what do you think of global warming?

Question

Any religous or political views?

Answer 1

I think that its killing our planet and making me pay more for my ac... That and its killing the glaciers in the homeland (Norway)!

Answer 2

I think we don't have anywhere near enough research over a long enough period to support all the doom-sayers. The Earth has had warm spells and Ice Ages repeatedly and we don't know what causes either, on what timetable. Our waste heat MAY have accelerated the cycle, but, on a geological scale, that may not be a bad thing. Maybe the Sahara will flood and start growing things again. Maybe the central US will flood and the aquifers will fill again.
From an evolutionary point of view, maybe this is the solution to the population problem. But then, getting rid of all the technology that produces the waste heat will do the same thing, only quicker.

Which brings me to the political view: let's suppose the radical Greens get their way. The U.S. stops using oil and nuclear power, stop using automobiles and everything that uses the electricity generated by those sources. Ninety percent of the population remaining after the riots will starve to death within a couple of months. This is better than gradual flooding?

If we phase in alternative power over the next couple of decades -- something we SHOULD have been doing for the last 30 years or so -- we STILL can't support the current level of energy use, much less the projected demand in 20 years. So we starve to death more slowly. Or, as our economy weakens, our government falls, or we turn into a police state or some other dystopian scenario takes place. Politically, our 'salvation' can only come from increased technology: the development of better alternative power sources, the application of that technology to the specific problem (Why, for instance, can't we use solar furnaces on the Gulf Coast to purify water - generating electricity in the process - and then pump that water inland to cisterns where it can percolate back into the aquifers where it originally came from? Aside from the cost.). There is a correlation between energy use per capita and the birthrate. Providing MORE energy, not less, to lesser developed nations will help solve the population problem. Of course, sociology and economics impact every political decision, and vice versa.

Religious viewpoint(s): if it CAN be established that we are significantly responsible for global warming, we MUST, as stewards of God's creation, do something about it. We must, in any event, do all in our power to show compassion to those affected by the disasters it causes.
It may or may not be part of the judgment of God -- part of the moral cause-and-effect process inherent in creation as distinct from THE judgment of God when we all get ours -- but it is certainly a wake-up call. Hello, Earth, God calling. What are you people doing to yourselves? You may remember I warned you about this kind of thing a couple thousand years ago. Is ANYBODY listening?

Answer 3

Even our beloved President Mr Bush has now admitted that Global Warming is a threat. I guess that makes him a liberal by some people's standards. It is intersting now that leading conservatives are buying into this idea,w hat is going to be the reaction of people who have made it an article of conservative belief that the whole thing is a liberal plot.
The overwhelming majority of scientists around the world are now agreed that global warming is happening and that it is caused by human actions. There is really good evidence that it is NOT caused by any change in the sun. So, who are you going to blame? communists? leftists? Casto? the Islamic Extremists?

A recent program about this was "Global Dimming" on Nova. The scientists who speak up in the film are from Germany, Australia, Israel, India, Minnesota -- It's not like all the guys promoting this are from Harvard or UCalBerkeley!!!

You can bet that some fundamentalist religious guys are going to stop claiming that it isnt true, and in another five years they will be claiming that it was predicted by the Bible and they knew it all along.

Answer 4

Global warming and the resulting climate change are among the serious environmental problems facing the world community today.
On so many issues--environmental, political, economic, cultural, religious--it has become a meaner, crueler place. Wars for scarce resources, which themselves were in thankfully short supply for the past half-century, have returned on a global scale. Consumption of those resources, though prized and killed for, will accelerate massive climate changes that will only make human life more difficult, if not impossible. Al Gore notes in the movie that scientists have already had to shorten the time frame we have to change our behavior before the runaway greenhouse effect raises ocean levels by 20 feet and changes ocean currents--who can say that the present time frame is any less optimistic than the one it replaced? I fear that it may already be too late, and the state of perpetual war coupled with ever-increasing surveillance, imprisonment, and curtailment of civil rights constitutes our initiation into an awful new era.

The only hope I have is that I am proved wrong. I certainly don't want to be right, but there is no convincing evidence to the contrary. Not for the first time, the young ones among us will have to show the grown-ups a few things.

I was particularly troubled by the final credits of the movie, which detail things we all can do to reduce our carbon footprint. I already do many of those things: I never owned a car, I nearly always use mass transit or walk, I replaced all incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescents, I always recycle. I know that I'm hardly the only one doing this. Will enough others make enough of a difference to reverse the warming trend in time?

Will politicians stop taking money from anti-warming lobbyists in time? Will scientists be free from government interference to publish their reports in their entirety? We had to answer yes to these questions, IMO, 20 years ago. But Ronbo told us then that trees were the culprit and ketchup was a vegetable, and we gave him a sendoff that even George Washington didn't get. The only good news is that his crypt will be in Davy Jones' locker before long. My apologies to the bottom feeders.

So, all you young'uns, the grown-ups who grew up not trusting anyone over 30 because they messed up the world are leaving you guys a world even more messed up than before. Stop being so obedient. Get angry, get active, and do something before you too have too much at stake to dare to try.

Answer 5

G'day Machelle,

I think that climate change is occurring as it has always done. However, I think that the scare campaign that is occurring at the moment is way over the top.

If we go back to the age of the dinosaurs, conditions were much warmer than today. At the peak of the dinosaur era, there were no polar ice caps, and sea levels are estimated to have been from 100 to 250 metres (330 to 820 feet) higher than they are today. The planet's temperature was also much more uniform, with only 25 degrees Celsius separating average polar temperatures from those at the equator. On average, atmospheric temperatures were also much warmer; the poles, for example, were 50 °C warmer than today.

The atmosphere's composition during the dinosaur era was vastly different as well. Carbon dioxide levels were up to 12 times higher than today's levels, and oxygen formed 32 to 35% of the atmosphere, as compared with 21% today.

The dinosaurs coped all right. The nonsense we get from Al Gore and others that we are all going to die because of climate change is way over the top.

I enclose sources for your reference.

Regards

Answer 6

Its 100% BS. Anyone who knows anything about warming cycles knows its BS. You know whats funny is back in the 70s all the talk was the we were heading into a new ice age and guess what people 30 years later now its global warming? People like al Gore that bring up this BS just need it for a political soapbox and i hope you dint buy into it

Answer 7

I think it's a natural cycle the earth goes through and there's nothing we did to cause it and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Need proof? Look at the last Ice Age. Glaciers covered most of the US and Europe. We can't let that crap happen again!!

Answer 8

Oh, political, I think it is just another way for groups that want to control things that they don't have the ability or the wherewithal to control (peoples lives) to do it. My theory is that some of these so called scientists us it to get more grant money to pay for new Mercedes and Volvos.

Answer 9

It is difficult to measure, because there is so much not recorded from many years ago. I think if the earth is warming it is probably caused by the sun getting hotter and other events in nature, but not due to anything humans have done.

Answer 10

I believe in it, but I do not think it is as bad as some claim. As for the looser who thought it would be cool because it'd cause more hurricanes, GET A LIFE! I've survived a hurricane, and it's no fun. (While being in a shelter)

Answer 11

It is happening.

It is going to be very inconvenient as various coutries redraw borders as a response to changing climate and water levels.

It is not going to be the end of the world, but when countries "redraw" maps, that means wars.