Orly? My opinions changed sometime during a 5 year span?

Which makes you a weak-minded liberal pussy.

I was like 15 in 2003.

Once a pussy, always a pussy.

Yes, but only on sunday after church. :grin:... I wanna grow up to be just like you.... :eek:
That's awesome... I need to post this on my myspace!

I can't believe, at this time in the 2000's almost one decade through, so many people still don't believe that Global warming has been caused by man.

Well... global warming is a misnomer. It's really global climate change. Some parts of the world will get colder, so you can't call it purely warming. Also, temperature shifts are a normal part of the planet's life cycle. So while climate change is occurring, how do we determine how much of it is due to the planet and how much is due to us?

That's the million dollar question. I mean, there are other factors playing into this as well such as the poles shifting, and the natural occurrences that happens every few thousand of years. Then again, there is no denying that the amount of pollution we put into the air on a daily basis has to be harmful to our enviorment.

...which reminds me of the following article!


The Cooling World

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

—PETER GWYNNE

Newsweek, April 28, 1975

tl;dr - In the 1970s, "Global Cooling" was the problem at hand. Might put things into perspective for you?

Are you for real!? Whoa!
I wonder if that's for true. I'm gonna ask some people over 30 or 40...

Sorry buddy... I get my facts from Glenn Beck, not some "scientists."

Oh. Well in that case, my humblest apologies.

Most climatologists (sans Phil Jones and some of his CRU associates?) agree that global warming is happening, and that it is probably man-made. The trends of global warming do display a notable correlation with the amount of solar radiation and its band (spectral) distribution[1]. Thus, the latter conclusion about man playing a significant role in making, or ever having made matters worse is not fully validated.

The thing is, none of that really matters. Since no climatic model can currently represent all of the relevant variables, the only responsible thing to do is to take action against global warming. If we end up taking action in vain, another global depression may ensue. If we don't take action yet (man-made) global warming becomes unstoppable, Earth may become the next Venus.

On a related note, I wonder how far-reaching the consequences of the CRU leak will become. After all, it is becoming increasingly apparent that a small cabal of climatologists have sought to control the overall agenda to increase and gain funding beyond that which could have been previously expected:

http://www.aei.org/article/101395

Props on finding a speciously more credible source (AEI), something Adrenachrome was not able to do. I must concede that a noticeable minority of scientists have a dissenting opinion concerning anthropogenic global warming. That said, many of the dissenting scientists are in the pockets of the oil companies. You will find a much smaller percentage of scientists dissenting from the consensus at independent institutes of study.

I feel obliged to point out that AEI is funded by two multi-billion dollar oil corporations, Koch industries and Gulf oil, and is a conservative think tank. It has essentially bribed scientists with $10,000+ to critique the IPCC's assessment of the current climate situation; an assessment that is in accordance with the scientific consensus. Furthermore, Hayward is a frequent contributor to AEI. If AEI were truly an unbiased source then the vast majority of the literature there would be in support of global warming. I would challenge you to find one article there espousing that view.

Also, Combinatus, Newsweek essentially retracted the article you posted above claiming "that it was so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future."

According to the most recent annual report on the AEI website the sources of revenue were:

36% Individuals
27% Conferences, Book Sales and other revenues
21% Corporations
16% Foundations

I think the above values are from their 2007 report since I could not find their 2008 report. So if 2007 is a typical year then corporate donations appear to be 21% of their revenue. However it is possible that some conference attendees were employees of corporations and had their conferences fees paid or reimbursed by their employers. Thus the revenue from corporations might be more than 21% but how much more is difficult to tell based on the information I have found. I am not an AEI supporter or defender but I do think if we criticize AEI then the criticism should be based on presenting the information. And I do think AEI should be criticized; just like I think the ExxonMobil, the IPCC, the UN, the local knitting club and every other organization should be criticized. No sacred cows and no free rides.

Now to the broader issue of funding and research. It is often implied indirectly or said explicitly that individuals and groups will bias their research and reporting based on their funding. Given what we know of humans this would not surprise me. However I suggest that we need to avoid automatically discrediting something just based on funding since it is possible for accurate research to be funded by a source with a vested interest just as it is possible for inaccurate research. I am not saying the outcomes are equally likely; I am just saying both are possible.

I would also caution people who continue using funding source as a basis of criticism that this is can boomerang. Consider the various governments, companies, foundations and other sources who claim that global warming is a serious, imminent, human caused threat. If the amount that they put into funding exceeds the amount put in by ExxonMobil and similar companies then the funding argument can backfire.

I mention all of this because I really think we need to de-politicize the entire discussion and have an open and transparent discussion with all of the raw data, the research methods, the assumptions, everything placed for all to easily and freely see and evaluate.

So for example how about reading the article (http://www.aei.org/article/101395) and criticizing it based on its content not on the website on which it is published. I have read the article. Most of what I read in the article are things I had seen elsewhere, although the part of the article about improving IPCC and improving climate research might be interesting. However, more in-depth analysis is needed for those proposals.

I got a chuckle out of this. You know I've actually seen the SNL spoof of Glenn Beck more than I've seen the actual Glenn Beck. SNL usually is a 'heightened reality' but in some of their fox spoofs they're sadly very close to the mark.

I actually wrote a research paper on the subject and found plenty of credible sources against climate change(but more supporting it:haha:). The university has a database of articles by professors and academics from far and wide, white I believe is connected to most major universities worldwide. As you would imagine, it's much more credible than Google. Although if you search Google's scholarly articles and are willing to sift and have plenty of time to read, you can find interesting stuff too.

I would believe it. We have a geology professor here who says that claims of man-made global warming are overstated.

Combanitus, you have given me a lot to read. I will get back to you after finals.

Just finished number 4 out of 6 as we speak