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Global warming and climate change

Gayboy
Member
#1 · Posted: 15 Jun 2013 20:27
It's popular opinion that we are seeing the consequences of pollution in the form of climate change. I would like to point out that in the middle ages in Europe, it's been said that a long cooling period created harsh winters. Some call it a mini ice age. With that in mind, I would like to ask all of you what do you think with all the weather that is happening today if what we are experiencing is truly global warming or another cooling or warming trend?
Emdy
Member
#2 · Posted: 15 Jun 2013 21:03
I don't believe in global warming at all. I did as a kid, but when I was twelve I saw a photo in the newspaper of people wading through two-foot snow drifts with the caption "Signs of Global Warming." The winter before, everyone had been saying that the lack of snow was a sign of global warming. That was enough to change my mind.

Recently, an article appeared in Scientific American using a photograph of a palm tree dusted with snow as "evidence." That didn't help. And then there are the people who think that we single-handedly stopped the ice age, or that we're going to turn Earth into Venus, or that the world is hotter now than it has ever been (a long time ago, even the Arctic and Antarctic Circles were warm and swampy). There's one book that blames global warming for earthquakes.

Basically, global warming may or may not be real, but the global warming scientists are willing to accept almost anything as evidence, and there's so much nonsense and pseudo-science surrounding the issue I've stopped believing in it. If things really are getting warmer, it's just another warming trend.
Gayboy
Member
#3 · Posted: 16 Jun 2013 22:05
There are a lot of people who don't believe in global warming, although I must say the demonstration with the greenhouse does make a bit of an argument. It's also known that the poles (North and South) are shifting as well as the tech-tonic plates. We also know that the polar ice caps are receding and thus we are beginning to see rising sea levels. Some places will end up under water within the next 100 years if these trends continue.

Maybe a volcano will erupt and spew ash into the atmosphere managing a slight cooling? All the way up until the last weekend I stayed in Europe, which was the 7th - 9th, it was pretty cool which I was told was not normal in southern European climate.

I guess only time will tell, but one thing is certain. We will be seeing a lot more of catastrophic weather such as the tornadoes in the mid-west of the US. Let's hope if this really is just a trend that we will soon reach some kind of equilibrium.
GSC
Member
#4 · Posted: 13 Sep 2013 04:27
I read that global warming isn't going to happen. I read a whole scientific article on it.
Gayboy
Member
#5 · Posted: 8 Oct 2013 00:42
GSC
The article you read said it isn't going to happen? Well let's look at the world around us. We are seeing more frequent extreme weather than we have experienced according to records, and the polar ice caps are retreating at a much faster rate than anticipated. If it's not Global warming we are definitely experiencing some type of climate change which already on some low lying islands within the next 20 - 50 years will be under water. Sea level is rising.
GSC
Member
#6 · Posted: 8 Oct 2013 22:56
Gayboy:
The article you read said it isn't going to happen? Well let's look at the world around us.

But in some parts of the world, the climate changes are just the opposite. For example, I read that actually Europe will start to get colder and colder.
jock123
Moderator
#7 · Posted: 9 Oct 2013 08:35
GSC:
For example, I read that actually Europe will start to get colder and colder.

That's still climate change though, isn't it?
The "clever" thing is that the nay-sayers have gained a foot-hold by constantly talking about the changes as "warming", not just "climate change", which could be either hotter or colder - then point at places which are, as you say, colder, as if the temperature in the main population centres is the be-all and end-all of it all.
The science has always said that the warming being talked about is an increase in average global temperature, but the effects will be most noticeable in the desert regions (which are already very hot), and (possibly more importantly) in the seas.
Changes to the ice-caps and the sea-temperature have always pointed to regions such as northern Europe getting colder; the Gulf Stream (warm water from the tropics which is channeled through the Atlantic to round Britain and onward) is being diverted, for example, so Britain will get colder on average, because of prolonged winters. It doesn't mean it won't be warm or warmer in summer, but the average over the year will be colder.
Whether or not the main cause is man-made or not (and the fact that the grounding of all 'planes over America for even a few days was accompanied by a recordable difference to temperature, suggests that man-made emissions do have a measurable effect), I'm not sure why there should be an argument against decreasing activities which are possibly harmful - it's not like we can go somewhere else if we do get it wrong, is it, so why gamble?
I see it being like you bailing out your basement if it has flooded: you have a gallon bucket, and you are throwing water out.
I have a thimble, and am throwing water in.
Even if what I am doing has a negligible effect on what you are doing, as long as I am doing it, it is worse for you: it will prevent you getting your basement dry, and I will be wasting water (and the money it is costing me to buy it).
If I stop doing it, it will make a difference to you, your basement, and I won't have to pay for water to throw into your basement - everybody wins!
Gayboy
Member
#8 · Posted: 15 Oct 2013 21:23
I agree 100% with Jock.

That cyclone that hit India a few days ago is just another on-going example of climate change. We are seeing more and more extreme weather. At least on the Atlantic side we have been fortunate so far this year. I also believe that sea and land animal behavioral patterns are affected by the climate change.

The top 1% of the world population focus more on profits and less on how it's going to affect the environment such as oil companies, companies that overdevelop land, etc...
tuhatkauno
Member
#9 · Posted: 18 Oct 2013 17:58
The temperature of the oceans is a good indicator.
Gayboy
Member
#10 · Posted: 19 Nov 2013 04:22
tuhatkauno
Super Typhoon Haiyan.
I believe it is the strongest typhoon ever recorded.

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