Global Warming

[Rhodmhire]

What do you think about it?

Is it real and destroying our planet?

Is it a pattern of historical climate alterations?

Is it just plain fallacious?

Is it tearing apart what true environmentalism really is?

All I'll say about my views on it for the moment, are that I DO support alternative resources...just not like in the next few years.

I believe we're dependant on non-renewable resources for now, and we have to stick to them. A majority (over 75% I believe) of America's energy is dependant on non-reneweable sources; such as coal (23%) and petroleum (40%). Less than 10% I believe, is composed of reneweable sources, such as wind (.3-2%) solar (.007-.1%) and ethanol/biomass (3.3-4%). Therefore, to perform a rapid switch in technologies/resources now would mean disaster for the energy industry. It would raise the cost of living through the roof. We don't have enough money, or alternative resource technologies to begin with--to switch as soon as most people want to.

We need a bridge of time between now and then, and along the way, we need to slowly switch. We can't bankrupt the coal/petroleum/current energy industries and just settle for the flawed alternatives we have now. We need to slowly transition--like during the Industrial Revolution. It was a slow and steady transition from man-power, to water and steam power, then from water and steam, to modern resources.

I believe utilizing reserves of the energy we are dependant on now will bridge the time from now until the time when we're mostly transitioned into alternative energy as a whole in America. We'll cut dependance on foreign oil [and we won't destroy our own energy industry along the way], we'll stabilize the economy, lower gas prices, get people the energy they need so we can develop alternatives more. And no matter how long that bridge period is--any more time is better than the current time people want to transition.

Whether it's 5 years or 50 years--it's 5-50 years we can't afford not to use.

Enough about me, what do YOU think?

[Yootopia]

What do you think about it?

Climate change is a bit much, although it's not just happening on Earth - we observed it snowing at the north pole of Mars not that long ago. We probably have a little bit of an effect on it, but the kind of people who reckon it's entirely the fault of humanity are too blinded by hubris to notice that climate change was happening before we ever got here.

[Rhodmhire]

What do you think about it?

Climate change is a bit much, although it's not just happening on Earth - we observed it snowing at the north pole of Mars not that long ago. We probably have a little bit of an effect on it, but the kind of people who reckon it's entirely the fault of humanity are too blinded by hubris to notice that climate change was happening before we ever got here.

I think the fear-mongering tactics of global warming/climate change media has really flipped the true meaning of environmentalism. A lot of people are probably more into helping the environment because they're afraid the world will end if they don't, or because Miley Cyrus told them it's good--opposed to doing it because it's right, and you actually care for the Earth.

And spending tax dollars on technologies nobody can afford to improve the Earth for no rational reason isn't helping the environment at all in my opinion.

[Ledarre]

What do you think about it?

Climate change is a bit much, although it's not just happening on Earth - we observed it snowing at the north pole of Mars not that long ago. We probably have a little bit of an effect on it, but the kind of people who reckon it's entirely the fault of humanity are too blinded by hubris to notice that climate change was happening before we ever got here.

Agreed

[The Romulan Republic]

What do you think about it?

Is it real and destroying our planet?

Possibly.

Is it a pattern of historical climate alterations?

Their has always been climate change. The question is more how fast its happening now.

Is it just plain fallacious?

You mean, is it made up? No, since that would require a massive global conspiracy by a large part of the scientific community.

Its possible that scientists haven't uncovered the entire picture, of course. New information is always being discovered. But if scientists around the world say the average global temperature is rapidly going up, I tend to believe it.

Is it tearing apart what true environmentalism really is?

Why would it be?

All I'll say about my views on it for the moment, are that I DO support alternative resources...just not like in the next few years.

Rather than set arbitrary timetables, why not just say "as soon as possible," and get working on it?

I believe we're dependant on non-renewable resources for now, and we have to stick to them.

No reason we can't work to improve things even if that's true.

Of course, some things will always be dependent on non-renewable resources, but the key is to a) gain more resources, and b) limit use of non-renewable resources by as much as possible. Both involve developing technology to exploit new sources of resources, increase efficiency, and increase recycling.

A majority (over 75% I believe) of America's energy is dependant on non-reneweable sources; such as coal (23%) and petroleum (40%). Less than 10% I believe, is composed of reneweable sources, such as wind (.3-2%) solar (.007-.1%) and ethanol/biomass (3.3-4%). Therefore, to perform a rapid switch in technologies/resources now would mean disaster for the energy industry. It would raise the cost of living through the roof. We don't have enough money, or alternative resource technologies to begin with--to switch as soon as most people want to.

We might consider nuclear as a short term fix. Its highly efficient, and as far as safety is concerned the only really major disaster has been Chernobyl, which as I recall was a result of gross human errors.

In any case, with nuclear you're at worst trading the lots of continual little disasters (diseases caused by air pollution, fires and explosions at plants, coal mine collapses, etc) for occasional big ones.

We need a bridge of time between now and then, and along the way, we need to slowly switch. We can't bankrupt the coal/petroleum/current energy industries and just settle for the flawed alternatives we have now. We need to slowly transition--like during the Industrial Revolution. It was a slow and steady transition from man-power, to water and steam power, then from water and steam, to modern resources.

And if we don't have time?

I believe utilizing reserves of the energy we are dependant on now will bridge the time from now until the time when we're mostly transitioned into alternative energy as a whole in America. We'll cut dependance on foreign oil [and we won't destroy our own energy industry along the way], we'll stabilize the economy, lower gas prices, get people the energy they need so we can develop alternatives more. And no matter how long that bridge period is--any more time is better than the current time people want to transition.

Whether it's 5 years or 50 years--it's 5-50 years we can't afford not to use.

No one expects it to happen instantaneously that I'm aware of. There is nothing unreasonable with wanting to start the transition immediately, though. All the more so because it will take time.

And yes, it will require active effort. We can't just sit back and wait for it to happen "naturally," because it may happen far too slowly. Companies still profit a lot off of oil and coal. Why would they nessissarily make the switch as long as much oil or coal remains?

[Metallic Slumber]

wellllll to be perfectly blunt. i think that very slowly we will be screwed in the next couple years

[The Romulan Republic]

wellllll to be perfectly blunt. i think that very slowly we will be screwed in the next couple years

A "couple of years?" About the only timetable more alarmist than that is the one used in The Day After Tomorrow.

[Yootopia]

spending tax dollars on technologies nobody can afford to improve the Earth for no rational reason isn't helping the environment at all in my opinion.

At the same time, nobody can afford to have the earth completely fucked. To be honest, though, I don't really see how CO2-absorbing concrete and the like are going to resolve all that much, and we'd probably be better using our resources to start properly setting ourselves up for space travel.

[Robarya]

I lean to think that the dangers of global warming are greatly exaggerated for leftist politicians to gain their votes.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

And spending tax dollars on technologies nobody can afford to improve the Earth for no rational reason isn't helping the environment at all in my opinion.

Really? You honestly can't think of any other rational reason to reduce or replace our reliance on fossil fuels besides Global Warming? You can't think of any other benefits?

Wow.

[The Romulan Republic]

spending tax dollars on technologies nobody can afford to improve the Earth for no rational reason isn't helping the environment at all in my opinion.

At the same time, nobody can afford to have the earth completely fucked. To be honest, though, I don't really see how CO2-absorbing concrete and the like are going to resolve all that much, and we'd probably be better using our resources to start properly setting ourselves up for space travel.

Agreed. Much of our study of the Earth, weather, etc, is already done by satalites. Furthermore, there are resources in space that we could gain access to (more solar power (possibly) and fuel for nuclear reactors are likely the most relevant to this topic).

[Feazanthia]

Is it real? Yes. When the Bush Administration acknowledges the existence of global climate change, I think we can safely say it's a definite probability.

Is it our fault? Maybe. I'm not convinced. But I can guarantee that we're definately not helping the situation.

However, I can also guarantee that relying on fossil fuels for energy will doom the human race even if it isn't noticably affecting the environment.

[Metallic Slumber]

well wat i emean is we will probably start to see that it is slowly happen errrrrrr something

[Feazanthia]

I lean to think that the dangers of global warming are greatly exaggerated for leftist politicians to gain their votes.

SCIENCE
Socialist Propaganda

[Rhodmhire]

Why would it be?

Environmentalism based on fear-mongering tactics by the media isn't environmentalism based on rational self decisions and love of the Earth. In my opinion.

Rather than set arbitrary timetables, why not just say "as soon as possible," and get working on it?

Because we aren't going to get anywhere. It'll raise the cost of living through the roof, since our economy is practically based off of these non-reneweable resources--well you know where that's going, and I'm not saying we can't work on it, but we'd better be working on a safety-net alternative (drilling for our own oil perhaps) in case something happens--like we actually run out of non-reneweable resources before we can begin collecting more of our own here in America--and we only have enough technology to replace around 30%-40% maximum of our energy in total, making it incredibly expensive if it's perfected, and incredibly inefficient if it's cheap.

No reason we can't work to improve things even if that's true.

Of course, some things will always be dependent on non-renewable resources, but the key is to a) gain more resources, and b) limit use of non-renewable resources by as much as possible. Both involve developing technology to exploit new sources of resources, increase efficiency, and increase recycling.

We can work to improve things, we'd just better have a bridge of time where we're stablizing the colossal amout of technology that runs off of non-reneweable energy, and slowly switching to alternatives as they improve. That bridge will arch into a time where we're almost totally running off of alternative energy. I'd say from 75-80%+ of our energy consumption.

We might consider nuclear as a short term fix. Its highly efficient, and as far as safety is concerned the only really major disaster has been Chernobyl, which as I recall was a result of gross human errors.

In any case, with nuclear you're at worst trading the lots of continual little disasters (diseases caused by air pollution, fires and explosions at plants, coal mine collapses, etc) for occasional big ones.

Nuclear energy is great, it's just the waste produced from it needs 10,000 years of storage after it's produced. Once it adds up in quantity, it could be a worse problem than pollution from other resources.

Now if we could perfect fusion, that would probably be better, and nuclear energy is a good bridge as well. But again, nuclear energy only accounts for about 22% of our energy. We'd still need to exert a rather large amount of focus on petroleum and coal. Then we'd have to worry about developing alternative resources AND work towards more highly developed nuclear fission/working more with nuclear fusion.

And if we don't have time?

No one expects it to happen instantaneously that I'm aware of. There is nothing unreasonable with wanting to start the transition immediately, though. All the more so because it will take time.

And yes, it will require active effort. We can't just sit back and wait for it to happen "naturally," because it may happen far too slowly. Companies still profit a lot off of oil and coal. Why would they nessissarily make the switch as long as much oil or coal remains?

If we don't have time, then companies that produce these technologies better be willing to give them away to millions of Americans for free. That's what we'll have to do. And it's not going to happen, trust me.

Many people want it instantaneously, and they'll look for as many solutions to do that as they can. Fact of the matter is, there are none. We can't do it instantaneously, and I'm glad you recognize that. But even so, the time will still be long, even if it isn't as fast as natural transitions. In these days we promote more competition, advertisements, and media then in the past. That doesn't mean the transition won't still be fairly slow, but it will still happen.

And maybe they wouldn't make the switch, but they're companies--what do you expect? I think I'd rather have technology improved to the maximum, distributed as much as possible, and maybe even just prepared for distribution--opposed to being thrown into national poverty and crisis because the resources that make up the foundation of the economy would no longer exist, and companies would decide to start selling overpriced vehilcles that weren't even fully improved upon because they were distribued so fast, or because the companies wanted to make them cheap.

[Dragontide]

We screwed up.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/extremeice/

Lies were spread in mass to help us screw up faster.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2612021&page=1

http://www.exxposeexxon.com/

Let's sue the oil companies and settle out of court for 95% of every damm thing they got!

[Rhodmhire]

And spending tax dollars on technologies nobody can afford to improve the Earth for no rational reason isn't helping the environment at all in my opinion.

Really? You honestly can't think of any other rational reason to reduce or replace our reliance on fossil fuels besides Global Warming? You can't think of any other benefits?

Wow.

I'm referring to people who think it helps the environment.

I don't support alternative resources because they help the environment.

I do see the other benefits of them, the constant period of availability, the economic benefits, job creation, and so on.

[Yootopia]

Let's sue the oil companies and settle out of court for 95% of every damm thing they got!

Err why?

Oil runs our world. We'd be pretty fucked if they hiked up prices as a retaliatory measure.

[Emperor Matthuis]

I think if climate change is going to happen, it's going happen and painting our roofs white, or walking to school is not going to anything towards the environment. We might as well enjoy polluting it while we can.

[Yootopia]

I think if climate change is going to happen, it's going happen and painting our roofs white, or walking to school is not going to anything towards the environment. We might as well enjoy polluting it while we can.

Err...

Polluting the world doesn't just entail Bad Climate Change. I dunno if you've ever been to the Phillipines, but they have very limited air controls there and it abso fucked my lungs.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

And spending tax dollars on technologies nobody can afford to improve the Earth for no rational reason isn't helping the environment at all in my opinion.

Really? You honestly can't think of any other rational reason to reduce or replace our reliance on fossil fuels besides Global Warming? You can't think of any other benefits?

Wow.

I'm referring to people who think it helps the environment.

I don't support alternative resources because they help the environment.

I do see the other benefits of them, the constant period of availability, the economic benefits, job creation, and so on.

Even if Global Warming is at best overhyped and at worst a myth, there is a vested interest on both a national and an individual level to produce renewable technologies to reduce fossil fuel dependence. There is still a vested interest in moving food production closer to consumers and reducing the amount of resources needed to support our population. More importantly, there is still a vested interest in continued study because if there is one problem that I personally have with the Global Warming it's that there is no clear science to support that any of the things we do will make the slightest difference in that trend.

[Feazanthia]

I'm still holding out for sustainable fusion energy.

Having a power source that runs on the most abundant resource in the universe would solve SO many problems in this world it's not even funny.

[Ifreann]

All I'll say about my views on it for the moment, are that I DO support alternative resources...just not like in the next few years.

Rather than set arbitrary timetables, why not just say "as soon as possible," and get working on it?

This. Regardless of the risk posed by climate change the sooner we get weaned off coal and oil the better. I don't think I'm alone in thinking it'd be a damn good idea to have something we can use instead before they run out.

[Dragontide]

Let's sue the oil companies and settle out of court for 95% of every damm thing they got!

Err why?

Oil runs our world. We'd be pretty fucked if they hiked up prices as a retaliatory measure.

The "BIG SWITCH" from oil to whatever will cost a lot of money. They should be the ones to foot the bill. The oil companies are the ones responsable for some of the lies. (they funded it) They have commited a great crime. Climate change kills 300,000 people each year.
http://news.aol.com/article/climate-change/504231

And until we get the needed clutch around their throats, they are going to raise the prices no matter what happens. (watch out when the recession ends and/or a hurricane even looks cross-eyed at an offshore oil rig)

[Yootopia]

The "BIG SWITCH" from oil to whatever will cost a lot of money. They should be the ones to foot the bill.

Why?

Climate change kills 300,000 people each year.

Malaria kills 30,000 per day, should we hold those responsible for pretty much banning DDT responsible for that?

And until we get the needed clutch around their throats, they are going to raise the prices no matter what happens. (watch out when the recession ends and/or a hurricane even looks cross-eyed at an offshore oil rig)

Yeah a lot of that is down to Bastard Market Traders, rather than the companies themselves, but if you start hitting the oil companies hard, they'll conspire with the traders who bought low to raise the price, something that will fuck your life up amazingly badly.