Global Warming - Bother You Much?

[Orph@N]

Last snowfall in my Hometown we had was 4 1/2 feet, since then it's been slush at best. Were all gonna die soon :O. Most that stuff you read is no joke, to think it won't happen is Corky thinking, respect your planet or you won't have one.

[E-bo Obi]

Ok so you attribute the change from one year having a snowfall of 4 1/2 ft to the next year and all subsequent years as just being slush to greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by humans?

Sorry buddy, we don't work that quickly. The amount of CO2 that humans contribute to greenhouse gases is still less than 1% of the total produced. Nature produces far more than we do. So I suppose we should go and kill any animal that passes gas since they are contributing to the demise of our planet as well. And the Sun itself causes a lot of fluctuation so lets get a missile to balst up at that thing to show it who is boss.

Simple fact of the matter is at some point this world will not be inhabitable and their is nothing science or man can do about it. We could reverse the "greenhouse" effect and perhaps make it so the planet is habitable forever. Then what... oh wait a minute, our Sun won't last forever. Its gonna burn up eventually. What then?

Its far more likely that a meteor will hit earth, change the atmosphere and kill us all than we will be able to do it ourselves.

The only thing that may reduce our contribution to the "greenhouse", and I emphasize MAY, is to legalize industrial hemp. A field of industrial hemp comes to full maturity in 6 months and does the work of a forest many time its size in cleaning the air.

[Sai'nu]

Who knew Hemp had the potential to save the human race!

[E-bo Obi]

Note the preceding word INDUSTRIAL. You can smoke a whole field of it and get nothing but a headache. There are over 100,000 different uses for industrial hemp. Hell it can be used in anything that fiberglass can be used in.

[Keer]

Analysis revisited. Studies from some less obscure sources.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09 ... index.html

[Orph@N]

Lol i totally screwed up when i put last snowfall, i mean't a snowfall from i believe around 95-96 or so. Gotta love early morning been up all night posts :/

[warsloth]

My grandpa is a Genious. He explained to me exactly what the real problem behind global warming is.

I was standing next to him as he was feeding his goats, and we had been discussing the weather.

so he says, "I think all this global warming crap is from all the people. You got to think that the population has never been this big. It takes a lot of cattle and other stuff to feed all of us. Each person, and each cow give off heat right?"

I was like, "Sure I guess so."

"Well, that crap adds up. So there's your global warming."


You can't disagree that 6 billion is far more than the global population has ever been, and we each convert nutrients we ingest into thermal energy. So you have to give it as much credit as any other "theory".

[xyryn]

Ok, historical weather long-term fluctuations:

About 350 BCE, global yearly temperatures were 2-4 degrees CENTIGRADE warmer than they are now.

About 700 A.D., global weather began to cool down. Prior to that, adequate farming was practiced north of the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia. By 789, the cooling had progressed so far that the northern farms were abandoned, the survivors had migrated south, population pressure was fairly intense and the Viking Age began.

The 14th century had a cold snap that lasted about 73 years. This contributed to the spread of Bubonic Plague, a triple epidemic for the whole of Eurasia. All of us Caucasian and Mongol peoples are decended from survivors as virtually the whole population of that continent, plus the entire Mediterranian Litoral, was exposed to that disease.

In 1543, the changes in the glaciers in the Alps had become noticable. Whole villages were being crushed. This was the beginning of the Mini Ice Age. It lasted until approximately 1850, when the glaciers and the Icecaps were recognizably retreating. The clothing being worn during this time would stifle us now, even in central Europe.

These are fairly well documented, in historiography and/or in both the Greenland Icecap and the Arctic Icecap. Dendrology has recently (in the past decade and a half) confirmed the ice-core data.

I don't think there is a whole lot we can do to change a weather pattern. And, btw, in case anyone has forgotten grade school biology...growing green things exhale CO2 at nite.

[Li'ith]

.growing green things exhale CO2 at nite.

I'll sign a petition to stomp out Killer Broccoli.

As for those of you who "remember" the seasons being different - with the emphasis on winter - your perceptions are correct. When I was a child in the DC area, we could sled on the city streets; the snow was satisfactorily deep at 2-3 feet every winter. However, when I returned to that area with my daughter, the heaviest snowfall in the 4 years we were there was a whopping 4 inches. More recently, during the past 7 years, she and I have commented on the heavy snowfalls that area is reporting.

For areas further south, when I was a teenager in the 60's, my family moved to Florida near The Cape. We chose to live in Indialantic partly because we were told that the area had not been hit by a hurricane in 14 years. The next hurricane season, we were hit by 3, with the eyes passing over us. That was pretty much standard for the 3 years we were there.

So, yes, there are short-term cycles. The current issue of global warming is interesting, but I believe that it is about a much longer cycle than our life-spans. Xyryn's post is interesting in that it seems to indicate a cooling period over the 1100 years ending in the mid 19th century which appears to have been reversing. It may, or may not, reflect the effects of industrialization.

While I currently live in an area of the country which appears to enjoy End of the World as We Know It scenarios, especially when a Republican is in the Oval Office, I am unable to be majorly concerned with global warming. I will not, however, buy real estate in Florida, NYC or New Orleans.

(And for you, Whar, I would not buy real estate in Florence.)

[Dwilah]

And, btw, in case anyone has forgotten grade school biology...growing green things exhale CO2 at nite.

I thought the growing green things ate the CO2 that we exhaled, and then pooped out Oxygen? And that's why stuff like the algae in the ocean and the trees are so awesome--they help keep our atmosphere clean?

6H2O + 6CO2 ----------> C6H12O6+ 6O2

Or is what you're talking about like...dark photosynthesis or one of those other biological processes that I don't really remember very well? I still thought they pooped O2. And I could be like, totally blanking on this. /shrug

[xyryn]

Frankly, the only reason I remembered that bit about exhaling CO2 is I was reminded at the hospital...you can bring in bouquets but you can't bring in potted plants. Not even cacti.

I have to presume the amount of carbon dioxide released by plants does not equal the amount of oxygen. Otherwise, we would have no oxygen in our atmosphere.

[Ekade]

As for those of you who "remember" the seasons being different - with the emphasis on winter - your perceptions are correct. When I was a child in the DC area, we could sled on the city streets; the snow was satisfactorily deep at 2-3 feet every winter. However, when I returned to that area with my daughter, the heaviest snowfall in the 4 years we were there was a whopping 4 inches. More recently, during the past 7 years, she and I have commented on the heavy snowfalls that area is reporting.

Oh yes, up here in the Chicago area, we used have "Snow days" (school closings due to snow) all the time when I was a kid. Now they are extremely rare, you might get 1 or 2 a year. Back in the day, we could get 5-10.

[Hashum]

As for those of you who "remember" the seasons being different - with the emphasis on winter - your perceptions are correct. When I was a child in the DC area, we could sled on the city streets; the snow was satisfactorily deep at 2-3 feet every winter. However, when I returned to that area with my daughter, the heaviest snowfall in the 4 years we were there was a whopping 4 inches. More recently, during the past 7 years, she and I have commented on the heavy snowfalls that area is reporting.

Oh yes, up here in the Chicago area, we used have "Snow days" (school closings due to snow) all the time when I was a kid. Now they are extremely rare, you might get 1 or 2 a year. Back in the day, we could get 5-10.

Don't rule out the impact that improved salting methods and weather preperation have played in the role of snow days. Even Vermont which still receives plenty of snow doesn't have the same number of snow days because now the snow and ice are handled much more effectively.

And there are natural cycles, just because snow fall is down for a few years doesn't mean global warming. There are cycles they usually last 4-5 years. I say this having lived in Vermont and now TN you definately see a change about that frequently.

In Vermont every 4 or 5 years you have a really bad snow or ice storm follwed by a few winters of lighter snow that gets progressively worse each year till you hit another storm.

In Tennessee you have no snow but every 4th or 5th year you get one bad snow storm.

[Isleh]

Earth as Hoth

Today global warming is one of the world's biggest environmental problems. But scientists in the United States are now proposing that life as we know it owes its existence to a similar greenhouse effect occurring millions of years ago.

A research team from Harvard University in Massachusetts has proposed that a fall in the level of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere 750 million years ago caused a drop in global temperatures which came close to wiping out all life on earth.

The entire earth became covered with snow, which reflected the sun's heat and further accelerated the process of freezing - a phenomenon which has been dubbed a "snowball event"....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/159988.stm

[Sai'nu]

Southern Illinois is much the same way. As a kid I can remember gobs and gobs of snow and snow days off of school. As I've gotten older I've noticed the chill stays very much the same but the cycles have gotten to such a place that we never seem to get the 'big' snows from when I was little. I'll factor that in as being a 'child's' perspective on 'size'.

In all reality we essentially do seem to get the snow cycle here. Builds up to the 'worst' winter we've had in years... then mellows out only to pick back up again.

If Global Warming were a 'huge' issue at this very moment; I think we'd be seeing something like in all the 'armageddon' type movies:

The Day After Tomorrow (for example)

It's not unlike other natural disasters. Like the hurricanes and tropical storms in the Gulf and Coastal regions. Your going to have that in those areas. Yet, we still choose to live in these areas. Our only other choice... live in bubbles. : p