global warming

A place to discuss casual topics amongst spiritual friends.
Locked
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: global warming

Post by Kim OHara »

While we're thinking about protecting the environment ... dont' forget Earth Hour
It's largely symbolic, of course, but we need symbols and it's a lovely one.
http://www.earthhour.org/

:group:
Kim
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: global warming

Post by tiltbillings »

manas wrote:One solution that might please everyone concerned, would be to merge this topic with something called 'The Great Global Warming Debate',
If some one can find that thread for me, I'll merge them.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: global warming

Post by Kim OHara »

tiltbillings wrote:
manas wrote:One solution that might please everyone concerned, would be to merge this topic with something called 'The Great Global Warming Debate',
If some one can find that thread for me, I'll merge them.
I don't think there is one, Tilt - and if there was, I'm sure I would remember it. :tongue:
Manas may be thinking of "The New Normal", which qualifies as a Great Global Warming Debate, or he may be suggesting a new all-in-one equivalent of the Great Rebirth thread. At this stage, however, this thread has taken on a life of its own, it has a good general title and the "New Normal" has been dead and locked for months. Maybe this thread should be the beginning of any ongoing 'Great Global Warming Debate'?

:namaste:
Kim

Edit: added an afterthought.
daverupa
Posts: 5980
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: global warming

Post by daverupa »

Kim O'Hara wrote:Thanks, Buckwheat - :goodpost:
Mr Man wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:
:thumbsup: lots of :goodpost:
:goodpost:

Indeed, up to a third time, let me also express admiration for your patience and tenacity in skillfully addressing those various points. Where innumerable means of making statements abounded, you chose among the best ways of wording and phrasing.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:
Alex123 wrote:See this:Image
This chart shows temperatures over hundreds of millions of years.
Right. It shows that when we take a wider, more inclusive perspective, today's levels are not too hot. They are actually closer to ICE Age.

Buckwheat wrote:The industrial revolution has only been affecting the atmosphere for about one millionth of that time scale. This chart is totally irrelevant to the discussion... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
Just like we can't make predictions about football game from first 1/1000th of a second, same about current weather. As someone has said, an eruption of volcano can easily over ride human contributions over decades.

As for extinction events. There have been previous extinction events in past hundreds of million years where MOST life forms have died. As your link says:
  • "Over 98% of documented species are now extinct,"
Even without humans, mass extinctions occur.
Last edited by Alex123 on Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:In another post by Alex, he cited that humans are adding 3.76% more CO2, than the natural emission of earth processes. 3.76% of any Earth process is no chump change. In fact, I'm a little shocked at how high that number is.
How much of atmosphere is C02? 0.039%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

How much is 3.76% of 0.039% ?!!!!! 0.376*0.039 = 0.0014664%

This means that nature itself affects 100-0.0014664= 99.9985336% atmosphere.


So, the earth "sneezes" and it can easily cancel out any man made changes (if any).
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote: What matters is how fast it's changing right now.
It is not changing fast at all. In fact some reports suggest that it has stopped getting much warmer. And even IF, even IF, it is getting warmer - how do we know that it is our "0.0014664%" contribution of a gas to the atmosphere that doesn't even cause global warming? Sun and weather events on Earth are much more powerful than us and can easily cancel out any (if any) effects we have made.


I can find more graphs like:

Image
User avatar
Dan74
Posts: 4528
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:12 pm
Location: Switzerland

Re: global warming

Post by Dan74 »

Maybe Danielion can interject and list the number of errors of logic in the preceding three posts.

E.g.

1. the fact that there is not a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere does not mean that it has no effect, just like me taking mere 0.0001% of potassium cyanide in my drink does not mean it will have no effect on my health.

2. Extensive modeling of the greenhouse effects on C02 has been done and shown that not only does it cause warming, but the amounts we have contributed can cause significant warming.

etc

Some years ago I've worked with a scientist who was a co-author of one of the UN Reports on Climate Change who's also written several pamphlets debunking common myths and misconceptions (more on that below). He was the first to admit that the precise extent of the warming is very hard to predict. A lot of uncertainty still exists but not in the actual fact of warming, just in the extent. Here's pretty thorough info written by some of the top people in the field (if anyone is interested in getting informed on the subject):

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate ... ntury.aspx

More detail:

http://www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange.html

And it's also a good idea to try to inform oneself on the concept of a "trend". For the impatient and the time-challenged:

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/ ... ll-correct

Here's an interesting read for everybody on how vital issues have been obfuscated by the special interest groups:

http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/
_/|\_
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: global warming

Post by Buckwheat »

You are totally ignoring all the counter-arguments I made. The only new point you made was this:
Alex123 wrote:As for extinction events. There have been previous extinction events in past hundreds of million years where MOST life forms have died. As your link says:
"Over 98% of documented species are now extinct,"
Even without humans, mass extinctions occur.
Even without humans, there is death. Does that make murder OK? No, it does not. Do we want to be the generation that allows a mass extinction to occur because we are too busy chasing fleeting pleasures to make the sacrifices necessary to prevent the mass extinction? Let's be clear: we are in the middle of a major extinction event, and it is caused by human action. We may choose to continue killing, or we may choose to reduce our impact to allow natural forces to resume their natural ebb and flow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: global warming

Post by Buckwheat »

Alex123 wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:In another post by Alex, he cited that humans are adding 3.76% more CO2, than the natural emission of earth processes. 3.76% of any Earth process is no chump change. In fact, I'm a little shocked at how high that number is.
How much of atmosphere is C02? 0.039%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

How much is 3.76% of 0.039% ?!!!!! 0.376*0.039 = 0.0014664%

This means that nature itself affects 100-0.0014664= 99.9985336% atmosphere.


So, the earth "sneezes" and it can easily cancel out any man made changes (if any).
Please find me a quote from reputable climate scientists saying that human contribution of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere is insignificant.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: global warming

Post by Buckwheat »

Alex123 wrote:
Buckwheat wrote: What matters is how fast it's changing right now.
It is not changing fast at all. In fact some reports suggest that it has stopped getting much warmer. And even IF, even IF, it is getting warmer - how do we know that it is our "0.0014664%" contribution of a gas to the atmosphere that doesn't even cause global warming? Sun and weather events on Earth are much more powerful than us and can easily cancel out any (if any) effects we have made.


I can find more graphs like:

Image
Um... did you notice that the black line is in an upward trend? Climate models have come a long way for improved accuracy in the last decade, and you seem to be using old data. What is the source for this document?

Image I can find more graphs like this.

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:Even without humans, there is death. Does that make murder OK?
So are you equating producing carbon dioxide with murder?
Buckwheat wrote: Please find me a quote from reputable climate scientists saying that human contribution of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere is insignificant.
So, Kim's site is NOT reputable?!!! http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-c ... ssions.htm
??

Can you say something about my calculations? You and Kim seem to have one type of argument:
  • "You are wrong Alex. You are using junk science. We have the Truth".
Please avoid ad hominem.


I also did some more calculations:
Person breath out ~1kg of C02 per day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2#Human_physiology

1kg x human population (7.073 billion) x 365 = 2,581.645 Billion of kg of CO2 humans exhale per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

So even IF, even IF, we would stop ALL industrial emission of CO2 through great sacrifice of living standards , humans would STILL produce 2,581.645 Billion kilograms of C02 per year. What would you propose then? Stop breathing?!
Last edited by Alex123 on Tue Mar 19, 2013 3:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Buckwheat
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

Re: global warming

Post by Buckwheat »

Dan74 wrote:...
:goodpost: Thanks, Dan. :anjali:
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: global warming

Post by Alex123 »

Buckwheat wrote:Um... did you notice that the black line is in an upward trend?
The short term "trend" seemed to have stalled at year 2000. Considering that we are close to ICE Age, it is great that temperatures bounced back a bit, a bit.

When we look at charts of greater and more important scale, the trend is still down. We are closer to Ice age rather than hothouse a more usual temperature for earth.

Judging a future trend of weather by few decades or even 133 years is like trying to see the trend of a game by first 1/100th of a second.

Anyone trades stocks/currencies? If the trend on a daily chart is down and trend on 1 minute chart is up. What is long term trend? Down, of course. Same is here.
User avatar
Dan74
Posts: 4528
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:12 pm
Location: Switzerland

Re: global warming

Post by Dan74 »

"It's good that children are encouraged to be critical thinkers. But it would've been great if they were taught how to do so."

---Anon
_/|\_
Locked