Self-explanatory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P70SlEqX7oY

asterism: the practice of looking up at uranus!

Heh, heh... heh heh.
Heh, heh... heh heh.

Thanks, Zap, for giving me another way to be obnoxious to my relatives and other head-in-the-sand acquaintances. When they spew the Faux-News talking points on climate, I can refer them to the video. Bet they can't follow it to the end.

Have them watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjeIpjhAqsM

2% eh?

I'm finding that a many of the "deniers" (as they're being called) do, in fact, believe that something's going on with the climate but are denying that human CO2 and pollutant output has had anything to do with it. So, their credo is to keep burning coal and fossil fuels and, to quote one of their cheerleaders, "drill, baby, drill!" Show them the data and they still say it's no proof. Reminiscent of tobacco executives denying that smoking causes cancer and major health issues.

Yes. Climate change and global warming are natural events with a cycle caused by shifts in the orbit of the planet. On the other hand, the ice doesn't lie. The PPM count of CO2 is undeniably off the scale.

So I look at them and say, let's do what we know we ought to anyway which is get the consumption down because if for no other reason energy independence makes us safer from the ragheads that seem to scare you. "Get 'er done!" That seems to work. Now they need to start looking at what the NYT is reporting about the water supplies since 2004 in places like New Jersey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/business/energy-environment/08water.html?_r=1

The funny bit right now is to talk to those Beck and Limbaugh told to get out of the stock market and buy gold with gold dropping 10% this week.

It was reported this week that Beck has a vested interest in the gold market. Connection, ya think?

purely coincidental I'm sure.

I'm squarely in the camp of global warming believers, but I have a problem with regarding CO2 as a pollutant. What are we all supposed to do, hold our breath?

Green plants do not regard CO2 as a pollutant; the major problem must be the destruction of the rain forests around the earth, more than industrialization.

Just my opinion, but what do I know?

By the way, did anyone notice that this topic suits the category "Topical/Tropical Discussions" perfectly?

mikey

Climate is a very complex system. There are a multitude of things that can affect it. We are limited as to what we can do affect it in a positive way and so the tendency is to focus on those that can have the most immediate effect and probably be the easiest to implement. Not to mention all of the political and hyped BS to wade through. It ain't gonna be easy.

It's balance. What the ice cores and most of the tree rings show is CO2 gases are at a level that has never been seen in naturally recorded history (as in what nature herself lays down as tracks in ice and trees, etc.). There are natural warming cycles of course and these have contributed to our own evolution as in the bottleneck that reduced us to about 600 pairs of breeding couples. What our industry has done is to accelerate the warming cycle. Regardless of what we call it the effect is to drown micronesian islands, disintegrate the ice caps and turn the US Southeast and Midwest on a path toward dust bowls. The models are complex and results depend on parameters chosen and set, but preponderantly they all show the same outcome and roughly the same hockey stick curve.

What can we do? Plenty and benefit by it. It's tough to export green jobs. There's lots of money to be made building a new smarter energy grid. We can improve our lives while the deniers debate. One might say it's time to pick up the garbage.

It's also the almighty "bottom line". Corporation and stockholders are more interested in expanding profit and business as usual than the future of the planet (IMHO). They and their mouthpieces (like the above mentioned Beck) are trying to convince every one that climate change is a hoax or not caused by human short-sightedness. Some of them actually believe it themselves.

I know he had (has?) his problems but former Dem. presidential candidate John Edwards had it right when he said you that can't ask corporate America to do things, you have to make them do things. Prime examples, the banking and health insurance corporations. Capitalism may work on a small scale (small business, etc.) but when it goes corporate/stockholders/etc., it turns into a giant, unconscionable juggernaut.

"Money get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit"

Thought you folks might find this interesting.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.as ... =news_side

Looks as though the impact is 30 to 50 percent worse than originally thought. You be right CZ. And len is too. Time to start doing what we can regardless of what the big boys don't (won't) do.

Another thing that escapes a lot of people is that the planet is pretty much a closed ecosystem. Too much or too little of anything (like CO2) will have an effect. Len is absolutely correct about it being a balance. The bad thing for us is that a balance of nature doesn't have to include us or, for that matter, life. If our civilization and industrial needs or wastes exceed what Mother Earth can provide or endure then we're screwed. Problem is that they've both been playing it like the free spot on the bingo card of life. No free lunch! Time to pay the tab and wash the dishes!