Global warming
Man’s impact on our planet goes well beyond the problem of global warming.
Forests and open space are disappearing at an alarming rate. The abundance of fish that our oceans once contained has been dangerously diminished.
Natural resources are being consumed wantonly. Clean water supplies around the world are inadequate. Species of flora and fauna are disappearing every year.
No matter how noble the intent, worrying about each person’s carbon footprint without also focusing on the increasing numbers of people leaving those footprints is insane. Opening discussions on how to “manage” population is extremely unpopular in this age of sensitivity and political correctness. However, sticking our heads in the sand and hoping that the problem goes away is absurd. Nature and the laws of human behavior will eventually resolve the problem of over-population as need outstrips available resources. But, waiting for this natural solution will doom the world to a future of increasing human suffering, conflict, and war.
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wow no wonder algore got a prize knowing that his made up myth of warming was going to do so much harm to the planet that man does not control at all.
at least I am not worried about my carbon foot print nor how much co2 I emitt with walking and I dont care about all of cattle out there farting all day.
when jerks like algore will lead by example and not just telling us what to do then maybe and just maybe I will listen, but until that happens you just walk or ride your bike drive a hybread and I will enjoy my life as it is today till the day I die.
Most population growth today is in countries whose environmental protections are nearly nonexistent. The rest of the world simply wants the USA to pay dearly so all the rest of the world can have a 'level' playing field.
Wake up folks, you are being taken to the cleaners on this one.
Evolution and Global Warming are hoaxes.
Posted by Ralph Wigham on November 13, 2007 02:29 PMGreenland was once lush and green. Glaciers once covered most of North America. A great ice sheet pushing down from the north formed Long Island. Alaska once had tropical rain forests (we call that oil today). The point is that the earth's climate always has and always will change. The question how can we use this inescapable set of facts to change the behavior of the little people. When you see the Democrats, Exxon, BP and Conoco Phillips lining up to provide solutions to a “problem”, grab your wallet quickly.?
Posted by on November 13, 2007 03:34 PMJust a quick question -- why do all of the Gore-haters refer to him as "algore" rather than "Al Gore"? Is it laziness where the space bar is concerned, or some half-assed attempt at a nickname?
Posted by Genuinely Curious on November 13, 2007 05:45 PMThis is a well-written letter, but there needs to be some question about the figures stated. If the current population growth rate cited (2.3 births to equal every death) is correct, then what was it in 1955? While I can't state the exact figure, I'm willing to bet it was much higher then. As that rate has declined, doesn't it indicate that human beings can achieve a natural human population control based on already present systems?
Posted by Neal5x5 on November 13, 2007 06:07 PMKeith,
You are always so clever, your wit and intelligence are beyond compare...
Posted by Karl Cheney on November 13, 2007 06:43 PMKarl cant seem to keep his cum funnel shut.
Posted by on November 13, 2007 07:07 PM7:07,
Wow, now that is mature. Your wit and intelligence are showing through as well!! Are you a friend of Keith's?
Anon at 3:34. Tropical rain forests turn into coal, not oil. Oil forms from tiny little marine creatures called Foraminfera. While the Earth warms and cools in spots, and overall because of changes in the position of Earth to the sun, this does not cause an increase in carbon dioxide.
Checking air bubbles in ice cores and a few other sources, says that we have contributed to green house gasses, that leads, if they are right, to GW.
Warming and cooling cycles are not the same thing as the build up of greenhouse gasses.
Posted by Sharon B. on November 13, 2007 08:51 PMSharon B, "Checking air bubbles in ice cores and a few other sources, says that we have contributed to green house gasses, that leads, if they are right, to GW."
Check out http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659
Evidence is that the CO2 increase comes after the temperature increase.
Heal5x5, you are right the fertility rate is dropping. It is lower now than in 1955.
However, the mortality rate has droped faster in many places in the world (here included), and until fertility rate catches up, the population climbs dramatically.
The population of the planet will stabilise in around 50 years or so if current trends keep up, but by then the total population will be around 12-14 billion.
In many places the demographic transition has already occured and the fertility rate is lower than the replacement rate and the populations are slowly dropping.
The writer is as wacky as Paul Ehrlich who, a few generations ago, wrote extensively about population growth resulting in mass starvation--he beat Al Gore to the alarmist punch by several decades. Today, the USA alone can feed the whole world with fewer farmers than at the turn of the century.
History has completely discredited Ehrlich's population nonsense, Gerald is recycling garbage.
I like to think of it this way...More people=more brains=more solutions to problems. Case closed.
Posted by Hank on November 14, 2007 07:57 AM
Dave:
Check out http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659
Evidence is that the CO2 increase comes after the temperature increase.
Yes, for the past warming periods - but GW theory doesn't hold that warming periods in the past were initiated by CO2 as the article stated:
This proves that rising CO2 was not the trigger that caused the initial warming at the end of these ice ages – but no climate scientist has ever made this claim.
So why would you expect CO2 to lead temperature in the past warming periods?
When you look at the modern conditions however, you have a different situation - CO2 levels are currently leading temperature increases.
Posted by CL on November 14, 2007 08:21 AMKeith=Queef
Posted by harly on November 14, 2007 08:42 AMCL
So sometimes CO2 leads warming periods and sometimes in lags. Why focus on CO2? It doesn't seem to be a reliable indicator.
Posted by on November 14, 2007 09:03 AMSharon B
Are you saying the build up of greenhouse gas dosen't cause warming? Or are you saying cooling and warming cycles don't happen? If the cycles are a natural occurance, then they were caused by natural climate changes. How does buying CO2 credits or a CO2 tax stop this natural process? (CL before you post, yes we have heard that it is different this time. Please provide details as to how this warming period is different from all the others that occured in the 4-6 billion years of Earths existance. )
Posted by on November 14, 2007 09:09 AMSharon B
Are you saying the build up of greenhouse gas dosen't cause warming? Or are you saying cooling and warming cycles don't happen? If the cycles are a natural occurance, then they were caused by natural climate changes. How does buying CO2 credits or a CO2 tax stop this natural process? (CL before you post, yes we have heard that it is different this time. Please provide details as to how this warming period is different from all the others that occured in the 4-6 billion years of Earths existance. )
Posted by on November 14, 2007 09:16 AMI'm still amazed (but no longer surprised) that so many on the far right STILL insist on putting politics above science in this debate.
Posted by jay on November 14, 2007 09:57 AMI'm still amazed that so many on the left refuse to understand that the earth has had climate changes since the beginning of time and that maybe just maybe the one that is starting is due to forces that we can't control. The politics comes for the fact that statements such as "the debate is over" from Al Gore. What was his profession again? Very little science is every beyond debate. The church stopped debate when they decided the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. Science without politics would welcome dissent. Religion ignores, disparages or persecutes dissent. Which one does the AGW issue most resemble?
Posted by on November 14, 2007 10:09 AMcruton...try to remember that it's not Al Gore, but nearly every single credible, peer-reviewed, field-appropriate scientist on the planet with which you're disageeing....then try to remember why you're doing that....
Posted by jay on November 14, 2007 10:39 AM09:03 AM & 09:09 AM:
So sometimes CO2 leads warming periods and sometimes in lags. Why focus on CO2? It doesn't seem to be a reliable indicator.
CO2 levels and temperature are clearly related - look at the charts on the article cited. As to why focus on CO2 - look at the second chart:
http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11640/dn11640-1_800.jpg
while CO2 (and methane as well) show close relationship with temperature, solar variation does not.
(CL before you post, yes we have heard that it is different this time. Please provide details as to how this warming period is different from all the others that occured in the 4-6 billion years of Earths existance. )
I have neither the time nor the inclination to go into the earth's entire climate history. I will say though that when you get into scales of time over 20 million years or so, then things like plate tectonics play a much more significant role (for example there was no Atlantic Ocean 300 million years ago) than they do for the time period represented by the ice cores (~650 thousand years) not to mention modern man's entire existance.
The point being is that factors such as plate tectonics operate at such a huge time scale that their direct influence on the climate over periods of a few thousand years is miniscule at best. Given that, the question then is what influences climate most on a time scale relevant to our existance.
Posted by CL on November 14, 2007 10:47 AMJust a quick question -- why do all of the Gore-haters refer to him as "algore" rather than "Al Gore"? Is it laziness where the space bar is concerned, or some half-assed attempt at a nickname?
Posted by Genuinely Curious on November 13, 2007 05:45 PM
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It's meant to be a disparaging remark. In a number of science fiction movies, the mad scientist has an assistance name Igore. By calling Al Gore algore, people are alluding to a mad scientist assistant.
Quite frankly, Al Gore may believe what he says, but he appears to be a snake oil salesman.
Posted by Jim on November 14, 2007 11:06 AMJay,
I guess the nearly every single credible, peer-reviewed, field-appropriate scientist on the planet doesn't include the folks in the 11:42 post.
I know. I'm a cruton. Ouch, that really hurt.
There are good reasons to begin with a presumption against government action. As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems.
John Stossel
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
"Consensus is the stuff of politics, not science," says Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute.
I wish I wasnt such a sissy and had a brain to tink witth. I tink my brain must be shrunking from being up my ass all the time.algore is a toopid head
Posted by Keith on November 14, 2007 12:36 PMCL, "So why would you expect CO2 to lead temperature in the past warming periods?"
Some it has, and some it hasn't. For instance, the period between about 1940 - 1975, CO2 levels were increasing, but global temperatures were falling.
Posted by Dave on November 14, 2007 12:53 PMJames,
The website that you provided is great. I especially liked the section "Peer review. What peer review?"
The sands are shifting under this issue. More and more scientists are saying "no" to this corruption of the scientific process.
The only worry is that it is too late. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes true.
There is a lot of money at stake fixing the "AGW "problem".
Thanks
Thanks for all the links folks.
I don`t have a dog in this hunt. I think the globe is warming because we are in an inter-glacial period, and at the same time we are putting large amounts of carbon dioxide in the air, along with other green house gasses. Call it the perfect storm of conditions to contribute to GW. Kind of nature and nurture. (joke).
However, I do think it is now self perpetuating and we can`t do to much to slow it down.
Posted by Sharon B. on November 14, 2007 01:16 PMWe should recycle, reuse and reduce. We should produce as much renewable energy as is economically possible. We should conserve as much as energy as possible. But we shouldn't trash the economy and put the poorest citizen's lives at risk (rising enrgy cost will do just that) to fight this. A study in Germany actually showed that higher levels of CO2 spur plant growth.
Posted by on November 14, 2007 01:24 PMNo problem.
Truth is always the antidote and it's never too late.
The argument that the science is complete is the antithesis of science and a sure tip-off that the opportunists on the left think they have discovered a new path to an old goal - power.
Posted by James Jones on November 14, 2007 02:38 PMCL, "So why would you expect CO2 to lead temperature in the past warming periods?"Some it has, and some it hasn't. For instance, the period between about 1940 - 1975, CO2 levels were increasing, but global temperatures were falling.
Are you so sure about that? There's not much direct continous CO2 measurements before 1958 like the Keeling Mauna Loa data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
To go back before 1958 you can use ice core data - Here's a chart of CO2 from the Law Dome Antartica ice cores from CDIAC (Dept. of Energy):
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.smooth20.gif
Notice what it does just before the 1945-1975 time period....
Posted by CL on November 14, 2007 03:30 PMJames Jones and his amazing talking anus strike again...
Posted by on November 14, 2007 08:23 PMJimmy Jimmy Jimmy, here's a bit from the "mission statement" of the institute you cite, after waxing on about "sound science" and such:
"Though some say anthropogenic "global warming" is the most serious issue facing humankind, security of energy supply is a far more serious problem, since the fossil fuels that cause "global warming" may soon be exhausted. The Institute urges critical appraisal of legislative “climate fixes” for their social, political, and economic and security costs, along with their relative utility or futility.
Proposals demanding prodigious economic or political sacrifices for the sake of negligible climatic benefits should be rejected in favor of policies to address graver, more immediate concerns about which something constructive can actually be done. "
Sounds to me like they have an agenda Jimmy Jay.
Posted by Charles B on November 14, 2007 10:17 PMCL,
I don't remember exactly where I read that the CO2 levels had risen between 1940 - 1975. However, a google search found this:
“The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.”
Source: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?b9172d65-e431-4390-9660-954038395cbf
So what?
It makes no difference at all whether Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth has mistakes in it.
The scientists who say that there is global warming and that man contributes to it do not rely on Al Gore's book and movie. It's the other way around. He relies on them. The question is not whether Al Gore made mistakes; the question is whether the scientists made mistakes.
It's not surprising that people like James Jones bring up the Al Gore straw man.
Posted by Truth on November 15, 2007 08:10 AM