Global warming is old news...

[Ironcat]

A Washington, D.C., resident recently came across a 1922 article that revealed early signs of climate change.

John Lockwood found a 1922 article in The Washington Post when he was conducting research at the Library of Congress. The article's headline read: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt," according to a report in the Washington Times.

The article reports "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

Click here to read the Washington Times story.

Lockwood said he's discovered other articles from the 1920s and 1930s on the same subject.

"I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all," Lockwood said.

[Crimson Sky]

I had Jello today.

[b4i7]

and i was sick :(

but that is kind of an interesting post ironcat

[Ironcat]

I think what he meant to say was...

"Who the hell cares?"

Which is exactly what I was trying to say sorta. My point being that everyone is worried about what we are currently doing to the environment and it's been happening since before any of our parents were even born.

[Quakken]

Although humans do impact the environment. You can't deny it.

And people who try to remain blissfully oblivious to the fact of global warming and such and such melting are just digging a bigger hole for future generations to deal with.


IMO, we need more nuclear power.

[BOOM! THREAD HIGHJACKED!]

[Stockholm1984]

In fact the planet has been warming up since the peak of the last ice age, its just in the last 200 so years that we've been sticking loads of crap into the air making the warming speed up at an alarming rate. We haven't caused the warming we're just accelerating it which is why it was noticed all those years ago.

Ooh, bit controversial for a first post...? ;) Nice to meet you guys! Lol!

[Omega]

There's a volcano in the pacific that puts out the same amount of pollution in one day as the US has in it's entire existance.

Humans aren't killing the planet, if anything is, the planet is "killing" itself.

I'll dig up the source once the person who I know has researched this (my stepdad) logs on to MSN (I don't live with him, divorced parents, yadda yadda)

[Quakken]

Volcano has more pollution than U.S.


I have to doubt that. Really, the united states burns millions of tons of fossil fuel daily (coal, gas, natural gas [not really "polluting", just CO2]) and that volcano would have to be putting out literally INSANE amounts of pollution daily.


I want sources, and not some right wing crackpot website either.

[Stockholm1984]

And for every 'natural' occurance of CO2 there's another process taking it out of the atmosphere like the oceans, trees and some chemical reactions. There isn't, however, a natural process purely designed to take out the CO2 we release. And don't forget the methane all of those cows we love to eat give out everyday too for that matter...

[XcOM]

thay say a third of the CO2 produced in the uk every year is from farm animals.

But this is going to turn out to be aother rant from both sides, both demanding evidence, both denying the others evidence.

throwing accuations both ways, my view, and i shell say no nore on this matter.

[Quakken]

But i actually believe the thing about the beef making gases. I wouldn't say CO2, but 10% of all methane is made by cows. Maybe CO2. But i'm not a cowologist.

The fact is that neither side can come up with any definitive evidence. "the earth is getting hotter". Prove it. "We are killing the earth". Prove it. Whatever. Think what you want i suppose.

[calumc]

the thing with all that stuff with cows, etc. is that our planet has evolved to be able to cope with those gases in one way or another but what it cant cope with is what we are doing: creating more gases by destroying the things that can neutralise them eg trees

[Quakken]

And taking stuff that the earth usually wouldn't burn (fossil fuels) and throwing the extra CO2 in the atmosphere, which the earth's natural such and such can't cope with either.

[Stockholm1984]

I see this went on a little longer after I went to bed. Lol! :) Regarding the farm animal side of it, the main problem warming-wise is the methane released as it is a far more potent insulator than CO2. And in a serious question, have any of you guys ever seen the graph plotting CO2 levels vs global average temperature over the last 200yrs or so? Was pretty conclusive evidence for me.

[.jrauck]

I do believe the earth is killing itself but also we are also helping it. Not to mention over crowding with trash and people.

Why not try to prevent something from happening if it doesn't cost much more and if we have the technolodgy.

[DaveW]

Don't be stupid, the earth is not killing itself. If anything, it's trying to regain balance by wiping US out.

I've handed out a few +Reps already for points and counter points, more to come if this is kept civilized!

-Dave

[progbuddy]

I had Jello today.

Lucky you. I had pop-tarts.

[Stockholm1984]

Why not try to prevent something from happening if it doesn't cost much more and if we have the technolodgy.

We do have the technology we're just too tight to use it (directed at both US and UK governments). For example, on the south coast of the UK a few miles west of Brighton there was an old, disused power station that they wanted to re-instate into the national grid. Now this building was right on the coast and would have been the obvious location for a new wave power plant which would release practically zero CO2. Unfortunately this idea was deemed too expensive so they built a gas fired power station instead. I realise this is much preferable to a coal or oil fired but talk about a wasted opportunity!!

I have to be honest though and say that, for the short term until we have improved the efficiency of options such as wind, solar and wave power I think the only option we have is nuclear if we really are going to stop a climatic disaster. After studying both the benefits and the cons (ie. incidents such as Chernobyl and realising how much was down to stupidity) I feel that it is a much more viable option than I used to. I've stood on top of all of the reactor waste produced in the UK since the start of the nuclear program in the 50s on a visit to Sellafield and it was tiny! It's worth a thought anyway...

[XcOM]

i second that, nuke is the way to go, i think this is the only option we have, we ask for wind farms, they getr denyed, the damage the view, river/tubines no - damage the river life.

Wave machiens - no to expencive,

but when we go to the moon in 2017, we may have a power source that will produce next to no emmisions, we just need to get it back here, called H3.

[XcOM]

H3?? The mini-hummer???

GUAT IS THIS H3 YOU SPEK OOF. :?

enough of the madness, i know your name dipices and requests this of you, but :
Linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3)

[public_eyesore]

did not read much of the third page, but I do not believe in Global Warming.

The earth's atmosphere consists of 78% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, about 1% water vapor and 0.04% carbon dioxide(man made co2 is much smaller than this). I kinda find it hard to believe that .04 percent of the atmosphere can affect significant global temperature changes, if any at all. In fact there have not been any global climate changes in rising temperature at all, only local change. Also temperature has risen most in large cities and actually decreased in smaller cities. I blame this on the "Urban Heat Island Effect". The idea is simple. Large cities with tons of concrete absorb heat during the day and since concrete is exothermic and absorbs heat and holds it for a decent amount of time releasing the heat during the night raising night time temperatures.

Take two cities for example:
Albany, New York (small city) - decreased in temperatures in the last 150 years by 2 degrees.
New York, New York(big city[more concrete])- increased temperature by 4.5 degrees

Both above mentioned cities have the same atmospheric co2 levels so they both should have risen in temperature by the same degrees, since it is a "GLOBAL phenominon"(that means it is happening everywhere), but this has not happened and in fact one has dropped in temperature. Taking all global temperature rises and decreases the temperature basically averages out to nearly zero degree change on a GLOBAL level.

Also this global warming threat has spurred thousands to buy hybrid vehicles to save the environment, but these hybrids actually consume more energy to make and use than a Hummer. Yes, Hummers consume less energy than hybrid cars.
source: http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20060719.shtml

I don't feel like writing a conclusion, but please excuse any spelling mistakes.