Global Warming and a punch on the nose!
The next time I bump into a global warming denier I am going to punch them very hard on the nose.
I have just completed mowing my lawn. It was luxuriant, damp and muddy. I had to do that because the grass had become so long.
Mowing grass in November is bad enough but I had to do it in December last year – in the North of England!!! That is absurd!! The only time I’ve ever done that before was when I was living in Los Angeles!
Perhaps the deniers will start to believe now? One too many ‘once in a hundred years’ events. Perhaps they have to be flooded, blown away or burnt out before they start to see the obvious!
Need some common sense here. And if you do what you claim, better be someone weak. I suggest that if you are going to punch someone, pick on someone bigger than you to demonstrate your true commitment to your beliefs.
Yes – you’re right – violence is never an answer to anything, is it?
But as the fires rage in Australia and California, the sea levels rise, the glaciers melt, the floods come and storms rage some people still want to ignore the experts. Stupidity knows no bounds when there’s profit to be made.
Opher, which “experts” are you listening to? And to what end does this fit in with your purpose in life? Why does this concern you so much? I too have listened to “experts”, but also looked up “experts” not popular by media standards, and did my own research. This is why I am not concerned that “we” can destroy the world. It’s not possible. Yes, the world can change, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that any real changes have more to do with the solar system and the Earth itself, as when there were no people on the Earth and changes happened all the time. Change is part of the Earth. Glaciers melting and all that happens, will happen, and glaciers will increase with time. By the way, I make no money by researching and thinking for myself. I’m calm. Think for myself. Research. And wonder why others believe without real understanding or real research. When someone says, research shows, I always ask to see the research. They have never shown it to me. I’m waiting. If anyone has the research, present so I can add to the research I also have. Demonstrate and show how your facts, supported by past evidence, with numerous papers. I have time to read.
No Dolphin – historians say that the first sign that humans move into an area is the annihilation of all megafauna. We destroy the environment. In my lifetime I have witnessed huge deterioration. Species that were common are now rare. I am a biologist I read the reports and it is backed up by the evidence of my own eyes. The world is being systematically destroyed. There is no room for complacency. 95% of all scientists are in agreement. The evidence is all around you from shrinking glaciers, rising seas, warming seas, coral death, species extinction, population collapses, rainforest loss. What is so hard to understand?
Thanks Opher, for your information, which I will be researching. Will take time. However, in my research and understanding, I checked on how detailed the research is, which compared to how complex and large the world and solar system is, even that the sun has a much bigger impact than anything we ever could do, and devastations occurred when humans weren’t on the Earth, from what the scientists share. Of course, I question this and everything else. Perhaps, if you have your reports on web sites, or published, you could give us the web sites and/or titles which we could look up at a book store or library. Recently, I’ve come across detailed sharing of growing glaciers. Also, looked up that the Earth has been on a cooling cycle the past decade or so. Also, looked up that there is no real water levels rising, unless a micro-inch or less is cause for concern, but how would we know. But with everything you know, to go from what you see to human’s destroying is still a far stretch. Meaning, these things happen, and happen whether we’re here or not, but also the world is extremely durable. There’s also the connection between what humans do (which you and I are a part) and results, which are not linked as the media would share. It’s like saying a fire happened and must be due to humans, even though fires happen in dry season, and fires are actually necessary as part of the trees evolution (And then, they try to “fix” the problem by preventing clearing of trees, which causes hotter fires.). Regarding what you’ve shared, yes, I looked up those, but have never seen a clear explanation relating to humans, certainly not on a global scale. Yes, we can damage, but the Earth is stronger. Remember the gulf oil eruption, when a blown rig caused the pouring of oil into the waters? Millions of gallons (They never told you that this naturally occurs when the oil always seeps oil into the ocean.) poured. So, what did they do? They got little boats and stuff, starting cleaning up, having very little effect. Well, after some time, they went out one day, thinking they had a lot of cleaning to do, and all the oil was gone. The ocean took care of it. Little amebas, who love eating oil, ate it all up. To the ocean, the oil spill was a drop (Did the calculations.). Yes, we should prevent such things, for animals died from this, but I would never go from disasters to global disasters. But the real question is why is this something to spend endless hours thinking about?
They estimate 500 million creatures have died so far in the Australian bush fires – caused by three years of drought and record temperatures. Unprecedented ferocity.
Dolphin – that concerns me. As a biologist I care about animals and I take note of the dwindling populations. Insects and mammals 50% less than a mere thirty years ago. I see it around me.
Yes the sun has an effect but there has not been a change in output. This is manmade.
Hey, Opher, thanks for your input. These are things I do read and take account. The other day, I pondered upon some things. When I go fishing, when I see trash everywhere, I think parents need to set an example for their kids. It looks bad, shows poor judgement, and some creature might eat it and get sick. When I heard of the gulf oil explosion, I thought some animals are going to die, others suffer, and if we can prevent such things, we should. In L.A, where I’ve visited, there used to be a smog cloud (has improved markedly), and through innovations, the air is more breathable, but we all know the mountainscape has more to do with that then industry, though we should improve, which better air lessens chronic breathing problems as asthma. When I learned about these effects of nuclear explosions, that radiation has long term effects, I thought we can do better, using barren, unpopulated sites and better testing methods. Of course, the scientists in this regard should know better.
The difficulty for one who believes man is causing the world to end is no method of testing can prove any such thing. We’re ants on the back of an elephant the size of Mercury. We’re nothing. Even nuclear warheads all going off at the same time is like a fart in the wind compared to the planet’s size and adaptability. If we killed every creature and human on the world, though some would survive, life would continue. We would be forgotten, but life would continue. We simply are nothing compared to the planet. And yes, I’ve done a ton of research, calculated the amount of land, water, and air, and researched other lands. What I’m saying is it’s good to lessen pollution, prevent groundwater contamination, help the air quality, more so in large cities, and pick up trash. I’m all for that. But like the childhood book where one animal cried that the sky was falling (I think an apple or something hit him in the head), creating fear among his companions, all this fear creation has had a strong effect. Yet, the planet is as it’s always been, always going through changes as it always had and will, and even if it did get a little warmer, that would increase plant growth, which would increase the oxygen level, helping humans and animals, which would lead to many other positive effects. You see, when the Earth was created, it was created extremely adaptable. Yes, we can hurt ourselves, and animals on local levels, but not to the end of the Earth.
I’ve pondered why people have become so engrossed in this, though my friends all understand the Earth is much stronger and there is no provable man-made anything (though, I like the research). Then, talking with a friend, we realized that humans have always been subject to fear, and that there have always been agencies that use the fear to gain control, perhaps because of their own fears. Like the person who believes in aliens are abducting people, there have been psychologists who discovered traumas that led to thinking like this. As I understand, people need to feel important. They need to have a purpose. And once most people find this purpose, it becomes their identity, it’s who they are, and gives them a feeling of importance, without which they feel lost. Like the military man, after 40 years of service, feeling empty in retirement, needing to go back in some fashion or other. Or the school teacher, when the system changes, and the old methods no longer are utilized, so even if they make enough money, can’t relax so tutors or teaches at a company. Or people who are replaced by computers. Perhaps this is why some people can never retire, but must continue working until they die. They simply have no identity (They do, but they don’t know how to find it.) outside what they think and do. Perhaps this is also what causes mid-life crisis, identity crisis, depression, and more.
For if I said, okay, that’s an interesting concept. Then, I research, encourage others to research, and encourage the youth to think for themselves, ponder, and research, arriving at no conclusion except what is known. In my youth, we called this the scientific method. You see something. You observe. You do studies. With time and tons of information, you have a theory. Then you test the theory. And perhaps, in your lifetime, you might prove something, or not. But along the way, you’ve learned a lot, perhaps learned about things you never would have had you not researched. But your identity isn’t locked into proving anything except what is. **But I’m to believe, that something as enormous and complex as the Earth, with the sun and entire solar system surrounding, that man can prove man is causing the destruction of the planet. In other words, the most complex thing we know, and they think they know all there is to know and have encapsulated all causes and effects to know we’re leading to its destruction. Sorry. Having seen errors by scientists and experts in the past, I won’t buy into that. I will listen. I will read. When I see what makes sense, to my scientific and logical mind, then I will consider. But it’s going to take a lot more than what I’ve read and heard to believe that there are more important things to occupy my mind. But I write this to get people to think for themselves, not live in fear, not go along to get along, not be popular, but really ponder and get on with their lives.
Driving across the United States, taking trips across the ocean, flying to other continents, reading, doing calculations, I realized we’re just too big, and the world amazing. That doesn’t mean we should be careless. We should be good stewards. But never to the extreme of the sky is falling. They’re already trying to get us to believe we can pollute space. I say, do the calculations.
Dolphin – thank you for your reply. I do agree that one should retain a critical eye when looking at any data. Cynicism is healthy – to a degree.
But we are in an age when the evidence from experts is not just challenged but it discounted without examination.
As for climate change I believe that the mass of evidence is now incontrovertible. The data on sea levels, glaciers, temperatures, carbon dioxide levels and weather conditions is alarming. The loss of habitat, dramatic fall in animal populations and pollution levels are frightening.
Yes the world is big. But it is not that big. I have circumvented it a few times. 8 billion human beings are having an enormous global impact. Even when our numbers were quite small – in prehistoric times – we had a noticeable impact. Historians say that the first evidence for humans moving into an area was the extinction of all the mega fauna. Even with low numbers we killed off so many of the large creatures – the giant turtles, kangaroos, sloths, mammoths etc. – that they became extinct.
Now our numbers are huge and our impact is enormous. Pesticides, agriculture and hunting are impacting tremendously.
Since the end of the Vietnam war two thirds of the Vietnamese jungle has been cut down and turned into plantations (mainly coffee). It is a story repeated in Brazil, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. We are systematically destroying the planet.
The carbon dioxide levels are a direct result of our burning of fossil fuels on an enormous scale.
Now whether you believe this global warming is the result of us or solar activity it seems obvious to me that if we can do something about it we should. The impact will be catastrophic for us and the species around us.
Yes we have had global warming and cooling before. They occur naturally. But they have been catastrophes for life and had a huge impact. Yes nature adapts. After we have gone, even if we have wiped most creatures out, life will return and prosper again – without us and without most of the species we live with. But do we want that? To me that is like saying that it is OK to blitz Dresden and nuke Hiroshima because the cities will be rebuilt.
I’d rather have Dresden, Hiroshima and the beautiful planet we live on.
Turning to alternative energy sources, limiting our population and looking after the species we live with is the way I would like to go. If a tragedy comes along that we can’t deal with then we will all be destroyed. So be it. But until then I do not want us to be the cause of that tragedy.
Yes, we should always seek better ways of utilizing energy, but far be it for me to be afraid the world will end or that we can do anything permanently destructive. Locally, yes. But even that works itself with time. We’re just not that important in respect to anything on a global scale, and again, how this thing became the focus of the media and minds. I simply do not trust anyone, organization, or entity, unless I here cogent talks and reasoning, seeing the understanding in the eyes. There has to be a reason. In the 70s, I believe, they said we were going into an ice age. Never happened. Then, global warming. It’s been cooling the past decade or so. Cyclical with the sun, the Earth also. Everything they’re talking about is in idea mode. And we simply don’t have the information to make such claims. **But if it’s a real concern and not hysteria driven, then I suggest individual do the studies, continue, for that’s how we learn. But I would hazard that humans could exist for another millennium, research and study, and still not prove a link: for the science is amazing and the world extremely complex and adaptive. One of these days, I might download information of the complexities I’ve read, which is only scratching the surface, and I encourage others to do so, if they’re truly curious and not emotionally/hysterically driven so they can think clearly. All the best.
Dolphin – I’m not sure how you can say that we are not impacting globally. Everywhere I have gone around the world I have witnessed the terrible effect of human ‘progress’. Two thirds of Vietnamese jungle gone. Is that not a huge impact? The same in Borneo, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, and Philippines. Deforestation alone is immense. Then look at the overfishing, the huge drop in mammal populations, the halving of insects. It is frightening. I think you greatly underestimate the impact of mankind. We are not local. We are global. Flying in over the amazon one is staggered by the sheer scale of barren land that has been cleared of forest.
I base my assessments as much on my own observations of the scale of what is going on. It is horrifying.
It’s not that I’m saying we don’t affect the world. Of course, through our developments, we are affecting. Absolutely. Where we have New York, at one time, it was a land of trees and creatures. People came, people developed, and progress continues. And yes, areas are deforested. And yes, some creatures in some areas end up leaving. I totally get all that. **What I’m saying is with everything, we’re still insignificant compared to the sheer immensity and complexity of this planet. We can effect. What we can’t do is destroy the Earth nor change the climate. Consider this, if we truly did know how we’re changing the climate (which is winter, spring, summer, and autumn, along with solar and systemic, natural changes), truly did see the linkages, then we can create positive changes, yet the ones suggesting also do not have the solutions, for the Earth will continue to adapt and repair damages. But in the mean time, we are looking for ways to improve. Which is good, locally, but not to the destruction of the Earth. It’s one thing to see problems, another to say the sky is falling.
Dolphin – we will not destroy all life but we have already created mass extinctions and devastated populations. Our effects are global. We are causing global changes and impacting heavily on populations. Deforestation is enormous. It is not local.
If we continue like this we will destroy nature as it is. What has taken millions of years to evolve will be gone. Billions of creatures will have been needlessly killed. Yes, after we are gone, nature will reinvent itself. A different set of creatures will evolve. But that, to me, is not a desirable outcome. I like the creatures we have and I want them to flourish. I do not like seeing them suffer.
To me what you are saying – if I can use an analogy – is that it would be OK for a plague to kill off seven and a half billion people because the survivors would begin to re-establish the population.
I would rather we did not have the plague.
Opher, I’m simply providing a perspective where people cannot prove anything, but I do believe the information I have and understand demonstrate far and large that we’re nowhere close to extinction (No real temperature variance outside normal, and our Earth has been cooling this past decade. Snow up the wazoo. Growing glaciers. Sea levels stable, which is why those purporting rising sea levels buy homes on the coast, right by the waters.) . Yes, I explained that damage can be done, but have also demonstrated damage always heals itself, in some situations taking longer. What we can do is locally, and that can have disastrous effects as when ground water is contaminated with serious chemicals and the local peoples’ water are from ground water. Walking about in a farm field during pesticides delivery is probably not a smart choice. And we can do away with what we can, reducing harmful pollution. But we cannot destroy the Earth, it isn’t happening, nowhere close, and we cannot change the climate, which always changes on its own. If we knew how to do that, we would also change it for the positive. But very often, when scientists and many environmentalists, do things they believe will help, they discover they’ve created a bigger problem. As when they stopped clear-cutting and removing underbrush, this resulted in hotter, longer-lasting fires. But fires are also what the trees use to become stronger, so the Earth heals itself. It was created to be very strong and resilient. Or when they tried to clean up the gulf explosion of oil, and one day discovered it was all eaten up by ameobas. We’re amoebas in both ability and understanding. I simply understand enough that all-too many people think they know what they don’t. And the use of rhetoric, emotions, and hysteria demonstrates, each and almost every time, that the ones believing the sky is falling are not calm and thinking clearly. I think they’re entire sense of self hinges on their emotions and beliefs, that without that negativity and hysteria, they would have to find something else to worry about. My hopes is people find positive things to focus on so they can be truly happy.
Gosh Dolphin – I really do not know where you are getting your data. The vast number of glaciers are melting rapidly – a few, due to local conditions are growing. Sea levels are rising – Scientists believe that global sea levels could rise far more than predicted, due to accelerating melting in Greenland and Antarctica.
The terrible fires in Australia are the direct result of years of drought and extreme record temperatures. So far they have killed a billion creatures.
Huge population drops are recorded in mammals and insects all over the world.
The sky isn’t falling. The earth isn’t coming to an end – but we are already experiencing extreme weather conditions – floods, droughts, storms – and species extinctions. These will get worse progressively and cause huge hardship, mass migration and conflict as people fight for dwindling resources.
No room for complacency Dolphin. I question where you are getting your information from. There is a lot of false information from right-wing groups with vested interests.
I’ll share something I wrote. It’s simplistic, but it makes a point for readers: those truly looking to understand: In an effort to reduce pollution, locally and globally, we must encourage our youth and others to truly think for themselves. In school, I learned the scientific method, which in time, I better understood. In this process, understanding cause and effects, but also the myriad of other factors that might be involved and probably are, young people can begin to realize and conceptualize, but also test ideas which can bring forth some real results and understanding.
If we are looking to reduce pollution and improve our health, also the health of animals, then much must be both taught and researched (by teachers and students). For instance, if I’m testing the idea that certain plants grow better in the sun, how did I come to that conclusion? Did I just think it, believing it sounds real, or did I test the theory, for we all know mushrooms do better in the shade?
So, I take the plant in question, which I’ve observed outdoors, finding over time that the ones in the sun seem to grow better: taller with fuller leaves and fruits or whatever. However, perhaps I once saw one plant growing well in partial sun. So I test. I have a question. I test the soil the plants are growing. Perhaps the soil in different areas are different. Perhaps a tree nearby has roots taking water away from those other plants. Perhaps the insects in those areas, locally, have an impact.
Therefore, I take several of the plants (seeds and partially grown plants) and test in the house and outdoors, in soils I select (And I select soils from the ground, different grounds, from the store, and make some of my own.). Over time, putting some plants in the shade, some in partial shading, and others in full sun, I observe. And over more time, testing over and over, I have a theory, which I then bring in other factors. Perhaps, in time, I have facts, but they have to be tested over and over to know.
This sounds tedious, but to have real understanding, this is what it takes. If we’re after real understanding, then that’s what we have to do.
Now, bring in the Earth. How do we test theories or beliefs? This is an excellent question. What a great opportunity to educate. Start with simple experiments to understand the scientific theory, read reports, have science fairs, and challenge. Discuss the myriad of elements on the Earth, but also include what we know of the solar system influences of the sun and other factors (The sun goes through cycles, which we can link some studies to show correlations.). Discuss different environmental factors in different regions, but also local changes including buildings and other factors. Discuss how the world has been changing since it began, where we have some understanding however needing of fuller studies they may be. Discuss the Coriolis effects. Learn about volcanoes. Discuss and read about groundwater and how seismic shifting can effect. And on, and on, and on…. Fascinating stuff.
With time and as students age, they can continue studies. Of course, we don’t want to forget mathematics, grammar, history, not to mention physical activities. But with each succeeding year, the levels of education will rise, understanding too, also the realization that more information is needed (for that will have to happen as research, discussions, debates, and cross ideas and challenges occur.). And when students write papers, they should be challenged in their thinking. This is good. For if people are not willing to be challenged in their thinking, they will always be afraid to really research. Some research lasts a lifetime, but the next generation benefits. You came to this conclusion? What about this? Where are you getting your facts, and are you sure those are facts? How do you know? And how can you find the information you’re looking for? And can you? And more.
If we teach our kids and teens about cause and effect, that there are multiple factors which must be accounted for, we encourage them to realize and the world of understanding grows. For this is the purpose of learning. To know, learn, understand, and see where more learning is needed. For some, this opens their eyes. Some will appreciate, but go onto other careers. A few will become scientists and further the studies. But when they all become adults, they’ll be better equipped to explain things to their own future children. What an opportunity for future discussions.
I fully concur. That is the basis of good education – experiment, investigate, be cynical – observe, discover, discuss. That’s a joy and most excellent.