Does "Global Warming" Concern You?

[LoneKiller]

Hi People.

Up until a decade ago, global warming never concerned me. Just the other night I was watching a doc on the subject and one of the cats said that every summer in the last 10 years has been hotter than the one before it.

Personally, global warming scares the hell out of me. It makes me as nervous as a hooker in church. The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate. In the summer you have to put on sunblock spf 10,000,000 just to step outside for a cigarette for God's sake.

Some are saying that because of this, eventually, the Polar Bears are going to perish. Every animal that becomes extinct messes the food chain up, among other serious problems.

I don't know about any of you, but this scares me a lot.

 

[annik]

"hooker in church" erm?

It really should I know but I think if I did worry about it I'd be a total hypocrite because my lifestyle really doesn't help. That is as honest as I can be and as I probably ever have been.

To be honest though I can't remember the last time we had a summer or at least one that lasted longer than a weekend so I think using the summers getting hotter misleads a little.

I think I'm too ill informed and not scientific enough to actually comment on global warming as a whole but I answered the question here at least.

 

[Ak5]

I have lived in Florida for my entire life.

Bring. It. On.

 

[SummerRain]

Well yea, when i think of it it does scare the crap out of me. Plus the fact that it might be the only thing that could kill us all (exept nuclear bombs)

 

[IgnoredOne]

Its worthwhile of concern, but not of panic. Clean energy is a boon to the world.

 

[lonelyfairy]

Yes, very much. People are destroying this planet... :/

 

[Equinox]

Sadly, yes. I do what little I can against it, but it's depressing to see how little it helps when most people can't be bothered to even try. The thought of losing polar bears, penguins and other amazing arctic animals is enough to make me cry. The only thing us nordic people would welcome in this, is the hotter summers. So far, though, all we've seen is colder winters, so all of it pretty much just sucks.

 

[blackhole]

most of the actual evidence indicates that climate change has not been affected by humans. listening to the media, you would never know that. a few years ago, the leading proponents of human-caused climate change got busted falsifying their studies and rigging their results in a scandal called "ClimateGate". again, in the mainstream media, this information was basically non-existent.

one volcano eruption creates thousands of times more carbon to enter the atmosphere than humans generate in an entire year.

people have agendas.

despite it all, i STILL believe we need to go green, just not because the sky is falling, but because it's the right thing to do. climate change may be debatable, but mercury and pollution in our air, water, and food is not.

 

[Pheenix]

Just because papers have been rigged at some institution somewhere, doesn't mean that the scientific community at large doesn't more or less unanimously agree on the subject, which they do. It's just more enticing to look at the stray spots of black.

 

[JamaisVu]

Climate change as a general concept doesn't worry me. If the problem becomes dire, humans are intelligent enough to handle it. It may be the catalyst for the invention of new technologies. Maybe in 30 years I'll be living under the Pacific Ocean or on another planet or in an artificial bubble that protects me from the elements. We'll just have to adapt to a changing environment and make the best of it. I feel sorry for creatures that won't be able to adapt, but "survival of the fittest" is unavoidable and ultimately better than stagnation. In a specific sense, I worry that the sea levels will rise, and flood my city. I worry that the land in the southwestern US will turn to lifeless sand and become difficult to cross. I worry that food shortages will affect my eating habits.

 

[Nitramici]

most of the actual evidence indicates that climate change has not been affected by humans. listening to the media, you would never know that. a few years ago, the leading proponents of human-caused climate change got busted falsifying their studies and rigging their results in a scandal called "ClimateGate". again, in the mainstream media, this information was basically non-existent.

Actually, most of the scientific groups that have a national or international standing agree that humans have a very real influence on climate change. Those that don't agree don't even disagree either, they just say the data is insufficient to state either way.

Now, obviously you can find isolated scientists that disagree...but that's true of so many things it's not worth mentionning.

I'm in no way an expert on the subject, so I can't and won't argue with whatever example you can give (like your volcano comment), I'm just saying it really isn't the media doing a dishonest job when every big scientific communities agree (or do not disagree) on the matter.

 

[blackhole]

NASA is hardly some fringe group, lol. Neither is NORAD.

And science isn't about concensus, it's about proof.

My point is we may never know our impact, so instead of arguing theories we should be taking steps to advance, so it's no longer even worth discussion.

 

[Nitramici]

NASA is hardly some fringe group, lol. Neither is NORAD.

And science isn't about concensus, it's about proof.

My point is we may never know our impact, so instead of arguing theories we should be taking steps to advance, so it's no longer even worth discussion.

NASA?

http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

"Most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the "greenhouse effect"1 -- warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space."

and

"On Earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse." and the few lines that follows this.

Are we talking about a different NASA?

And here's the wikipedia page on the subject : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
If you think an information is inaccurate on that page, I'm more than open to hearing it.

...but seriously, I'm not doing the fallacy of appealing to authorities here, I'm just saying the media isn't doing a dishonest job in reporting the scientific consensus. What else should they report?

But yea, if you want to get into an actual debate with proofs and stuff, like I said, I'm not going there. We both aren't qualified one bit to do this.

 

[blackhole]

from that same website:

Also, climate scientists often discuss "abrupt climate change," which includes the possibility of "tipping points" in the Earth's climate. Climate appears to have several states in which it is relatively stable over long periods of time. But when climate moves between those states, it can do so quickly (geologically speaking), in hundreds of years and even, in a handful of cases, in only a few decades. These rapid 'state changes' are what scientists mean by abrupt climate change. They are much more common at regional scales than at the global scale, but can be global. State changes have triggers, or "tipping points," that are related to feedback processes. In what's probably the single largest uncertainty in climate science, scientists don't have much confidence that they know what those triggers are.

 

[Nitramici]

I'd like to see the context of your quote. All your quote seems to say is that they're unsure of what triggers those abrupt climate changes in general...but in the current situation, it's vastly, vastly agreed upon that it is humans that are the primary problem. The whole page I've linked you from the NASA website said as much, even though you said their position was the opposite.

And furthermore, your quote only says they're "not confident" about what causes those, so I don't see why you'd jump to the conclusion that "most of the actual evidence indicates that climate change has not been affected by humans."

I don't think there's anything more I can say on this, and I don't want to go in circles, so I'll respectfully drop out of the topic.

 

[blackhole]

what i am saying is that climate change is a loaded issue, with people getting rich on both sides.

al gore's net worth before his climate crisis tour: $2 million

and, after: $50 million

now, one would have to be a fool to think it's purely motivated by ideology and not *at least a little* greed.

i have listened to countless experts on both sides of this issue.

each one tells a different version of what is happening.

 

[Nitramici]

Oh, there's certainly a lot of greed here. No doubt about it, not one bit. We can agree on that.