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What annoys you to no end?
f0dder:
Some people just keep repeating what media tells them and then they claim that those are their personal ideas.-kartal (May 23, 2008, 06:27 PM)
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Personally I'm of the opinion that people who think Global Warming is caused by humans are doing exactly that. Because that's the only thing the media reports. They only discredit and defame those who try to say otherwise.
-Deozaan (May 23, 2008, 06:34 PM)
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Around here, the (serious) media report both sides of the story. Sure, weight is given to the "humans have an influence" camp, but they do generally come off as a bit more credible than the other camp (I recently heard of a .no report claiming that there was really nothing to worry about, since the climate is about the same as in 1998... forgetting to say that 1998 was one of the hottest years in a long time period).
Whatever causes the warming, denying it is stupid - because it is happening, and it will have nasty consequences. How big a part mankind has in the warming is debatable, but it's my personal belief that we should at least try to do something about it. Even if that doesn't help against the warming, at least it would reduce pollution and excess consumption.
fenixproductions:
2f0dder
I know that even butterfly can make a tornado. I know it is not just about floods but... some prophecies for GW are too ridiculous to me (i.e. why should I worry about temperature going up).
2kartal
I do not claim that I understand GW better than "hundreds of scientists". But why it is so "trendy" to talk about it? I now that it might be true but why it is so hard to find out arguments for other side? The only thing that comes to my mind is that it is very simple to get refund for searching for deadly topics. If you ever wonder can giraffe kill a man you will never gain a grant BUT if you will yell "Every giraffe is so mad that can kill a man" then you will get $$ and few people may believe so. Well, you can even prove them that they didn't spend a cash for nothing.
Personally: I do not believe GW is man made. Whole humanity exist too short period of time to have such big influence. I know that there are many dangerous things but I am looking through history:
Some time ago whole earth was covered by ocean.
Some time ago there was one land only.
Some time ago whole earth was covered by jungle and pretty big lizards.
Some time ago whole earth was covered by ice.
Some time ago it was well known that next Ice Age is coming.
During all of it there were periodically weather changes around the globe. It is not something new.
After all whole GW case seems so ridiculous for me as being vegetarian not because of health problems.
Unfortunately too many people just repeating what media told them without any doubts. We can discuss in this flame topic after all because being a dog is always better than a sheep;)
PS. Opera spellcheck rules.
Deozaan:
Whatever causes the warming, denying it is stupid - because it is happening, and it will have nasty consequences. How big a part mankind has in the warming is debatable, but it's my personal belief that we should at least try to do something about it.
-f0dder (May 23, 2008, 06:40 PM)
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I'm certainly not suggesting we trash the environment. I'm all for energy efficiency, and reducing toxic chemicals, etc.
The problem with Global Warming is that if mankind didn't cause it, there's nothing we can do to "stop causing" it. If mankind did nothing to bring it on, then it wouldn't matter if we shut down all carbon emissions in the entire world because it would have happened regardless of there being any human on the planet or not.
I'd rather focus on more important things we can do something about. Food shortages, disease research, alternative fuels for vehicles, nuclear power, etc.
Do you think that the recent food shortages might have anything to do with farmers growing millions of acres of corn to be used for ethanol instead of actually growing food? Do you realize that the amount of corn it takes to produce enough ethanol to fill a standard SUV's gas tank once could feed a man for a year? Talk about a massive waste of resources and harm to the environment!
Plus just the idea of making countries pay for Carbon Credits is ludicrous. Who's generating the carbons and saying "alright guys, we have this much this year, buy 'em up?" It's just a scam to punish wealthy countries, making them buy invisible goods that don't exist by placing a false limit on them. Next thing you know we're going to have to buy "oxygen credits" so we can breathe with approval from the UN or whatever stupid organization is setting up these silly regulations.
I personally believe that while the temperature of the earth has gone up 1 degree or whatever, the idea of it being man-made is false, and that the earth naturally goes through warm and cold cycles and this is one of them. However, in saying that, I also believe that we should do things to keep the earth clean, and we should focus our millions of billions of dollars on things that we can actually affect: Food, medical, and power. I honestly can't see any reason, given current technology and resources, why there are parts of the world without these three basic things. Well, okay, the only reason I can see is "Dollar Signs in the Eyes" of certain organizations or people.
f0dder:
Why should you worry about temperature rising? Even if you don't live in an area that is directly affected, or if you live in an area that would be mostly positively affected (like .dk), I'm sure you'd change your mind when the floods of immigrants from the now-desert countries start overrunning your borders... or when the flora and fauna changes, and you can no longer plant the crops you're used to, and nasty damaging insects appear that couldn't live in your climate before. Everything is connected.
As for not being man-caused, ho humm. The climate has been repeating in cycles, with an ice age roughly every 10k years. Temperature has been rising steadily for the last however-many years, but the temperature increase has been accelerating the last however-less-many years. It's not just the north pole that's melting at an increase rate, btw, some skiing resorts are in trouble too.
I'm not claiming to be a scientist who understands all the puzzle pieces, nor even to have followed the whole deal closely enough to have all that much insight. But I wouldn't be the least surprised if mankind hasn't helped accelerate the natural[/b] global warming.
Do you think that the recent food shortages might have anything to do with farmers growing millions of acres of corn to be used for ethanol instead of actually growing food? Do you realize that the amount of corn it takes to produce enough ethanol to fill a standard SUV's gas tank once could feed a man for a year? Talk about a massive waste of resources and harm to the environment!-Deozaan
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The bioethanol crop deal has a lot to do with the current food shortages and rising prices, and imho it's a pretty stupid thing. Also, while I'm not a fan of overuse of pesticides, insisting on organic farming in 3rd world countries is madness, because it's a lot more inefficient there than in developed countries.
Focus on moving to alternate fuel for cars is a good idea, but bio-ethanol isn't necessarily the best solution. Convincing people that they don't need big hummers and SUVs, and that a family could perhaps do with one car instead of two, would be a much better start. Then, focus on things like Hydrogen cars (using clean persistant energy sources like windmills or water power to produce the Hydrogen). Electricity-powered cars would also be a benefit for the smaller everyday <200km trips.
Carbon credits is lame. I do believe that you should pay for polluting, but letting countries trade carbon credits voids the whole idea.
Oh, and people need to be more realistic and accept nuclear power. It's really a lot cleaner than a lot of other choices.
Btw., we haven't had a real winter in Denmark for the last many years. When I was a kid, we used to have pretty long winters with -10C or colder temperatures. Now all we get is a few weeks of snow.
Grorgy:
When 90% or more of reputable scientists agree, and many of the apologists for the no global warming side I've discovered are funded and/or employed directly by the major producers of pollutants generally and green house gases in particular I tend to go with the majority of reputable scientists. Of course they have been wrong before, the world was flat at one stage of our history, bleeding people was considered a valuable treatment in many illnesses.
I guess its trendy to talk about it these days because if it happens and the predictions of catastrophic change in 50 to 200 yrs are correct then we are among the last who can do anything about it.
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