awwww I always miss the good stuff


this isnt a very popular opinion

BUT I think

if you view the human race as a single entity. maybe as a herd

the best thing that could happen for the long term health of the human race would be a global catastrophe that killed off about half of the population

sort of like culling the herd. Our herd is over populated and the herd as a whole is unhealthy as a result

We manage wildlife herds to control the populations and mother nature/God/whatever needs to do the same

The fact that the Earth is warming rapidly is not a theory. It is a fact that is well documented and there are links to the hard science at the beginning of this thread. A cold winter in Michigan has nothing to do with the overall temperature of the planet. It does mesh with the problem if the gulf stream shuts down.

The "theory" of global warming has to do with how fast it is happening, what are the causes, how much of the warming is due to human activity, and where are the "tip points" (a tip point is a place were the warming causes additional effects that accelerate the warming). Various tips points appear to be approaching quickly.

Overpopulation is recognized as a problem by almost everyone. China instigated a one child per couple rule that was very successful. It is well known that every child born will consume resources from food to timber to metal. They will grow up and want a car and want to take vacations ... just like everyone else.

Reducing the birth rate has shown to be successful using education
and government action.

No one in the world is trying to stop industrialization on any serious basis because the whole idea is so hopeless. All of the actual effort is directed towards making a smaller carbon footprint.

The deep oceans have some strange sea life but lack resources.

I screwed in these special saving lightbulbs throughout the house. A total of 18 lightbulbs. At first I was skeptical because these lightbulbs cost a little more then the regular ones and I said well how will I save if I am paying more, but then realize that I actually save alot of money because I pay less for electricity when using them.

And believe it or not I actually save 37 dollars per month because of that!

The brand is called Energy Smart by General Electrics. They only use 15 Watts of energy as opposed to 60 Watts and they give the same amount of light as a regular one.


Talking about technology these days right. Very interesting how this can be done.

That's good to hear! I just bought them for the first time last week.
I got a different brand. There was a sale - $2.99 for 3 bulbs.

Ugh! Don't tell me this!

$2.99 for 3, 60 watt bulbs. $4.99 for 3, 100 watt bulbs.
I bought a bunch of them.

Had to tell you that.

I bought bee wax candles to use at night when I cozy up to read a book and that saves money.

Why would you do that when the majority of CO2 comes from nature (volconoes, exhaling mammals, etc)? Humans can't even TOUCH nature in terms of mass pollution!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_biggest_source_of_carbon_dioxide_emissions

The biggest contributor of Carbon Dioxide is natural and not man made.
With carbon dioxide, it is important to distinguish between natural and man-made sources. One of the largest sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide is through plant and animal decay as microorganisms break down the dead material, releasing carbon dioxide into the air as part of the process. Other naturally occuring sources include forest fires and volcanoes.
Burning fossil fuels is a primary source of greenhouse gases caused by man; as the chemical energy in a hydrocarbon-rich fossil fuel is converted into heat, carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct. Forest clearing - or deforestation - and the burning of solid waste, wood, and wood products are also sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

For one thing, climate (whether local or global) is a nonlinear dynamic system - a proportionally small increase in one value can lead to feedback which leads to massive changes.

That is not a bad thing, though. The biosphere naturally trends toward stasis. ~biology 101 and Geology 101 are boring classes, but you learn some things in them that help you ignore global warming hysteria~ (in fact, there are oil seeps in the ocean floor, and the oil is simply absorbed by the ocean water) I highly recommend people take classes like these.

Yeah, me too. I bicycle daily on the threadmill (you can catch a recorded glimpse of it on Mingle2. com) that's connected to a device that cools the environment via my muscle-generated power. I do this to avoid heating up the place which causes more ice.

Global warming causing a new Ice Age

I think this is just an optical illusion. As the temperature rises, the atmosphere is getting higher, since quite a huge amount of water vapour is entering it. With the rising atmospheric pressure the melting points of things rise, and therefore water freezes into ice at above 0 degrees centigrade. The higher the pressure, the higher the freezing point.

No, the data presented at the beginning of the thread is referring to the gulf stream shutdown. The gulf stream is the huge ocean current that carries warm water to to arctic in the Atlantic. The current is powered by the difference in salt content of the arctic verses the equator. The melting arctic ice is diluting the water and causing the current to slow down. Without the warmth of the gulf stream, the northern parts of the US, Canada, Great Britain, and much of Europe would have a similar climate as Siberia, even as the rest of the Earth heats up.

About half of all CO2 produced each year is man made. About half of the manmade gas cannot be absorbed because the Earth is "maxed out". Sources such as volcanoes are insignificant.

This causes a linear increase in C02 over time since 1900. There are multiple "tipping points" that cause a runaway heating.

Areas covered with ice melt and do not reflect the sunlight.

Massive amounts of methane hydrate are stored in the tundra. When it melts, the methane is released.

The increased heat causes deserts to grow, reducing absorption.

The system is truly nonlinear and inherently unstable. Once the 'tipping points' are reached, we can't change the outcome anymore, short of nuclear winter.

I read your original post. It supplies insufficient explanation. Because sea water is heavier than fresh water, why does that make the Gulf stream go Northeast instead of southeast or northwest or southwest? or straight north or straing south? The only part of the theory you presented was the difference in density. Fine. But that explains precious little about the hydrodynamics of the Gulf stream.

At least my theory has some scientific basis that completes the entire thought. Yours mentions one of the possibly many facts that one needs to know, and their interctions, and you don't say that, you just simply claim the conclusion.

Why?

I just stated the conclusion of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and provided the links to their site where the science is explained in infinite detail. Woods Hole is the most advanced and respected ocean science source in the world. I never said this was my theory. However, I did take the time to read the information at Woods Hole. Their "theory" consists of taking thousands of samples of the ocean over many years and correlating it with ice cores, seabed cores, atmospheric data, etc., by the generally accepted top ocean scientists in the world. The slowdown of the gulf stream is not a theory as it has, in fact, slowed down.

Why would you do that when the majority of CO2 comes from nature (volconoes, exhaling mammals, etc)? Humans can't even TOUCH nature in terms of mass pollution!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_biggest_source_of_carbon_dioxide_emissions

The biggest contributor of Carbon Dioxide is natural and not man made.
With carbon dioxide, it is important to distinguish between natural and man-made sources. One of the largest sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide is through plant and animal decay as microorganisms break down the dead material, releasing carbon dioxide into the air as part of the process. Other naturally occuring sources include forest fires and volcanoes.
Burning fossil fuels is a primary source of greenhouse gases caused by man; as the chemical energy in a hydrocarbon-rich fossil fuel is converted into heat, carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct. Forest clearing - or deforestation - and the burning of solid waste, wood, and wood products are also sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide.



Your conclusion does not match your source and your source is not a scientific source.

Begin quote:

... From this data, the 270 Gtons of human carbon emissions over the past 200 years would have increased carbon dioxide concentration from 280 to 415 ppm, if it had all stayed there. Since present carbon dioxide concentration is about 360 ppm, 41% of the cumulative emissions have been absorbed by the environment; assuming, of course, that the carbon source is entirely human. This differs from the present estimate of 50%, due to lower absorption rates during the first three quarters of the last two centuries.

Is the source of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere entirely human? The data presented above would suggest that it is. However, these data are circumstantial, representing the net appearance. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a consequence of several factors. These factors are the elements in the ecosystem's carbon cycle. The net effect is the sum of all of the carbon sources and sinks.

Four source-sink scenarios which explain the observations are presented in Table 1 below. Scenario A reflects the data presented above which indicates that all, or nearly all, of the accumulated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is anthropogenic. Scenario B allows for a minor amount of natural emissions, about 5%. Scenario C assumes that there are natural sources, as yet unidentified, of the same magnitude as human emissions and that there are, as yet, undetected sinks which can account for the observed net concentration of carbon dioxide. This is the position taken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Cahange (IPCC) [#1]. Scenario D assumes that human contributions to carbon dioxide accumulation are insignificant (about 5%), as argued by the climate-change skeptics [#2].

Cumulative human carbon emissions over the past 200 years (270 Gton) as well as net carbon accumulation in the atmosphere (160 Gton) are known quantities. Scenarios A - D balance these quantities with the required net natural sources and sinks which would determine the specified human contribution.

TABLE 1. Four scenarios of net cumulative carbon sources (+) and net sinks (-) for carbon added to the atmosphere from 1800 to present in billions of metric tons (Gton).

Scn. Human (+) Natural (+) Subtotal (+) Natural (-) Net (+&-)
---------------------------------------------------------------
A 270 (100%) 0 ( 0%) 270 110 (41%) 160
B 270 ( 95%) 14 ( 5%) 284 124 (44%) 160
C 270 ( 50%) 270 (50%) 540 380 (70%) 160
D 270 ( 5%) 5400 (95%) 5670 5510 (97%) 160

One of the basic principles of science is the simplicity hypothesis. That is, among competing explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one. Scenario A in Table 1 satisfies the simplicity hypothesis. Scenario B accounts for the possibility that there could be a minor amount of natural emissions. Scenario C, advanced by the IPCC, leaves considerable wiggle room for adaptation to the, as yet, incompletely understood carbon cycle; including the mystery of the missing carbon. Scenario D, put forth by the climate-change skeptics, is preposterous on its face. Here, a 5.4 trillion ton, undetected natural source (emitting 95%) as well as a 5.5 trillion ton natural sink (absorbing 97%) are required to explain the observations. Further, in accordance with the data in Fig. 2, this hypothetical net source and sink must have grown over the past 200 years almost exactly in parallel with human carbon emissions.

TABLE 2. Same four scenarios as in Table 1, but for projected year 2000 net cumulative carbon sources (+) and net sinks (-) for carbon added to the atmosphere per annum in billions of metric tons (Gton).

Scn. Human (+) Natural (+) Subtotal (+) Natural (-) Net (+&-)
---------------------------------------------------------------
A 7.0 (100%) 0 ( 0%) 7.0 3.5 (50%) 3.5
B 7.0 ( 95%) 0.4 ( 5%) 7.4 3.9 (53%) 3.5
C 7.0 ( 50%) 7.0 (50%) 14.0 10.5 (75%) 3.5
D 7.0 ( 5%) 133.0 (95%) 140.0 136.5 (98%) 3.5

Table 2 lists the data for the four scenarios, but for projected year 2000 annual emissions of carbon (see Fig. 1). Scenarios A - C represent a rationally pessimistic to optimistic range. Although there is the mystery of the missing carbon, the climate-change skeptic's scenario D requires such a huge net natural source and sink that it would be impossible for scientists to have missed them.

References

#1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE 1995, J. T. Houghton et al., Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996.

just to throw a little controversy out there we're not really in global warming. This is because we live in a "positive feedback loop" where yes we as humans do put carbon dioxide into the amosphere which will cause a warming system however because we have plants those plants eat( basically) the co2 and spit it back out as good stuff. Additionally, global warming has not been proven infaCt there is a scientific debate over global warming in the science community many scientists argue that the sun goes through warming periods and right now we are in a warming time with the sun with in a matter of time the sun will get out of it and temperatures will go back down to where they use to be.


Further more we as humans really only let a small fraction of co2 out in to the atmosphere the biggest supplies of co2 are the number 1 source termites, and tied at number 2 are ( some other animal i forget) and cows.

coriolis effect

quietman is right it is the coriolis effect