The worst storm in my lifetime: Sandy

Post Reply New Topic

I was only commenting on something I remembered. But I've read on global warming from other sources, not just cartoons.

Sources like "AI", "Planet of the Apes", and Waterworld?

There is absolutely no denying that the Earth is getting hotter. More and more carbon dioxide is being put into the atmosphere faster than the ocean and plants can absorb it. And then with deforestation that also means even less plants to help absorb it. The polar ice caps really are melting. Not too long ago, a lake which had been frozen in Greenland for thousands of years is melting. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... vironment/ There have been periods when the Earth has been cooler or hotter than others, but these changes happen slowly over centuries. This one has been happening incredibly fast. Hurricanes becoming stronger are also listed as getting stronger. http://environment.nationalgeographic.c ... w-effects/ Well, I really don't wish to argue. After all, you can't force people to see the truth when they just refuse to. And I was not using it to validate a statement. It was just something I remembered and commented on when I heard about the flooding the storm caused.

The effects of Sandy aren't just limited to that, though. What about all the trash and most especially sewage and chemicals that the flooding picked up? It could contaminate the water supply for the city. And then that would also mean there'll be stagnant water, where mosquitos and other organisms can breed and spread disease.

I find my own senses to be enough. And I mean "sense" in every sense of the word.

Personally, I don't care one wit whether the warming is human caused or not. All I need is to open my eyes, ears, and attend to my sense of smell.

Humans are clearly ruining the earth. Everywhere we go, we leave a mess.

Or the climate change may be driven by dynamics not related to human activity. The earth has frozen (ice age) and thawed without any help or hinderance of humans. And the climate change following the end of the last ice age was far greater than anything now seen a measured.

ruveyn

Completely missed the point: "Personally, I don't care one wit whether the warming is human caused or not."

We leave messes wherever we go. We ought to clean them up. It's pretty simple.

If climate change is mostly driven by natural forces we CAN NOT control then we can't just clean up the mess. The best we can do is adapt our human environment to the natural environment.

ruveyn

ruveyn, you really are completely missing my real point. Maybe I'm just not providing enough detail, because I really don't want to get all involved with a PPR debate. I wasn't insinuating anything about what we cannot control. The point is, we mess up the earth everywhere we go. We leave messes behind, but the real problem is that what we DO creates messes in the first place. That we ought to clean up our acts and quit producing the messes to begin with, whether that be ridiculous amounts of trash and refuse in general due to massively unnecessary amounts of product production, packaging, or whatever, pollutants we spew into our atmosphere and waterways and ground or whatever other ways in which we regularly ruin our earth in general.

What I am really getting at is that I don't care about the issue of whether we're causing global warming or these storms. The point is, we're creating a lot of garbage in many forms that doesn't NEED to be created, and we ought to quit doing it.

When some people claim we aren't causing global warming or that there isn't any evidence of it, it usually appears they are using that as an excuse to do nothing about the problems we ARE causing. Problems that are obvious enough to see, hear, and even smell. Problems we don't need any research to tell us they exist. We can use our own senses.

Does it really matter whether we're causing the warming or the storms? Shouldn't common sense tell us all that we need to clean up our act anyway? Even if that ISN'T the cause?

Have you ever seen what sh*tting dogs do to the sidewalks?

All mammal make a mess. That is because we all pee and dump.

ruveyn

Yes, and those of us who are responsible humans clean it up don't we? Now your point escapes me.

Seems a rather warm conversation on global warming took place while I wasn't looking. But the real question is whether it was a natural heating up of the thread or caused by humans.

From the data I have seen it looks like although the earth has some predicable short-term cycles (The main one is 27 years I think) which continue, the base line itself is rising so each decade we get higher then before and not as low as previously. The mystery over minor increase in Antartic Sea Ice as opposed to significant loss in artic sea ice was has apparently been solved btw (see news reports from this past week) and is believed to be a temporary indirect result of warming due to warming-driven changes in wind patterns.

It's true about the trash. People do generate an awful lot of trash, and some of it is also practically indestructable, like plastic. Every single piece of plastic that has ever been manufactured is still in existance. And, although a lot of people don't usually think about it, pet waste is also a problem. It's important to dispose of it properly. As for humans also producing waste, well, everybody does, but that's like part of a cycle. Like when an entire herd of wildebeest find fresh grass, they'll probably eat all or most of it. However, they enrichen the soil with their droppings and their saliva stimulates new growth. They might be eating all the grass, but also they're making it possible for more to grow.

Of course, there have been climate changes on Earth before, when sometimes it got colder, like with the Great Oxygenation Event, and sometimes warmer. But these changes in climate take a very, very long time. What's happening today is happening extremely quickly, and that's mostly due to the rate of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are being released into the atmosphere so quickly that it can't be absorbed fast enough in the oceans and by plants. Deforestation doesn't help, either, because then there's even less plants to absorb it. That is also causing ocean acifidification. With the water getting more acidic so quickly, a lot species might not be able to adapt. Without humans, all the carbon would most likely still be in trees and buried in fossil fuels. It is people who are releasing it, causing the Earth to heat up at a much, much faster rate.

When I heard first about global warming my first reaction was that it was very likely due to us. In fact, in light of all the destruction and changes we make to the environment I couldn't see how it could not be due to us. The evidence seems to run heavily in favor of human causes for this particular event.