Global Warming

[Angry Ram]

Fact or fiction... 

Natural cycle of mans ability to muck up what he has?

[King Kevin]

Not sure ,but one things certain a whole green industry and tax regime has appeared to part us from our hard earned .

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

It is happening. To deny it at this point would be almost as daft as claiming the earth is flat.

[PodgeyRam]

Fact. 

The Earth not being flat though, that's a whole other question.

[Angry Ram]

7 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

It is happening. To deny it at this point would be almost as daft as claiming the earth is flat.

What's happening that has not happened before?

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

I am not going to sit here and throw out all the evidence because there is a lot of it and I can't be arsed. It's out there if you look for it. I don't believe it is happening, based on the evidence that is available from multiple sources and backed by almost any relevant scientific body I know it is happening.

[ossieram]

16 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

What's happening that has not happened before?

I think It has all happened before, but it seems to be happening a bit faster because of us. Time will tell.

[Highgate]

Global warming is a fact of that there is no doubt, there is copious amounts of data to prove that the planet is warming.

The question remaining, for some, is whether humans are responsible for this current warming trend or whether we are just witnessing natural climate cycles.  This isn't a question that interests climate scientists any longer, as they have well and truly concluded that humans are largely responsible for this current warming (the extent of the underlying natural cooling or warming trend is difficult to determine). These are the people we should be listening to when talking about global warming.

It's not that complicated really. Greenhouse gases in a planetary atmosphere will let solar radiation pass through but they will trap some of the longer wave infrared radiation being re-emitted by the planet's surface, causing the atmosphere to warm. Without greenhouse gases, Earth would have a an average global temperature of about -18 C . Because of GHGs in the atmosphere (including water vapour), our actual global average is about 15 C. So GHGs in our atmosphere, raise the average temperature by more than 30 degrees making life possible. On Venus, where there is a much greater concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, the temperature is raised several hundreds of degrees to about 460C. Simply put, we know exactly the effect GHGs have on a planet's atmosphere.

We also know we have been dramatically increasing the concentration of GHGs in our own atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution. Again this is not something that can be disputed, overwhelming quantities of data confirms the steady rise. So, we know we are pouring GHGs into our atmosphere, we know their concentrations are increasing and we are fully aware of the warming effect that GHGs will have on any planetary atmosphere.

So, where is there any room for debate?  We are clearly increasing our planet's temperatures and inevitable severe environmental problems are on the horizon.

[McRamFan]

Doesn't matter in the long term life of the planet. We can poison it all we like, kill each other off, it will clean up over time and carry on spinning and orbiting the sun.

[Gaspode]

6 minutes ago, McRamFan said:

Doesn't matter in the long term life of the planet. We can poison it all we like, kill each other off, it will clean up over time and carry on spinning and orbiting the sun.

Does matter to the folk living on the planet when it all goes tits up though.....

[David]

Not today it isn’t, freezing on the coast brrrr!

[Highgate]

11 minutes ago, McRamFan said:

Doesn't matter in the long term life of the planet. We can poison it all we like, kill each other off, it will clean up over time and carry on spinning and orbiting the sun.

True, but I think we are entitled to consider about how our own species will fare. If we keep going as we are, the planet will survive and the the ecosystem will recover, but we will be in big trouble.  And that's something to worry about.

[GboroRam]

[Stive Pesley]

1 minute ago, GboroRam said:

TL;DR

[Angry Ram]

23 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

Quality stuff.. Not sure what the hell it is but it is one of your posts. 

[Highgate]

1 hour ago, Angry Ram said:

What's happening that has not happened before?

A single species has decided to conduct a massive climatic experiment by dumping enormous quantities of carbon dioxide and methane (with proven heat-trapping physical properties) into the atmosphere in a very short period of time, whilst simultaneously building up a vulnerable civilization, much of it on the coasts or in low lying areas, next to an ocean that rises and falls in response to global atmospheric temperature.....that is what hasn't happened before.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Sith Happens]

33 minutes ago, Highgate said:

A single species has decided to conduct a massive climatic experiment by dumping enormous quantities of carbon dioxide and methane (with proven heat-trapping physical properties) into the atmosphere in a very short period of time, whilst simultaneously building up a vulnerable civilization, much of it on the coasts or in low lying areas, next to an ocean that rises and falls in response to global atmospheric temperature.....that is what hasn't happened before.

What could possibly go wrong?

To be fair the Earth is like 4 billion years old, it could easily have happened before, just because we cant find any evidence of it doesnt mean it hasnt.

 

[GboroRam]

1 hour ago, Angry Ram said:

Quality stuff.. Not sure what the hell it is but it is one of your posts. 

I was hoping it displays better on desktop than mobile.

Here's a better link: http://www.escapefromignorance.com/editorial/a-timeline-of-earths-temperature-illustrates-climate-change

It may not be to your liking, as it's based on scientific research by those so-called "experts" again.

[Highgate]

38 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

To be fair the Earth is like 4 billion years old, it could easily have happened before, just because we cant find any evidence of it doesnt mean it hasnt.

 

So what if it's happened before? that was a problem for the stromatolites and trilobites. We can find and have found plenty of evidence of just such atmospheric and sea-level changes. Why does that matter in the slightest?  What is different now, is that we are doing it rapidly, deliberately, we know what will happen and we know how vulnerable we are.

When the temperature does rise or fall, the environment changes too, some species perish and others prosper. The point is, do we want increased global temperatures and higher sea levels now? Can we cope with it? I think the effect would be catastrophic, just look where our cities are, and where much of our productive agricultural land is. 

The rate at which we are changing the composition of our atmosphere is alarming. Our whole civilization is dependent on stable living conditions but we've decided we want to mess around with our atmosphere and to hell with the generations who will have to live the consequences.

[Sith Happens]

1 minute ago, Highgate said:

So what if it's happened before? that was a problem for the stromatolites and trilobites. We can find and have found plenty of evidence of just such atmospheric and sea-level changes. Why does that matter in the slightest?  What is different now, is that we are doing it rapidly, deliberately, we know what will happen and we know how vulnerable we are.

When the temperature does rise or fall, the environment changes too, some species perish and others prosper. The point is, do we want increased global temperatures and higher sea levels now? Can we cope with it? I think the effect would be catastrophic, just look where our cities are, and where much of our productive agricultural land is. 

The rate at which we are changing the composition of our atmosphere is alarming. Our whole civilization is dependent on stable living conditions but we've decided we want to mess around with our atmosphere and to hell with the generations who will have to live the consequences.

I didn't comment on any if that, I just commented that it could have happened before that's all.