The 2006 hurricane season has--thankfully--been downgraded. Are Al Gore et al wrong about humans causing global warming?

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/4294567.html

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/GlobalWarming/story?id=2110628&page=2

By the way, I remember a very different warning from scientists not that many years ago. The theory was presented on the TV show In Search Of, which was hosted by Leonard Nimoy, in an episode titled "The Coming Ice Age." You understand my confusion, of course.

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=24581

10/14/2006 5:06:01 AM

wait... what?

are you seriously using the mild hurricane season to say that humans dont cause global warming?

10/14/2006 6:53:33 AM

That seems like a legit point to make.

The 'global warming' crowd uses things like severe strorms or a bad hurricane season to say "SEE!!...GLOBAL WARMING!!"....If this years season had been really bad you can bet we would have heard that...so it seems perfectly legit for someone to ask this question...

as to the thread....i would say the 'global warming' crowd is borderline upset that this years season has been so easy. With every storm that popped up there were comparisons to Katrina and Andrew and any other major storm. Now that nothing like that has happened, they dont really have much to complain about.

10/14/2006 8:40:17 AM

I dont believe in global warming BUT
the ice age part of that is b/c scientists say global warming will result in another ice age. Water from the poles will melt causing the salt/water ratio to shrink which will affect atlantic currents which in turn will cause an ice age OR SO THEY SAY. i think it is all political nonsense

10/14/2006 9:07:48 AM

Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina?
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1099102,00.html

Katrina's real name...is global warming.
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/08/30/katrinas_real_name/

"Katrina's Real Name is Global Warming"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/01/147233

Katrina reignites global warming debate
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-09-01-katrina-global-warming_x.htm

Hurricanes and Global Warming - Is There a Connection?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181

If everyone else gets to point to Katrina and say "Global Warming's First Victims!" then other people get to point to the lack of Katrina and at the very least reiterate "Scientific studies suggest Global Warming and Hurricane activity are tenuously linked at best."

10/14/2006 9:20:38 AM

^thats pretty much my point...this has to go both ways

10/14/2006 9:45:19 AM

the hurricanes = global warming thing was always one of the weaker points of global warming.

i'd say the fact that the warmest years in the past couple hundred have all been in the past 6 or 7 years is much stronger. that's a pretty clear indication of global warming to me.

now the exact causes of this are up for debate as is the extent to which it will continue. but i'd imagine that humans have at the very least something to do with it.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 9:55 AM. Reason : .]

10/14/2006 9:55:09 AM

The problem that I have is the complacency of humans to be responsible for what we know we are putting into the atmosphere and water. They think that the planet is just our personal dumping ground.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 10:34 AM. Reason : .]

10/14/2006 10:31:42 AM

^ Why, are you saying it is someone elses dumping ground?

10/14/2006 10:38:38 AM

Or that the earth isn't anyone's dumping ground. But as Gamecat pointed out there is no economic incentive for companies (and even individuals) to be responsible for their actions.

10/14/2006 10:46:51 AM

How about people who

A) point to hurricanes as proof of global warming

B) point to lack of hurricanes as proof against global warming

should both be made fun of?

10/14/2006 11:36:30 AM

Quote :

"I dont believe in global warming"

Then you are alone in your views.

Global warming is a FACT. It is not debated by scientists.

What IS debated is whether it is caused by human activitiy or not.

10/14/2006 12:06:18 PM

Quote :

"How about people who A) point to hurricanes as proof of global warming B) point to lack of hurricanes as proof against global warming should both be made fun of?"

agreed...hurricanes are so overrated

10/14/2006 12:30:07 PM

The fact is Earth's temperature fluctuates. 40 years ago people were in a frenzy about "the next Ice Age." People overreact to stuff all the time, it's just... human nature. This overreaction to stuff leads to stupid behaviour and allows actual problems to slip through untouched. I mean, just a small amount of forsight to rebuild or reinforce the levees in New Orleans 10 years ago would have saved the US billions of dollars. But no, we have everyone ONLY focusing on their hypothetical cause of the problem (greenhouse emitters) and not dealing with tangible problems (like levees). I don't care if there is a study that proves beyond any doubt that cars are 100% responsible for global warming, we will continue to drive. I guess my whole point is we need to focus on feasible solutions to potential problems.

10/14/2006 12:54:39 PM

So are you arguing against National Warming or Global Warming?

Because I'm not exactly sure why you chose that particular chart.

10/14/2006 1:56:25 PM

We've been accurately recording weather information for a very short time period. Thus we can't really see weather trends over large time periods. This could be a relatively normal cycle on earth.

I mean we know for a fact that there have been ice ages, I see no reason not to expect "warm ages" or the like.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 2:22 PM. Reason : ]

10/14/2006 2:20:20 PM

why do people pick the most nut job shit they find on the internet and then try to pass it off as what the majority of liberals believe?

10/14/2006 2:27:25 PM

i find it ridiculous that this is even an argument.
so let's just say for stupidity's sake that man has absolutely NO impact on the climate. we should still want to conserve fuel and work to find more efficient and cleaner technologies BECAUSE WE HAVE TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET AND WE'RE BLEEDING IT DRY OF RESOURCES. cars, power plants, planes, etc hurt the environment. i don't see why anyone would be against limiting this. but plenty are.

10/14/2006 3:48:31 PM

Quote :

"BECAUSE WE HAVE TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET AND WE'RE BLEEDING IT DRY OF RESOURCES"

Funny thing is, what everyone believes, isn't necessarily so. What constitutes a "resource" is whatever we happen to find useful. Today we find oil useful, 140 years ago it was a nuisance. Who knows what resources our great grandchildren will find useful, maybe oil will be worthless in the future. Who knows, but I do know this: our descendants will have technology available to them that we can only dream about, just as it was between us and our great grandparents.

Compared to us, our great grandparents grew up poor and wretched lives. It isn't because today we have more resources; on the contrary, many of the resources used by our great grandparents are gone. What has changed is our level of technology. Today, we can access resources unreachable by our ancestors and utilize them more efficiently to produce more from less. Similarly, our great grandchildren will be able to access resources far outside our reach and use them even more efficiently than we do. As good as we think we have it today, to our great grandchildren we will appear as relatively poor as our great grandparents did to us.

To put it another way, you do not need to worry about us using up all the oil because we cannot reach the majority of the oil in the planet, we are just too technically inept. This is good: as our descendants get smarter and more capable than we are they are guaranteed access to oil. The only way the human race will ever be unable to acquire oil is if we stop advancing technologically, which doesn't sound likely to occur any time soon.

10/14/2006 4:48:04 PM

i was talking more about say: fresh water. the coral reefs. fish. rainforests. etc.

10/14/2006 4:59:39 PM

^^^^^Ice core samples let us see back hundreds of thousands of years.



So there goes that argument

And before you're like "omg look at the cycles!," take a look at the green CO2 level bar.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:01 PM. Reason : .]

10/14/2006 5:00:59 PM

Quote :

"fresh water. the coral reefs. fish. rainforests. etc."

Well, I know for a fact we have more fresh water today than our ancestors did (they say you can now safely drink from the East River in New York, not that I'd do it). We will have more fish once the fish-farming industry gets developed further. As for coral reefs and rainforests I couldn't say. It seems to me the rainforests are being cut down by people other than North Americans, as our timber stocks are at their highest level in 90 years. So, direct your complaints not at wealthy Americans but at poor Brazilians.

10/14/2006 5:04:41 PM

katrina was a catalyst to get people talking about it, never proof of it

10/14/2006 5:05:00 PM

boonedocks, pretty graph. Do you have a larger version? Supposedly, if you zoom in close enough, for several of those cycles the temperature shoots up before the CO2 levels start to rise. Scientists theorize the warming period was triggered by some catalyst and the warmer weather melted the northern permafrost which allowed decomposition to begin on thousands of years of stored up organic matter which flooded the atmosphere with CO2 which exacerbated and prolonged the warming period.

Has anyone else heard that?

10/14/2006 5:09:34 PM

JonHGuth

Quote :

"wait... what? are you seriously using the mild hurricane season to say that humans dont cause global warming?"

No, I'm simply posing a question. You seem a bit defensive--as do a few others on this subject.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:11 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:12 PM. Reason : .]

10/14/2006 5:10:05 PM

because its pretty obvious what you are implying, and its retarded

10/14/2006 5:10:54 PM

^ DEFENSIVE! Again, I'm just posing a question.

10/14/2006 5:14:23 PM

^^^^I've never heard of that, but are you suggesting the CO2 levels are due to melting permafrost, and not, oh lets say... the millions of tons we're releasing each year?



[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:15 PM. Reason : .]

10/14/2006 5:14:35 PM

pointing out that you were implying something retarded isn't defensive, its a statement of fact

10/14/2006 5:18:08 PM

Quote :

"Well, I know for a fact we have more fresh water today than our ancestors did (they say you can now safely drink from the East River in New York, not that I'd do it)."

from http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2003/03/05/water_report030305.html (in reference to a recent UN water supply report):

Quote :

"According to the report, one in three people do not have enough water for proper hygiene and one in five do not have enough to drink. Over the next 20 years, the average global supply of water per person is expected to drop by one-third. By the middle of the 21st century, 2 billion to 7 billion people will be severely short of water. "

now i know that doesn't specifically say that water supply is dropping off (that depends on where you look) but water supply per capita is most definitely dropping off worldwide.

10/14/2006 5:21:29 PM

Oh no boonedocks, the tail had to do with prior cycles.

There is no doubt humans are pushing up CO2 levels in recent history. I was just spreading useless info, I guess.

sarijoul, ok, when I said "we" I meant the Industrialized World. It doesn't make any sense to include statistics from the 3rd world because without functioning market economies no amount of resources will ever make these regions livable by our standards.

10/14/2006 5:33:51 PM

Let me try to go a bit broader in scope. Historically speaking, "expert" predictions are often wrong--and Al Gore is not even an expert. The following are a couple of links that illustrate my point:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/rooney/main1553237.shtml

http://wilk4.com/humor/humore10.htm

In my day (oh shit! I did Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man line ), which was just over twenty years ago, experts were predicting the "coming ice age." I'm not a partisan--I'm not even a Republican--I'm just asking people to think critically, to not just accept the spoon-fed "news" and the whims du jour of the mainstream media and special interest groups concerning global warming.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:38 PM. Reason : 'm]

10/14/2006 5:35:57 PM

so, meteorologists are wrong because people sometimes make glamorous conjectures about the type of technology we will have in the future?

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:42 PM. Reason : is that seriously your point?]

10/14/2006 5:41:35 PM

Quote :

"so, meteorologists are wrong because people [so-called experts] sometimes make glamorous conjectures about the type of technology we will have in the future?"

Yes, possibly so.

10/14/2006 5:46:53 PM

^^ http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/4294567.html

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 5:48 PM. Reason : ^]

10/14/2006 5:48:24 PM

here i'll let you learn a little bit about why all your points are stupid
http://tinyurl.com/ylg6d7

10/14/2006 5:52:24 PM

You MUST be a liberal, because you call anything you don't like or that you disagree with "stupid" or "retarded." If that strategy is so smart, why didn't it work for President Gore Al Gore?

Why don't YOU try reading some of the links I've posted? Take off the fucking ideological blinders for a change.

[Edited on October 14, 2006 at 6:16 PM. Reason : ?]

10/14/2006 6:11:26 PM

looks like someone didnt read anything in the link

10/14/2006 6:24:13 PM

I will chew you up and spit you out concerning logical fallacies. Just read the links--and try thinking for yourself.

10/14/2006 6:33:00 PM

^^^ so people who dont like gay people are liberals?

that makes no sense.

10/14/2006 7:26:58 PM

a rapidly forming El Nino caused this hurricane season to suck, it wasnt expecting to form.

10/14/2006 8:41:49 PM

^ Exactly my point. There is much that so-called experts don't know and can't predict.

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/4294567.html

10/15/2006 12:55:48 AM

The unpredictability of nature doesn't mean that we should throw our hands up in the air and claim "whatever happens, happens."

Weather forecasting has always been a relative hit or miss type of activity even when the most powerful computers are on their side and I really don't think that is over anybodies head. I really don't see any correlation between the ability to predict weather and the trending of our planets temperature.

10/15/2006 1:07:25 AM

^^^^ NB: Probably in an effort to avoid an ad hominem attack, JonHGuth didn't call me stupid or retarded. He did use those words to describe the points that he believed I was making. It's a subtle difference, and one that you obviously missed.

[Edited on October 15, 2006 at 1:20 AM. Reason : ^]

10/15/2006 1:07:48 AM

^^and predicting a specific season's weather is a MUCH bigger challenge than predicting an overall trend over a period of decades and centuries.

10/15/2006 1:10:03 AM

^^^ You think weather forecasting is hard, try climate forecasting. Oh, that's right, many so-called experts have tried and continue to try climate forecasting. Twenty-plus years ago, these experts predicted a coming ice age, which didn't happen. And that's my main point.

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=24581

10/15/2006 1:25:46 AM

because turbulence modelling and weather prediction haven't you know made huge leaps and bounds in the past 30 years or anything.



[Edited on October 15, 2006 at 1:30 AM. Reason : .]

10/15/2006 1:29:29 AM

^ Yes, and chaos theory is just that--theory--and models can be wrong and the chances of dying from asteroid/comet impact are 1 in 20,000. But do you think that the latter is going to happen?

The following table shows me that we have many more immediate and real threats to be concerned about than global warming and whether climate forecasting is accurate or not:

Table. Chances of dying from selected causes (USA)

Cause of death and Chances

Motor vehicle accident: 1 in 100
Homicide: 1 in 300
Fire: 1 in 800
Firearms accident: 1 in 2,500
Electrocution: 1 in 5,000
Asteroid/comet impact: 1 in 20,000
Passenger aircraft crash: 1 in 20,000
Flood: 1 in 30,000
Tornado: 1 in 60,000
Venomous bite or sting: 1 in 100,000
Fireworks accident: 1 in 1 million
Food poisoning by botulism: 1 in 3 million
Drinking water with EPA limit of tricholoethylene: 1 in 10 million

(From C.R. Chapman & D. Morrison, 1994, Nature 367, 33-40.)

[Edited on October 15, 2006 at 2:00 AM. Reason : .]

10/15/2006 1:55:38 AM

weather prediction over a long period of time (aka climate prediction) is most definitely NOT chaos theory. it's statistics.

[Edited on October 15, 2006 at 2:04 AM. Reason : .]

10/15/2006 2:04:13 AM

Your main point seems to be that people who try to forecast weather or climate can be wrong.

I really don't see anything substanstial about that. Just because forecasting hasn't been accurate in the past doesn't mean we should completely give up on it. Improvements will come with time. I bet there were people saying that people who thought an ice age was coming were insane.

And yes, there maybe be more life threatening scenarios out there but where does it say that we can't focus on more than a few at a time?

10/15/2006 2:08:16 AM