Are attempts to curb global warming at this time like putting band-aids on a leaking dam wall?

Question

Or does the Earth really have a chance from man-kinds mal-designed technology?

Answer 1

I don't think we can stop it. To do that, we would have to put the CO2 back in the ground where it came from. My hope is that by reducing our emissions, we can buy enough time for our scientists and engineers to come up with solutions.

“CapNemo” likes to go to all the global warming questions and paste in a statement pooh-poohing the threat.

Often, he says it’s only increased by 1 degree (F) in 125 years. This is a misleading number, because it is a global average: land and sea. We don’t live in the middle of the ocean and that’s not where the polar ice caps are melting. The temperature change over land surfaces has been twice that, and most of it in the last 40 years.

The truth is that those 2 degrees are HUGE in the scale of average weather change. But the real problem is the speed of change and that it's accelerating. Scientists are predicting a temp 4 to 8 degree (F) increase over the next 75 years. “This may not sound like a great deal, but just a fraction of a degree can have huge implications on the climate, with very noticeable consequences." (http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/U/ukweather2080/5_predicting.html ). Yes, scientists predict, that's their job. They've gone to school years more than we have and spent their lives studying this stuff. This representrs humanity’s BEST GUESS at where this is all going. Of course, you can believe it snows in hell, or any other stupid thing you want. No one can stop you from believing what you'd rather hear, than what is the most probable outcome.

For those of you who would like to deny, minimize and rationalize:

From a book published by Harvard Press: "In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world's governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity." (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEADIS.html )

NASA says, "the general consensus among scientists is that global warming is real and its overall effects are detrimental" (http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp_docs/Global_Warming.pdf , page 6 )

In fact, it is so detremental that the Attorney General of California has filed suit against the 6 auto manufacturers and 5 utilities here in CA. (http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/cms06/06-082_0a.pdf?PHPSESSID=bcafe4e63eecea93153f25e6fe5bc9ba , http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=709&year=2004&month=7&PHPSESSID=5fa0700eb86a845983a94e26ab86a46e ) for ignoring the IPCC statements, stating in the lawsuit, "Defendants knew or should have known, and know or should know, that their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contribute to global warming and to the resulting injuries and threatened injuries to California, its citizens and residents, environment, and economy."

"CapNemo" is touting “A Skeptic’s Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism” compiled by United States Senator James Inhofe, as a reason to ignore the global warming threat. "The contributions Inhofe has received from the energy and natural resource sector since taking office have exceeded one million dollars." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Inhofe There really is very little controversy in the scientific community on this issue. There's a small handful of vocal people, many of whom have strong ties to the oil industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Global_warming_skeptics ) who are keeping the debate alive.

There really is very little controversy in the scientific community on this issue. There's a small handful of vocal people, many of whom have strong ties to the oil industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Global_warming_skeptics ) who are keeping the debate alive.

Here's a documentary showing "how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences”. (The Denial Machine: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/index.html )

About the bogus volcano issue, "Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!” http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html

sociald: I'm curous to see your source for the Pinatubo emission data. When I googled it, I found the the volcano emitted 42 million tons of CO2. From my source, human activity is repsonsibly for an annual 24 BILLION tons of CO2. Might you be confusing CO2 with SO2 (which is also a volcanic emission) ???

Answer 2

Actually the temperature of the earth has only increased about 6/10 of 1 degree (C) from 1880 to 2005. That is an increase of about 1 degree (F) in 125 years. Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2... You may choose to believe that is global warming or you may not. If you do think it's happening there is a site from the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that will answer all your questions. Here's the site: http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6345050%20Hot%20&%20Cold%20Media.pdf

Here's another site worth checking out: http://www.junkscience.com/

When someone says, "the sky is falling" don't believe everything you hear on either side of the issue. There are Spin Doctors galore out there.

I hope that helps...

Edit:
I see ftm is following me around again. He just loves to chase me around telling everyone what I'm doing. I don't know why, but he does the same thing every day. His temperature data is from the northern hemisphere. This is GLOBAL warming not northern hemisphere warming and I'm not pooh poohing anything, I'm just showing where you can go to get the some facts in this matter and allowing readers to make up their own minds if it's true or not. Just go to the sites I mentioned and it will answer all the global warming questions you have. Yes, even ftm will learn something. He thinks he knows everything already, but I'll bet even he could learn a thing or two.

Here's an excerpt from ftm's wipikpedia site talking about Senator Inhofe: "In a July 28, 2003 Senate speech, he offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax. That conclusion is supported by the painstaking work of the nation's top climate scientists." So the very site he uses to discredit my source discredits him. He also says scientists predict, that's their job. If you have EVER listened to a weatherman on TV, are they ever accurate? Hardly. So if they cannot "predict" what will happen tomorrow, how can the "predict" the future. Truth is, they cannot.

If you want to see who's really getting the $$ from "global warming" click here: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32abc0b0-802a-23ad-440a-88824bb8e528&IsTextOnly=True
They want all the skeptics of global warming stopped and they'll go to any length... I wonder why?

Answer 3

That's a very subjective question. We know the damage is real because we can see the effects, but we have never seen the earth recover from damage like this so we don't know how it is likely to respond. However, it's certainly worth the effort to try. I think the natural forces of the earth really do have a chance to repair the damage we have done, IF we stop aggravating the damage right away.

Answer 4

Very much so. Individual efforts like individual band-aids seem meaninglessly small. If enough get piled on and overlapped and there is some coordination of effort you can accomplish a lot. You could seal the entire inner surface of Hoover Dam with less than 10 million band-aids.

Answer 5

According to the 'experts' global warming causing greenhouse gas is primarily co2 emissions.
Al Gore said that one time then another time it was cows and pigs farting ( methane from livestock ) .
Nancy Pelosi putting together her new global warming group says we need to reduce co2.

Well where does that damn co2 come from. breathing? cars? fossil fuel burning in factories?
Yea all of those things produce it... but all of those combined doesnt produce even close to the amount produced by volcanoes.
So i suggest you go ask the volcanos to knock it off and that will fix it.

FTM pools i know what your saying.. I have also read other experts say for instance that the Pinatubo volcano emitted more co2 than all human emissions. there seems to be a disagreement.
Also even from teh ones who say anthrogenic emmissions are far greater as your 150:1 ration.. more recent numbers from teh same people changed that to about 90:1 and that is still several years old.
I wont discount human co2 emmissions but the farther along we go the more we move towards an honest look that man isnt as bad as people say.

Answer 6

Maybe. The EU recently reported that, even though reductions in carbon emissions were down, total tons of carbon emissions were up. It would take alot more work and stronger policies to achieve a realistic goal.
Hopefully we won't ever reach a point wherein the climate is changed enough so that it cnanot function to selfremediate.

Answer 7

A) we don't have the capabilities to control the earth's environment.

B) science does not have the capability to tell us what the earth is going to look like in 10 years.

The whole global warming thing is pure lunacy.