Why do some take belief in Global Warming as a political issue?

[Sweet Willy]

I don't really follow the politics of global warming, there is a struggle for power and money and resources and all sorts of things out of my hands BUT....

The fact that man has the power to make significant changes in his environment doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to grasp. Anyone seen a photograph of South America lately? In the dark? IT'S ON FIRE. Men are pushing up great swaths of timber and striking a match to them. It's not too difficult to understand the concept of fire and heat. Same goes for the oil we burn, the nuclear material we burn, the coal we burn.... it's all about energy release and it creates heat. Anyone sitting in a heated building shouldn't have too much trouble understanding that the environment they are in... is a man made alteration of the earths natural condition. Do we have the power to change the temperature? Geez... this is basic, of course we do. We do it all the time.

You know, not too long ago, the skies of America would sometimes go black with massive clouds of migrating passenger pigeons. They were so plentiful and such a good source of cheap food for labor, we learned how to kill them with efficiency. Usually, they would put out a bunch of fermented grain for them to feed on and when a mass of them had fed up and become to drunk to fly, men would run out and club them by the thousands. Now... a few people back then got the idea that we might actually kill them all. And you know what the responses to this were? The same crap we hear now about climate issues. People said it was absurd to think that man had the power to kill them all. They said it was even ARROGANT to think that man could affect nature in that way. They said we simply didn't have the power to kill them all. Never happen.

They don't exist anymore.

Every time you strike a match or start a car or turn on the heat, YOU create heat on the planet that would not exist with out your actions. This is elementary.

Whatever the effects are, whatever the consequences, I can't say. But to deny man's ability to change his environment with his actions is pure ignorance. It's beyond logical thought and I highly suspect, almost 100% politics.

Similarly, to blame man's actions for every natural event is pure ignorance.

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Absolutely. I am not blaming man for anything indirectly. I am not sure that "blame" is even a word I would choose. What we can say though is that nuclear power.... and all that heat we discharge into massive bodies of water? We cause that. Directly. We heat up some pretty significant amounts of water, directly by cooling for power generation.

Fires.... every time you strike a match.... everytime you start a car, every building we heat, every home, on and on and on. There is no discounting man's ability to change his environment.

You know, the next big thing is water shortages. Our major aquifers are going dry. States are making major grabs of water resources because the sources are going dry. Now, I guess some can claim this to be something other than man, despite the fact that we have drilled millions of wells to pull the water out of the ground so we can crap in it and send it into the ocean.

Thing is, there are serious consequences, not coming, but already happening, for what can really only be attributed to over population. It's not that we're evil or bad.... it's that we, like most animals, tend to regulate population according to the amount of resources on hand to sustain us. And once we hit the industrial revolution and began using machines to cultivate and extract resources, the lid came off population. And you can bet the lid will go back on, in a painful manner. The world won't sustain the population we have. Clean drinking water alone dictates this. Never mind food. Among the biggest mistakes history will reflect on us is the use of clean drinking water to shit in. It's something we take for granted but it is quite insane. It won't be long, in the grand scheme, before that will stop.

 

[westwall]

I don't really follow the politics of global warming, there is a struggle for power and money and resources and all sorts of things out of my hands BUT....

The fact that man has the power to make significant changes in his environment doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to grasp. Anyone seen a photograph of South America lately? In the dark? IT'S ON FIRE. Men are pushing up great swaths of timber and striking a match to them. It's not too difficult to understand the concept of fire and heat. Same goes for the oil we burn, the nuclear material we burn, the coal we burn.... it's all about energy release and it creates heat. Anyone sitting in a heated building shouldn't have too much trouble understanding that the environment they are in... is a man made alteration of the earths natural condition. Do we have the power to change the temperature? Geez... this is basic, of course we do. We do it all the time.

You know, not too long ago, the skies of America would sometimes go black with massive clouds of migrating passenger pigeons. They were so plentiful and such a good source of cheap food for labor, we learned how to kill them with efficiency. Usually, they would put out a bunch of fermented grain for them to feed on and when a mass of them had fed up and become to drunk to fly, men would run out and club them by the thousands. Now... a few people back then got the idea that we might actually kill them all. And you know what the responses to this were? The same crap we hear now about climate issues. People said it was absurd to think that man had the power to kill them all. They said it was even ARROGANT to think that man could affect nature in that way. They said we simply didn't have the power to kill them all. Never happen.

They don't exist anymore.

Every time you strike a match or start a car or turn on the heat, YOU create heat on the planet that would not exist with out your actions. This is elementary.

Whatever the effects are, whatever the consequences, I can't say. But to deny man's ability to change his environment with his actions is pure ignorance. It's beyond logical thought and I highly suspect, almost 100% politics.

Man is certainly capable of great harm in a local area. By local I mean areas of a few square miles at a time. The Amazon basin is a major problem and there is no doubt about that. For all of its abundant plant wealth when those plants and trees are cut down it is very difficult to regrow them as the soil ( a laterite) is so deficient in nutrients as to be nearly sterile. That's why they burn the trees to get some nutrients back into the soil for at least a coupple of years.

It is OK so long as the damage is kept to a few hectares ata time. The problems arise when you go bigger. Mining waste is another issue (I've spent most of my career repairing that particular daage) that requires siginificant attention.

However, man has nowhere near the ability to affect the global climate. The amount of energy we are talking about is so vast as to be beyond the comprehension of most people.
To give you a rough approximation, the amount of energy released in an AVERAGE
thunderstorm is about the same as when a 20 kiloton nuclear weapon is detonated. Now multiply that by the 40,000 thunderstorms that occur each and EVERY day and you begin to get an idea of the enormous amounts of energy our planet produces.

Mans contribution of a few billion tons of CO2 to the planets overwhelming contribution (over 95% of the atmospheric CO2 is completely natural) to the eventual weight of the entire atmosphere (quadrillions of tons) and you realise that CO2 has no power to do much of anything. It is simply lost in the background noise.

 

[Sweet Willy]

I don't really follow the politics of global warming, there is a struggle for power and money and resources and all sorts of things out of my hands BUT....

The fact that man has the power to make significant changes in his environment doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to grasp. Anyone seen a photograph of South America lately? In the dark? IT'S ON FIRE. Men are pushing up great swaths of timber and striking a match to them. It's not too difficult to understand the concept of fire and heat. Same goes for the oil we burn, the nuclear material we burn, the coal we burn.... it's all about energy release and it creates heat. Anyone sitting in a heated building shouldn't have too much trouble understanding that the environment they are in... is a man made alteration of the earths natural condition. Do we have the power to change the temperature? Geez... this is basic, of course we do. We do it all the time.

You know, not too long ago, the skies of America would sometimes go black with massive clouds of migrating passenger pigeons. They were so plentiful and such a good source of cheap food for labor, we learned how to kill them with efficiency. Usually, they would put out a bunch of fermented grain for them to feed on and when a mass of them had fed up and become to drunk to fly, men would run out and club them by the thousands. Now... a few people back then got the idea that we might actually kill them all. And you know what the responses to this were? The same crap we hear now about climate issues. People said it was absurd to think that man had the power to kill them all. They said it was even ARROGANT to think that man could affect nature in that way. They said we simply didn't have the power to kill them all. Never happen.

They don't exist anymore.

Every time you strike a match or start a car or turn on the heat, YOU create heat on the planet that would not exist with out your actions. This is elementary.

Whatever the effects are, whatever the consequences, I can't say. But to deny man's ability to change his environment with his actions is pure ignorance. It's beyond logical thought and I highly suspect, almost 100% politics.

Man is certainly capable of great harm in a local area. By local I mean areas of a few square miles at a time. The Amazon basin is a major problem and there is no doubt about that. For all of its abundant plant wealth when those plants and trees are cut down it is very difficult to regrow them as the soil ( a laterite) is so deficient in nutrients as to be nearly sterile. That's why they burn the trees to get some nutrients back into the soil for at least a coupple of years.

It is OK so long as the damage is kept to a few hectares ata time. The problems arise when you go bigger. Mining waste is another issue (I've spent most of my career repairing that particular daage) that requires siginificant attention.

However, man has nowhere near the ability to affect the global climate. The amount of energy we are talking about is so vast as to be beyond the comprehension of most people.
To give you a rough approximation, the amount of energy released in an AVERAGE
thunderstorm is about the same as when a 20 kiloton nuclear weapon is detonated. Now multiply that by the 40,000 thunderstorms that occur each and EVERY day and you begin to get an idea of the enormous amounts of energy our planet produces.

Mans contribution of a few billion tons of CO2 to the planets overwhelming contribution (over 95% of the atmospheric CO2 is completely natural) to the eventual weight of the entire atmosphere (quadrillions of tons) and you realise that CO2 has no power to do much of anything. It is simply lost in the background noise.

I'm not even speaking to Co2.

I'm merely speaking to this "local" as you say, effect we generate. It's all local. Everything is. It all has an effect on the whole. Again, the water example is a good one. A single well, a "local" effect as you put it, can be easily dismissed as having no significant effect. But after we have drilled millions of wells, these vast, almost incomprehensible aquifers are disappearing. The water table is sinking. 100 years ago it was 25 feet. Then 60. Now it takes a 200' well to reach the water.

The idea that man's small impacts are only "local" and not an affect on the whole is a terrible flaw of logic. It's not "lost in the backgorund noise", you simple chose to not see it, for the back ground noise. It's still there.

 

[Sweet Willy]

Here's the thing.... we can SEE our impact. We have the ability to see not just local, but large scale impacts. We can turn night into day, on a VAST scale. And of course.... light means heat.

There is simply no denying man's ability to make vast impacts on his environment. What you are looking at is all man made heat. And it's no insignificant thing. We can see it from space. And... this is just what we can see. This involves no special CO2 data or speculation. We can SEE IT.

Only fools can reject our ability to have massive affects on the Earths natural condition.

 

[daveman]

I don't really follow the politics of global warming, there is a struggle for power and money and resources and all sorts of things out of my hands BUT....

The fact that man has the power to make significant changes in his environment doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to grasp. Anyone seen a photograph of South America lately? In the dark? IT'S ON FIRE. Men are pushing up great swaths of timber and striking a match to them. It's not too difficult to understand the concept of fire and heat. Same goes for the oil we burn, the nuclear material we burn, the coal we burn.... it's all about energy release and it creates heat. Anyone sitting in a heated building shouldn't have too much trouble understanding that the environment they are in... is a man made alteration of the earths natural condition. Do we have the power to change the temperature? Geez... this is basic, of course we do. We do it all the time.

You know, not too long ago, the skies of America would sometimes go black with massive clouds of migrating passenger pigeons. They were so plentiful and such a good source of cheap food for labor, we learned how to kill them with efficiency. Usually, they would put out a bunch of fermented grain for them to feed on and when a mass of them had fed up and become to drunk to fly, men would run out and club them by the thousands. Now... a few people back then got the idea that we might actually kill them all. And you know what the responses to this were? The same crap we hear now about climate issues. People said it was absurd to think that man had the power to kill them all. They said it was even ARROGANT to think that man could affect nature in that way. They said we simply didn't have the power to kill them all. Never happen.

They don't exist anymore.

Every time you strike a match or start a car or turn on the heat, YOU create heat on the planet that would not exist with out your actions. This is elementary.

Whatever the effects are, whatever the consequences, I can't say. But to deny man's ability to change his environment with his actions is pure ignorance. It's beyond logical thought and I highly suspect, almost 100% politics.

Similarly, to blame man's actions for every natural event is pure ignorance.

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Absolutely. I am not blaming man for anything indirectly. I am not sure that "blame" is even a word I would choose. What we can say though is that nuclear power.... and all that heat we discharge into massive bodies of water? We cause that. Directly. We heat up some pretty significant amounts of water, directly by cooling for power generation.

Fires.... every time you strike a match.... everytime you start a car, every building we heat, every home, on and on and on. There is no discounting man's ability to change his environment.

You know, the next big thing is water shortages. Our major aquifers are going dry. States are making major grabs of water resources because the sources are going dry. Now, I guess some can claim this to be something other than man, despite the fact that we have drilled millions of wells to pull the water out of the ground so we can crap in it and send it into the ocean.

Thing is, there are serious consequences, not coming, but already happening, for what can really only be attributed to over population. It's not that we're evil or bad.... it's that we, like most animals, tend to regulate population according to the amount of resources on hand to sustain us. And once we hit the industrial revolution and began using machines to cultivate and extract resources, the lid came off population. And you can bet the lid will go back on, in a painful manner. The world won't sustain the population we have. Clean drinking water alone dictates this. Never mind food. Among the biggest mistakes history will reflect on us is the use of clean drinking water to shit in. It's something we take for granted but it is quite insane. It won't be long, in the grand scheme, before that will stop.

I'm not denying man's impact on the environment. I'm saying it's vastly overblown by people with a political agenda.

 

[Sweet Willy]

Similarly, to blame man's actions for every natural event is pure ignorance.

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Absolutely. I am not blaming man for anything indirectly. I am not sure that "blame" is even a word I would choose. What we can say though is that nuclear power.... and all that heat we discharge into massive bodies of water? We cause that. Directly. We heat up some pretty significant amounts of water, directly by cooling for power generation.

Fires.... every time you strike a match.... everytime you start a car, every building we heat, every home, on and on and on. There is no discounting man's ability to change his environment.

You know, the next big thing is water shortages. Our major aquifers are going dry. States are making major grabs of water resources because the sources are going dry. Now, I guess some can claim this to be something other than man, despite the fact that we have drilled millions of wells to pull the water out of the ground so we can crap in it and send it into the ocean.

Thing is, there are serious consequences, not coming, but already happening, for what can really only be attributed to over population. It's not that we're evil or bad.... it's that we, like most animals, tend to regulate population according to the amount of resources on hand to sustain us. And once we hit the industrial revolution and began using machines to cultivate and extract resources, the lid came off population. And you can bet the lid will go back on, in a painful manner. The world won't sustain the population we have. Clean drinking water alone dictates this. Never mind food. Among the biggest mistakes history will reflect on us is the use of clean drinking water to shit in. It's something we take for granted but it is quite insane. It won't be long, in the grand scheme, before that will stop.

I'm not denying man's impact on the environment. I'm saying it's vastly overblown by people with a political agenda.

Quite possible.

The politics of the issue are twisted on all sides. As much as the one side exaggerates, the other side minimizes or denies the existence of any thing at all.

 

[daveman]

Absolutely. I am not blaming man for anything indirectly. I am not sure that "blame" is even a word I would choose. What we can say though is that nuclear power.... and all that heat we discharge into massive bodies of water? We cause that. Directly. We heat up some pretty significant amounts of water, directly by cooling for power generation.

Fires.... every time you strike a match.... everytime you start a car, every building we heat, every home, on and on and on. There is no discounting man's ability to change his environment.

You know, the next big thing is water shortages. Our major aquifers are going dry. States are making major grabs of water resources because the sources are going dry. Now, I guess some can claim this to be something other than man, despite the fact that we have drilled millions of wells to pull the water out of the ground so we can crap in it and send it into the ocean.

Thing is, there are serious consequences, not coming, but already happening, for what can really only be attributed to over population. It's not that we're evil or bad.... it's that we, like most animals, tend to regulate population according to the amount of resources on hand to sustain us. And once we hit the industrial revolution and began using machines to cultivate and extract resources, the lid came off population. And you can bet the lid will go back on, in a painful manner. The world won't sustain the population we have. Clean drinking water alone dictates this. Never mind food. Among the biggest mistakes history will reflect on us is the use of clean drinking water to shit in. It's something we take for granted but it is quite insane. It won't be long, in the grand scheme, before that will stop.

I'm not denying man's impact on the environment. I'm saying it's vastly overblown by people with a political agenda.

Quite possible.

The politics of the issue are twisted on all sides. As much as the one side exaggerates, the other side minimizes or denies the existence of any thing at all.

I don't think you're going to find too many conservatives who deny the climate is changing.

 

[Big Fitz]

Here's the thing.... we can SEE our impact. We have the ability to see not just local, but large scale impacts. We can turn night into day, on a VAST scale. And of course.... light means heat.

There is simply no denying man's ability to make vast impacts on his environment. What you are looking at is all man made heat. And it's no insignificant thing. We can see it from space. And... this is just what we can see. This involves no special CO2 data or speculation. We can SEE IT.

Only fools can reject our ability to have massive affects on the Earths natural condition.

Light is very nice to see as a 'pollutant', and it has zero effect on climate.

Strawman waiting for the torch.

 

[Big Fitz]

I'm not denying man's impact on the environment. I'm saying it's vastly overblown by people with a political agenda.

Quite possible.

The politics of the issue are twisted on all sides. As much as the one side exaggerates, the other side minimizes or denies the existence of any thing at all.

I don't think you're going to find too many conservatives who deny the climate is changing.

Most will deny it's man's fault because they're sane.

 

[daveman]

Quite possible.

The politics of the issue are twisted on all sides. As much as the one side exaggerates, the other side minimizes or denies the existence of any thing at all.

I don't think you're going to find too many conservatives who deny the climate is changing.

Most will deny it's man's fault because they're sane.

It's up to the AGW cult to scientifically prove their assertions correct.

They can't do so without altering/cherry-picking/distorting/inventing data.

So they have failed. Utterly.

 

[Sweet Willy]

Here's the thing.... we can SEE our impact. We have the ability to see not just local, but large scale impacts. We can turn night into day, on a VAST scale. And of course.... light means heat.

There is simply no denying man's ability to make vast impacts on his environment. What you are looking at is all man made heat. And it's no insignificant thing. We can see it from space. And... this is just what we can see. This involves no special CO2 data or speculation. We can SEE IT.

Only fools can reject our ability to have massive affects on the Earths natural condition.

Light is very nice to see as a 'pollutant', and it has zero effect on climate.

Strawman waiting for the torch.

Cite?

 

[Sweet Willy]

See this? This is South America as seen from space. This is masses of bulldozed timber set on fire and the resulting smoke. No affect on climate?

Again, only a fool denies man's ability to affect his world. You can see it with you own eyes.

 

[Ariux]

For neocons (false conservatives), big business is everything and environment is nothing. If they were honest, they'd say, "I don't care if the globe is warming. Global Warming legislation is bad for the economy."

 

[Sweet Willy]

Great Dismal Swamp fire.

Fires causes heat and smoke. We can see the smoke, it changes the CLIMATE over large areas. This fire affected Washington DC before it was over. Man affects our climate in ways we can SEE. The fires intentionally set in South America to burn the rainforest timber are exponentially larger than this fire and just the smoke causes the climate to be affected.

You are wholly IGNORANT if you deny that man can affect his climate on a large scale. We can SEE IT. We don't even have to argue scientific studies and data and CO2. First, we just ask CAN YOU SEE THE FIRE? CAN YOU SEE THE SMOKE? And those who still wish to argue, we dismiss from the realm of reasoned debate. Their input is worthless.

 

[daveman]

For neocons (false conservatives), big business is everything and environment is nothing. If they were honest, they'd say, "I don't care if the globe is warming. Global Warming legislation is bad for the economy."

So, you WANT to pay more for your energy usage.

 

[westwall]

I don't really follow the politics of global warming, there is a struggle for power and money and resources and all sorts of things out of my hands BUT....

The fact that man has the power to make significant changes in his environment doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to grasp. Anyone seen a photograph of South America lately? In the dark? IT'S ON FIRE. Men are pushing up great swaths of timber and striking a match to them. It's not too difficult to understand the concept of fire and heat. Same goes for the oil we burn, the nuclear material we burn, the coal we burn.... it's all about energy release and it creates heat. Anyone sitting in a heated building shouldn't have too much trouble understanding that the environment they are in... is a man made alteration of the earths natural condition. Do we have the power to change the temperature? Geez... this is basic, of course we do. We do it all the time.

You know, not too long ago, the skies of America would sometimes go black with massive clouds of migrating passenger pigeons. They were so plentiful and such a good source of cheap food for labor, we learned how to kill them with efficiency. Usually, they would put out a bunch of fermented grain for them to feed on and when a mass of them had fed up and become to drunk to fly, men would run out and club them by the thousands. Now... a few people back then got the idea that we might actually kill them all. And you know what the responses to this were? The same crap we hear now about climate issues. People said it was absurd to think that man had the power to kill them all. They said it was even ARROGANT to think that man could affect nature in that way. They said we simply didn't have the power to kill them all. Never happen.

They don't exist anymore.

Every time you strike a match or start a car or turn on the heat, YOU create heat on the planet that would not exist with out your actions. This is elementary.

Whatever the effects are, whatever the consequences, I can't say. But to deny man's ability to change his environment with his actions is pure ignorance. It's beyond logical thought and I highly suspect, almost 100% politics.

Man is certainly capable of great harm in a local area. By local I mean areas of a few square miles at a time. The Amazon basin is a major problem and there is no doubt about that. For all of its abundant plant wealth when those plants and trees are cut down it is very difficult to regrow them as the soil ( a laterite) is so deficient in nutrients as to be nearly sterile. That's why they burn the trees to get some nutrients back into the soil for at least a coupple of years.

It is OK so long as the damage is kept to a few hectares ata time. The problems arise when you go bigger. Mining waste is another issue (I've spent most of my career repairing that particular daage) that requires siginificant attention.

However, man has nowhere near the ability to affect the global climate. The amount of energy we are talking about is so vast as to be beyond the comprehension of most people.
To give you a rough approximation, the amount of energy released in an AVERAGE
thunderstorm is about the same as when a 20 kiloton nuclear weapon is detonated. Now multiply that by the 40,000 thunderstorms that occur each and EVERY day and you begin to get an idea of the enormous amounts of energy our planet produces.

Mans contribution of a few billion tons of CO2 to the planets overwhelming contribution (over 95% of the atmospheric CO2 is completely natural) to the eventual weight of the entire atmosphere (quadrillions of tons) and you realise that CO2 has no power to do much of anything. It is simply lost in the background noise.

I'm not even speaking to Co2.

I'm merely speaking to this "local" as you say, effect we generate. It's all local. Everything is. It all has an effect on the whole. Again, the water example is a good one. A single well, a "local" effect as you put it, can be easily dismissed as having no significant effect. But after we have drilled millions of wells, these vast, almost incomprehensible aquifers are disappearing. The water table is sinking. 100 years ago it was 25 feet. Then 60. Now it takes a 200' well to reach the water.

The idea that man's small impacts are only "local" and not an affect on the whole is a terrible flaw of logic. It's not "lost in the backgorund noise", you simple chose to not see it, for the back ground noise. It's still there.

Wrong again. I see mans damage every day. My whole life has been devoted to the repair of that damage. I am now retired but for over 35 years that was my goal.

The water tables are sinking due to misues of water plain and simple. Golf courses should not be planted in a desert. Phoenix AZ should not have the population it is attempting to support in a desert. It is simply foolish to do that sort of thing and the environmental damage is great IN THOSE AREAS.

However, you all like to play numbers games till you are actually presented with those numbers and they don't support you. Environmentalists have been actively engaged in programs that do far more damage to the environment than the problems they are supposedly trying to solve. I'll use your water example as a case in point. The California Air Resources Board mandated that MTBE be used as an oxygenate in gasoline to clean the air. It did that job well, however they ignored significant warnings as to MTBE's known carcinogenic problems, its caustic nature and of course its known poisonous qualities.

After 10 years that regularly saw cars bursting into flames (nearly every day) as their fuel systems were destroyed by the MTBE, and the constant illnesses caused by it to sensitive people, they were finally forced to remove it after it was found to have poisoned the water wells throughout the state. Thousands of wells are no longer usable becaue of environmentalists refusal to listen to scientific fact.

I can go on and on about how environmentalists are causing more damage than the problems they are supposedly trying to fix but i doubt you would pay attention to that. You clearly have a fixed mind set. I do however suggest that you read other sources of material and hopefully you will come to the realisation that the environmentalist organizations (not individual people, just the parent organizations) really don't care about the environment. They care about power and how to concentrate it in the hands of those they like.

 

[westwall]

Here's the thing.... we can SEE our impact. We have the ability to see not just local, but large scale impacts. We can turn night into day, on a VAST scale. And of course.... light means heat.

There is simply no denying man's ability to make vast impacts on his environment. What you are looking at is all man made heat. And it's no insignificant thing. We can see it from space. And... this is just what we can see. This involves no special CO2 data or speculation. We can SEE IT.

Only fools can reject our ability to have massive affects on the Earths natural condition.

Yes, we can see the impact. And what you are ignoring is that where you see light there is LIFE. Life that can do as it wishes. Life that can play and learn and socialize and even hopefully come up with the next energy system that will make all of this moot. Where there is darkness at night there is nothing going on. There is subsistence level existence in those areas and I've lived in quite a few of them. And they SUCK! Life is short and brutal. You want to live where there is no light at night? Expect a normal lifespan of 40 years. Get light at night and it jumps to at least 50 years. Get light at night and a good level of wealth and your life expectancy jumps to 60 years.

I don't know about you, but I like being alive. Enjoy your life for as long as you can and stop being afraid. Fear is the mind killer as the movie said. Far more will be, and can be accomplished when you are not afraid.

 

[westwall]

Great Dismal Swamp fire.

Fires causes heat and smoke. We can see the smoke, it changes the CLIMATE over large areas. This fire affected Washington DC before it was over. Man affects our climate in ways we can SEE. The fires intentionally set in South America to burn the rainforest timber are exponentially larger than this fire and just the smoke causes the climate to be affected.

You are wholly IGNORANT if you deny that man can affect his climate on a large scale. We can SEE IT. We don't even have to argue scientific studies and data and CO2. First, we just ask CAN YOU SEE THE FIRE? CAN YOU SEE THE SMOKE? And those who still wish to argue, we dismiss from the realm of reasoned debate. Their input is worthless.

Yes, smoke COOLS the area. I suggest you look up the last fear mongering "problem" of nuclear winter for the science behind that. Volcanic eruptions also cause global temp drops for up to a couple of years. For your information ONE good sized volcanic eruption puts more pollutants into the atmosphere in a single week than all of mans pollution for all of mans history. You simply have no concept of the scale of the planet. I'm sure you're next going to warn us of the dangers of overpopulation yet, i bet that you have no idea that if you gathered all of the people on this planet together they would all fit withing the boundaries of the state of Texas.

Look at a globe and then look at the size of Texas on that globe. Imagine all of man in that little area. See how much of the globe is left? See how much of a non problem that is? No I didn't think you would. You are far too invested in Man being the evil destroyer.

 

[Sweet Willy]

Here's the thing.... we can SEE our impact. We have the ability to see not just local, but large scale impacts. We can turn night into day, on a VAST scale. And of course.... light means heat.

There is simply no denying man's ability to make vast impacts on his environment. What you are looking at is all man made heat. And it's no insignificant thing. We can see it from space. And... this is just what we can see. This involves no special CO2 data or speculation. We can SEE IT.

Only fools can reject our ability to have massive affects on the Earths natural condition.

Yes, we can see the impact. And what you are ignoring is that where you see light there is LIFE. Life that can do as it wishes. Life that can play and learn and socialize and even hopefully come up with the next energy system that will make all of this moot. Where there is darkness at night there is nothing going on. There is subsistence level existence in those areas and I've lived in quite a few of them. And they SUCK! Life is short and brutal. You want to live where there is no light at night? Expect a normal lifespan of 40 years. Get light at night and it jumps to at least 50 years. Get light at night and a good level of wealth and your life expectancy jumps to 60 years.

I don't know about you, but I like being alive. Enjoy your life for as long as you can and stop being afraid. Fear is the mind killer as the movie said. Far more will be, and can be accomplished when you are not afraid.

Afraid? Fear? You are making quite a leap there. Because I have the capacity to see and understand that we have an impact on our world you assume that I must be afraid of it? That I even think we should do whole lot about it? I've said nothing of the sort. I have merely said that I can see it. It can not be denied.

Now.... that is the starting point. What we do with the knowledge is debatable. What isn't debatable is that these folks who claim that man hasn't the capacity to affect his environment are not of sufficient knowledge, intelligence, honesty or a combination of those things, to be considered in the discussion. We have a significant impact on our environment. Do we use our knowledge and intelligence to manage this impact in the interest of preservation of our species? Or do we just continue head long into an unknown, disregarding this hard won knowledge, burning, pillaging and consuming without regard for what consequences might lie ahead?

Any answer is OK. The position of "hey, life is short, I'm gonna get all I can and my children, neighbors and future generations be damned" is a common one. I have next to no respect for that but you do get points for honesty.

And honesty is the key.

We do affect our environment. That's where we start.

 

[Sweet Willy]

Great Dismal Swamp fire.

Fires causes heat and smoke. We can see the smoke, it changes the CLIMATE over large areas. This fire affected Washington DC before it was over. Man affects our climate in ways we can SEE. The fires intentionally set in South America to burn the rainforest timber are exponentially larger than this fire and just the smoke causes the climate to be affected.

You are wholly IGNORANT if you deny that man can affect his climate on a large scale. We can SEE IT. We don't even have to argue scientific studies and data and CO2. First, we just ask CAN YOU SEE THE FIRE? CAN YOU SEE THE SMOKE? And those who still wish to argue, we dismiss from the realm of reasoned debate. Their input is worthless.

Yes, smoke COOLS the area. I suggest you look up the last fear mongering "problem" of nuclear winter for the science behind that. Volcanic eruptions also cause global temp drops for up to a couple of years. For your information ONE good sized volcanic eruption puts more pollutants into the atmosphere in a single week than all of mans pollution for all of mans history. You simply have no concept of the scale of the planet. I'm sure you're next going to warn us of the dangers of overpopulation yet, i bet that you have no idea that if you gathered all of the people on this planet together they would all fit withing the boundaries of the state of Texas.

Look at a globe and then look at the size of Texas on that globe. Imagine all of man in that little area. See how much of the globe is left? See how much of a non problem that is? No I didn't think you would. You are far too invested in Man being the evil destroyer.

That's such an extreme over statement. I haven't said anything remotely extremist at all. I haven't even stated what I think the overall impact is, I haven't even said if I think warming or cooling is a problem. I have merely pointed out that we can see our impact. it is not invisible or non existent. To say that there is no impact at all and we shouldn't do anything about our impact tells me that should I ever visit your home, I'll be safe to shit in the middle of your floor. Human impact doesn't bother you, right?

Again, you headed toward a political tone that has nothing to do with recognizing what human impact on the planet is and what, if anything, we should do about it. I am sure we should use our knowledge to do somethings to mitigate our impact. After all, as we learned about disease and pathogens, we began to discourage the throwing of shit out into the public streets. And you do understand that was a HUGE environmental impact we solved and saved lives by just not tossing shit into the streets? And you understand that people tasked with convincing people to NOT toss shit into the streets were met with folks just like you who thought they were some some of weird pansies who were over reacting to a little shit on their boots?

We use knowledge to advance our species. Their is always a fight to convince some that knowledge is often a good thing.