DomKen
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Joined: 7/4/2004
From: Chicago, IL
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ORIGINAL: thishereboi
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ORIGINAL: njlauren
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ORIGINAL: thishereboi
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
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ORIGINAL: thishereboi
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ORIGINAL: GotSteel
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ORIGINAL: thishereboi
You don't think animals were around before humans?
That's nothing like what he's claiming. Since your level of ignorance on this topic is so profound that you can't find your ass with both hands please go bounce a ball and leave smart people to deal with science classes.
His claim was "The fact is there is overwhelming evidence the Earth is warming and no other cause exists but human activity." When I called bullshit on that and pointed out that even animal farts can contribute to it, he claimed "Raising animals for human consumption is human activity." at which point I explained that animals were around before we started raising them for food. Now there are a lot of things that contribute to global weather change and man is one of those. But to claim that is the only factor is pure stupidity.
Then find a cause. Any one at all. But you best hurry up because the real scientists say we're rapidly approaching a tipping point.
Sure. right after you explain why there was change before man showed up.
So your basic argument is a)climate change, rapid climate change, happened before mankind was around so b)if climate change is happening, mankind couldn't be responsible...which is what the hard right droolers (who are losing ground, btw, almost 70% of the people in the US have come to the conclusion that the environment is going south) are claiming, but it is bullshit. Yes, there are things that could cause climate change, it has happened before, but that doesn't mean that MANKIND cannot influence the environment. It makes the assumption that man is small compared to the environment, and that would be true if we were the naked apes that climbed out of the trees, but mankind already has changed the world, in a very small period of time. We wiped out a species (the passenger pigeon) that had billions of them, in the space of about 50 years, and have condemned many other species to death. We have turned arid desert (Southern California) into productive farmland, but not without a cost. In china, the great rivers that once cause terrific floods, today are literally dry in places, and so forth. We shaped species, we took what were wolves and turned them into dogs, for example. And man's impact has grown, when there were maybe a million humans on the earth, we couldn't do much, but 7 billion, with all our technology? You have to obey the kind of blindness the stupid fundamentalist Christians do who believe the universe is 6000 years old or the earth...
Okay, so let's look at the forces that can change climate (and that there is all kinds of ways to measure, all kind of evidence).
1)Solar radiation. Increases in solar radiation can influence the climate, specifically temperature, and rises in solar radiation have in fact done so in the past (there is direct and indirect evidence of solar radiation, that from what I can understand can be seen in things like tree rings, core samples from ice and so forth). We know that an X percent increase in such radiation will increase temps Y degrees, been proven in a laboratory.
The problem? Solar radiation levels have been measured in great detail since 1959, and the amount of increase in radiation since then can account for a tiny fraction of the temperature increases seen globally , less than 1% from what I read.
2)Volcanic activity. Yep, this is a biggie, and it contributed to several wipeouts, one of the famous was the cambrian wipeout 250 million years ago, where 90% of the earth's lifeforms died. There, volcanic activity set off the burning of coal laid down in earlier periods, and the CO2 levels soared and earth was roasted. (and yes, virginia, there is full proof for this..but then again, as many deniers do, if you believe the earth is 6000 years old, this is a fabrication, too).
3)Methane emissions. At times, thanks to volcanic activity and also methane emissions from underseas vents, the methane levels in the atmosphere rise, and you have warming as well. Methane is a greater greenhouse gas than CO2, and this has happened as well.
4)The natural cycle of warming and ice age. Yep, very true, there is a 40,000 year cycle of cooling and warming, due to the earth's eccentric rotation and orbit. And yes, we are in a warming trend, that is expected to last anther 15-20,000 years.
The problem with this as an explanation is that it is a long cycle, and the rate of warming is well understood. If a warming cycle takes 40,000 years, then the amount of warming each year will be very, very small, the so called delta. The reality is that temperatures have risen in the past decades at a rate exponentially higher than natural warming would do, and that is a measurable fact; if global temperatures have climbed (and note, a fundamental contradiction is at work here; the same deniers who say that this is natural warming, also say that there has been no appreciable rise in global temperature, nice contradiction).
Put it this way, the known methods of warming are charted and measured, and all the items above together can account for maybe 10% of the warming we have seen....
5)Another argument is that there have been shifts in climate, that there was a shift in greenland for example, where it suddently warmed. The problem for the skeptics is that we have evidence of such things, and unlike the deniers, people actually looked at how these places out in ice cores and such..and what they found is by looking at global evidence, that while greenland swung one way, other places went the other way (ie exceedingly cold), and the global temperature on average, didn't change. The key factor here is that when we talk climate change, it is global, and that using examples like the little ice age is idiotic. The little ice age was caused by a disruption in the gulf stream, that left northern Europe in the cold; but at the same time, other places ended up with a 'little tropical flourish' , so the books were balanced.
Not to mention the affects of this warming, the indirect evidence. We are seeing droughts in the midwest and california that have never been seen, the snow cap is so small that they are shitting bricks about what to do with water in california and other places, farmers are worried as well. Calgary is seeing snow in early September, which as far as I know they never have seen. In my area, we saw 3 once in one hundred year storms in the space of about 18 months, other places are experiencing that as well. And of course, the obvious one, that for example the northwest passage may be open to shipping soon in the summer, when 30 years ago it was frozen solid year round; or that glaciers are melting that 30 years ago were solid, and have been in place for millions of years. If this is natural warming, how did these glaciers survive through thousands of warming/cooling cycles? If it is natural, what we are seeing, then how could the glaciers be around so long, when after all, things like solar radiation have ebbed and flowed a lot during that time?
The climate change denial is political, and the basic reason for it is that people are scared and/or fear for their livelihoods. The basic cause of climate change is assumed to be burning hydrocarbons, and what people have been told is that if we have to get off of gas and oil, we'll be living in mud huts eating granola, that nothing else will work, etc (despite the fact that our spending on alternative energy, despite the claims of the GOP, is a pittance; we spend 700 billion on defense, last I checked, spending on alternate energy research was about 30 billion a year). Worse, because of the fracking boom, a lot of places that were down and out economically suddenly are experiencing good times, and they know if we get off of oil and gas, that they will once again be economic toast. I don't think they don't believe global warming is happening,I think they are deniers the way little kids when they put their head under the covers believe that if they can't see monsters, the monsters can't see them. And like the fundamentalists with evolution, they resort to trying to trash science and cast doubt on scientific method and proof, because they know they don't otherwise have a leg to stand on.
The one thing those supporting the denier position on here should do is do some reading on what has happened to skeptics..a couple of years ago, one of the biggest skeptics/deniers, working at Cal Berkeley (funded by the Koch Brothers, no less), caused a ruckus when he came out, after a 50 grand grant to look at the evidence (and I would guess, throw knives at it), came out and said he could no longer deny the reality of man made global warming, that while (like a lot of scientists) he didn't know which models were right, if at all, or what the timetable was, he said it was real.
No where have I ever claimed that mankind couldn't be responsible. I also have never claimed that man didn't play a role in it. I said there were other factors involved. And you so kindly provided several examples. But it was a really nice rant. Perhaps you should save it in case anyone does actually make that claim.
You just did.
make up what little mind you have.
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RE: Gop trying to break science education again - 
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