http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6247371.stm

I actually agree with him. Of course we should try to reduce pollution and everything else, but the alarmism i've seen in these last days is just IMHO fool.

Yes, because a temperature of 15 degrees is completely normal in the beginning of January.

I get really annoyed when people don't want to limit human-caused climate change because it "costs too much". By the time these people realise that there really is a problem, no amount of monetary investment is going to help because it's too late.
What some people fail or refuse to see is that the climate is not generally a stable thing. Perturb it slightly and it will return to how it was before. Perturb it slightly more and you get a runaway process to an entirely different situation. Fast. This is not something that takes millenia, it can happen in decades.

I heard a report the other day that there are indications that the ice fields on the north pole are shifting more rapidly and the ice cap is starting to shrink. Since that leads to positive feedback (small ice cap means less sunlight is reflected back into space, which means more heat is retained, which means temperatures increase, which means more ice melts) it may actually already be too late.

EDIT:
The climate really is a problem. I think many people live under the false assumption that our technology will somehow help us correct the problem when it gets too big. It won't. The forces involved are much more powerful than any technology we have. Can our technology protect us from earth quakes? Hurricanes? Tsunami? Then how is it going to help us correct global climate change?

At the same time, Hypocrisy Central, aka. the US Government promotes the usage of gasoline hybrid cars that are not only less economical and environment friendly than modern european diesels, they also have less performance and a higher initial price tag. Meanwhile, european car makers are making powerful environmnent-friendly diesels that only need residual fumes to run a 100 km.

The main reason why diesel cars are so unheard-of in the US is, I guess, that the american car makers really suck at making them, so they'll do (= market and lobby) anything they need to in order to keep cheap and clean european diesel power from hitting the streets and totally decimating domestic sales of american made passenger vehicles.

For example:

Ford had to give in as 60% of all new cars bought in europe are diesel-powered and their own disel technology, well honestly, has always sucked major donkey anus. Now they (and Mazda too, being a wholly owned subsidiary,) buy their diesel engines from Peugeot. Officially the engine line was co-developed but that's only a facade of marketing PR so ford engineers wouldn't lose face. The Ford Duratorq line is only a minor development over then existing Peugeot HDi technology and the engines are in fact built at Peugeot's plant.

GM has gained modern diesel technology only recently. Their own diesels were so massively outdated that in 2005 GM bought rights to the JTD diesel engine from Fiat.

Mercedes-Benz had some good diesels back in the mid 90's but after the DaimlerChrysler merger their disel development stagnated. That's peculiar since back in the mid 90's Mercedes diesels were know as the epitome or reliability. These days, I wouldn't trust one to take me to school. In the meantime Mercedes has began producing cars with even bigger and stronger gasoline engines. During DaimlerChrysler's brief ownership of Mitsubishi, even their diesel development was almost stopped, which leads to believe the Chrysler half of DaimlerChrysler would most likely want to sweep the whole idea of diesel power under the rug. (Nevermind that, it seems the daimlerchrysler merger was infact daimler-benz ag' takeover of chrysler so they just dropped the ball.)

How? Because people might actually understand that there's a problem?

PS. Of course Chrysler wouldn't like increased gasolin and car taxes.

I'm liking how the vehicle taxes are developing in our beloved land of envy^H^H^Hquality - tax value dependant on emissions. Actual tax burden per vehicle would decrease for newer (=cleaner) vehicles and that would bring a concrete benefit into buying a less polluting car.

But at least over here, those taxes are completely counter-productive. It costs so damn much to just own a car that, despite some of the highest gas prices in the world, the amount of gas you burn doesn't really matter...

I suggest all of you worrying over the climate should stop and learn a little about the subject. Global warming alarmism is one of the largest scams in the modern world. Let's do a real quick primer on climate history.

The earth is warming. It has been since around 1850. Yes, 1850. Not 1950. Not 2000. There was a massive warm up in the 1930s, followed by a cooling in the 1940s-1970s. During the 1970s, climate scientists had reached a "consensus" that we were going into an Ice Age caused by humans. Because of our use of aerosols, we were going to freeze to death if we didn't starve because of the massive crop failures that would happen in the 1980s. Odd. I don't remember massive crop failures.

Now, is mankind at fault for the warming? Let's look a little farther into the past to get some trending information.

There was a period from ~1400 to ~1850 normally referred to as the Little Ice Age. It was colder than it was now – substantially colder. There were famines due to crop failure. There was plenty of misery for most human life, and other life, for that matter.

Prior to the LIA was the Medieval Warm Period, stretching ~1000 to ~1400. It was WARMER during the MWP than it was today. Yes, warmer. English monasteries were renowned for their wines. The vineyards in England were quite bountiful and successful. I don't recall that England has been known for wine production any time recently.

Prior to the MWP was the Dark Ages cool period. While not as severe as the LIA, it was still substantial enough to appear in paleoclimatological studies. Prior to the Dark Ages cooling was the Roman Warm Period. And, if we get into larger time periods, there were a couple of Ice Ages a few thousand years ago, when it was REALLY cold. And there was the warm periods of the dinosaurs.

So, what's my point so far? Climate is not stable, and it never has been.

Now, let's look at the earth's temperature. Climate scientists can't agree on a temperature for the earth. They have different methods for computing it, and the general idea is that the earth's temp is around 288K, +/- 0.6K. Climate models claim that we will see warming somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.5-6K, which means maybe as much as 2% warmer than it is now.

However, there is a problem with climate models. They have no forecasting skill. If you take any of those models, set its parameters to the known values in 1900, and run it up to the present, it will be nowhere near accurate. If it can't predict current temperatures using real world data and trends, why should we believe its claims of the future? Quite frankly, we here at allego.cc can make climate forecasting models that are every bit as skillful at predicting the future as the ones being used to make the global warming alarmism claims.

Let's glance at the bugbear of global warming, carbon dioxide. Here in the US, there is a Supreme Court case because some environmentalists want to classify carbon dioxide as a "pollutant". What about this pollutant? It comes from cars. It comes from industry. It is a side effect of almost every form of energy production. Where else does it come from? Every single man, woman, and child on the planet. And every single living, breathing animal on the planet. So, if it's a pollutant, it must be all bad, right? For those of you who didn't pay attention in high school biology, carbon dioxide is the main ingredient in the photosynthesis cycle. Without CO2, plants don't live. And, more importantly, with higher CO2 concentrations, plants grow better, and crops have higher yields. CO2, the horrifying pollutant that we must regulate, is the best, most environmentally friendly fertilizer there is. When I hear people claim that we must regulate CO2 output to stop global warming, the conclusion I reach is that either the person is ignorant about the carbon cycle, or the person wants famine from reduced yields and crop failures.

And what about the "It's too critical to do nothing! Spare no expenses!" argument? Quick – what will the Kyoto Protocol do to stop global warming, assuming all the signatories actually meet the goals of reducing CO2 output? Anyone? Something like 0.5K. So, we are going to spend billions of dollars (or whatever your local currency is) to prevent an amount of warming that falls within the margin of error of the current temperature. Is that rational? Severely limiting our economic output – keeping people impoverished, to do something that no one can detect?

By the way, CO2 levels have been far higher than they are today in the distant past – and yet life on earth survived. And thrived.

There are far, far more important things to worry about than having warmer winters, people. Do yourselves a favor and get the facts. Now excuse me while I finish getting my house ready for the subfreezing weather that is due to arrive in the next day or so. I hate winter cold snaps.

Yes, lets. Two words for you: ice cores.

snerk
Straw man much?

@gnolam:

Ice cores? What about them? Ice cores from where? There's plenty of evidence in the ice cores to show temperature and CO2 levels have been higher and lower than they are today. Or is there some other evidence in them that you wish to bring up?

Straw man? The implicit and explicit claim of the antrhopogenic global warming crowd is that CO2 is responsible for global warming. Even though current science suggests that CO2 is responsible for 25% of the warming - all of the CO2 delta, not just what mankind emits industrially. And ignoring the role CO2 plays in the carbon cycle of life, and the effects of increased CO2 levels on plant life is disingenious.

I call Bull.

The Earth was cooling, but that was because of more opaque pollutants, not greenhouse gasses. Regardless, scientists at the time did not have the necessary information to determine that fact.

Good thing we humans implemented vast pollution controls to limit said pollutants.

In Europe? Yes. Over the entire planet? Nope!

That's right. Climate models all assume us humans stop dumping more shit in the atmosphere than they already do. Doing it any other way would pretty much require feeding back historical data in the model in an effort for it to determine that same data!

The rest of your post is so filled with equally bad misinformation that I won't even both addressing all the points.

Global Warming is terrifying. But sadly, no one will address a problem until it's knocking on their door. These men will all be dead before we run into any life-threatening problems, as a result of Global Warming. I'm sure that I'll be dead, as well. But that doesn't mean we aren't already feeling the heat (quite literally).

Here's a question for people who probably know a lot more about the logistics of it: with the planned population of the moon, is there hope for re-population on foreign planets? It's rather sad, but I'm quite confident that this is what it'll come to, eventually.

I recall a Mercedes-Benz of a friend that is beyond piss poor in performance. It's like driving a bus. Diesel's have a horribly narrow powerband, don't they? Or is that only semi-trucks? On the other hand, there are quite a few people around me driving Jettas that are diesels.

Also, I think you're forgetting the idea of capitalism. If they can make money from it, they'd be doing it. That whole "untapped market = $$$" thing leads me to think that if they could--given the market and the status of the companies--they would. Otherwise, it'd be like throwing away money. Any company that could have super clean, efficient, and powerful diesels would smash the competition. It's not like the public doesn't care about pollution now with all of these environmentalist scares.

US car manufacturers also suck at gas-electric hyrids. That doesn't mean those cars aren't being sold like hot-cakes in the US.

FWIW, the VW Jetta Diesel is available in most VW dealers in the US.

It definately has been.

Despite large uncertainties that remain, climate models today are much more accurate than they were in the 1970s. Saying that todays models are wrong because those in 1970 were is just stupid.

The question is not if man kind is responsible for global warming, the question is if man kind has contributed artificially to global warming. Current indications are that, yes, man kind is responsible for an average temperature increase of (from memory, could be off a bit) about 0.5K (which is huge).

Forgive my cynicism when I ask, is that one method in the US and one in the rest of the world?

That in itself could be taken as an argument in favour of human influence on the climate. I wouldn't say that, because the climate (or weather systems in general) are inherently chaotic. A slight change in your initial conditions will produce a large deviation in the outcome.

Ok, I'll call. Do it. Make a physically realistic climate model that can compete with what meteorologists use.

The only person here who is ignorant is the person who makes a claim like that.
Carbon dioxide is known, undisputed green-house gas. This is a good thing, because without it, the Earth would have become a cold, dead frozen clump of ice long ago. There is so much as too much of a good thing, however. Do you know what a run-away greenhouse effect looks like? It looks like the planet Venus.
For the past several hundred million years, most carbon has been locked up inside the Earth in the form of graphite, coal and oil. That carbon is being released again now.

Ah, but that CO2 is constantly being recycled in the biosphere. There is no natural net source of CO2. However, burning fossil fuels is a source of CO2. See the difference?

You do realise that there's actually a difference between an average temperature with a deviation of 0.5K and an average temperature that is 0.5K higher with a deviation of 0.5K, right?

Nothing we do will destroy life on Earth; it will be here long after we are gone. I'm not concerned about life on Earth, I'm concerned for my own future and that of my children.

A warm winter is the least of my worries. Melting ice caps on the poles are a much larger concern - or the Gulf stream shutting down.

Yes, do. Consider getting them somewhere else than the USA general media.

It's not long ago that I was rather sceptical about human influence on the climate. Now, I'm fairly convinced that it's real. Not the only influence by a long shot, but an influence that is quite clearly measurable now. I see no reason to panic over much, but at the same time I find it extremely stupid to look the other way and deny any influence. Darwin in action on a global scale, I suppose.

Climate change due to CO2 emission won't stop when CO2 emission is stopped tomorrow. What has already been released over the past decades is enough to influence the climate for a long time, and the effect is cumulative.

Why does it matter? That's like saying "we didn't create AIDS, so we don't have to do anything to stop it either". I agree with what Evert said. Going "OMG we're all gonna die" is stupid and pointless, but it's not like the climate change is made-up or just going to disappear if we don't think about it.

I just love this. You can really see the Chrysler influence in that statement. You don't have to be an economist to figure out that doing something right now is going to be cheaper than doing it further down the line. Maybe not $10 trillion cheaper, but that's hardly the issue.

And who gets that "wasted" money? We. In the world scale, money isn't a finite source which will deplete when its used. It's just that if one country decides not to follow the protocol, but the others do, it's that one country that will just get advantage over the others.

Almost all climate scientist agree that global warming is real. Why not to listen them?

No, that's the natural carbon cycle. Carbon that has been absorbed by plants is freed. However, the carbon in fuel has been stored under the ground for millions of years. It's not part of that natural cycle even if it's came from plants. Before the oil sources were formed, carbon dioxide levels were higher, and yes, the earth was warmer as well.

I said "aerosols", not "greenhouse gases". If you prefer the term "opaque pollutants" over "aerosols", we can use "opaque pollutants". It doesn't change the fact that we were told we were heading into an Ice Age before the end of the century.

The Medieval Warm Period Project certainly indicates a much larger span than just Europe.

Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly - the whole point is that you do feed in historical data to see if the climate model maps to reality. If you put historical data in to the model and it comes up with a result significantly different than what we measure in the real world, then we can reasonably conclude that the model isn't generating sound results. And, unfortunately, that is what the models currently do.

Actually, the USA general media supports the anthropogenic global warming meme. One has to look outside of the media to find any dissenting positions.

Anyway, folks - sorry to stir the hornets' nest here. I just figured I'd give myself something to do waiting for work to get busy. My boss just showed up. Gotta work

The previous message was brought to you by OPEC and the petroleum industry.

What I care most is the living quality of people. Because the of the ice melting, Manhattan might be soon under water, as well as many costal cities. People would loose their homes. Poor people from the third world countries who have the least to do with the global warming loose the most (they can't afroid to build flood blocks).

I don't care how many dollars that makes up, but it's not the important thing. Still, $10 trillion sounds like nothing, considering how many big cities are located at the coast.

Most likely mankind will survive, there's no doubt, but considering that my house might be one of the first to be flooded, and that it might actually become freezingly cold here in Finland if the golf stream changes its course, it really might worry me a bit.

Modern car diesels actually have usable torque from idle to 5k, that's wider than most gasoline engines of comparable power. Not to mention the fact that for every horsepower on tap, a diesel makes 2-3 more times the torque than a gasoline engine of comparable power. Also, while at it, a diesel consumes 30% less diesel that itself costs 25% less per litre than gasoline.

I never claimed the old diesel Mese's had power. Everyone knows no mid 90's diesel had good performance but Mercedes diesels from that day were more reliable than swiss watches. It was late in the '90s when Peugeot's HDi and Volkswagen's Powerdiesel TDi shuffled the deck real good.

Another thing. According to my friend's brother who drove around Cleveland in a 1.9 TDi Audi A6 (130hp, 300Nm) for a year, american diesel (the fuel itself) is also of very poor quality. Maybe that's also intentional, to keep the more lucrative gasoline sales higher?

Goddamn,only 4 drinks and i sound like a conspiracy nut already...

Because... they chose poor sites for cites... Venice sunk into the sea and people keep on living there.

Not in the US. Diesel is more expensive. Average US East Coast price is $2.59, while 87 Octane is $2.15 as of yesterday night. On a side note: E85 looks to be interesting--being basically street-legal race gas with an octane rating of around 100.

If that's true, the current fuel has worked for semi-trucks for say >30 years. So to magically switch something that's worked and been established for all this time definitely wouldn't be easy.

That's a very bad business decision and still falls under untapped markets for a competitor to swoop in and make tons of money. And there are plenty of fuels that are more expensive than gasoline but we don't use those.

so that explains why the diesels haven't ran over that continent yet. That and the poor quality of diesel fuel there. American semis work fine with european diesel so i don't see why they couldn't improve quality.. Oh right. that requires investments and since improving quality would decrease consumption and sales...

Well diesel itself is detonated by compression and that alone has forced it to be pretty much the same when it comes to parameters concerning whether it will run or not. It's not that much different, except that the Audi did however produce far less power and did require replacing filters and such prematurely. It was never made for that market anyway.

Oh, a meme eh? Ok, let's see what global temperature averages look like, shall we?
For instance:
{"name":"nhshgl.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/b\/bb3a8b3ddc96be822595c4744992a0a3.gif","w":629,"h":726,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/b\/bb3a8b3ddc96be822595c4744992a0a3"}
(from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/)
Or
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Annual/HadCRUG.gif
(from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/globaltemperature.html)
Or, if you prefer a USA-based source,
{"name":"image001.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/2\/22b961fd0fcb0378fee32836236007d4.gif","w":600,"h":370,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/2\/22b961fd0fcb0378fee32836236007d4"}
(from http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap15/global_temp.html).
If you consider it reliable enough, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record.

Don't think you're getting off that easily.

Ignition, I'm not sure about detonation. But even then, it's the heat of the compressed air mixture igniting the fuel as it's injected. Of course, I guess I'm describing the modern direct injected diesel process.

I'm not sure what you're saying in that statement. (Seriously, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything) Are you saying that the fuel quality doesn't matter as much?

On the topic of climate models, here's another image:

{"name":"temp_58_natural.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/3\/03cf1d16ee271f172bd352a45951f0b7.gif","w":393,"h":284,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/3\/03cf1d16ee271f172bd352a45951f0b7"}
The red curve is the measurement (off-set from those in the above graph for some reason), the black curves are climate models. They're fairly consistent until 1950 or so, at which point the measurement begins to deviate noticably from the model.

What happens when the level of CO2 exceeds the amounts the vegetation can handle? CO2 is on the increase, and yet vast areas of vegetation are continually being decimated.

Does anyone have a sense of Déjà vu? The opponents of the results from the research into global warming seem to be the proponents of the CO2 generators. Not long ago, the opponents of the results from research into causes of lung cancer were the proponents of cigarettes.

I don't know about that, diesel has always been cheaper here (Alberta/Canada), though as of late, not as much as it used to. But the main reason is probably that non import diesel vehicles suck.

Its funny we start talking about diesel vehicles about the same time as a group on another forum I go to. Some are thinking about getting some import diesels.

Well, if you consider strictly the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, there's less CO2 there now than is ideal for vegetation, so I guess there could be plenty more CO2 before it would be worse than the situation now. However, the effects of the CO2 on the climate would probably have a negative effect on the vegetation.

Negative for humans, and some animals sure, but everything balances out in the end (unless the levels are near Venus's )

Well, effects like killing off the Golf stream would definitely screw vegetation up pretty much permanently (albeit not globally).

Depends on what you mean by permanently. Long enough to let hardier plants move in?

Evert, I know you're a very intelligent fellow, but a graph that goes back to 1850 really doesn's say much about long term climate patterns.

As if the temparature of a day or even a year are statistically relavent. Just like the number of hurricanes in 2005 was a harbinger of the number of hurricanes in 2006.

So the instead of total crap, they're just crap.

Christopher made alot of good points and no one challenged any of them in a meaningful way.

Strawmen indeed.

Where I grew up it was a "heat wave" if temp got to 20 F in Jan/Feb (chinook from the south). Just a couple days ago I saw the weatherman pointing to a cold air mass from the north that would moderate our spring tempuratures, the area (N.D. USA) had a current temp of 39 F after sunset. I also seem to remember there was usually three weeks or so in Feb where it'd max out at -35 F in February, but I haven't seen that for quite awhile. I oughta email some old school buddies to see what they say.

The Little Ice Age corresponded with the Maunder Minimum, where natural philosophers of the day thought Galileo had been hallucinating when he wrote of "spots on the sun" because they hadn't seen any for decades.

I've seen Mercedes four cylinder diesels from the 80's that accelerated so slowly you'd need to make an appointment to pull out on the road. I'd bet it'd have a quarter mile time of 30 seconds or so at 60 mph (a normal car (except econoboxes) you buy from a dealer would be maybe 16 seconds and 100 mph, a fast car maybe 14 and 120)

The thing about global warming is that it is potentially catastrophic. ie. it could be very very very bad for the whole world.
I'm using words like potentially, and could be, because it is difficult to be certain about anything much.
Anyway, maybe not everyone agrees that global warming is currently a problem; but I think that we can agree that it might be a problem. That should be enough. When I put on a seatbelt in a car, it's not because I expect to crash the car and be saved by the seatbelt, it's because I might crash the car and be saved by the seatbelt.
The threat of global warming is much greater than a car crash. Billions of lives are at stake. Many specices could face extinction. Maybe nothing bad will happen if we just continue as we are doing, but maybe it will. We shouldn't risk it. There's a good chance that these 'climate experts' might be right. There's a lot of modern evidence which suggests that global warming is a problem, and there is a damn lot to lose if we get this wrong.

Ah, but the question is: who told you what? Read up on the links I have posted. It just didn't happen.

Even if there might have been an odd study that might have been constructed by someone to mean that an Ice Age is comming, there was certainly no scientific consensus on the topic. Unlike GW.

Uhh, your own site contracts you. Read it up. The average temperatures were higher than (say) 250 years ago, but they certainly weren't higher than today (except, of course, in Europe).

Again, feel free to ignore the evidence.

I saw a funny thing on CNN the other day. They were doing a story about how the ski industry was bending over and taking it over the temperature this week. No snow, pitiful skiing, making crap money.

Funny thing was they interviewed both people that worked there as well as tourists for their perspective. The people running hotels there for thirty years shrugged it off; said there were at least a few times over the last three decades the temperature got that high and ruined business. Temperature rises, temperature falls, no worries. They've seen it before, it's always done that, be fine next year like it always is, nothing special. And then you had skiers, none of which looked like they'd even been alive thirty years, talking about how oh no, it was big bad global warming, it's terrible how the world is being destroyed by evil us, etc. Laughed pretty hard, personally.

So, actually .... yeah, it just might be kinda normal. The graphs are another story, but just because it's kinda warm where you are this year doesn't mean you should start stocking canned goods for the coming post-apocalyptic war after civilization ends.

Meh, I just wish the temperature here had managed to make it to 15 degrees more often this year. And it's supposed to be summer here!

Global warming? Yeah right. You're stealing that heat from us.

Yes, but did they interview anyone who had been running hotels for five hundred years?

In the scheme of things, even 500 years isn't very statistically significant.

Yes, but I've never met anyone running a hotel for over 500 years.

That's right. It says something about short-term climate change, which is what's relevant. Look at the graph. It shows two things: year to year variations are large, and there is a systematic increase in temperature (seen in the few-year average) over the past decades. That isn't in dispute. The question is how much of that increase is due to human action - and indications are that at least some of it is.

That's right. That's why I point you to the systematic rise in mean temperature over the past decades.

Say that global warming isn't caused by human intervention and will go away (or not) again naturally. Then it's a lot of fuss about nothing. But what if it isn't? The consequences are too severe to shrug off.

Eh... no. It's the highest temperature measured since they started recording. The past year was the warmest year ever recorded.

It doesn't mean the temperature rises everywhere on Earth; it means the global average rises. Right now, the effect is an increase in temperature in Western Europe. When the Gulfstream shuts down, temperatures in Europe will go down (as it did during the Maunder minimum).

A lot of people are going to deny that global warming is real and is a result of anything we're doing. It is more comfortable to believe we can do anything we want and not have a significant impact on our environment. It's not comforting to think of the world around us as a fragile thing; but it is.

Even if the warming is just a part of a natural climate cycle, the pollution we're putting out is going to have a negative effect on every living thing in one way or another. That's enough reason right there to try to make changes. But it does surprise me that people can watch the polar ice caps melting and say "oh, that's nothing... happens all the time!".

So far I'm enjoying global warming.
Warmest. Winter. Ever.
Who cares? I've got central air and a rubber dingy.

It's snowed twice here, and neither were more than an inch and lasted for less than a day. Quite a few jobs have been lost because of it, though. Normally around this time there are a lot of jobs in snow removal and winter sports, but there hasn't been enough snow.

Its actually been a little colder here this winter so far I think. Though I'm no source of good information

Though, its getting pretty cold this week, -20c to -30c, and we were just hit with a blizzard.

I need to start using [this is a JOKE][/this is a JOKE] tags. Smilies just don't seem to get the message across.

We had a warm spell here, but it was mostly from a warm draft from the west, which also conveniently blocked cold from the north for a week. Overall it was probably warmer last year though.

I'm still iffy on the whole melting ice caps thing. If most of the ice is underwater anyway and ice takes more space than water, wouldn't that mean the water level ... drops?

Chris the problem is the antarctic, it is an area of land 14,000,000 km² in size and 98% is ice-covered.

No. The iceberg itself becomes water. This should be fairly easy to test though: take a full cup of water (at room temperature) with an icecube in it and watch the icecube melt. Will the cup overflow or not?
[EDIT: actually, no, it won't overflow: the iceberg moves its own mass in water, just as the water it becomes does. A melting ice berg by itself doesn't change sea level. Mixed up my Archimedes when I wrote the above originally. No is still correct though. ]
The problem is melting icecaps on land. The glacier on Greenland is shifting and melting as well. A melting glacier will raise sea level.

In all honesty guys, doesn't it ever occur to you that when people who actually work on weather patterns, climate or glacier formation say there's a problem, they may actually know what they're talking about?

EDIT: Careful Rich: the melting ice on the Antarctic is actually icebergs; it's not clear that the land-ice is sliding there too, or at least it wasn't clear last I heard.

You're right there. I had had a few when i posted that.

All diesels are direct injection, have been since the 80's. It's the newer common rail and pump nozzle injection systems that have actually made diesels powerful and clean.

Even if it was, we don't want it to happen. I mean if you're told that millions of people will lose their homes/lives and parts of the world will become inhabitable, you'd get a little concerned, right? So how does saying "but it's all normal, though" make it any better? I mean, there is absolutely no chance that all the CO2 and other shit we put into the atmosphere is preventing global warming, so we could just play it safe and assume it's making things worse.

The thing about melting ice is that it's the only "smoking gun" that the scientists can point to that they think the public will understand. They are melting, so why not use that to scare the billions of coastal dwellers into thinking they must do something? You can show pictures of icebergs collapsing or the "before" and "after" shots of mountain tops. But if you try to give them one of the graphs that Evert posted, they'll think it's a new type of roller coaster.

Ohh! The death defying Global Warming ride!

Not necessarily. Researchers live to get grants to fund their research. If they can spread some fud and get more grants, I think alot of them would. Especially for assertions that can't be proved/disproved for centuries. Science and politics are deeply intertwined for some people.

Yeah. And takes up less space. This is what I'm saying.

I think we've established in previous discussions that I don't really believe in something just because "these guys say so, you can trust them". Incompetence and special interests are rampant in our world, after all. (edit: beaten by nonnus)

Anyway, I didn't say I didn't think it was a problem, just throwing some stuff out there. I'm less concerned about the ice caps and more concerned about the previously mentioned Gulf Stream, actually. I don't like what might happen to western and northern Europe if that thing stops.

As concerned Allegroites, I think we need to stop and consider changing our daily routines to improve the situation. We need to consider the energy we are wasting by blitting our sprites to the buffer. I propose that we blit them directly to the screen from now on, thus eliminating the need to blit the buffer to the screen (which requires considerable energy and generates additional heat in the CPU and GPU). We should consider a framerate limitation of 30fps and add a timer function that takes a new parameter-> BPS_TO_EARTH_TEMP which will only run our logic cycles when the Earth's temperature is at or below average.

Well, it's true my computer overheats playing most OpenGL games nowadays. I should do my part for the planet and swear off video games entirely.

Remember whom you're talking to here. How many colleagues of yours work/have worked on weather patterns and the climate?
Also, if there were funds being dealt out for fake research with a predetermined outcome, don't you think oil companies would be the ones doing it?

You didn't read my edit, did you? The iceberg moves its own mass while floating in water. It still moves its own mass when turned to water - the water level doesn't change.
But you don't need new water to get sea levels to rise - just increasing the mean temperature by a tenth of a degree will do that for you.

No, you rather belief what's written down in the Bible than what people tell you. Sorry if that hurt, but it really galls me no end when people blockheadedly refuse to listen to reason or wilfully close their eyes to the evidence before them. Look at the damn temperature graph.

I'm not, but then again, your country isn't below sea level.
In 1953 springtide and a western storm breached dikes along the coast, flooding 175,000 acres of land and killing almost two thousand people. If something like that were to happen today, the death toll would be very much higher. The dikes were reinforced after the floods, but it's clear that they won't be strong enough in a few decades if the sea level continues to rise in the way that it has been rising.

Hey, but don't mind me! I'm just one of those lieing scientists who need a job in a year or two.

To be fair though, you're an astrophycisist, not a meteorologist.

We are going to rechristen Britain as the Glorious Emprire of New Atlantic in 2100.

Oh, I am! I remember you all too well.

It didn't hurt, because it's not true. Remind me to ignore you in future religious discussions; you seem to be good at refusing to listen too.

I did.

K!

BTW, if you wanna get a little more credibility, wanna explain the "But you don't need new water to get sea levels to rise - just increasing the mean temperature by a tenth of a degree will do that for you"? See, I need information here, I'm not gonna believe/doubt it based on what some yahoo in a web forum told me.

Density changes with temperature. Water is at its densest at 4 °C - beyond that, density decreases as temperature increases. Since the mass is constant, that means the volume increases.

Whether or not you believe the data regarding global warming, try watching a busy city intersection for a few minutes and think to yourself that this is just one of billions of such intersections in the world - each one packed with internal combustion powered vehicles. Each one of those vehicles is steadily putting out greenhouse gases among other toxic things. If you parked just a few vehicles in an enclosed area and ran them at idle, it would kill anyone or anything inside in a short time - regardless of temperature. Factor in pollution from energy facilities and factories. I don't know exactly how much we have affected our climate, but we have had a major impact on this planet with our wasteful ways, there can be no doubt about that unless you just want to tell yourself otherwise so you can sleep better at night. It's a dirty shame that more planning didn't take place when we went industrial. It's damn hard to change course now that we already have almost complete reliance on coal & oil, etc..

Yeah, and since there's a lot of water in the oceans, even a relatively small increase will show.

I'm guessing they couldn't anticipate stuff like this back then. It's always hard to estimate what will happen with new technology. Computers are a great example of this.

Yes, because saying (not meaning you specifically; I may have been venting some frustration in your direction unjustly) "I don't believe in global warming, it's just marketing" is really giving arguments.

In which case, I ask: what part of "no, the water level doesn't sink when an iceberg melts" didn't you get?
By the way, I didn't consider this before, but it makes a difference wether the water is sweet or salt. Salt water has a slightly higher density; having a sweet iceberg melt in salt water will make the sea level rise (because the density decreases).

Water expands when heated (actually, most substances do). I thought that was pretty well known. And if you don't take my word for that I really am going to change my opinion of you.

EDIT: hmm... beaten on the expansion front...

EDIT2: Regarding being open minded; as I wrote in my first or second (I think) post in this thread, it's not that long ago that I considered "human contributions to global warming" nothing more than Greenpeace-propaganda. Bear that in mind.

Arguements have been given from both sides. The ones who speak more intelligently are the most likely to be believed.

Yeah, my thought was more that it would break even, actually ...

You've got a big bridge to build between that and what you said though. This isn't "water warming", it's "global warming". Why a tenth of a degree? How close to that are we actually (there's a helluva lot of water out there)? What other factors might regulate that? By how much does the mean temperature of the water change now?

... one implies the other.

See above edit

Well, that's not what you said!

That's thermodynamics for you. Heat flows from hot to cold. Normally, there's a balance of heat flow between the ocean and the atmosphere, such that on the whole neither of them grows warmer or colder (of course there are fluctuations, but there is no overall trend): there is no net heating. If you heat up the air (which is what global warming does), you add a source to the balance. Eventually some of the heat you added to the atmosphere is transported to the ocean (the principle is that of "equipartition of energy" if you want to look it up). Net effect: you've heated up the ocean.
Of course, water has a large heat capacity, so it's much harder to warm up the ocean than it is to warm up the atmosphere. Conversely, it's a lot harder to cool as well.
The ocean is a big thermostat that normally prevents temperature on Earth from fluctuating too much. Heat it up and you disrupt that thermostat.

An example meant as a small number that seems insignificant, but which can already have measurable consequences. And memory.

We're past that, I think - but I'll need to see if I can find a reference for that. Caveat: the number I remember may be specific for the North Sea, not global average ocean water.
By the way, there is a "neat" diagnostic tool for measuring fluctuations in sea water temperature: coral reefs. It's known from trying to keep coral alife in an aquarium that they tend to die if the water temperature is just slightly too high. This has been observed to happen.
(Yes, I know, pollution kills coral reefs too - so do the people who did this research). It's been a while since I read about this research, so I may have some trouble finding a reference for you.

As I said, I think this is already in the order of a tenth of a degree.

EDIT:
I'm sorry it's in Dutch, but it was the fastest way I could find a relevant reference: http://www.knmi.com/VinkCMS/explained_subject_detail.jsp?id=2621, you may have some luck throwing it to Babelfish. Although it will only tell you what I have already said above.
Or this one: http://www.knmi.com/kenniscentrum/nieuwe_inzichten_zeespiegelstijging.html
Some numbers from there: the sea level is rising at a rate of 3mm per year over the past few years. By 2100, the sea temperature is estimated to have increased by 4 degrees.

As Richard Phipps pointed out earlier, it's not the icebergs already in the sea that are a worry, it's the amount of ice on top of the antarctic land that's the concern (and other land masses with vast quantities of ice on them). This ice isn't in the sea, but sitting on a land mass out of the sea.

Icebergs in the sea are like ice cubes in a glass of water - if they melt, the level of the water barely raises (if at all). But the ice on the land mass is like an ice cube suspended above and out of the glass water - melt it and it adds to the volume of water already in the glass, dramatically increasing the water level.

Add this to the sea level rising through the increase in temperature, and you have a double whammy.

So what terrorists should REALLY be targeting is the polar ice caps?
Wouldn't a nuclear bomb or two melt enough ice to set off a chain reaction?

Then what? We build a giant solar powered freezer to put in the ocean?

In 10 years I'm moving to Antarctica... where the weather will be warm Of course I'd have to get used to 6 months of total darkness followed by 6 months of sunlight

I do my part! I light my apartment with three compact fluorescent light bulbs.

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Actually I bought them because they look cool.

So your claiming more perfect knowledge AND denying that you should be required to make better arguments because of.... osmosis? Association with 'really' smart guys?

That's just laughable.

The simple truth is long term climate change is completely unknown. Those who think human activety contribute to it may have a point. And they may not.

What irks me is people who talk about things like the density of frozen and liquid water, present graphs of a tiny fraction of the planets meteorilogical history AND then claim to have enough understanding of this astoundingly complex system to make predictions.

You guys aren't climatoligists. The analysis presented here is shallow and anecdotal at best.

I'm afraid I have to agree with nonnus here. when I was working for NIWA, they were doing a lot of research on global warming (the implications of global warming, should the theories prove sound, are important to an island nation where at least 75% of the population live on the coast). Most of the climatologists I talked to stated that they needed at least several thousand years of accurate worldwide data to be able to determine if human activity was having as much effect on the atmosphere as some scientists claimed.

I have compact fluorescent bulbs as well in my house Well currently my computer room but I will be putting them in other rooms as well.

We have the curly ones throughout our house - my brother-in-law imports and distributes them through NZ.

I'm doing my bit. I only have a single 80W lightbulb in my flat. Though, that's not so much due to trying to save on electricity but because the wiring in my flat is screwed and except for the bulb I have now, every lightbulb I use blows within a few days, so I stopped buying them.

Is the landlord receptive to a wiring fix? It should fall under house maintenance, after all.

The landlord (the city council) has sent three electricians to fix the problem. They've all said theres nothing wrong. One of them said it was possible the problem was from the antiquated powerlines in my neighbourhood, but I've only ever had problems with lightbulbs.

And by problems I don't just mean the filaments blowing. The bulb in the kitchen has twice exploded (ie. there was glass all over the place). On both occasions, the metal cap on the end of the bulb melted and fused with the socket, requiring a new socket to be wired in.

No, just pointing out that having actually talked to people who work on weather patters and the climate has changed my point of view. That, and I find the accusation "scientists just do crap research for funds" to be personally offensive.
I know it happens, but here you're using it as an argument to dismiss an entire field of research that I think you don't want to be true.

As for better arguments, I'll repeat those I've already given. I haven't seen people raise sensible arguments against them.
1. The mean temperature on Earth has been increasing systematically over the past few decades, breaking sharply with the trend of the past few centuries.
2. Related, weather patterns have been changing at the same time. Weather patterns have changed in recorded history, but not on such a short timescale. Suggesting a different mechanism.
3. Human activity has released large quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere; CO2 is a well-known "greenhouse" gas. This doesn't prove anything, but it is suggestive, and it most certainly isn't helping.
4. Heating up the Earth melts ice and increases the sea level because the ocean heats up along with it. This has been measured; satelite images show that the ice sheet on Greenland is sliding.

Is it tentative? Yes, but it is a consistent picture. Correlation does not imply causality, but it's worth thinking about it when you do see a correlation.

Yes. Then again, I don't care as much what the climate looks like a thousand years from now as I do what it looks like a few decades from now. Current weather models are getting accurate enough to predict trends on such a timescale. I wouldn't trust the pricise numbers that come out of such a calculation, but overall trends definately.

And may not is a justification for doing nothing to limit possible human intervention?

There's a difference between quantitative and qualitative predictions. The arguments given there are qualitative; making them quantitative is a good deal more complicated and the outcome is very uncertain. But the qualitative behavior is quite clear and doesn't require complicated physics.

EDIT
Let me rephrase what I do and do not believe.
1. We are not going to have any long-term effect on life on Earth. Nothing we can do to it is worse than what nature has done to it over the past few hunderd million years.
2. Do we know what the climate will look like in a million years? Definately not; weather patterns are too chaotic. Will anything we do today affect what the world looks like a million years from now? I don't think so; to think otherwise seems to be arrogant presumption. No one cares about a million years from now anyway.
3. Given current trends (such as temperature increase), can we say something about what will happen in the next millenium? I don't know enough about these models to make an educated guess, but my gut feeling is "no". The next few decades? That I do believe - and the next few decades are what are most relevant to people living today.
4. Do we know that current trends will contine in the future? No, we don't. For one thing, if the energy output of the sun decreases a fraction, temperatures will drop because the sun is by far the most important energy source.
But we cannot control the energy output of the sun. On the other hand, we can control things like CO2 emission, which certainly do nothing to reduce climate change. If current trends are a natural phenomenon, nothing we do to reduce CO2 emission will affect them. If they are not natural, then we should try to do something, because the consequences (see 3) can be very bad.

OSH?

Yup, thank you.

Beyond that, I'm stepping out, this is turning into a bit of a flamewar.

Well, if you're all going to start flaming each other, I say that we start creating more volcanoes. Like, start digging into places that are sure to hit a lava pocket. Then, when it starts spewing all the stuff into the air, test to see if that volcano gives off any more nauseous chemicals/gasses. Then test if that affects our ozone as badly as humans. I think two dozen carefully-detonated volcanoes should tell us whether "the last million years" of "nature" causes more problems than the last few millenia of humans...

Isn't there a "Super Volcano" somewhere that, when it erupts, will spew so much crap in the air that it will cover half the planet in a giant cloud of ash?

[edit]

http://www.solcomhouse.com/yellowstone.htm

Hollywood?

See edit.
I heard about it from a coworker who saw it on the discovery channel.

Yup. It's called Yellowstone National Park.

EDIT: Geez... how did I miss your edit?

Rage.

TWELVE SIDED DIE'D

I have that same lamp but not painted! I have 1 flourescent blub in there, but it burned out. I wish I had more, because they keep my room much cooler.

Muhahahahaha.....

Yes, this feeling strikes me often. And it scares the crap out of me.

Human population will reach 10 billion within our lifetime, and that is not even the worst problem. The majority of that 10 billion will be in 3rd world countries all aspiring to 1st world standards of living. And who can blame them? After all, 1st-worlders are definitely not considering giving up their affluent life styles. Think of the huge economic boom for example in China. A typical 1st-worlder has over 10 times more impact on the environment (in terms of waste production, non-renewable resource consumption, etc). Even if the population of China doesn't grow anymore, they will still keep getting a greater and greater impact on the environment.

The outcome of this will depend on the reaction of society to our problems. Awareness to environmental problems is increasing, but so is the scale of the problems. It's like an exponentially accelerating horse race with unknown outcome. But for sure, we, or at least our children, will see the finish, good or bad. Something has to give.

I don't really get why everyone cares. If I lived in Holland maybe... But me personally? meh.

Worst comes to worst I just move to somewhere that used to be really cold.

You and 5 billion others

Oh Dustin? You aren't worried about tornadoes doing more and more damage to coastal cities and large parts of the south west becoming too hot and arid in the future?

It'll be one big party! Yay!

I bags the beanbag in front of the Plasma TV and the case of bears!

Don't appeal to him. He's just playing the part of America.

Nope, not worried in the slightest.

I'm more worried about real threats like bio-attacks, nukes, something creative a terrorist might come up with etc.

This carbon dioxide stuff that's blamed for the greenhouse effect is the result of burning fossil fuels, so it was in the air at one time or another (for the plants & microorganisms to make body mass). No, wait, the whole planet was awfully warm then, sorry. That N.D. I spoke of was partially in the "Gulf" of "Mexico" at the time, now it's got a marker pointing out the center of the North American continent. 1500 miles/2400Km to the beach now.

Real? Last time I checked those things aren't much of a concern to me personally. I'd say let the big guys play with their WMD toys, leaves more recources for us

Some day I will write an extension that turns all mentions of "terrorist" into "witch". It should give people a better sense of risk assessment.

Blaming carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is dumb.

I thought we were running out... People just can't seem to figure out what issues to freak out over.

Out of oil, that is. Fossil fuels != oil. Besides, all the more reason to cut back on the consumption.

I give up.

YOu don't care about America's witch enemies? I hope you drown in melted ice caps! /me lights a $1 bill

No I won't. I'll be buried under few km's of ice instead once the Gulf seam stops.

We are already fitting our Sekrit Island Nuclear Engines so we can move to avoid climate problems.

Or rather, "oil that we know of and can easily reach." There is so much petrol in the ground that it's very unlikely that we'll run out in any foreseeable future.

*Of course, take that with a grain of salt because I don't recall where I read that. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject.

The issue is that we are very stupidly throwing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere burning petrol. Ideally, we'd have a bunch of nuclear (or equally high-output) powerplants and all "remote" power would be electric or some other "clean" form of work. The problem with cars and our current train-of-thought is that we have all of these miniature powerplants running around (our cars) instead of a few very large and high-efficiency ones. I mean, who would you trust: a powerplant with a team of people who's sole job is to make sure it complies with regulations, or millions of people who don't even bother checking their oil let alone emissions. Additionally, more expensive emissions equipment can be had on small-quanity large-output machines whereas it's not as viable on cars (like that fact that powerplants run very constant RPM and cars do not).

I know I haven't bothered checking if my catalytic converter is up to par. But most people don't even know what it is, let alone that they might have to change it.

p.s. Yeah, it's very poorly constructed, but I've got PIZZA to attend!

You DO know what happens when you burn something right? CO2 comes out as a byproduct, do you know what CO2 is? It's a greenhouse gas...

I couldn't tell if you were joking or not.

Interesting timing

Well... that's only if you burn something containing carbon. But I'm just nitpicking. Acetylene, yes. Hydrogen, no. Then again, there are other greenhouses gases then CO2.

You nitpicker, I'm sure he got our( collective) point.

How do people like that get to have seven kids?

Has any of you seen the movie Idiocracy? That's what is going to happen when people like those have seven kids and people like us have only a couple, if any.

By believing that birth control is a sin.

Yeah, but how do they get to keep them? I don't mean to offend anyone, but

Come on! Seriously? I mean, sure you can have your beliefs, but that's just stupid. This guy actually expects Al Gore to end his lecture by saying "Well, on the other hand the Bible does say that it gets really hot in the end, so maybe that's what's going on."

I don't get how religious fanatics have absolutely no tolerance for anything but their own beliefs, yet they expect everyone else to agree to them. I just love how Joe Nobody knows The Truth, unlike the people who study this stuff for a living. If that's what you believe, go ahead, but at least give your children a chance.

It's funny, THAT doesn't worry me at all.

That's a pretty shallow understanding of large families. I'm the sixth child of nine and my parents had me because they wanted me, not because they were opposed to birth control.

Fortunately in America, we have free speech and beliefs. For example, we can say that the Holocaust never happened without being put in jail. We can say that condoms and Al Gore don't belong in school and keep our children!

Yes, there are a lot of extremists out there who make for great quotes, but it really doesn't matter. I believe that diversity is more healthy than blinded belief in a central premise, and if that means we have to put up with a few weirdos, then that's fine with me.

Well, I was kidding, hence the .

Like I said, if you want to believe that the earth is 14 000 years old, knock yourself out. But kids are inclined to believe what their parents tell them, and I think that parents should let their kids make up their own minds. Of course you can't enforce that, but I get a little ticked off when I see parents demanding that schools teach the "climate change is the overture to the apocalypse" argument. That's trying to enforce your beliefs on all the children at the school, and that's just plain wrong.

I was poking fun at the first part of the quote:

Cow flatuance is a significant source of greenhouse gases, so you'd better become a vegetarian right now.

Of course, the problem lies not in people having those ideas or expressing them in their spare time (which is fine and part of free speech), but in presenting in a public school system the idea that evolution is not a fact or that the greenhouse effect doesn't exist as science, or holocaust denial as history, etc -- when they are not. Yes, some ideas are better than others. All theories are not born equal.

It's fine to look at an issue from several viewpoints but when there simply is no credible opposition within the fields of science or history or whatever, you're just misleading those who are too young to defend themselves. There simply is no debate as to whether or not certain effects are real or not, and pretending like there are such debates is doing everyone a huge disfavor.

Then there'd be even more cows! And I'd be out of a job.

So the teacher (living in a country with free speech) should carefully explain that while he's required to teach cretinism, the scientific_method requires repeatable experiments, methods used to arrive at facts etc. When an astrologer says "You're going to meet someone romantically today", ask them how they arrived at that hypothesis.

History is a little tougher due to being written by the winners.

Nope, but it sounds hilarious. I'll watch it tomorrow when the download is complete.

I love how the article reads like a joke, but it's actually serious...I think. Every time he is quoted this guy is stating his beliefs and I laugh out loud. Is that normal?

Is it normal that people in news articles are laughable or is it normal to laugh at this guy? If you meant the latter, then yes, its perfectly normal. I'd be worried if I didn't laugh at stuff like this.

Another interesting movie: Jesus Camp

Think of the bright side, what better way to test humanity's worthiness to survive than a great cataclysm.

The quote reminded me of this recent kiwi cartoon...

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It's like peanut butter and chocolate, aquariums and toilets ....

Yeah, Tremain is brilliant. Sometimes he's the only reason I read the paper.

The vegans keep yammering about "killing innocent animals", but they fail to recogninze how those millions of cows wouldn't have grazed at all without market forces paying for their pastures. Without the beef industry, there'd be a few hundred aurouchs wandering around in the Middle East, period.

I'm feeling too lazy to read through this entire thread, so instead, I thought I'd post a collection of counter-arguments to arguments commonly spouted out by so-called 'global warming skeptics'.

+ Global warming will make the winters more bearable.
- But what about the summers?

+ But global warming will eliminate the cold and miserable weather.
- That's a selfish viewpoint. Remember - this is global. Turning a frozen tundra into fertile plains would mean fertile plains become a desert. Global climate change in a short period can cause untold damage to ecosystems that have adapted to the climate over thousands of years.

+ Thinking that humans can change the climate is arrogance?
- Since when has being worried about the future of the planet been considered arrogance? It sounds more like concern to me.

+ Human activity produces insignificant ammounts of CO2 compared to volcanism, etc.
- It's all about balance. Earth's natural CO2 reducing mechanism has fine tuned itself to match the natural CO2 levels. This means that even a relatively small increase in the CO2 level could mean a massive increase in the net CO2 that is too much for the natural CO2 reducing mechanism to cope with untill it's too late.

+ Records show that at various stages in the past (eg. the medieval warm-period, before the last ice-age, the Eocene Climatic Optimum, etc.) the temperasture is warmer than what it is now, and look - the planet's still here.
- As well as the temperature difference, there's also the rate of temperature change to take into account. For example, the increase of temperature after the last ice-age some 10000 years ago happened over about 2000 years, giving the ecosystems plenty of time to adapt. We don't know how well they can cope with a rapid climatic shift. If the climatic zones slowly move away from the equator, the wildlife moves along with the zone. Even trees can move (by planting the seeds of their offspring beyond the old border for their climate) - now try doing that if the climate-zones move too fast. And besides, every time in the past there's been a climate-shift, there's also been a mass extinction, and quite frankly, we don't need another mass-extinction.

+ But if weather forecasters have trouble predicting the weather two days in advance, how are we going to trust someone who claims to know what the weather is going to be like 50 years from now?
- Climatology is a different science from meteorology. Meteorology is meant to predict very specific weather-events in very precice location. Climatology is meant to predict long-term trends over a wide area. Climatology can make an attempt to predict the average temperature 50 years from now, but cannot predict the temperature on a specific day 5 years from now.

+ First, you said the planet would freeze, then you said global warming is going to happen, and then you said it was going to freeze again. Make up your minds!
- As time goes on, the climate models become more and more accurate. Because of chaos theory, even slight variations in the model can lead to radically different results. Also, bear in mind that global warming could cause the gulf-stream to shut down which will plunce North-West Europe into coldness. This is because of increased freshwater contributed by the three major Russian rivers that flow into the Arctic ocean which would increase their flow due to melting glaciers. But one thing is certain - it's best not to mess with the planet.

+ If climate models of today are better than predictions in the '70s, why should we believe them when they say global warming is happening?
- Who's to say that an even more accutate climate model is going to say that it's all going to be fine? But in the meantime, it is a good idea to be concerned.

+ If global warming is going to happen, it's God's will and we shouldn't intefere.
- Consider switching religions . But seriously, stop and think about how you interpret your religion. Is everything to be taken at face value? Is this part of the underlying philosophy?

+ But reducing CO2 emissions will harm the economy.
- Global warming will harm it more. The climate shift will play havoc with agriculture, and bear in mind that many of the major cities of the world are on the coast. And besides, once alternative energy-technologies like solar power have matured, the economy will be back to normal.

+ But our country only accounts for a tiny fraction of CO2 emissions.
- Hopefully, if your country takes an initiative, it may inspire other countries to follow suit. If a majority of countries follow suit, import-tariffs can be placed on goods that do not follow suit.

+ Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill.
- I'm sorry, but that's just selfishness.

While it has not conclusively been proven that the manmade CO2 increase is going to have a siginificant climate impact, we should consider the risk. The following ASCII diagram sums up te situation.

                                        We do something     We do nothing
                                        
                                     +-------------------+-----------------+
                                     |                   |                 |
CO2 does not lead to climate change  |   Everything OK   |  Everything OK  |
                                     |                   |                 |
                                     +-------------------+-----------------+
                                     |                   |                 |
CO2 leads to climate change          |   Everything OK   |  We're gakked!  |
                                     |                   |                 |
                                     +-------------------+-----------------+

As you can see, there are two variables. Whether or not CO2 leads to climate change, and whether or not we're going to do anything about it. The role of CO2 is unknown so the state of that variable could be anywhere. However, the whether-or-not-we-do-something variable is something that we have control over. Doing nothing would place us in the right column in the diagram, and if CO2 does lead to climate change, untold damage will be done to our lovely planet.

I don't think it's worth taking the risk of hoping that our selfishness has no effect on the climate. If we break the climatic equilibrium, we could risk venus-forming the entire planet.

But even if not for the percieved threat of global warming, bear in mind that the automobile has contributed to the fragmentation of communities, and the aeroplane has reduced the mystique of far off places. If we commuted by bicycle, and went on holiday by train, we'd be more in touch with ourselves and the world around us.

AE.

You probably don't know how global warming affects the Gulf stream. Read about it from this thread

Nope, he mentioned that.

For the Gods' sake, please just let this thread die...

I do. I was just listing some commonly held views held by global warming skeptics. I could just as well make the point I made like so:

+ Cooling due to the shutting down of the gulf stream will make the summers more bearable.
- But what about the winters?

AE.

Along those lines, somewhere above I failed to point out that the argument "CO2 levels and temperature were higher during the Carbon period than they are now, so everything will be fine" is invalid: most lifeforms on Earth today would die out if you transported them instantaneously to that time period. Heck, in the distant past the atmosphere was mostly nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide and by the same argument it would be fine to bring the atmospheric composition back to that - next to nothing alife today would survive in such an atmosphere, let alone the high temperature that would go with it.

All that's fine for life on Earth as a whole, of course. Nothing we can do to it is worse than what's been done to it before. All we need to worry about is wether or not the Earth is a pleasant place to live for us. And for that, it's not what the climate will be like ten thousand years from now that matters, it's what it's like ten years from now that does.

Some of my threads never die easily. It's a gift.

and now Bush is going to save the world from global warming it might just go on for a bit longer yet

He's going to resign?

Oh, come on, give the guy a break! Everything else he's set out to do has worked out just fine.

Almost, in his speech yesterday he says by 2020 the average American car engine will be under 4 litres.

He knows about liters!?!?

Yeah, you know liters, in the alphabet.

Yeah, but he probably thinks a litre is the size of a 20 gallon drum.

don't Americans measure engine capacity by the litre? or is it by cups

over here in Blighty imperial measurements rule the waves (and rightly so, ignoring the views of Thomas Harte, of course who's pro-european ), but we use litres to measure the size of engine (but imperial everywhere else, e.g. bhp, mph, mpg, tyre pressure in pounds, etc.)

They are using cubic inches instead of liters.

Start playing Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire/Alpha Centauri and all your questions will be answered.

I heard an interesting idea: If we cut CO2 production, all of our vegetation (our direct food source for veggies and indirect food source for meat) will decrease in production. Meaning, we'll starve (to an extent).

I'm not saying CO2 production shouldn't be curbed, but that doesn't mean we might be accidentally benefiting from it.

I don't know there were big famines 50 years ago. Besides, most countries pay their farmers not to produce too much stuff.

It depends from country to country. Some countries put economical advancements before other issues. And in any case, many countries export food and as the quotas have been relaxed food exports are on a rise and so are other items/goods.