Google Unveils Deforestation Monitor

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Today, at the International Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Google unveiled a deforestation monitor that could help combat climate change when used in conjunction with a proposed UN program.

If REDD is implemented, it would require member nations to monitor the state of their forests and land use. It would offer money in exchange for those nations preventing people from cutting down forests deemed significant to curbing emissions. The aim of the program is to essentially make the trees worth more alive than loggers could make from chopping them down or than farmers could make from converting forestland into farmland.
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How exactly are people going to impact climate change? The climate is going to change all around us and there is nothing we can do about it. I find it pretty amusing that we've gotten so confident in ourselves that we really believe we can impact the climate in a meaningful way. I'm glad the Copenhagen is going to be a huge flop, but I'm sad to see influential companies like google support it.
 
petertew said:
How exactly are people going to impact climate change? The climate is going to change all around us and there is nothing we can do about it. I find it pretty amusing that we've gotten so confident in ourselves that we really believe we can impact the climate in a meaningful way. I'm glad the Copenhagen is going to be a huge flop, but I'm sad to see influential companies like google support it.
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Because we're AMURRICANS. lol
 
Cool we can see all our utility expenses going up as Cap and Trade fixes all the rain forest.
 
Man I really wish they'd stop using the word climate change, because then all these arm chair skeptics who know jack shit about any of the data presented are instant experts in spotting faulty data would stop saying its a scam.

listen, who cares about the fucking climate
Cut forests down, you cause a shit load of erosion, cut forests down you potentially wipe out species that are indigenous to that exact location, cut forests down replace with farms and run off from farms goes into the ocean and fucks that up. Pollution is bad, it gives you respiratory problems, pollution is bad because it gives you cancer and all sorts of other shit. Does it all need to really be able changing the climate?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Man I really wish they'd stop using the word climate change, because then all these arm chair skeptics who know jack shit about any of the data presented are instant experts in spotting faulty data would stop saying its a scam.

listen, who cares about the fucking climate
Cut forests down, you cause a shit load of erosion, cut forests down you potentially wipe out species that are indigenous to that exact location, cut forests down replace with farms and run off from farms goes into the ocean and fucks that up. Pollution is bad, it gives you respiratory problems, pollution is bad because it gives you cancer and all sorts of other shit. Does it all need to really be able changing the climate?
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No offense personally, but you are a prime example of a useful idiot. Your heart is in the right place and that is being used against you by the people advocating AGW.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Man I really wish they'd stop using the word climate change, because then all these arm chair skeptics who know jack shit about any of the data presented are instant experts in spotting faulty data would stop saying its a scam.
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I don't know about the climate and all its complexities, and I highly doubt there is a model out there that can account for those complexities either.

I do know that many of these climate scientists pushing MMGW have an incentive to overstate their case: funding dollars. I also know that many people want to increase the power of the US government and can use global warming as an easy way to do so; please see the current EPA power grab. I also know that science requires theories to be proved, and if you go and destroy your data and keep it out of the hands of people who disagree with you (Google Climategate) it looks like you are hiding something, and if your'e hiding stuff it's usually because it won't hold up to public scrutiny.

The MMGW movementt resembles a religion more than a scientific movement; if you say anything against it you're a sinful heretic who hates the planet. There is a MASSIVE amount of money (billions) being pushed to people who are promoting "green innovations." If you don't believe that billions of dollars up for grabs won't influence the conclusions researchers come up with you are naive.

Now, if you consider yourself an expert on global climate change please answer this question for me: what is the ideal global temperature? The one that we should be targeting with all this money we're investing.
 
petertew said:
I don't know about the climate and all its complexities, and I highly doubt there is a model out there that can account for those complexities either.

I do know that many of these climate scientists pushing MMGW have an incentive to overstate their case: funding dollars. I also know that many people want to increase the power of the US government and can use global warming as an easy way to do so; please see the current EPA power grab. I also know that science requires theories to be proved, and if you go and destroy your data and keep it out of the hands of people who disagree with you (Google Climategate) it looks like you are hiding something, and if your'e hiding stuff it's usually because it won't hold up to public scrutiny.

The MMGW movementt resembles a religion more than a scientific movement; if you say anything against it you're a sinful heretic who hates the planet. There is a MASSIVE amount of money (billions) being pushed to people who are promoting "green innovations." If you don't believe that billions of dollars up for grabs won't influence the conclusions researchers come up with you are naive.

Now, if you consider yourself an expert on global climate change please answer this question for me: what is the ideal global temperature? The one that we should be targeting with all this money we're investing.
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Agreed. Another question I've asked many times, but never got an answer to is:

“If Global Warming is such an apocalyptic crisis that we all will have to change the way we live to deal with it, why do we first have to pay $10 for a movie ticket to learn about it”?

And why is the maker of that movie positioning himself, through his partnership in a carbon credit trading firm, to make billions of dollars if Cap and Trade is passed? It's almost as if he was ready and waiting with a "solution" once he convinced enough people that there is a problem. And of course if the goal was really to save the planet, instead of getting filthy rich and controling peoples lives, Cap and Trade would never be seriously considered because it does nothing to stop that which is claimed to be causing harm. It simply transfers wealth from those who can afford to do "harm" to those who can't.
 
:rollleyes: if some of you guys had any idea the rate we cut down rainforests you wouldn't be making fun of this. if we do infact erraticate the rainforests you can pretty much call it endgame.
 
uh... is this even an issue anymore? I remember watching that penn and teller BS show about environmentalists and, from what I recall, there are more trees in the united states now than there were 200 years ago due to loggers replacing the forest after they cut 'em down.

I'll try to find the numbers
 
krupted said:
:rollleyes: if some of you guys had any idea the rate we cut down rainforests you wouldn't be making fun of this. if we do infact erraticate the rainforests you can pretty much call it endgame.
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By the time it happens I will be long dead. Continue with the cheap goods and services please :)
 
Climate change deniers are a curious breed. It is easier for them to do nothing so they will parrot all kinds of psedu-science. The sad part is if they put as much effort into reducing their impact on the environment as they do in spewing ad-homienms and shouting others down, our climate would likely be in pristine shape.
 
petertew said:
I don't know about the climate and all its complexities, and I highly doubt there is a model out there that can account for those complexities either.
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Prime example of armchair skeptic. I don't know much about the climate either, but it wouldn't surprise me if we could in fact model it to at least to a fair degree of accuracy. I mean hell we have made models of stars going supernova, I think handling the climate could at least be done feasibly.

I do know that many of these climate scientists pushing MMGW have an incentive to overstate their case: funding dollars.
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Wow you really don't have any idea how much money is really involved? People who get funded, don't really do this for the kicks. "Oh hey I get to go to Antarctica again, HURRAY!" People who are doing this do so because its something they believe in, not for money. You want to argue money, argue the corporate side of things they're the people who might want to bank off this with "Green" products, etc.

I also know that science requires theories to be proved, and if you go and destroy your data and keep it out of the hands of people who disagree with you (Google Climategate) it looks like you are hiding something, and if your'e hiding stuff it's usually because it won't hold up to public scrutiny.
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This is the thing with that, I don't know why everyone makes it out like this one individual is the ONLY person who ever took data. Yeah "Climategate" was not a pretty picture, but he wasn't the only one doing the science.
.[/QUOTE]



JethroXP said:
Agreed. Another question I've asked many times, but never got an answer to is:

“If Global Warming is such an apocalyptic crisis that we all will have to change the way we live to deal with it, why do we first have to pay $10 for a movie ticket to learn about it”?
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And you really have the audacity to call me a useful idiot? :D I mean christ on a crutch, will the "Al Gore is a hypocrite therefore it's all bullshit" mentality ever go away?

But to answer your question, "we" didn't have to pay that, "we" just choose to because it was pushed down our throats (I still haven't seen it and really have no reason to see it), because that's how "we" choose to learn stuff. Just like "we" didn't have to pay $10 to learn all about the conflict diamonds from Leonard DiCaprio, many of us did anyways because that's about the extent of our attention spans and how we process information.
 
Draax said:
Climate change deniers are a curious breed. It is easier for them to do nothing so they will parrot all kinds of psedu-science. The sad part is if they put as much effort into reducing their impact on the environment as they do in spewing ad-homienms and shouting others down, our climate would likely be in pristine shape.
Click to expand...

Climate change zealots are a curious breed. It's easier for them to cry about the climate changing and people pollution and cutting down trees than actually doing something about it themselves.

Hey, is that coal you're burning using your computer? How dare you sir!
 
Draax said:
Climate change deniers are a curious breed. It is easier for them to do nothing so they will parrot all kinds of psedu-science. The sad part is if they put as much effort into reducing their impact on the environment as they do in spewing ad-homienms and shouting others down, our climate would likely be in pristine shape.
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lol the same can be said for the chicken littles who believe the sky is falling.

Nobody's arguing that the climate is stagnant... why is it bad to be skeptical of their "data"? They told us in the 70's that we were heading into a mini iceage and the world was going to end if we didn't do anything about it.

Here we are, almost 40 years later and they totally reversed their stance on the subject, and a lot of people made a shit load of money from the hysteria in the process
 
Anyways my point was missed I think.

I don't care about man made global warming, man made pollution however is something only a retard (or someone who really is looking to make money) would deny. It's that constant link between climate and pollution/environmental damage that pisses me off because the whole point of the damage is being overlooked by skeptics to the climate change bit.

I don't like Al Gore, he's a hypocrite... so its' ok for me to burn my trash in my backyard on hot summer days!
 
sfsuphysics said:
Anyways my point was missed I think.

I don't care about man made global warming, man made pollution however is something only a retard (or someone who really is looking to make money) would deny. It's that constant link between climate and pollution/environmental damage that pisses me off because the whole point of the damage is being overlooked by skeptics to the climate change bit.

I don't like Al Gore, he's a hypocrite... so its' ok for me to burn my trash in my backyard on hot summer days!
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I completely agree :)
 
dr.stevil said:
lol the same can be said for the chicken littles who believe the sky is falling.

Nobody's arguing that the climate is stagnant... why is it bad to be skeptical of their "data"? They told us in the 70's that we were heading into a mini iceage and the world was going to end if we didn't do anything about it.

Here we are, almost 40 years later and they totally reversed their stance on the subject, and a lot of people made a shit load of money from the hysteria in the process
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Gotta post this because it makes me twitch whenever someone uses this argument... I throw this into the same category as the Hummer is cleaner than a Prius "report"

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
Regardless of your position it is a good read.
 
^^^

Oh wow...so you are from SF area and you drive a prius?

My god...no wonder America sucks so much now.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Gotta post this because it makes me twitch whenever someone uses this argument... I throw this into the same category as the Hummer is cleaner than a Prius "report"

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
Regardless of your position it is a good read.
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What argument? It's a completely valid reason to question the science behind it, especially with so much money to be made. If there was only one conclusion that scientists/researchers were drawing about the environment, I don't think you'd see nearly as many skeptics. But the fact is there are just as many prominent researches coming to the conclusion that we're not effecting global temperatures as there are that believe we do.

No matter who's right, if we look at past global temperature shifts throughout the history of earth, we're screwed no matter how significant or insignificant we think we are. If we should be investing in anything, it should be developing technology that will allow longterm survival in extreme climates because whether we like it or not, it's going to happen again.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Prime example of armchair skeptic. I don't know much about the climate either, but it wouldn't surprise me if we could in fact model it to at least to a fair degree of accuracy. I mean hell we have made models of stars going supernova, I think handling the climate could at least be done feasibly.


Wow you really don't have any idea how much money is really involved? People who get funded, don't really do this for the kicks. "Oh hey I get to go to Antarctica again, HURRAY!" People who are doing this do so because its something they believe in, not for money. You want to argue money, argue the corporate side of things they're the people who might want to bank off this with "Green" products, etc.


This is the thing with that, I don't know why everyone makes it out like this one individual is the ONLY person who ever took data. Yeah "Climategate" was not a pretty picture, but he wasn't the only one doing the science.
.
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And you really have the audacity to call me a useful idiot? :D I mean christ on a crutch, will the "Al Gore is a hypocrite therefore it's all bullshit" mentality ever go away?

But to answer your question, "we" didn't have to pay that, "we" just choose to because it was pushed down our throats (I still haven't seen it and really have no reason to see it), because that's how "we" choose to learn stuff. Just like "we" didn't have to pay $10 to learn all about the conflict diamonds from Leonard DiCaprio, many of us did anyways because that's about the extent of our attention spans and how we process information.[/QUOTE]

I just used a tire to light my woodstove.
 
This whole global warming/climate change BS is just a ploy to make money. Look at how many people stand to profit off of "going green". They can charge extra money for things by making you feel bad, and making you THINK you're destroying the planet if you don't "buy green" which costs twice the price of the "earth destroying" version.

Also, people selling "carbon credits"? have you seen these companies? They make money by making people feel guilty. By making them think that because they drive an SUV, polar bears are going to die.

The earth is getting warmer. But who's to blame? No one. It's just how things go. We have ice ages and we have warm stages. That's it.
 
And you really have the audacity to call me a useful idiot? I mean christ on a crutch, will the "Al Gore is a hypocrite therefore it's all bullshit" mentality ever go away?

But to answer your question, "we" didn't have to pay that, "we" just choose to because it was pushed down our throats (I still haven't seen it and really have no reason to see it), because that's how "we" choose to learn stuff. Just like "we" didn't have to pay $10 to learn all about the conflict diamonds from Leonard DiCaprio, many of us did anyways because that's about the extent of our attention spans and how we process information.[/QUOTE]

I just used a tire to light my woodstove.

Strange....
 
JethroXP said:
No offense personally, but you are a prime example of a useful idiot. Your heart is in the right place and that is being used against you by the people advocating AGW.
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Hahaha. Everything he said is true, man. Climate change or not, there are much more immediate environmental problems to deal with. Pollution is a real problem (and was much worse of one before the EPA existed). Don't believe me? Put your nose up to your lawnmower exhaust. Inhale. Decide if that's a good thing to be putting into the atmosphere.

And if all of our environmentalism aimed at stopping pollution ends up having the side benefit of saving the planet...well, that works too!

JethroXP said:
Agreed. Another question I've asked many times, but never got an answer to is:

“If Global Warming is such an apocalyptic crisis that we all will have to change the way we live to deal with it, why do we first have to pay $10 for a movie ticket to learn about it”?

And why is the maker of that movie positioning himself, through his partnership in a carbon credit trading firm, to make billions of dollars if Cap and Trade is passed? It's almost as if he was ready and waiting with a "solution" once he convinced enough people that there is a problem. And of course if the goal was really to save the planet, instead of getting filthy rich and controling peoples lives, Cap and Trade would never be seriously considered because it does nothing to stop that which is claimed to be causing harm. It simply transfers wealth from those who can afford to do "harm" to those who can't.
Click to expand...

The fact that someone profits from a scientific theory doesn't automatically prove that theory false. If I was a scientist experimenting with solar panels, and I found a breakthrough material that converted 95% of the radiation striking it into electrical energy, you can bet your ass I would invest in some solar energy companies. That wouldn't invalidate all of my research.
 
The hypocrisy of liberal environmentalists is mostly what irks everyone. I mean, all the environmentalists I know have only slightly different lifestyles than everyone else, well...except for trying to tell everyone else what to do.

Google and other tech companies have created this myth that they are "clean" and don't cause pollution. Guess what, over 60% of all electricity in the US is made from coal powered plants. Google doesn't turn their nose up at that electricity.
 
delahaya said:
The hypocrisy of liberal environmentalists is mostly what irks everyone. I mean, all the environmentalists I know have only slightly different lifestyles than everyone else, well...except for trying to tell everyone else what to do.

Google and other tech companies have created this myth that they are "clean" and don't cause pollution. Guess what, over 60% of all electricity in the US is made from coal powered plants. Google doesn't turn their nose up at that electricity.
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You have a point but you have to past the actions of some and look at the reality of the situation. I think that most of the world would benefit from cleaner, long term cheaper and renewable energy sources and that they are key for the worlds standard of living to increase, in both economically developed and undeveloped areas.
 
delahaya said:
The hypocrisy of liberal environmentalists is mostly what irks everyone. I mean, all the environmentalists I know have only slightly different lifestyles than everyone else, well...except for trying to tell everyone else what to do.

Google and other tech companies have created this myth that they are "clean" and don't cause pollution. Guess what, over 60% of all electricity in the US is made from coal powered plants. Google doesn't turn their nose up at that electricity.
Click to expand...

The thing is, you don't have to be an extremist to help. If everyone would do everything they can to reduce their environmental footprint that doesn't require trading convenience, the Earth would be a lot better off. You don't have to stop using toilet paper and buy cell phones made of corn. Just make casual environmental decisions whenever possible. When a light bulb burns out, replace it with a compact florescent or LED bulb. When you install a new appliance, buy the high efficiency model. Press your computer's power button instead of the monitor's power button. Throw your can into the recycling bin rather than the trash can. Other than sometimes costing a bit more (but only in the short run), none of these things require any additional effort on your part. Yet, if everyone did them, we would be just fine: one of my environmental science textbooks said that if everyone in America simply eliminated unnecessary waste, we would reduce our energy usage by 50%. That's more than Cap and Trade will ever do.

And yes, some companies (such as CFL manufacturers) would profit from such a movement, while others (such as electricity companies) would lose money. But that certainly doesn't negate the positive effects, both on the environment and your wallet, of avoiding waste.
 
Pollution is one thing. Pollution is not causing global warming. Global warming is causing global warming.

Seems these days everyone is trying to link the two together. All you see on the news is "There's a drought in *insert poor country here*, AND IT'S YOUR FAULT, BECAUSE YOU'RE A SELFISH WESTERNER WHO DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE PLANET"
 
Isnt it something like there are more tree's on this earth then there was 50 years ago, also because we use paper, they plant tree's for paper production... so example we stop using so much paper, more tree's wont get planted?
 
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