Why doesn't Lyle like the Global Warming people?

Ok there's facts that the earth is warming. I'll buy that. Saying that its because of co2 in the atmosphere is ridiculous. First of all the earth is not a closed off structure like a greenhouse. Has anyone ever thought that maybe the reason greenhouses warm up is because of the sunlight and radiation that is concentrated on them? Now sure shifting the co2 levels would change the green house temperature a bit because its not the same air composition that the earths atmosphere has (71% nitrogen 20% some oxygen and 9% various other things. Thats not a dead on percentage but i'm 100% sure that its atleast 90% oxygen and nitrogen).

Now do you realize why theres so much co2 in a greenhouse? ITS BECAUSE PLANTS AND ALL CARBON BASED LIFE FORMS (you, your dog, that fly you just smashed will which now release even MORE co2 because its going to decay) EMIT CO2 AS A WASTE PRODUCT. Do you also realize that the concentration of plants in that closed off area is extreme? 75% of the earth is water and on the other 25% (which is land and covered by charles woodson) are billions of carbon based life forms that emit co2 during birth, life and death. So if co2 is the end all gas of doom burn down every planent and kill off every life form because as they continue to grow so will the co2 level (which isn't really that high right now).

Another thing, if you think we can irreversably damage that planet, what makes you think we can fix it? I can use one match and end up burning damn near an entire state. Stopping the fire would take several weeks of work from thousands of people just to stop the problem. Fixing the damage that was done by the fire would take years.

Venus is very highly concentrated in carbon dioxide we should blame its inhabitants for letting their planet get so shitty, oh wait there never were any.

My line of thought cc

The Earth has been around for a while....and people still think humans can just make everything die just by living their lives since the Industrial Revolution???


HIPPIES SUCK! Lazy bastards....go live in your commune and eat your granola and see if Grizzly Bears share your views on eating meat

also the co2 is an after thought if you were actually put on venus because you'd be able to ignore the 800 degree heat while hints of sulfuric acid in the air eat away at you skin, eyes, and lung tissue while you're simultaneously being crushed under pressure that is 80x greater than the surface of earth.

I'm doing my PhD on drought tolerance of cereals (specifically wheat) and while I'm in a related industry I'm not an extremist either way on this issue. You do need a balance though and while human populations increase it becomes harder to control.

Environmental issues do effect us. One example - when people built dams in South Australia and destroyed the native wetlands they caused the water table to rise in places elsewhere in the state. With the water came salt which has destroyed a lot of farming land. It continues to rise because native plants with deep root systems can't tolerate the salt to keep the water table low and more farming land is ruined. Our productivity decreases, farmers get poorer and poorer, our economy feels it and come a hard year like a drought we have a state of national crisis because farmers are committing suicide at the rate of one every 3 days. So over a few hundred years we have destroyed something. It doesn't have to be permanent but if we want to do whats best for ourselves the selfish thing to do is actually to consider the environment!

What I will say is we need to find a way to stop our continually increasing populations. Thanks to the green revolution when we introduced dwarf varieties of cereal crops our food production productivity has improved but as numbers keep rising and our ability to produce more food can't rise that quickly with it with out current technology there'll be more and more hungry people.

It's all a balance - if you don't brush your teeth occasionally you'll get festy and that's why it's important to do a bit here and there for the environment.

I'm aware of the global warming debate and I'm unsure of how bad it could become but we WILL eventually run out of oil and oil WILL continue to become more and more expensive so I think it'd be great to make other power sources more affordable and common place. Eventually we'll have to switch over.

I'm not a hippy but i do believe in sustainability. So many people think you are either for agriculture and productivity or a hippy - I say you need to be a little bit conscious of what you're doing if you want to keep getting what you need - food.

Also Punisher i think you'll find there's more CO2 in the atmosphere than Nitrogen. The earths atmosphere is closed off a little like a greenhouse because of the ozone layer and other gases in the upper atmosphere. Plants give off O2 as a product of Photosynthesis and consume CO2 while respiration of animals etc give off CO2. Actually raising concentrations of CO2 might be good for plants in the right climates. I don't believe the world will come to an end because of global warming but as a human race we might suffer a bit if we can't adjust.

Good post Sharla, its finding the balance as you say. If panama haddnt sprung up 12,000 years ago northern europe would still be in an Ice Age. Thank Christ it did, lets have a cheer for Panama.

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Originally Posted by Sharla

Also Punisher i think you'll find there's more CO2 in the atmosphere than Nitrogen. The earths atmosphere is closed off a little like a greenhouse because of the ozone layer and other gases in the upper atmosphere. Plants give off O2 as a product of Photosynthesis and consume CO2 while respiration of animals etc give off CO2. Actually raising concentrations of CO2 might be good for plants in the right climates. I don't believe the world will come to an end because of global warming but as a human race we might suffer a bit if we can't adjust.

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Bullshit the composition of earths atmosphere (the air we breathe at ground level) on average contains 70% nitrogen. You'll find that on any website that has it listed.

http://www.met.fsu.edu/explores/atmcomp.html

after seeing this you'll realize just how much of a joke blaming co2 for global warming really is.

Carbon Dioxide 0.035%

I fully believe we coupld triple that number and it would have not catastrophic results. CO2 occurs naturally, and as it occurs naturally, there are things set up to naturally regulate its level.

Can anyone name me the single most devastating natural disaster over the past 20 years (since this global warming thing has aparently been kicked into high gear)? It was a Tsunami caused by an earthquake. Buy all the hybrid cars and cleaner gas you want, you're not gonna stop that. Tornados, Hurricanes, earthquakes, and extreme raining and drought periods have all been part of a natural cycle since the earth had a climate. Its not gonna stay the same temperature over the course of billions of years. During the time of the dinosaurs, there was no such thing as a polar ice cap. This has been proven by the finding of plant fossils in australia and antarctica that were around at approximately the same time.

Why is some water considered "fresh water" and some water considered "salt water" and how might the differences have come about?

During this time, the water reservoirs acted as sinks for the large amounts of carbon dioxide (as they do today) and through chemical and biological processes became locked up in sedimentary rocks as limestone. The nitrogen, which is not very chemically active continued to accumulate in the atmosphere. In addition, evidence exists that the Sun was stronger several billion years ago, strong enough to radiatively split (called photodissociation) water vapor molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen, being very light, escaped into space, while the heavier oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere.
These processes acting sequentially and simultaneously appear to have produced the delicate balance of 78% nitrogen (N2) and 21% oxygen (O2) we observe today.

There goes the theory that we're doing it directly, the theory that earth is closed off, and that we are even capable of dramatically altering our climate. It will rain, it will snow, and tornadoes will blow stuff around wether we like it or not.

As for gas becoming more expensive, they have found a new type of fossil fuel (ice hydrate, or something like that) that is noticeably more efficient in providing power but it also releases the devils breathe co2 :bawling: Research is ongoing to find feasible ways to extract this fuel while we are continuing research on fusion which won't be perfected for nearly another 50 years. There's been research suggesting that mass will shift into a new phase around the end of 2012 (which would make any current living needs obsolete as we would then exist in a 4d grid with time being the 4th dimension or something like that) but it remains to be seen if its really going to happen or not.

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Originally Posted by Sharla

Also Punisher i think you'll find there's more CO2 in the atmosphere than Nitrogen. The earths atmosphere is closed off a little like a greenhouse because of the ozone layer and other gases in the upper atmosphere. Plants give off O2 as a product of Photosynthesis and consume CO2 while respiration of animals etc give off CO2. Actually raising concentrations of CO2 might be good for plants in the right climates. I don't believe the world will come to an end because of global warming but as a human race we might suffer a bit if we can't adjust.

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Thats what i meant (plant do releases co2 and nitrogen upon decaying like all the leaves during the fall and winter transition tho a majority take awhile to decay). Thats another thing that people don't get. During warming periods, the human race has excelled by being able to make more food and make several other advances in technology. I'm not saying we can just throw a bunch of nukes and spill acid wherever the hell we feel like it but saying we can severely alter the climate is a bit of a stretch.

.....ooooh but punisher the Earth is dying it's talking to us....we must respect our Earth Mother :beat:



Dude the same shit has been going on since Roman times....the cult of Magna Mater....it literally translated means EARTH MOTHER....then the transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau....then the fucking hippy douchebags who drove around in the fucking VW Vans which get like -5 miles a gallon and they are telling ME that I AM KILLING THE EARTH.....naaaaaaaahhhh buddy I am FOR Nuclear Energy unlike YOU who want me to live in the forrest and eat grub worms and never wash my ass.......this Global Earth Day bullcrap will pass soon enough and we'll be back to polluting and not giving a fuck (which is wrong too but I don't have to listen to people bitch about it)

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Originally Posted by Lyle

.....ooooh but punisher the Earth is dying it's talking to us....we must respect our Earth Mother :beat:



Dude the same shit has been going on since Roman times....the cult of Magna Mater....it literally translated means EARTH MOTHER....then the transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau....then the fucking hippy douchebags who drove around in the fucking VW Vans which get like -5 miles a gallon and they are telling ME that I AM KILLING THE EARTH.....naaaaaaaahhhh buddy I am FOR Nuclear Energy unlike YOU who want me to live in the forrest and eat grub worms and never wash my ass.......this Global Earth Day bullcrap will pass soon enough and we'll be back to polluting and not giving a fuck (which is wrong too but I don't have to listen to people bitch about it)

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We're hardly polluting now do you realize how strict the emission standards are for these new cars and factories? Hell some of them dont need emission stickers because they're so clean. For the record australia is the biggest burner of coal per person so get off the US. ;D

.....it surprises me how few people realize how full of shit Al Gore is......cc Punisher, you're a good dude

I stand corrected Punisher - there is more N in the atmosphere than CO2 but do you really think CO2 is the only greenhouse gas - nitrous oxide is too :)

Plants will give off a lot more O2 than CO2 though since if they didn't they wouldn't be able to make carbohydrates etc which we eat and contributes to organic matter in the soil. It will eventually be emitted into the atmosphere again since everything's a cycle and NO I don't think CO2 is evil - the balance of a large number of gases makes the difference.

BTW I don't think this is just a problem for the USA and I don't even think global warming is the most urgent environmental problem we face - it's just more of a global issue.

Australia is a big user of fuel since our public transport system is s**t and we're very spread out. Thats what I mean about making other energy sources more affordable and available.

Why so angry Lyle? I know extremists can be a bit full on but accepting we might wanna keep an eye on the environment is not putting it all on you or the USA. All these big environmental issues are in no way the responsibility of a single person or country.

It's a lot to ask people to change their lifestyles completely when we're brought up to live a certain way without worrying about it. It's easier for wealthier people to buy environmentally friendly cars, electrical goods with a low energy rating and solar pannels. Realistically these things are not affordable enough for the average person and that needs to change.

Occasionally greenies talking about other issues annoy me too because some of them are not very balanced in their opinions. At the same time we'll shoot ourselves in the foot if we don't start to think about renewable resources. Do you really want to keep paying more and more for fuel because the supply is constantly reducing but the demand stays the same?

....actually Water Vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas but no one seems to want to factor that in

It's not really whats biggest though but what's increasing surely - if I want to make weight for a fight and it's harder than it used to be it's not the weight of my bones or water or muscle that's most likely to be the problem :-[ Same principle.

So anyway Lyle since you don't think global warming is the biggest issues and neither do I what do you think people SHOULD worry about more? Just curious :)