I have a friend who thinks theres no such thing as global warming. He thinks its something that scientist created to try to get people to be more eco friendly. When I say what about the average temps rising, ice melting and various other facts he simply states the earth has warmed and cooled on its own the same way for millions of years. Which really ____es me off. The evidence is right in front of his little fat face and hes blind to it.

Please tell me someone understands my pain

 

I don't know....I saw this just this morning. Global warming seems hard to deny.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science....ap/index.html

 

It's like talking to a really dumb wall or George Bush

 

i havent seen snow in my area since last winter... i was going to work in short sleeves the week of cristmas... uhhhh....
1987 - A storm off the Middle Atlantic Coast produced heavy snow in the Appalachians and the northeastern U.S. Snow and high winds created blizzard conditions in southeastern Massachusetts. Cape Cod received thirteen inches of snow, and snow drifts three feet deep were reported around Chatham MA. Strong winds produced wind chill readings as cold as 60 degrees below zero in southwestern New England.

 

I feel your pain. The right-wing ditto-heads were busy listening to Rush Limbaugh who kept saying it was a consipiracy by scientists in order to obtain grant money. I'm not kidding either, he said it on his radio show at least 3 times a week, usually more.

There is zero question as to whether or not the earth is in a warming. There is some question as to how much humans are contributing to this. The ones who typically question our contribution the most are the ones who have little to no understanding of how the physical works. What they do is usually throw in non-sequitor diabtribe about how they (the goofy scientists who can't even predict the weather! ) thought the Earth was cooling in the 70's, or how one volcano throws out more CO2 in one blast than all cars combined since the beggining of time could possibly throw out ....... Whatever. Humans are spewing out CO2 at unprecedented rates today. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The greenhouse effect is what makes things hot. Duh. Jeebs, we are watching the polor ice caps melt in real time! How much more proof is needed here?

 

when every block of ice is melted and we are knee deep in water... theyre gonna say that all the scientists and weathermen and tree huggers got together and flushed all the toilets in america at the same time....

 

Hey, I can adjust. When I finally get a few acres in the mountains at about 3500-7500ft above sea level, it'll be worth a fortune when it suddenly becomes it's own island.

 

I was just thinking of purchasing some land on top of a mountain Sooner than later it will be beach front property

 

And I thought you wanted to have a real debate.

 

Can you please clarify what you mean?

 

Your words: The evidence is right in front of his little fat face and hes blind to it.

That indicates that your mind is closed to this matter and no one will sway you. That is fine by me, But, to say things like "he is blind to it" means that it is ok for you to be stubborn to a fact, but no one else can be.

You might want to revisit your sig line.

 

Temperatures might be rising, but yes, the question is how much are we affecting the temperatures? It's said that creatures like cows contribute more greenhouses gases (methane in particular) than industry and vehicles combined.

Regardless, we don't know what will happen. There's only fear. Am I saying its wrong? Not really, but I think we should also open our minds to the possibility that it may be a normal cyclical phenomenon. If we subscribe to current geological time histories, then the Earth has naturally cooled and heated up.

We may simply be in the midst of a heating up... or even a cooling down. I'm not sure if any of you have heard of "global cooling," but its an interesting little theory that states that greenhouses gases will eventually reach a critical state where a majority of insolation is actually blocked, possibly propelling the Earth into another ice age.

It was featured on a Nova episode. I think what they did (in just a simple example) was to compare the average temperature before and immediately after 9/11 (when all US flights were grounded). They actually found a notable decrease in temperatures (I think, my memory is a bit hazy on this example) on the day when flights were still in operation.

Anyway, I don't have a conclusion on it. I don't believe people who say there is no global warming. But, I also don't believe people who say that global warming will be the end of us all "OMGZ."

We just don't know enough of what happens, since first of all we haven't been around long enough and most importantly people didn't really start really studying and collecting data until relatively recently (when viewed in a geologic timescale).

Keep your minds open guys

However, I should say, I'm not advocating apathy. We are responsible for this place in which we live. I don't think we need to take drastic measures to "save the earth," since I believe that even if we stop it would take hundreds of years to clean up our pollutants.

We need to clean up the place we and the creatures we live with at least for the sake of our and our children's health. The Earth is our home - would you trash your own house?

 

Well said paul!

 

de·bate (dĭ-bāt')

A formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition.

A discussion involving opposing points; an argument

You do make an interesting points that I don't agree with. To me it seems so illogical that he cant concede defeat on his standpoint when day after day new material is presented/published. I'm not arguing that earth doesnt warm and cool on its own. Since the industrial revolution temps have been going up. Gases created through human industrial and agricultural practices (primarily carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and wood, as well as methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons) increase the heat-reflecting potential of the atmosphere, thereby raising the planet's average temperature.

Man is the cause and affect of this problem

 

Man might have contributed to this problem, but man has not caused it, and man cannot stop it. No matter how many people get together on a volcano and chant happy thoughts, that volcano will still erupt if conditions are right.

How can you stand by temperature readings from 100 years ago when data aquisition was rudementry at best with the high tech systems we have today? Let alone 500 years ago when no one even had thermometers?
Let's be generous here...say there is scientific research that says 100,000 years ago the earth was 10 degrees cooler, how are they measuring it? How are they proving it?

 

So, uhm, how many cows do you think would be alive today if they weren't a cheif food source for humans? So, let's say you replaced 90% of the acerage devoted to beef and milk with veggies or open green space. How would that affect matters?

Now, I'm not going to become a vegetarian anytime soon, and I dare you to take my brisket out of my hand, but you offered the cows into the debate as if it were completely natural for us to have the cow population that we currently have.

 

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, highest and driest continent on Earth. That's right - the driest ! Antarctica is a desert. The annual precipitation of snow, averaged across the continent, is about 30 centimetres, which is equivalent to about 10 centimetres of water. In some locations as little as 2 centimetres (water equivalent) is recorded. Because of the low temperatures, however, there is little or no melt. Thus the snow has accumulated year after year for thousands of years and, with time, is compressed to ice to form the Antarctic ice sheet. Approximately 98 per cent of the Antarctic continent is covered by the ice sheet which is on average about 2,500 metres thick and, at it's deepest location, 4,700 metres thick. It is due to this thick ice mass that Antarctica is, on average, the highest continent. Since the ice sheet is formed by the accumulation of snow year after year, by drilling from the surface down through the ice sheet, we drill our way back in time. Ice drills are designed to collect a core as they cut through the ice, so samples are collected that are made up of ice deposited (in the form of snow) [b]many thousands of years ago.
[/b]
As the snow is deposited on top of the ice sheet each year, it traps different chemicals and impurities which are dissolved in the ice. The ice and impurities hold information about the Earth's environment and climate at the time of deposition. A variety of different analyses techniques are used to extract that information.

 

This encyclopedia of time THE ICE will only be around for so long to gain this important valuable info.

On a side note I love to have discussion or debates so keep up the good work

A dairy cow will expel 120 pounds of fecal waste every day, as much as two dozen people (conservatively estimated). Multiply that times the 650 cows that are in the average California herd and the result is a daily waste output for each herd equivalent to that of 17,550 people. That means that California’s dairy cows expel more waste every day than the entire human population of the state!

Much of the rain forest being pulled down to be used for cattle farms. I believ thats a tripple whammy.

1.Pulling down rain forest
2.Cattle use a ton of fresh water and produce a ton of feces
3.Even more methane

 

OK, good point, I didn't realize the drilling facts...


But I still stand by the fact that nature creates more pollutants than man and nature can also clean up more pollutants than man.
Man needs to be as protective of nature as possible, but to think that man has caused global warming is giving man just a little too much credit.....
The earth goes thru cycles, and as stated earlier, this might just be one of her cycles.

 

Source >
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/veget...rpollution.htm


A. The global effects of meat consumption don’t stop
on land. Agriculture also requires water consumption,
and animal agriculture is no exception. Animal
production consumes an amount of water roughly
equivalent to all other uses of water in the United
States combined. Besides grains, animals need water to
survive and grow until they are slaughtered. One pound
of beef requires an input of approximately 2500
gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250
gallons of water and a pound of wheat only 25 gallons.
Meat production is inefficient as it requires the
consumption of an extensive amount of resources over
many months and years before becoming a usable food
product. With the water used to produce a single
hamburger, you could take a luxurious shower every day
for two and a half weeks.
Even the EPA identifies agriculture as a major water
pollutant.

(1) Agricultural pesticides and nitrates used in
fertilizers and manures seep into our groundwater,
eventually spilling out into the oceans creating
so-called “dead zones” (expansive areas so toxic that
neither plant nor animal life can survive) viewable
from space in places like the Gulf of Mexico where the
Mississippi spills out into the sea. Besides the
chemicals used in cultivation, accidental pollution
though chemical spills and manure dumps are an ongoing
source of water pollution from feedlots. The manure
created from the billions of animals killed for food
has to go somewhere, and often, it ends up in rivers
and streams, killing millions of fish in one fell
swoop (2).

Previous: Rainforest Depletion and Destruction

Previous: Meat Consumption and Fossil Fuels

Sources:
(1) US Environmental Protection Agency. 1984. Report
to Congress: Nonpoint Source Pollution in the US
Office of Water Program Operations, Water Planning
Division. Washington, D.C.

(2) Merritt Frey, et al., Spills and Kills: Manure
Pollution and America's Livestock Feedlots, Clean
Water Network, Izaak Walton League of America and
Natural Resources Defense Council (August 2000)