My Part to Fight Global Warning

BackwardsBlues1

Heineken Helen wrote:

:eek: Fuck!!!!!!!!!! 50k for two years tuition??? I'm speechless!

at the london school of economics it was $43K for a 12-month tuition for Americans...you irish are pretty lucky bastards going to school for free, it's not like that here...

Heineken Helen

BackwardsBlues1 wrote:

at the london school of economics it was $43K for a 12-month tuition for Americans...you irish are pretty lucky bastards going to school for free, it's not like that here...

Yeh, we tend to take it for granted

Obi Once

pjrvm wrote:

Global warming is, at best, not serious enough to worry about. More realistically it's a myth. The average temperature on earth is bound to change over time, it goes up and it goes down. see the ice age. so the fact that it has risen 1.8 degree F in the last 100 years isn't really something to concern yourself with

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

The prevailing scientific opinion on climate change is that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" . The increased amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the primary causes of the human-induced component of warming. They are released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and agriculture, etc.

Purple Hawk wrote:

what is to explain the several ice ages and subsequent warming periods that occurred before human even existed?

lemme guess...halliburton?

Nope, but in these periods all life dissapeared from the face of the planet, something I'd rather not see happen again. So yes the temparatures have fluctuated over long periods of time, but the present temperature has been the same for a long time, making life, and thus human civilisation possible. The fragile balance of ozone gasses are the reason we have had this period of stabile temparatures, screwing with that balance will only make the changes go faster.

Laz

Anyone who lives in Houston believes in global warming, believe you me...

What happens if global warming goes amok? a reverse ice age?

polaris

BackwardsBlues1 wrote:

well tuition for 2 years is more like $50K, but then I have all the extra loans for living expenses. And this was the cheapest option of programs I got into...

maybe this will explain why americans as a whole are doing nothing about it ... it costs too much to actually educate em ... although that doesn't explain why canada is doing fuck all ...

Eliot Rosewater

polaris wrote:

maybe this will explain why americans as a whole are doing nothing about it ... it costs too much to actually educate em ... although that doesn't explain why canada is doing fuck all ...

It actually only costs about $8 to be educated on this, thanks to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

BackwardsBlues1

don't gimme no wrote:

It actually only costs about $8 to be educated on this, thanks to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

I haven't seen it, but I've heard from my colleagues that that movie isn't all that accurate.

know1

Heineken Helen wrote:

I wouldn't refute that at all... I suppose it depends on what you think religion is though. Some people think it's blind - I see it as more spiritual and personal to the individual. But what faith I follow doesn't effect you - what fuel you decide or want to use sadly effects the entire planet

Well, I think anything we do - even private thoughts we have - affect others. Having a religious faith or the lack thereof very well could affect many other people in a profound way.

Think about the faith of the person who may have most directly influenced Billy Graham or Mother Theresa or Ghandi, etc. If the one thing they did was inspire those people, then they influenced the world.

Laz

know1 wrote:

Well, I think anything we do - even private thoughts we have - affect others. Having a religious faith or the lack thereof very well could affect many other people in a profound way.

Couldn't agree more... "Lack thereof" examples are fairly well-known: Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, among other luminaries.

hey know1:

so be quiet now and rest, Be quiet now and rest, the ocean (triple-tap) is growing...

know1

Laz wrote:

hey know1:

so be quiet now and rest, Be quiet now and rest, the ocean (double-tap) is growing...

Congrats! Someone figured it out!

angelica

know1 wrote:

Well, I think anything we do - even private thoughts we have - affect others. Having a religious faith or the lack thereof very well could affect many other people in a profound way.

I agree 100%. People have no idea the degree that their private thoughts affect everything around them. Our thoughts fuel our each action. Our thoughts contribute to the collective consciousness and unconsciousness of mankind. Our each thought, word and deed influences our surroundings in a very real way.

gabers

BackwardsBlues1 wrote:

I haven't seen it, but I've heard from my colleagues that that movie isn't all that accurate.

Just curious- are your colleagues scientists? Because the reviews I've seen from actual climatology scientists suggest the movie is accurate. There will be some skewing, of course, but the data is presented quite clearly I have read.

Eliot Rosewater

gabers wrote:

Just curious- are your colleagues scientists? Because the reviews I've seen from actual climatology scientists suggest the movie is accurate. There will be some skewing, of course, but the data is presented quite clearly I have read.

Exactly. Check this out....I stole it from another user's post in a different thread because it's a perfect response to this post.

"Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../306/5702/1686

Even the Bush EPA, in 2002, concluded that global warming the the last 20 years was “due mostly to human activity.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0607/p02s02-usgn.html

angelica

gabers wrote:

Just curious- are your colleagues scientists? Because the reviews I've seen from actual climatology scientists suggest the movie is accurate. There will be some skewing, of course, but the data is presented quite clearly I have read.

I would like to hear an answer to this question as well.

Further, science is about stringing facts together into theories. It's up to us to take the facts and add meaning--if we count on science and objectivity to do so, we are going to come up short in understanding the value of the facts. Objectivity strives to keep distant from value and meaning, which comes from the blend with subjectivity. As long as we continue to assess our surrounds in an imbalanced way, we'll continue to come up with a skewed picture, such as the one where individuals remove obvious irresponsible human behaviour from the picture of our environmental woes.

polaris

why is it that germans can be 17.5% below 1990 levels (well beyond kyoto targets) and we can't/won't make a dent?? ... just goes to show it can be done without resorting to the stone age if there is a will ...

thankyougrandma

polaris wrote:

why is it that germans can be 17.5% below 1990 levels (well beyond kyoto targets) and we can't/won't make a dent?? ... just goes to show it can be done without resorting to the stone age if there is a will ...

Because they don't have any oil field to exploit for the maximum profits, what's ironic is that they could use some of that pollution money to fund Kyoto objectives programs, won't happen, but i'm sure they can, just don't want to... ahhhh it's great... how about some more military spending, while we're at it, we don't have enough soldiers to drive all these new vehicles, fucking sucks...

Une épopée des plus brillants exploits!!!!!!!!!

surferdude

polaris wrote:

why is it that germans can be 17.5% below 1990 levels (well beyond kyoto targets) and we can't/won't make a dent?? ... just goes to show it can be done without resorting to the stone age if there is a will ...

How's their economy doing? Is their population growing? How are these emission changes affecting the German society?

Are there sectors of the economy that produce goods where green house gases are an unfortunate by-product of manufacturing but the end good is used elsewhere? Is their population growing? If not, is it fair to have a system in place that only punishers the producers of a good but not the end user?

There's lots of reasons why Germany's emissions could have fallen that would be impossible to do in Canada or the US.

polaris

surferdude wrote:

How's their economy doing? Is their population growing? How are these emission changes affecting the German society?

Are there sectors of the economy that produce goods where green house gases are an unfortunate by-product of manufacturing but the end good is used elsewhere? Is their population growing? If not, is it fair to have a system in place that only punishers the producers of a good but not the end user?

There's lots of reasons why Germany's emissions could have fallen that would be impossible to do in Canada or the US.

economy is fine ... population is growing ... breakmarysfall might be able to answer better ...

the main reason why their emissions have fallen is because there is a will ... they are not fighting a huge industry/lobby who is only concerned with profits ... germans understand that we are all part of this problem ... money is not everything there ...

the only reason why we've made no progress here is because of greed ... simple as that ... and ignorance ...

polaris

thankyougrandma wrote:

Because they don't have any oil field to exploit for the maximum profits, what's ironic is that they could use some of that pollution money to fund Kyoto objectives programs, won't happen, but i'm sure they can, just don't want to... ahhhh it's great... how about some more military spending, while we're at it, we don't have enough soldiers to drive all these new vehicles, fucking sucks...

Une épopée des plus brillants exploits!!!!!!!!!

they could use some of that money ... but they won't ...

surferdude

polaris wrote:

economy is fine ... population is growing ... breakmarysfall might be able to answer better ...

the main reason why their emissions have fallen is because there is a will ... they are not fighting a huge industry/lobby who is only concerned with profits ... germans understand that we are all part of this problem ... money is not everything there ...

the only reason why we've made no progress here is because of greed ... simple as that ... and ignorance ...

You have no idea if goods that require greenhouse gas emissions in production have gone up? You have no idea if Germany is really greener, or do they only look greener by relying on other countries to do their dirty work while they still consume. Does Germany even grow enough food to feed themselves? If not, then all greenhouse gas emissions in other countries made in the gowing of food going to Germany should be charged to Germany. But Kyoto doesn't even care about that. Thumbs up to Germany for the illusion of progress so far, but until you know how it's done I'm not lauding and applauding. For all you know they could be like the person who thinks they've saved $100 by not paying the electricity bill.