Eaarth

[NeilBlanchard]

Just take a look at the flooding in the multiple places all over this country -- Milwaukee got 7.5 inches of rain in TWO HOURS(!!), the epic flooding in Pakistan (~10months of rain in TWO DAYS, and it is still raining) -- the flooded area is bigger than Italy and it is in the heart of their most productive farm land, the fires in Russia, the melting glaciers and ice on the poles, the changing ocean pH, the expanding tropics (see my earlier post), the dead boreal forests, the methane bubbling up from under the "permafrost" that isn't so permanent after all...

[Weather Spotter]

So? the earth has never been in a stedy state, things are always chanig. Is this bad? "If" we evloved as a part of the change, we can also die off.

I think that people view of eternity has a huge impact on how they treat the earth. If this is the only place we have than the upmost care should be taken. Since I know that "the earth will will be distroided with a fervent heat" and that God will make a "new heaven and a new earth" why should I get woried about this one? God made this earth, He can fix any problem we make. Also this is not my final home, Heaven is. That puts things into perspective for me. If you do not belive this, than you must belive in somthing else. I can trace it back to faith one way or the other, you must belive in God or you believe there is not a God who made the universe. Faith is the evidance of what we do not see. None of us saw how the earth came into beeing so we must have faith in somthing.

You pick.

I choose to belive in a caring God. If I am wrong, what have I lost? If I am right I avoid an eternity in Hell! If nothing else I am making the safest choise.

[tumnasgt]

If I were religious, I would take the view that God does not want us to screw up what we were given. How is making the planet uninhabitable for future generations any better than killing another human?

I'm not saying that GCC is real, but I do think that looking after what we have is important. Most processes that emit CO2 also emit particles which harm other humans and wildlife. Reducing energy consumption has many upsides, and very few downsides.

In the way of quality of life, is driving a 5000lb SUV really improving your life? What about lighting a room nobody is in, or turning on the heater when you could put on a sweater?

[RobertSmalls]

I am completely unmoved by examples of extreme weather. Weather is not climate.

The biggest problem with citing extreme weather is it's so hard to quantify. It seems to me like 2010 has been a light year for natural disasters, but how do you put a number to something like that?

On Pakistan: it's an 80 year flood, as I understand. It's hard to build flood control systems to endure a 100 year flood in a region with monsoons, especially on a budget like Pakistan's. Add in Pakistan's understandably poor response and relief effort, and the result is a human tragedy that captures your attention and stimulates an emotional reaction, but it's not unprecedented, nor is it evidence of climate change.

Statistically speaking, you can expect hundred year floods to happen every year. Add in hundred year droughts, fires, hurricanes, etc. and it's enough to keep a newspaper afloat, provided that enough people enjoy reading stories about these kinds of events.

[NeilBlanchard]

Greatly increased rates of melting glaciers and polar ice is not weather. Neither is rampant pine bark beetle infestations. Neither is 30 year droughts where rain used to fall. The expansion of the tropical zone by more than 2 degrees latitude north and south is climate change. A pH change in a few decades from 8.2 down to 8.1 is not weather. Significant increases of lightening, the world over, over a period of years, that are causing many more fires is not weather. 40% reduction in plankton since 1950 is not weather. Bleached corral is not normal. 5% more evaporation year after year is part of what is driving the extreme rainfall and more frequent and stronger storms.

I used to think that 0.5-1 inch of rain per hour was a huge amount of rainfall -- and it still is. So, when a half a dozen times in one year in this country (the USA) alone we see rainfall more than 3 TIMES that, it is more than just normal variations of weather.

The flooding in Pakistan is still getting worse. It may well be the largest flooding event in centuries, in the whole world. Ironically, the glaciers that feed the Indus River may only last a few more decades, and the 6 rivers the flow from the Himalayan mountains are already diminishing, and they may "go away" for all intents and purposes in the next 30-50 years. If they do, then about 1/3 of the world's population are going to know that global climate change is all too real.

[Weather Spotter]

Originally Posted by tumnasgt

If I were religious, I would take the view that God does not want us to screw up what we were given. How is making the planet uninhabitable for future generations any better than killing another human?

I'm not saying that GCC is real, but I do think that looking after what we have is important. Most processes that emit CO2 also emit particles which harm other humans and wildlife. Reducing energy consumption has many upsides, and very few downsides.

In the way of quality of life, is driving a 5000lb SUV really improving your life? What about lighting a room nobody is in, or turning on the heater when you could put on a sweater?

This sort of thing, turning off lights, geting better gas mileage I am all for. It is things like a carbon tax (or cap and traid which is the same thing) that I think is going too far. I am all for reducing emissions, but only as long is it costly less than 10% more that what we are doing now. With this econnmy, I think the money is better spent in other ways, not driving up costs.

Reducing energy use is allways good. but there are other issues that I feel have greater priorty (like fixing the border).

[Arragonis]

There are consequences of the precautionary principle as I have already tapped.

Many people in the 3rd world will get sick or die because they don't have access to the energy we take for granted for food production, medicine and so on. Why ? Well partly because of this fear we will prevent them from using the efficient cheap energy we use and force them to use the ones that really and honestly don't work all that well at the moment - renewables. Solar and wind mainly.

I don't see why this is acceptible. Especially when (for example) 20 % of the world's oil is consumed by one country - and we all know which one.

I know this is a place where the converted gather, but you get my point. GWH Bush said the US way of life is not negotiable. Richard Feinberg made the best response in "Nature doesn't negotiate" - seems fair to me.

[Arragonis]

Sorry - PS - we are on the same page, for different reasons. Lets do our bit to solve the key immediate issue of resource usage. We can sort or disagree other one later.

[dcb]

Yah, environmental concerns and "social justice" concerns don't always overlap. We are all created equal, but born into vastly different circumstances.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

Statistically speaking, you can expect hundred year floods to happen every year. Add in hundred year droughts, fires, hurricanes, etc. and it's enough to keep a newspaper afloat, provided that enough people enjoy reading stories about these kinds of events.

Statistically speaking it's fairly easy to look at climate from the POV of weather. If there is an uptick in extreme weather, ie we're breaking or approaching more records than usual, then it's likely we're seeing climate change in action.