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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: nkotb on January 04, 2007, 01:46:00 pm
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So I finally got around to watching An Inconvenient Truth on DVD the other day; pretty scary stuff.
Still, I'd like to get the reverse perspective, if possible. I know that when Farenheit 9/11 and The DaVinci Code came out, there were tons of sources that had facts refuting both. Does anyone know if there's a good documentary or book that does the same for Gore's movie?
After watching the facts, I can't see how anyone can refute that we're in some type of trouble. But I know Surly is pretty anti-climate change, so hopefully there's something out there to give me the other side.
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www.exxon.com (http://www.exxon.com)
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Surly is pretty anti-climate change
stated alternatively, surly is pretty anti-science.
i am anti-organic chemistry. shit's too tough.
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I'm just wondering if the Dinosaurs were bitching about global freezing before....well, the globe froze and wiped them all out!!!
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i'm betting they didn't, but they didn't really have a handle on things like the SCIENTIFIC METHOD either. neither did cavemen.
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But the cavemen gave us fire, so global warming is their fault, the bastards!!!!!
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there were tons of sources that had facts refuting both. Does anyone know if there's a good documentary or book that does the same for Gore's movie?
if you accept that the source of facts is unbiased science, then no you won't find a good rebuttal. you might find some good "qualifiers", though - not "is there a problem", but "the problem isn't so bad". scientists agree something is happening, but no one is sure where it's going or how bad it's going to be.
yeah, that movie is a scary one. the lady and i took a few new year's resolutions after seeing that film... every little bit helps.
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www.usgs.gov (http://www.usgs.gov)
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On WMAL, you can hear the great scientific minds of today like Shaun Hannity, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh refute global warming on a daily basis
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But the cavemen gave us fire
they must have given us this administration as well.
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Limbaugh still around huh....I was hoping maybe he od'd on his prescription drugs, the fat twat.
How about G. Gordan Liddy...he still with us? and pluggin that stuff that gives old men like him a woody.
Who's that annoying angry old git (not me!) on am radio in the evenings, and what about that right wing bitch? Laura somethingorother.
Do you think they'll go away or just get louder now the dems have control.
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other than sen. inhofe, i think most of the differences on this topic deal with what do human's contribute to global warming and what is simply naturally occurring? in other words, the earth naturally goes up and down in temperature- so what part of this current upswing in the earth's temperature is caused by humans ("greenhouse gases") and what is part of the earth's natural fluctuations.
if you can stand it, you can find out about how global warming is the biggest hoax of our time here (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=abef87c7-802a-23ad-412f-d35e9e09335b&Designation=Majority). . .it may take a bit to load.
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15% of Irelands global warming gasses comes from cow farts....seriously.
What are they supposed to do about that? I suggested to my missus we invent a fart catcher for cows then the farmers can use it to run their tractors.
I would personally tax the shit out of gasoline and get all these idiots out of their Hummers and Escalades.
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I would personally tax the shit out of gasoline and get all these idiots out of their Hummers and Escalades.
seconded
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I would personally tax the shit out of gasoline and get all these idiots out of their Hummers and Escalades.
Me too. Also I'd dedicate NASA to alternate fuel and renewable energy research
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I'd like to ask the panel what they would do if they were Hitler?
Come out of hiding in Argentina?
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Go to Haircutlery and get something sorted with that hair..
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Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear" is basically debunking Global Warming.. Its a long, kinda boring read..
My question is this: Why not try to be more careful with what you consume? Just in case we really have a big impact. Maybe the slogan could read: "Global Warming Precautions: Just in case we are right"
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I'd appoint George Clooney president. He would save the world for sure.
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"surly is pretty anti-science."
Polar Bears are endangered...yikes!
Polar Bears have been around for 25 million years. I think they've learned to adapt to climate changes.
Oh, and by the way yinzer: BLOW ME!!!
please don't take it so personally. i'm sure there are many issues upon which reasonable people could differ and we might agree such as alchemy, witchcraft, or intelligent design.
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dear mr. anti-science,
i don't have a my freshman year zoology book with me at work (i kept it b/c it was an unusually great textbook), but i will stipulate to your fact that polar bears have been around for 25 mill. yrs., for the purposes of our discussion, and ask: how does that "evidence" advance, what i guess is your proposition that polar bears will somehow just adapt/evolve moving forward so as to enjoy hundreds, thousands, or 25 million more years when temperatures continue to rise due to global warming? humans are not just going to start using less fossil fuels are they?
oh, i know, "hey man, that's just what natural selection is all about?" except you forget to emphasize the word NATURAL.
i think i might be dr. science, at least to you.
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I'm always curious as to how people who dispute global warming don't recognize that being so dependent on fossil fuels is problematic. It seems to me we should be spending a lot more time & money figuring out how to power our cars with something other than petroleum-based fuels. Yes, ethanol research has improved, but it seems to me we should be making larger strides than we are now (and no, Surly, I'm not trying to single you out).
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it's because they're natural contrarions who refuse to agree with a certain cultural "type" of person (ie, stuffy liberal intellectuals) on pretty much any issue
the whole goal of the environmental movement needs to be to de-politicize the issue, which gore focused on in the film ... the only way that's really going to happen though is to get people from the other side of the aisle (and not just mccain, hagel, and a smattering of other pragmatists) to buy into the problem
if you look back on it, it's pretty incredible that congress in the 70s was able to pass sweeping harm-based statutes like the clean air act, but it gives hope for us getting something similar done today (or for incorporating GHGs under the current clean air act regime, as enviros tried to do through the judicial system in the supreme court this term)
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fascinating retort ... don't you find it a bit coincidental that the same people who don't "believe" or "buy into" climate change are generally the same people who support social and economic conservatisim?
why are these people hard-wired to see this scientific issue as part and parcel with the culture wars and with partisan politics?
the only way we'll be able to get real political movement on this issue is if we move beyond this partisan framework for the "debate", like we've done with so many other issues that began as "liberal constructs" and became simply wise moral policy ... unfortunately i don't see it happening in the near future, just too many contrarions out there who are supported (often unwittingly) by tons and tons of money
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vassego, why should Americans give up fossil fuels if the Chinese & the Indians don't have to. Don't tell me that you are a yet another brainwashed proselyte to the propaganda promulgated by The Protocols of the Elders of Kyoto?
Now that I've broken out a dictionary, I can certainly say I am not a poselyte to the 3 P's of Kyoto.
Call me brainwashed or whatever you like, but I don't think only Americans should restrict their use of fossil fuels (notice I did not say "give up").
Is it not apparent that fossil fuels won't be around forever? If not, then ok, but if it is clear, then why not work to develop non-fossil fuels, and then we can let "the Chinese & the Indians" worry about their problems when they run out of fossil fuels?
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the main problem about having this debate is that it's often formed by intellectual "elites" from the coasts, again looking down upon "regular" people not living on the coasts. this smacks of elitism. . .which does end up with people having knee-jerk reactions against it, and rightly so.
i had a long conversation with a friend when this movie came out about how the way the message is put out (and has been getting out for the past 20 years) is the largest hindrance to this country doing anything about changing the way we use energy.
there was a great article in the ny times today about the increase in the installation of solar panels in california, and how people are viewing it not necessarily as an environmental plus, but for economical and national security reasons (this is perhaps my biggest problem with the way republicans have addressed energy use, although without the tax cuts from the 2005 bill, none of this would be economical).
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why should it be "right" for "regular joes" to have knee-jerk reaction against intellectualism?
i've never fully understood this anti-intellectual part of the conservative psyche
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Why should Americans give up fossil fuels if the Chinese & the Indians don't have to?
when the chinese and indians start using fossil fuels for hummers and private jets in the way that americans do, we'll have grounds to complain. where there are more cars than people in china and india like there are in the US, let's raise the red flag.
america has already benefited from (among other things) cheap energy to achieve its current state of development. time to re-invest our wealth, since we have wealth, into alternatives. we can afford to, india and china are still busy feeding themselves (insert typical rant about their spending choices, like they're anything near those of the west).
i know you're just being surly, but it amazes me that people can't accept that the american standard of living is unsustainable. we need to change, and that change will have a cost (i.e. no more hummers - shed a tear). thank god everyone in the world doesn't consume like we do.
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60-70 degrees in wdc in dec-jan. global warming is a great thing.
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hoya- the anti-intellectual bit cuts both ways. let's not forget that populism is also an anti-intellectual movement. it's also no coincidence that it's stems from the midwest and the south (the west would rather just be left alone, and have the states fix their own problems, and not the fed. govt.).
it's still a rural-urban debate. . .the feeling that the people from the city know better than the people from the country vs. i'm from the city and have a vast amount of knowledge about the world and can teach these country rubes a thing or two. people don't like to be talked down to and treated as if they are stupid, even if they are. and that you don't understand it just proves the point.
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oh, i understand why pride causes anti-intellectualism in the less-educated, i just don't think it's "right"
my utopian scenario (obviously unachievable, patently absurd, and riddled with inconsistencies / possibilites for abuse) consists of a pure oligarchic technocracy run by policy experts in their respective fields
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oligarchic technocracy run by policy experts in their respective fields
That worked out well for the Soviets.
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which is why i so heavily qualified it
the feeling is really just an overreaction to the 15th century approach towards science that this administration takes
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But surely you agree that arabian horse judges make the best Federal Emergency leaders.
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90-115 most days in the future during a dc summer = crotch pot cooking. pass the baby powder surly.
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Have you ever heard of Wiki or Google?
do you mean the last word on all things factual??? like i said, that's why i stipulated your facts.
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Constitutional Robocracy
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so...we should all die horrible deaths because the coasts think they are so big and smart and middle america doesnt like to be talked down to? we need a uniter not a divider here, folks
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congratulations, dupek. your stupidity, greed and self-centeredness have gotten the best of me... i bow before the power of your arguments. by deflecting serious questions with nonsense, hyperbole and tangents you've made debate impossible. good work! bill o'reilly would be proud of you.
p.s. admission is the first step.
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no one can nor should challenge your assertion, mostly because that's not the point we're discussing here - the point is that there haven't been this many warm januaries this close together cause by man-made greenhouse gases. typically it takes centuries to achieve this, we've done it in 40-50 years. polar bears can migrate to colder climates over centuries, not over decades.
if you don't believe in the effect of carbon in the atmosphere, go hang out on venus (~95% CO2, bring your sunscreen)
"The enormously CO2-rich atmosphere generates a strong greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature to over 400 °C. This makes Venus' surface hotter than Mercury's, even though Venus is nearly twice as distant from the Sun and receives only 25% of the solar irradiance."
quit being an idiot and stick to the argument, instead of bringing in everything and the kitchen sink to this debate (then asking if anyone dares challenge that this is indeed a kitchen sink).
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg/300px-MagrittePipe.jpg" alt=" - " />
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This is the first warm January in 25 million years."
I dare anyone to challenge this assertion.
no argument there. in fact, the local weather guy told me that there might be a record high tomorrow for dc. that tells me there have been januarys in the past with warm days. there have been more lately. that's called a trend.
kudos for at least not believing in the jesus freakery crew's estimate of a 6,000 yr old planet.
my parents don't drive a volvo or anything like it. there are no starbucks within 40 miles or so from my hometown either. they bother to read though. i was just saying the other day that one of the best stickers i have seen on a car was in adams morgan several yrs ago. it was made to look just like those university stickers with which a certain kind of person emblazons their cars and their parents cars. you know, the ones in caligraphy. it said, "your university sucks."
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where did i learn this from?
1) studied enviro sciences in undergrad
2) spent 5 years working on environmental topics, kyoto and climate change chief among them
3) reading scientific publications
of the few topics that i'm comfy getting on a soap box about, this is one of them. if i thought i was worth it, if i thought it would convince you, i'd be happy to provide you with bibliographical references. but i fear it's not worth any effort.
surly, here's your cue to make fun of my education and experience (i.e. deflect the debate). in the meantime, i'm going home and will shut up for a while... you've got me all riled up :)
p.s. migratory patterns are well-studied. we can figure out how far polar bears would have to move to find open ice at current rates of retreat vs how fast/far they actually can go. this is the exact reason why they're being declared endangered - it's called scientific prediction (aka reading the writing on the wall).
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Mr. Surly,
Chinaman is not the prefered nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
Walter
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sweetcell, that type of CV simply will not do for a discussion as bereft of logic as this one. please use your brain less.
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from the hallowed halls of the u.s. senate (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r110:S04JA7-0040:) -
The question the Service has to answer is this: Is there clear scientific evidence that the current worldwide polar bear population is in trouble and facing possible extinction in the foreseeable future? As the Service reviews the issue over the next year, I am confident they will conclude, as I have, that listing the polar bear is unwarranted at this time.
In the proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges that for 7 of the 19 worldwide polar bear populations--this is very significant. There are 19 populations worldwide for the polar bear. For seven of those populations, the Service has no population trend data of any kind. For more than a third of the known populations out there, we don't have any information. The other data suggests that for an additional five polar bear populations, the number of bears is not declining but is stable. Two more of the bear populations showed a reduced number in the past due to overhunting, but these two populations are now increasing because of new hunting restrictions.
Other sources of data mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal piece--just this past Tuesday--suggest that ``there are more polar bears in the world now than there were 40 years ago.'' I have to say there are quite a few more, almost twice the number from 40 years ago.
The Service estimates that the polar bear population is 20,000 to 25,000 bears, whereas in the fifties and sixties, the estimates were as low as 5,000 to 10,000 bears, and most of that was due to sport hunting at that time, and most of that has been banned.
A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey study of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ``may now be near historic highs.''
So if the number of polar bears does not appear to be in decline, then why are we considering listing the species as threatened? Because the Endangered Species Act is broken. It needs to be fixed. We tried to fix it for the past 4 years. We have been unable to reach a consensus.
The ESA allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the entire range of polar bears as threatened and thereby extend a wide array of regulatory restrictions to them and their habitat despite the dearth of data and a lack of scientific evidence that polar bears are, indeed, in trouble.
The law also allows for the Fish and Wildlife Service to justify its proposal on a sample from a single population in western Hudson Bay in Canada where the populations have decreased by 259 polar bears in the last 17 years. Stop and think about this. This is the western Hudson Bay in Canada, 1 of 19 sites. This is the one which is the most severe.
The population has decreased by 259 polar bears in the last 17 years; however, the figures that the International Union of Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources says that 234 bears have been killed in the last 5 years alone. If you figure that 234 have been killed in the last 5 years, the total in the last 17 years is 259, you have to assume that more than the 259 were actually shot. Ironically, Canada now is liberalizing a lot of their hunting in that area, and it is going to allow more hunting. This is something they need to address.
At this point, I would like to say that while I support hunting as a general matter, we need to fully understand its impact on the polar bear population before we blame global warming for changes in bear population. I already said we can document pretty well--scientifically it is documented--that the number of bears has actually increased except in areas where hunting is more prevalent.
I think there are a lot of people who want to somehow insert global warming as a crisis in everything and use polar bears for that reason, and we are not going to let that take place.
The Fish and Wildlife Service asserts that the reason for the decline in the western Hudson Bay population is climate change-induced ice melting. To make that assertion, they rely on hypothetical climate change computer models showing massive loss of ice and irreparable damages in the polar bear's habitat. The Service then extrapolates that reasoning to the other 18 populations of polar bears. There are 19 populations, 1 of them is in trouble, but they use that as the model, and they take that and apply that same extrapolation to the other 18 populations of polar bears, making the assumption all bears in these populations will eventually decline and go extinct.
Again, this conclusion is not based on field data but hypothetical modeling, and that is considered perfectly acceptable scientific evidence under the Endangered Species Act.
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nothing can be more elite than the u.s. senate, and its located on the east coast. totally disregard
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al gore is my president.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070103/ap_on_bi_ge/exxonmobil_global_warming (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070103/ap_on_bi_ge/exxonmobil_global_warming)
Group: ExxonMobil paid to mislead public
WASHINGTON - ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday........
more at the link.
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A face to face conversation with Surly on global warming would be awesome. Dude would come in with a stack of pictures, witty one liners, and references to Bananarama, the Krishna-Bhakti movement and the effects of the Trypanosoma Cruzi protozoa and he'd totally confuse and ultimately annhilate me. You have a gift son, use it wisely.
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Originally posted by nkotb:
I know Surly is pretty anti-climate change, so hopefully there's something out there to give me the other side.
This (http://www.geocities.com/mjloundy/) explains it all in terms even Al Gore could understand. Or maybe I should say even a caveman could understand.
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Originally posted by Roadbike Mankie:
I'm just wondering if the Dinosaurs were bitching about global freezing before....well, the globe froze and wiped them all out!!!
haha aint dat shyt the truth. i do care buh if this whole global warming shyt goes down, imma go own bustin a nut!!