My hot tub is getting warmer

[Bonibelle]

I wasn't going to comment here but there are no good snacks to eat in my refrigerator so here goes.

On the Imus situation: I think that as a country, we should feel accomplished. The two biggest civil rights icons have no more important issues to deal with than a stupid comment made by a crude talk show radio host. Who really cares and wouldn't it have been so much kinder to the basketball players to just blow it all off as a "consider the source" kind of thing?  How much does it really mean when you look at the source? Sorry, but this whole thing was so very over blown!

Global warming? to deny that humans have contributed to  changes on the earth and to the climate would be irresponsible. I can just look in my back yard for my evidence. I live in an area mostly comprised of farms...Until recently when Toll Brothers builders started taking a toll on all of us. They have just built a huge development covering much of the ground with concrete, roads and driveways. The result? Less land (surface area)to absorb and divert rain water to underground streams...We are already at flood stage in a local stream..for the amount of rain that we just got overnight as a result of this Nor'Easter, we should not yet be at flood stage..Am I saying this one developement did that? Of course not, but this is one of TOO MANY developments..that have changed the natural process of things. Does anyone know anything about displacement?  Like when you remove something and use it to create something else?  I am talking about removing badzillions of gallons of oil from the inside of the earth and burning it generating toxic gasses and heat. I wonder if it is too far fetched to imagine that pulling all that oil out of the ground could contribute to earth quakes ..Somebody tell me that is nuts, I want to know the answer to this.  
Humans have been responsible for the extinction of animals, and major changes to the face of the earth, we build canals, cause errosion that pollutes and fills waterways blast through mountains, to name just a few things ..,..these are facts. We are awesome creatures that have found a way to do almost anything we can think of, with little regard to the long term consequences. We have filled the earth with trash that will never degrade.. We have polluted the oceans and our own drinking water with man made chemicals.  So global warming may be the kindest thing that we have done so far!  
NO, I didn't see the movie, and I probably won't see it..I don't need to, I just need to stay in tune with what is happening around us on a daily basis. Is it possible that we will feel the effect of this and that it won't just be something for future generations (whatever their life spans) to deal with? I think we are realizing that now.  Yes the climate follows cycles, but isn't possible the actions of man have manipulated these cycles?..OH I don't want to forget our nuclear capabilities!  We have the ability to cause a  global warming of such magnitude that we won't have to worry about any of this and there will be anyone left to say "I told you so!!!!" :-/

To prevent further opions like this please send snacks to......:

[In Canada eh]

To prevent further opions like this please send snacks to......:

Boni,

     I just mailed a couple of twinkies your way



I think that my opinion of global warming is probably the same as the silent majority.  

Do I believe that as humans we have affected the environment?

With out a doubt I do

Is climate change cyclical?

Yes, I believe it is

Have we affected the environment as drastically as some feel we have?

No, I don't believe we have

Should we continue to search out more environmentally friendly ways to help
ensure the future of the planet ?

Without a doubt we should it is our responsibility too

Should we search out alternative fuels to ease our dependency on fossil fuels

 Yes

Am I about to join Greenpeace and scale the sides of buildings or drive a zodiac into the way of a whaling ship?

No I probably won't

Will I continue to recycle plastics, glass, paper and other products and try not to leave a footprint while in the woods?

Yes


There are two very vocal opposing views on global warming but I think the majority of the population thinks about the same as I do

[Bonibelle]

Your wise words and your twinkies would have prevented me from even commenting   ..Thanks

[tommy tunes]

So I guess I and few others here are heretics as well.  Just remember we "Heretics" are not disputing that we are ina warming cycle, just the fact that it is "NOT" caused by mankind.  

HEY! I used to be a "Heretic"....until our guild by that name disbanded some months ago.  We even had some stuff on googlevideo.

"I live in an area mostly comprised of farms...Until recently when Toll Brothers builders started taking a toll on all of us. They have just build a huge development covering much of the ground with concrete, roads and driveways."

I hear that. My town is an older country town with a lot of farm's  This past week I saw one of them being subdivided out with "lot for sale" signs all over it. Definatly a sad state of affairs.  How anyone could live in a "cookie cutter" development with no trees is beyond me.

"Lastly,at what stage are we at,as far as the poles reversing?"

Seriously, possibly in 2012. Astronomers have already predicted a major alignment of the sun and planets with the center of our galaxy. What effect this will have on our planet is due to the gravitational forces is unknown. How something can be not aligned with what it is spinning around as a central point and then be aligned with it is beyond me.

Ya, i'm weird!

/sends Bonibelle a bowl of "Ho-Ho Chowder"  

[Bonibelle]

If I had my "Powers of Deletion", Tommy, I would be obligated to delete your reference to "ho s". .and you said it 2X! No matter that those hos existed long before Imus's hos!   Maybe they will be renamed Hahas

[Campsalot]

OK, us hot tubbers are a weird bunch aren't we?
Bonnibelle, your response was so very elegant!   Yes, I send you ton's of Fleischkukle!  (It's a ethnic German treat of fried bread stuffed with spiced meat)  Good stuff and you will find a lot of here in good old North Dakota.
That being said, I do wish you watch the video.  Should you watch it you will see that the earth is simply passing through another period as it has done in it's past of heating.
Yes, mankind has effected planet Earth!  No, Global Warming is not one of those effects.  Yes, we can alter things like the normal drainage of river basins etc however, we cannot alter a climate.  My point in posting this was to have everyone look at this for what it is a; "we need money to fund this continued scare tactic on the human race" industry.  Again, please watch the video!

[tommy tunes]

If I had my "Powers of Deletion", Tommy, I would be obligated to delete your reference to "ho s". .and you said it 2X! No matter that those hos existed long before Imus's hos!   Maybe they will be renamed Hahas

I'm laughing very hard ATM! "Ho-Ho Chowder" is a joke from our old apartment my friend and I had.  His girlfriend (now his wife) was a lover of Hostess and Drakes products.  Ho-Ho's are a snack cake thing made by one of them.  One Sunday afternoon we're all sitting around, she makes the "I'm hungry" statement.  He says we have plenty of food, go make something.  She says she does not want anything we have on hand.  He comes back with "Sorry dear, but we're all out of Ho-Ho Chowder at the moment."  

[Bonibelle]

I knew what you were talking about, Tommy, Drakes makes Ho hos and guess what?
They are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year...shhhh don't tell Al Sharpton!!. :-?

[D.P. Roberts]

With all due respect to Tman and DP Roberts, I think a generation is usually considered to be 15-40 years -- matching the human reproductive span.  I saw something once that defined an average generation as 22 years.  Tman, think of a single family with a 80 year old grandmother.  If every one has kids by the age of 20, there could be 5 generations alive at once.   DP, I'm wondering if your 10 year number comes from the groups demographers identify as having common experiences (Baby Boom, Gen X, etc).  While called "generations", they may be a subpart of a whole.

Regardless of your definition of generation, the current focus of global warming discussion is whether changes that are currently observed may have great impact before the end of this century -- not 10-15 generations.

Yeah, either way we're talking about semantics here. I can see the 20 year idea, and that's traditionally the case. A lot of sociologists use shorter lengths of time when a "generation" is linked to an event that precipitates it. For example, the "Baby Boomers" were born shortly after WWII, but it would be hard to call people born in 1965 "Baby Boomers." So, that generation is only 10 years long, or less. Anyway, at longest it's one "human reproductive span" or less, not a human life span.

But I digress. Speaking of digressions, I think the whole "Global Warming" debate is a digression in itself. The debate seems to center on whether humans are causing Global Warming, not whether it's actually happening. Let's just concede, temporarily, that it's all a natural phenomenon, and that eventually the earth will somehow return to what it was a hundred years ago.

I the meantime, lots of really horrible things will happen. For example, the entire subcontinet of India and a large chunk of Southeast Asia depend on runoff from the glaciers in the Himalayas for water. What happens when those glaciers finally disappear? At their current rate, those glaciers will be gone in less than 50 years or so. That means that BILLIONS of people will suddenly run out of water. Are these billions of people going to die of thirst? What are we going to DO about it?
 
Another example would be the coral reefs. Although they may look pristine, they're dying. Those that aren't dying due to the temperature changes are dying from pollution. For example, only 10% of the reefs in some Southeast Asian countries are still in "pristine" condition. That's bad. Even ignoring the huge loss of animal life, reefs protect coastlines all over the world. Hurricanes (as well as "normal" storms) will cause much more damage once these reefs are gone. What then? What happens when harbors are suddenly no place for a boat? What about fishing? What about shipping?

These are just a few of the environmental problems that "global warming" is causing RIGHT NOW. When all of them are added up - especially if these trends get worse, as predicted - we may be in real trouble.

[D.P. Roberts]

And, by the way: linky no worky. I keep getting a Google video error: "this video may not be available."

It looks like Google deleted it, as it was posted there illegally. However, if you want to view it anyway, just do a search for "The Great Global Warming Swindle." If you do that search, you'll also find out that many critics have already pointed out numerous flaws in the BBC documentary - including one the scientists they misquoted in the movie.

[anne]

That being said, I do wish you watch the video.  Should you watch it you will see that the earth is simply passing through another period as it has done in it's past of heating.
Yes, mankind has effected planet Earth!  No, Global Warming is not one of those effects.  

I think that it is foolish to say that anyone KNOWS with any certainty what the cause is. There are going to be people with "proof" on each side of the argument. I'm not going to watch one video, and accept it for fact. I'm also not going to watch Gore's movie and accept it for fact. I question anyone who clings too vehemently to either side of the argument for their motivation.

It is much safer to assume that human pollution and activity *could* contribute to global warming than to assume that it does not. That is not to say that using scare tactics and paranoia to make people change is appropriate. As Boni put so elequently, and as I stated so gruffly, global warming is just one (possible) aspect of mankind's damage to the earth, and there are plenty of other ways that we have forever changed this planet. If concern over global warming wakes people up and we lighten our heavy tread over nature because of it, all the better.

[Campsalot]

Here is a corrected and/or new link to the video!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4499562022478442170&q=The+Great+Globa+Warming+Swindle

Also I want to clarify!  I have seen Al Gores documentary. I have obviously seen the video I posted.  I also am a very big believer in "common sense", something I think is severely lacking throughout our country today.  Common sense says that the Earth  is 4.5 billion years old.  Thats 4,500,000,000 years or look at it this way 4.5 X 109 yrs or (on a calculator) 4.5E9 yrs (1 billion in scientific notation means 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10!)  This is a HUGE number!

Man has been present on this earth for only 6 million years! (A very smal number compared to the age of the earth)  Truly we have been only in a huge industrial mode(read killing the earth with nasty by-products) for the last 200 years. Do you really think, keeping in mind all of the huge monstrous natural disasters that have occurred in our planets 4.5 billion year history that mankind's paltry 200 year history of pollution actually is changing our climate?

[Bonibelle]

Key words: Natural disasters and  Man made disasters (ongoing)
 As far as you know were there any "natural disasters" that occurred as the result of nuclear fission in the last 1.5 billion years??  

[Reese]

Do you really think, keeping in mind all of the huge monstrous natural disasters that have occurred in our planets 4.5 billion year history that mankind's paltry 200 year history of pollution actually is changing our climate?

A quick search indicates that a strong majority of the scientists that do study climate have concerns, and feel that potential remedies need to be evaluated.  It also appears that a similar percentage of other scientists that have looked at the information feel the same way.  Other than the swindle movie (which took some if the interviews out of context, and edited to support thier conclusion), one professor at MIT, and an oil industry trade group (I wonder why they dispute the need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels ), there is very little to support your position -- as opposed to several credible studies that support the concerns about global warming.  It appears that over 80% of the American public also has concerns, which may explain why even conservative politicians are proposing environmental initiatives.  Evidently you, Terminator, Thearm, and the others that were quick to jump on the "hoax" bandwagon are smarter/better informed than the vast majority, including most of the people who study climate. :-/   I suspect this has more to do with politics than science.

Regardless of your take on global warming, do you think that a renewed focus on energy conservation, increased use of renewable fuels and developing alternative energy sources to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, and trying to limit the amount of pollutants put into the atmosphere are bad things? :-?

[anne]

Man has been present on this earth for only 6 million years! (A very smal number compared to the age of the earth)  Truly we have been only in a huge industrial mode(read killing the earth with nasty by-products) for the last 200 years. Do you really think, keeping in mind all of the huge monstrous natural disasters that have occurred in our planets 4.5 billion year history that mankind's paltry 200 year history of pollution actually is changing our climate?

I look at that VERY differently. It scares the hell out of me to look at the amount of change (species extinction, pollution and destruction, altering of lakes/rivers, waste) that we have caused in ONLY 200 years.  Look, I was a ecology/biology major: this was the sort of thing I could have spouted on with a lot more accuracy 10 years ago. I still say it is foolish to refute the idea that we COULD be responsible for global warming. Climate changes should NOT necessarily be measurable over human generations, but rather over thousands of years. I'll quote Edward O Wilson as a better source of information than myself:

In regards to the theories of global warming and debate:

"First rule of the history of science: when a big, new, persuasive idea is proposed, and army of critics soon gathers and tries to tear it down. Such a reaction is unavoidable because, aggressive yet abiding by the rules of civil discourse, that is simply how scientists work. It is further true that, faced with adversity, proponents will harden their resolve and struggle to make the case more convincing. Being human, most scientists conform to the psychological Principle of Certainty, which says that when there is evidence both for and against a belief, the result is not a lessening, but a heightening of conviction on both sides."

Seems like we're just in the middle of the scuffle.

In regards to mankind's effect on the world's species in such a short time:

"...The Cretaceous extinction was only one of five such catastrophes that occurred  over the last half-billion years.......the five mass extinctions occurred in this order, according to geological period and time before the present:  Ordovician, 440 million years; Devonian, 365 million years; Permian, 245 million years; Triassic, 210 million years, and Cretaceous, 66 million years. ....

...To summarize, life was impoverished in five major events, and to a lesser degree here and there around the world in countless other episodes. After each down turn it recovered to at least the original level of diversity. How long did it take for evolution to restore the losses? ......In general, five million years was enough only for a strong start. A complete recovery from each of the major extinctions required tens of millions of years. ...These figures should give pause to anyone who believes that what Homo sapiens destroys, Nature will redeem. Maybe so, but not within an length of time that has meaning for contemporary humanity."