Earth Hour - March 29th (this Saturday)

[Northern Wish]

Maybe if the next Earth Hour does not coincide with the Elite Eight- I might participate. Maybe.....

S

[FOWL]

Except that the CO2 levels ALWAYS lag behind temperature. That graph shows it, but if you can find the actual numbers it becomes abundantly clear. To me the fact that the increased temperature causing increased decay of biomatter releasing CO2 has never caused an out of control feedback cycle in the past is evidence enough that our climate is controlled by the sun's cycles, and the three percent of CO2 released by humans will do no harm.

However I am passionate about it because a non-problem is distracting people from the disapearing bees and their possible link to GMO corn with pesticides growing in the pollen. With pesticides in general and their links to cancer. With all this garbage chemical product we pour down the sinks every day that wind up in our drinking water. There are MAJOR environmental issues we need to address, but I feel like the whole movement has been hijacked by a non issue. Furthermore, for people who continue to believe in anthroprogenic global warming, I would ask that you carefully consider the solutions presented. For one carbon taxes which get funnelled back to the oil companies (6 billion a year now!!!) is a pretty sick joke don't you think??? And some of the suggestions that have been made are even more disturbing. Let's hope they are never implemented.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

stay in school kids

[phishtaper]

ive never really understood the desire to try to "debunk the myth of global warming". is it based on a desire of superiority to tell the rest of us that we are stupid suckers?

as someone said earlier, the debate is over. the overwhelming body of evidence certainly indicates that humans have drastically affected the climate of this planet. of course, natural cycles exist but humans have done irrepairable damage, over and above what would have otherwise naturally occured. to argue with that is silly.

yes, its easy to find articles, a few even in peer-reviewed journals (but 99% not), that present evidence contary to general findings. but that's common to all areas of study. the exceptions, however, do not make the rule. and to deny the mass of the evidence just seems like arguing for the sake of arguing.

personally, i laugh when videos are offered as "evidence". it just seems lazy and more often than not, they are incredibly biased and themselves based on inadequate evidence. surely the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not list google and youtube videos as the benchmark of evidence. but then again, perhaps the collective wisdom of thousands of international researchers pales in comparsion to the geniuses of youtube. and the academics have also been hookwinked.

[badams]

as someone said earlier, the debate is over. the overwhelming body of evidence certainly indicates that humans have drastically affected the climate of this planet. of course, natural cycles exist but humans have done irrepairable damage, over and above what would have otherwise naturally occured. to argue with that is silly.

I was going to go into a long post myself. However this pretty explains how I feel on the whole thing. There has always been climate change and always will be. Humanity in our scramble to become more technologicaly advanced has put pressure on the planet. Not just that but also the fact there are 6 billion people now. Also factor in the amount of animal life we produce to feed us and then automobiles.

It is not an easy subject and there are a variety of factors that contribute but sadly humanity is not really helping at this point.

Awareness is key and it is getting out there. However there is a lot of the world (China) that is really still developing and developing at a fantastic rate. I fear we are going to put a lot more pressure on the planet before it starts to get better.

We won't destroy the planet. We will destory ourselves and the planet will heal. The Earth has all the time in the world, we are but a blip in that time frame.

[Ms Zimmy]

Earth Hour was great, I just sat in my car, idling, listening to music and drinking bottles of water, smoking cigars. I can't wait for next year.

[Tricky]

ive never really understood the desire to try to "debunk the myth of global warming". is it based on a desire of superiority to tell the rest of us that we are stupid suckers?

Well, it's more like an attempt to fill our ego's with a sense of dissatisfied self importance. Another attempt to try and be the most crucial aspects of the planet Earth. Another way of feeling that we are so very important to this "fragile"planet. The Earth is PERFECTLY fine, it has put up with bigger disasters than human beings. It is a good thing to be conscious of our actions towards the planet, it's just ridiculous to think that we are effecting it in such an enormous way---we're not, it's time to get over ourselves and focus on important issues like child starvation, proper education etc...

We're only here for a fraction of the time that the Earth will be...it WILL live on and we WILL die off as a species at some point, that is a natural cycle...it's time to get over ourselves and realize that we are not as important as we'd like to believe.

[Blurry]

Was just reading this article this morning - then saw this thread. Seems pretty relevant;

*edit - forgot to copy in the last part of the article*

SCIENCE THE BEST SOURCE WE HAVE

Posted By David Suzuki

Scientific consensus does not mean we will always get the right answer. But if I were to bet on an issue, I'd put my money on scientific consensus over an observer's hunch, a politician's opinion, or a business leader's tip.

The most powerful force shaping our lives is science, especially when it's applied by medicine, the military and corporations. All too often, new technologies become part of our lives without much forethought as to their full impacts on our society, let alone that of the non-human environment.

Just think of nuclear power, genetic engineering, and the development of new toxic chemicals to keep our lawns greener or vegetables blemish-free, for example.

When I began my television career in 1962, I thought that all the public needed was more information about science and technology so it could make better decisions based on facts. Well, people are getting far more information today than they ever did 45 years ago. Although there are more facts, there are also more opinions. And we still make ill-informed decisions.

I now believe we are experiencing a major problem in the early-21st century: selective information overload. And by this I mean that we can sift through mountains of information to find anything to confirm whatever misconceptions, prejudices or superstitions we already believe.

In other words, we don't have to change our minds. All we have to do is find something to confirm our opinions, no matter how misguided or wrong they may be.

Whenever I give a talk on global warming, someone in the audience often tells me that the Earth is going into a period of global cooling and should be burning more fossil fuels. When I ask for evidence, they typically answer, "a website". Well, yes, there are lots of websites saying that global warming is some kind of left-wing plot, junk science, baloney, etc.

There are also dozens of websites, books and videos about intelligent design or creationism, pyramid power, UFOs, the Bermuda triangle, crop circles, Atlantis, alien abductions, and so on. And this brings us back to our big challenge: sifting through information overload.

For people who do not want to believe the painstaking evidence accumulated over decades by thousands of climatologists that human-induced global warming is real and demands an urgent response, all they have to do is rely on selective media reporting.

Of course, if we are each going to have some say in where we are going, we need information. And we need to inform ourselves using real facts put forth by credible sources. But even this is in jeopardy.

U.S. President George W. Bush has made things more difficult by imposing a heavy hand on scientific reporting, deliberately distorting reports and censoring information. Scientists, including a number of American Nobel prizewinners, have raised the alarm over this intrusion of politics into science.

Sadly, this practice is not confined to the U.S.

In fact, our own government's use of science to inform public policy decisions has not gone unnoticed.

Recently, the internationally respected British science journal, Nature, published a strongly worded editorial that listed the federal government's skepticism on the science of global warming and its retreat from Canada's Kyoto commitment.

Canada's current government has also phased out the role of the national science advisor, and refused to accept the recommendations of its own expert science panel on biodiversity (COSEWIC) to legally protect several endangered species, including beluga whales, the Porbeagle Shark, and two populations of White Sturgeon that live in British Columbia's Fraser River.

This is a big problem.

Science provides the best information about the world around us. Of course, it isn't a perfect system. Scientific conclusions are often tentative, and can only become more solid after more debate, more research, and more observation. The process can take years.

And scientists, being human, also have their own biases and points of view that can influence the way they ask questions and interpret data. But in the arena of open scientific debate, over time, consensus can generally be achieved regarding the best possible understanding of an issue.

Scientific consensus does not mean we will always get the right answer. But if I were to bet on an issue, I'd put my money on scientific consensus over an observer's hunch, a politician's opinion, or a business leader's tip.

If we don't have the best scientific minds and information to guide our policies, where do we turn? The Bible? The Koran? The Dow Jones average? This is something that we all need to think about, regardless of political stripe.

Edited March 31, 2008 by Guest

[Tricky]

science seems to pointing us in an array of directions. It seems fitting to just make the best decisions for ourselves, others around us and our communities and everything will work out well. We don't need others to tell us what is right or wrong, we already know the difference (mostly) it's just having the courage to follow through with the decision making process...ie, rather than turning our lights off for one evening out of the year, how about we shut them off every evening for a few hours, we know it's right and helpful---maybe we'll miss our favorite episode of Cops though, and that's what's really important, right folks?

Edited March 31, 2008 by Guest

[Blurry]

OOPS! Edit.......

The heading for that article should have read;

"TRICKY THE BEST SOURCE WE HAVE" ;^)

[Velvet]

For the record, I skipped Cops.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

i can't help but wonder if the winter we've just been through (still going through) will become the norm in the upcoming years. with the amount of polar ice melting and temperatures rising will there be increased evaporation and consequently more precipitation?

seems inevitable

[badams]

i can't help but wonder if the winter we've just been through (still going through) will become the norm in the upcoming years. with the amount of polar ice melting and temperatures rising will there be increased evaporation and consequently more precipitation?

seems inevitable

We should discuss that over beers

[Davey Boy 2.0]

what about the pyramids, badams?

[badams]

what about the pyramids, badams?

Don't even get me started. lol

[Tooly]

daveyboy, this past winter was more of an average canadian winter than we have had for five years or so. iits canada man, it snows, remember? no you dont, cuz all the sun's extra radiation is radiating your brain.

to say global warming is bogus is almost as ignorant as my rant is gonna get. youve gotta be kidding me ricky, FOWL, and others, holy shiite muslims. who do you think funds most of the movies detracting global warming? it certainly isnt greenpeace, its the big oil fuckers you talk of.

to say the earth has seen worse times, well, i cant really think of any. 6billion humans running around, smogging it up, smoking er down. factories going 24/7, oil getting sucked up outta the ground like theres no tomorrow. compoare that to millions of years ago, when there were just plants and animals living in a co2 rich enviroment, yeah, thats shit compared to now-a-days.

go huff a tailpipe.

on another, slightly related vein, they want to go to mars, but since mars is currently frozen solid, they want to set up some big ol' factories to smogg it up, the guy from NASA, Zubrin, said: "well, green house gasses sure are warming the earth quickly, so we are going to implement this technology on Mars."

wait, wait, this is technology??? but that is their plan, to smog it up, raise mars's temp by 10-20degrees, so the water thats trapped will melt(AHA! water will be the new oil).

and after they raise the temps, they will start to plant all sorts of flora to clean the air, he says itll take a few hundred years, but boy, wont that be something, walking on mars with no oxygen mask!!!

its dr zubrins mars direct plan, good for a laugh, actually very well planned, converting martian air to rocket fuel for the return trip so as to bring less supplies with.

pps: earth hour was well observed here, we even went down to the "brow" here, to look out over the hamer and see if it was noticable at 8pm, it wasnt. both steel mills had the 50foot flames lit, id say about 50% of folks here observed it, which is better than nothing, remember 5 years ago when everybody thought this was a myth and not just the idiots?

haha

[Tooly]

okay, my bad, i shouldnt have said some of those things, FOWL, at least you are aware of all the other ills of humankind, IE pesticides, gmo, etc etc.

argh

tooly need tokey

[bradm]

on another, slightly related vein, they want to go to mars, but since mars is currently frozen solid, they want to set up some big ol' factories to smogg it up, the guy from NASA, Zubrin, said: "well, green house gasses sure are warming the earth quickly, so we are going to implement this technology on Mars."

wait, wait, this is technology??? but that is their plan, to smog it up, raise mars's temp by 10-20degrees, so the water thats trapped will melt(AHA! water will be the new oil).

and after they raise the temps, they will start to plant all sorts of flora to clean the air, he says itll take a few hundred years, but boy, wont that be something, walking on mars with no oxygen mask!!!

The big problem with terraforming Mars isn't so much what's in the atmosphere as it is how much of it there isn't. IIRC, atmospheric (what we call "air") pressure on Mars is a lot lower than it is here on Earth. To do things like greenhouse yourself, you first need enough atmosphere, and Mars, as it is now, doesn't have enough.

its dr zubrins mars direct plan, good for a laugh, actually very well planned, converting martian air to rocket fuel for the return trip so as to bring less supplies with.

This part I like. For those who don't know, what Zubrin envisions is lobbing (on a slow, low-energy trajectory) an unmanned "rocket fuel factory" to Mars, have it sit there for a while converting atmospheric CO2 into methane (CH4, using a small amount of hydrogen gas the robot brought with it) and oxygen (O2); the factory is powered by a small nucear reactor. Methane + oxygen is fuel for the return trip for the much smaller mission containing the crew; and since they're not bringing the fuel they'll need to get home (because it's being made on the planet), their craft is a lot lighter, making it easier for a short-duration flight (the more stuff you have to move in space, the harder it is).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Aloha,

Brad

[Tooly]

yeah, some of that mars direct is really good, IE the fuel ideas, the rest, im not so sure about.

i wonder if we will see a manned flight to mars in our lifetime, that zubrin kook was saying that the first ppl to actually live on mars, once they have all sorts of scienteists up there for years and years, once the first few ppl are allowed to move there, he says, itll be the richest people of earth, trying to start over.

i still have by bets on finding crazy evidence that humans ruined that planet too, once they really get into exploring whats under mars' surface.

[Tricky]

go huff a tailpipe.

awesome.

BTW, I tend to lean more towards an open ended philosophy rather than a closed one. All these theories are just that, theories. I'll do my best to treat the environment in a great way out of pure respect for it ie, I don't drive, don't pollute myself, eat organic etc...and if the theory of humans causing global warming is in fact true, I am doing little harm (as little as possible). But there's too much information circulating for me to place all bets on one theory.

I do see how pollution causes sickness in people, plants and animals, but that's a whole different can of worms compared to CO2 and the greenhouse effect.

it has always struck me as funny as to how pseudo environmentalists smoke weed...funny how people will pollute themselves with smoke and completely forget that they are an intricate aspect of the Earth as well...Go HABS!

Edited March 31, 2008 by Guest

[FOWL]

I don't get it. I posted information linking to scietific articles. Articles detailing how scietists with findings contradictory to the man made global warming myth are supressed. How the IPCC misrepresented many of the scientists who contributed to it, and slapped their signatures on to great protest. I linked to facts. I posted a movie because it details a great many of these issues, and as most people are too lazy to read anymore, and the television ONLY covers one side of the debate, that it is a good way for people to assess some of the other information. The movie is full of scientists discussing their findings (unlike An Inconvenient Truth) which should act as a springboard for further in depth research. I even posted a pro man made global warming link where you can see CLEARLY on the graph that CO2 levels lag behind temperatures. Did you even read what I wrote? Did you read the links? Did you watch the movie? Just because tv tells you it is a scientific consensus doesn't make it so. In fact it is a blatant lie. If they are lieing to you about a false consensus, how can you trust the rest of their message?

This isn't an ego thing, this is a danger, tyranny ahead signal. Making you put lights filled with mercury in your home is only the beginning.

[FOWL]

I also love how simultaneously we are told that A. Global warming will lead to droughts worldwide, all the water will evaporate, and the crops will dry up while

B. Global warming will lead to massively increased precipitation leading to flooded droughts.

It's like everything is being predicted at once, so that no matter what happens it was global warming. I've even read explanations for the cold winte as "global warming is causing the earth to cool!" hahahhaha

[Esau.]

I blame Loverboy, Dexy's Midnight Runners & Kansas for many things, global warming included.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

From The Province

The news that sexual activity between consenting adults will be eligible for a carbon-tax rebate under the provincial government's climate-change policy may signal the boldest stroke of Finance Minister Carole Taylor's career.

Frankly, I had no idea the technology was available, but apparently it's as simple as plugging one's bed into an electrical outlet.

A device attached to the cable alters the flow of energy, so that impulses generated between the sheets are fed directly into the provincial hydro grid.

Government scientists say that one night of concentrated, collective activity could generate as much as 19 million megawatts of power, enough and more to power every plasma TV in the province.

Ministry officials are confident people will feel sufficiently secure about their privacy to participate in the program without fear of failure.

It will, however, be necessary for inspectors to make random bedroom checks to ensure that the government-issued meters are not being artificially stimulated.

The officials emphasize that these visits will occur only during hours of darkness, when the inspectors' presence might even encourage broader participation.

Credits would be calculated on a monthly basis, based on the meter readings, and benefit cheques mailed out within seven days.

"One of the first questions we got during our focus-group sessions was, 'Exactly how much could the average couple expect to earn?'" a ministry spokesman said.

"Our response was to say it's entirely up to them. People who care about the environment should be prepared to go at it hammer and tongs."

At the very least, Taylor claims that participating partners should be able to earn enough to offset B.C.'s wonderfully popular carbon taxes on everything from gasoline to ferry rides.

"I promised that these new taxes would be revenue-neutral," Taylor said. "If couples just get on with it, they'll have so much fun they won't miss driving their cars."

Critics across the country are heaping praise on the initiative, hailing sex-fuelled energy creation as a clean, green source of unlimited power that doesn't involve slashing transmission lines through public parks.

Among other things, it is expected to have a dramatic impact on the birth rate, currently too low to sustain the population. Seniors will get a special credit, once a month, just for trying.

Some pundits complain the program discriminates against those not in a proper position to have sex. The ministry spokesman admitted that this was the case.

She said an alternative option had been considered for non-performing adults in which an electrode was strapped to their heads.

"They would have got a credit for every time they thought about sex," she said. "But when we did the trials, we found they earned more than the ones really getting it on, so we had to axe it."

[phishtaper]

I also love how simultaneously we are told that A. Global warming will lead to droughts worldwide, all the water will evaporate, and the crops will dry up while

B. Global warming will lead to massively increased precipitation leading to flooded droughts.

read the Panel Report more carefully, that's not what it's saying. it presents probabalistic models and reports what is likely to happen.

simultaneous drought and flood is not a contradiction. the Report says that with increased global temperatures, polar ice will continue to melt and coastal areas are predicted to flood. mid-continental areas are predicted to become dry. moreover, increases in sea level will drastically affect global climate patterns (like continental currents and storms). nobody is saying that the water will all evaporate.