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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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 Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:50 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
| Is it possible that GW isn't significantly caused by human activities? |
My basic impression is that increased human activity has been the overwhelmingly significant fact of the earth in recent decades. There have been no gigantic meteorite impacts or volcanoes, no significant solar activity, no reversal of the poles. The earth has not moved off its axis. Humans are the only and obvious factor that has changed.
We have multiplied to an unprecedented population size, we have increased dramatically our knowledge and ability to exploit the earth and its resources. Our settlements are now visible from space, we have covered every possible corner of liveable space on the planet, or at least have impacted or altered its natural sytems to suit ourselves. The planet is in shock. We have used up more energy and burnt more fuels in the past 50 years ..than in all history.
Curiously, all this unprecedented activity has "amazingly" co-incided almost exactly with warming global temperatures. In a millisecond of geologic timeframe, all these factors are coinciding perfectly: increased emissions of CO2 and other gasses, increased industrialization, increased population size, increased damage to the planets natural order, increased pollution, increased threat to all other species, increased provable environmental damage (eg ozone layer, atmospheric dust)... etc.
Now you're suddenly telling me that none of these things are interrelated, and nothing we do has any effect on our planet? 6.6 billion of us? Immediate common sense would indicate otherwise, that everything has a cause and effect, wether we see it or not. From then on its a simple matter of education, following the evidence and putting 2 & 2 together.
Problem is we are a generation numbed by the industrial age. 90+% of the earths population is urbanised now. We have lost contact with nature and our earths natural processes. We see things entirely in terms of humancentric and political terms. This is why there is such a plague of skeptics and deniers: they simply cannot imagine, and have no experience of... anything outside of their convenient modern existences. |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 4:15 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| caniff wrote: |
| Is it possible that GW isn't significantly caused by human activities? |
My basic impression is that increased human activity has been the overwhelmingly significant fact of the earth in recent decades. There have been no gigantic meteorite impacts or volcanoes, no significant solar activity, no reversal of the poles. The earth has not moved off its axis. Humans are the only and obvious factor that has changed.
We have multiplied to an unprecedented population size, we have increased dramatically our knowledge and ability to exploit the earth and its resources. Our settlements are now visible from space, we have covered every possible corner of liveable space on the planet, or at least have impacted or altered its natural sytems to suit ourselves. The planet is in shock. We have used up more energy and burnt more fuels in the past 50 years ..than in all history.
Curiously, all this unprecedented activity has "amazingly" co-incided almost exactly with warming global temperatures. In a millisecond of geologic timeframe, all these factors are coinciding perfectly: increased emissions of CO2 and other gasses, increased industrialization, increased population size, increased damage to the planets natural order, increased pollution, increased threat to all other species, increased provable environmental damage (eg ozone layer, atmospheric dust)... etc.
Now you're suddenly telling me that none of these things are interrelated, and nothing we do has any effect on our planet? 6.6 billion of us? Immediate common sense would indicate otherwise, that everything has a cause and effect, wether we see it or not. From then on its a simple matter of education, following the evidence and putting 2 & 2 together.
Problem is we are a generation numbed by the industrial age. 90+% of the earths population is urbanised now. We have lost contact with nature and our earths natural processes. We see things entirely in terms of humancentric and political terms. This is why there is such a plague of skeptics and deniers: they simply cannot imagine, and have no experience of... anything outside of their convenient modern existences. |
Premillenial dispensationalists make similar pronouncements based on their interpretations of a book, yet with a far more anticipatory tone. |
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rusty1983
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 9:42 am Post subject: Re: Copenhagen has failed - what do we do now? |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
Oh dear, yet another dreary thread about global warming. If it bores you, please click away now. No need for you to read it, or post on it.
The Copenhagen conference was a disaster. I felt pretty frustrated by the inaction of major leaders - especially China. What the hell was Wen Jiabao trying to do? What's his game plan? . |
Some leaders from developing countries feel that global warming is largely a Western conspiracy to keep them poor. Think about it. You are trying to drag your country out of poverty and once you've finally got most factories up and running gangbusters...you're suddenly told in effect "Sorry, but you've got to shut most of them down...or pay much more to bring them up to "green" specifications."
'Ol Wen could have just been hedging his bets on this one. |
Yeah it does stink, especially when you consider how much the rich Western countries have polluted over time. Even more so when you consider how much more we must consume in the West in comparison with, for example, the average Chinese person.
It isnt a little rich that it has taken until now to try and limit emissions, especially after the economic crash and the increasing apparency that China are gonna be economic leaders? |
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JessRainbows
Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:04 am Post subject: |
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As someone else mentioned, it's not really CO2 that's the problem but more deforestation and toxicity of rivers and land water that's the real problem.
I don't think any convention on global warming would be successful unless people really seriously look at what is happening in those respects. CO2 levels would be much easier to control if there were more trees (big ones, of varying species). However, of course we should be wary of what we put into the environment anyway, air, water, or ground.
There is so much misinformation about deforestation to begin with. It's not nearly as much the logging business as it is the slash-and-burn agriculture that is causing the biggest damage. Most of the rainforests are cut down to provide either farming land for crops to feed cattle, or to provide grazing pastures for cattle, so that we in the 1st world countries can have a 99-cent burger.
Even the logging business with seemingly good intentions, screw up the ecosystem when they replant the trees they cut. The water-cycling, air-cycling surface area of an adult tree cannot be matched by a sapling for at least 50 years. The planet can wait that long but can our generation? (Not to mention, they typically replant only a few specific species of tree instead of a natural variety of species which is necessary to sustain a healthy forest. Forests with little variety in tree species are perfect environments for diseases and infestations that can easily wipe out the entire effort to rebuild the forest.)
What's even more sickening is that even in the US, where the majority of the world's grains and crops are produced, a very large percentage of the yield is not even edible by humans - it's shipped off to feed livestock. While millions of people starve around the globe, we feed cows tons of our surplus crops which have been poisoned by fertilizers and insecticides (many of which are made from nuclear waste) to feed less than 1/3 of the world's population. It's not only selfish but suicidal.
If the world's leaders really looked at THESE facts, there are many things they could do that don't include making the industries of third world countries poorer. If they'd find ways to stop giant corporations, especially in agriculture, from hiring basically slave labor to work farms which were once lush rainforests, and if we distributed our grain produce among the world and ate less beef (you don't need anywhere near as much as we've been taught) thus not taking the food out from people's mouths, we could really do some good.
Population control is also a big solution but I don't think it's the most dire problem here.
I could go on forever so I'm just gonna stop now... |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:38 am Post subject: |
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So, what you are saying is that cows are responsible for starvation and pollution in the world?
Do you work for Chik-Fil-A? |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 4:42 am Post subject: |
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| JessRainbows wrote: |
As someone else mentioned, it's not really CO2 that's the problem but more deforestation and toxicity of rivers and land water that's the real problem.
I don't think any convention on global warming would be successful unless people really seriously look at what is happening in those respects. CO2 levels would be much easier to control if there were more trees (big ones, of varying species). However, of course we should be wary of what we put into the environment anyway, air, water, or ground.
There is so much misinformation about deforestation to begin with. It's not nearly as much the logging business as it is the slash-and-burn agriculture that is causing the biggest damage. Most of the rainforests are cut down to provide either farming land for crops to feed cattle, or to provide grazing pastures for cattle, so that we in the 1st world countries can have a 99-cent burger.
Even the logging business with seemingly good intentions, screw up the ecosystem when they replant the trees they cut. The water-cycling, air-cycling surface area of an adult tree cannot be matched by a sapling for at least 50 years. The planet can wait that long but can our generation? (Not to mention, they typically replant only a few specific species of tree instead of a natural variety of species which is necessary to sustain a healthy forest. Forests with little variety in tree species are perfect environments for diseases and infestations that can easily wipe out the entire effort to rebuild the forest.)
What's even more sickening is that even in the US, where the majority of the world's grains and crops are produced, a very large percentage of the yield is not even edible by humans - it's shipped off to feed livestock. While millions of people starve around the globe, we feed cows tons of our surplus crops which have been poisoned by fertilizers and insecticides (many of which are made from nuclear waste) to feed less than 1/3 of the world's population. It's not only selfish but suicidal.
If the world's leaders really looked at THESE facts, there are many things they could do that don't include making the industries of third world countries poorer. If they'd find ways to stop giant corporations, especially in agriculture, from hiring basically slave labor to work farms which were once lush rainforests, and if we distributed our grain produce among the world and ate less beef (you don't need anywhere near as much as we've been taught) thus not taking the food out from people's mouths, we could really do some good.
Population control is also a big solution but I don't think it's the most dire problem here.
I could go on forever so I'm just gonna stop now... |
Yet another way that vegetarianism can save the world. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 9:51 am Post subject: |
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| While millions of people starve around the globe, we feed cows tons of our surplus crops which have been poisoned by fertilizers and insecticides (many of which are made from nuclear waste) to feed less than 1/3 of the world's population. |
Moralistic editorializing. I see statements like this and I immediately assume I'm being fed leftist propaganda through a young and unknowing post-undergrad conduit. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Quote: |
| While millions of people starve around the globe, we feed cows tons of our surplus crops which have been poisoned by fertilizers and insecticides (many of which are made from nuclear waste) to feed less than 1/3 of the world's population. |
Moralistic editorializing. I see statements like this and I immediately assume I'm being fed leftist propaganda through a young and unknowing post-undergrad conduit. |
The thing that perplexes me is is this. Sure, the statement in question is more or less true, but what call to action is expected? Simply handing over food whole-sale to poorer countries (not for free, mind you, but rather at the expense of our own taxpayers), will simply result in making it impossible for their own economies to ever get off of the ground. How could a farming economy ever even begin to flourish if it had to complete with limitless free food from overseas?
Food donations in the face of humanitarian disaster (war, natural disaster, etc) make lots of sense and are wonderful acts of generosity. But the old saying, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime," should really have a third statement in it: give a man a fish every day, and he'll never learn to fish.
What it comes down to is a need for these countries to produce. If they're starving, they need to produce food. If they can't produce food due to living in a horrific climate, they need to produce something else and trade it for food. Any aid should come in the form of helping their means of production get off the ground, not in the form of consumables which actively inhibit means of production from getting off the ground. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:50 am Post subject: |
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| JessRainbows wrote: |
As someone else mentioned, it's not really CO2 that's the problem but more deforestation and toxicity of rivers and land water that's the real problem.
I don't think any convention on global warming would be successful unless people really seriously look at what is happening in those respects. CO2 levels would be much easier to control if there were more trees (big ones, of varying species). However, of course we should be wary of what we put into the environment anyway, air, water, or ground.
There is so much misinformation about deforestation to begin with. It's not nearly as much the logging business as it is the slash-and-burn agriculture that is causing the biggest damage. Most of the rainforests are cut down to provide either farming land for crops to feed cattle, or to provide grazing pastures for cattle, so that we in the 1st world countries can have a 99-cent burger.
Even the logging business with seemingly good intentions, screw up the ecosystem when they replant the trees they cut. The water-cycling, air-cycling surface area of an adult tree cannot be matched by a sapling for at least 50 years. The planet can wait that long but can our generation? (Not to mention, they typically replant only a few specific species of tree instead of a natural variety of species which is necessary to sustain a healthy forest. Forests with little variety in tree species are perfect environments for diseases and infestations that can easily wipe out the entire effort to rebuild the forest.)
What's even more sickening is that even in the US, where the majority of the world's grains and crops are produced, a very large percentage of the yield is not even edible by humans - it's shipped off to feed livestock. While millions of people starve around the globe, we feed cows tons of our surplus crops which have been poisoned by fertilizers and insecticides (many of which are made from nuclear waste) to feed less than 1/3 of the world's population. It's not only selfish but suicidal.
If the world's leaders really looked at THESE facts, there are many things they could do that don't include making the industries of third world countries poorer. If they'd find ways to stop giant corporations, especially in agriculture, from hiring basically slave labor to work farms which were once lush rainforests, and if we distributed our grain produce among the world and ate less beef (you don't need anywhere near as much as we've been taught) thus not taking the food out from people's mouths, we could really do some good.
Population control is also a big solution but I don't think it's the most dire problem here.
I could go on forever so I'm just gonna stop now... |
Please do stop. What nonsense.
What pesticides are made from nuclear waste?
What giant corporations are using slave labor? |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 1:21 am Post subject: |
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| These things will never go anywhere...the stuff they are trying to get all countries to sign are too dreamy, too lofty, not based in reality. |
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JessRainbows
Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Fox"][quote="mises"]
| Quote: |
What it comes down to is a need for these countries to produce. If they're starving, they need to produce food. If they can't produce food due to living in a horrific climate, they need to produce something else and trade it for food. Any aid should come in the form of helping their means of production get off the ground, not in the form of consumables which actively inhibit means of production from getting off the ground. |
The problem I see is that we don't need this "us and them" kind of thinking. This is our planet that we all live on, and it can't be helped that some places are better for farming than others. Sure, areas with lots of forest could be cleared in other others for farming, and that is being done to sustain the economies of those places right now. (I really seriously don't think it's the case that they don't know how to farm or fish, that's totally bogus. I mean, c'mon, think about it!). But the matter of fact is that we can't afford to lose those trees anymore.
If we need the trees in one area and those people are suffering because of the efforts to protect the trees, why not give our surplus food to them instead of wasting it on food that isn't even healthy for people to eat, that only 1/3 of the population of the people on the planet even have access to.
It's really hard to make a point here when there's this whole anti-tree-hugger thing going on. Just because one points out a fact doesn't make one obsessed with said fact. If you're going to Seattle and you're heading to San Jose and you ask for directions, it doesn't make the person judgmental or whatever to say that he's going in the wrong direction. I could go on forever pointing out why trees are vital to the world's ecosystems, our lives included, and why cutting them down without regard has serious consequences, just like I could point out all the reason why you'd be headed in the wrong direction in the case of the guy going to Seattle. It doesn't make me a tree hugger or some young leftist post-grad or whatever. I'm simply stating a fact.
As for nuclear waste FERTILIZERS, look it up if you don't know about it.
I'm so sick of people reacting to things that they don't know about, and instead of doing the common-sense thing and looking it up to find more about it, they do whatever they can to find ways to deny that it exists. It's happening, it's there, and it's probably part of why we have so many cancers and diseases out there. Poison the animal you eat, and you can bet you're gonna get poisoned too. Many people prefer to inhale or inject or otherwise ingest poisons themselves, but a good number of people have no control over such a thing (like addicts). If we're gonna get better, it's gonna take some people waking up. |
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JessRainbows
Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:44 pm Post subject: Here's a book that'll help ya |
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Looks like I can't post a link in here, but this book is fairly well-known, it's full of graphs and statistics and stuff for people who need that kind of stuff before they believe what they read, is very comprehensive, and yet, really isn't that big or complicated for people who get bored easily.
Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
by Thom Hartmann
It's got lots of info on everything. Trees, farming, history, pollution, solutions, everything. You can find it for cheaper than cheap on Amazon. I've read it and already bought an extra copy for a friend of mine overseas. I'd recommend sending it to your old college professors. (I plan on doing so myself).
This guy also has his own website, which has excerpts from this book as well as tons of other things. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:12 am Post subject: |
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JR
I did look up the nutty assertion that nuclear waste was being used in the fabrication of fertilizer.
The amount of nuclear waste used in the fabrication of fertilizer is zero.
The amount of fertilizer used in the fabrication of your delusion is 100%.
Suggest you see a professional about your lack of ability to perceive the difference between the real world and your fantasies. You are living inside your own delusions. |
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