|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 1:09 pm Post subject: Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
 |
|
| Quote: |
Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy
Dec. 6 2005
It's been a strange week.
I've been wondering why the global warming conference in Montreal is getting relatively little attention.
Probably because of the cold weather.
It's odd for another reason. Ten thousand people have come to Montreal, ten thousand. For a conference on reducing energy consumption. Now, ten thousand is a large number, elephantine, in fact. I don't suppose many delegates walked. As conferences go, this one is a real Leviathan.
Just think of the Montreal summit's ecological footprint. Is there really a need to fly ten thousand people from 189 countries to a cold city to exchange ideas? Is there no e-mail? Are the phone lines down? Does no one own a Blackberry?
Well, I suppose in this matter, ecology is not really different from politics. High on sermons, low on example. Maybe it's low-key because the celebrity attendance is sparse.
There are not many rock stars there. What's an environmental summit without rock stars? Are they all worn out after making poverty history? That was their summer project, remember.
But still, where's Bono? Is he still crushed, or in some sulk from his disappointment with Paul Martin? I'm not sure anymore that Canada is allowed to take on international commitments unless it's alright with Bono. Canada used to be an independent country. Now we're just part of an entourage.
There was a Canadian Press report from Montreal whose lead sentence could have come straight out of Alice in Wonderland. It read "Tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming." Wearing earmuffs while chanting, "It's getting hot in here" might be homage to Nellie, but it's not effective salesmanship.
At the same demonstration on that brutally cold day, one of the Greenpeace high priests offered a brilliant synopsis of how comprehensively the concept of global warming applies.
He said, and I quote, "Global warming can mean colder; it can mean dryer; it can mean wetter." Well, if warm can mean cold, if warm can mean wet, and if warm can mean dry, is it fair to ask if warm still means warm? This is the beauty of global warming. It's a theory that covers every possibility. More of a tent than a thesis.
The bigger disconnect at this monster seminar goes further than rhetoric, however. It's that Canada's the host of this sequel to Kyoto, and that Canada's performance since Kyoto – and remember, we signed on – is at this date, 24 per cent higher than our 1990 levels. According to our commitment, we're aiming for six per cent lower. So as of 2005, there's a 30 per cent spread from what we've promised and what we've done so far.
The U.S., which didn't sign on, is only thirteen per cent higher than its 1990 levels. Still, around the world, the U.S. is the villain for not signing on, while countries like ours, who talk a virtuous environmental line and host King-Kong-scale conferences to celebrate our commitment, pose as the planet's dearest lovers. Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
At the same demonstration on that brutally cold day, one of the Greenpeace high priests offered a brilliant synopsis of how comprehensively the concept of global warming applies.
He said, and I quote, "Global warming can mean colder; it can mean dryer; it can mean wetter." Well, if warm can mean cold, if warm can mean wet, and if warm can mean dry, is it fair to ask if warm still means warm? This is the beauty of global warming. It's a theory that covers every possibility. More of a tent than a thesis.
|
To me, this was the most interesting part of the article.
I can remember when the general attitude was that the world was getting colder. Then one day I woke up and was told everyone agrees the world is getting warmer. If even Greenpeace (too bad no name was mentioned) thinks warmer can be colder, it seems that maybe 'global warming' is just an all-purpose bludgeon to be used in any situation to get people to clean up the environment. Kind of like your mother saying you can't have the car keys till you make your bed and clean up your bedroom. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
sundubuman
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: seoul
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
We now have tens of thousands of people whose livelihoods are connected to "global warming".
If the whole thing is just a lot of hot air, haha, then they'll be out of a job. It's in their vested interests to keep chanting the mantra.....the sky is falling the sky is falling......so that they can continue to travel at expense or NGO paid expense after expense until the next ice age, when their funding will finally be cut.
By the way, have any of you ever heard of the theory that the melting ice caps are actually melting because of increased underwater volcanic activity? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Under some theories of global warming it would cause the disparity between summer and winter to intensify, with the result being bitterly cold winters with heavy snowfall followed by arid, bakingly hot summers. I think that's what he was getting at. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| sundubuman wrote: |
| We now have tens of thousands of people whose livelihoods are connected to "global warming". |
I think this is a strong point and is important to keep in mind. Someone well-connected to the govt once explained to me how it was the same thing with the so-called war on drugs, where DEA agents have danger pay and special benefits at stake.
In any case, I still believe that global warming and environmental problems are real and are a serious threat. I don't think that the problem you reference necessarily discredits movements like Greenpeace and all of the others who make a living on this issue. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
|
|
| The term "global warming" I think is a bit misleading. It should rather be "extreme temperature/weather conditions becoming more of a regularity." It's not that the world will get more hot or cold, but rather, deserts will become more deserty, swamps will get swampier, and winters colder, summers warmer. Extreme temperatures will flourish while more "human friendly" temperatures diminish. Maybe the "dinosaur friendly" temperatures are going to make a comeback? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Unfortunately the nations most to blame for greenhouse emmissions are geographically the ones least likely to experience the worst effects. Thus the idea that it doesn't exist continues in the first world.
The arctic is warming the fastest globally. Its not an evenly distributed thing. Although the thawing may result in an ice free north pole, it may be the opposite if the ice sheets liquifying into the North Atlantic manage to shut down the conveyor current. Then we'd be talking another ice age suddenly. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 7:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Then we'd be talking another ice age suddenly.
|
Do you really (I mean REALLY) care what will happen in 75,000 years? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 7:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
Then we'd be talking another ice age suddenly.
|
Do you really (I mean REALLY) care what will happen in 75,000 years? |
Dude you reveal your imbecillic lack of knowledge once more.
Once the ocean current shuts down due to masses of meltwater infusing it at the pole, it will stop bring the warm winds to N.America that is currently responsible for the mild climate up there. It can happen very quickly, and the signs are that its begun: a 25% slow down over the past 20 years.
Time for you to read up again, boyo.
Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age
18:00 30 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce
The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age.
The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.
The slow-down, which has long been predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, will give renewed urgency to intergovernmental talks in Montreal, Canada, this week on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Harry Bryden at the Southampton Oceanography Centre in the UK, whose group carried out the analysis, says he is not yet sure if the change is temporary or signals a long-term trend. "We don��t want to say the circulation will shut down," he told New Scientist. "But we are nervous about our findings. They have come as quite a surprise."
No one-off
The North Atlantic is dominated by the Gulf Stream – currents that bring warm water north from the tropics. At around 40�� north – the latitude of Portugal and New York – the current divides. Some water heads southwards in a surface current known as the subtropical gyre, while the rest continues north, leading to warming winds that raise European temperatures by 5��C to 10��C.
But when Bryden��s team measured north-south heat flow last year, using a set of instruments strung across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas, they found that the division of the waters appeared to have changed since previous surveys in 1957, 1981 and 1992. From the amount of water in the subtropical gyre and the flow southwards at depth, they calculate that the quantity of warm water flowing north had fallen by around 30%.
When Bryden added previously unanalysed data – collected in the same region by the US government��s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – he found a similar pattern. This suggests that his 2004 measurements are not a one-off, and that most of the slow-down happened between 1992 and 1998.
The changes are too big to be explained by chance, co-author Stuart Cunningham told New Scientist from a research ship off the Canary Islands, where he is collecting more data. "We think the findings are robust."
Hot and cold
But Richard Wood, chief oceanographer at the UK Met Office��s Hadley Centre for climate research in Exeter, says the Southampton team's findings leave a lot unexplained. The changes are so big they should have cut oceanic heating of Europe by about one-fifth – enough to cool the British Isles by 1��C and Scandinavia by 2��C. "We haven��t seen it yet," he points out.
Though unseasonably cold weather last month briefly blanketed parts of the UK in snow, average European temperatures have been rising, Wood says. Measurements of surface temperatures in the North Atlantic indicate a strong warming trend during the 1990s, which seems now to have halted.
Bryden speculates that the warming may have been part of a global temperature increase brought about by man-made greenhouse warming, and that this is now being counteracted by a decrease in the northward flow of warm water.
After warming Europe, this flow comes to a halt in the waters off Greenland, sinks to the ocean floor and returns south. The water arriving from the south is already more saline and so more dense than Arctic seas, and is made more so as ice forms.
Predicted shutdown
But Bryden��s study has revealed that while one area of sinking water, on the Canadian side of Greenland, still seems to be functioning as normal, a second area on the European side has partially shut down and is sending only half as much deep water south as before. The two southward flows can be distinguished because they travel at different depths.
Nobody is clear on what has gone wrong. Suggestions for blame include the melting of sea ice or increased flow from Siberian rivers into the Arctic. Both would load fresh water into the surface ocean, making it less dense and so preventing it from sinking, which in turn would slow the flow of tropical water from the south. And either could be triggered by man-made climate change. Some climate models predict that global warming could lead to such a shutdown later this century.
The last shutdown, which prompted a temperature drop of 5��C to 10��C in western Europe, was probably at the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago. There may also have been a slowing of Atlantic circulation during the Little Ice Age, which lasted sporadically from 1300 to about 1850 and created temperatures low enough to freeze the River Thames in London.
Journal reference: Nature (vol 655, p 438).
http://www.jcrows.com/oceancurrent.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fiveeagles
Joined: 19 May 2005
Location: Vancouver
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 10:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
The bigger disconnect at this monster seminar goes further than rhetoric, however. It's that Canada's the host of this sequel to Kyoto, and that Canada's performance since Kyoto – and remember, we signed on – is at this date, 24 per cent higher than our 1990 levels. According to our commitment, we're aiming for six per cent lower. So as of 2005, there's a 30 per cent spread from what we've promised and what we've done so far.
The U.S., which didn't sign on, is only thirteen per cent higher than its 1990 levels. Still, around the world, the U.S. is the villain for not signing on, while countries like ours, who talk a virtuous environmental line and host King-Kong-scale conferences to celebrate our commitment, pose as the planet's dearest lovers. Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
For all those American haters, this has got to be horrible news. Not only is the american economy booming, but the environmental issues are actually getting better.
Paul Martin is a corrupt politician who is willing to sell out the future of Canada for his own.
I have never agreed with the kyoto for many reasons. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 5:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Global warming can create a new ice age two ways:
1) Disrupting the flow of warm water to the North Atlantic. No warm water, England ices over.
2) More water in the air means more snow. If there's so much snow that a spring and summer can't melt it, well, you're in big trouble then. It's like the massive snow banks in mall parking lots that hang around until the end of May... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Wrench
Joined: 07 Apr 2005
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 9:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
England ices over... Hmm Miniture Canada in Europe  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:18 am Post subject: Re: Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
|
|
| brento1138 wrote: |
| The term "global warming" I think is a bit misleading. It should rather be "extreme temperature/weather conditions becoming more of a regularity." It's not that the world will get more hot or cold, but rather, deserts will become more deserty, swamps will get swampier, and winters colder, summers warmer. |
Just returned from Jeju-do - a day late because all flights were canceled Wednesday due to what was without a doubt the very worst snowstorm I myself have ever witnessed. (I'm from California, so maybe that would be worth more if I were a Minnesotan, sure.) There was a chance we wouldn't get a plane out today, either and I joked this afternoon that I'd come up with a new slogan for the Jeju Tourist Board :
"Come to Jeju-do. Stay."
In Korea, spring and fall are the most beautiful times of the year, but the past couple of them have seemed to be shorter and shorter, so short that you might miss them if you were a little busy ... my Korean friends have concurred with this observation.
Most people by now realize that "Global Warming" is innacurate, and most often I'm seeing the term "climate change" being used.
Last edited by The Bobster on Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:20 am Post subject: Re: Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
|
|
| The Bobster wrote: |
| brento1138 wrote: |
| The term "global warming" I think is a bit misleading. It should rather be "extreme temperature/weather conditions becoming more of a regularity." It's not that the world will get more hot or cold, but rather, deserts will become more deserty, swamps will get swampier, and winters colder, summers warmer. |
Just returned from Jeju-do - a day late because all flights were canceled Wednesday due to what was without a doubt the very worst snowstorm I myself have ever witnessed. (I'm from California, so maybe that would be worth more if I were a Minnesotan, sure.) There was a chance we wouldn't get a plane out today, either and I joked this afternoon that I'd come up with a new slogan for the Jeju Tourist Board :
"Come to Jeju-do. Stay."
In Korea, spring and fall are the most beautiful times of the year, but the past couple of them have seemeed to be shorter and shorter, so short that you might miss them if you were a little busy ... my Korean friends have concurred with this observation.
Most people by now realize that "Global Warming" is innacurate, and most often I'm seeing the term "climate change" being used. |
Hey, I'm going there in 4 days, how did you like it? What did you do? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:48 am Post subject: Re: Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy. |
|
|
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hey, I'm going there in 4 days, how did you like it? What did you do? |
I liked it better when we visited last summer. Got a local acquaintance who tells me "Jeju does not do snow well." I agree.
As for what I did, it was a honeymoon, so it's none of yer damn business what I did ... hehe.
Aside form the obvious, I drank Hallsan soju (much smoother than Jinro or San) ate seafood and meat from a pig that supposedly consumes human faeces. We went to an art museum, and another one about Africa, of all things (recommended, actually) but I think we enjoyed the Jeju Botanical Gardens most. Last night we had to stay over in Jeju City, and the one-block walk through the blizzard to the kamja-tang place was like 5 miles any other time. (Discovered that kamja-tang is real nice when high winds and snow are taking the world apart piece by piece outside the the window ... )
We were in Seowipo for the most part, and the weather was fine until we tried to get on an airplane - we're thinking of relocating there, actually, but if we did, where would we go on vacations? Seoul, probably ...  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
