Global warming update

[Hornet33]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Man made global warming is caused by one thing and one thing only. MAN.

In 1950 there were only 2.5 Billion people on this rock. In 2006 there were over 6.5 Billion people on this rock. In just over 50 years we've tripled the amount of people on this planet. People that drive cars, use electricity, you name it.

I can clearly see what the problem is. It isn't everyones lifestyle that's to blame. It's the shear number of people that's to blame. The ONLY way to combat global warming and the depletion of our natural resorces is to get rid of the initial problem in the first place, and that means people.

It's very simple really. People on this rock breed like rabbits, and one day there will not be enough room for everyone. Cars aren't the problem. Neither is buring oil, or coal, or anything else. You want to cut down on polution, get rid of the poluters.

Mother nature will take care of the problem on her own eventually. Once the planet is streched to the breaking point, there will be a major climate shift and people will die by the billions. Here's the kicker.......NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO STOP IT!!!!!

[lazs2]

Hornet..  while I would always like to see less people...

What countries are overpopulated and what resources have we run out of or are in danger of running out of?

lazs

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Dadano
False. Every single contributor is an accomplished academic
 

Academic does not equal scientist.

An english literature professor can be an accomplished academic.

[Hornet33]

Originally posted by lazs2
Hornet..  while I would always like to see less people...

What countries are overpopulated and what resources have we run out of or are in danger of running out of?

lazs

China and India come to mind as being over populated. Those countries have more people than they can economically sustain. Most of the African continent is in the same boat. It's not so much about space, but being able to provide basic living conditions for the amount of people. Look at the energy crisis California has been having over the last couple of years. To many people and not enough infastructure to handle it, and new infastructure can't be built fast enough, not to mention the shear cost involved.

As far as depleted natural resources, just how much oil do you think is sitting under our feet? It's become harder and harder to find and with the population growing out of control the way it is, it's only going to get worse as demand for oil increases. It will run out. Also as the polulation grows those people have to go somewhere. More and more people are building new communities and expanding established communities in what used to be farmland. With more people and less land to produce crops, what's the eventual outcome going to be? Too many people to feed with what's available.

Also for every person on this rock, that one person generates on average over 2 tons of watse a year, that's plastics, bio waste, and polution.

In addition take a good hard look at human nature. The more people you have crammed into an area the higher the likely hood for violence comes into play. Do you think that the increase in world violence has anything to do with increase in the worlds population? I do. You can't have this many people crowded together without someone loosing their cool and lashing out for whatever reason they choose, be it religion or just the desire for more personal space.

What it boils down to is this. People are in fact hurting this planet just by our mere exsistance. It wouldn't matter if everyone gave up their cars and lived in an eco friendly way, there are just too many people, or there will soon be too many people, for the planet to sustain everyone.

Make love not war? Yeah that got us real far didn't it. Bring more people into the world with no way to support them. What do you end up with? Take a look around you and then you tell me.

[Dadano]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Academic does not equal scientist.

An english literature professor can be an accomplished academic.

This is true, but irrelevant.

Google a name or three and find the English teacher:)

Julie Arblaster, Guy Brasseur, Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, Kenneth Denman, David W. Fahey, Piers Forster, Eystein Jansen,
Philip D. Jones, Reto Knutti, Hervé Le Treut, Peter Lemke, Gerald Meehl, Philip Mote, David Randall, Dáithí A. Stone, Kevin E.
Trenberth, Jürgen Willebrand, Francis Zwiers

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Dadano
This is true, but irrelevant.

Google a name or three and find the English teacher:)

Julie Arblaster, Guy Brasseur, Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, Kenneth Denman, David W. Fahey, Piers Forster, Eystein Jansen,
Philip D. Jones, Reto Knutti, Hervé Le Treut, Peter Lemke, Gerald Meehl, Philip Mote, David Randall, Dáithí A. Stone, Kevin E.
Trenberth, Jürgen Willebrand, Francis Zwiers

But you did not defend them as scientists... you defended them as academics, which is irrelevant, and therefore academic...

[Dadano]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
But you did not defend them as scientists... you defended them as academics, which is irrelevant, and therefore academic...

Wold you consider those I was defending scientists?

[lazs2]

sorry hornet but when were china and india not "overpopulated" as you say?   Your defeninition of overpopulated seems to be unsustainable population.    Most countries are losing population.

When countries that don't control their population reach a certain point...  nature takes over... famine or plague take over and everything is balanced again..


As for oil... who says we are running out?   we are probly running out of the stuff that is easy to get at but... there are most likely bigger reserves of oil yet to be found than all the oil we have burned so far and.... your "scientists" no longer believe it is dino juice..

Nope..  they are not sure what it is but... more is being made as we speak.

Scientists told me that we would all be starving and shoulder to shoulder by 1990 and... in an ice age and... out of dino juice by now.   none of those things happened or... are in any real danger of happening...

Now they tell me that the ice caps will melt and we will all drown in 40 years (a pet time frame for doomsayers... not to short to be proven wrong easily but not too long to ignore.)

Fool me once.... shame on you.... fool me a dozen times...

ITS THE SUN STUPID.

No, I don't want to end debate but I would like to point out that sometimes...  the most obvious answer is the correct one.

lazs

[Serenity]

Originally posted by lazs2
for those of you who think that the globe stays at the same temp and does not get warmer and colder over the years....

You need to ask yourself why greenland is called greenland.

lazs

Greenland is called greenland because it was named by the vikings, who wanted it to be colonized. Since Travelocity wasnt available back then, people assumed if it was called 'Greenland', it was green. Iceland was the same, they wanted it to themselves and thus named it something forbiding. Norway was called wineland. Or so a norweigan has told me

[Sabre]

Didn't see this posted yet, so here's a link regarding global warming...on Mars.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

It's quite interesting to read the responses below the article.  Looks like Lazs is not the only one using the "It's the sun, stupid" line.

Okay, let's hear the rebuttals from the man-made global warming bunch.  Will they deny the evidence that Mars and other planets in our solar system are experiencing parallel warming trends?  Will that make them "global warming deniers"?

[oboe]

I don't think you need to be a man-made global warming whatever to have a problem comparing the global warming on Mars to what's going on here.

The article even states

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

I'm not sure what you think this proves regarding the apparent warming of our planet, Sabre.    I guess I'm not so much interested in rebuttals as I am hearing how you think this relates to our situation.

btw, this article refers only to Mars, not "and other planets" as you state.

[soda72]

()/-/  /|/|¬¹  (_+[]|)  $/-\\/3 teh P[]|_@R B/\3R

Arctic melt faster than forecast

[Jackal1]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
It`s the truth. I witnessed it firsthand today. Was hell on the nose though.

[Sabre]

Oboe:

The point of posting this is that the warming on Mars is tracking nicely with the warming on Earth, suggesting a common dominator.  From the article...

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

Note this sentence:

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth.

(emphasis added by me)

While the article (which is short on data) talks about the mechanism, i.e. how is an atmosphere as thin as Mars' managing to build up heat, it curiously does not even speculate on why the warming cycle began.  It also doesn't address the issue of the obvious common denominator, i.e. the Sun.  It does however back up those scientists that believe that the Sun is the primary driver of temperature change on Earth.  

A theory is only as good as it's predictive power. A logical prediction based on the Sun-driven global warming hypothesis is that other planets in our solar system would also experience parallel changes in temperature.  The hypothesis that man is the cause of Earth's global warming would predict just the opposite.  Since the evidence is in, it would appear that the predictive power of the former makes it the superior theory.

[oboe]

Regardless of the primary cause of the Earth's global warming, the more I think about the Mars' story the more fascinating it is.    I mean, it seems to me very unlikely that both the Earth and Mars would've experienced similiar average temperature increases over the same time period.

Here's my thinking - although Mars and the Earth are roughly the same size, they have markedly different characters as far as the composition of their atmosphere and amount of liquid water on their surfaces.     Mars is basically bone dry, with a much thinner atmosphere available for trapping solar radiation.   Also, with no liquid water and no cloud cover, Mars could be expected to have a different albedo (ratio of reflected vs absorbed solar radiation) from Earth.   So even if the two planets were at the exact same distance from the sun, I wouldn't expect them to have an matching increase in temperature over a period of years.

Here's the kicker: Mars is half-again further away from the Sun than Earth, so by the Inverse-Square Law receives just a little more than 2/5s of the solar radiation than the Earth receives.

So how can these two planets have experienced an identical temperature increase?

[EDIT]   Ok, after a little research it seems the Earth's and Mars' albedos are similar - .29 for Mars, and .30 for the Earth.   I found that surprising.  So Mars receives about 44% less solar radiation than the Earth, but absorbs it 1% more of what it gets than the Earth does.    It seems to me that Mars should be way, way behind us in terms of an absolute temperature increase over time, if due only to solar radiation increases.  

Some mechanism in the Martian system must be working a vast amount of overtime to make up for that deficiency, right?   In the article you linked, researchers  suggest that solar radiation is causing high winds that stir up dust and trap heat.    

There may be another, more obvious explanation, however.

It turns out the Martian atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide.

Had to do a double-take when I read that fact.     I developed this post over 1/2 hour or so, perhaps my logic or methods are faulty - I invite a critique of my logic to see if it's sensible.