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Global warming.
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Post by
Tartonga
While I agree that the earth goes up and down in a natural cycle, it's totally wrong to say that the climate hasn't changed.
"Climate change" is now one of the most pressing topics in United Nations conferences. Hello,
sinking islands
? Both poles melting?
And don't forget earthquakes.
Post by
wildx22
^ Thanks.
Yeah so, the megabillion earthquakes happening all around NZ in this half year, when we barely heard/cared about earthquakes here in the past 10+ years I've lived here. Ugh and tornadoes wtf.
Post by
donnymurph
Yeah, but the 'we're all gonna die in 45 minutes' is from climate change, not global warming, as such.
Sea levels rising due to melting ice caps is attributed to warming, rather than climate change, isn't it?
While I agree that the earth goes up and down in a natural cycle, it's totally wrong to say that the climate hasn't changed.
"Climate change" is now one of the most pressing topics in United Nations conferences. Hello,
sinking islands
? Both poles melting?
Of course the climate has changed. The climate has always been changing and always will. As for sinking islands and both poles melting, surely this is not the first time these things have happened in the history of the Earth (keep in mind the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years). Would it not be safe to assume that every time the Earth goes through a warming cycle, the ratio of liquid water to ice would increase, therefore inundating low-lying areas?
Post by
wildx22
^ I don't dispute that, hence the first sentence of my post. But I was adding to Tarta's response to face.
Post by
donnymurph
What wild is pointing out is that these events are happening more frequently and sometimes more strongly than expected.
This has been mentioned countless times. The question, to me, is whether that is actually the case. Certainly, it may
seem
like it is true, considering (a) the amount of mass-media publicity every natural disaster gets these days, and (b) some areas which are not necessarily known for natural disasters have endured some lately.
However, this is merely conjectural evidence; and I wonder if anyone has actually kept any comprehensive statistics on the frequency, type and severity of natural disasters in
every
part of the globe, and how long for. Even if they have, it may not necessarily prove much. What
may
be a high level of natural disasters that we are currently experiencing, may simply be part of another long-term cycle that mankind has not existed for long enough to comprehensively experience.
Post by
Tartonga
Would it not be safe to assume that every time the Earth goes through a warming cycle, the ratio of liquid water to ice would increase, therefore inundating low-lying areas?
The question here is: Would it be safe to assume that the liquid water is increasing at a controlled rate?
What wild is pointing out is that these events are happening more frequently and sometimes more strongly than expected.
Post by
donnymurph
How did our posts end up back-to-front?
Post by
Tartonga
However, this is merely conjectural evidence; and I wonder if anyone has actually kept any comprehensive statistics on the frequency, type and severity of natural disasters in every part of the globe, and how long for. Even if they have, it may not necessarily prove much. What may be a high level of natural disasters that we are currently experiencing, may simply be part of another long-term cycle that mankind has not existed for long enough to comprehensively experience.
Natural disasters have to happen in order to complete a warming cycle, but what tells you that mankind's activity with the nature is not triggering side-effects on these natural disasters? What tells you that human activity does not heighten the effects nor the frequency of these natural disasters? And why do you think we are yet not able to comprehend them?
How did our posts end up back-to-front?
I deleted it, because it had a grammar mistake. xD
Post by
pezz
Has the climate changed so far? No.
I don't know where you're living, but I have noticed increasing extremes in England over the past ten years. This is merely anecdotal evidence, I know, but I'm sure England never used to get the turbulent summers and truly bitter winters it's getting right now.
Oh God the summer I moved there... 2003 it was?* I almost wanted to go back to Oklahoma to cool off.
In one of the science chapters, they pointed out that, if you know what it entails, the fact that we can semi-reliably predict the weather four days in advance is truly astounding. Anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen, whether they're sure the planet's climate will do next to nothing in the next 100 years or whether they're Al Gore, doesn't know what they're talking about. As such I voted not sure. We simply can't know what the climate is going to do.
It's a bit simplistic to take that view.
I can't semi-reliably predict the number of people who are going to die in traffic accidents in the next 4 days, because there are too many variables. What I can do, however, is look at the much broader trends and semi-reliably predict the number of people who are going to die in traffic accidents over the next 20 years.
The argument that "it's hard to do a short term forecast" doesn't necessarily mean that "it's hard to do a long term forecast".
I wasn't clear on that actually. The difficulty with short-term forecasts is not seen as a direct logical stepping stone towards the fact climate change is not knowable. The point in the book was that climate is a heavily emergent system. There's a long Wikipedia article about emergence, but again I'll paraphrase Science of Discworld: an emergent system follows certain rules, but it makes them up as it goes along.
Edit:* This was rhetorical. Obviously you are not going to be able to answer this question. This is just my way of pointing out that I had to think about it.
Post by
238331
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
I wasn't clear on that actually. The difficulty with short-term forecasts is not seen as a direct logical stepping stone towards the fact climate change is not knowable. The point in the book was that climate is a heavily emergent system. There's a long Wikipedia article about emergence, but again I'll paraphrase Science of Discworld: an emergent system follows certain rules, but it makes them up as it goes along.
i.e. we don't know enough science about climate change, therefore we can't predict it? The idea of short-term forecasts has nothing really to do with that :P
However, this is merely conjectural evidence; and I wonder if anyone has actually kept any comprehensive statistics on the frequency, type and severity of natural disasters in every part of the globe, and how long for. Even if they have, it may not necessarily prove much. What may be a high level of natural disasters that we are currently experiencing, may simply be part of another long-term cycle that mankind has not existed for long enough to comprehensively experience.
I believe I saw some stats on earthquake frequency and severity recently. Yes, there is a significantly higher number of severe earthquakes and other environmental events in recent years relative to the last century. Part of the reason that insurance companies are making massive losses at the moment is due to their aggressive pricing and deliberate understating of risks when working out the chance of bad events occurring. The other part is that their 'best estimates' were understated in the first place.
Post by
606231
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
donnymurph
Natural disasters have to happen in order to complete a warming cycle, but what tells you that mankind's activity with the nature is not triggering side-effects on these natural disasters? What tells you that human activity does not heighten the effects nor the frequency of these natural disasters? And why do you think we are yet not able to comprehend them?
What I was trying to say was that
if
climactic patterns happen over tens or hundreds of millions of years, and mankind has been around for about 1 million years, with the oldest existing cultures being no more than 100,000 years old, I don't see how we could be able to understand such long-term phenomena.
I believe I saw some stats on earthquake frequency and severity recently. Yes, there is a significantly higher number of severe earthquakes and other environmental events in recent years relative to the last century. Part of the reason that insurance companies are making massive losses at the moment is due to their aggressive pricing and deliberate understating of risks when working out the chance of bad events occurring. The other part is that their 'best estimates' were understated in the first place.
The last century may have been a quiet century for natural disasters though. Volcanoes may lie dormant for hundreds of years, for example. If 10 or 20 major volcanoes all happen to be dormant in the same century, that would certainly skew such statistics.
Post by
Monday
Voted no.
Post by
324987
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Monday
Does this remind anyone of the old Global Warming thread, which ended up in a discussion about alien invasion?
Post by
Tartonga
What I was trying to say was that if climactic patterns happen over tens or hundreds of millions of years, and mankind has been around for about 1 million years, with the oldest existing cultures being no more than 100,000 years old, I don't see how we could be able to understand such long-term phenomena.
We know for sure that warming cycles are a slow mechanism that operates all along through events that obey the laws of physics and chemistry. Maybe we can't for sure observe how the whole mechanism operates, but that doesn't mean we can't comprehend how every single event of it behaves, which makes room for us to make assumptions about it's whole operation. In fact, we are talking about warming cycles which are a result of the comprehension of several events that operate this mechanism; in other words, it's an assumption.
Post by
gnomerdon
Let's compare how big the earth is.
Let's compare the maximum output of fossil fuels we are burning into the atmosphere
Let's compare natural reactions (volcanoes) cause to the atmosphere
Let's compare all of the plants and trees that are reducing CO2 overall
Are our own hands causing a faster warming cycle than the natural way?
I know that most of the fuss / numbers and it's concluding factors are blown wayyy out of proportion, but by how much?
This is a serious topic, because I don't want my precious hard earned cash(in the form of taxes) to go to something that really shouldn't be necessarily funded.
Post by
Squishalot
This is a serious topic, because I don't want my precious hard earned cash(in the form of taxes) to go to something that really shouldn't be necessarily funded.
If the world is going to be trashed, and it's not our doing, wouldn't you still want to spend your money making sure that it's not going to kill us anyway?
Post by
gnomerdon
This is a serious topic, because I don't want my precious hard earned cash(in the form of taxes) to go to something that really shouldn't be necessarily funded.
If the world is going to be trashed, and it's not our doing, wouldn't you still want to spend your money making sure that it's not going to kill us anyway?
Depends on my financial situation. This is the trump that determines if I help the cause or not.
edit: say that i make 28,000 a year. I wouldn't contribute much.
say that i make 100,000 a year. I would contribute at least 2%
say that I make 500,000. I would contribute at least 5%
say that I make 1,000,000 a year. At least 15% of all my extra money will go to a cause I find suitably good.
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