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The so-called Mini-Ice age and "Global Warming"

JocktheMotie

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It's clearly our fault this time and we should cripple developing countries economically with regulations and turn every state into the gleaming gem that is California.
 

Fluffywolf

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8.5-10 degrees celsius?

More like a cool breeze age than a mini ice age. :D


By the way, I think global warming is not as much a threat as been told. And that it just happens to be a hot item with which political leverage is gained. And thus blown out of its proportions.

Now, I'm not saying that there is no global warming. I'm just not convinced it is as bad as people claim it to be. Nor happening as fast as people claim it.

I remember seeing that famous documentary by Al Gore, and every bit of evidence he portrayed was flawed so much. Still, people believe him. It's pretty funny.

I'll just grab the popcorn and enjoy the sheep show.


Next to that, ice ages are a natural phenomenon to earth, and use of fossil fuels may be hastening the process somewhat, I'm still convinced earth will find its way. And we do too.
 

Virtual ghost

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Heart I will ask you a personal question if you don't mind.


Why do you find global warming so interesting as a subject?
 

heart

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Heart I will ask you a personal question if you don't mind.


Why do you find global warming so interesting as a subject?

Who knows why anyone is interested in anything?

Back to the subject at hand: I know about the so-called "Mini-ice age" from history study and I wonder how Global Warming devotees reconcile their belief that we're entering a dangerous period of man-made global warming when Historical facts support that Europe has been far warmer than now in the relatively recent past with few ill-effects.
 

Nonsensical

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I kind of think global warming might be a little exaggerated. Could it be mistaken for simply natural trends that wax and wane so often? I know Al Gore deems otherwise with his insane graphs, but there's still apart of me that thinks that something about the Earth warming at an exponential rate in the last 50 years more so than it has in the last 10 thousands years is a bit rigged.

Has it ever crossed anybodies mind that maybe, just maybe, we weren't the main cause of global warming? If humans had no hand in it, would the Earth continue to heat up? I'd think so..

Our efforts of 'going green, man!" probably don't do as much as we think. But nonetheless, it can't hurt.

It just seems a bit fishy to me, this global warming business.

Scientists foreshadowing that the world will be uninhabitable in the next 150 years? Give me a break.

All I'm saying is that I, personally, don't think we play a very large roll in global warming, if any at all. I think it is simply a fold of trends, maybe a coincidence, and that the Earth is doing it's own thing. But nonetheless, we should continue to be more a bit more careful with what we release into the atmosphere.

And all the 'go green' stuff is really annoying, sorry.
 

Quinlan

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I'm less concerned about global warming as I am about the general destruction of our environment/ecosystems. The more I travel the smaller the world seems and the more I realise we are living in a tiny fishbowl, with no one to come around and change the dirty water.
 

nightning

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I don't understand why people call it "mini-ice age" or "warming"... It's both... or rather more extreme and "unpredictable" weather. No I don't take earth sciences or oceanology but you can see if you examine the current weather patterns. It's like an untrimmed airplane oscillating further and further away from the center. I don't know what will happen when it oscillates out of the equilibrium "buffering" capacity...

Yes it's a sense of impeding doom, but no I don't think there's much we can do about this at this point in time. I suppose we can worsen or delay the onset but it'll eventually happen.
 

/DG/

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Isn't global warming really part of a natural weather cycle that the Earth has? I'm not saying that we aren't responsible for part of it, but isn't the Earth supposed to have periods of highs and lows in temperature? I have no sources here, but I can't help but thinking I've heard that somewhere. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong.
 

entropie

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I know this graphics too and I do know about the mini iceage (I needed some days to get used to that word, which is wrong in so many ways :D).

I am no doom-monger myself when it comes to global warming, I am rather a fan of the model that says centuries change between cold and hot periods.

But I nevertheless think we shall be a bit more responsible with the things we do, where and when it is possible. That means to watch the consumption of our resources and the exhaust our industries produce.

I find it a bit embarassing to see a modern country like America to hit the roof of the emissions scale twice, cause thats not necessary. Alone economically you can make so much money at the moment with modernisation of plants to green energy + optimize the whole process in a way that your gain in the end is increased.

But that we are the architects of our own demise and the Earth is going to globally warm up, I dont think. The Earth has survived much worser plagues than mankind :)
 

Fluffywolf

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Isn't global warming really part of a natural weather cycle that the Earth has? I'm not saying that we aren't responsible for part of it, but isn't the Earth supposed to have periods of highs and lows in temperature? I have no sources here, but I can't help but thinking I've heard that somewhere. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong.

Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png


We've had four glacial periods so far. :p
 

ajblaise

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There are natural cycles of warming and cooling, but starting during the Industrial Revolution, the increase in CO2 emissions have taken us off that natural cycle. It's called the greenhouse effect.

This graph illustrates it well.

Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png
 

Fluffywolf

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I don't claim to be an expert, but I'd question a few things, such as:

Where has the CO2 been measured?

In what way is the lumber industry taken into account, as photosynthesis is responsible for turning CO2 back into oxygen, and one is to assume there was a lot more photosynthesis going on in history then now. I'd say it is likely to be largely responsible for the rise in CO2 as opposed to industrial emissions. Even though industrial emissions is the part used for political leverage.

If the reduction of green/forests in the world is responsible for most of the CO2 increase, wouldn't it be stabling out greatly as most lumber industry is now becoming largely dependable of the lumber they grow themselves?


And that's just the first questions I'd ask. Now I'm not saying it's bad to seek out methods that produce less emmisions. But I'd also like to question the predictions, taking into account my first questions.

Quite frankly, I'm not convinced at all the world is becoming unlivable. :p


Also, isn't the ozon layer getting stronger again? pretty sure that has been proven. :D
 

ajblaise

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I don't claim to be an expert, but I'd question a few things, such as:

Where has the CO2 been measured?

In what way is the lumber industry taken into account, as photosynthesis is responsible for turning CO2 back into oxygen, and one is to assume there was a lot more photosynthesis going on in history then now. I'd say it is likely to be largely responsible for the rise in CO2 as opposed to industrial emissions. Even though industrial emissions is the part used for political leverage.

If the reduction of green/forests in the world is responsible for most of the CO2 increase, wouldn't it be stabling out greatly as most lumber industry is now becoming largely dependable of the lumber they grow themselves?


And that's just the first questions I'd ask. Now I'm not saying it's bad to seek out methods that produce less emmisions. But I'd also like to question the predictions, taking into account my first questions.

Quite frankly, I'm not convinced at all the world is becoming unlivable. :p

I've heard up to 25% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions stem from deforestation. But fossil fuel burning is probably responsible for most of the rest.

Also, isn't the ozon layer getting stronger again? pretty sure that has been proven. :D

I think ozone depletion has been occurring at about 4 percent per decade since the 1970s.
 

entropie

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I think its not important whether the greenhouse effect leads to a desaster or not. Its just important that people and companies in general try to watch their surrounding and to not overpolute it with anything at all.

Its just the most logical concept.
 

Prototype

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Why?
Does this "global warming" have anything to do with the Galactic alignment in 2012?...

I know we can't prove that, but it does seem like a logical explanation... Then again, everything we have assumed, as in excuses, has definitely amplified the problem.

A lot of people see "recycling" as a good way to make a buck, all the while, we still make, and use plastics!

What pisses me off; it now requires three trucks to remove the waste from the front of my house,... Paper, trash, cans and plastics, and organic waste... Three trucks, as opposed to one like back in the day. They bitch about running out of land to fill up with trash... So they think it's better to separate it into different parts, leading many to believe it's helping to solve the problem by "reducing" garbage, when in actuality, they are burning more fuel to dispose of the same amount of trash.

Since the idea of recycling plastics has come into fruition, the use and manufacturing of plastic has increased... Don't get me wrong, I think recycling plastics is a great option for its disposal, just not the best...
 

Quinlan

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I think rapid climate change is the concern, rather than the natural climate cycles of the earth. I would assume the faster the rate of change the faster extinction will occur, evolution just can't keep up.
 

FDG

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Who knows why anyone is interested in anything?

Back to the subject at hand: I know about the so-called "Mini-ice age" from history study and I wonder how Global Warming devotees reconcile their belief that we're entering a dangerous period of man-made global warming when Historical facts support that Europe has been far warmer than now in the relatively recent past with few ill-effects.

(I'm not a strong global warming supporter, actually quite the contrary, but the following is what the experts say) Basically the argument goes as follows:

- the warming in the latest time-period has been more rapid and, apparently, at the small scale, exponentially increasing.

- the warming is trending along with man-made CO2 production, so it causal link between the two can be argued to exist.
 

Kangol

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WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SCIENCE PEOPLE

So far all I've seen are statements reiterating the beliefs that:
1) You cannot believe anything Al Gore says and that his graphs are horrible (even though I have no logical reason why besides saying that others have proven him wrong)
2) Global warming occurs anyway and we probably aren't causing that much change
3) Go-Green sucks and all that changes that came with it


So I would like to say in response:

1) It's not just Al Gore saying this, it's a good chunk of the scientific community. Not once had any professor ever told me "don't believe global warming folks", even though they were tenured, and worked in a predominantly Christian/Republican/Bush-friendly campus. On the contrary, any ecology-related course I took explained exactly why global warming is a concern, and I'm not going to go into great lengths explaining it because the evidence is already out there for you to see and if you still don't believe it nothing will stop you from sticking your fingers in your ears going "la-la-la Al Gore is a retard, science is bullshit".

2) As mentioned a few times earlier, history does say that the world goes through periods of warming and cooling naturally. As a result, species go extinct to meet the demands of the changing environment; basically this and gene mutations drive evolution.
However, it is widely believed that the reason the large prehistoric dinosaurs went extinct within a rapid amount of time is because of an external force, likely an asteroid or two landing and smothering the earth, fucking up the ecology and forcing life to adapt drastically.

Now, it would be a shame if the billions of humans who do use up a lot of resources and have definitely altered the earth's environment particularly within the last century were to reach a threshold where normal, otherwise undisturbed processes would occur. Particularly so when considering a few more things:
a) Industrial wastes and large-scale deforestation are NOT what the earth has gone through before us. Just because they are by-products of humans does NOT make it natural.
b) The earth's not infinite; humans have managed to explore virtually all of its inhabitable land region within a short amount of time relative to the earth's much longer history.

3) Go-Green sucks but at least this time commercialism is tied to a cause that could potentially save mankind from a situation that can potentially be made less horrible. Because America is so dependent on advertisements to make decisions affecting the political market, it's no wonder we're bombarded with green products. Bitch against that dependency if you must, but don't let it distract you from the reason it exists in the first place: to take some responsible action.

Sure it could all be over-hyped. I'm not much of a gambler, but I do believe that there is great reason to believe that the world is in a bad situation and we should at least try to prevent that from happening.

I'm sure even Al Gore would rather be told decades later that he had nothing to worry about than to have to tell the world "I told you so."
 

metaphours

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I think global warming is really exaggerated, however I do believe that if we don't do much in the coming decades, it's negative impact on the Earth will be greatly increased, which is why the gov't have to start now and change our energy policies. True, it will be expensive to build, but once it's done, we'll have greener, more efficient and not to mention cheaper energy policies.
 
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