take you seriously if you can’t even express yourself in your own native language.

And no, that’s NOT a problem. You’re the one contesting the current scientific belief, the onus of proof falls on you.

Allright. Let’s chill out. I think he is convinced. This is how we all learn things. Let’s move on to how we mitigate this.

Here is my opinion from before:

Hydrogen is being hyped as a solution for the problem. It is not really what it is cracked up to be and is not panning out as advertised. To create hydrogen takes energy, and we still must figure-out where THAT energy comes from (gas, oil, nuclear, etc.). Once it has been created, it can be combined with oxygen to give back a little less than the energy that was needed to create it.

The real answer (which most paranoid people do not understand and hence do not want to accept) is nuclear energy. This highly regulated field is perfectly safe in America and creates NO greenhouse emissions. No one has ever died from nuclear energy here, and it has been providing 20% of our electricity for decades. We would rather DESTROY THE EARTH, than deal with the storage of a few tons of high-level waste, which would safely buy us about 300 years until fusion could become viable. What other American industry can say it has never killed anyone.

Wind, solar, hydro are nice and nifty, but they only can make a very small dent in the problem. We use truly massive amounts of energy.

Special crops may come on the scene - expecially with the bio-science boom that is happeneing. They would create fuel through photo-synthesis and clean the air, then their fuel gets burned in the car or whatever and pollutes at a level equal to the cleaning. But the viability remains to be seen.

Actually, I think he’s sticking to his guns that it’s impossible to prove that we’re causing problems.

That’s what he seems to be saying, anyway.

And by the way, amoebus, the main thing that Lindzen has been saying is that there IS a warming trend, and it IS caused by humans, but it isn’t long-term enough to supply reliable data.

And Al Gore, if you take the statement in context, was saying that “no one knows” exactly how quickly the sea is rising, not that “no one knows” if global warming is really happening.

In other words, you need to check your sources’ sources.

OMG. I cannot believe this.

2006 was the hottest year on record, 2005 was the second hottest…

Like I said before: overwhelming scientific consensus, melting icecaps, polar bears getting close to extinction, overwhelming international consensus, increasing weather variablility, increasing hurricane activity, melting and melted glaciers (which had been there 10,000 years, huge iceshelves in greenland falling into the ocean, the hottest years on record…

Dude this is getting ridiculous. This debate was over ten years ago.

The post is not about whether we have a problem, but how to mitigate it.

A quote from someone elsewhere on the Internet:
“There could be many things contributing to global warming. It could be us. It could be cows. This could all be a media hype. It could be the sun.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what’s causing global warming or if it exists. Could it possibly be that bad to lower our carbon footprint, lower emissions, etc.? It might not end up a cooler planet, but at least it’d be clean.” (punctuation and capitalization fixed by me)

Yes we do have data back 100 years. All six of the hottest years since modern record-keeping began in the 1890s occurred within the last decade, according to analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Washington Post.

Oops. my mistake.

OK, see you.

Amoebus, you have no right to comment on “heaviness” of what other people say.

“wouldn’t it be more responsible to present you with what the other scientists say? but i think to do that would be admitting that he is not the saint and savior he wants you to think he is. “

“there is no such evidence and no such agreement in the scientific community. so before they have us all so scared that we do whatever they want us to let’s look at what they aren’t telling us.”

Are those or are those not DIRECT QUOTES from things you said earlier in this discussion?

You are really amazing. You sift through the massive consensus of climatologist experts in the world to find a couple of people on the fringe, funded by Exxon Mobile, who never publish anything in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and are funded to write anything they can come up with that will confuse the issue.

In ten minutes, we barraged you with truly overwhelming evidence of both the problem and the scientific and international consensus. And two hours later you come back with Fred Singer’s Exxon-funded research.

Sorry, I really shouldn’t call that research.

We buried you in proof. What do you mean still no facts?

yep there is such a cycle. and also there is global warming caused by humans. the latter is much worse.

“just because something isn’t published in peer reviewed journals proves nothing.”

???????? r u serious.