Global Warming-- do you think it is a problem?

[Liz CA]

 

And I also want to know why all the denial that something is happening? Is it a faith thing? What? I want to know why you honestly think we are not damaging our planet and why we shouldn't be doing something about it?

 

I believe many mistakes were made and are being made, some because of true ignorance, ie. nobody at the time knew the ramifications or because we don't want to sacrifice our conveniences.

 

Also, there is a segment of GW believers that swing heavily (IMHO) to the extreme. I had people tell me in all seriousness that people are the cancer of the earth and that earth would be completely healthy if we could only get rid of the people. We should not reproduce at all because it increases the population and therefore makes the cancer tumor bigger.

 

This person did not even allow for the faint possibility that some - if not many people - can eventually sacrifice a little convenience, become more aware of pollution and other factors that contribute and that we can become good stewarts of the earth. There is also some confusion (again IMHO) among Christians regarding the verse that tells us that we are to *utilize the resources of the earth*. This may not mean we should exploit it to the point of devastating consequences. Many Christians read this verse and say that everything we are doing is fine then.

 

I don't believe everything I hear about GW but I am with PariSarah here, as most often is the case, there is likely some validity to some arguments but not to all.

Even if the GW scientists are completely wrong and we do not influence such cycles, wouldn't we be better off if we tried to take care of what's been entrusted to us?

[nancypants]

It's my opinion that everyone living in a climate that gets as cold as it does here in Canada, needs to move several hundred or thousand miles closer to the equator. This way we would not have to use all of this energy to merely survive the brutal winters!! :D

 

:p

 

(hopefully you know I'm just being silly now... though I sometimes do think this on these brutal winter days when everyone's furnaces are running around the clock.)

 

I do wish I saw a LOT more windmills here. (There are almost none to speak of that I've seen.) It is SO freakin' windy here so often... it seems bizarre that it's not being harnessed like crazy.

[Anne/Ankara]

We're working out the itinerary now, Colleen. Maybe you have a recommendation for us? My dh and ds will spend about 6 days in Switzerland, flying into Zurich and taking the train to Geneva, where they will stay in Montreaux. They have a bit of time for some sight-seeing, so they're developing this idea of tracking down the disappearing glaciers. We saw the Alestch Glacier on the internet as one possibility, but I'm not exactly sure where that is (funny Greenpeace photo about nude environmentalists posing in front of disappearing glacier, to illustrate the vulnerability of man and nature!). Anyway, maybe you have some suggestions for us?

[Mama Lynx]

Thank you thank you! This is what I was getting at with my last point...why the utter denial? Why NOT try to be a little earth friendly? Who does that hurt?

 

Global warming or no, I am *more than happy* to be a little earth-friendly. I bring my own shopping bags. I monitor my energy use. I recycle. I use biodegradable cleaners, etc. etc. etc.

 

However, I am always skeptical of any dire emergency where the answer is "more government, and fast!"

 

People work to expand their power base. I will happily work to reduce my impact on the earth, but I want cool heads and more thinking before the government finds another avenue in which to grow like crazy.

[Daisy]

Hmmm, I guess you could say that I believe all the chaos in the world is ultimately man's fault. I mean, I believe that Adam and Eve's choice in the garden resulted in a curse upon the earth and we are all suffering the consequences of that decision. I believe that disease, floods, earthquakes, and even possibily global warming are just another indication that the curse caused all of life to move towards decay, chaos and death. I do not think there is anything man can do to change that. One day, according to what I believe Scripture teaches, there will be a new heaven and a new earth and all will be restored. Does that mean I'm going to head into the local national forest and burn down 5,000 acres? NO. Does that mean I'm going to dump oil into the ocean? NO. It means that I'm going to be a good steward of the resources around me and then I'm not going to worry about it.

 

I don't know if global warming is happening or not. It just doesn't keep me up at night.

[Mrs Mungo]

Global warming or no, I am *more than happy* to be a little earth-friendly. I bring my own shopping bags. I monitor my energy use. I recycle. I use biodegradable cleaners, etc. etc. etc.

 

However, I am always skeptical of any dire emergency where the answer is "more government, and fast!"

 

People work to expand their power base. I will happily work to reduce my impact on the earth, but I want cool heads and more thinking before the government finds another avenue in which to grow like crazy.

 

I'm curious what you mean by "more government" Was it wrong for California to have their zero emissions law?

 

It's my opinion that 9/11 should have been a wake up call. We cannot rely on oil, it's costing us in *many* ways. I think the government should be putting money toward alternative energy sources, cutting off the supply of money flowing into the region has to be cheaper than the military funding (and understand, I'm a military wife).

[Kelli in TN]

Global warming or no, I am *more than happy* to be a little earth-friendly. I bring my own shopping bags. I monitor my energy use. I recycle. I use biodegradable cleaners, etc. etc. etc.

 

However, I am always skeptical of any dire emergency where the answer is "more government, and fast!"

 

People work to expand their power base. I will happily work to reduce my impact on the earth, but I want cool heads and more thinking before the government finds another avenue in which to grow like crazy.

 

What she said!

 

I am steadily trying to improve how we live. I try to keep making steps towards a smaller ecological footprint. I cannot do as much as I wish I could, due to a lack of opportunity in my community, but I do what I can.

 

I am not a scientist and both sides say they are right, I am clueless as to how to sort it out without an advanced degree of my own. I just don't know. But I know that releasing toxins and using up resources and letting Wal-Mart bags hang from our trees (well, except for the ones we clear cut to make room for Wal-Mart) is bad. I don't need a governmental intervention to tell me this.

 

 

 

 

 

How I regret the last 24 hours of recklessly slinging rep at people randomly, someone give this woman some rep, I don't have any left!

[Doran]

But, before the curiosity question, let me just state outright (though it's pretty obvious, there in my profile) that I am a firm believer in global climate change/warming and, more to the point, in the need to act on that belief.

 

So, for the curiosity question -- with no intention of offense --

 

To those who are skeptical about the reality of man's impact on climate change but who also state that they believe it is their duty to be "good stewards" of the planet, what exactly does that look like in your life? Being a good steward, I mean? Not to pick on Daisy, but to say [paraphrasing] "I'm not going to burn down the trees in the local national forest or dump oil into the oceans" is thinking small-scale. Of course, I personally am not going to go and do any of those things either. I can't imagine anyone here would, whether they believe humans are impacting climate change or not. And, I also realize that I'm just one person, and that I can't tackle global issues all alone.

 

But, the bigger question to ask, in my mind, is whether our stewardship involves thinking beyond ourselves? Do we shop in ways that would send to the corporations the message that, "we don't want to be so dependent on oil" Or, "we don't believe in clear cutting rain forests because we understand their value to be far beyond the timber therein." We elect the officials, who support the corporations, the CEO's and the stockholders. And, it is these that resist the changes being suggested for global climate action because they fear it will affect their bottom line.

 

How do our personal choices for stewardship affect the larger picture?

 

Doran

[Plaid Dad]

I haven't read all the other responses, so forgive me if (many) other posters have said this.

 

I'm honestly not sure whether or not - or to what extent - humans are contributing to climate change, but I figure it can't hurt to be prudent with our resources. Then again, I also don't believe that everyone needs to live like Americans - including Americans. I don't think that perpetual economic growth is sustainable or even (culturally or spiritually) desirable. So I'd rather see figure out now, as a society, how to live within our means - environmental and otherwise. Keywords: Distributism, subsidiarity.

 

And those are my two coppers on the subject.

[JennifersLost]

A day filling in my time-line with all the stages the earth has gone through in the last 4.5 billion years it's hard for me to do anything but say "global warming? It's global cooling we should really worry about." Historically the earth has often been much warmer than it is now. And historically the earth has been much colder than it is now. We could still be in an inter-glacial period in just another cycle like the ones we've been going through for the last million years, or we could be heading out into an extended warm/wet period like we were in even before that. Or we could merrily be heading somewhere else entirely.

 

Evolutionarily speaking, a lot of the steps we had to go to before we became human depended on us having to deal with abrupt climate change - usually when we went from warmer and wet to suddenly cool and dry.

 

So, maybe if global climate change is coming, we'll evolve into something even more spectacular than we are today.

 

My best guess is that the climate our kids will deal with may be closer to the warm period a millenium ago than the mini-ice age we've just pulled out of in the last century. But if we could fast-forward 10,000 years from now that's all it will be - a little blip on the radar in the midst of huge long-term trends we don't live long enough to see.

[mcconnellboys]

My grandma, soon to be 100 years old, has always been the best composter and reuser, recycler I've ever known. But when she grew up, NO ONE, basically, had a wasteful mentality. Now, most everyone has a wasteful mentality. We, as a country, are the most wasteful people on earth. And I don't mean to bash us. It's just that our economy, based on consumerism, is wildly out of control. We're like the darling, spoiled children of the world and we have no idea, basically, how the rest of the world REALLY lives.

 

I've read recent statistics which indicate that of all the "stuff" we buy, almost 100% of it is trashed within 6 months. Not used up. Not recycled. Not reused or repurposed. Just put in the garbage to go to a landfill or incinerator. This is not a cyclical process and it can not go on indefinitely. It will not sustain us for all time....

 

When I read about local, organic farming practices, I am blown away. This is not some new fangled idea. This is the way farming was actually done from time immemorial. This is the way to live on the land without using up the land. It is the way to shepherd livestock without the use of massive amounts of antibiotics and chemicals. It is the way to grow healthy produce without use of massive amounts of chemicals. It is a way to live in harmony with our world and protect it, so that it can sustain us. And more than that, so that it can sustain humankind a hundred generations from now, if that is called for.

 

The majority of the human population once lived close to the land and understood how to be in harmony with that land. The vast majority of our population in the US today doesn't have a clue. What would we do tomorrow if our lines of commerce were severed throughout this country?

 

I think "being a good steward" sounds great, and we'd all like to say that we think we are such creatures. But I think that the reality of what it would take for us, as a people, to be truly good stewards might mean a lot of drastic lifestyle changes for the majority of us. And I'm not quite certain that I could do it, either, so don't think I'm casting dispersions on others, LOL.....

 

The year I read Poisonwood Bible, the contrast between that society and our own really resonated with me. It got me started thinking about all the material "stuff" that we so take for granted here. We've read many other books since then, and I wish I could now find one that was called something like "Global Feast", which showed families from all over the world with a week's groceries.....There's another where they show families from all over the world with all their wordly possessions pulled outside their house. The differences between the rest of the world and us are amazing.

 

I have traveled some, and whether in Canada, or on the Mexican border, or in the north of England, or throughout Scotland, I have never observed a general level of living that appears to approach what we have in the majority of America. I think we are greatly blessed here; I'm not sure that we really, truly understand how blessed. I'm not sure that we really understand what sort of sacrifices on our part would be needed in order to bring us more in with the rest of the world, either. I hope that we don't ever have to learn these lessons the hard way, during a time of crisis....

 

Someone here provided me with info recently about a guy who does regular "money purges", living for a day or longer without the use of any currency. I can think of other sorts of purges that might actually provide good instruction for us, too, and I think would certainly make us better prepared, as a people, for changes that may inevitably come if our climate conditions continue to worsen (for whatever reason)....

 

I don't think the government of our country needs to be involved in any of this at all. This is something that the people of the country can handle on their own, through the choices they make in their daily lives.

 

Regena

[Kris]

I wish we could ask the dinosaurs what they thought about global warming and climate change.

 

While I don't think it would hurt us to pay attention and live more responsibly -- for economic reasons, if nothing else -- I can't believe that mankind can realistically be blamed for the changes that people are noticing. I just don't think we're that important.

[Daisy]

I don't feel picked on. I suppose I could have been more specific. I'm accused of being a tree-hugger by my logging friends and wasteful by my environmental friends. I guess my point was that I fall somewhere in the middle. I do what I can personally to be responsible for how I use our God-given resources. Our family drives one compact car. We bike ride as a family to the grocery store. We reduce, reuse and recycle. We voluntarily recycle in a city that can't seem to find it important enough to actually offer those services. I use cloth shopping bags and we mow the lawn by hand (gasp). I could list other ways we are good stewards but I think we get the point. I also think our country needs to move away (and quickly) from it's dependance on oil.

 

That said, I'm not into protecting huge tracks of land so that a giraffe can have a place to live while the people pushed off the land are living in squallor. I think too many of these environmental groups place animals and land above people. So I probably have more than once blown someone off simply because they took a stance too far (IMO).

 

I wish we'd take all those politicans and actors and everyone else who has made global warming their pet cause and have them focus some energy on seeing something done in the Sudan and in other places where folks are being killed or starved. Just my 2 very small cents. :)

[Storm Bay]

Not extremely. No one knows WHY it's happening, but it's certainly happened before. World climate was warmer when vikings settled Greenland. There was a mini ice age later when the Greenlander vikings died out because they refused to adopt the local way of living. Iceland saw many coolings and warmings--starvation often occured during cold times or after a large volcanic eruption. Everyone wonders how the arctic wildlife will survive, but it survived that warm era c. 1000 years ago.

[Storm Bay]

Well, I wouldn't say it's all an anti-intellectual bent. Some of the people I know who accept this as natural are extremely intellectual. You can't expect everyone to react the same way. I, for one, do think we need to reduce our fossil fuel burning. It's a proven pollutant. Our global economy is really causing a lot more fossil fuels to be burned, btw, than if we had a more nationalistic economy. The 90,000 ocean liners shipping things are some of the largest polluters on the planet. Yet I see that many liberal politicians who are concerned about fossil fuel burning and global warming actively promote a global economy.

 

I also think that we've been keeping climatic information for a very tiny amount of time. How long have we been recording temperature changes in the ocean? And we have historical information to draw upon, as I did with the Greenlanders and the Icelanders. That's just one part--England and many other places have histories of different climates.

[Julpost]

He had prepared a speech on this very topic. The basic gist is that the earth is cycling, man has nothing to do with it, it's all a big scam, and our descendents are going to be shaking their heads at us in the future.

[PinkInTheBlue]

How can you not believe there is a naturally occurring cycle the earth goes through? The top of the Great Barrier Reef has remains of plants only found on land. At one time the oceans were so low that great portions of the Reef were dry land. Also, as someone else stated, fossils of ocean animals have been found on land. A big part of the Central and Southern Western States in the past were under water.

 

Now, saying that doesn't mean I don't believe humans can't have an impact. I make all the difference I can. Our decision to make a move to AZ soon is helped by the fact that out there they have more systems in place to recycle. Recycling in about non-existent in my area and it's very frustrating. Taking care of what you have always makes more sense than waste and destruction.

[Peek a Boo]

I'm with those who point to the cycles the earth *has already* gone through. No amount of research can PROVE the theories about "rates" in the past. Shoot- we think it takes millions of years to grow diamonds in the earth yet it takes a mere three days in a lab. Add in a few thousand years for the sake of uncontrolled variables, lol and it's STILL a guess as to how long things take in a natural state. Very good guesses, possibly, but it only takes one wrong tiny bit of info to muck up the whole theory. Such is science. THAT's why i doubt the claims of WHY we are experiencing climate change.

 

I'm w/ jenniferslost and mamlynx on this one --I'm sure we ARE experiencing climate change, but I am skeptical about the causes. Trees are only ONE variable in the world -there's a slew of others we aren't even aware of yet. I don't like Al Gore's style, but there are other valid reasons to NOT align w/ him on this issue.

 

i agree with the idea of being pro-active regardless, but as mamalynx pointed out --NOT at the gvt's demand. I believe gvt involvement tends to cause more problems than it purports to fix --if it really "fixes" anything at all in the long run.

 

I do agree that "dominion over the earth" is a direct command to exercise responsibility for our resources. And reasonable people differ on how best to do that too :-)

[Mekanamom]

Trees are only ONE variable in the world

 

Ok, this is really neither here nor there within this conversation... but near my area one neighbor is taking another to court because one's tree is shading the solar panels of the other.

 

It is likely that the solar panel owner will win, and the tree owner will be ordered to chop down his tree. I'm not sure, but I think the tree was there first.

 

FWIW, I, personally, like both trees and solar panels. It's an interesting case.

[cricket1178]

My dh is in the "normal cycling" group. However, we do recycle and as Christians, whole heartily believe in being good stewards over the earth.

[Bev in B'ville]

Is there global warming? Yes. Is it caused and/or exasperated by humans? We'll never know for sure. There are several factors here. First, we just came out of an ice age about 10,000 years ago, so we're still warming up. The ice is receding, which is what happens after an ice age. Second, there's documented proof that the sun's temperature has increased.

 

I don't think we'll ever be able to tell for sure what part, if any, humans played in this event. Sometimes I think the arrogance of man is astounding in assuming that we caused global warming, and, more importantly, that we can do anything about it.

 

JMHO.

[Karen sn]

Well - the eart gets warm, she gets cold, she gets warm....

It's been going on for a lot longer than we have been around.

There are palm tree fossils in Alaska. And oil too - had to be warm for those now dead dinasours.

 

A volcano puts out more Co2 than we ever could to affect the the climate.

It is happening - warming - but it will cool again too.

 

I think where humans have had the most impact on the earth is water quality. We have polluted the water, the "blood" of the earth.

 

I am thought of as "liberal" by my redneck friends and "conservative" by my hippie friends - I believe in global warming - but I am not afraid or worried. There is little we can do. The earth will continue to cycle through the warm and cool phases of her life regardless of our pollution. That knowledge comforts me when I see irresponsible companies adding to the air/water pollution.

We drive a hybrid, support organic farmers and local business. We try as best a human can to conserve and not waste.

 

I actually think it is sacriledge to waste water for toileting - so I feel better peeing in the woods when possible and not flushing the toilet every time I pee. It's a small thing, and certainly not one that gets much air time, but we all do what we can.

 

(Re: global warming....We may speed it up a SMALL bit - but this Earth will just shake us off like fleas as we continue our disrespect. That is already happening!)

[Bev in B'ville]

Arctic Researcher Says Warming Data Is Misquoted

 

APPLETON, Wis. — February 1, 2008 — According to Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the founding director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, global warming data often quoted by the media and government officials should not be used to attribute global warming to man.

In an online exclusive for The New American magazine, Dr. Akasofu, one of the "1,000 Most Cited Scientists," is "concerned about the inevitable backlash against science and scientists, when the public eventually learns the correct information about climate change" and requests the IPCC to make an appropriate statement to clear up the confusion before the next G8 meeting being held in May.

 

 

The data from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points to an increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius per 100 years since 1800 to present as being manmade from greenhouse gases. Dr. Akasofu claims this is misleading as the Earth is continuing to recover from the Little Ice Age and 0.5 degrees Celsius per 100 years can be attributed to natural warming, leaving a fraction of the warming trend to other causes. His article can be read at .

Dr. Akasofu was the founding director of the International Arctic Research Center from its establishment in 1998 until January of 2007. He has been professor of geophysics since 1964 and has published more than 550 professional journal articles. His full paper on the Little Ice Age is available as a PDF download from a link in his article.

The New American is a bi-weekly news magazine that probes deep into today's news to discover the real stories. The magazine's editorial point of view is guided by its support of the U.S. Constitution and the principles upon which the U.S. Constitution is based.

Twice a year, the magazine publishes a congressional scorecard called the Freedom Index that rates every member of the U.S. House and Senate on key issues. In addition to politics, the magazine also covers economics (from a free-enterprise perspective), culture and history, while also examining the goodness of America, the greatness of America's founding principles and offering realistic hope that America can be saved. Exclusive online content can be found at www.TheNewAmerican.com. The magazine is published by the John Birch Society

[Friederike in Persia]

and yet when this seriously weird discussion on "how often do you wash your towels" was going on a few weeks ago I didn't see anybody refer to it being bad for the environment??????? (The washing towels each day!)

That was the first thing that occured to me, but I tend to feel strongly on this, so I decided to wait a while and not wade in.:o

I believe we should all make life-changes to treat this world better, the sort of stuff like what cars we drive, how much we fly,...those are rather though though. So why not start with smaller stuff, like washing slightly less often (I mean towels, not bodies:)), taking laundry baskets to the supermarket rather than using disposable bags,....

Climate change or not, let's look after this earth better, please!!!

 

Friederike

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I think there is obviously something happening.:) However, I don't think a single politician or any environmental group can do a blasted thing about the course we are on now, except spend a lot of money.

 

Are certain things bad for the environment and the ozone layer? Of course.

Should we practice good stewardship of our earth's resources? Of course.

On the other hand I think our ability to purposefully change the direction of the earth's climate is a delusion.

 

Personally, I think more time and money should be directed towards figuring out how to deal with the inevitable changes when they come.

[Peek a Boo]

towels--

i would be in the "wash towels all the time" camp cuz w/ 5 kids [4 of 'em boys] i simply do not trust where my towels have been. Kids miss and pee on the floor. or drip on the floor.... towels fall off the rack onto the floor and GET PUT BACK UP. ew. hands get somewhat washed and dried on those towels. i have no problem washing our towels on a regular basis. In my and dh's bathroom the towels can go a bit longer. We also redirect washer water to the lawn and air dry a lot. I prefer towels and jeans to NOT feel like cardbaord so i run them thru teh dryer for about ten minutes w/ dryer sheet then airdry. I have a thing against liquid softener....

 

So for ME it's a personal health vs supposed energy crisis. I agree that we need to *take care* of our resources but I disagree on how MUCh of those resources are available. I'm more concerned about the pollution factor than the conserving factor. And while there's definite things that individuals do, the bulk of the pollution problem is w/ industrial concerns: the concrete plants in Midlothian TX and the polluted lake in Syracuse NY are two right off the top of my head that we deal/t with in the areas we live/d.

 

Did you match up exactly WHO was a daily towel washer w/ their responses here to make sure teh right ones match up? You might find that those most concerned about "man made" climate change actually ARE in the "wash towels minimally camp."

[Krista in LA]

The Farmers Almanac do not believe in Global Warming. They said it is Earth going through its cycles. Remember back in the 30's to 50's they thought there was going to be an ice age coming.

 

Remember who is presenting the Global Warming ideas. The very people that are presenting are wanting to tax us for breathing carbon dioxide into the air. I have heard some really wacky stuff from the global warming people on how they want to tax people due to global warming. YIKES!

 

My belief is Earth is going through cycles as it always have done. Let's let it take its course.

 

Holly

 

I think we are awfully vain to think that we alone can control such events. I'm not saying that we, as people, aren't contributing to it and perhaps making it worse, but I do believe that most of it is due to cycles that would happen with or without us.

[Vida Winter]

It talks about how the sun is the major agent of change rather than anything we're doing on earth, and that we may be headed for a major cooling period.

 

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175

[Claire]

There was an article in a recent Scientific American that examined this idea. Very interesting proposition. However, the article concluded that the research that supported the idea was seriously flawed. If I can find the SciAm article online, I will post it, but I won't have time to look until later today.

[Claire]

Okay, I had a few minutes to look. This is not the article I was thinking of, but it probably more closely corresponds to the article you posted in that both mention the 11-year cycle. Here is the SciAm article.

[Doran]

and yet when this seriously weird discussion on "how often do you wash your towels" was going on a few weeks ago I didn't see anybody refer to it being bad for the environment??????? (The washing towels each day!)

That was the first thing that occured to me, but I tend to feel strongly on this, so I decided to wait a while and not wade in.:o

I believe we should all make life-changes to treat this world better, the sort of stuff like what cars we drive, how much we fly,...those are rather though though. So why not start with smaller stuff, like washing slightly less often (I mean towels, not bodies:)), taking laundry baskets to the supermarket rather than using disposable bags,....

Climate change or not, let's look after this earth better, please!!!

 

Friederike

 

 

This is where I was headed above. When I posted about what "good stewardship" looks like for those who believe stewardship is important but who say they don't really believe global climate change is at all impacted by man. Peek may be right (below). It may be that those who don't wash their towels as frequently are also in the man made climate change camp. So, does that mean that, generally, those in the stewardship camp feel equally concerned about their overall impact on the earth but have different motivation for their actions? Or does it mean that stewardship is something less tangible than washing towels less often, flushing less often, air drying clothes, and using cloth bags at the grocery. Not trying to speak through a bias here. Just wanting to understand.

 

Doran

[Mx5]

Sorry, but I consider myself highly educated and well-informed on science issues and I believe the "mainstream hype". Not because it's hype but because from all the evidence I've encountered, it's based on sound science and not hype. And yes, I believe Al Gore but I've done a lot of my own research.

 

And I have a huge pet peeve with saying "well it's very cold here today" or "it's very hot here today" as evidence against/for global warming. The trends they review are much longer than a day, week, month, or year. There will always be minor variations, but the trends are real.

 

Now, can someone please tell me the motivation to deny that this is happening? That's honestly what I'm most confused about. I enjoyed the book "The Republican War on Science" that I read over a year ago, but I can't remember the main arguments presented for denying man-made global warming.

 

Let the negative rep points roll in!

 

My point is that people who are experts in climate are not in agreement over climate change. They know more than you do and I do. And it's not just a couple of crackpot fringe scientists funded by Republicans ;) who feel that the climate change hysteria is not based on sound science.

 

You bring your experts, I bring mine. Bottom line isn't that I think you're uneducated, but rather that there are experts on both sides who are in complete disagreement.

 

In the meantime, the mainstream media portrays man-accelerated climate change as gospel - fact - when in fact, it is still doubtful.

[PariSarah]

. . . that I found really helpful, in terms of sifting through the political baggage that this conversation usually entails.

 

Her point was . . .

 

Okay, you know what? I'm just going to link. She said it better than I can:

 

Ragamuffin Studies on Global Climate Change and Politics

[Tami]

I am not educated enough on this subject to give much of an opinion. I am not a scientist, but being careful stewards of the Earth that God created just makes good sense.

[Grace is Sufficient]

... something about cycles of the sun. Frankly, I'd prefer warming!

[Storm Bay]

Yes, I'm with you on this one. And how about buying white towels and bleaching them to keep them white? And the same with overbathing. Honestly, our pediatrican said to NOT bathe our children daily until they really needed it (when the hormones kick in.) And washing hair every day with petroleum based shampoo? Or any shampoo? There are a few who really do need to wash it daily. We've gone from one extreme (when kids weren't bathed until they were 7, and people rarely bathed, at least in much of Europe) to the other, IMO. And, yes, I shower daily most of the year. But only every other day when it's cold and winter and I don't sweat. Then I sponge bathe. But I don't wash my hair every day, and it doesn't stink or look dirty or my kids would be sure to tell me!

[Storm Bay]

Well, none of us was alive to see how quickly or slowly changes happened in the past. Scientists who aver it was slow are basing this on the unprovable theory of uniformitarianism. There is very strong argument for cataclysmic changes, too. I've been on both sides of this and honestly, the evidence for the latter is much stronger and less easy to poke holes in, IMO. Carbon dating is notriously inaccurate, too. After studying the history of science I stopped thinking of sciencs as objective. It rarely is. But I enjoy science and think we've made some terrific advances. And paying a price. But none of us really knows what the cause of this climate change is. We see things and make hypotheses from our observations, then theories. No proof.

[Colleen]

To those who are skeptical about the reality of man's impact on climate change but who also state that they believe it is their duty to be "good stewards" of the planet, what exactly does that look like in your life?...(T)he bigger question to ask, in my mind, is whether our stewardship involves thinking beyond ourselves?...How do our personal choices for stewardship affect the larger picture?

 

 

Great questions ~ worthy of a whole new thread. Heck, maybe you started that thread already? I've been in and out today, so I'll have to double check...

[Jean in Wisc]

The ice in the arctic is melting and there are serious problems with that. Certainly some areas are experiencing warmer than usual temps. I can see that people would be very concerned about the wildlife & plant life that is endangered due to this climate change.

 

What I have read, though, seems to indicate that our part (the human's) of the climate change is so small. Caring for the environment is so important--don't get me wrong. I just don't see that the studies behind the causes for these climate changes indicates that what man does to the earth is the reason for the changes. We seem to be a small drop in the bucket.

 

I see that we need to do our best to support the polar bears. We need to look at how we can help those species that are losing their breeding ground. We need to see if there are any solutions to what is happening--but we should not jump into programs that hurt people rather than help the environment. For example, I have read that the increased price and regulations on freon have caused problems with the poor, esp. in the 3rd world countries, because they no longer can afford to refrigerate--and this adds to the number of people who die of dysentery. So...before we put these laws into place, we need to try and see the whole picture.

 

Yes, I'd say we are having warming issues in certain places on the globe. Can we do something about it? I'm not certain that eliminating mankind would change the fact that we have climate changes such as we are having now. Would removing all the cattle from the earth really impact the system enough? What about the changes that come from the oceans? Volcanoes? Etc, etc, etc....

 

Gotta go. Mom is back in the hospital. It is good to sit here and be philosophical for a few minutes, but now it is time to go heave the world upon my shoulders and care for everyone and everything again. Can you tell I'm weary?