For all you questioning Red on global warming, how much do you know about it? There is no doubt that humans are impacting the world as we know it for the worse. If you don't believe that, drink water out of the Mississippi. Carbon dioxide levels have exponentially increased, which is making the oceans more acidic and less hospitable to a number of creatures, which is affecting the food chain. The earth has a carrying capacity, we can't expand forever, especially in the careless manner that we are currently doing it.
What are you basing this statement on? The Mayan calendar was accurate way ahead of its time and stands up well to examination to this day.
There's not only doubt, there's scoffing. I scoff. Many scoff. Many scientists scoff. I know as much as Red, and more than Joe Sixpack, and less than the below-average scientist - and NONE of us KNOW much at all. Which has been my point all along. Politics and pop culture have invaded science worse than at any other time in human history (and that's saying something if you're a student of history at all). It's only going to get worse. The cultural equivalent to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - so much useless noise that the facts are no longer even detectable. When Oprah signs up to preach the new religion, you know it's over. Well. It's over. Cause the fat lady is singing in the new church...
This argument was in vogue about 20 years ago. It's been proven to be false because, you know, trends change. In fact, China is having so few children right now that they won't be able to collect enough tax money to pay to take care of their own "baby boomer" problem. India and Africa and sections of the Muslim world continue to expand rapidly, but are being offset significantly by an eventual collapse of European and Japanese birth rates. Careless? Europe is carelessly committing cultural suicide based on the outdated arguement that having children is heretical to the proper adoration of "the planet". Planet being the deity. It rained today so I didn't get a chance to cut the deity's "hair." Hope the deity doesn't get pissed and vector a Cat 4 hurricane my way (fueled by the global warming)...
I was just bored and just watched the Mayan thing. But personally, the Earth was warming and cooling itself LONG BEFORE we were here and its gonna keep on going. For us to think that we really impact the earth as much as we think we do is laughable. If EVERYONE is the world started riding a bike and NO ONE used a motor-anything every again the earth would still warm up and cool off depending on what the planet need to do to stablize itself. The earth is a living organism just like us.
So you would drink water from the Mississippi and you deny that as carbon dioxide levels increase the chemistry of ocean water changes? Carbon dioxide levels skyrocketed in association with the industrial revolution and have increased exponentially. This directly affects the chemistry of water exposed to the atmosphere. Global warming is only one part of the entire impact we have on the planet. I'm not too well versed on the impact humans have on global warming, but there are other obvious signs of adverse human impact on the well-being of the planet we all live on. The uneducated arguing about things they know very little about is where all the noise (and probably most of the funding) comes from. Can't say I'm not guilty. It is scientifically proven that any environment can only sustain so much life. In 1950 there were 2.5 billion humans on earth. Today there are 6.5 billion. What's gonna happen when the population peaks? No biggie? I wouldn't bet money on that.
Clearly, only an idiot would not be interested in conservation - meaning husband resources, protect them from pollution, etc. I loathe pollution. I recycle (normally). Yada yada. That's not what we're talking about here. Sorry. Title of the thread is global warming. Which has nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with the ecotheology (my word - like it?) of the old and new hippies. Make love, not war. Age of aquarius. All that nonsense. By the way, most of the greenhouse gasses, which are NOT pollutants, come out the arse of animals - not cars or factories. Ref: population - what I'm trying to tell you is that the population growth rate may have ALREADY peaked. But even if it hasn't, the only way population growth depletes the globe's resources is if authoritarian governments overrule the market. 'Cause in a market (globalization), demand will adjust to meet supply via price fluctuations. I.e. - the population growth will stop because the resources aren't there to support it. Brutal, but true and correct.
Animals that we breed, most likely. I just think that focusing solely on global warming is a cop out. The spike in carbon dioxide production wouldn't have occurred naturally and didn't just coincidentally coincide with industrialization. I'm glad to see you care about the earth, though. =)
Population hasn't peaked yet but I imagine when it does it will be because the earth is overstressed, not because we did the right thing. Going veg would probably reduce my carbon footprint - I just gotta work on my addiction to beef and the products of other critters... Im going to hit the hay now.
