My post was meant to be sarcastic. My position is: 1) Global warming is not cause by human. 2) There is no meaningful way that human can change the global warming, cooling, freezing. 3) Whatever human done is local and short term. 4) human has never done anything global AND long term. In term of existence of the earth of billions or millions of years, human has done nothing that is remotely global AND last for a few hundred years. NOTHING. NOTHING. Nothing. Ever, Ever, Ever. NOT a damn thing human has ever ever done has the effect that last for a thousand year, hundreds of year, tens of years globally. The earth is self regulating and mostly affect by the sun.
that is a is a dangerous stance. looks like that to you it seems impossible to assume humans CAN have an impact. yet, we do. number of species for example. rain forests is another. we CAN have impact. if we cut down all forests we change the biosphere. so while there is a (relatively low) degree of uncertainty around GW being manmade, there is in my eyes absolutely NO doubt that we CAN have and DO have impact on the globe. it seems to me you are coming from a position which questions the siginificance humans give themselves, but i think you apply this conviction to the very wrong subject.
The powers-that-be put the odds at 90% of warming being man induced via CO2... Imagine that. Ever had a parade ruined by a mere 10% chance of rain? This gets more absurd by the day.
Instead of questioning my position, you could come up with some example what human have ever done that can be considered BOTH global and long term. You offered no example. Cutting down ALL forests? Did we ever do that? Isn't that a renewable resources? It may take a while tree will re-grow!!! Have you ever seen the huge forest fire in Yellow Stone a few years ago. It was caused by the nature, lightning. Human tried to put it out without success for at least a few month until "nature" decided to started snowing and the fire stopped. Thousands of acres burn to the ground --bare. I went to Yellow Stone twice after the fire--trees grow back very nicely. Give the land another twenty years, it would be like the fire never happened. I have never question the significance human give themselves!!! We could kill ALL of human our self, but the significance to the globe is none. One big rock from outer space strike the earth, we could all be dead!! Before human, there was no human. The uncertainty about GW is that we don't know if "we" caused it. The swindle is that a lot of people believe "we did it" and start trying to do things that are neither significant, global nor long term!!! And, all these "thing" these GWer proposing are expensive and have significant economic impact on our-self, but have no significant impact to the global!!! And, we have to have ALL the human to come to agreement. That mean the developing countries like China, India, Russian just to name a few. Oh, yes, the U.S. too. When was the last time all the countries agree to do anything? I just read it a few days ago. China has a lot of coal, but not enough petroleum oil or natural gas. Guess what? New coal fired power plant starts EVERY day. What are we going to do about the need for electric power in China? Let see, we cannot burn coal and burn oil because these are CARBON. We can not have hydro-electricity because that HARM the environment and the fish. We cannot have nuclear power because that is SO SO dangerous and could turn into weapon. The wind turbines are killing birds!!! Some is arguing using corn based ethanol would cause price of FOOD to go up. And of course corn need water to grow, energy to harvest. It need energy to cook it before fermentation and more energy to distill it. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/311225_ethanol12.html The easiest contribution of ANY human to reduce CO2 output is stop breathing!!!
Let's see if humans can stop natural global warming. Scientists Say Arctic Once Was Tropical Researchers Have Concluded That About 55 Million Years Ago the Arctic Was Warm and Tropical By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON May 31, 2006 (AP) http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2025006&page=1 Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It's smack in the middle of the Arctic. First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show. The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer-than-thought polar region heated by run-amok greenhouse gases that came about naturally.
Refining riddle: cleaner fuels make more CO2 By Iain Pocock - Analysis, Wed May 9, 2007 11:24AM EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Making cleaner fuels could cause more harmful emissions -- an oil refining paradox. Plans to tighten European fuel quality rules to cut air pollution will need a huge increase in energy-intensive equipment at refineries to clean the fuels. As well as existing measures to slash sulphur content in diesel fuel, heating oil and bunker fuel for ships over the coming two years, the European Commission earlier this year proposed making gas oil for farming and industrial vehicles almost sulphur free by the end of 2009. Refiners would also be required to cut greenhouse gas emissions gradually from 2010. The moves come against a backdrop of a European refining industry struggling to keep up with rising European demand for diesel fuel and reliant on imports to meet the shortfall. "On the one hand the legislators say you must produce more and cleaner diesel, and on the hand, they say you can't produce more carbon dioxide," said Peter Tjan, secretary general of the European Petroleum Industry Association, which represents Europe's downstream oil industry. "Well, unfortunately you cannot have both - that's impossible." The European Union in March agreed to a target of reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Carbon dioxide, a by-product of combustion, is the main greenhouse gas blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing global warming. Sulphur dioxide is blamed for acid rain and health problems such as lung disease. The production of increasingly sulphur-free fuels requires refiners either to process less sulphurous but more costly crude oil, or instal expensive desulphurization units such as hydrotreaters and hydrocrackers. Many European refiners have opted for the latter. French refiner Total SA late last year started up a 50,000 barrels per day hydrocracker at its Gonfreville plant in northern France, while Finnish refiner Neste is about to start up a diesel-making unit at its Porvoo refinery. "To remove sulphur requires heat, pressure and hydrogen," said David Martin, refining analyst at the International Energy Agency. "None of those are without a cost in terms of CO2." While the EU's proposed changes would result in lower sulphur levels in gas oil, they could have far-reaching consequences in terms of reduced product supply and higher greenhouse gas emissions, the International Energy Agency says. "It's great for the world to be moving towards sulphur-free fuels, but there are cost implications here not only in terms of CO2 emissions, but in terms of the way it affects refiners," the IEA's Martin said. SHIPPING Besides the EC's latest proposals, some industry groups have called for the world's merchant fleet to run on cleaner-burning distillate fuels instead of high sulphur marine fuels, whose sulphur and nitrogen dioxide emissions are expected to surpass land-based emissions in the EU by 2020. There are some 50,000 merchant ships trading in international waters, carrying more than 90 percent of the world's traded goods by volume, consuming over 200 million tonnes of marine fuels a year. But a move for ships to run on cleaner fuels, on top of the push for cleaner land transport fuels, would likewise add to refiners' needs to build more energy-intensive units to produce the fuels, raising CO2 emissions in the process. Seaborne trade is increasing steadily and, like aviation, CO2 emissions from shipping, though still small, are not covered by the Kyoto protocol on global warming, which sets limits for greenhouse gases. "This would require massive investments worldwide," said Europia's Tjan. "Inevitabely the hydrocrackers and the hydroconversion units are more energy-intensive than a (gasoline-making) cat cracker, so by moving in that direction, we're also producing more CO2." (Additional reporting by Stefano Ambrogi) http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL086344820070509?src=050907_1312_FEATURES_oil
Gosh it's not such an easy problem to solve, is it? Surprise!!!!!!! Actually dumbass Gore has a solution. OFFSETS!!!!!
That what I'm talking about. Humans in their own self centered way, think that they are causing global warming. Then in a dramatic overreaction to something that was otherwise not a danger they figure out how to reverse something that was happening naturally. Earth would've naturally come out of a mini ice age, but human involvement instead sends the earth hurling into a much more significant and influencial ice age. Canadians, Northern Europeans, Russians, Chilians, Australians, etc.. all forced to flee toward the equator. :eek:
The cure is worst than the disease. If we don't fix global warming, we are all going to die in a thousand year. If we fix it, we are all going to die in 990 year and much poorer. Of course we don't know if it need to be fix or exactly what to fix!!!