Al Gore supports it. Nuff said.

Is that an argument supporting global warming or against it? O_o

And no manbearpig jokes. They're old. And ugly.

I need only one piece of evidence to side with your opinion, DranoK:

IT'S BEEN GETTING PROGRESSIVELY COLDER IN THE WINTERS HERE IN PORTLAND. WHAT KIND OF GLOBAL WARMING IS THAT?!

Oh and like Lewis Black said:

"George Bush is finally starting to believe in global warming. As a result, I'm not so sure any more."

I like that Lewis Black quote. He rocks.

Its been gettin warmer here in Vegas. it hit 77 today and supposed to push 80 all week. the average is ~68. the summers are gettin hotter too. We homosapiens are probably not helping. But I also think its way to late to stop or reverse it. So my question is this. Will we destroy ourselves (ie. Nuclear Holocaust.) or will Mother Nature take us out first?

Lots of questions. One of you needs to make a statement we can argue with ;)

LCC, that sounds more like anecdote than evidence ;)

Onion, that's a great quote. 100 credits? ;) Many more if you can find a video clip.

Here's one, it's not the quote but it's still funny to hear his rendition of "FUCK IT'S COLD!"



I can't find the quote, and I really should be working on my research project instead of listening to 45 minutes of lewis black. Maybe I'll find it eventually.

We've discussed it on MSN before, its very bullshit.

Manbearpig is actually a great social dialogue on Global Warming too, on how hes trying to convey such a bogus and retarded idea. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are gods amongst men.

My take? I think global warming is a very real thing, if exaggerated by the media. In nature, if we let it run its course, the greenhouse gasses from natural occurrences are offset by other things: Co2 from respiration is turned into O2 via photosynthesis, when volcanoes erupt, their ash cools the Earth temporarily and the gasses that fuel their eruptions warms it via thinning the atmosphere. It would still warm slowly over time and it is a natural thing, but our production of greenhouse gasses far surpasses anything the Earth's atmosphere was meant to handle.
My questions:
Why is reducing consumption a bad thing? How will it harm us?

I think any o-zone damage done by man is dwarfed by the damages inflicted by the dinosaurs and pre-ice age events.

Proof!

Cute ;) 250 credits :P

I'll elaborate on my points tomorrow when I have time.

I'm speechless.

i think global warming is a very real and while yes the media may be exploiting it a little bit to get money on new "green cars" things are certainly not getting any better the equator is getting warmer and there have been surveys showing that things are in fact getting warmer look at the pic it is indeed proof.

That shows nothing but warming and cooling trends, wonder what it was before they graphed it.

it shows a increase of warming over the years!

Thats 200 fucking years, The planet is 4.5 billion years old.

200 Years is a very small sample size. :(

Environmentalists routinely exaggerate claims to spread fear.

Funny, we all seem to agree on this.


International treaties to curb greenhouse gases are BAD.

Simple. You either, a) exclude developing nations so they can continue to grow--in which case you completely destroy the competitiveness of first-world countries. Or b) you force them to comply and prevent them from ever reaching first-world status.

Most of these treaties also revolve around the credit system, which is complete bullshit. Suddenly there's a resource to be exploited fully. There's no way less than 100% of the credits would be used, so reductions that might have happened naturally with better technology are never realized.

Since the Kyoto treaty was signed, the E.U. has drastically increased their greenhouse gas production while the U.S. has decreased theirs.

Sounds pretty effective, ne? And just to get back to the levels of 1990, which anyone who even slightly believes in global warming will suggest means nothing. Yup. Definitely worth wasting money on. Totally.


Reducing consumption will have a net harmful effect on humans.

Reducing consumption of greenhouse gases would impede industrial profits. Less profits means less research. Less research means slower advancement. Remember that the economy is not a zero-sum game. In a healthy environment everyone advances over time. The poor today live far better than the middle class did seventy years ago.

If businesses wish to reduce consumption voluntarily as a marketing gimmick then good for them. It should not be forced on them, however. This removes their competitive edge. It hurts them financially. And all for an unmeasurable decrease in temperature.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9242

Even if global warming were a real threat and caused by humans, the measures introduced to curb it amount to little more than pissing in the ocean to turn it yellow. Why piss away trillions of dollars for nothing?

I'm speechless. DranoK put it all out there on the table.

Though, on second thought, there ARE certain things everyone can do that will at least slow the increase of global warming, an example being recycling. If everyone did these little tiny things, we might be able to slow it down enough for the world to last past my lifetime, which is all I care about =p

I see where you are coming from, Dranok, but I also think it is very selfish of us to put quicker advancement before environmental health. Sure we might be tech savvy but what will that matter when our environment as we know it is gone?
"Oh good, let's engineer suits that allow us to live on the now inhospitable Earth." Might as well move to Mars. :)

Except every single measure sane environmentalists have put forth is a direct result of new technology.

Curbing greenhouse gas emissions? Technology.
Using less fuel? Technology.
Not needing blacksmiths (which were far bigger polluters than modern humans)? Wow, technology again.

Short of killing 2/3rds of our population we simply cannot survive without polluting technologies. Assuming that global warming is real and human caused (which I'm not willing to concede) the suggestions put forth in the Kyoto protocol would do nothing. Even the most economically-destructive proposals would not end their model of global warming, only delay their predictions.

So I ask: Why destroy the economy over a theory? Furthermore, even if you strongly believe in the theory, isn't the rational response to throw as much money and energy at researching new technology, even if it does cause more pollution?

As civilizations progress greener technologies are inevitable--producing the same amount of goods with less resources is always a decision businesses will make. It's cheaper.

Destroying the economy will stagnate progress and leave us to rot exactly where we are today.

I'll say it again: If we are to believe everything "global warming experts" say, the only solutions that would work would completely destroy us. The solutions proposed are expensive and akin to spitting in the desert to create an oasis. These proposals are nothing more than feel-good notions to let individuals and activists feel like they're "doing their part."

I won't even get into the assholes against the genetic crops which will feed millions of the world's poor. I will say that without technology we simply cannot support our current population. Or even half of it.

So what do we do? Kill 2/3rds of ourselves and return to roman-era technology, all on the basis of a controversial theory?

Piss money away at feel-good initiatives that do nothing?

Or do we continue forward with an economy inductive of research and progress to find cleaner, more efficient and more profitable fuels and technologies?

"hope is a good breakfest but a bad supper." we may be able to help fix it. we MAY be able to save the enviorment but the problem is all the powerful and rich keep fighting for oil cough bush cough and if we cant start getting some enviormental presidents/prime ministers/kings/ etc. then we arnt going to make any progress.

But what progress do you suggest we try to make? I think anything we do is either too little to matter or to disruptive to attempt.

I would believe that global warming is the current trend that the earth is going through, its been observed to be a natural cycle through study if ice core samples. However, i believe that we have helped it along quite a bit in the last two hundred years. That expansion and industrialization have offset the balance of natural greenhouse gas reduction. I do not believe that we are entirely to blame for the current warming trend, but i suspect that we have had a good part in it.

Environmentalists to tend to make rather bogus claims to work the public into a hysteria. Its a very effective method and means in which to spread their point. People are prone to fear things, and many irrational people will quite easily buy into these claims directly and without further thought. Though truthfully even if they could or did examine the evidence, its likely that they would not understand it in the first place, nor be able to take into account all the variables that add or detract from the trend since our ability to examine the situation on the whole is fairly limited.

I do not have a lot of respect for most environmentalist type people. Most of them are sold into their cause on faith, and its a viral brainwashing type experience, its like religion. Some of these organizations resort to sabotage or even terrorist like tactics to achieve their goals. Some of these types of people follow their fantasy far enough to reach fanatical levels, and at this point it usually causes more harm and damage than any achieved goals could have offset.

However, i do respect people who try to reduce their consumption when its not necessary for them to be wasteful. The consumer really is the one who needs to clean up their act. There are already many (new) EPA guidelines and regulations on many of the industries out there, including watersports recreation, and automobiles. I can say for certain that these have hurt many businesses in the short term, but they have also forced an industry wide change, pushing for technologically superior, cleaner, and sometimes more powerful engines, and in some cases, cleaner processes in manufacturing.

Over all, i dont think it will hurt us as a society to strive to be cleaner, and more efficient. Without some serious technological breakthroughs we will not beat this trend of global warming, but i dont think we should head full steam ahead towards it any trouble it might cause us in the future either, specially when we can try to curb our output somewhat. Many times without such regulations in place to clean up both product and manufacturing, research and technological achievement would advance at a far slower pace as businesses are content to milk their previous product for all its worth.

There really is no one side to argue here though. High levels of regulation can cause just as many problems in the economy as low levels. The balance needed to keep both large and small business happy and profitable during these changes often is hard to realize, and government incentives are needed. So technically we all tend to pay for these changes.