No ice at the North Pole

coloringzebras · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 8:15 am Post subject:

the earth itself goes through heating and cooling cycles. (ice age, etc)
we aren't helping but we aren't the only factors.

call it a delusion of my humanity.

munky99999 · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject:

Materialist99 · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject:

CET · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject:

munky99999 · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject:

runlikehell · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject:

It is pretty strange that on an atheist forum, there is so much anti-science sentiment. You guys have been reading too much Micheal Crichton's awful book (State of Fear? or something).

Global Warming (more accurately, global climate change) denial is denial. It is ignoring scientific evidence. The climate scientists who have been studying it for the past many years have been working hard to look for patterns that are not easily discerned. We know that the earth is warming, we know that it is not because of changes in the sun or normal fluctuations, and we know, after lots of peer-reviewed research, that human industrial activity is a major factor if not the major cause. It's at least an 85% chance that the scientific consensus on the issue is correct. Yeah, The Day After Tomorrow was a terrible movie. Yeah, Al Gore is annoying. But that's like saying evolution is incorrect because Jurassic Park III sucked so bad.

Yes, the warming will probably not be more than a few degrees Celsius. If you think that that won't make a difference, think about it again when you have a fever of 100. Yes, the earth and the biosphere will recover given a bit of time. But for the short term (as in, the next million years) the effects could be disastrous. Humans will find it hard to sustain themselves.

And why do so many "rationalists" deny it? I think it is because of ideological reasons. Even though an atheist should be free of ideology, a lot of them have bought into Rand-style objectivism and libertarianism. Libertarianism requires that there be no human-caused climate change. This is because libertarian ideology has no way to cope with it. A free market is incapable of solving a problem like climate change. There is no profit to be made from it; at least not in the short term, which is all that corporations and companies ever pay attention to. If climate change is real (which it almost certainly is), it would require a huge effort to fix, an effort that would require (gasp!) regulation of things like the market. Because this runs against their ideology, objectivists/libertarians just deny the shit out of it by nitpicking quotes, ignoring evidence, using propaganda techniques, and making bogus lists of "scientists" like MDs and electrical engineers who don't think there is any climate change. All of these, please note, are tactics used by evolution deniers and holocaust deniers.

(Note: I am not trying to compare libertarians/climate change deniers with Nazis. I am just saying that they use the same techniques as people who deny obviously true things. I don't hate libertarians, I even have a friend who for some strange reason thought Ron Paul was a great guy. I just hate the ideology they cling to.)

(Another note: I am not as angry about this as my tone indicates. I am just frustrated. And there might not be any human caused climate change; just right now, the vast majority of evidence suggests that there is.)

(A third note (sorry): one problem, though, with all the attention given to climate change is that it distracts from a multitude of other environmental problems, like deforestation, pollution, and such. These problems are, at least now, having much more dire impacts than a slight warming of the earth.)

Damn, I'm gonna get flamed for this. Maybe I deserve it. Oh well.
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coloringzebras · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject:

i'm sorry but i can't be in denial if pictures show more ice this year then last year or any other previously. that's just reading the facts.
granted, scientists said that this ice is only "one year ice" and could melt faster.

ChrissyFos · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject:

Many icebergs may seemingly be dangerous in appearance when temperatures are below freezing and before the iceberg has had a chance to melt a bit, revealing a sense of security from the warm sun rays.
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Knight_of_BAAWA · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:59 pm Post subject:

josephpalazzo · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:28 am Post subject:

munky99999 · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:24 am Post subject:

Link

Canid · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:42 am Post subject:

Munky, and all ye other "GW skeptics"... what exactly would you consider "really good proof"?
The oil industry has put a great deal of money into playing down the facts of global warming and trying to make it look like junk science, because they have a lot of money to lose. The government (in the States at least) has largely ignored and downplayed it - not wanting to get on the bad side of 'big business'.

a) It is a fact that humans are responsible for the emission of billions of tonnes of CO2 every year. I can find some figures to back this up if you want, but I don't think this is what you're disputing, is it? What with the jet fuel and the coal plants and the car exhaust, I'd say this was pretty self evident.

b) It is a fact that greenhouse gases absorb heat from the sun.
A good explanation of exactly how this works can be found here.

a) plus b) equals c) folks.
If there is a higher percentage of heat-absorbing gas in the air, this will cause the planet to slowly warm up. If we put it there, we're responsible.

The information is all out there if you look for it. The newspapers aren't really a great source however, being more in the "teach the controversy" camp.
Websites such as RealClimate and Climate Ark are more direct-from-the-source affairs.
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