Yesterday, it was global warming...

[SFL Cat]

We just need to pass legislation to prevent volcanos from erupting. Those suckers belch out more green house gasses in one eruption than mankind produces worldwide in a whole year. Problem solved.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Even if you do believe that all that is true, dawgfan, you have to concede there is NO unaminity or consensus about what the solution is, either in the scientific community, or anywhere else. Short of discovering fission power or inventing a nuclear powered car, I don't see any realistic way of reducing our emissions to any serious degree.

That's the rub - even if we are convinced that human activity is accelarating global warming, we still can't be sure exactly what the consequences will be.

However, I think there are reasonable steps we can take reduce our impact - enforcing tougher gas mileage standards would be one area where we could start. But admittedly that's just one piece of a very large puzzle. And unfortunately, some "green" ideas out there don't end up producing a net reduction of greenhouse emmissions, so there is some understandable trepidation about jumping on the "green" bandwagon when it comes to policy. This is an issue that deserves sober, well-reasoned and well-critiqued attention. Unfortunately, that's not a trademark of our short attention span society...

[Cringer]

Dudes, global warming was easy to figure out. I did it long ago, it is not my problem if no one listens to me. Here it is....

Global warming is caused by our own frickin' body heat. There are now something like 7 billion people in the world, that's a lot more body heat then there used to be. And even though China and India are well over 1 billion each, the good old U.S. of A. is still the main problem. 1 obese American body heat = 15 Chinese/Indians body heat.

It's all proven science my dudes. Stop farting, and god forbid stop making the 400 lb. guys get on the treadmill.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

That's the rub - even if we are convinced that human activity is accelarating global warming, we still can't be sure exactly what the consequences will be.

However, I think there are reasonable steps we can take reduce our impact - enforcing tougher gas mileage standards would be one area where we could start. But admittedly that's just one piece of a very large puzzle. And unfortunately, some "green" ideas out there don't end up producing a net reduction of greenhouse emmissions, so there is some understandable trepidation about jumping on the "green" bandwagon when it comes to policy. This is an issue that deserves sober, well-reasoned and well-critiqued attention. Unfortunately, that's not a trademark of our short attention span society...

Higher gas mileage would have positive economic benefits, I believe. But as I said before, there's a lot more ground to be gained by better enforcement of emission standards. You're telling me nobody can invent a cheap monitor that attaches to the exhaust and can be read by any police officer (instead of having to go to a gas station once a year or less)? Emissions tests right now yield tons of false negatives - those tests are very easy to beat.

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

I guess did not make myself clear. The winter storm has not started yet. I was going to go stockpile some food in case it did get bad. But I do not feel like going. I got water and fruit grain bars. What else can a man want?

Haha, so on the local news, when they show the obligatory 15-minute lead story on the winter storm, you're the guy shoveling gallons of water and loafs of bread into a shopping cart, and getting plywood to board up your windows.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

Those suckers belch out more green house gasses in one eruption than mankind produces worldwide in a whole year.

It must hurt to be that wrong. The total annual CO2 output of all the volcanoes in the world matches only 1% of manmade CO2 output. (read the section titled Atmosphere)

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by -Mojo Jojo-

It must hurt to be that wrong. The total annual CO2 output of all the volcanoes in the world matches only 1% of manmade CO2 output. (read the section titled Atmosphere)

To be fair, greenhouse gases include more than just carbon dioxide. However, as you mentioned, man-made sources, by far, create more than natural sources.

Interestingly, the decrease in sulfur dioxide emissions (which creates acid rain) has actually hastened the greenhouse effect. Apparently, sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere reflects heat back into space. Therefore, where they've decreased the amounts of sulfur dioxide the most (Great Lakes, the Northeast), they've seen more localized warming. Go figure!

[Cringer]

Body heat and farts. See, no one believes me.

[GMO]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

I'm going to call bullshit on this one. You really think the oil companies or the chemical companies wouldn't be tripping all over themselves to fund scientists that dispute the idea that human activity is driving the current global warming?

These research funds come from the government.
And yes, it's true.
If you mention that your research has something to do with Global Warming, you have a much better chance of being funded by the government.

And it's true that private companies have their bias, but never forget that the government has its bias, and the government is a lot bigger than any private company.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by GMO

These research funds come from the government.
And yes, it's true.
If you mention that your research has something to do with Global Warming, you have a much better chance of being funded by the government.

And it's true that private companies have their bias, but never forget that the government has its bias, and the government is a lot bigger than any private company.

One of the big scandals starting to break over the last 6 months or so is how much research is skewed or out-and-out falsified just to keep grant money coming in. The South Korean cloning researcher is probably the biggest example, but there have been a couple others and we're likely to see more...