Leading Global Warming Skeptic changes mind after watching Al Gore Speak

[Drakonix]

High level nuclear waste is commonly processed by immobilizing it in borosilicate glass ("Pyrex", "Duran").

[albed]

Originally Posted by albed
It's actually an example that Al Gore doesn't really have the concern for the environment that he claims or he wouldn't be abusing it to such an extraordinary degree, just as Jimmy Swaggart doesn't really believe god exists or he wouldn't be provoking his wrath.

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

Neither of those assertions are necessarily true at all in the real world of course, but if such baseless assumptions help you cling to your bias and dysfunctional version of reality, that's your perogative.

When someones actions conflict with their words then only the weakest minds continue to believe their words.

Originally Posted by albed
...and your own claim that global warming can cause global cooling clearly shows just how unquestioning you in particular are.

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

That is not 'my claim,' it is a theory. (You really just can't help spinning everything can you?) I've not taken any position on its truth, but you can't seem to help yourself from insisting I have,

You've used it in your argument so if you don't think it's true that would make you a hypo...ahh, would make you Ramona.

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

In fact when you, or Mazer or Drakonix or anyone else who maintains anthropogenic climate changes are "not supported by science" can produce one bit of scientific evidence that conclusively refutes it, (repeating variations of the phrase over and over doesn't count by the way), I will no longer assume we are merely listening to your preferred beliefs ad nauseum and at that time I will revisit the unlikely assertion that you've managed to transcend science and draw a valid conclusion from an inconclusive set of data and get back to you.

When something doesn't exist it produces no "proof" of its non-existance, only an absence of evidence. You've become as pathetic as the rest of the religious lamers who demand the same "proof" that god doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

Meanwhile, if you really think the current quality and rate of increase of human industry can continue unchecked indefinitely without any environmental repercussions, I suggest you go sit in the garage with your car running for awhile and think about it some more.

While your own religious brainwashing prevents you from comprehending it, more rational people understand that the environment in the U.S. and other advanced countries has actually improved significantly in the past several decades in spite of increased industrial activity and this improvement is spreading to other countries.

And if you think the modern diesel engine in my pickup will cause carbon monoxide poisoning you're once again displaying your vast ignorance.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

Mazer, at last, the real villains are revealed!

Cute, but you know I didn't mean it that way. Africa, China, South America, and many other places are rich in resources and are developing as a result. Most of those places don't have the benefit of our environmental protection laws, not to mention our labor and human rights laws. Because of their weak economies they will develop their industries with little regard to public health as we did more than a hundred years ago. Our economy went up when we started taking public health seriously because our natural resources are totally worthless without a strong labor force. Cleaning the air, the water, the soil, all make economic sense in the long run. But when a poor nation suffers a market correction or a recession, environmental issues go on the back burner in favor of the short term issues. That nation's industries will pollute and abuse the environment for as long as it takes for the economy to recover. When they are poor they are sloppy and reckless. When they are not then they're like us, not only concerned about the environment but able to do something about it.

We should be helping poor nations develop for humanitarian reasons, those are more pressing and more immediate than the environmental ones. Along the way we can give them the benefit of our experience, help them preserve their environments now so they won't have to restore them later. But we've become so jaded that we believe the environment is of greater moral concern than world wide poverty. Unfortunately we can't solve poverty by protecting the environment. But knowing that we can protect the environment by solving poverty I think it's time to put the "Oh No, capitalism and greed and free trade is going to destroy the World" argument to bed. Those things won't necessarily save it but the rest of the world will industrialize eventually. Everyone will harvest their ores and their coal beds and their forests and their farm lands, and if we don't help them then we can't stop them from repeating our mistakes.

[Nicobie]

Originally Posted by multi

oh wow .. what a fucking genious you are NIc..

Thank you...

Common sense isn't so common is it.


Maybe you can take a class. Maybe you can get someone to pay for it as it's obvious that you haven't been able to afford it

[albed]

He's really not that smart multi. Don't let him intimidate you.

[albed]

Originally Posted by Mazer

We should be helping poor nations develop for humanitarian reasons,

The "poor nations" have already suffered enough from all the humanitarian help they've received. First advanced medical care to cause their populations to balloon, then food relief to keep them from starving as they destroy the sustainable ecological balance they've maintained for millenia, and now huge numbers of uneducated, unemployed adults with little to do but start massacres, spread aids and destroy their environment.

Large parts of the world would be much better off today if not for all that "humanitarian" help.

[Mazer]

That's because humanitarian efforts have been spearheaded by well meaning imbeciles up 'til now. They've tried to provide what in America would be called welfare, and you're right, their booming populations can no longer sustain their former standards of living (which weren't very high to begin with). Now they haven't a choice, they must industrialize just to survive. Helping them to do so wouldn't be charity because we'd be profiting from it, but it would be the right thing to do, assuming we don't patronize the kinds of business that use slave labor or dump raw sewage into rivers. Since we can't undo the disruptions all our humanitarianism has caused then we may as well invite the rest of the world to join the twenty first century.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Originally Posted by albed

When someones actions conflict with their words then only the weakest minds continue to believe their words.

Again, logical fallacy. If someone came up to you and said "it is not good to shoot yourself in the head" and then shot himself in the head, not only would you probably continue to believe their words, you might even have more reason than before to do so.

But, while hardly an absolute, I must admit it is an excellent portrait of Bush and his supporters over the past years.

Originally Posted by albed

You've used it in your argument so if you don't think it's true that would make you a hypo...

I used it in my argument as an inconclusive, because my argument is that it's inconclusive, you just can't stand to hear it apparently. I don't have the luxury to approach information and pretend I'm determining its truth by simply sorting it into two categories according to which political agendists find it more popular. That process obviously must be very satisfying for you in some way, but I'll just have to slag along evaluating the merit of ideas according to their own particular cases and inherent characteristics, sometimes not reaching a primary conclusion at all.

Originally Posted by albed

When something doesn't exist it produces no "proof" of its non-existance, only an absence of evidence. You've become as pathetic as the rest of the religious lamers who demand the same "proof" that god doesn't exist.

It is nonsensical to ask for proof of non-existence, but that's not what I asked and just shows the level of your misconception. Anthropogenic changes to the environment are a fact. A fart is one instance, so we have evidence these changes exist.

This is from the EPA "State of Knowledge" site:

What's Known

Scientists know with virtual certainty that:

• Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.
• The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
• A warming trend of about 0.7 to 1.5°F occurred during the 20th century. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans.
• The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.
• Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

What's Likely?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities". In short, a number of scientific analyses indicate, but cannot prove, that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to climate change (as theory predicts). In the coming decades, scientists anticipate that as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise, average global temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise as a result and precipitation patterns will change.

What's Not Certain?

Important scientific questions remain about how much warming will occur, how fast it will occur, and how the warming will affect the rest of the climate system including precipitation patterns and storms. Answering these questions will require advances in scientific knowledge in a number of areas:

• Improving understanding of natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, land-use changes, the warming or cooling effects of pollutant aerosols, and the impacts of changing humidity and cloud cover.
• Determining the relative contribution to climate change of human activities and natural causes.
• Projecting future greenhouse emissions and how the climate system will respond within a narrow range.
• Improving understanding of the potential for rapid or abrupt climate change.

You pretend to know that the sum cumulative effect of these changes is negligible and that certain subsequent changes are not occurring and will not occur. Your vague, primitive and virtually unsubstantiated premise seems to be that man will apparently never alter the environment significantly enough to change the weather patterns and elemental distributions which sustain its current climate. This is a theorem exactly as global warming is a theorem, about things which do exist, and one which does produce what some people consider supporting evidence--which you would think might be worth at least mentioning or attributing to some scientist or another if you had indeed arrived at it through the careful personal evaluation of all the conflicting evidence as you claim.

That global warming is alarmism and stupid and thought up by manipulative hypocrites isn't evidence pertaining to your premise, but that seems to be all you got.

Lack of evidence for one thing is not evidence for another. You're still just chattering about your beliefs like a little monkey.

Originally Posted by albed

While your own religious brainwashing prevents you from comprehending it, more rational people understand that the environment in the U.S. and other advanced countries has actually improved significantly in the past several decades in spite of increased industrial activity and this improvement is spreading to other countries.

I suppose if I were religious in any way that would be cutting. As it is in reality I simply understand that global warming is a probability that may have consequences and therefor it is in our best interest to limit our affect on the environment in whatever ways what we can, and you sound rather hysterical.

And 'improved significantly' isn't really science either, is it? Sounds more like a parrotsquawk to me.

Mazer, charming rhetoric and point well taken, but various estimates show that 70%+ of the total global deforestation, for instance, is the direct result of commercial logging, farming and ranching. Greed is absolutely part of the equation. You can "put the argument to bed" all you want, but the reality ain't goin' to sleep.

collage:
...The "poor nations" have already suffered enough from all the humanitarian help they've received.
...Large parts of the world would be much better off today if not for all that "humanitarian" help.
...because humanitarian efforts have been spearheaded by well meaning imbeciles
...Since we can't undo the disruptions all our humanitarianism has caused

LMFAO

You guys are talking about Iraq, right? Glad to see it finally sink in!

HAR HAR HAR

[Mazer]

Well, I was talking mostly about African nations, but the same does apply to Iraq. I'm hopeful our troops will no longer need to be stationed there and our mission there will become a humanitarian one. Domestic politics will of course make that next to impossible after 2008. But aside from Iraq, Africa has the greatest number of people with the greatest need and we can't ignore that forever.

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

Mazer, charming rhetoric and point well taken, but various estimates show that 70%+ of the total global deforestation, for instance, is the direct result of commercial logging, farming and ranching. Greed is absolutely part of the equation. You can "put the argument to bed" all you want, but the reality ain't goin' to sleep.

And the reality is that greed, or at least greedy behavior, gives people options. International Paper probably won't stop using tree pulp and switch to 100% recycled fiber for their products, but that is an option available to them, and because they have that discretion we can judge the morality of their business practices. But no matter how we judge them they are better off having the freedom to choose, as are we all.

There are a lot of good reasons to limit the spread commercialism, but the fear of greed is just not one of them. We've shown the impoverished people of the world that they can have more if they want it, and guess what, they do want more and there is nothing wrong with that. Greed is necessary to motivate people to get themselves out of poverty. It's a vice and a sin, but it is like you say a fundamental part of the equation, and we can't balance that equation if we try to limit commercial greed.

[albed]

I'd believe that he thought it was good for him to shoot himself in the head and that his opinion that it's not good for others may still be valid. Can't you even produce a hypothetical that contains cognitive dissonance? Maybe you need to check the definition.

Blah, blah, blah, a lot of hot air just to say you disagree with me without actually believing in the basis of your disagreement. Pathetic but typical; you stand for nothing and are against people who stand for anything.

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

In fact when you, or Mazer or Drakonix or anyone else who maintains anthropogenic climate changes are "not supported by science" can produce one bit of scientific evidence that conclusively refutes it,...

Can't understand your own writing huh? Not suprising, your ability to understand anything seems severely impared.

Originally Posted by Ramona

You pretend to know that the sum cumulative effect of these changes is negligible and that certain subsequent changes are not occurring and will not occur.

Have any quotes to support that? My actual opinion is it's not a big deal and the people getting scared by that information are weak-minded idiots.

Originally Posted by Ramona

Your vague, primitive and virtually unsubstantiated premise seems to be that man will apparently never alter the environment significantly enough to change the weather patterns and elemental distributions which sustain its current climate.

That may be what it seems like to your warped mind but it really is that scumbag politicians are scaring all you clueless, gullible lackeys with predictions of doom and gloom if great restrictions aren't put on the rest of humanity; all while they make extraordinarily hypocritical violations of those proposed restrictions themselves.

Originally Posted by Ramona

This is a theorem exactly as global warming is a theorem,

The lack of something isn't something in itself. You just can't understand even that simple logic so it's no suprise you can't understand more complex reasoning.

That global warming is alarmism and stupid and thought up by manipulative hypocrites isn't evidence pertaining to your premise, but that seems to be all you got.

That's all I really claim to have. You do seem capable of understanding my opinion after all.

Lack of evidence for one thing is not evidence for another. You're still just chattering about your beliefs like a little monkey.

So now you're taking my position. Only you would argue against both sides of a debate without taking either side yourself.

[Drakonix]

Well, settling this "discussion" should be easy.

Global warming would actually mean freakish weather and an increasingly cold climate.

Show us ANY scientifically based evidence that the climate getting COLDER is a sign the climate is getting WARMER and you win the debate.

COLDER IS NOT WARMER, PERIOD.

Thank You for demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that the global warming theory is 100% fallacy.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Out of context:

Enough cold fresh water flowing into the North Atlantic (a basic ramification of global warming) could cause changes in the gulf stream and other ocean currents which keep North America and Europe relatively warm and would lead to a disruption of weather patterns and, ultimately, the seasons themselves. Global warming would actually mean freakish weather and an increasingly cold climate.

The "would" follows from a "could." It is a hypothetical--but is the opinion of many scientists, the result of much research, speculation, computer simulations and models, and, given the fragility of the system and similar effects in earth's history caused by eruptions etc, it's not completely out of the question. Of course warm is not cold, but the basic transforming equation referred to is elementary and understood by the average fifth grader.

So, for the last time, while I know we are causing changes to the environment (fact), I have no evidence that global warming is either occurring or not, nor do I know what the subsequent consequences of global warming would be.

MY POINT IS THAT NEITHER DO YOU.

And yet you've just insisted, again, that it's fallacy. Seems you're willing to gamble with the future of the planet. Based on what?

Even if such 'ice age' theories are wrong and completely outrageous this does not in itself 'demonstrate' that global warming isn't occuring, nor would it indicate that all other probable results would be insignificant.

What we've established beyond a reasonable doubt that little albed's opinion about global warming isn't based on a single indicator germane to climatic research but is, as I postulated a few posts ago, based solely on his disdain of a political group he associates with the concept,

I felt this was important to make explicitly clear for my own sake because ignorant asshats much like our little albed have the potential to influence others into believing that the possibility of global warming and its consequences are nothing more than a liberal agenda, a concern only for mindless hippies and tree huggers and absurdly power mad presidential wannabees, and 'no big deal' for supposed 'rational people' who may not only arrogantly absolve themselves from concern about the issue itself, but should be ready to reject or at least deride any and all countermeasures entailing even the most subtle changes to the status quo.

This is most unfortunate as there is only one planet and we all have to live on it, even those with no respect for it.

But if such "conservative" and technological changes serve the future, regardless of whether or not the globe gets warmer or colder, we will ultimately have done the right thing to anticipate the need anyway. There are more of us every day, and the question of global warming is really just an aspect of the larger question of critical mass itself.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Originally Posted by Mazer

I'm hopeful our troops will no longer need to be stationed there and our mission there will become a humanitarian one.

"Become a humanitarian one?" Gee, I thought that was what was being argued all along. Hussein! Despot! Eliminate! Operation Iraqi Freedom! Rebuild! Democracy! Aren't these all supposedly humanitarian goals and how dare we sit idly by while do-dah scooby-dooby-do?

But of course I think I know what you mean, humanitarian being more like food, clothing, shelter, aid and education and not, like, shooting and car bombs. ...But isn't that the kind of humanitarian aid you were just bemoaning? Seems like a cascade of contradictions there.

Domestic politics will of course make that next to impossible after 2008.

Not sure why you think that. Whoever Bush's successor will be, in the face of around 70% disapproval with the handling of Iraq, they'll probably have run on a platform of shifting gears and will follow through to some extent in an attempt to change the perception of our involvement. Reducing our military numbers there is surely the most humanitarian option at this point, even though our presence there in any form will no doubt continue to draw fire for some time.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

But of course I think I know what you mean, humanitarian being more like food, clothing, shelter, aid and education and not, like, shooting and car bombs. ...But isn't that the kind of humanitarian aid you were just bemoaning? Seems like a cascade of contradictions there.

I would bemoan such aid if it turned Iraq into a welfare state but with their oil profit sharing plan I don't think that's likely. I used the word humanitarian when I probably should have used the word diplomatic, but you got what I meant.

Originally Posted by Drakonix

Show us ANY scientifically based evidence that the climate getting COLDER is a sign the climate is getting WARMER and you win the debate.

COLDER IS NOT WARMER, PERIOD.

Forgive Ramona for his ignorance, he isn't explaining the thermohaline circulation shutdown theory very well. A good overview of the process is available here and more details are here. What Ramona meant to say is that when large volumes of warm fresh water flow into the north Atlantic ocean the Gulf Stream flow will slow or even stop, causing regional, not global, cooling in Europe. Were this to happen northern Europe's climate would eventually be more like that of northern Canada. But most scientists agree that the likelihood of it happening is very low, even if carbon dioxide concentrations were doubled.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Pfft. Well, at least I got one of you fuckers to actually look at a website and learn a pretty new word, instead of standing there with a wrinkled nose going "NUH-UH" over and over because someone told you it was "unscientific."

Of course now you're an expert all over again. LOL.

As far as my explanation, from your own link:

One way to estimate the effect of the THC is to switch it off in coupled climate models (by adding a lot of freshwater to the northern Atlantic), and compare the surface climate before and after switching it off. Roughly, this leads to a cooling with a maximum of ~10K over the Nordic Seas (e.g., [12, 17]).

Another:

In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm.

[albed]

So all that heat stays in the tropics and part of the world gets warmer while another part gets cooler and you somehow make that into "global cooling".

Have you no reasoning ability at all?

[albed]

Originally Posted by Ramoa

I have no evidence that global warming is either occurring or not, nor do I know what the subsequent consequences of global warming would be.

MY POINT IS THAT NEITHER DO YOU.

And yet you've just insisted, again, that it's fallacy. Seems you're willing to gamble with the future of the planet. Based on what?

Common sense.

I can imagine you driving down the road and slamming on your brakes every 10 yards because someone might possibly pull into your path or cross into your lane and cause a crash. Even though there's no evidence, it still a possibility and being the irrational nutcase that you are, you think your behaviour is perfectly sensible and moreover that everyone should drive like you.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

Pfft. Well, at least I got one of you fuckers to actually look at a website and learn a pretty new word

You can't take credit for that. This is an issue I've studied since before multi started this thread. But this is a political forum and we're here to talk about our opinions. When I want to talk about the science behind this issue I normally go elsewhere to do it (it's a lot easier to do when people don't assume that your skepticism is politically driven). I don't come running to this place with links to every web page I read, it's not my mission to correct every factual mistake others post here, and I only did so yesterday because you were turning this valid scientific theory into sensationalist bullshit, it was embarrassing. You come to this discussion with no real understanding of the issue and then you have the gall to say that none of the rest of us understand it either? This is a side of you I've never seen before, Ramona. It's disappointing, I gotta tell ya.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Wow, I feel really bad to be the one responsible for bringing the intellectual caliber of this forum so far down. Suppose I should just let you and your egghead conservative science critic buddies get back to jokes about the weather and asserting that global warming can't exist because Al Gore's electric bill is so high and other real science. And I would like to apologize unreservedly for stooping to the sensationalist bullshit of maintaining that data pertaining to the consequences of global warming are inconclusive.

I usually go elsewhere for an intelligent discussion myself. It's not just easier to do when people don't assume that your skepticism is politically driven, it's possible.

[Nicobie]

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

I would like to apologize unreservedly for stooping to the sensationalist bullshit of maintaining that data pertaining to the consequences of global warming are inconclusive.

Well, even though I never expected it, that's big of you and probably right too.