Hole in the Antarctica

[Ed]

if you are a moderate global warming skeptic your viewed as almost unpatriotic.

True. Just like a moderate 911 skeptic is viewed as unpatriotic. And I'm not talking about someone who believes the government knew about anything, just someone who thinks things were glossed over too quickly and wants some answers.

It just feels like so much money has been wasted (100 billion a year) on this environmental issue that could have been better spent on other environmental issues that could have made a huge difference such as pollution, energy and feeding the world.

What about hot fusion? What kind of scientific method is responsible for spending piles of money and it's always 10 years away? Look to the money and you will quickly find many other (worse) places to pick on than just climatologists, and thoughts of them only in it for the money. I think that's unfair. What about, say, Dentists? They can easily claim I have a cavity because I'm on the border line of needing a filling. They can also claim they're looking out for me, and I can claim they just need new golf clubs. ;-)

The truth is the issues are complex and the extremists on both sides of the spectrum have done the world an injustice as it has just tempered melancholy. There is much lying and deceit on both sides, not just the global warming deniers.

First, anyone who is not at least somewhat polarized stopped calling it "global warming" long ago.

Second, IMO they are not equal. One side has more to lose. It's about a way of life and not wanting change. If someone (or company) wants to make money doing things that benefit the environment, then in the mind of a capitalist it should be perfectly acceptable, a win-win even. But the "entities" having portfolios containing the wrong investments will demonize that someone (or company). Google Volt+Lincoln+Tunnel. One side is very good at using marketing tactics to get their way. It used to be there was an ultimate truth, and if one side was wrong it would capitulate. Not now. Now we demonize and then become not wrong. It's so much more satisfying that way, isn't it? Most of the time we are too busy fighting each other to see our roll as pawns.

Now let's try it the other way around. Someone (or company) wants to make money and pollute the environment in the process. Oh yeah, that's already happening and I have stock in air and water that's getting shorted!

[jim_mich]

While we're talking about weather...
Here is a link to an old 26 minute black and white movie produced by the Indiana State Police,
titled "Death Out Of Darkness" Palm Sunday Tornadoes 1965.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd9k-ItZ1vI

This movie talks mostly about the tornadoes in the state of Illinois.
Michigan was hit almost as hard. Ohio was also hit.
Other states to west also had a few tornado.

These twisters hit Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio just a few days before my 18th birthday.

Below is a video produced in 1995, 18 years ago.
The videos recall the tornadoes from 30 years earlier.

April 11, 1965: Michiana's Worst Disaster, Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcUAvp8uKR4
Note that "Michiana" is a made-up word used by television stations who's broadcast area is both Michigan and Indiana.

April 11, 1965: Michiana's Worst Disaster, Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtqS7PwuPh8
Note the text at 7:50... Manchester ... my home town is mentioned.

At the end, they talk about the new Doppler Radar.
Doppler Radar now covers the whole country.
All communities in Michigan currently have tornado warning sirens.
These can be heard for many miles.
We have tornadoes almost every spring, but almost never on the massive scale from 1965.

Some links to Doppler Radar...
Chicago Doppler Radar: http://image.weather.com/web/radar/us_o ... e_usen.jpg
Detroit Doppler Radar: http://media2.wxyz.com/photo/MAP/185353 ... tion10.JPG
Toledo Doppler Radar: http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/wtvg/wea ... ppler1.jpg
US National Doppler Radar: http://image.weather.com/web/radar/us_r ... s_usen.jpg

[daxwc]

Ed:

First, anyone who is not at least somewhat polarized stopped calling it "global warming" long ago.

Exactly my point; who moved the goal posts? So, because global warming in the last 13 years has leveled off it has changed to climate change in order to save face?

Now we demonize and then become not wrong.
Most of the time we are too busy fighting each other to see our roll as pawns.

That is a very astute observation that most of the public misses. Al Gore is an easy one to see we are being played by, but there are many bigger players at work in the western world on all environment and economy issues. When groups like Sierra Club, David Suzuki Foundation , 350.org, Greenpeace, Gasland, Native groups and western political parties are accused of taking Middle East, Russia, and China monetary contributions for various protests, the public and Government should be doing a double take on what the true agenda is.

Anyway, back to the topic, is there real climate change or just a knee jerk reaction of the information age. Where there seems like more climate issues, is it really only due to our fast movement and wealth of information as compared to 20 years ago?




Here is an interesting video I stumbled on while looking at the other one.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/2026861370001



.

[eccentrically1]

The climate is changing, the animals are always the first to know. Remember birds use the magnetic field of the earth for navigation, and migration patterns have changed, nesting grounds moved, planting zones shifting. Dung beetles use the stars. My dog will start hovering around me long before a storm system hits our area, cows lay down in our pasture, for a local example. Animals' senses are much more attuned than ours. Climatologists' instruments and measurements are our equivalent of animal senses.
The question is does our activity accelerate the change? Yes or no.
The other question is where will it stop before it peaks and reverses? And, what will be the collateral damage to vulnerable populations?

[Ed]

Anyway, back to the topic, is there real climate change or just a knee jerk reaction of the information age. Where there seems like more climate issues, is it really only due to our fast movement and wealth of information as compared to 20 years ago?

I think you're right that newer technology with media saturation and sensationalism (24 hour 'news', the Internet, etc.) makes it seem like there are many more varied and dire things happening now than, say, 30-35 years ago. I'm always surprised to go digging back through various archives and find that I had either forgotten or didn't know that many things aren't new.

IMO, in order to get closer to an answer to the question, we have to take all of the media and politics out of the picture. Try to forget anything we've seen or read about GW or CC, for the moment. Think of the environment like the image attached below. We might not be able to draw good circles, but we can still draw...and erase. Without the right technology, we risk erasing ourselves altogether, instead of just our small errors.

Over fifty percent of breathable air is created by something very tiny and fragile. If we continue to pollute water and let the temperature change even a little beyond what algae can stand, then we are in for a big problem.

Trees are more resilient, but they are being chopped down and replaced with "equivalents" by people who think a Lorax is a voicebox for politics instead of something to take lessons from.

Do we really want to continue petty bickering and risk so much? I'd rather put our differences aside, stop the buzz words, and start talking.

Pale Blue Dot

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.�

[daxwc]

http://www.geek.com/science/giant-unexp ... o-1602707/