I’m looking out the window into our back yard, where we have several big flower bushes with hundreds of flowers in bloom. It is spring… except for the little fact that it is pelting down snow at the moment.
Snow… in lower mainland B.C…. at the end of March. Did someone forget to send the memo out indicating that it is spring? Any time this sort of thing happens, I really wonder about the whole “global warming… the sky is falling! We are all dooooomed!” mantra. Sure, it is just one isolated incident, but as an individual it is really hard to accept that the world is markedly warmer when I’m looking at snow falling at the end of March.
Ah well… back to watching the flowers droop under the increasing weight of the snow. I’m exaggerating, of course: the snow is melting as soon as it hits the ground, but who knows? We could be entering another ice age as I speak.
Yeah it is hard to think that the world is getting warmer, when it is still hovering at near freezing at night time, 🙂
I could be wrong, but I think that Climate Change (which goes hand in hand with Global warming) is actually what may be responsible for these large “swings” in the weather.
More intense storms, more drought in the summers, colder more extreme winters, floods, hurricanes, it is all part of climate change.
And with the warmer planet, all of that permafrost, will start releasing massive amounts of Methane (70 million tonnes), making our global temperatures rise even quicker…weee!!
And technically (according to those scientist type guys), we are still in an “Ice age”, because there is continenal ice in both hemispheres.
We should enjoy that ice now, it may be gone in about 50 years. On that note, the Wilkins Ice Shelf is collapsing as we speak, and the Ross ice shelf, is well on it’s way.
When all of the ice, at both poles go (and greenland), they (those scientist type guys again) expect oceans to rise by as much as 50 metres.
At least I may have nice ocean side property out here in Chilliwack 🙂
p.s. For the record, it is still too cold out 😛
West Coast wimps. :p
Global warming just means that the whole planet will be warmer … on *average*. As they say, the Devil is in the details.
I understand the facts of global warming perfectly well. The truth is, though, that people live locally, not globally. I see my weather, not the weather of the entire planet. And what I see isn’t warmer: it’s colder.
I don’t want to get into a debate over whether human-generated global warming is “real”, a statistical anomaly, or a purely natural cyclical occurrence that we don’t understand very well. Certainly there have been times in the past when the ice sheets were thinner, and times when they were thicker, and industrialized humans weren’t around during those changes. There is no doubt in my mind that something is going on, and that humanity’s current consumptive/wasteful mode is not helping the situation at all. ‘Nuff said.
On the plus side: it stopped snowing 🙂
Found this blog because I just wrote something and called it “Global Warming My Ass” also. Did a search for that term and here I am.
I just wrote something on my blog about this global warming B.S. Here in California the Governator is trying to add a new tax to pay for a global warming research committee. When in fact we’re cooling.
If you wish you can read more at my site. http://www.Waterpup.com I’m not selling anything so hopefully you don’t take this as spam but I have links in my post that I believe dispels the notion of global warming.
Welcome to my blog, Steve!
I believe that there is no question that human generated factors are having an influence on climate, I’m just rather doubtful that we are the only or even the main cause of the current changes. Your article points out a lot of the same things that make me doubt that human factors are the only cause. Regardless, there is no doubt in my mind that we (humanity) absolutely must start taking steps to reduce the damage we cause.
Mostly, my post was a bit of frustration with the current weather situation near my home (which seems less about warming and more about cooling). And it was a jab at the folks pushing more fear and panic upon us, this time regarding the weather and pollution. Fear numbs the mind, and a constant state of fear turns the population into easily controlled sheep- which is what I think a lot of this is about. Unlike you, I don’t think I’d fault someone for saying “let’s spend some more money on understanding the problem”. I guess it would depend on what kind of study that money was going to fund.
Yes, the climate is changing, and yes, human-generated pollution has some impact on it and we should start reducing that impact. Given my preferences, we’d be taking a third of the military budget each year and spending it on disconnecting our countries from the petrochemical teat and lowering the pollution output of our society. Regardless of global warming, I think it is long past the time for that. But no, it isn’t time to give up all of our technology and live in caves…
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/world_warmth.html
“”The most important result found by these researchers is that the warming in recent decades has brought global temperature to a level within about one degree Celsius (1.8° F) of the maximum temperature of the past million years, which they suggest is a sensible upper limit for additional global warming.
“If further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know.
The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today.â€
—
There is no debate on Global warming anymore, the science is, and has been in for quite sometime.
If the thousands of books, papers and literature from scientists, governments, and Nasa aren’t enough to convince people, I guess nothing ever will.
I guess it must be a conspiracy and everyone is fibbing! 😉
I just wanted to add something, in response to your one line of your post Kelly.
“I think it is long past the time for that. But no, it isn’t time to give up all of our technology and live in caves”
Climate change doesn’t mean we have to go back into living in caves. In fact, if we are smart, going “green” will actually create even more jobs, and more tech.
Climate change just means we need to stop burning coal for electricity, and stop burning oil for fuel, immediately.
We need to start using solar, wind, wave, geothermal, heck anything, and the sooner the better.
Interesting note, if we could capture all of the solar energy that hits the planet in 1 second, we would have enough electricity to power everything on earth for an entire year.
Heck even if we could only capture 1/10th of 1%, that would completely negate the need for any other source of power.
That may be hard to do, while the Oil companies are still in control. When you have a company like Exxon (assets a paltry 195 billion,and just 1 player out of many).
Exxon’s 2007 profit ($39 billion) was more then ALL of the car companies, in the entire world, combined, scary.
I just wanted to alleviate your concerns about living in a Cave, because I don’t like the idea of not having a couch and a big TV 🙂
Although there is no doubt that the weather patterns have changed in the last century, the reality is that current scientific knowledge regarding the Earth’s weather systems is woefully inadequate. We are just now starting to get data on pre-historic weather patterns, and cycles of vast temperature swings with barely understood causes are apparent. And although there is consensus that global warming is a fact, there is not agreement as to the cause beyond there being some impact from human industry. Science is not binary: it is continuously informed by new research and discovery, and the truth is that the facts behind Earth’s climate are barely understood.
Setting that aside, Shane, as I said (and you seemed to ignore): “Regardless, there is no doubt in my mind that we (humanity) absolutely must start taking steps to reduce the damage we cause.”
What I vehemently disagree with is the climate of fear and panic that some groups and individuals promote to drive their own particular agendas. You and I may see this reasonably: it is well past time for humanity to take better care of the planet, for us to reduce the waste and find better, least destructive sources of energy. But there are a great many people who are using the global warming discussion to push for things like halting air travel, discontinuing satellite launches and other space vehicle use, and outlawing personal vehicles. They are ignoring the facts as clearly as those who think we can all continue to drive Hummers and generate all our power with coal.
I didn’t ignore that comment Kelly or any of your comments. I would never do that 🙂
“”I’m just rather doubtful that we are the only or even the main cause of the current changes…””
“”I don’t want to get into a debate over whether human-generated global warming is “real ””
I just have a difficult time responding to some of your comments is all, I am not ignoring them.
I have some numbers. If after all of that, you are still “doubtful”, as you said earlier, about mankind being THE cause, then I am afraid you and I have taken this discussion as far as the two of us can 🙂 Yay stubborn people! (myself included)
Cheers!
— Worldwide fuel production, Per day —
80,000,000 (bbl) x 55 gallons, /2 = 2,200,000,000 gallons of fuel.
55 gallons of crude = about 25 gallons of refined fuel, depending on the crude.
1 gallon of refined fuel, emmissions = 19 pounds.
Seems hard to believe, but through “binding”, C02 actually gains more weight once it enters the atmosphere, since a gallon only weighs 10 pounds.
2,200,000,000 gallons x 19 pounds = 41,800,000,000 pounds added in mass to our atmosphere each and everyday. This doesn’t even include the biggest culprit, coal plants.
Using 1,000 kg or long tons 2,240 lbs per ton, that means we are adding, in pure mass, about 19,000,000 (yes million) tons of hydro carbons, per day JUST from burning oil.
To put that into perspective, that is over 190,000 fully loaded 100 ton coal cars. It would take 1,900 trains to move that amount. And if CP Rail had to carry that amount of Hydro-carbons daily, they would fall short, by 1,850 trains.
Coal plants add an extra 26,000,000 tons of c02 per day.
Thanks, Shane- it is fine to disagree, so mostly I just like to be sure we are reading each other correctly 🙂
I think we agree on the main point- that humanity needs to change how we “power” our modern lives. There is no doubt in my mind that the pollution we generate causes harm, and that we absolutely must reduce our “footprint”. I am not ignorant of the facts: I am just interpreting them differently than you are.
The carbon load we generate has some impressive numbers associated with it, numbers which I am aware of. But these numbers are small compared to what nature itself can, does, and has generated. A single large forest fire can release 10% of the mankind’s entire annual carbon production in a matter of days. A single volcanic eruption pumps more material into the atmosphere in a single day than man does in a year (not all carbon, but definitely having a similar effect on climate): it can also release more energy than a thousand of the largest atomic bombs, as well as releasing massive amounts of radioactive material, but that is another matter. The Sun’s output can vary enough in a given month to raise or lower temperatures on all the planets in the solar system by several degrees for an entire year. Well, actually, in point of fact it can vary enough in a single hour to turn all of the inner planets including Earth into crisped cinders, but fortunately we are blessed with a particularly stable star 🙂 And the Sun’s average output varies in massive cycles lasting thousands or tens of thousands of years.
At times in the not too distant past, the entire planet was variously covered in a kilometer thick sheet of ice, and at other times was a tropical swamp with no ice sheet to speak of at all- humanity wasn’t around in either instance. This hasn’t occurred as one nice, neat, evolution from ice to tropics: it has cycled, flipping from one to the other several times, as recently as ten thousand years ago. There is absolutely no question about this. And evidence is stacking up that these massive climate shifts not only have happened repeatedly, but also may have occurred very quickly (over the course of decades, not eons). The exact causes aren’t well understood.
Am I saying that this changes the fact that humanity needs to do something about our own impact? No- we need to make some major changes, and we need to make them quickly. The fact that our industry and current lifestyle can produce changes in the climate is indisputable. Worse yet, the fact that we barely understand enough about how the climate works to be able to detect our impact is frightening.
But is humanity the only cause, or even the primary cause, of the current climate change? I am doubtful, and facts like the global temperature increases currently taking place on Mars and other planets in the solar system caused by increases in our Sun’s output seem to support the idea that something other than Man’s influence is having an impact.