Global Warming: Man-made or not?

Originally posted by Eladar
Not at all.

So your PHd thesis is in climatology?

Originally posted by sonhouse
So your PHd thesis is in climatology?

People...Planets undergo durastic changes, and for the most part we can do nothing to stop planetary changes....However, we may hope to find a way to inhabit and pollute other planets someday..lol, because that is what we do best as a SPECIES, not as any particular nation

And I'm Proud to be an American.......

Perhaps we should tell the 2.6 billion people in India and China to stop passing gas, because the mass of methane will change the climate?

come on🙄

Originally posted by joe shmo
[b]
And I'm Proud to be an American.......

With that attitude, seriously....... why?

Originally posted by timebombted
With that attitude, seriously....... why?

Exactly! He should be ashamed to be an American. That way the rest of the world will respect him.

What a crock.

Originally posted by joe shmo
People...Planets undergo durastic changes, and for the most part we can do nothing to stop planetary changes....However, we may hope to find a way to inhabit and pollute other planets someday..lol, because that is what we do best as a SPECIES, not as any particular nation

And I'm Proud to be an American.......

Perhaps we should tell the 2.6 billion pe ...[text shortened]... nd China to stop passing gas, because the mass of methane will change the climate?

come on🙄

What does that have to do with my question?

Originally posted by joe shmo
People...Planets undergo durastic changes, and for the most part we can do nothing to stop planetary changes....However, we may hope to find a way to inhabit and pollute other planets someday..lol, because that is what we do best as a SPECIES, not as any particular nation

And I'm Proud to be an American.......

Perhaps we should tell the 2.6 billion pe ...[text shortened]... nd China to stop passing gas, because the mass of methane will change the climate?

come on🙄

We do have the power to change the climate.
The questions are:
1. Why wont a lot of people admit that the climate is changing - especially americans.
2. Why wont a lot of people admit that the climate change is due to human activity - especially americans.
3. For those who do admit it, do we try to reverse the trend or try to live with the consequences.

Originally posted by Eladar
Exactly! He should be ashamed to be an American. That way the rest of the world will respect him.

What a crock.

Happy you agree😀

Originally posted by twhitehead
We do have the power to change the climate.
The questions are:
1. Why wont a lot of people admit that the climate is changing - especially americans.
2. Why wont a lot of people admit that the climate change is due to human activity - especially americans.
3. For those who do admit it, do we try to reverse the trend or try to live with the consequences.

For the most part, we don't have trouble admitting the climate is changing...where did i say the climate WASN'T changing in my previous statment?

Question 2, Answer: That is not proven to the extent that you think it is...Physically, a butterfly has the capacity to affect the weather.. so yes, we do alter our climate, BUT TO WHAT DEGREE???? AND PROVE IT AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS!!!...the PROOF part is still widley debated among scientists.

Its Not a question of ADMITTING, IT IS A QUESTION OF KNOWING!!! Only when we fully understand the problem, can we begin to efficiently manage it....

Originally posted by joe shmo
For the most part, we don't have trouble admitting the climate is changing...where did i say the climate WASN'T changing in my previous statment?

Question 2, Answer: That is not proven to the extent that you think it is...Physically, a butterfly has the capacity to affect the weather.. so yes, we do alter our climate, BUT TO WHAT DEGREE???? AND PROVE I ...[text shortened]... OWING!!! Only when we fully understand the problem, can we begin to efficiently manage it....

The problem is by the time you know it, it will be too late because we will have tipped over the edge of unavoidable change. So it seems we will be doomed by our indecisivness.

Originally posted by CalJust
I read in Time mag recently that Sarah Palin does not believe GW is manmade (or womanmade).

Is this a view widely held in the US?

Will this affect the US joining a post-Kyoto UNFCCC initiative? And does it support Sonono's view that anti-GW efforts will "undermine the American way of life"?

Just wondering...

CJ

I would say no, it is not man-made, based on my limited study of the problem.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I would say no, it is not man-made, based on my limited study of the problem.

The climate problem is certainly man exacrbated however. One thing just going round the science circles: The sun is on a 50 year low of solar wind activity in the down cycle of the 11 year sunspot cycle. I have had personal experience with the solar cycle since 1958, when I got my first ham license, was in HS and 57-58 was the peakiest peak ever recorded. I had borrowed a battery powered 1 watt 10 meter portable transciever from the local ham club and was walking the thing around the 'hood in a kids wagon and talking all over the country and that was on AM! (now we use SSB, single side band, which puts out about three times the signal on a narrower bandwidth so the signals get through noise better on long paths, so to be doing that with what was essentially a CB with less than 1/4 the power was something)
I guess a little radio theory is in order, I forget not everyone knows about this stuff: during the solar low sunspot cycle as we are in now, the ionosphere does some funny things to radio waves but only to certain frequencies, from about 10 Mhz to around 500 Mhz, radio waves in that band during a low cycle will penetrate the atmosphere never to return, going right on out to space.
Frequencies lower than about 10 Mhz pretty much ignore the solar cycle because for those frequencies, the ionosphere acts as a decent mirror(there is a lot more atmospheric noise in those bands however so long range communications is not as good, like at 1 or two mhz, in the AM radio band, signals don't go much past a couple thousand miles) but during the high sunspot part of the cycle like the years 1957, 1968, 1979, 1990, 2001, the ionosphere is more mirror like for higher frequencies and so TV signals can sometimes be seen in those years thousands of miles away and my little 28 mhz box I borrowed was tranmitting into the best ionosphere mirror in the last 100 years.
The sunspot cycle has gone progressively lower on each subsequent cycle and now it seems the present low is the lowest since I was a kid.
That may confuse the climate issue, especially if people get complacent and just say, everything is A-OK climate wise, we can go back to stuffing the air with coal dust again, no big deal, so when in whatever, a hundred years, say, if the sun starts cranking out its normal energy, we will be in even deeper doo doo and then it WILL be too late.

Originally posted by joe shmo
For the most part, we don't have trouble admitting the climate is changing...where did i say the climate WASN'T changing in my previous statment?

My apologies if I appeared to be accusing you. It was not intended. But we do have at least one poster right here in this thread who has denied that the climate is warming. It is a fact that many prominent figures in the US have denied that it is warming and certainly when it comes to trying to do something about it, the US has been the most resistant country.

Question 2, Answer: That is not proven to the extent that you think it is...Physically, a butterfly has the capacity to affect the weather.. so yes, we do alter our climate, BUT TO WHAT DEGREE???? AND PROVE IT AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS!!!...the PROOF part is still widley debated among scientists.
Except that almost all the 'debate' against it I have ever heard comes from non-scientists in the US. Some of the ramifications are obvious (the north pole is melting, the sea level is rising), others remain unknown or guessed at. But there are two many people sticking their head in the sand saying that we shouldn't do anything because we do not know anything.

Its Not a question of ADMITTING, IT IS A QUESTION OF KNOWING!!! Only when we fully understand the problem, can we begin to efficiently manage it....
I will admit to the "efficiently" part, but to claim that you have to know everything before you do anything is complete and utter nonsense and you know it.
I think a large part of it is the fact that many americans think that doing something about it is a threat to their life style. But it doesn't have to be. Many energy saving techniques actually save people money.

Except that almost all the 'debate' against it I have ever heard comes from non-scientists in the US. Some of the ramifications are obvious (the north pole is melting, the sea level is rising), others remain unknown or guessed at. But there are two many people sticking their head in the sand saying that we shouldn't do anything because we do not know anything.

There is more Arctic Ice this year than there was last year.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Originally posted by Eladar
[b]Except that almost all the 'debate' against it I have ever heard comes from non-scientists in the US. Some of the ramifications are obvious (the north pole is melting, the sea level is rising), others remain unknown or guessed at. But there are two many people sticking their head in the sand saying that we shouldn't do anything because we do not know anyth ...[text shortened]... is more Arctic Ice this year than there was last year.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Yes can someone explain this change in pattern? Is it because we did..........nothing..........different....than....we did...last year? OR!!! Is it because fluctuation in climate is NORMAL????😵

Here is my two cent´s on the matter.
We are polluting our self and so te very earth it self as well.
We know how to do other kinds of fuel to cars and trucks.
Usally some of us when we are going to work or to town or just go to the shop to buy food, we are aloone in the car. That does not make any sence at all at least not for the economy.
Their a some ideas out their for the fuel cost to plumeth down.
But that can only be conciderd as a temporary action.
Sun power or even wind power looks like a good idea.
What are you ideas on this?