My reaction to a news story.

needs a bit of research,
but we would be wise to kep an eye on it and take some precautions against the suspected disasterous effects.

If you're gonna blame anybody, than you better start with Ziyi 'cause she can raise the temperature in any room with male hormones in it by at least 10 degrees centigrade.

She has so much charisma, I think she personally burned a hole in the ozone layer so God could take a peek.

Originally posted by Virgule
If you're gonna blame anybody, than you better start with Ziyi 'cause she can raise the temperature in any room with male hormones in it by at least 10 degrees centigrade.

She has so much charisma, I think she personally burned a hole in the ozone layer so God could take a peek.
Besides what Virg said (which HAS TO BE TRUE!:laugh:), environmentally it is definately a problem. I remember doing a report on it in high school about 5 years ago and there was a lot evidence for it. The consequences for it are pretty horrible, but none of us will be around long enough to notice a change...and that's the problem.

I'm struck by the parallel to the "cry wolf" problem. Various conservationists have been predicting the end of this or the end of that for years, and I'm afraid it is all now so much background noise.

It doesn't really matter if this time they are right, 'cause they've blown their credibility in the past doing the "cry wolf" routine too many times on trivial idiocies that it all sounds like a Simpson Episode by now.

If I don't like the entertainment, I'm gonna switch channels. The point being that a lot of hot air has been generated already warning us about the iminent demise of the red breasted cockroach or the catastrophe of the flat-backed turtle or the passionate exhortations of the save-the-sardine society that no one really gives a hoot about global warming when it really matters.

If you want to see an excellent example of an endangered specie try "credible conservationist" on for size.

Global Warming? I've got air conditioning and a remote control on my TV and I saw this Simpson episode before.

PART 2
Nature has wiped out the entire dinosaur era all by itself, without our help, so a coupla thousand species being wiped off the face of the earth on our account woudn't fill a spitoon when it comes to mother nature wiping out a hundred million years of reptile evolution in one sunrise. Extinction is a part of the entropy of things. If you don't believe me, just read the bumper sticker - Shit Happens

PART 3
So what is the proposed solution in this quagmire? Stop the burning of fossil fuels? Yeah, like that is really gonna happen. Excuse me China, we know you're in the middle of the biggest economic expansion in history, but would you please get rid of all those cars and industrial smoke stacks? Yeah, like that is really gonna happen. Excuse me Mr. America. Even though you use up 25% of all the energy on the planet, would you please get rid of your smelly Harley Davidsons? Oh yeah, like that is really gonna happen as well.

This is one of those self-correcting problems that nature will probably deal with quite harshly - like an ice age or sump'n. Sure, we can continue on our merry way, and mother nature is prepping one wallop of a course correction for us. Whomever is left at the end of this will have no memory of what a Harley Davidson IS, much less where China used to be. End of problem.

before the last ice age, the changes that took place were a lot more severe and abrupt than they are now. At the time, the only human contribution to the pre-iceage warming was a few campfires.

What’s up with that?

There’s a lot more than a few campfires going on now...and warming is happening very slowly.

Good poll, Virgule, and one bound to raise some controversy.

This issue has been debated for decades. But now we are at a point where it is not only a handful of some nutty enviros or crazy ‘tree-huggers’ who are making the predictions, but the majority of scientists from all around the globe are in consensus now, that the global warming is real, it is here, and it has been - if not caused by - surely helped along by human activities.

The true picture is not what we hear, or are being shown – the truth is actually much worse.

The global warming is only part of the overall picture. Add the contamination of, and the increasing scarsity of drinking water; use of pesticides and herbicides; use of GM foods and grain stocks; antibiotics in animal feed; dying of coral reefs; destruction of rainforests and mangrove forests; overfishing and declining fish stocks all over the globe; farm salmon escaping and decimating wild populations; and, of course, increasing rates of extinctions of all kinds of wildlife.

It is like we are in a forest, walking from one diseased tree to another, but yet, refusing to believe, that the forest is dying.

The real problem is – that there are simply too many humans for the Earth to sustain in an ecologically sustainable manner.

And no one has a solution. Can we dismantle the civilization? Doubtful. Can we go back to the hunter-gatherer style of life? Impossible. Can technology save us? So far, it has only contributed to the problem.

There is a solution. But only Nature can provide it. It has put us here – it can take us away. How egotistical of us, to think that ‘we’ can cause the ‘end of the world’? Giving us way too much credit.

Human race will survive, some way or another. But Nature will have the final say. It has taken this planet thru five extinctions, and now…we are on the sixth one. Who survives, or who does not, or what mutations world's species will undergo -- is up to Her.

The wolf is at the door. And our civilization is inside, hiding within the straw house of technology it has created.

Huff, puff.

CG

I suggest we decide on the degree of doneness - rare, medium or charcoal and sit back, secure in the knowledge that we can speed things along by sticking our heads in a microwave and pushing the 10 button. You can take your heat that way or let nature take its course.

We're in the middle of winter now and my knees are knocking from the cold. No sign of global warming around Northern Virginia, that's for sure. No ducks in sight other than the local Chinese restaurant, hanging from meat hooks and getting a really deep BBQ tan from a different kind of warming.

The rest are either in Florida or extinct already.

PART 2

More Hot Air.....

http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?PUBLIC_ID=11860&BT_CODE=DOEHOME&TT_CODE=SPOTLIGHTDOCUMENT

I think the central problem is quality of environment. Not necessarily how warm or cold it is. We know the earth goes through cycles, but we should probably try to fit in with the cycles, not really change the cycles.

We should respect our environment. As stewards of our planet, we should try to take care of it. Profitably, I think. Haha.

"Climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks".

Some of the paradoxes of global 'warming':

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1083419,00.html

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3266833.stm

CG

We all love our toys and goodies...

...but...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0111_040112_consumerism.html#main

CG

Thanks for the report CG, but I'm afraid its exactly this kind of doomsday projection that inspires many to flat out ignore the end-of-the-world warnings. That's because they've been issuing reports like this for DECADES, and we're all still here - in one form or another.

In fact, things are getting better, not worse. People are living longer and just now tasting the consumerism that has fueled US prosperity, and in the case of China, that is like trying to stop the earth from rotating.

What these reports describe is a self-correcting problem. When things REALLY get as bad as the reports direly predict, nature will kill off a few billion of us in one way or another.

End of problem. To expect voluntary curtailment of economic growth just to help out nature is quite preposperous.

The nature of nature is as a one time gift. After it gives you the initial gift of life, it does everything it can to try and kill you. All of human struggle is against the forces of nature. It is against starvation and the cold of winter and the pathos of disease. Mankind forgets the gift of life and responds in kind - not if I kill you first.

It has always been thus.

Maybe there are several. Pretty gloomy forecast though. A forecast like that could depress a body.

I try to pick up after myself, and to an extent, pick up after others. I think we should be aware how we use our resources, and especially, we should enjoy as much of life as we can. Some of the stuff in our lives is going away.

I don’t think we should become extreme and run willy-nilly like Chicken Little. Also, I think we shouldn’t be busy-bodies telling the other people of the earth what they can’t do because we did those things and found them wasteful.

Haha. Like they’re going to respect anything we have to say about that.

Well, we could take the bright side of the things: more water means more drinking water and for some, more washing water.:D

In serious termes.....i think it will happen anyway, with or without the human's contribution. It happened without the human's contribution before, it's just a question of time before it will happen again and honestly i don't belive that humans can do something about it, unless ofcourse, they invent a super-air conditioner with the "on" and "off" buttons.:ohman:

Nature has her own ways to regulate the planet's temperature, all we do is haste the warming process.....in an alarming way i must admit.

There are many terrifying parts of nature designed to equalize things, most of which are in the realm of viruses hidden in the nostrils of Chinese pigs or the blood of African monkeys not yet found. They are loosed upon us in nature's own time, just waiting to equalize things, just waiting ......

Nature's OFF switch.

I found this cartoon apropos to the topic; full of symbolisms.

http://www.ntrope.com/images/snowmanmugging.jpg