Is there ANYBODY in the world that still denies the severity of global warming?

[frostycreep]

Not everyone here even agrees that global warming is a problem. I thought everyone at least agreed on that. If global warming isnt a problem then we might as well keep burning holes in the o-zone layer, which will lead to weather problems in the future, even if the current weather problems have nothing to do with it.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Vanguard

Global warming poses the real possibility of wiping out all life on Earth and turning the planet into an uninhabitable wasteland.

Actually this is extremely untrue. Global Warming has no chance of doing this, none at all.

Now there might be some chance of it ending human life on this planet, but even that is probably about as big as the chance caused by you sneezing (ie neglible).

What I would be far more worried about is the polluting we are doing to our water resources. We and most the life on this planet depend on them, and we are screwing them up.

Jon Miller

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Vanguard
Who cares if someone can prove that global warming is occuring or not? Global Warming is potentially so dangerous that it is worth doing something about regardless of whether we positively know it is going on.

Global warming poses the real possibility of wiping out all life on Earth and turning the planet into an uninhabitable wasteland. On the whole, this would seem to be A Bad Thing. I admit that, yes, there might be some attendant benefits to the extermination of all life on Earth. But overall it seems to me that the economic and social effects would be largely negative. It would, for instance, reduce global GDP by about 40 trillion dollars a year. Real estate and stock values would also be affected.

So, even if the chance that global warming is occuring is only 1 in 20, it is still worth spending, basically, whatever it takes to signifigantly reduce that chance. Sign the damn Kyoto agreement already. Stop wasting my money.

Never going to happen with a Texas oil man in the White House seeking relection. It can only happen with a second term popular Republican president behind it. Or maybe if an iceberg from the North Pole floats down into the Hudson River and crashes into the Statue of Liberty.

[Vanguard]

Actually this is extremely untrue. Global Warming has no chance of doing this, none at all.

Sure it can. There is no particular reason to think that Earth's thermal balance is unalterablely within the limits that life can tolerate. A runaway greenhouse effect, while unlikely, is not impossible.

But, again, regardless of the actually likelihood of any such event, global warming could still destroy agriculture or do any number of things that are Very, Very Bad. Even low percentage Very, Very Bad things are worth insuring against. In fact, they are probably the only things worth insuring against.

[Wraith]

Aiya, another one of these?

Most of this isn't worth bothering with. I do have a couple of things I'd like to respond to, though.

--"Can anyone here give me a run down about what the Kyoto agreement consists of?"

Yeah. It means that the warming they're predicting for 2100 would happen about four year later. The cost of this is uncertain, but estimates seem to range from high to extremely high.

--" Global Warming is potentially so dangerous that it is worth doing something about regardless of whether we positively know it is going on."

Spoken by someone who truly has no idea what they're talking about. There are many other things to consider here.
One of them is opportunity cost; that is, the money we spend on this which otherwise could have been spent on something else. We'd be able to do a lot more to improve human life by spending this money on sanitation and drinking water for third world countries, for instance.
The other major thing to consider is the potential harm in "doing something". I'm not talking about opportunity cost here, but the changes required here may well adversely effect other things. Low-pollution vehicles, for instance, are often constructed out of lighter materials, which has the side effect of increasing the injury and death rate of traffic accidents.
This sort of thing must be taken into account. Even if I were to concede that a) there is global warming and b) it is human caused, you would then still have to show that this treaty does more good than harm. I think it very unlikely that this can be shown, even assuming the worst-case scenario that the IPCC is using.

Wraith
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"
- Martin Luther King

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Actually this is extremely untrue. Global Warming has no chance of doing this, none at all.

Give it a few billion years and then the Earth will be nothing more than a molten cinder.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Vanguard


Sure it can. There is no particular reason to think that Earth's thermal balance is unalterablely within the limits that life can tolerate. A runaway greenhouse effect, while unlikely, is not impossible.

But, again, regardless of the actually likelihood of any such event, global warming could still destroy agriculture or do any number of things that are Very, Very Bad. Even low percentage Very, Very Bad things are worth insuring against. In fact, they are probably the only things worth insuring against.

from global warming the earth's ballance will stay within the limits life can tolerate (do you have any idea what life can tolerate??)

the only thing which could end life on this planet would be something like the death stars weapon fired on us (or in fact anything which would heat our entire surface and atmosphere (the whole planet in fact) to a 1000 degrees)

hell, an atomic war between the US and USSR in which all nuclear weapons were used could not end life on this planet

that is far more likely than global warming ending just human life (as I said, there is no chance (not even .000000000000000000000000000000001%) for global warming to destroy all life on this planet)

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Give it a few billion years and then the Earth will be nothing more than a molten cinder.

You know that that is not the kind of global warming the we are discussing. The type we are discussing is that caused by CO2 emissions.

Jon Miller

[axi]

Yep, exactly as I guessed, there are still enough morons in the States to go by...

I wonder if all this reactionary crap can be found elsewhere too, or if it is the nature of this BB (the civ theme) that attracts the weirdos. Really I wonder, since I haven't met any Americans IRL. If the Apolyton members here are truly representative of the American public opinion, then I guess we're screwed.

To me it's inexplicable. Nowhere else in the world can one find such a selfish, self-centered, jingoistic and arrogant view of the world. And you're supposed to be educated people, with greater sensitivity for this than say the average Indian farmer. Yet if you ask the average Indian farmer, he won't tell you that all is ok with the climate. He will cite his limited experience of worsening conditions. If you ask him what he does about the environment, he will say: what can I do? I'm piss-poor and I'm half starved. I'm chopping up and burning the jungle to survive. My own survival comes before and above the environment.

The same goes for the Indian or the Chinese government. They are as poor as their citizens. Of course they could do wonders about reducing pollution locally and globally, with proper investment and legislation. Only they won't do that, they can't do that. In a world of hard economic competition, being friendly to the environment brings an unbearable hit to competitiveness. These 3rd world countries have all trade balances to cover and all of them owe money to the World Bank. If they slow down their economy, it will collapse. So they are between a rock and a hard place.

How about the USA, as a country? They are in the exact opposite condition. They are at the very top of the Imperialist chain, their economy controls the world economy, not only in terms of GDP, but also of consumption of goods, investment and numismatic policy. They give the pace of economic growth. If they won't accept a hit on their competitiveness, nobody in the world can, unless they are prepared to suffer the economic consequences, which even the EU isn't really prepared to do. So the USA hold the climate issue by the balls: not only are they producing a big chunk of the gases themselves, not only they have the political power to enforce the Kyoto treaty globally once they are bound by it (and there will be a hard motive to do so), but they also are in control of the economic factors behind the problem. If the United States were actually ruled by the people (as it is supposed in Democracy) the political problem would have been solved long ago. Unfortunately the United Steates are currently administered by the petroleum corporations which are desperately trying to propagandise to the American public every single excuse they can devise for having the country not do what it ought to.

What is scaring me most in this matter is the actual response of the US public. It seems that a big chunk is actually buying all these lame arguments and supports them with an almost scaring loyalty. So we either have to deal with real morons (some people are suggesting that Americans are raised by the system to be idiots and it seems that this policy is actually working there better than the rest of the world), or we have to deal with cynical SoBs who calculate that, having more money, resources and technology than the rest of the world, they will have no problem with the climate change and are totally striking the rest of the world out of their equasion.

So, in fact, I was not an anti-American, YOU made me into one.

[Robert]

Axi, your post makes no sence.
All you do is saying the same as 'our leaders' in europe.

I'm dutch, but I don't believe in global warming either.
Well, I do believe in global warming, but I'm sure that's not because of us. It's just something that happens now and then.

I morely blame european who talk with the big mass, than americans who have their own opinion.

[Az]

I like climate change. The summers are a bit warmer, but last year was very rainy.

[Jac de Molay]

If the United States were actually ruled by the people (as it is supposed in Democracy) the political problem would have been solved long ago. Unfortunately the United Steates are currently administered by the petroleum corporations which are desperately trying to propagandise to the American public every single excuse they can devise for having the country not do what it ought to.

The american people know an unrealistic, unfair initiative when they see one (namely Kyoto). To say petroleum companies control US environmental policy is nonsense. Many good, sensible initiatives have been passed in the last ten years. If anything, air quality is better overall than it was 20-30 years ago. Furthermore, significant steps have been taken to reduce CFC's and C02 emissions.

If anything as drastic as Kyoto is passed without the entire world getting on board, industry will just go where regulation is non-existent. This will both cost jobs and impact the environment worse.

[Sirotnikov]

Axi - you were made anti-american because of two causes:

1) your nature as a person who is easily excited by many issues and makes conclusions very quickly (how much time really has passed since you first heard about global warming until you blamed it on america?)

2) much of the information is first presented to you by anti-american bodies. While obviously the information it uses is usually real, the way it is first presented to you is mixed with alot of opinion and fiction.

[Ming]

His trolling skills really suck...

His latest post is a classic example of just foaming at the mouth.

First... he claims that if the people were in charge, there wouldn't be a problem in the US.

Then... he claims most of us are morons...



And he wonders why nobody takes his ranting seriously...

[loinburger]

I'm just amazed that he's capable of collapsing an incredibly complex science like climatology into a simplistic cause-and-effect relationship (American pollution --> armageddon). That takes either phenomenal skill or mind-boggling ignorance.