The Internet Is Killing The Planet

I say the earth will be destroyed by fire and we'll have nothing to do with it. (ok, I didn't actually come up with that but you can guess my source)
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
I say the earth will be destroyed by fire and we'll have nothing to do with it. (ok, I didn't actually come up with that but you can guess my source)
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I bet I know(ing) where that came from! ;-)
 
Didn't the scientific community and the media warn us of the impending ice age back in the 70s because of the noted drop in air temps? I bet they thought they knew what they were doing.
 
Science isn't perfect and mistakes are part of the process. It happens, it's better to be warned and have it not happen then have it happen and not be warned.
 
bonsai said:
I'm pretty sure the "envirokooks" are worried about plant and animal life completely dying off from drastic climate change. You know, so we can havesomething to eat. I don't think planetary annihilation is their definition of "killing" the planet.

Yeah, fuck the human race, who cares if we kill ourselves off, the planet will recover in another 1.5 billion years or so anyway.
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Really? Which animal and plant species are you talking about? While the rest of the world devours itself into oblivion and couldn't give two rat shits about eco-systems, carbon footprints, smog, pollution, or anything else related to saving the planet, we are devouring ourselves morally and financially to meet a goal that is unattainable by any measurable standard that will have any value or worth of any meaningful outcome. While you present a less harrowing idea of having something to eat following environmental devastation, I have to ask you the next logical question. What is the goal of these types of policies. How much is to much CO2? What is the right ppm count per cubic unit (you pick) for CO2 in the atmosphere or any other gas that is now considered a pollutant. Shit, oxygen is an oxidizer and could be classified as a pollutant too and what will you say when that happens. What is the correct temperature that the planet must be at? How about on land for each given hemisphere or latitude? How about oceans and wetlands?

Are you seeing a trend happening here? Do you understand what I'm saying now? If you have the answers I would love to hear them.
 
i wonder if people who complain about this complain when they use the potty ;)
 
ordovician said:
I can speak for the scientific community when I say that teh amount of CO2 produced by humans is alarming. I agree that there are "enviro-kooks" and people who want to use this issue for political games; however this phenomenon IS something we have to be aware of, and keep our eyes on.

We are releasing millions of years' worth of CO2 that was previously trapped underground in the form of coal and oil. No one can dispute that. The question is whether the planet has the capacity to absorb the extra CO2's effects or not. No one really knows, but why do nothing, why risk it?

Geologists are pushing for prudence on this issue, not an agenda. We know from the rock and ice core record that global greenhouse conditions are at least partially caused by increased levels of CO2. We are putting more CO2 into the atmosphere. You do the math. Is it worth freaking out about? I dont know. Is it worth being aware of and taking reasonable steps to prevent? Certainly.
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One mans reason is another mans insanity. Give an inch they take a mile and it doesn't stop. 600 million years ago there was 4 times the oxygen content and nearly 10 times the co2 content in the atmosphere with much much more volcanic and tectonic activity than could possibly be imagined. We are the after-effects of such climate change and yet here we are getting to discuss how we got into a mess that was never a mess to begin with and is being used as a political sledge hammer to redistribute wealth and gain control of massive money and mineral supplies all for the sake of an inanimate object (the earth) while the most polluting nations on the face of the earth are exempted from compliance. You are part of the machine that is perpetrating this fraud and it would behoove you to get off the crazy train for you sake and for the rest of your fellow citizens monetary pain.
 
ordovician said:
Of course the sun is a factor. No one said it wasn't. The mechanisms that drive the global climate regime are very complex, which is why we should be very careful with what we do.
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The sun is the only factor of weather formation on earth. Everything else is a systematic outcome of that process. Global climate is complex to be sure, but the sun is it's engine and drives it. Everything else is icing.
 
ordovician said:
Scientists try to explain things. It's our job. You just implied that the natural cycles are fragile enough to be affected by HUMANS planting more crops!??? And yet you write off the trillions of barrels and tons of coal/hydrocarbons we burn every year!?

I'm getting fed up with this. If you want to appeal to my sense of logic, please be logical.
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hydrocarbons are not the enemy and if not for them you wouldn't be here today to tell to appeal to your send of logic. Way to come full circle.
 
Methadras said:
One mans reason is another mans insanity. Give an inch they take a mile and it doesn't stop. 600 million years ago there was 4 times the oxygen content and nearly 10 times the co2 content in the atmosphere with much much more volcanic and tectonic activity than could possibly be imagined. We are the after-effects of such climate change and yet here we are getting to discuss how we got into a mess that was never a mess to begin with and is being used as a political sledge hammer to redistribute wealth and gain control of massive money and mineral supplies all for the sake of an inanimate object (the earth) while the most polluting nations on the face of the earth are exempted from compliance. You are part of the machine that is perpetrating this fraud and it would behoove you to get off the crazy train for you sake and for the rest of your fellow citizens monetary pain.
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600 million years ago was the Proterozoic, and O2 levels were lower than what they were now. As far as 10 times the CO2 content.. well, maybe. That's pretty far back to be able to tell. What we do know is that the late Proterozoic was kind of a shaky time for Earth's climate (to say the least -- think global glaciations and global supergreenhouse meltdowns), and is not directly analagous to today's climate. But if you want to throw made-up numbers around like some armchair geologist, go right ahead.

I am not perpetuating shit, and I am not some eco-terrorist. I am a scientist, and I have worked with and interacted with individuals at major oil companies, and with other geologists about this issue. It is a real issue, although I agree that the politicization of it is a bunch of horseshit. All I ever said was that the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere by humans should be a concern, and a cause for PRUDENCE.
 
My main concern is pollution, not global warming. Folks like ordovician obviously know what their talking about and it's their business, so it seems foolish to argue with them and bring only knowledge gotten from articles.

Some of the arguments against climate change sound oddly familiar to the justification of a deity. "It's colder today than yesterday, so HOW COULD IT BE WARMING?!! MORE LIKE COOLING LOLOL!!" I realize no one said this, but having read all the posts, many, many of the arguments sound just as ridiculous.
 
Methadras said:
The sun is the only factor of weather formation on earth. Everything else is a systematic outcome of that process. Global climate is complex to be sure, but the sun is it's engine and drives it. Everything else is icing.
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Well, you're only partially correct there. A lot has to do with the Earth's orbit, too. Look up "Milankovitch cycles"
 
Jordan1 said:
I do 1 massive burnout in my 6.0L beast for every article I read like this. BRB. Suck it earth!
Global warming (or should I say climate change) has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do $$$.
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I'm with you on that one.
 
Where is the study on flatulence? I farted just a minute ago. Isn't methane something like 20x the greenhouse gas that CO2 is?
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
I say the earth will be destroyed by fire and we'll have nothing to do with it. (ok, I didn't actually come up with that but you can guess my source)
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Azhar said:
I bet I know(ing) where that came from! ;-)
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Ummm... Or the Bible. Bible would, IMO, be a much more popular source for a destruction day of fire and burning, LOL.... Been around alot longer than that movie, too.
 
ordovician said:
Well, you're only partially correct there. A lot has to do with the Earth's orbit, too. Look up "Milankovitch cycles"
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Come on man, of course earth's orbit is a major factor. I didn't need to think you had to spell it out since that assumption was fairly obvious. I know what Milankovich cycles are. :rolleyes:
 
I'm always amazed how many people on these forums find science contemptible.
 
jimmyb said:
I'm always amazed how many people on these forums find science contemptible.
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:rolleyes:

Because Science cannot prove anything. It can just observe what's there and create a theory. Period. It still takes faith to believe that theory, just like it takes someone to have faith to believe a supernatural being created the cosmos.

I can PROVE that with general logic by the simple fact the Scientific Law of spontaneous generation. Science supposedly "Proved" that one right and was later determined to be invalid.

In short: I'll question everything. And based on what I THINK, I'll form a conclusion. And quite honestly, there's a crapload more evidence that supports we're going through a cooling period right now, and that's what I'm personally sticking to.
You can have your opinion, and are entitled to be wrong :D
 
It's fine Techie.. by the time there is any possible backlash from humans destruction of the Earth, it will be our grandson's grandsons problem.. call me inconsiderate.. but I don't care about the people that inhabit this Earth 100+ years after my death.
 
PheonixChameleon said:
It's fine Techie.. by the time there is any possible backlash from humans destruction of the Earth, it will be our grandson's grandsons problem.. call me inconsiderate.. but I don't care about the people that inhabit this Earth 100+ years after my death.
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:D

I personally don't think there's anything we can do to wreck earth. We'll be long destroyed by then.
The animals and stuff will reproduce, plants will grow, the earth will fix itself. But we'll be long gone.
 
We'll be long gone before these scientist even figure out if CO2 has any effects on the climate.. but they'll never relent that info.
 
TechieSooner said:
In short: I'll question everything. And based on what I THINK, I'll form a conclusion. And quite honestly, there's a crapload more evidence that supports we're going through a cooling period right now, and that's what I'm personally sticking to.
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This is an interesting point. In general I support people thinking for themselves; however it should not humble a man to admit that he really isn't qualified to come to a good conclusion on his own, especially when the topic is not his field of expertise. I wouldn't dare challenge a nuclear engineer's opinion based on some talking points I heard on television, or some brief research I had googled in an afternoon; I would require several graduate degrees before I would feel comfortable aggressively launching an opinion as my own, especially for such a complicated topic. The same goes for climatology.

I do (and I'm sure some will object), put a great deal of faith in scientific consensus, and the scientific process. Having been involved in the methodology in my own field (EE), and witnessed the same peer reviewed process in others, I genuinely believe it produces reliable, even if heavily qualified, answers.

Anyway...

I'm not a climatologist, but I did spend several years working at a severe weather research centre. I spent a great deal of time doing things such as writing software models for predicting weather events, archiving years and years of peer reviewed publications, and in general socializing with actual climatologists.

If there were two things I realized during my time there, one was that the vast majority of research suggests that there is indeed global warming (anthropogenic, or otherwise; in fact I can't recall a single paper I read or heard, or scientist I talked to whose research had led them to believe otherwise). The second thing I realized is that despite the overwhelming consensus among earth scientists and climatologists, there is still an unsettling number of non-scientists in the public who seem convinced that the research is bogus, politically biased, or simply not producing the results it actually is; and amongst my colleagues, nobody could really offer a good explanation for why that is the case.
 
So my question is what qualifies you to disqualify my opinions?
I wrote my darn thesis on this dude.
 
TechLarry said:
Ok, so we'll stop the internet, and:

  • Have all the teleworkers start driving to work again
  • Start having everything delivered by courier again instead of email
  • Drive to the store everytime we need something

That will fix the problem!
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Hah! So true!

and yes, the ironny of needing the internet for me to actually find out this news...
 
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