For many people the thought that humans are the cause of global warming is unbelievable. Some refuse to believe, others can’t believe. I’ve always wondered why. Sometimes I think it might be a religious issue. If you believe in God and believe that God takes care of us, why would he allow us to do something this horrible. Others might think that mankind is too puny to do something so big. Strangely enough, I think others refuse to believe because the idea was promoted by Al Gore and they won’t let Al be right about anything. Ultimately, I don’t know why they think this. To me it’s obvious we all did this to ourselves. Sure there are other causes, but in the end if society had never industrialized we wouldn’t be having this problem.
I think I’ve finally found the logic to prove our guilt in the new National Geographic Channel documentary “Six Degrees Could Change the World.” Towards the end of the show they explained that Earth had once been six degrees hotter and also had an earlier problem with too much carbon in the atmosphere. They reported that it took millions of years for the Earth to sequester the carbon underground in natural stockpiles of coal and oil. In other words, if this is true, what nature took millions of years to do, we undid in just over a hundred years. And the irony is we’re scrambling to develop technology to put carbon underground again.
Six Degrees Could Change the World is the most powerful documentary I’ve yet seen to warn us about the impact of global warming. We should all get a copy and watch it every Sunday morning and contemplate our future. I do believe we are the current cause of global warning and I also believe we have the technology to reverse its effects, but the tragedy of all of this will be when humans refuse to do anything.
To refuse the blame for causing global warming is one thing, to refuse to do anything about it is something else altogether.
Jim
Auxiliary Memory 
Oh yes. I’m an avid reader of NG Magazine and you just made me wish even more that I had satellite TV or cable so I’d get to see “Six Degrees Could Change the World”. Global warming is one of the scariest and most serious issues for the worldwide community to deal with right now and it needs to be addressed much more than it currently is. I’m still young (high school young) and when I try to be serious about environmental issues to my friends and family they tend to get patronizing which is immensely frustrating and makes me feel as if I’m the only one among the people I know who actually cares about the planet and takes the warnings seriously (even though global warming is already greatly affecting the weather in my home country – we’ve barely had any snow this winter which is highly unusual at the latitude Estonia is situated at).
I have to get “Six Degrees Could Change the World” from somewhere and show it to people.
The film will be reshown next Thursday in case you have a friend with the right kind of TV. Also, the documentary will be sold as a DVD in April.
I’m trying to show it to my friends too. Most of them do not want to worry about global warming. However this film has more footage of places around the world that are already experiencing severe climate change than I’ve ever seen before. Seeing giant rivers in the Amazon bone dry does have impact. Seeing native people killing off their dog teams in the arctic because they are no longer practical does have impact. Knowing that 30,000 people died from heat in Europe in 2005 makes a statement.
I think this issue is especially important for the young. It will be the defining issue of your generation. It’s a shame the burden is being placed on you, but it’s times like these that make great people too.
Jim
For 22 years, from 1976 to 1998, carbon dioxide level and average earth temperature both increased. This resulted in a scary Hollywood movie and world wide global warming hysteria. Group-think developed in the climate science community where peer-review bias led to de facto censorship and a paucity of published studies that objectively investigate the extent to which human-produced carbon dioxide contributes to global warming. It has been over nine years now and atmospheric carbon dioxide level has continued to increase but temperature has gone down. Apparently no one did any real research or they would have discovered that 440 mya the planet plunged into the Andean-Saharan ice age when atmospheric carbon dioxide was over ten times the present level (http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml ). With a little further real research they would have discovered that, in the current ice age, temperature trends have changed direction at many different temperature levels. This could not occur if there was positive feedback. They might have also noticed that temperatures went up and down hundreds of years before the carbon dioxide level. The forced conclusion from all this is that non-condensing greenhouse gas, and therefore human activity, has no significant influence on global temperature. This movie is another example of media exploiting a hoodwinked public to sell advertising. They need to show it right away because, as the planet temperature continues to drop, it will look more and more foolish.
Canada:
Montreal was digging out of some 20 centimetres of the white stuff, an amount that brought the city a record snowfall to date at 262 cm of snow so far this year.
China:
Millions remained stranded in China on Monday ahead of the biggest holiday of the year as parts of the country suffered their coldest winter in a century.
Freezing weather has killed scores of people and left travelers stranded before the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival — the only opportunity many people have for a holiday all year.
Where’s Al Gore? Or did he already sell enough books?
Dan, it will great if you are right. I have no desire to live through bad times. Two things though. First, have you seen the film? It has footage from around the globe where things are hot and getting hotter now. There is no sign of cooling. Second, how do you deal with the logic of the point I make in my post? If coal and oil are nature’s way of taking carbon out of the atmosphere, why wouldn’t there be an impact related to removing it?
You are part of the group that fight the issue by saying carbon isn’t the issue. That may be true, but the consensus of scientific opinion is against that. However, I’m not against exploring such ideas, but as long as the main body of scientists think one way I think we need to act on their findings to be prudent until something else comes along. Reducing the carbon footprint means shifting to new technologies. Doing so will cause an economic boom and have other desirable side affects, such as freeing our country from being dependent on resources in other countries. So even if the carbon theory is wrong we’ll still be much better off acting as though it was.
Jim
Hundreds of scientists, economists, and public policy experts are set to meet in Manhattan next month to discuss the other side of the climate change debate that the establishment media prefers to pretend does not exist.
http://www.offensivestuff.com/wordpress/?p=816
disinter, watch the film and then reply. Extreme heat or cold in various places around the globe does not make points for or against global warming. The concept is based on average global temperatures changing. One point related to the concept of global warming is global warming will cause extreme weather outbreaks around the world, including severe winters.
I’m not a climatologist. My issue is whether or not as a citizen of the world should I do something. The consensus of scientific thinking is to warn us about the problem and make suggestions that we alter our ways. Some people want to and others do not.
Here’s a bit of logic. If we change our habits and nothing happens then we tried. If we change and stop global warming then we change the course of history. If we do nothing and the bad does indeed happen, then we’re doomed. If we do nothing and you’re right, we the world can thank a few souls for seeing things differently. But if you’re going to gamble, which path would you bet on?
Jim
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/science/19carb.html?_r=2&ex=1361077200&en=d23ec5df5017adbc&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Neat article Donnie. Let’s hope they get funding and start working on a prototype. A recent article in the Scientific American suggests our prime concern should be to build solar power plants. That would fit in with this concept to make it a cleaner fuel.
It will take awhile to see if this theory of converting polution to petrol will work. Bio fuels looked like a great idea for years but they are being shot down now.
Jim
Biofuels have not been shot down. Using food for fuel may not be the best method. Politics are getting involved and that almost certainly ensures a less than stellar result. I am all for clean fuel. I am all for solar. The real clean energy is nuclear. Even France gets it.
Recently some scientific studies and groups have concluded that biofuels require more energy than they produce, plus the growing and harvesting of some crops I believe have negative impact on the carbon cycle itself. This isn’t true in all cases as some bio materials produce more energy than others. Corn is a low producer though.
If you factor in all the costs, including all forms of transportation related to producing and using the biofuels they start to look like a bad idea.
Nuclear is indeed becoming green. Actually anything that reduces the use of coal and oil helps. Fusion would be great if they could get it off the ground.
Right now there is no easy solutions. The reason why oil, gas and coal are so successful is because they are easy solutions.
Jim
I certainly agree that there are a ton of reasons people don’t want to believe any of these doom and gloom predictions. A lot is probably pure laziness. For my own part I’ve heard “scientists” quote stats, research, etc that “prove” global warming and I’ve heard other “scientists” quote stats, research, etc. showing that the warming and cooling of the Earth has always undergone these cyclical patterns. In the end I certainly don’t have the time or the devotion to this issue to spend hours deciding who I really believe. When it comes down to it the general public is not going to care about global warming unless it becomes economical to do so. With the rising gas prices I think you will find a lot more people clamoring for the kinds of changes global warming proponents want to see simply because it puts more money back into our pockets. And the side effect will be better management of the environment and a healthier Earth.