The Hope For Our Dying Home-Earth...An Inconvenient Truth

by justhuman 99 Replies latest jw friends

  • besty
    besty

    Gregor - OK so as not to labour the point for other people I will ignore the latest batch of logical fallacies and just get straight to the point you raise with regard to global cooling. (At least you have raised something with a tenuous connection to a fact, so that's progress)

    A cursory glance at Wikipedia reveals that global cooling has been scientifically sidelined since the 1970's. (And yes, you have my permission to shoot the messenger - everybody knows Wikipedia is fundamentally wrong about everything, right?)

    Present level of knowledge

    Thirty years later, the concern that the cooler temperatures would continue, and perhaps at a faster rate, can now be observed to have been incorrect. More has to be learned about climate, but the growing records have shown the cooling concerns of 1975 to have been simplistic and not borne out.

    As for the prospects of the end of the current interglacial (again, valid only in the absence of human perturbations): it isn't true that interglacials have previously only lasted about 10,000 years; and Milankovitch-type calculations indicate that the present interglacial would probably continue for tens of thousands of years naturally. [27] Other estimates (Loutre and Berger, based on orbital calculations) put the unperturbed length of the present interglacial at 50,000 years. [28] Berger (EGU 2005 presentation) believes that the present CO 2 perturbation will last long enough to suppress the next glacial cycle entirely.

    As the NAS report indicates, scientific knowledge regarding climate change was more uncertain than it is today. At the time that Rasool and Schneider wrote their 1971 paper, climatologists had not yet recognized the significance of greenhouse gases other than water vapor and carbon dioxide, such as methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons. [29] Early in that decade, carbon dioxide was the only widely studied human-influenced greenhouse gas. The attention drawn to atmospheric gases in the 1970s stimulated many discoveries in future decades. As the temperature pattern changed, global cooling was of waning interest by 1979. [21]

    There may well be new recent evidence of global cooling - as in cooling that affects the globe, not anecdotal evidence of unseasonally thick ice in Minnesota. Perhaps an edit by you on Wikipedia would be a good place to start. Or even post your research or sources here on JWD.

    You'll possibly notice I still haven't expressed a personal opinion, merely refuted logical fallacies and untruths as and when I see them. Your suggestion that I'm part of a screaming movement is incorrect, if a somewhat humorous word picture.

    FWIW my personal opinion is it makes more sense to be gentle with Nature - its not there to be 'conquered' by humans, as if such a thing were possible - particularly our consumption of finite resources. Why not be a bit more careful with what we are doing on a personal level - there's no need to insult those with a different opinion, labelling and dividing into camps along political lines.

  • besty
    besty

    Hey BurnTheShips

    If the CO2 rich atmosphere doesn't suit you you could always move to the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

    http://www.google.com/search?q=biodiversity+chernobyl&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

  • Gregor
    Gregor

    there's no need to insult those with a different opinion, labelling and dividing into camps along political lines.

    Well, I'm glad to hear you've come around.

    PS. Is it the word TRUTH as in "An inconvenient..." that grabbed you folks?

  • besty
    besty

    You are an asset to American diplomacy Gregor.

    And the way you use bold font is very artistic.

  • beksbks
    beksbks

    I only have one question. Is our current rate of consumption, depletion of resources, spewing of junk, and so on and so on, GOOD for us or the earth? Can there possibly be any question that it isn't even neutral, but detrimental on many levels? Who gives a flying f*ck how much exaggeration there is in the "green" movement. It's obviously the direction we need to be leaning. To argue otherwise is just stick your head in the sand, spoiled brat, idiocy. Whiiiiiiiiiiiiine, I might not be able to be a resource glutton anymore!!!!!!!!!! Why is it so much more palatable to you to give the oil/car/tire/etc. companies rather than the "tree hugger" companies your money???? Why is the anti-global warming crowd (along with their scientific research) funded almost entirely by oil companies?? Do you LIKE the smell of exhaust? Are you familiar with Super Fund sites? Wouldn't it be better to err on the side of caution??????????????

    Ok, so that was more than one question.

  • Carlos_Helms
    Carlos_Helms

    Witness 007, Carlos_Helms, BringTheLight

    I have challenged each of you on your posts on this thread with no response from any of you. I'm disappointed.

    Please come back :-)

    ************************

    Come back where?

    You say "tomato"...I say "tomahto." Your "experts" are better than mine?

    Sorry, but I'm not going to call all the scientists listed on the petition. I can say this: just because a professional organization releases a "professional opinion," it doesn't make it truthful. Most, however, have a strong need to be funded...and funding comes from political elements who are lobbied by those who want their agendas recognized as "scientific fact." You take it from there.

    The American Psychiatric Association, who defines THE acceptable, professional "standard of care" for psychiatric patients, wants pedophilia officially-recognized as a disability in the United States - with all rights and privileges associated with having a legally-recognized handicap. This is just one example of the absurdity of "professional organizations."

    But I'm no scientist. You can blow off the data in the article as meaningless because the NAS disputes its origins rather than the data itself. Sounds par for the course.

    Carlos

  • BurnTheShips
    BurnTheShips

    Hey BurnTheShips

    If the CO2 rich atmosphere doesn't suit you you could always move to the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

    Check this out:

    http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

    Cute Ukrainian on a motorbike who loves to ride around Chernobyl. The place is crawling in wildlife these days. The radiation bothers it less than human habitation did.

    BTS

  • Gregor
    Gregor

    Why is it that if one does not agree with the Human Caused Global Warming political movement then they are accused of being FOR waste, pollution and anything else that trashes the enviroment. Like, if you don't believe everything taught by JWs then you are automatically an immoral stooge of Satan.

    Besty, diplomacy? Since when has the Global Warming movement shown any desire to be diplomatic? It's their way or the highway, they are right and you are wrong, case closed, etc.

    If you don't like my use of a bold font why don't you say so? More fun to be snarky? I use it because I find it easier to read. I suppose it does use more black pixels and somehow that contributes to GW. Lol.

    Hope you are not polluting the atmosphere when you cook those innocent animals on your new BBQ! snark! snark! (Hey, I'm kidding in a good natured way, see-->)

  • Eyes Open
    Eyes Open

    So I was thinking about this thread again and decided to take another look at it tonight.

    The first thing I want to say is sorry if I caused any offence with my "I wonder if Americans who stick their heads in the sand have any idea how educated Europeans view them?" question. I can see how that has encouraged negative back and forth quips. A few points on my using it: 1) As I said earlier, I didn't mean to infer that all Americans are ignorant or unconcerned with environmental issues. 2) I didn't mean to infer that all Europeans are educated. (I don't consider myself so - more on that later.) 3) When I see what I perceive as a destructive attitude I get wound up. 4) Sorry again.

    One thing I think we can all agree on is that the earth, its resources and its atmosphere are important to us. If things need changing, we shouldn't waste time trying to justify our present practices just because we like the way things are for ourselves right now.

    Some have drawn a parallel between believing in the teachings of our favourite bible cult and in human-caused global warming. I'm not particularly educated, especially with regard to science. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I was taught to dismiss what science had shown. It ran contrary to what we wanted to believe, so it was deemed to be wrong and appealing to those who were too full of themselves. Having dispensed with that fallacy, I now feel that disagreeing with the scientific consensus over something so important requires extremely good reasons, for obvious reasons. besty has asked for clarification and further information of a number of members - it will be interesting to see if these requests are dealt with.

    It makes sense to me that systematically destroying and burning resources and emitting chemicals in significant quantities into our atmosphere has an effect. We are capable of using far less obtrusive technologies to get our power, e.g. solar. Why fight it?

    p.s. This is post number 607 for me. :)

  • Carlos_Helms
    Carlos_Helms

    Oh, I don't know, Eyes Open. I haven't seen that many smart Americans - OR Europeans...or anybody else for that matter. What I see are a lot of spun-up, emotional people doing backflips over whatever happens to be the political soup of the day. In other words, if I can convince you that catastrophe looms if you don't ACT NOW, you will act almost without thinking...AND spread the gospel. Now, if I need help convincing you, there are plenty of "professional" opinions to support whatever side of whatever cause I rally to.

    Good, bad or indifferent...the world has grown accustomed to the way we do business. Rape, pillage and plunder, the population manages to grow exponentially. I would agree that humankind SHOULD have learned to rely upon renewable resources 50 years ago. But they didn't. I have no doubt that if legislation and economic sanctions are enacted to prevent "global warming," hundreds of millions if not billions will die. Before jumping the gun, we ought to, first, be sure that global warming is primarily a man-made phenomena. There is significant enough evidence to suggest that it is not. IF the primary cause is, for instance, solar activity, billions may die anyway. But I'd just as soon the sun get blamed for it - thank you very much - and not the world's growers, transporters and suppliers of food.

    Certainly there is cause to raise the consumption consciousness of the entire world (particularly those countries just rising from 3rd-world status). I'm just not all that anxious to replace one breed of human predator with another - in the name of "green."

    Carlos

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