Global Warming... is THIS how we'll perish?

[z0rch]

zorch...your commercial remminded me that most of the greenies and doomsdayers don't know much about cars.... Just like the anti gun nuts don't know anything about guns.... but... in order to have a cause.... ya gotta have a villian right?

SUV's today get about 20 mpg... if a soccer mom loads all her kids and the neighbors into one and drives em to..... wherever... then she will still get about 20 mpg.

If she got one of the toyotas or some other crap box that makes you all wet.... she would get about 30 mpg... if she had to make three trips to do the same thing.... she would be getting 10 mpg compared to the SUV.

beet and others say that wasting fuel for their hobbies is fine because they are spreading it around with a lot of passengers. so...

instead of worrying about SUV's you should be worrying about passenger miles.

Many of the pickups you see on the road are getting within 5mpg or so of the little crap box econo boxes...


But.... what would make you happy? woud getting rid of all SUV's make this all go away?

Maybe you can help rolex and beet with that list of things we must do in the next ten years?

I can make my own list but I will wait for the chicken little ones.

lazs

This is the second time you've flamed me for posting something funny;
http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=b3df6dec-0caa-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7
It's a joke dude, lighten up. Maybe a laxative will help.

Personally, I drive a 78 Chevy pickup with a 350ci 4bbl that gets 10mpg highway with a tailwind, and an LTD Crown Victoria 351ci FI that gets 12mpg.

Now to its credit, the crown vic can seat six comfortably - But >95% of the time it's hauling the driver in solo comfort, as are most of the SUVs on the road most of the time.

Global warming is real. The hole in the ozone layer is real. Do I want to give up my favorite toys? No way. But I'm also not going to stick my head in the sand and deny the impact they have.

[beet1e]

zorch - quite right!



Tony Blair was interviewed on the 6 o'clock news on BBC1 last night. The segment began in a town on the south coast (Hastings or Brighton, or somewhere like that) and a woman of late middle age was being asked about her home and how fuel efficient it was. The cameras went inside and - horror of horrors - found that her sash windows didn't fit well and were allowing draughts into the room. Also, her room had a disued chimney which was not closed off and allowed a draught to come down. Erm, hello? This is piddling stuff, which, if corrected, will make bugger all difference to the world CO2 output. I almost began to think Charlotte was doing the interview!

A nonplussed Tony Blair faced the cameras, and as he pointed out, quite correctly, Britain isn't going to be carrying the torch in the race against global warming, as Britain produces only 2% of man made CO2 world-wide. As he went on to say, the biggest impact will have to be made by China, India and America. Those were the three countries he listed, and in that order.

[Angus]

lazs2:
Your house is on fire. There is a fire brigade. Is there still an excuse NOT to fight the fire until the fire brigade belives that your house is on fire?

Well, as a parallell, my basement flooded a year ago. We called the fire brigade (They have very good pumps). They didn't quite realize the size of the matter before too late. By then we had some 5 inches of water on the floors, and this is a flat!. Anyway, I had taken precautions, and we had 1 slurry pump and 1 9000 litres tank with a vacum pump (Agricultural equipment) en route. It saved the day, although the flooding (heavy rain with thaw) was extreme, we managed to hold the fort so to speak, and eventually the flooding was finished and we pumped the basement free.
Max water level was at some point some 9 inches.
With just the fire brigade guys, it would have been 1.5 metres.
Get my point?

[NattyIced]

In this case, the only thing you are doing is delaying how long it takes till your house burns down. Global warming will happen regardless of humans. It's happened in the past, it's happening again now. It's only a question of whether or not we are accelerating it.

[deSelys]

What a lot of you seem to forget is that the rate of warming is extremely important: with a slow warming, man, beasts and plants will have more time to adapt to the new conditions, or migrate if needed.

With a fast warming, a lot of agricultural zones can turn into desert leading to decades of world-wide lack of food (and wars to keep/gain the last zones of usable soil).

Lack of oil doesn't scare me much: the society will change, that's for sure, but as Lazs said man functions better under pressure and solutions will be found. With a lack of food, it will be the law of the jungle.

[Angus]

Nattyiced:
"In this case, the only thing you are doing is delaying how long it takes till your house burns down. Global warming will happen regardless of humans"

Firstly, you don't know if it's going to burn down. You wouldn't stand idly by, if your house caught fire, would you??????

Secondly, Global warming may happen regardless of humans, but this is not the case this time. The earlier it is countered, the more can be done.

Earth can handle quite a bit itself. More CO2 available to vegetation for instance, will actually encourage growth, - thereby tying down more CO2.
(CO2 is actually used as a sort of a "fertilizer" in greenhouse production)
However, that is futile, if there is not enough vegetation to make any use of the increase in CO2.

[NattyIced]

Originally posted by Angus
Firstly, you don't know if it's going to burn down. You wouldn't stand idly by, if your house caught fire, would you??????

The globe heats up, then it cools down. It's a cycle.

Originally posted by Angus
Secondly, Global warming may happen regardless of humans, but this is not the case this time. The earlier it is countered, the more can be done.

Obviously you have absolute proof that is not contradicted.

[Angus]

You miss the point. The globe heating up this fast, is neither necessary nor a part of a natural cycle. The natural cycle as far as is known is actually slower, with the exceptions of extremities, which are mostly global COOLING. (cycles that last "only" some 200 years for instance)

[Hangtime]

Originally posted by deSelys
What a lot of you seem to forget is that the rate of warming is extremely important: with a slow warming, man, beasts and plants will have more time to adapt to the new conditions, or migrate if needed.

What seems to be missed WRT speed of change is catastrophic weather bursts... STORMS. Super Hurricanes, F-5 Tornadoes, Blizzards... and the destruction that these cause puts an immense strain on the infrastructure of the immediately unaffected geographic areas. Slap down a few seaboard cities, make the sealanes chancy, rip up a few breadbasket locations, immobilize out a few cities in a super blizzard... disrupt rail and road transport...

Just one super hurricane on the gulf coast last year sent the fuel/food/commerce chain reeling.. we ALL felt the effects.

Our civilization is massively intertwined.. and fragile as a result. Kick it; it reacts; people will freak.

[Angus]

I am afraid Jackal was quite right on one issue. People in general won't do doodly-squat about the issue before it is possibly too late.
Still, some extremities in the climates might cause a change.....

[Maverick]

HHHMMM the earth cooled down and warmed up all by it's little 'ol self more than once before man and then at least once after man arrived. Now it's continuing the cycle and industrialized man is here so now it's all due to him. Exactly how long did the last 2 warming cycles take? Same question for the last 2 ice ages. What is the normal rate of change and where is it documented with observations and measurements. Given the data from only the last 2 cycles how is this warming trend different timewise?

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Hangtime
Just one super hurricane on the gulf coast last year sent the fuel/food/commerce chain reeling.. we ALL felt the effects.

 
Washinton Post December 22, 2005

Hurricane Katrina will go down in the history books as the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, but not by a long shot the most powerful.

The National Hurricane Center released a summary report on Katrina this week that downgraded the storm's intensity at landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29 from Category 4 to Category 3. The winds in New Orleans, which lay to the west of the storm's center, were probably even weaker than that, at Category 1 or 2 speeds, the report said.

BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) — Most of the area affected by Hurricane Rita last September faced winds weaker than the 111-130 mph range seen with the Category 3 storm, according to a final report by the National Hurricane Center.

The storm packed maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, classifying it as a Category 3 when it made landfall at 2:40 a.m. Sept. 24 between Johnson’s Bayou, La., and Sabine Pass, according to the report. Hurricane-force winds extended 86 miles from the center the day before landfall.

But the report also said many areas in extreme southeastern Texas and extreme southwestern Louisiana experienced Category 1 hurricane conditions (74-95 mph), and a few areas experienced Category 2 hurricane conditions (96-110 mph).

Only 3 Category Five Hurricanes have made landfall in the United States since records began: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Hurricane Camille (1969), and Hurricane Andrew in August, 1992

[Angus]

The rate of changes was subtly predicted this time, - the parameters NOT being natural causes.
It is coming true quite fast, faster than predicted.
(I am not sure that there was a cycle that fast, - either way, - it's not good news)

So, you dropped a match, and there is a fire in the house....what do you do?

[Skuzzy]

This thread is amazing.  I check it once a day, and the last two posts are almost always the same thing, yet the thread keeps growing.

Damnedest thing I have ever seen.

Oh, AND WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!  EEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!

[Maverick]

Originally posted by Angus
The rate of changes was subtly predicted this time, - the parameters NOT being natural causes.
It is coming true quite fast, faster than predicted.
(I am not sure that there was a cycle that fast, - either way, - it's not good news)

So, you dropped a match, and there is a fire in the house....what do you do?

Ok so it is coming faster than predicted. Is it possible that the predictions are what is at fault? Can you specify what the predictions were for the previous 2 cycles and the actual rates as occured? Then perhaps we can see if the predictions are accurate vs the actual situation or not and what the previous track record at predictions has been.

Frankly given the sorry results of weathermen for next weeks weather at any given specific spot I shudder to think how accurate a prediction covering 100 years will be.