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Forums - General - Do you think humans are helping cause Climate change?

 

Are humans the leading factor in our changing climate?

Of course we are. 73 55.30%
 
Probably. 17 12.88%
 
Probably not. 12 9.09%
 
Absolutely not. 23 17.42%
 
I have no idea. 6 4.55%
 
I wanna change apms climate ;) 1 0.76%
 
Total:132
Rath on 26 April 2012
DarthVolod said:
Rath said:
DarthVolod said:
killerzX said:
global warming is the biggest hoax of our lifetime. just 30-40 years ago, the were talking about us going into another ice age. the years will go on a people will realize how much of a scam it is.

remember the green movement is really RED. its communist, its all about redistributing wealth.

the earths climate has been changing since it was made, theres nothing diferent going on. we are safe.


Pretty much this.

Too many people benefit from the propagation of the myth of global warming in order for them to be taken seriously. Along with global warming comes the "need" for green energy and the "need" to study climate chnage. I don't know about you guys but spending all of my time studying a fictitious meteological phenomenon and clamoring for solar panels every where sounds like a pretty easy and sweet gig job wise ... not to mention well payed since government (which can tax as much as it wants and print as much money as it wants) is footing the bill. 

If humans actually have an impact on climate then it is probably an incredibly minor and superficial one that can not be noticed until maybe a thousand or so years from now, but I am skeptical of even this. The Earth goes through natural cooling and warming phases regardless of what humans do.

I am familiar with what you said about a scare over an ice age back in like the 1970s, and the funny thing is that I think it was the right that was mostly pushing it lol. So now that we have had global warming and cooling panics they will have to get really creative with their next big lie.


There's a lot of scientific peer-reviewed study on climate change, while climate models are imprecise (due to the vast amount of computation required) they generally suggest the same thing - the amount of carbon dioxide put into the air by humans is causing global climate changes including a rising average temperature. That you feel that it's somehow 'convenient' doesn't change what the scientific evidence suggests.

Your hypothesis that the impact of humans on climate change is 'superficial' is not backed up by the evidence.


We could go back and forth about how much of the scientific community supports climate change, and how much dissents. The fact that there are scientists dissenting fromt the theory in the numbers they are is rather telling when it is almost always in their financial and professional interest to support climate change theory even if they don't believe in it.

Playing devil's advocate though I can imagine that even if humans did have a significant impact on climate change there is really not much we can do about it. Countries like China are rapidly building up an infrastruction and an expansive manufacturing ecnonomy which puts out a massive amount of CO2 in the process all while while laughing at countries like America that shoot themselves in the foot with absurd regulations which kill industry while making them ever more reliant on foreign countries for basic goods.

Unless there is some sort of Orwellian all controlling world government put in place there is no way you are going to stop progress in every country. The good news for climate change supporters is that fossil fuels are finite so we will eventually have to find alternatives ... although I still believe there is a lot of coal around so that will be there for awhile.

 


So because it would require global co-operation we should just give up and fuck up the future of humanity?

Also there is general consensus on climate change - http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

 

And yeah coal will be around for a while sadly, even ignoring the warming effect coal is a dirty dirty fuel.



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SvennoJ on 26 April 2012
thismeintiel said:
Rath said:
thismeintiel said:

Lol, I'll see you in 8 years, when we are still using oil like today, and yet mysteriously still have more.

That's only oil sands, there's a lot of conventional oil out there still too. I'm not saying we're going to run out straight away - just that we're going to start having less than before. With the current rate of oil discovery compared to the current rate of oil consumption it simply isn't sustainable forever. Peak oil doesn't mean all oil is going to stop, it just means it will slowly wind down.

The only problem is a lot of this info comes from "proven" oil reserves, which isn't just oil reserves that are obtainable technologically (which it should be), it also takes into account politics.  Then there's the fact that the chart you posted is info from 2002.  A lot can change in 10 years.  Of course, they're also very pessimistic.  If you look at at the previous years, you'll see how greatly it fluctuates.  Some years there is barely any new oil discovered, while others there is a lot of newly discovered oil.  With new technology, one can never truly know how much oil we will discover in the future. 

Then you also have the topic of unconventional reserves, which are ones we know about, but would take longer to either obtain or refine.  With newer technology, however, these will become easier and cheaper to obtain and process.  Here's a chart to compare both proven and unproven/unconventional numbers.  Numbers are from 2002, as well, and are in billions of barrels.

Source

This is updated upto 2011

http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

Chief Economist of the IEA, said this in a frank interview in April 2011:

We think that the crude oil production has already peaked in 2006, but we expect oil to come from the natural gas liquids, the type of liquid we have through the production of gas, and also a bit from the oil sands. But in any case it will be very challenging to see an increase in the production to meet the growth in the demand, and as a result of that, one of the major conclusions we have from our recent work in the energy outlook is that the age of cheap oil is over.

Decline rates

Perhaps an even more more significant question than 'when will oil peak?' may be: What will be the future rate of decline of oil production? Some form of co-ordinated adaptation might be possible if the annual drop in available oil was no more severe than 1-2% a year. Whereas 10% or more would soon implode the global economy. The IEA predicts a long plateau and a very modest global decline rate. Most independent models project decline rates between 2-4%.

Natural gas peak

The effects of natural gas peak are relatively localized. This is due to the enormous economic and energetic expense of liquefying and transporting natural gas as a compressed liquid. Both European and North American natural gas production have likely already peaked, so these regions are facing the extra severity of a dual energy crisis.



Branko2166 on 26 April 2012

I don't believe we are.
I find the notion that we have to cut carbon emissions drastically ridiculous as carbon dioxide is required for trees to thrive and if we reduce it too much we may endanger them and by defaults us.

Then again this is probably the goal of eugenicists who advocate reducing the human population drastically as well.



 

 

IIIIITHE1IIIII on 26 April 2012
Branko2166 said:
I don't believe we are.
I find the notion that we have to cut carbon emissions drastically ridiculous as carbon dioxide is required for trees to thrive and if we reduce it too much we may endanger them and by defaults us.

Then again this is probably the goal of eugenicists who advocate reducing the human population drastically as well.


And I find your post drastically ridiculous. It's not like we would have too low amounts of carbon dioxide even if all of our pollution immediately stopped.

 

Why don't you just listen to the great majority of researchers?



Rath on 26 April 2012
Branko2166 said:
I don't believe we are.
I find the notion that we have to cut carbon emissions drastically ridiculous as carbon dioxide is required for trees to thrive and if we reduce it too much we may endanger them and by defaults us.

Then again this is probably the goal of eugenicists who advocate reducing the human population drastically as well.


...

Dear lord I hope that was all sarcasm. Otherwise you are grossly ignorant.



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SvennoJ on 26 April 2012

How much longer will this go on

vs



Reasonable on 26 April 2012

Of course we are. We'd need to produce 0% emissions of any kind not to.

How much are we affecting it vs natural changes to climate over geological timeframes? Well that's were the argument begins.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Metallicube on 26 April 2012

Anyone who says yes thinks way too much of themselves and their impact. We are nothing but specs on the surface of the earth. We have been around like 500,000 years MAX. The earth has been around 4.5 billion years. Do the math. Like George Carlin said, the earth has been through MUCH worse than us.

Is there currently a period of warming? Absolutely. But there is absolutely no evidence that connects us to it. It you look even at relatively recent history, you will see that there are cycles of warming and cooling, and we are still well within those boundaries.

HUMAN CAUSED global warming is nothing more than a pseudo science that politicians and scientists use to scare people with in order to push carbon taxes, which is nothing more than a method of control and profit off the environment.



Andrespetmonkey on 26 April 2012
Player1x3 said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:


I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm pretty sure that humans are behind at least most of these climate changes.



If not, "God" failed big time.


how exactly ? Climate chage is natural occurrence, that has happened millions times before humans even existed on this planet

 

and God can't fail, otherwise he wouldn't be a God :)

As a guy who sucks at God of war, I beg to differ.



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Mummelmann on 26 April 2012
Reasonable said:
Of course we are. We'd need to produce 0% emissions of any kind not to.

How much are we affecting it vs natural changes to climate over geological timeframes? Well that's were the argument begins.


Pretty much agree with this. Our emissions are fairly small compared to nature itself and climate changes have been occurring with varying intervals based on a multitude of factors even before we were in existance. A single large volcano erupting can polute more than all the cars on earth for several years. Even massive human contributions such as agriculture and industry is small fries compared to the planet itself and it's regular regurgitation and farts.

One world ocean alone will polute several times more than all humans put together.