Personally, I couldn't give a crap about global warming.

There are two other important topics when it comes to pollution that I worry about more...

1) You can't tell me that taking dead dinosaurs out of ground and burning them is good for the Earth. That's retarded.

2) There are other immediate health effects to pollution. Here in Fresno, as well as LA, San Bernardino, Bakersfield etc, the air gets so bad it's like smoking a pack a day during the summer. Here are some facts, and there's no debating these..

From: http://www.sjvhc.org/programs/ccap/
Asthma Facts

Quote:


Asthma has risen over 75% worldwide over the last 10 years.

Over 15 million people in the United States are diagnosed with asthma, including almost 5 million children and estimated 2.3 million who are under five years of age.

Asthma is the most prevalent chronic disease among children, making it the third ranked cause of hospitalization among children under the age of fifteen.

Asthma is the leading cause of school absenteeism, accounting for 10 million lost school days, 12 million bed rest days, and 24 million restricted activity days per year.

Asthma treatment costs an estimated $6.4 billion annually in the United States.

In California, hospitalizations for asthma cost over $350 million each year.

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/11247823p-11998331c.html

Quote:


Polluted air — the type that hangs over the Valley in fall and winter — may be causing three times the number of premature deaths than were previously estimated.

...

The link between premature death and fine particulates is not new. The particle darts have been blamed for about 1,100 early deaths annually in the Valley.

But the latest study — which zeroed in on particulate levels in individual neighborhoods — showed the connection between air pollution and early death to be three times as large as that reported in past studies of cities in the United States, Jerrett said.

Now look at this picture of Beijing..can you find the city?!?



How about Mexico City?



Where do you think all this goes, anyhow? Magically sucked up by our deforested planet?

Then there are immediate effects on climate.... such as pollution blocking the rays of the sun over the Indian Ocean.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s436889.htm

Or how about turning the oceans acidic?

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/050701_acidfrm.htm

But hey, don't feel bad about polluting. Global Warming isn't real. There aren't other issues to think about...nahhhhh....


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You want proof of Global Warming well here it is.

Quote:

POINT BARROW, Alaska, Sept. 27, 2005 — This season has ushered in the warmest Arctic summer in 400 years. A NASA report to be released this week finds the polar ice pack has shrunk by nearly 30 percent since 1978, and new satellite photos show the melting is speeding up.

Scientists say the Arctic may be caught in a vicious cycle of global warming. As ice melts, there's less white matter to reflect the sun's heat back into space. The dark ocean absorbs more of the sun's heat and that, in turn, melts more of the ice pack.

ABC News traveled to the northern tip of America – Point Barrow, Alaska – to document the other dramatic effects of global warming.

During the summer, people who live in the region have a practice of storing whale meat in ice cellars dug into the permanently frozen ground. But when whale hunter Eugene Brower took an ABC News crew to see his, he was shocked by what he found.

"The skin and blubber should be frozen!" he said. "It's thawing out."

Typically in the Arctic, any ground deeper than about four feet has always been frozen. But the permafrost is now starting to melt.

At Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of the United States is melting as well.

"The bluff edge was out there by about 150 feet or so just 10 years ago," said scientist Ann Jensen.

Since melting permafrost leaves the ground soft and with far less frozen surface to block the waves, the water carves away at it. Old graves are tumbling into the sea.

"They keep getting exposed," said Jensen. "People don't really want to see their ancestors getting washed into the ocean."

People, Animals Forced to Relocate

Whole villages are tumbling into the ocean, forcing people to relocate — as well as many animals.

Black guillemots began nesting this far north 40 years ago, when temperatures started to rise.

Now scientists are watching the birds get driven out by puffins, warmer weather birds from the sub-Arctic, which kill the chicks and take over the nests.

"Yesterday, it's the Arctic, and now suddenly, it's turning into the sub-Arctic!" said biologist George Divoky.

As the sea ice disappears, many polar bears are starving because they must have sea ice on which to hunt.

And the culture of local residents, whose life has centered upon hunting on the ice, is changing as well.

"It's often too dangerous now, due to the thin ice," said Fred Simik, an Inupiat native.

Another cause for worry: scientists report that as the permafrost melts and this vast Arctic tundra dries up, decaying plants in the soil are releasing increased amounts of carbon – a greenhouse gas that only adds to the warming and melting.

"Humans are putting about 6 [billion] or 7 billion metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere every year," said biologist Walter Oechel, director of the Global Change Research Institute at San Diego State University. "And we're standing on 200 billion tons here," he added, pointing to the tundra.

Just how soon that carbon may get released is unclear. But those who live in the area have moved on from the debate about whether global warming is real. They're living with it.

ABC News' Bill Blakemore filed this report for "World News Tonight."

Well, Pollution is a lot more readily studied, and the effects are less latent. Asia has a smog cloud that tends to sit around uban centers, and California has had drastically less Smog warning days since the introduction of the catalytic converter and EGR systems.

Anyhow.. I'm not sure about the acidic content of the ocean being more than a natural occurrance... If you read the very end of the article, they link the acidification of oceans with a marginal increase in CO2 levels world wide... A marginal increase in CO2, would mean more algae... but beyond that... I don't think the leap is qualified.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

augustin

whenever i speak or think abotu global warming all those topics u speak of come to mind

they are ALLLL interrelated. so i group them all together.


if there are actually people that when they think of global warming only thing of the far future effects then..... well there very slow in the head.

the here and now effects of pollution which are very serious is also what is turning into the threats of global warming in the future.


also, it really doesnt matter which topic u choose to hoen in on. because no matter what u pick u yield the same result.

if im searching for a way to stop FUTURE global warming from happening i WILL have a POSSITIVE effect on the here and now of pollution.

and if i am searchign for a way to change the here and now pollution it WILL have a possitive effect on global warming the future.





:::Creative Draft Image Manipulation Forum:::

^^ I know what you're saying. But all too often people dismiss the entire pollution debate by saying "There's no Global Warming". So I toss it out first so I can attack the obvious.




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AGuSTiN wrote:^^ I know what you're saying. But all too often people dismiss the entire pollution debate by saying "There's no Global Warming". So I toss it out first so I can attack the obvious.

anyone thats says there is no global warming, is just being blind, seriously,

i dont mind people debating on how SERIOUS it is, but its for SURE it IS happening.


dismissing global warming is like saying there is not a growing hole in the ozone layer.







:::Creative Draft Image Manipulation Forum:::

Actually, there are 15 major and about 60 minor perforations in the Ozone layer...

I'm not saying there isn't Global Warming... I'm saying we don't have enough blind information to form a solid postulate. Until we have enough information though, it is prudent to conserve, and minimize our effect on the environment until such time as we can comprehend the ramifications of what we've been doing and what can be done to further minimize or reverse our impact.

Change is inevitable, and humans have a hand in it, how much is up to us.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

there has been plenty of studies showing what happens when green house gases are trapped in an environment.

and those studies can be directly applied to our world environment.





:::Creative Draft Image Manipulation Forum:::

As a microcosm. You can't apply what happens in a laboratory on a continental scale. There is no way to mimic the complexity of the actual earth processes and have anything approaching a true model.

If with the computers we have now, we can't figure out what the hell a nuclear reactor going into core melt-down has done, is doing and will do in the last 10 years, and into the next 20, how the hell are we going to accurately depict what would happen given 200 years of industrialisation?

Nathaniel, I see what you're saying, but we're not even close to being sophisticated enough to make an accurate judgment on what is going on in our atmosphere, and what effect we're having on it for the long term. I'm not saying there isn't global warming, not at all, but I'm not saying that there necessarily IS global warming. There are way too many factors interfering with getting an accurate read on things. The biggest thing that you'll see is airport temps cited as the main data for these studies, however, these studies do not take into account the "heat island" effect on the readings. Also given that there is no real network of temperature sensors around the globe (the closest thing we have is a satellite imager, but that is only useful when there is no cloud-cover), there isn't any way to accurately and wholistically read the earth's mean temperature.

The science just isn't behind it yet. Polution, sure, we know it's bad, we know the effects, and we need to arrest it as much as possible, but until the technology for clean energy becomes available world wide at an affordable price, developing nations (of which there are about 120, as opposed to the industrial revolution which had about 12-15) are going to use whatever is expedient.

The idea that we have to halt global warming is noble, but I highly doubt there will be any way for us to stop it tomorrow and have things just stagnate.

I'm going to say it one more time: Michael Crichton - State of Fear should be required reading (even though it is fiction), the major flaws in the scientific studies that are coming out of major NGO's and privately funded studies from major universities are exposed in general terms.

If you dig deep enough, you'll find that every study the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and numerous other environmental NGO/charity organisation funds tends to overwhelmingly support their position regarding the environment, and conversely, coal/oil interest funded studies point to another conclusion altogether. This was the same problem in the pharmaceutical industry about 50 years ago, and they put a stop to it by doing double-blind tests (ie, patients don't know if they're getting the drug or placebo, and the researchers are paid by the FDA, but it is not disclosed which drug company it is whose product they are evaluating).

Until there is unbiased evidence, I don't take what is being said to heart easily. I still conserve, I still am cautious about how I expend energy... but I don't try to curtail all usage completely. Moderation is the key.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

you couldn't even get unbiased evidence if you tried...

How can we possibly compre there here-and-now to the past in a dynamic, and often chaotic system like the earth's?

While you'd be foolish to say there's not been some effect, how do we know that what's going on now is a natural cycle of warming? What basis do we have strrong evidence to compare thing on, since all of our readings come from AFTER the industrial revolution? Plus, anything before that was empirical and the methods imprecice.

Besdies, it helps to remember what George Carlin said...The planet is fine...the people are @!#$.


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

If there's any consensus, it's that either side of the argument can find 'data' and 'studies' that support their side. But it's typically, simultaneously arrogant and ignorant of mankind to ever assume we have even more than a small fraction of the knowledge truly required to make such sweeping statements.

It's not unlike those who completely dismiss the idea of a supreme being...how can we, as a species, at this early point in our development, simply rule it out? I like the quote from the woman who Jodie Foster played in 'Contact', who was a pivotal person in SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence).."The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

The mere fact that the earth cycled through climate changes before now is all the reason I need to take any perceptions of man-made Global Warming with a grain of salt. Our descendants (shoud they exist) some 50,000 year hence may have the empirical data to support such a hypothesis. We simply do not have sufficient information to do anything but guess at it right now.

Undoubtedly, pollutants worsen life on this planet. What many fail to acknowledge is that the causes of such pollutants also greatly improve life in many ways.

Will a balance be found between hysteria and apathy regarding these issues? I sure hope so, but I am an eternal optimist for Mankind. I'd hate for us to be the reason that Earth finally kills us off for being rash. Yet, what could be more natural than that? Already Mother Nature practices population control in coastal areas and Africa. Our biggest problem may well not be pollution, but its root cause...simple overpopulation. To underestimate this planet's awesome capability to control what's on its surface is to dismiss it as a rock moving through space. It's so much more than that!

The Earth will win. The Earth will survive. When we realize that we can never change that, we will move forward. Right now, we spend too much valuable energy arguing and procreating.