Debate:God, Earth and Global Warming

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All the talk of global Warming is absolutely mind numbing. Out of nowhere, this science is out to scare us all. The fact remains, the Global Warming scientists believe that humans must take the necessary steps to avoid a meltdown. It is ignorant to think humans can save the planet. God created this world, God alone can save this world from ourselves. Plus, do these scientists understand the ramifications of their sales pitch? The people of Earth would have to give up everything in order to succeed. By everything I mean combustion engines, factories, electricity, all meat, dairy, etc.

That last comment is either supposed to be ironic, or from a very uninformed fundamentalist. I can't tell which.--Sm355 20:14, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

Has anybody heard the phrase "it is easier to get a camel through the eye of the needle than to get a fool to part with his riches?" Well perhaps we're the fools and we should part with a few possessions to help save this planet, the only habitable one in our solar system. If any of you fancy braving the sulphuric acid clouds of Venus then you're more than welcome but I'd rather get out of my car when I want to go anything less than 6 miles to help do my bit for this tiny planet. Also, electricity can be made in non-polluting ways, wind farming, hydroelectric power and Nuclear power (which is safer than natural gas plants actually). Darwinner 14:24 2 October 2008

The hypocrisy on this issue is overwhelming on both sides (Left and Right). Al Gore wants everyone to reduce their carbon footprint while his home uses order(s) of magnitude electricity than an average home - Why? BECAUSE I CAN AFFORD IT AND BUY CARBON ALLOWANCES (or some such rant). The right believes that they can do anything in their own backyard, as long as they can make money, while lecturing to everyone else as to how they may be polluting God's earth (or some such rant) (it gets worse). There have been changes in the average temperature - to conclude that ALL of this can be attributed to human activity is not clear. To ignore that what we may be seeing is a 1500 (?) year cycle is irresponsible. Weather models are complex and have many parameters that are difficult to estimate or calculate and so one can get any predictions one wants by tinkering. The left wants economic progress such that only the really rich can afford it, the right wants it for themselves but would like to deny the developing countries from developing (e.g. restricting the use of freon ("destroying the ozone layer") and discouraging the increased use of oil/gas (since the prices go up for everyone). So, is there really such a thing as Global warming? Perhaps. But after listening to Michael Crichton on CSPAN (?) about how even good journals can be biased in what they publish, I have NO idea what or who to believe. Too much noise, too much politics. OK, IF Al Gore leaves his HUGE mansion and moves to the middle of the desert and forsakes ALL modern conveniences including his car, electricity and whatever the heck he wears on his face and hair and such, and lives like a hermit, I will believe in Global Warming, what say you Mr. Gore? kchittur

Are you addressing the messenger? or the message? --Mtur 18:22, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Both. I do not believe Mr. Gore, the science has been politicized, I wish I could remember the paper(s) cited by Michael Crichton and how he described his conversion from a believer of global warming to a skeptic (He is an M.D/scientist, in addition to being a successful novelist). That industrialization has wrought changes in our environment is clear, whether such changes are the direct/indirect cause for changes in the environment (whatever they may be) are dependent on models, which tend to be unreliable. I commented about Mr. Gore's own usage of electricity in his home (per news stories) since it exposes the fundamental hypocrisy in his position. And yes, I believe that mankind does have the wisdom to do the right thing, it is not clear what that has to be on the issue of "global warming". The Wall Street Journal has carried several articles that show the true costs of what Mr. Gore proposes and the cost to mankind - far different from what Mr. Gore would have us believe. kchittur 19:10 (CDT), Mar 20, 2007

On the politicizing of global warming, I did a quick Google search for "global warming" and found a wealth of information. "Philip Cooney, an oil industry lobbyist now working for Exxon Mobil, conceded during a congressional hearing yesterday that while he was chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality he watered down reports on the adverse effects of man-made emissions on the planet's climate." [1] Or a few more [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. I do consider Gore a bit of an alarmist and buying carbon allocations (a reasonable way for dealing with things globally - dealing with tons rather than pounds) can be dodgy , however that does not change the underlying findings of human influence on the make up of the atmosphere and the impact of that. While he has energized some people into doing more to fight global warming on a personal and local level, he has unfortunately also added to the politicalness of the debate. One of the bits that was not taken into account in the various climate models until more recently is global dimming [8] [9] [10] which has masked the effect of global warming - now with cleaner burring cars and trapping ash from smoke stacks, this is becoming more of an issue and accelerating global warming. Backing off of the politics and even most of the science - lets look at the worst case situations (however far from reality they may be) - whats the worst that can happen if global warming is right and we do nothing about it? What is the worst that can happen if global warming is wrong and we try to do something about the incorrect model? Which is the world you want to live in? --Mtur 20:25, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

I am not, I will admit, familiar with ALL of the models - but I am aware work of a group that has consistently gone against the grain as it were - with the lead individual being on US national committees and all that - suffice it to say, he is often in the minority and sometimes shouted down - yet he is a man of integrity whose science and scientific method I do trust and understand ... (I will try and find some references/links and post them when I can) ... I agree that we ought to examine BOTH what if's - ... mostly, it is the global warming group that is yelling the loudest - What if they are wrong? What if we spend several hundred billion to trillions of dollars on "solutions" for nothing? What if all this is due to natural variations? Yes, rise in sea levels can destroy cities - significant climate change can wreak havoc - Some of the solutions being bandied about will prevent the development of many countries that are poor and wreak additional havoc on them - What are the rich countries prepared to do for them - IF they force them to accept restrictions on growth or other solutions that they do not consider palatable? And yes, what if we are indeed destroying the ecosystem and thereby affecting current and future generations ability to live/thrive? The global warming group has decided that ALL of the data is in, that there are NO uncertainties as to temperature measurements and predictions - and thus they claim WE MUST ACT NOW ... My position is - No, not yet - the data is not clear and acting to restrict CO2/methane emissions/whatever may not be necessary. I guess I find it troubling that reasonable groups tend to ignore the forest for the trees and decide to look at the forest when it suits them ... Just a few scant years ago, the word "nuclear" was anathema to most groups in the US - when many people were talking about it as a real solution to the energy crunch - Now, the word "nuclear" is used in the context of reducing the need to use coal/other hydrocarbons for generating energy ... Along the way, the scientific process gets muzzled to generate some specific conclusion to support some specific group - ... And yes, so much noise coming from Al Gore does give me reason to pause - since he did claim at one time that he invented the internet - or some such. "Everyone believes it" means nothing to me. kchittur 23:25 (CDT), Mar 20, 2007

There are two approaches to global warming, reducing the energy we use (switching to fluorescent lighting for example) and moving away from a hydrocarbon (coal, oil, gasoline) energy economy. Even if nothing else is done beyond these things, it would be a good thing. Consider that most of the oil is held in countries that are either hostile or at best unfriendly to the united states. An estimate is that by 2020, 83% of all of the remaining oil reserves in the world will be in the middle east [11]. By 2025, there will be no oil left in Africa. Another good read is about the Hubbert peak [12] which suggests that by 2050, the world will run out of cheap oil. Thus, by mid century it isn't a matter of "how can we reduce carbon emissions" but rather "what do we do now that there is no oil?" Both gloabl warming and the Hubbert predictions [13] [14] [15] have a reduction of carbon emissions - the question is is how we react to it now? With respect to nuclear, it is a partial solution - if we were to build one reactor a week we would have the infrastructure to survive the oil crash (however, this does not take into account that using that much uranium, we would hit uranium shortages well before oil shortages). So I ask you, would the effort of spending trillions of dollars to remove our dependence on oil and carbon emissions be a good thing? Off topic - on the matter of claim of Al Gore claiming to invent the internet, snopes is a good read. --Mtur 15:32, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

The best argument to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbon fuels (oil) is where the oil is located (as you point out, and as Tom Friedman of the NYTimes has so often written about also - giving our enemies the money with which they are hurting us). I have not seen the calculations for uranium supplies - and how that would change if we were to shift to nuclear power. A key problem with such calculations (including that of oil) is that the analyses are "static" - even as we seem to be "running out of oil" - newer reserves are being discovered/developed - yes, we ARE running out, but the calculations do have a margin of error that I have some trouble with. About Gore/Internet - yea, he may have chosen his words poorly, but given my own feelings about Gore, I suppose I found it easier to believe that he DID claim what the stories say he claimed! - But fair enough, I'll refrain on THAT issue, from now on! kchittur 23:45 (CDT) 21 March 2007

The top comment reminds me of an oft told joke. A religious man is on the roof of a burning house. The fire company holds the trampolene and tells him to jump. He says: "No, God will save me." A helicopter and lowers a ladder to him and tells him to climb. He says: "God will save me." Then the house collapses, he dies and goes to heaven. He asks God why he didn't save him. God answers: "I sent the fire company and the helicopter. What more did you want?"

The Bible tells us that God gave man the tools to exploit the earth. It also tells what happens (the flood, the destruction of Judah, ..) when man lacks the wisdom to use those tools wisely. God gave us the brains to detect global warming in time to stop it. He gave us the means to stop it. The question is, do we have the wisdom?

In response to the oft told joke, that does not ring with me. If he goes to heaven, he is saved. I understand the premise of thought behind the joke. However, to trust in mankind is foolish. Is there any problem too big that God could not solve? If we believe global warming caused by others, can by solved others, then we do not have the wisdom given to us. To worry is fruitless. --jp 03:04, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

To worry is fruitless, to act, devine. We are probably responsible for Global Warming, but whether we are responsible or not, it is within our ability to act. We can make the situation worse. We can make the situation better. Or we can ignore the situation. The situation is similar to sitting on an anthill. Terryeo 17:55, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

So, jp, if people die as a result of inaction, it doesn't matter because the good ones are going to heaven anyway?--Frey 11:49, 8 November 2008 (EST)

I wonder... if there is no global warming, what is happening? because i sure as hell don't buy the fact its natural warming. lets see where to begin, how about the world was all tropical 1000's of years ago? well 10's of 1000's of years ago the continents all existed together on one giant super-continent called pangea, located by the equator, that would explain it being tropical. second, who here actually knows how they know what the weather was like 1000's of years ago? oh! i do! they can study rocks and ice to find this out, a piece of ice or rock can be identified different by shape and color. now a time period that was particularly warm will have much smother rocks and ice do to rain and snow fall. it will have a lot more co2 and oxygen bubbles traped inside. a year that was colder will be more jaged and have less oxygen and c02 bubbles in it. what did they notice warmer years tended to have a lot more co2 than the coller years. :0 shcoker i know. so now lets review shal we? ok first we learnd about how we can tell the weather in the past, by looking at ice and rock, we also learned that there is a colilation between the amount of co2 and heat. ok now lets move on. today we produce far more amounts of c02 than ever have been produced before, oh i know that its only a small percentage of the atmosphere but think, we are also destroying 1000's forests. what are in forests? trees! good, and what do trees do? trees take in c02, use it for photosynthesis and then expel oxygen. so if we are producing more c02 and cutting down things that can take it away...doesn't that mean more c02 is remaining? yes very good you are all catching on! now why c02 why does that make the world hotter? good question. lets begin with temperature, what is temperature? the measure of aver kenetic energy? what is kinetic energy, the average motion. so now what is temperature is the measure of average motion! good, now your getting it. so then why c02, well c02 absorbs heat better than oxygen and the vibrates faster and then causing the temperature to rise and create more heat! and that is the very essence of global warming!. now i know, the temperature has only gone up on average 3 degrees sence the beggingin of the 1800s(around beginning of the industrial revolution). only three degrees? wow! but actully temperature going up 3 degrees in 200 years is extreamly fast, so fast that species are dying its changing to quickly for things to adapt, glaciers are melting(if you want to go to glacier bay you better go quickly), oceans are rising too . im confused but do you knwo what that means? no more manhattan, no more New Orleans, no more cape code, now mew Netherlands, say good by to at least 1000's of islands. sence the industrial revolution there have beeen on average mor hurricanes a year than ever before,becaus ehuricans survive off warm water and warm air. maybe you people don't know this but global warming doesn't mean everywhere gets hot all at once in fact England is(will be) getting colder because of it. earth warming is changing wind patterns and it affects the goulf stream which suplies England and ierland with nice warm air, that's why ierland has palm trees on its outhern tip. so please look you have to notice that eveverything is not all right, gore may have made it seem a bit worse than it, bush does it with terroism i don't see you people jumping all over his back, EVERYBODY KEEP ON THE LOOK OUT, MAYBE ONE DAY THERE MIGHT BE A SLIGHT POSSIBILITY THAT SOMEWHERE AND SOMEPLCE THEIR MIGHT BE A TERROSIT ATTACK, BE AFRAID! is but global warming is still a threat to the world, it is still something that needs to be dealt with, and the United States not going along is not helping sence we do produce the most c02. just do simple stuff, turn off you lights, recycle can you get 5 censt for them. don't be ignorant we are killing the world, we are killing plants and animals we are killing ourselves. we need to act soon. to answer his question about giving eberything up, we don't, lets begin with the electric car that lobyist killed. that was eco friendly, it was fast too. electricity?!? just turns your lights off more often, or open a window or go for a swim and turn the air conditioners off. and dear me, god didn't save the people of katrina, a hurricane born out of global warming, and we all know bush didn't do much either, and don't tell me he did save them cuz they all still live in crap conditions and surving on barly anything, if that's salvation, boy i don't wana know what hell is like. so please for me, for yourself, you children, grandchildren and everyone else, stop being ignorant.--Americaman 00:05, 2 August 2007 (EDT)

Faith Versus Responsibility

I'm troubled by the viewpoints expressed here implying that earthly problems are not man's responsibility to address, because God is the solution to all problems. If one believes in God and the Bible, then it seems that goes hand-in-hand with the belief that we have been appointed to be the caretakers of this planet for the time we are here. Any eternal punishment or reward, then, would surely consider how good a job we did as caretakers.

It's not the job of a caretaker to manage things beyond one's control, but if it turns out that can control factors that hurt the state of the planet if left unchecked, then we're doing a bad job if we ignore the problem or "leave it in God's hands". I don't think reasonable people believe that we can dump waste into the oceans indefinitely without negative consequences. Why, then, is it such a reach to believe that if our actions dump CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that we're not contributing to a similar problem?

I'm against knee-jerk overreaction to the issues of global warming - we're not going to stop driving or shut down powerplants anytime soon. That's no excuse, though, for ignoring our role as caretakers and expecting the entity that gave us the job to think kindly of that choice. We should apply sound science to understanding the impacts of our actions, and then make the changes a responsible caretaker would. --DinsdaleP 12:53, 8 November 2008 (EST)

Warming_Trends

So your telling me mankind is the cause and solution? Then why are there correlating warming trends on Mars and Neptune? I guess there must be people creating global warming on those planets too? Or how about the previously warm periods in Earth history when mankind wasn't yet even a factor? Like when Greenland was actually green and vineyards were growing in England. Kinda destroys the myth when you actually study the history of climate? How about you find out that the real reason is an attempt to control national economies. By putting emission caps on everything and everyone (who can't afford carbon credits) to control production, travel, as well as how much electricity or children you can have. I believe that is what we call totalitarianism. Also known as Globalism. When will people wake up and look behind the little curtain like the one in OZ?--Roopilots6 08:41, 1 June 2007 (EDT)