Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: Fencer128
Why do people find caution so hard to swallow?
There is a divide in the scientific cmmunity as to the nature and existance of GW. There is not anywhere near a catogorical decision either way. The only question you have to ask yourself is IF this is happening - what should we be doing about it? (weigh up the risks).
Andy
I don't understand this either. Some people outright deny anything is happening(weather is just following it's usual cycles) yet for the last decade weather patterns seem to be quite abnormal, others seem convinced that Global Warming will usher in a better global climate citing a return to Pre-Flood(from Creation Theorists) conditions, and others not wanting to do anything unless they are 100% convinced that things will happen even, it seems, if millions will die before they'll believe it.
Actually it is fairly easy to understand. Within the scientific community there exists a vast opinion on GW. These opinions range from GW is nothing, to GW will be the end of humanity. There is no doubt that we are having an effect on earth, but the degree is greatly debated.
Meanwhile we continue to take rational steps to clean our environment and industry. If you listened to greens you would think we are polluting more than ever, but that is just not the case.
We are, polluting worse than ever. Not necesssarily because we are increasing what we exhaust(although that is true), but in large part due to the fact that what we put in the air just adds to what we put in many years ago. My 2nd link provides info on the "life" of certain GW pollutants. CO2 takes >100 years, other pollutants last for decades, while certain others only take days to be removed from the atmosphere.
Also, I think there may be(you vs Environmentalists/scientists) different terms of "more". Certainly many sources of pollution have decreased their individual outputs, however the total output continues to rise due to increased sources of pollution(more cars, more factories, more people using aerosols, etc).
Also check the quote of the link I posted, we have already increased CO2 levels far beyond anything verified through history. We really have no idea what will transpire, for the environment has never had this much CO2 to cope with. Even if Kyoto was followed to the letter and successfully implemented in time, what the future holds is really a big unknown, we may be doomed already(not to sound overly dramatic). There is no need to study any further, even with action we're going to find out what extended periods of unnatural levels of GH gases is going to do, it seems foolish to keep adding to it, especially if it turns out the Warming is accumulative(1 years warming, adds to the next, and next, etc) .