Statistics: Posted by black_knight6 — Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:25 pm
]]>
]]>
]]>
Some claim it is cyclical, fine. It is. The solar cycle etc has a huge impact on this. That is not in dispute. The question is, does human actions have an impact on global and local climate?
The answer is of course yes.
If you cut down one tree, it has an impact on the climate. It's miniscule, but there is of course an impact. How could there not be? We all agree that vegetation and animals have an effect, right? I mean if there were no trees, or no cows, that would have an effect, yes?
Humans can hunt and kill animals to extinction, right? We've done so with numerous species. This is not a modern phenomenon. Fossil records show that in Australia, a huge amount of creatures died out between 46-49.000 years ago. What happened at that time? Humans (aboriginies) moved into the area. The idea that "primitive" man lived "in balance with nature" is bullcookies. The only balance in nature is "terror balance". If foxes kill too many of their prey, they will starve and their population will dwindle, allowing the prey to grow again. That's how it works. Unfortunately, humans are just too good at it. And has been for a long time.
Can humans kill off enough vegetation to make an impact? Well yes, we are doing so in lots of places. The deserts are spreading because we've managed to scrounge together so many goats that eat the vegetation so effectively that it doesn't have any chance to regrow. Will desert replacing savannah have an impact on the climate? Yes of course.
We're cutting down rainforests very effectively. In 50 years, more than half of the rainforest has been cut down. Will this influence the climate? Actually, not that much. Contrary to popular belief, rainforests don't produce much oxygen or suck up much carbon dioxide. So it won't really change the mechanics. However, there's a lot of carbon dioxide ttrapped in the wood, which will be released if the wood is burned. So it will have some effect.
But if we consistently reduce the enviroments ability to absord (or rather, transform) carbon dioxide (by killing vegetation) and at the same time release millions of years of carbon dioxide that has been stored in oil, together with the stuff that is stored in the vegetation. It just makes sense it will have an effect, doesn't it? We know that the composition of the atmosphere effects the climate, right? And if we consistently keep adding huge amounts of some stuff, while at the same tide reducing the ability to absorb some stuff, it's bound to have an effect, right? How could it not? The stuff doesn't disappear into space (it weighs too much, only hydrogen can escape into space), so it stays here.
Now, to argue that human activity does not influence the climate you have to argue one of these points:
1. The climate is independent of the chemical makeup of the atmosphere
or
2. The chemicals released by humans somehow doesn't effect the atmosphere
If we just ignore all statistics and look at the reasoning behind all this, is there any way we can NOT think that humans effect the climate? No. So the only question left is HOW do we effect the climete and how much.
That means that if you claim that humans aren't effecting the climate, you're not rational. We have to. There's no scientific or logical way we couldn't. We can discuss the fine points of it, and there's lots of scientific discussion on this, but if we want to have any amount of credibility at all, we have to acknowledge that there IS a change and that WE are responsible for it.
Statistics: Posted by Stoneburg — Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:39 pm
]]>
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... n-hearing/
The Green/Armstrong thing is a joke. The IPCC violated 60/127 princles. Whose principles? Green and Armstongs principles! Their criticisms are based on the fact that the IPCC did not use forecasting principles that are used to predict stuff like market states which are stochastic processes (pseudo-random). And if you look through their methodology for determining how well these principles are followed I think you'll see the flaws in it too.[/img]
Statistics: Posted by redhouse — Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:19 am
]]>
]]>
]]>
]]>
]]>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxE-NWENCmE
Consensus? Payton or Sanders?
Statistics: Posted by EscapePlan9 — Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:18 pm
]]>
]]>
]]>
]]>
]]>
]]>