 LinusW wrote:
sleeper wrote:
Jim Garten wrote:
sleeper wrote:
I'm still highly sceptical towards global warming and whether its got much to do with mankind or not |
Have to say I'm with you on that one - I seem to remember reading the eruption of Mt St Helens in the 1980s did more damage to the atmosphere in 5 days than mankind has done since the beginning of the industrial revolution...
Still - if we do our best to be as 'green' as possible, at least we're not making things worse 
Good responses all, many thanks - keep 'em coming! |
I may be very sceptical about man made global warming (personally I think its far more likely to be driven by the sun, that giant flaming ball of nucelar fusion that determines whether life is possible or not in the first place), but as I said, that is absoulutely no excuse to push our luck.
ANyway, I think its been acknowledged that water vaper is a far more dangerous green house gas.
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Don't know what to think, really. Contradictory studies are never nice. But I think that it serves its purpose (true or not) in that we at least try to live in a more sustainable way. Which is what really matters. The greenhouse effect is of course what we hear about the most, but there are so many other (truly substantial) environmental problems that need to be dealt with as well.
All in all, it's a development we should be happy about 
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The Earth is a finely tuned solar-powered system, vary any single parameter a little and the system self-regulates to maintain an equilibrium. By that the Earth is 'immune' to slight variations in these initial conditions resulting in only mild fluctuations in climate - for example the 11-year cycle of sun-spots is known to cause freak weather conditions, but the Earth's ego system is robust enough to cope with these as a human would the common cold, however should these be prolonged or their effects not be shielded by the upper atmosphere as well as they are now and it could tip the balance too far.
Change one parameter dramatically or several parameters slightly then the system becomes unstable while it searches for this new equilibrium, oscillating wildly from one extreme to the other. These lead to staggering changes in the system that in the past have resulted in the ice ages and the numerous geological epochs. Since the last ice-age ended roughly 12,000 years ago, (which is like, yesterday in geological terms) these deviations are a continual process and the climate is not as stable as it would appear. Individual changes may be small, but their accumulative effect is harder to ascertain since we cannot predict every circumstance and variation that may neutralise or enhance them.
The problem with 'global warming' is that any evidence can be interpreted in a number of ways depending upon your point of view, politics or economic situation. It is easy to jump to the wrong conclusion because the entire system is far more complex than we can model - we cannot even accurately predict the weather for tomorrow using the biggest and fastest supercomputers the Cray corporation can muster, so what chance do we have of predicting the out-come of burning fossil fuels or depleting the ozone-layer?
All you can say is that any prediction is pure speculation and whatever we guess the outcome to be, we will be wrong by several orders of magnitude in either direction simply because we are messing with a system we do not fully understand.
What does appear evident to me is that releasing all the carbon that was trapped in the Earths crust over several million years during the Carboniferous period within a relatively short space of time, while at the same time deforesting large tracts of land and polluting an ecosystem of natural resources that could conceivably counter the effect, (like ocean blooms for example), cannot be 'absorbed' by planting a few extra trees.
Since there are enough natural disturbances that can upset the environment without our help, adding to them does not seem to be the wisest option.
Edited by darqDean - May 24 2008 at 15:28
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How 'green' are you?
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ing awful energy saving lightbulbs throughout, and they DO make a difference to your electric bills. My walls and loft are all fully insulated too.
. I can't believe that over 6 billion people and the volume of pollution they produce have no impact whatsoever on climate changes. Those who doubt the reality of global warming seem to forget one very simple fact, which many of us have witnessed firsthand: mountain glaciers everywhere are shrinking (not to mention polar icecaps, which are considerably bigger), and in some cases disappearing altogether. It's been happening here in the Alps, and I suppose in other mountain areas as well.
