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John Stossel on Global Warming
- Thread starter michaels
- Start date
DaveSimmons
Elite Member
Even if climate change doesn't turn into a catastrophe, many of the steps taken to prevent it also reduce pollution, use of non-renewable resources, and our dependence on foreign oil.
Those ought to be seen as good things by both parties, but the Republican party tends to take the tack that keeping the rivers clean and the skies blue just cuts too far into business profits.
If warming doesn't happen, I've seen (chicken little?) predictions that if we pollute enough there could be a massive die-off of ocean life, killing far more than flooding might.
Those ought to be seen as good things by both parties, but the Republican party tends to take the tack that keeping the rivers clean and the skies blue just cuts too far into business profits.
If warming doesn't happen, I've seen (chicken little?) predictions that if we pollute enough there could be a massive die-off of ocean life, killing far more than flooding might.
There is always doubt.
Think about this:
To understand global warming, you need to understand the 'carbon' cycle.
Carbon is the element that every living thing is based on. Everything living thing has carbon in it -- a lot of carbon. Trees are giant stores of carbon. Fossil fuels are giant stores of long dead plant matter(carbon), buried inside the ground.
Plants take carbon out of the air...and create plant material.
Animals eat plants.
Animals also release carbon in the form of gas. One of the major ways we as humans impact the carbon cycle is through the domesticated animals we eat. Cows, for example, eat carbon in the form of grass. Cows also fart a lot of carbon-gas. There are millions upon millions of cows in the world, consuming carbon, and releasing carbon into the air...because we humans breed them and eat them.
The more carbon gas there is in the air, the warmer the tempurate. That is the greenhouse effect. It is proven.
Without humans, the natural carbon cycle would keep the amount of carbon gas in the air relatively steady. Yes -- things would change over time, and sometimes dramatically, but the changes would be relatively slow.
But, we are accelerating that change.
Trees remove carbon from the atmosphere...and turn it into trees of all things.
We're burning millions of acres of trees every year, turning all of that stored up carbon into gas.
Fossil fuels are giant stores of carbon. We're converting those stores of carbon into gas at an incredible rate. Those fossil fuels took millions of years to be created....And we're on pace to burn all of it into the atmosphere in just a couple hundred years.
The same with coal.
Our 'energy economy' completely relies on converting solid/liquid carbon into gaseous carbon.
That's why I personally believe hybrid cars are bullsh!t. They don't solve the basic problem. They're still relying on turning carbons into gases.
And that's the essence of the problem. We're doing a lot of things to turn solid carbon into gas, but doing almost nothing to turn gaseous carbon solid. With the pace that is happening, things are becoming unbalanced...causing environmental change at a pace beyond what is 'normal.'
Think about it this way:
A tree is carbon stored in a solid form. Burn that tree, and it releases the 'stored' carbon into the atmosphere. Plant a tree, and it will take carbon out of the atmosphere, and 'store it.' Right now, we're burning up our carbon stores while barely creating new ones. This is a problem that can only end badly.
To get a sense of the scale of this problem, think about the number of acres of jungle are burned/cut down every year. Think about the pace at which oil stores are being emptied out and burned into the atmosphere.
The situation simply is not balanced. The ways things are going, it will only end badly. There is no doubt about that.
Think about this:
To understand global warming, you need to understand the 'carbon' cycle.
Carbon is the element that every living thing is based on. Everything living thing has carbon in it -- a lot of carbon. Trees are giant stores of carbon. Fossil fuels are giant stores of long dead plant matter(carbon), buried inside the ground.
Plants take carbon out of the air...and create plant material.
Animals eat plants.
Animals also release carbon in the form of gas. One of the major ways we as humans impact the carbon cycle is through the domesticated animals we eat. Cows, for example, eat carbon in the form of grass. Cows also fart a lot of carbon-gas. There are millions upon millions of cows in the world, consuming carbon, and releasing carbon into the air...because we humans breed them and eat them.
The more carbon gas there is in the air, the warmer the tempurate. That is the greenhouse effect. It is proven.
Without humans, the natural carbon cycle would keep the amount of carbon gas in the air relatively steady. Yes -- things would change over time, and sometimes dramatically, but the changes would be relatively slow.
But, we are accelerating that change.
Trees remove carbon from the atmosphere...and turn it into trees of all things.
We're burning millions of acres of trees every year, turning all of that stored up carbon into gas.
Fossil fuels are giant stores of carbon. We're converting those stores of carbon into gas at an incredible rate. Those fossil fuels took millions of years to be created....And we're on pace to burn all of it into the atmosphere in just a couple hundred years.
The same with coal.
Our 'energy economy' completely relies on converting solid/liquid carbon into gaseous carbon.
That's why I personally believe hybrid cars are bullsh!t. They don't solve the basic problem. They're still relying on turning carbons into gases.
And that's the essence of the problem. We're doing a lot of things to turn solid carbon into gas, but doing almost nothing to turn gaseous carbon solid. With the pace that is happening, things are becoming unbalanced...causing environmental change at a pace beyond what is 'normal.'
Think about it this way:
A tree is carbon stored in a solid form. Burn that tree, and it releases the 'stored' carbon into the atmosphere. Plant a tree, and it will take carbon out of the atmosphere, and 'store it.' Right now, we're burning up our carbon stores while barely creating new ones. This is a problem that can only end badly.
To get a sense of the scale of this problem, think about the number of acres of jungle are burned/cut down every year. Think about the pace at which oil stores are being emptied out and burned into the atmosphere.
The situation simply is not balanced. The ways things are going, it will only end badly. There is no doubt about that.
Vic
Elite Member
What about all those thousands of scientists who, while supporting many aspects of GW, also disagree with all the "chicken little panic," etc.?
Oh, that's right, they're "corporate shills." How could I have forgotten? So what you're really saying is that that "somewhere else" where we should form our opinion should be left-wing propagandists. Got it. 😉
blackangst1
Lifer
Im not sure where the "John Stossel is a right wing propagandist" comes from. Ive never seen anything from him that was slanted either way.
I guess if youre on the left and disagree with news reporting its "right wing wacko propagandist material" and if your on the right and disagree its "left wing bleeding heart liberal socialism".
/boggle
I guess if youre on the left and disagree with news reporting its "right wing wacko propagandist material" and if your on the right and disagree its "left wing bleeding heart liberal socialism".
/boggle
imported_Lothar
Diamond Member
:roll:
Disagreeing with "chicken little panic" does not mean what you think it means. I fully support the idea that humans are a significant contributing factor to climate change, but I don't think panic is the appropriate solution. There are alternatives between the Exxon-Mobile approach and the "OMG the sky is falling" rhetoric.
dmcowen674
No Lifer
Oh come on you can't forget with me constantly reminding you. 😀
Perhaps, but in this case it's not even a matter of taking the middle of the road, it's appearing to do so while continuing to do whatever you wanted to in the first place. Taking the middle of the road for the sake of being "moderate" is bad enough, but faking it is worse. The folks who dismiss the "panic" aren't saying we should take a balanced and intelligent approach to dealing with the problem, they are saying we should just keep driving our Hummers to the grocery store. They support "moderation" because it seems like a convenient excuse for doing nothing.
That's the real genius of the attack on science here. All the "jihadist" and "fanatic" language doesn't deny the science, as there is no scientific argument to the contrary, that would be difficult. Instead, the point is to kick up enough dust that it seems reasonable to argue for the "wait and see" approach, which conveniently lines up perfectly with the "humans aren't causing global warming" debate they know they can't win.
It all sounds so REASONABLE...who can argue with "wait and see" and looking at all sides of the debate? It's only when you take a step back and look at the big picture that it becomes obvious that the "debate" is entirely created from thin air. Every OP-ED, every Internet post, like michaels', calling those on the side of science "jihadists" is intended to do one thing...distract you from the obvious truth...they don't have a real argument. It is not obvious how name calling can fight mountains of peer reviewed studies, how hand-waving can counter facts...but it does.
silverpig
Lifer
You were doing okay until here. You said what was happening, but your predictions aren't based on any observations (indeed, they are predictions).
First, it has been calculated that in order to turn all the gaseous carbon we burn per year back into solid carbon, all it would take is an increase in the amount of biomatter in topsoil over the entire arable land mass of the earth in the amount of a layer of new biomatter 1/100th of an inch thick. Imagine all the leaves and needles that fall from trees every year.
A corn field will completely deplete the atmosphere within 5 feet of the ground of carbon dioxide in a matter of minutes; it's only due to wind that they don't suffocate themselves.
That carbon started out in a gaseous form. Virtually all of it. The earth made it this far.
It might not be balanced now, but it almost certainly isn't a divergent problem. For one, carbon reserves are limited. It's not like we'll end up with a 92% carbon atmosphere.
And by the same token, the people that a yelling panic, do they best to ignore nuclear power, clean coal( yes this does produce much less co2 and it easy to capture co2), india and china. They focus only on solar and wind( and they oppose that if birds or a good view is around).
Wind is getting cost competitive, but it still requires subsidies. Remove those subsidies and new wind/solar generation stops. Solar is still a decade or so away from being cost competitive, but it is getting there(50% cost reduction every decade). Most technologies that would save on co2 output are outright rejected by the panic group, because they are just no green enough.
Being moderate is where the solution to this problem exists.
JohnOfSheffield
Lifer
From what i know, yes, many are employed by companies who really don't want people to use less energy. (they are paid by he oil companies like they were paid by the tobacco companies or the dairy companies when soy (female hormones that has STILL not been shown to latch on to any hormone receptor site and yet the rumor or "knowledge" is still spread as if it was true, these are good con artists) was the big scare and funnily enough they are pretty much the same scientists, they made a career out of it, go ahead and look it up if you don't believe me)
I'm fairly sure that even if we stopped using all fossil fuels today we will not have done nearly enough to stop what has been set in motion though.
umbrella39
Lifer
See sig.
blackangst1
Lifer
Hey did you know GWB and Cheney are secretly putting together a plan to harness and use wind only for the rich?
JohnOfSheffield
Lifer
Actually selling out coast lines isn't beyond reach when you have that kind of national debt, printing more money doesn't really help the problem either, ask the Soviet Union how that works.
At the end the only thing the US can do is sell the land to foreign investors and i know you don't think it'll happen, but you still fail to see that for every penny or cent in your case, they don't have to buy it, they already own it.
One thing Europe learned the last time around was that you have to be very conservative on spending and while you guys undoubtedly have less taxes coming in and more privatisation you STILL manage to spend more on every single thing, you spend more government money on healthcare than any other nation (this is per capita), you spend more per capita on welfare and unemployment, you simply suck arse at distributing money.
Vic
Elite Member
I was not taking a middle road in any attempt to sound reasonable, but calling into question Craig's primitive and dogmatic worldview that his ideology is the sole source of wisdom, and upheld by the "priests" of science, while those that he disagrees with operate solely from evil intentions and motives (as opposed to the reality that they simply have differing perspectives, views, and opinions).
While I grant the fact that not all opinions are equal, I also find it insufficient to generalize the opinions of any individual into a single collective label and categorically call that person evil on that basis alone without further explanation. At best, that's ignorant prejudice. In reality, that's the "us vs. them" attitude that pervades and justifies the atrocities committed by nationalism and/or religious zealotry.
I would like to believe that, one of these days, some of the people here could wake up to the fact that my objection to many of the outspoken posters here is not because of the ideologies that they represent, but because of the emotional zealotry and nobility which they place upon their ideology for the sake of vilifying their ideological opponents and for justifying all number of evils for that cause. I would hope that they could eventually mature enough to understand that it is this emotionalism -- caused by them -- that generates most of the suffering among humanity which they in their delusion choose to blame upon their opponents.
In simplest terms, "evil" is the act of dehumanization. Once, for example, you make a person a "right-winger" or a "liberal" or a "commie" or a "fundie" or an "eco-theist" or whatever so as to label them as your enemy and dehumanize them so that you make take action against them, then you are the one committing evil. I understand that most people delude themselves into believing that they are acting in self-defense (even though it is usually pre-emptive, i.e. a "get them before they get us"), so I'll break it down even simpler: once you've created a world of "good guys" and "bad guys," then YOU are the "bad guy."
blackangst1
Lifer
I couldnt agree more.
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