Quote:
Originally Posted by a700hitter
If the planet warms, there is a prediction of famine in Africa? That's a pretty safe prediction. That's like predicting that Brittany Spears is in for a tumultuous year. What about all the famine in Africa before Global Warming? What caused those? I guess Sally Struthers will be very busy.
Let me reiterate, in the 1970's the scientific community (not one or two scientists) said that there was 10 years left of fossil fuels. They had facts and figures that they were relying upon. Running out of oil is a much easier concept to grasp with more definitive consequences than the consequences of Global Warming. They were wrong.
It wasn't Ted Danson that concluded that the oceans were dying in the 1980's. It was the scientific community. Again they were wrong.
I have two questions left. I'll only ask one in this post, because I still have not gotten an answer. Is it true that the earth has not warmed in the last seven years? I'd appreciate some links to those statistics.
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http://www.examiner.com/a-1099253~Om...s_Experts.html
Here's an article talking about the rise in summer ice pack meltage, and how 2007 was a worse year than 2005, which was the previous worst.
Here's a NASA article from 05 talking about how arctic temperatures continue to rise:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/...e_decline.html
There's plenty of indication that temperatures are rising, particularly in the arctic. There are plenty of indications that human fossil fuel usage is at least partially responsible.
I certainly advise taking a thorough look at the problem yourself if you don't trust me to be critical enough.
That said, I think it is a really poor reason to disbelieve the best in modern scientific thought. Honestly, your politics resemble your opinions about baseball. It's a whole lot of telling me what you've seen in a similar situation before, then you talk about being disillusioned, and now you deserve to be able to remain on the outside looking in because you're cynical. We won't blame you when the shit hits the fan, because you were disillusioned by past experiences.
We all have our particular filters, and I do genuinely sympathize with your prior broken trust between you and your government and you and the Red Sox. I tend to trust you when you talk about Yaz and the good old days, but we've certainly seen some good things come to pass despite your protests to the contrary over the past few years.
GIven that, and given the changing nature of our world, it does not seem inconceivable to me that new scientific problems confront us now compared to those in the mid-70s. I also see no reason to mistrust the general consensus of the scientific community on most issues. I'm sure that sometimes I have the wool over my eyes and get fleeced by a company or group that has a larger agenda based on personal interest. However, I am not looking FORWARD to having to make lots of changes. I LIKE my car, I like the selection of fruits in the grocery store, and cheap gas. I like alot of things about modern life and I don't WANT it to change. I hope you're right and it is all a bunch of BS; however, the consequences seem too great to not do ANYTHING about it and the sooner we start the better off we will be in the long run. I find it foolish to think that something like the greenhouse effect is far-fetched. We have seen other planets that appear to have undergone their own greenhouse effect (Venus is a giant ball of CO2). It seems naive to think we're immune, unless you have a really strong faith in an interventionist protector of some sort.
Given the amount of science that says there
IS global warming doesn't it make even more sense to at least try to make the little life changes that would really help? Support public projects to that effect, for instance? I don't know...
I would also be fine if CEO's went back to getting only 43 times more than their average employee (1980) instead of the 364 times margin that we have today, thus paying for a huge portion of this project and giving back to the employees in the form of better health care or retirement packages.