AmericanPapist Comments
Funny Card, a card-carrying Mormon, talks about hoaxes. Next thing I know, you will be posting L Ron Hubbard telling us how psychology is a hoax.
Thanks for engaging the argument instead of going ad hominem.
Global warming is a fact as such, I mean the increase of the temperature in little less than 1 degree in 50 years. No one can deny it. What is controversial is the human impact on it and the foretelling of the process. And the humanity's role in the increase of greenhouse gasses is a obvious also, but the impact of this increase on climate changes is not.
In fact if you read the Vatican's papers on that topic you'll find that it takes into consideration much of the scientific debate and that it takes a moderate stance. It has been criticized for that reason by fanatics of environmentalist catastrophism.
Finally the climate changes and their negative impact on people's lives isn't deniable on the whole, for islands and ancient paradises have already disappeared, and people forced to exile themselves. UN and so foretell hundreds of millions of climate refugees, I can't help finding it exaggerated, but we're already watching the beginning of it, simply sticking to fact. Denying them by reaction to the environmentalist anti-humain ideology is falling in an opposite ideology - and so being influenced by our opponents' one.
Oliver- If you are so convinced that the earth is warming up because of manmade global warming, how does this info jibe with your "proof":
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/clim...ch/cag3/
na.html
The earth got cooler this April. Now how could that possibly be if we are causing the earth to get warmer? Did carbon emissions and greenhouse gases suddenly go down in April?
The earth has warmed less than a degree Celsius in the past 100 years, which can easily be attributable to increased use of asphalt, warming slightly urban areas, where most of the temperature readings are taken from.
"UN and so foretell hundreds of millions of climate refugees,"
You have got to be kidding. Global Warming truly has become a religion with deadly consequences for not practicing it.
One more thing: Oliver must be talking about Atlantis when he states the following:
"Finally the climate changes and their negative impact on people's lives isn't deniable on the whole, for islands and ancient paradises have already disappeared,"
What other "ancient paradises" have disappeared under the ocean?
The earth got cooler this April. Now how could that possibly be if we are causing the earth to get warmer? Did carbon emissions and greenhouse gases suddenly go down in April?
It's comments like this that show that global warming skeptics don't know what the heck they're talking about. The skeptic's approach to the issue is purely tribal: he or she doesn't like the people who believe in global warming and therefore decides not to believe in it no matter what science says. Someone really ought to do a sociological paper on this phenomenon.
Anonymous-
You became emotional and did not address the concerns in my post, which to me shows that you treat global warming more as a religion than a science. A science proves something.
Manmade global warming proponents state that the global temperature is going up because of manmade pollutants and emissions. Those did not go down in April (nor did they go down from 1997-2003 when the average temperature went down). So how does that happen if we are causing global warming?
You people keep saying the science supports global warming, but you never state what that science that supports it is.
I thank my contradictors for answering me. Debate is utterly important on such topics. I don't see how the information linked to could in the least cast a doubt on the reality of global warming : in fact it mentions that this particular April was a record of coldness; but it mentions also that the trend for April is that of a growth of 0,1 degree by decade !!!
Added to the fact it is possible that the average temperature of the year were increasing and that at the same time the average temperature of the winters were declining... because the differences in temperature (between the less and the highest) are globally increasing. It is quite possible, as we see in the States by the increasing frequence of periods of harsh coolness and of heatwave.
In fact the point is certainly the global warming, but more broadly the climate changes (which by the decline of the Gulf Stream can for example cause a huge coldness in the U.S.A.). The declining of biodiversity because of pollution is another stubborn fact - and don't come telling me that the reality is infected by leftist ideology ! -, and a big source of anxiety because God used millions of year to create such an essential diversity of species. An another stubborn fact is the increasely frequent twisters, in USA and elsewhere. Records are available for decades and the trend is unavoidable (doubling, for instance, between the decade 1980-1990 and the decade 1990-2000 (for the strongest storms)).
As to my remark about the evaluation by UN of the climate refugees of the future, of course I'm not kidding. I'm just telling the truth by saying that UN and other organisations foretell such a high number of climate refugees. Recently Christian Aid talked about 250 millions of climate refugees before 2050. I think and hope this number is exaggerated, but the risk is real because we see the first millions of climate refugees. These refugees exist already now (estimated by Un & Christian Aid around 25 millions), mainly because of the rise of the level of the sea and more globally because of inundations. Because another avoidable fact is the rise of the sea of more than 10 cm in the last decades. And if you know your geography you don't even need to listen to the news to know what happen to Bangladeshis... So I can tell you : the salt for example invades the rice fiels, and people are running away by dozens of thousands to Dacca or India...
I didn't speak of flooding of paradises but of their disparition of paradises as such. Indeed, many tropical island are seeing their climatic equilibrium modified and ruined, internal lagoons and other resources of fresh water are invaded by sea water... There are the examples of the islands of the middle of the Gange, no more fit for habitation; of Tuvalu, a beautiful atoll of 12 000 inhabitants, 189th state of UN, who has since a couple of years already foretell his disparition, by signing an agreement with New-Zealand so that it welcoms its future ex-citizen
Water seeks it's own level, so it's impossible for the ocean in the South Pacific to get deeper and not see the same drastic rise in water levels globally - so the claim that certain islands are being inundated by 'global warming' is an example of otherwise intelligent people not thinking it through.
Secondly, it's a fact that the planet has gone through 4 periods of cooling and warming in the last million years; none of this was caused by man's activities - thus it's a natural flux beyond our control. To think therefore that humanity can freeze this natural flux into some average, 'perfect' temperature is religion, not science.
Finally, "the scientific consensus" of the 14th century was geocentrism, later proven wrong. Conjecture and computer models are not "science" but elements, tools of science. Basing a prediction (and the global economy) on these conjectures is not "scientific conclusions" but politics.
Here's the complete last part of my message : I didn't speak of flooding of paradises but of their disparition of paradises as such. Indeed, many tropical island are seeing their climatic equilibrium modified and ruined, internal lagoons and other resources of fresh water are invaded by sea water... There are the examples of the islands of the middle of the Gange, no more fit for habitation; of Tuvalu, a beautiful atoll of 12 000 inhabitants, 189th state of UN, who has since a couple of years already foretell his disparition, by signing an agreement with New-Zealand so that it welcoms its future ex-citizens when it will be partially flooded [its highest point is... 4,5 m above the sea !] and totally unhabitable; awaiting that, because of more frequent and more violent storms and the sinking of the coral, each year hundreds of people go the N.Z. - and, indeed, certain talk about it as a tiny Atlantidis; and then there's Shishmaref, little eskimo town on permafrost in Alaska - its inhabitants have been obliged to run away; and already a few installations in Siberia are sinking down because they're builded on permanent ice - which is no more permanent...
These are constatations; to measure the influence of man's activity is another problem - but despite of the complexity of the problem we have many clues that point in favor of the reality of this influence. Not speaking about global changes but about local changes it is proven that pollution does increase the frequence of twisters, because it creates masses of hot air confronted to fresh air. Effects of badly done industrialization on the destruction of the environment are also blatant in many areas. So, whatever the ideology of GIEC and the exagerating of some, whatever the uncertainties, in view of the catholic teaching of respect of the Creation, and in view simply of the possibility of the lives of our children, we should pay attention to elaborate a model of development respectful of nature. And the search for alternative sources of energy is utterly necessary, because petrol - and even nuclear energy - isn't unlimited...
Okay, I'll bite.
"The earth got cooler this April. Now how could that possibly be if we are causing the earth to get warmer? Did carbon emissions and greenhouse gases suddenly go down in April?"
Gabe makes a common error by mistaking climate for weather.
Weather involves particular local conditions of temperature, precipitation, wind speed, humidity, etc..
Climate is the bigger picture. It involves patterns of weather over long periods of time. For example:
"It never rains in Southern California." This is a semi-accurate expression of climate: southern California tends to be a dry, Mediterranean-type experience. So when a downpour comes, the weather has changed. But the climate remains the same.
Another example: a single hurricane is a weather event. But living in a semi-tropical area in which hurricanes and related storms are a regular expectation: this is climate. Those hurricanes and related storms permit certain local and regional ecosystems to thrive.
It is undeniable that the Earth has been experiencing climate change. It has always been going on. Pre-industrial human society experienced it, and we have significant historical records that have been verified by scientific inquiry.
It is also undeniable that industrial emissions affect both local weather and global climate patterns. The disagreement is on the extent of the human factor.
The fear is that the human factor may push climate change to a dangerous tipping point, creating upheaval on a worldwide scale that would be too violent or drastic for human beings to control. What scientists and detractors don't know is the exact tipping point. The former might say we've already hit it, or it might be a few decades away. The latter seem content to say that either we're nowhere near a tipping point, or that human beings don't possess the power to alter climate, so we shouldn't even try.
As for individuals educating themselves on the subject: do you only read the aources that agree with you? Or do you attempt to read those who dissent from your view? And in reading any source, are you clear on your definitions? In other words, do you know weather and climate, and can you differentiate between the two? And do you go to primary sources as much as possible? It can be a hurdle for belief that scientific papers are often composed with a dense, technical prose. Yet for the scientific community, there is where the most convincing arguments are made.
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