goliath74
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RE: Houston area flooding
(08-30-2017 08:54 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: (08-30-2017 08:06 AM)owlcountry40 Wrote: (08-29-2017 08:46 PM)Hood-rich Wrote: (08-29-2017 07:45 PM)goliath74 Wrote: (08-29-2017 05:33 PM)Free bird Wrote: The question that needs to be answered is, do humans cause changes to the climate that is significant enough to cause significant climate changes? Right now people are saying that humans affect the environment and therefore are responsible for any natural disasters and temperature changes. Because there is no conclusive data, the other arguement is how do we know that any natural disasters or temperature changes are not caused naturally? Nothing is conclusive yet on the topic. You continue to research and educated yourself with the literature.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...17300426#!
In a nutshell "Most global warming is natural and even if there had been no Industrial Revolution current global temperatures would be almost exactly the same as they are now".
(I'm not saying one study is conclusive evidence btw).
Instead, you should find out what scientists say. 97% of all climate-related articles submitted in the last 20 years (over 11,000) insist that Climate Change is real and is predominantly man-made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific...ate_change
https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-...ediate.htm
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientists-agree-g...aYLG8aQyJA
https://www.aaas.org/news/intersocietyclimateletter2016
yet you can't predict tomorrow's weather with 97% accuracy.
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Maybe, but do you ignore the weather? If they say big chance of thunderstorms most of an afternoon do you plan a picnic in the park?
I really wish people who deny climate change (mostly people who fall on the Christian right) would look at religion with the same skeptical eye they do science.
"I don't know about all that data, but ill tell you this a man definitely rose from the dead because it's in book written by kings thousands of years ago.''
I am not a very good Christian, haven't been to church except for weddings and funerals since 1990. Definitely not a Bible-thumper,, as I have the same concerns about the Bible you allude to.
My skepticism is based on history,, common sense, and science(!). Certainly we know the Earth has had periods of warming and cooling. The most recent ones were called interglacials and glaciations, and happened before there was a significant human presence on this globe, indeed, before we knew it was a globe. I see no reason to presume these cycles stopped and we entered into a period of climate stability around 1350 (the end of the Medievel Warming Period) that was recently upset by people driving cars and using deodorant.
So we are warming. I think it utterly stupid to assign Man 100% of the blame, and I also think it is unreasonable to assign Nature 100%. So the question becomes not whether or not Man has a hand in it, but to what extent? Once that is answered, the next question is "What can we do about it"?
I think it crazy to try and turn the clock back to some unspecified time when all was right. What's the target? In any case, if man is, say, 30% responsible, and we can pass laws reversing 30% of our damage, doesn't that just mean we can slow the process by 9%? Not stop it, not reverse it, just slow it?
It didn't use to matter much. If the sea level rose, you moved the camp back 40 feet. If the growing period got too hot, you moved north or changed crops. But now we are industrialized. Hard to move Miami. Hard to get Nebraska farmers to plant cotton instead of corn. Especially since they would lose that subsidy.
So, while we are hard at work slowing the advance by 9% or so, let us prepare for a world with warmer temperatures and higher sea levels. That is the prudent thing to do, not a frantic effort to turn the clock back to 1875.
Specifically, on hurricanes, yes, there may well be more bad ones than in, say, 1250-1275. How the heck would we know? But we still need to prepare for them.
so it really doesn't matter to me if 97% or .97% of scientists say Man is somewhat to blame (there is no consensus on the degree of blame, is there?). Time to prepare to figure out ways to provide food and water to a growing population.
But, you see, the main problem is that we have a lot of people who say that man had nothing to do with this. And, because of that, we can not pass any legislation combatting global warming.
Secondly, while the warming and cooling of the climate are things that do happen naturally, they do not happen so quickly and what we do is only exacerbating the situation.
Scientists, a great majority of them (and, ultimately, it is not relevant whether it is 97% or, say, only 92%), assign a large amount of the blame to humans.
It is physics, remedial physics. Do we produce more greenhouse gases? yes. What happens to them in the atmosphere? Do they just disappear like a fart in the wind (which, btw, does not disappear either, but that is the subject of a different debate)? So, the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has to lead to a hike in temperature. that is remedial physics. What (or, who, in this case) produces greenhouse gases and why are they out of balance?
So, if your argument is whether it is fair to assign 100% blame for global warming - fine, we can discuss it. And, what if it is just 90%, does that change anything?
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