Guys and Gals, lets talk about global warming. I think it is here and a serious issue. I don't know how a reasonable person can doubt it, but I'm willing to listen. Where I live we have had only 10 days of real winter. My 8 yr old son and I went snowshoeing last sunday night, in about 18 inches of snow. Today it is 55* degress out and everything has melted away. I have chrystal clear memorys (and I'm not THAT old) of winters where there was snow from the start of december to march. When I was little the scouts used to have a winter festival we called 'Klondike', my son has never been to one because there is not enough snow any more. I have a snowplow sitting in the dirt behind my garage that has not been on the truck in 10 yrs. It seems as though I just don't need it anymore. I don't understand why more folks are not worried about the issue. It seems to me that Adam&Eve's job decription was to be caretakers and gardeners, and we are doing a very poor job. I don't know what our planet will be like for our children if we keep thinking short-sightedly. My observation is that it is without any doubt betting warmer, but why ? I know there are some men in our government and elsewhere that want to blame US (truckers and SUVers) for it. But I think our engines are remarkably cleaner now than in the mid 60's, when we did not have this problem. I think it is from deforestation and housing development. What do the rest of you think ? DF

 

I'm short on time for a lengthy response...but the scientists who first thought that the planet was warming just recently found out the average temp has actually dropped. I will post links and what-not.

FYI, a volcanic eruption will spew forth more "green-houses" gases in one eruption than we (mankind) has made: ever.


It's as true in life as it is in weather; SHIFT HAPPENS.

 

if the globe is warming well can someone tell that to the climat ein manitoba. it's once again -30 and we just had a blizzard.

im really not to concerened with global warming

 

Well I'm old enough to remember being taught in school that we were on the verge of another ice age. Now some of those very same scientists are telling us that we're in the grips of global warming. Frankly I think it's all a bunch of crap. First of all there's too much conflicting data as to whether or not the average ambient temperature is going up or down. Second, even if we assume that the temperature is going up, records haven't been kept long enough to know whether or not we are having an effect on the climate or if it's simply a normal cycle of heating and cooling being played out by a constantly changing ecosystem.

 

Well, this could be just a long, slow change in the climate. The fact is that the Earth's temperature will keep getting warmer and melt the polar ice caps. Then the extra water created by the melted ice will fill the oceans enough to disrupt the oceans' currents. The same ocean currents that keep Great Britian and northern Europe just as warm as us even though they are much farther north of the United States. As the ocean currents cool, they stop flowing north, and I think reverse. So then the parts of the earth kept warm by the currents cool and freeze. That changes the rest of the planet's temperature and thus another ice age.

Of cousrse that take thousands of years to complete. Possibly the greenhouse effect could speed the process though.

just my 2 cents -Dan

"I'm old enough to knoe better, but I'm still too young to care"
-Wade Hayes

 

Bill, I remember that too. I had a 7th grade social studies teacher who was convinced that we were on the brink of another Ice age, and would mankind even survive ? But I'm looking at the lack of snow now, and how hot the summers have been, and I'm wondering. I'm in SW michigan and we have had a lot of growth in the last 25 yrs. Places I used to hunt are housing developments and shopping malls now. The normal practice seems to be to cut down and burn every tree on a forty acre field, and then some developer buys it and builds whatever. The trees just get burned in a big pile, they don't even get cut up for firewood. I'm thinking that our Creator intended Michigan to be a forest. Couldn't a group of new houses be built while leaving the trees, at least some of them, standing ? Does a business owner really need to remove every tree on his lot ? What is the fascination with grass anyway ? I don't understand. The house I'm in now has 3 1/2 acres around it and we have not removed any trees in the 14 yrs I have been here. My boys and I have planted more than 50 new ones. I would rather relax in the shade than mow a lawn in the hot sun. Am I one of just a few, or what ? Would most of the rest of you rather have a lawn or trees around your house ? DF

 

If global warming is such a threatening reality, then why is the Ross ice shelf in the Antarctic INCREASING in thickness and mass by 200 billions tons per year?

 

The world is a very big place and has been around for a long time. Our lives in comparsion are about like the spark from a sparkplug in the scheme of this planets weather. What we remember as toddlers is nothing in regard to cycles of weather on this planet.

There is considerable evidence to indicate that at the very least global warming is not happening and at the most that we really don't know what the current cycle of weather is. Even when the earth was covered with ice there were still periods where it got quite warm for a many years. Just because we are used to the weather being a certain way doesn't mean the earth and sun agree that it will stay that way. So much variation in the weather can take place just by what the Sun does that man becomes less than relevant.

As far as the tree thing goes: They have been portrayed as critical to the prevention of global warming because they are a carbon sink. That sounds good but trees are minor compared to the oceans. The oceans are the #1 carbon sink on this planet and act as a buffer for carbon. More carbon in the air the more they uptake and vice versa.

 

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 09-Mar-02 AT 06:05 PM (EST)]I don't beleive anybody anymore. The weather people can't predict jack, and I just think everything is all a lie to make people worry. I just think the weather is strange. We had a 50 degree day a couple of weeks ago. A week after that it was below zero and freezing cold. Now we have 10 inches of snow on the ground and the wind is blowing like a hurricane. In a month all of the snow will probably be gone and I'll be running around in shorts. I don't think anyone knows how to explain it. It is just something that happens now and then and next year we might be somewhere around average. Who knows?

 

There is MONEY to be made off the Global Warming hipe. That is the reason only U.S. Industry is being attacked, instead of the real polluters, like China. The whale-huggers that I've seen raising cane where I live drive their daddy's Lincoln Navigators and are want others to drive Geos. Bunch of phonies.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 09-Mar-02 AT 06:54 PM (EST)]Rocky, I think you are so right. It's all about money. And the enviromentalists are hypocrites. Like Eric Cartman says, "I hate hippies. They say they want to save the world but all they do is sit around, smoke pot and smell bad!" I think he also said, " I hate hippies. All they do is smoke pot and drive cars that get bad gas mileage!" What a bunch of posers.

 

BOSS_358, Where's your locale. I'm in Illinios and I've got the same weather. Last week it snowed 11" and melted in 3 days. Yesterday it rained early, the sun shone and was 60 degrees, so I took my truck out in the mud with some friends. It was beutiful out. Today the wind is 40 MPH, it rained, then snowed, and the temp droped 30 degrees in 1 hour.
It is miserable now and I just looked out the window 1 minute ago to see a power pole go down!

Arrrr, I don't like this weather 1 bit!

-Dan

"I'm old enough to know better, but I'm still too young to care"
-Wade Hayes

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 09-Mar-02 AT 07:48 PM (EST)]Global Warming! Now there is a subject that gets me. This is my opinion that has been formed from the classes I have taken and studies I have done on my own. IT'S all BS.
Years ago the federal government mandated that refrigerant be reclaimed instead of being vented into the atmosphere as was the practice for many years. The phase out of R11, R12, R22 and several other refrigerants began with hefty taxes being levied on all sales of these refrigerants. How did this all start? Well it all began by a company we all have heard of…..DuPont!
DuPont held the patents on these refrigerants for about eighteen years at the time this all started and knew that in two years their patents were going to run out and this would mean huge losses to their profits. So what did they do? While they had R134 Well in the making they went to the Tree Huggers (not appearing to be from DuPont) and started the big global warming issue. By doing this it gets the whole world in an uproar and thus we have the issues that we have now. And of course any other company that can profit from all this is going to jump on the band wagon. And you ask how does DuPont gain from this ? Well look at who has the patent on R134 for the next twenty years…DuPont.
Rest at ease it is March 9, 2002 and it was about 53 Deg. F here in west Michigan this morning and now at 7:30 PM it is about 25 Deg F. with 35 MPH winds and feels like about 9 Deg. F. Global Warming is nothing but a way for big cooperation's to make big money and law makers to pad their back pockets.

BTW If I vanish from the face of this earth take it as a lesson that if you talk facts about large cooperations @&#@ hapens...LOL

 

I love to hear the dirt on the large corporations. And I hope every one gets what they deserve. Oh yeah, Dan, I am in Minnesota.