Climate change. Global march on Bali

[Ravenous Wolf]

www.avaaz.org/en/virtual_march_bali/

would any of you guys mind to go to this site and sign this?

[Ancient Dragon]

>>would any of you guys mind to go to this site and sign this?
No. What makes you think we need to interfere with mother nature ?

[Ravenous Wolf]

>>would any of you guys mind to go to this site and sign this?
No. What makes you think we need to interfere with mother nature ?

think carefully. the people of the earth are already interfering, hence climate change. Or what do you think we are doing by pumping stacks of CO2 into our atmosphere?

The petition is for people to stop interfering with mother nature so that the climate can return to normal. Unless of course you believe that the large amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere is natural and as such a part of mother nature.

[darkagn]

On the topic of climate change, Australia's new Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, has promised to ratify the Kyoto Agreement as one of his first orders of business. This means that the US is the only developed nation to refuse to sign. What is truly ironic is that the US produces roughly 30% of the world's CO2, so without them the agreement is pretty pointless. It's like trying to optimise an algorithm but leaving 30% of it as is. :P

[EnderX]

think carefully. the people of the earth are already interfering, hence climate change. Or what do you think we are doing by pumping stacks of CO2 into our atmosphere?

The same thing that volcanoes have been doing for eons now?

The petition is for people to stop interfering with mother nature so that the climate can return to normal. Unless of course you believe that the large amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere is natural and as such a part of mother nature.

Can you prove that they aren't? If so, may I specifically see your proofs for the purpose of investigation?

[EnderX]

On the topic of climate change, Australia's new Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, has promised to ratify the Kyoto Agreement as one of his first orders of business. This means that the US is the only developed nation to refuse to sign. What is truly ironic is that the US produces roughly 30% of the world's CO2, so without them the agreement is pretty pointless. It's like trying to optimise an algorithm but leaving 30% of it as is. :P

From what I've heard, the Kyoto agreement would have little effect on actual climate. The main result would seem to be that any country which attempted to abide by it would watch their own economy plummet. Most of Europe, for example, doesn't seem to be doing to well according to Kyoto standards.

And from what I've read, I believe that the US did sign the treaty, under President William Jefferson Clinton. He simply never sent it to the Congress for ratification, on the grounds that they would have rejected it out of hand. I'm not certain how accurate this is, however.

[Ravenous Wolf]

@ enderx

The seven sources of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion are (with percentage contributions for 2000-2004)[8]:

1. Solid fuels (e.g. coal): 35%
2. Liquid fuels (e.g. gasoline): 36%
3. Gaseous fuels (e.g. natural gas): 20%
4. Flaring gas industrially and at wells: <1%
5. Cement production: 3%
6. Non-fuel hydrocarbons: <1%
7. The "international bunkers" of shipping and air transport not included in national inventories: 4%

Here is the link to the site where i got it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gasses

on another link, also on wikipedia, it says that vulcanoes releas about 200 000 000 tons a year while humans releases about 27 000 000 000. that means vulcanoes releases about zero point seven percent as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as humans.

of course you can say that the people who conduct these measurements are a bunch of liars.

i cant believe that i am being drawn into another fight. it seems that that is all i am doing nowadays and that applies to on the internet as well as off it. :-)

[darkagn]

From what I've heard, the Kyoto agreement would have little effect on actual climate. The main result would seem to be that any country which attempted to abide by it would watch their own economy plummet. Most of Europe, for example, doesn't seem to be doing to well according to Kyoto standards.

Actually my point was that the Kyoto Agreement will have little effect on climate change without the US. :P

And on the topic of economics, things like energy costs might rise, but what other economical effects could occur? I have never really understood the argument that economics relies upon the burning of fossil fuels. And in fact from what I've read, the US economy is in worse shape now than it has been in over 20 years due to the practice of predatory lending and credit card debt.

[jwenting]

Kyoto will have NO effect on the "climate" whatsoever with or without the US.

US CO2 emissions (which is what Kyoto is all about and which are utterly pointless when it comes to "the climate") are DOWN and have been going down for several years now despite (or more likely because of, given what's happening in countries which did sign up) the US not signing on to the economic suicide pact that's Kyoto.

Kyoto will cripple economies right at the time when they could do so much to reduce polution. That's because only economies that are strong can do anything to reduce polution and Kyoto is designed (that's its entire reason for being) to destroy economies.
If energy prices go up dramatically (as they are in Europe for example) the cost of both production and consumption explodes. Travel becomes next to impossible because noone (except rich environmentalists who make hundreds of billions from selling "carbon credits") can afford to do it anymore.
Tourism dries up, which is THE driving factor in many areas.
People once again have a choice to either build poluting industries or no industries because they don't have the funds to build clean industries.
And that's the real purpose of Kyoto, not "the environment" but reducing the western world to 3rd world status.

In the meantime the "climate" changes however it bloody well likes to, without giving any lipservice to what Al Gore thinks it should do.
It's been doing it for billions of years and will continue to do so for billions of years to come.

And oh, the "global temperature average" over the last several years has actually been going down rather than up (as Al Gore would have you believe).

A single big volcanic eruption will release as much CO2 (as well as other "greenhouse gasses") into the atmosphere as all of humanity combined does in several hundred years.

That's another thing the greenies don't want you to know and will blatantly publish lies to have you believe otherwise (lies which Wikipedia and the world press laps up like gospel).

[EnderX]

A single big volcanic eruption will release as much CO2 (as well as other "greenhouse gasses") into the atmosphere as all of humanity combined does in several hundred years.

That's another thing the greenies don't want you to know and will blatantly publish lies to have you believe otherwise (lies which Wikipedia and the world press laps up like gospel).

Mind pointing to some statistics on that?

[darkagn]

Hi jwentig,

I always find your comments interesting and I respect your ideas, but I would like to comment if I may on what you've said.

Kyoto will have NO effect on the "climate" whatsoever with or without the US.

US CO2 emissions (which is what Kyoto is all about and which are utterly pointless when it comes to "the climate") are DOWN and have been going down for several years now despite (or more likely because of, given what's happening in countries which did sign up) the US not signing on to the economic suicide pact that's Kyoto.

Scientists the world over agree that CO2 emissions are the driving force behind global warming, a scientific theory that has yet to be disproven.

Kyoto will cripple economies right at the time when they could do so much to reduce polution. That's because only economies that are strong can do anything to reduce polution and Kyoto is designed (that's its entire reason for being) to destroy economies.

Actually I think the problem here is that the Kyoto Agreement did not take economic factors into account, but it certainly was not designed to cripple the world's economies. It was designed to have a global effort to affect the way in which we rely on fossil fuels and specifically how the use of these fuels is compounding the problem of climate change. After all, without a global effort how can we get such a global issue to fruition?

If energy prices go up dramatically (as they are in Europe for example) the cost of both production and consumption explodes. Travel becomes next to impossible because noone (except rich environmentalists who make hundreds of billions from selling "carbon credits") can afford to do it anymore.
Tourism dries up, which is THE driving factor in many areas.

I disagree with what you've said here. The cost of travel from Australia to the rest of the world (except Asia) has increased significantly in the last 10 years, yet more Australians than ever are travelling to Europe and the Americas.

Also, energy prices are going up world-wide (including in the US) and this has not just been caused by the Kyoto Agreement. There are many other factors involved. The US economy is slowing and many economies in the world rely heavily upon the US (I heard they are a superpower :) ) and the war in Iraq (which I am not commenting on politically) has also been a factor particularly in the price of oil.

People once again have a choice to either build poluting industries or no industries because they don't have the funds to build clean industries.
And that's the real purpose of Kyoto, not "the environment" but reducing the western world to 3rd world status.

If that were truly the case, noone would have signed the agreement.

In the meantime the "climate" changes however it bloody well likes to, without giving any lipservice to what Al Gore thinks it should do.

What does Al Gore have to do with it? I thought he retired from politics.

It's been doing it for billions of years and will continue to do so for billions of years to come.

Yes but the Industrial Revolution of the early 20th century has changed the way that the climate changes.

And oh, the "global temperature average" over the last several years has actually been going down rather than up (as Al Gore would have you believe).

Where's the evidence of that? I am constantly hearing in the local weather report things like "Hottest November on record", "Driest October in history" -- and I live in South Australia, the driest state in the driest country in the world!

A single big volcanic eruption will release as much CO2 (as well as other "greenhouse gasses") into the atmosphere as all of humanity combined does in several hundred years.

Surely you mean before we started burning coal and oil?

That's another thing the greenies don't want you to know and will blatantly publish lies to have you believe otherwise (lies which Wikipedia and the world press laps up like gospel).

I am proud to call myself a conservative greenie. I am not a radical, but I do believe that it is our responsibility to look after the planet - after all it is the only one we have.

Anyway I think that's enough of a rant for one night. I didn't mean to get quite so political about all this when I brought up the subject of Kyoto - I was more just pointing out that the US is sticking out like a sore thumb!

[Ezzaral]

Some background reading available at Ars Technica, see Climate:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/770002407831/m/841006407831

Additional answers to questions can be found here:
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

[jwenting]

Scientists the world over agree that CO2 emissions are the driving force behind global warming, a scientific theory that has yet to be disproven.

Just as scientists all over the world agree that it isn't.

Yes but the Industrial Revolution of the early 20th century has changed the way that the climate changes.

It hasn't.

I am constantly hearing in the local weather report things like "Hottest November on record", "Driest October in history"

While noone talks about the cold, wet, summers that have plagued Europe for 2 years now...
In fact they had to falsify historical temperature records to keep up the fantasy that it's getting warmer...

Surely you mean before we started burning coal and oil?

Nope. Mount St Helens comes to mind, erupting in 1980. I think people started burning oil and coal before that?

I am proud to call myself a conservative greenie. I am not a radical, but I do believe that it is our responsibility to look after the planet - after all it is the only one we have.

And we can do that without deliberately destroying our economies and installing a world government of radical greens to rule over everyone else who will by that time be shivering around little open fires in cave openings, because that's where the radicals want us to end up.

I'm all for not wasting stuff, trying to get clean production.
But remember that European and north American industry is now cleaner than it ever has been.
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil we walk on, hasn't been as clean as it is today in over a thousand years.
All that is the result of economic progress, progress which allows humans to have an interest in cleaning up the environment, progress that allows them to think further than where the next meal is going to come from and whether they'll be able to have a warm house to sleep in tonight or once again have to fight off frostbite.

I didn't mean to get quite so political about all this when I brought up the subject of Kyoto

Kyoto is a political tool to destroy western economies. You can't talk about it without talking politics.

[EnderX]

Scientists the world over agree that CO2 emissions are the driving force behind global warming, a scientific theory that has yet to be disproven.

Consensus is not proof. In fact, consensus tends to be in some cases the enemy of scientific debate, if it becomes solidified enough. Opposing evidence is simply buried, rather than being displayed and debated.

And you do realize that the 'global warming' bit is just one of the two seesaw issues that seem to pop up over time? The other is claims of 'global cooling', sometimes accompanied by statements warning of a new ice age ahead. In theory, that -might- actually have something to it; I believe the interglacials are generally held to be much shorter than the glacial periods, and some of what I've seen indicates that we may be nearing the end of the current one. I have no clue how accurate that information is, nor do I hold to it myself. I merely state that I've seen it.

Actually I think the problem here is that the Kyoto Agreement did not take economic factors into account, but it certainly was not designed to cripple the world's economies. It was designed to have a global effort to affect the way in which we rely on fossil fuels and specifically how the use of these fuels is compounding the problem of climate change. After all, without a global effort how can we get such a global issue to fruition?

Then how come some countries, despite their production of CO2, seem to get a bye on the issue?

If that were truly the case, noone would have signed the agreement.

Unless they thought of it as a good way to stick it to other nations...including the United States.

What does Al Gore have to do with it? I thought he retired from politics.

Official politics, mostly yeah. Environmental politics, no. He's a prominent public figure, and loudly outspoken on the environmental issue.

Where's the evidence of that? I am constantly hearing in the local weather report things like "Hottest November on record", "Driest October in history" -- and I live in South Australia, the driest state in the driest country in the world!

It would appear that you're citing local variations to support a global statement. I'm not sure that's valid logic. Sure, you may be undergoing such things in South Australia, but are you implying that there is nothing going on elsewhere in the world that might counteract that particular trend?