What if Global Warming is a Red Herring?

Oh. and Nuclear’s other big issue:

The energy issue is global, right? So how do you let any nation develop nuclear technology with also opening the door to weapons development.
Iran says it wants it for energy, the US is scared that they don’t.
WWIII type shit.
Its a bit of a slippery slope.

I think we’d agree that Holocaust-denying whackos are the exception to the general nuclear rule… hopefully =)

More nuclear: How many people have died from radioactive waste? I’ve never read or heard of one. Again, which is more dangerous?

More nuclear: The material in a fission reactor is completely useless for a weapon. A useful nuclear weapon requires a giant and expensive engineering project. The fission reactors aren’t even the most difficult part of the project.

Iran: When Barack goes and has a chat with the Ayatollah, they’ll back off a weapons program. All they want is to be acknowledged. Probably all of our noise only makes them want a nuke more.

you are looking at the reports of direct nuclear radioactive contact. However in the MidWest the processing of nuclear grade uranium leaves a waste called yellow cake. in its natural form uranium is harmless but when it is processed it becomes radioactive. The yellow cake left behind is extremely dangerous and Native Americans in the area have been dying of cancers due to their exposure to yellow cake.

You know what is the one question engineers haven’t answered with nuclear energy. "What language do we use on the Nuclear waste signs, because when it is finally radioactive nuetral we will not be speaking anything that is similar to English.

I don’t believe humans are the cause of global warming there are 100x more natural events that release CO2 into the atmosphere. For example when the movie Inconvenient Truth came out.

Al Gore showed a graph of the past years CO2 and the worlds temperature. The earth’s surface is 70.78% ocean covered. The funny thing about the ocean is that a warm ocean releases CO2 and a cold ocean absorbed CO2. If you watch the movie again Al Gore says “They kinda look similar don’t they?” While the earth warmed up so did the ocean causing it to release CO2. Another good example is decomposing leaf’s release CO2. Humans only contribute like 0.08% or something like that to the worlds total carbon emissions

As for waste I do believe we should reuse and recycle because eventual were are we going to start putting junk? Think about it? You can never completely get rid of matter it must go somewhere.

I would encourage you to look at the IPCC graph of greenhouse gases and when the increse started. It started to increase dramaticly during the industrial revolution started. Also they give a computer simulation of human imposed greenhouse gases, natural greenhouse gases, and both. the Computer came very close to the actual graph of green house gases when both were calculated together.

Unfortunately, we are the cause. Our population growth in the last 100 years is astonishing. Our planet can only take care of 9.6 billion people. We are over 6 billion right now. When Kennedy was inaguarated we were at 3 billion.

I linked a video many posts back…check it out. Even if you don’t believe in global warming. He gives a very good argument.

I do understnad our climate is changing I just don’t think that humans are the only reason and have such an impact on it.

The IPCC is a politically-motivated organization with less scientists than they lead you to believe - many in that group are activists.

Additionally, there was a study done a while back that showed Earth could support roughly 40 Billion people.

Since 2008 has been the coldest in the last decade, it’s interesting how quickly the global warming hype has disappeared. Of course, by changing the name to climate change it’s a win-win for the IPCC and similar groups. No matter what happens temperature wise, it’s our fault and we need to surrender more freedom to the UN.

There are many valid environmental concerns in our current society, but global warming is not one of them.

This semester I’ll be doing a lot of research on sustainability for a sponsored studio project, so it will be fun to learn more about the valid and meaningful contributions I can have as a designer.

Worst case - We clean up things that have not been good for us anyway. I would take that as a positive.

The IPCC is a collective group of scientist built into multiple work groups to study vast amounts of data sets. They are climatologists, meterologist, biologist, marine biologist, etc.
This who’ll not “scientific” statement is used by many extreme right wing who some have been unconvered as working for exxon and other major oil companies.
It is extremely apparent that we have started to outgrow our planet, have polluted it to an extreme and are now suffering the consequences.

furthermore, the planet can only hold 9.6 billion people and we are struggling to do that now with the extreme over population of some areas of Asia and South America.

Veerabhadran Ramanathan, David Suzuki, even Stephen Hawking has agreed to global warming.

I think I am going to listen to Dr. Ramanathan, a global figure in climatology before I go and believe what I read on the internet.

Yes … Capitalizing on the green brand doesn’t mean they don’t care about global warming. And yes there are others who don’t really get it or feel it, and adopt the “trend” .

Consideration for our habitat even for selfish reasons is the wise things to do.
GW have already triggered changes , and it will only get worse… And i am not talking about drought, desertification, raising levels of ocean and sea waters.
One very disturbing things are conflicts that will arise because of climate changes…
Did you know it’s one of the main causes of Darfur?

The original question if Global Warming is paraded by marketer only interest me superficially.

But i am very very concerned not only about Global Warming and green house gases, but contamination of the environment and the threat ecosystems, and for humans. mercury in fishes, carbon in our lungs, exposure to toxic substances, from teflon and aluminium in cookware, to research about the harmful effects of mobile phone and wireless radiation links to cancer. To the manufacturing process, the search of cheaper and cheaper labor, the working conditions, etc …

Something is wrong with the system
And it is irresponsible to not try to correct it


I read this story on Atlantic Review discussing tactics employed by oil companies similar to those used by the tobacco companies of sponsoring covert front groups/writers to exaggerate uncertainties regarding the effects of tobacco on health

“conspiring to cover up the threat of man-made climate change, in much the same way the tobacco industry tried to conceal the risks of smoking—by using a series of think tanks and other organizations to falsely sow public doubt in an emerging scientific consensus”

Ionically two lawyers who were on opposite sides, one suing Phillip Morris and the other who defended PM in the case were they settled for billions of dollars are now working together in a case against Oil Companies

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/conspiracy/2

Toxicity is an important issue. Consumption is an issue, although I don’t believe that should be forced upon anyone. I do not, however, believe that global warming and carbon dioxide emissions are an issue.

Please consider the following:

1 - Scientists do not know what the cause/effect relationship is between C02 levels and temperature, only that there seems to be one.

2 - How do we know what Earth’s ideal temperature is?

3 - Why is C02 a bad thing? Won’t plants balance C02 levels on their own?

4 - Scientists make lots of mistakes. Last year they discovered the Milky Way is twice as big as they thought it was.
http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=2163

5 - When is “the debate over” in science? I don’t believe it ever was, or ever will be. Just because we know a lot now, does not mean we know all, or even most of what there is to know.

6 - Consensus does not prove facts. History offers many examples of this, including heliocentrism, the flat earth, etc.

7 - Climate alarmism has been occurring regularly for the last century or so. It sells news. The Boston Globe tells the history here:

8 - People need a new moral code to replace the religions they’re leaving behind. The green lifestyle has filled this emotional need. ‘What’s right for the planet’ replaces traditional values.

9 - As more people are becoming aware of the facts, they realize that man-made global warming alarmism is a fraud. The problem never was stupidity, it was ignorance. Most people don’t care enough to find out things for themselves, but misinformation can only hold up for so long.

*Please do not take my comments as anti-environment. Obviously, we need clean air and water, and should rethink our attitude towards products. I’m as much a conservationist as anyone else. However, I don’t believe this is in any way related to carbon dioxide or the earth’s temperature.

Please check out this article on global warming. It’s on an environment web site for pete’s sakes!

http://www.ecoworld.com/features/2008/02/07/a-case-against-climate-alarmism/

One quote from the above link reads as follows:

“The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations.”


Thank you.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=288952680655100870

worth a watch

We should just call Global Warming and all other factors under that umbrella “Global poisoning” and end any argument.

for those still interested and to make things even more confusing

oh and that 9,6 billion people limit is BS (bad science :stuck_out_tongue:).
the planet’s carrying capacity is changeable, it all depends on the sustainability of human practices and their relationship to the environment, for example, if we were all still hunters and gatherers, we would need much more land to sustain the same number of people, because the resources we were consuming would grow naturally. But if we can sustain and grow that which sustains us, then there is no limit.

Just saw this comment in my local paper’s online edition and it really sums up the debate in my opinion.

Whether global warming is occuring or not…

…it is fun to witness the detractors talk bad about it. If it is warm out, they refer to emails and the bad economy for reasons to remain stagnant. If it is cold out then it is because there is no warming. If it is warm out, you hear that the USA can’t make a difference without China. If it is cold out, you hear; “What warming?” If it is warm out, you will hear about there always being fluctuations in the earth’s temp. If it is cold out, people are relieved because it means they are not to blame for overheating the planet. It is a viscous cycle to end up in. The truth of the matter is, we should change the way we do things based on many other ideas (sustainability just makes more sense). Global warming or not.

Nice quote, very well put. Some things you should do just because it’s the right thing to do, not just forcing yourself for a specific outcome or cause. Unfortunately, business cares about money so they have to be forced. But for us in our daily lives, it shouldn’t even have anything to do with “global warming” or whatever other new buzzword we have to battle in the future.

things like…?

Regulating or forcing the “free” market is sure to get a LOT of opposition, only by dictatorship this would happen.
And the new buzzword is “climate change”, no matter what happens its always bad now. :laughing: