Global Warming? (in Debates)

Thought I would stir things up: PG-13 Rating so go at your own risk for all those under 13, or whose parents won't let you watch a pg-13 movie when you are 12...wait why do you have free reign over the internet that doesnt make sense....hold on now.....

Couldn't really describe my stance any better than that.

"Based on the latest data from the Dopplest 9000 radar, Stephen can only assume that the sun has been destroyed. " http://www.colbertnation.com/home?xrs=SI_67365369_4337062870_1

The cavemen were the first ones to start buring plastic and destroying the ozone which is why the ice age ended and global warming started.

Dang cavemen.

LOL!

Oh if you wanted an actual debate instead of just making fun of the global warming nuts:

A greenhouse is an invention that raises the temperature inside from the outside world by having a building of glass. This allows light and heat to enter during the day, but the glass will trap the heat inside and keep the temperature higher.

The world is a natural greenhouse, the glass is called the ozone layer, it allows the warmth of the sun to enter into the earth's atmosphere and retains alot of it so that our planet stays warm. If polution is reducing the ozone layer, then it would logically not be increasing the temperature on the earth, it would be decreasing it, as more and more heat would be released from the atmoshphere instead of being retained.

Look at the temperature on the Moon, it is roughly the same distance from the sun as we are, and it is unihabitably cold there because it has 0 ozone/atmosphere but it is still getting the same, well techinically a bit more heat that the earth is because of this lack of ozone. But since it has no way to keep the heat, the Moon just releases all the heat that gets to it back into space.

Since the earth first was formed the average temperatures have been rising and falling in a sinusoidal (totaly butchered that spelling) pattern, we are just on an upwards part of the curve and eventually it will turn and go back down again.

Stop being global warming nuts.

Wraithlin: You know that ozone has nothing to do with the "green house" effect? Ozone stops high energy UV radiation from reaching earth, which is good.

For me, global warming may or may not be occurring.

However the process by which the "science" of global warming has been "proven" has been fraught with bad science, politicalization, and dowrright lying.

Before we spend trillions of dollars to prevent something which may or may not be occurring, we need to have real science with adequate peer reviewed research.

And if Global warming is occurring, it may not be as fast as the "hockey stick" graph suggests but may be quite slow. And not as imminently catastrophic that we spend trillions of dollars when we are globally in a recession.

I'm not sure you could be more incorrect, Wraith.

The ozone layer doesn't hold stuff in much at all (it actually reflects, mainly) -- other gases, such as CO2 do that (ozone is not CO2, it is O3):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer

And while ozone _is_ a greenhouse gas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

...it generally reflects the higher-end portions of sunlight BEFORE it reaches the surface (it isn't one-way in that regard). From that article, the order of greenhouse gases goes:

* water vapor
* carbon dioxide
* methane
* nitrous oxide
* ozone
* chlorofluorocarbons

Notice how far down the list ozone is...only 0.00006 percent of the atmosphere. It is also higher in the atmosphere (also helping with its reflectivity and reducing its "hold-in" qualities), up to 50 km above, while layers like water vapor are much closer (clouds, humidity, rain, etc.).

That is why the moon doesn't store heat around it's surface. It has no atmosphere. If you put a black rock in the sun, it will get very hot very quickly, all via the suns radiative heat. As soon as the rock goes out of the sunlight, it will cool as fast as the heat can conduct or radiate away (radiation and conduction only, convection doesn't work with no fluid (air)).

If the moon had a layer of water vapor and CO2 around it, heat would be buffered in the same way it is here, in and out.

As a further example, consider Venus -- huge amounts of CO2 in the atmo, and a surface temperature of 461 degrees Celsius (hot enough to melt tin and lead immediately). That is a very large temperature because Venus is closer to the sun and the heat can't get out due to the CO2 layer acting as the greenhouse "glass" you mention. And thought Mercury is actually closer to the sun, its estimated maximum surface temperature is actually LESS than Venus' mean. That's the greenhouse effect at work. As Wikipedia puts it when talking about the atmosphere around Venus:

"This makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's which has a minimum surface temperature of −220 ﾰC and maximum surface temperature of 420 ﾰC, even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance."

In summary, ozone has little or nothing to do with the greenhouse effect, unless it were around in huge quantities, like water vapor and CO2. Loss of ozone in our atmosphere just lets more harmful radiation in, because O3 reflects the high-energy spectrum stuff the sun throws at us.

Wraithlin,

There are definitely plenty of arguments on both sides of this particular debate. Yours, however, is definitely not one of them. You really should learn a thing or two about atmospheric formations.

Read this page and search for "ozone":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

Maybe you'll see how unrelated the two topics are.


For the audience, our atmosphere locks in a portion of heat from the sun and lets the rest escape. By changing the makeup of the atmosphere, we can change how the balance rests. The main "Global Warming" arguments stem from how much we can realistically change that balance.

The ozone layer depletion is a different beast that is not due to pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, but instead CFCs. You can read this for a good grounding in understand that particular topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion

Now back to your regularly scheduled debate based on factual references......

Sorry, took me so long to find all the research that sebi beat me to it! *smile*

Jeez... majorly ninja'd by Sut....

Ninja, perhaps, but not "kung fu" as much as "Man, I'm learning a lot in researching this, so might as well expound upon it!" *smile*

It reminded me of a substitute teacher I had in eighth grade who told us the sky was blue because of reflecting off the ocean. Unlike fourth grade (where Sister Mary Ann told us Antartica was a vast, _hot_ desert and I didn't have the cajones to say anything), I piped up and told the teacher she was incorrect (though I had a hard time articulating what exactly DID make it blue, just knew it had to do with water vapor, wavelength, etc.)

Ah, school days.

At least sister mary ann didnt say because god made it that way.........

I really appreciate NS and sut coming in here to educate us, that always makes me happy. I would also like to point something out to those of you who are confused about a lot of this scientific stuff:

From Wikipedia: "According to the results of a one-time questionnaire-based statistical survey published by the University of Illinois, with 3146 individuals completing the survey, 97% of the actively publishing climate scientists (as opposed to the scientists who are not publishing actively) agree that human activity, such as flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, is a significant contributing factor to global climate change." Source Cited

What that means is that regardless of what anyone actually says about what they know (or think they know), regardless of what people on TV shooting-from-the-hip say, the actual scientists who are paid to research this topic in great detail, find that there is strong evidence of human-created climate change.

Another interesting point in the Source Cited above is that the General Public (that seems to include the likes of many Fox News personalities) is much less informed about what the actual climatologists actually agree on. Yes, you heard me right, I'm talking about the numbers from a poll are not known to the public, we can't agree that numbers on a poll are numbers on a poll. That is indeed sad.

ScY, the Good Lord's hand in things was intrinsically understood, and one NEVER questioned that. *smile*

I guess He even created Sister Mary Ann's ignorance!

Back on track:

Here is a good article about global warming. Not GW in itself, but the flawed scientific approach that was used:

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-climategate-shocker-even-cru.html

I have little doubt there is some man made climate change. But would like to see proof of how devastating it is before we spend all this money to "green" us up.

So because two scientists disagree on the exact temperatures from 1000 years ago there is absolutely no global warming? That was the message that I got from reading that blog at least.

I spent a good while trying to find some real scientific data arguing against global warming and the only thing I really found was saying that while yes there is global warming, and we are the ones mainly causing it, it won't be near as bad as its made out to be and it will be cheaper for us to just ride out the consequences rather than change everything to green tech.

as i have said before, the whole global warming debate is a red herring. the fossil fuel supply is finite. we need alternate energy. there are clean alternatives.

if we wait until fossil fuels are more expensive than the alternatives to start researching and tweaking the processes of obtaining that energy, it will be quite a while before we can use the alternatives. mass chaos will likely ensue with much hair-pulling and lamentation about why we didn't do something sooner!

Agreed dudemus, I find the fossil fuel consumption issue to be far more problematic than the possibility that the amount of climate change humanity causes may or may not cause a problem for us in the future.

Neme: I'm not sure if you're heavily trying to simplify the article? but you seem to have missed the point, which was an accusatory tone towards scientists who are using data that the author claims is faulty. Whether or not the data is faulty is not where the article is problematic; it's the accusation that these scientists were intentionally attempting to skew the data toward their own ends based on poorly interpreted statements.

It does, however, make a very strong point for the case that the groundwork upon which the (as the author puts it) "hockey stick" theory is founded is worthless. Additionally, with the earth's lifespan of millions of years, pulling a sample as small as what is used by the Global Warming theory would be inconclusive at best anyway (imo.)

So I actually read all of the links you all posted:

Since I assume you all haven't I'll post what I learned.

1) It is the earth's gravity that keeps the atmosphere here, I didn't know that was the main thing, good learning experience.

2) The temperature of the earth has gone up and down over the last 10,000 years just as I said before.

3) The temperature today is only a degree or two above where it was before the last ice age and that is easily explained by the polution/effects of mankind on the environment.

4) The huge upwards swing at the end of that temperature chart is only based on the fact that we are currently already in a rise, and when you combine two rising curves (the natural rise we are in/ rise from polution) you get a larger spike.

5) The models for greenhouse gases all say that within 100 years the current state of heavy increase will level off and go back down. In 500 years or less the temperature will actually be less than it is now.

6) Greenhouse gases balance themselves off with water vapor and the actual "theories" that some have of this huge spike are actually impossible.

7) All of you that posted all these fine links should actually read them in depth like I did today and alot of the sub links inside of them. There are some interesting topics.

Oh and btw, it's obvious that the temperature on the planet is currently rising, taking a survey about it with 3000 scientists is a waste of time, that's not the debate on hand. The temperature rises and falls, the debate is whether or not it will get out of hand, and when it will come back down again. Based on the information from the links you all provided, it looks like a problem that will be fixed in about 100 years from now, or at least at the 100 year point we'll be on the backside of the curve and dropping.

Global warming may or may not be happening.
MAN-CAUSED global warming may or may not be a noticeable portion of the global warming.

What I don't get however, is why people thing global warming is a BAD thing ? If anything, we should rejoice at the prospect of global warming.
Yeah, sure, a *few* species might find their habitat destroyed, but then again, SO WHAT ? There's plenty other species, and it's not like the planet never had a majority of life wiped out, and yay, life still thrives. In fact, live thrives best when the climate is warmer, not when it's colder.
Again, yeah, sure, people in some areas that now have some problems will have even more problems, but then again, SO WHAT ? It's not like they should have been there in the first place or that they're essential to humankind's survival, there were 2 billion people at the start of the last century, there will be almost 7 billion people soon, so even if 1 billion people die due to climate change, WHO CARES ? It's not like they'll be from Europe or the USA, those worst affected will be those in poorer, densely populated areas, where there's far too many people already.
It may sound heartless, but then again, so what ? It's not like we can sustain human population growth long-term. So it's either some people die now, or many more of those people's children or grandchildren die later. It's more "humane" to have fewer people die now than a lot more later.

So bottom line, even if man is causing global warming, there's no reason to stop, quite the opposite.

I would like to see the logic behind 1 billion people dying due to 3 degrees warmer temperatures on average. Post some of those links please.

I'm not sure if Sickone is serious. He's like reading a book in another language.

His entire post was sarcastic, that's easily understood. But he says it in a way to be a global warming nut, so I'm hoping he has some links for me to read, instead of just making stuff up.

I was merely going on a "worst case scenario", guesstimating possible death rates in case of catastrophic collapse of any semblance of economy or agriculture in problem areas (Latin America, Africa, India, most of Oceania, South and East China, include Japan too just because of proximity to water and population density, etc).
I could have just as well said "hundreds of millions" or "3 billion", it was just a large enough arbitrary number, pulled out of thin air to make a point.

P.S. To clarify : although it reads as entirely sarcastic, the post you are referring to was actually quite serious. Even in the worst possible scenario imaginable, man-caused global warming would not be a big enough deal to really care, humanity as a whole would not just survive, but eventually thrive, precisely because of the warmer climate. It just won't be in exactly the same place on the planet.

It's okay, I read all those links and while I came to a much different conclusion then Wraithlin did, I don't think it matters. We won't live long enough to see the really terrible consequences of our actions anyways, so why bother worrying about it?

I mean really, as long as there are enough scientists out there who can do studies that come to different conclusions looking at the same data, we aren't going to be really putting any significant resources behind trying to reverse our environmental impact. I think we would probably need some really catastrophic event to happen before some people would change their minds about these issues.

I'm pretty sure we will get some crazy catastrophic event eventually, but until then I suggest we all just sit back and rest on our laurels. Remember that something is not true until "all" evidence points to it being true, not just a preponderance of evidence.

I figure if in the next century we as a human race don't become advanced enough to survive global warming, we don't deserve to live. Call me a cynic.

I think we should focus more on trying to get off of this rock and colonize other planets. We should really be focused on doing this much more so then we have been. I mean.. honestly that is where the real excitement is.

First we need to defeat aging then we need to spread to all the planets.

let us differ to Agent Smith on this one:
Agent Smith:
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague...

Titan, isn't foreseeing what bad things could happen and then working so that said bad things are mitigated "advanced"?

I agree, we need to be smart (and some of these things may not even be issues), but to say the we have to take on the problem and survive isn't always the most "advanced enough" route to go.

So, can you be more specific on what you would consider "advanced enough"? to overcome energy issues, including preserving the habitability of the planet?

At some point, "advanced enough" is going to have to mean a mroe advanced energy source (i.e. more than what the sun has and can shower on us). All energy comes from three main sources (that we know of)

-- The Sun
-- Nuclear (fission and fusion, if we get there)
-- Gravity (I am covering tidal forces and geothermal sources with this)

The Sun is entirely finite. We only get the light we get, unless someone can come up with a viable "solar sail" concept. The Sun made all the fossil fuels, and continues to give us that tiny fraction of light as time goes on.

We can make fission work, as soon as people become "advanced enough" to accept it as a viable source. Then we have quite a bit of fissionable material we can burn through.

Fusion is considered to be pretty much infinite. Heck, it's the alchemy of energy, so to speak. But we aren't there yet.

I'm not sure about gravitational/inertial forms of energy, neither in what the ramifications of using them are nor how long they would last.

In ANY scenario, efficiency is key to stretching out the time energy can last. So, understanding and preserving energy is always a good idea.

Oh I'm all about new energy types. But, my reason isn't b/c of some theory that 90% of America can't understand. Energy independence is where it's at.

WTB Dyson Sphere.

I think most people, writers etc have all seen this coming for a very long time, I agree with many, everything will probably collapse, it's what we do after the collapse that will shape our future.

'Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, it's essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all' - Isaac Asimov

Global warming, peak oil unstable global economies and about a thousand other possibilities (2012?!) are all real and imminent dangers, I think more who acknowledge and understand the coming problems should go a step further and start thinking about what comes next.

If you lived in a village that was built in the shadow of a dam, sure you would try your hardest to reinforce the dam, sometimes though the dam breaks and no matter how much talk it not stop your village from getting washed away. Surely it is better to plan for the dam to break , and live peacefully in the village for the meantime rather than shouting at the water to stop eroding the dam?

Wraithlin, I'm not going to bother with links here. Will be a death toll chart later I'm sure.
Just take in a bigger picture that a warmer planet will seasonally mean more heat strokes, forest fires, dry lake beds, ruined crops/farms, higher gas prices, warmer seas, and general annoyance. Warmer seas don't just make for stronger storms, but can kill coral and more. For those that think lake lose won't be a problem in the west. The Sultan Sea in the US will be gone within a century. Which will become someone else's problem. Not a global issue, but felt a sea should be pointed out for added perspective.

Cause and effect of constant summer conditions could possibly add up to 1 billion deaths from a number of different sources within the decade and you wouldn't know.

Global Warming causes hypercanes!

Hypercanes on da loooose

If you don't want to get killed by a hypercane, drive a bike and not a car!

Do it nowwww

This sheds some new light on the subject:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1250813/MAIL-ON-SUNDAY-COMMENT-The-professors-amazing-climate-change-retreat.html

And this one also:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html

Those of you not from the UK should be aware the Daily Mail is generally regarded as the worst newspaper in Britain and it's readers hate anyone who is not from this country, read it at your peril!

Ive not read more than one line in those articles Ranger nor will I, quoting the daily mail is like reffering to Mein Kampf (sp?) as a good reference for data about social issues and change.

The Daily Mail makes Ranger look like a communist.

http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/

dunno about the climate change article, but yea the mail is mostly trash.

Ok,

Here is another article from another source:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-234092--.html

But the substance of the articles I quoted earlier today is not in doubt.

I'm curious how many planets they had to devour to actually build the Dyson Sphere... after all, the surface area of sphere equal in size to the diameter of a planet's orbit, plus the thickness of such a beast, would surely require more pure mass than the mimicked planet itself.

You'd expect to cannibalize the entire mass available in and near the solar system, including the Oort cloud, just to have a chance to build a partial Dyson sphere (a much more likely scenario would be a "ring" instead).

The good news is that a ring at 1 AU from the Sun would have a total length of roughly 0.93 billion km, so in order to have the same total surface area of Earth (0.51 billion square km) you'd only need a thin band barely half a kilometer wide.
A full Dyson sphere of 1 AU radius would have a surface area of 2.8* 10^17 square km, or a bit over 550 MILLION times the surface area of Earth.

We shall simply convert the energy of the sun into mass. Anyone have a matter converter handy?

The energy of the Sun is mainly stored in its mass, currently :)
Only a tiny, almost infinitesimal percentage of its (largely Hydrogen) mass in constantly being converted into energy at any given time through atomic fusion (mostly into Helium).

http://science.howstuffworks.com/sun2.htm
Far more detailed explanation there.

The alternative would be to mine the sun for matter. You can volunteer :D

Forget that....Let's mine gas planets and use the extra hot ones like mega-steam engines. It's the american way.

These guys seem to have the best scientific discussion on global warming I've seen in a long time.

Wow, even the answers that didn't answer the question(s) while going off on something not to be mentioned were great. Those are some educated trolls. All hail reddit!

Is the London Times a better more respected paper:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece

Maybe a ring world would work better in that regard? Still a lot of mass to build such a thing!

"Maybe a ring world would work better in that regard? Still a lot of mass to build such a thing!"

YES!! I want to live on a Halo.

Ranger, that article starts by saying one thing and ends with another.
"Some even suggest the world may not be warming much at all." Only the author suggests that. Those quotes state the data might be off, or corrupted, from human interference. They don't deny warming and are likely taken out of context for someone's personal gain. The title and attempt is of sensationalism coupled with sloppy reporting. Wrote better papers in jr. high than that tripe.

Try debating expenses with good articles while avoiding the false controversy.
Before the Dyson Sphere conjures a movement....

Gun,

Did you read the link at the end of the article? The one that goes to a 110 page dissertation?

All about station drop off. Some of the things they try to explain are... questionable with bad graphs. Flat out attacking others at times. Saying NASA constantly tampers with data after using NASA data two pages up, seriously? A great deal left me with a "huh?" and this was made for any age group. I stopped at Case 1: The Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero. This was more bias than scientific.
This an argument to keep our weather machines safe from tennis courts and trash cans?