DEBATE: Global Warming. .

Age : 30 Posts : 1236

Now, the most hotly debated topic of this decade is making its appearance on the greatest Naruto Forum Ever.

No seriously. As a budding scientist, it has passed through my ears weekly and it's amazing to know how diverse people's opinions are on it. My personal opinion will be revealed later. I just want to know what everyone else thinks.

Age : 32 Posts : 30

My personal opinion is that global warming is definitely real, just look at the progressively worse weather patterns all over the world, america last year was basicly abused by tornados and this year its forest fires everywhere with some of the highest temperatures recorded in some areas. I live in Britain and if you look at the swirling weather patters around England that almost never happen on this scale you can see how the gulf stream is beginning to shift bringing high wind speeds and torrential rains from the north sea, this is one of the wettest summers on record. if the gulf stream were to change course england would freeze, highly important nutrients and minerals wouldn't be delivered to the atlantic changing the feeding habits of plankton and krill which would drive away most if not all of the sea life from the western edge of europe. in russia all kinds of messed up weather patterns are happening such as green clouds and purple snow! but that's all probably nuclear. carbon dioxide levels within the atmosphere have risen about 40% in the last 65 years and havnt been this high since the Cenozoic era when the sea levels were about 120 feet higher and there were no permanent polar ice caps and because of all the fossil fueled transportation they're increasing rapidly. if there was a sudden .8% increase in carbon dioxide the global atmosphere would begin to boil. one last thing to make you think is that there are planets in our galaxy called carbon planets, mostly made of carbon, graphite, lead etc. their atmosphere isn't even 5% higher in carbon than los angeles.

Age : 39 Posts : 56

Wow people are still debating this? OKs.

Scientific fact is that the world goes through natural Warming and Cooling Cycles, and there are certain chemicals that do aggravate these cycles. Are we past the point when we should be hitting a Cooling Cycle, sure.

But the big picture isn't weather we are furthering the Warming Cycle beyond what it should be, but the effects of that disruption on the planet. Going green has helped in reducing foreign particulates into the air (Which while they do act as Cloud Seeds, which in turn act as Surrogate Volcanic Clouds in that regard). They also have a huge host of problems such as Smog, changing of Weather Patterns which cause Rainfall in one area while droughts in others. As well as Acid Rain and a whole host of other health problems.

But other particulates have the opposing effect where they have been shown to create green house effects, and health problems to people. It's why we no longer use CFC's in our Aerosol Cans, or Lead in our Gas. So all in all their will be evidence to either side of the debate. Some results either completely fictitious, or highly skewed for that groups special interests (Since most Scientist rely on outside sources for funding. Scare tactics, and making the data read for a particular side does happen in modern times.).

As for my personal opinion I do think we have messed up the natural cycle, and are aggravating the warming cycle way more higher than it needs to be. Although I do think we are at the peak of our Warming Cycle, our global impact has risen the earths temperature higher in the last 20 years than any point of our history. Although we only contribute 30% of Carbon Emissions on the planet [the rest split between Termite Hills, and Bovines lol.]

30% of Carbon Emissions and Over Population

Nasa Interactive Chart [Pollution and Carbon Emissions [Black Carbon and Methane]

Our Impact on Earths Climate (small article)

Yahoo Answers (Cause I like the response)

That's my two cents on the subject and links to further my side of the issue.

Age : 28 Posts : 332

I'm going with no, simply for the fact that the world has actually done this before, as stated above the world does have these cycles and has been shown to do exactly whats happening now before our time. Sure we may be aggravating these cycles, but if the planet has had these cycles before and the increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is only from 0.3%-0.4% I really am having a hard time believing in global warming.

Personally, I think that global warming was thought up so that we would stop using so many fossil fuels due to the fact that they are being used up. They say that most of our fossil fuels will be used up within 50 years and that we need to come up with a solution so that we can continue with our way of life, and by making us 'go green' we use less energy and as a result less fossil fuels need to be burned to support us.

Note: That yahoo answer link to me seems too apocalyptic and over dramatizes things. I don't like it personally and makes it seem as if this 'kitkat' person is trying to scare the question maker.

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Speaking as someone trained first as a geologist, particularly in "soft rock" ie - petroleum exploration, this is one of the issue's I've got a personal stake in.

Yes the climate does go through changes. How frequently and how drastically as well as the mechanisms behind those changes are still hotly debated topics even among professionals. That it changes though is beyond dispute; finding fossilized whale bones in the Sahara is pretty good proof of that. What makes this set of changes alarming is that it's happening in the space of human lifetimes instead of over the normal tens of thousands of years.

It's that time scale that has us running scared. Even when the geologic record (which includes not just rocks but isotopic records stored in sea ice and sequestered water) shows periods of volcanism that dwarf anything in record or oral history, the climate didn't shift nearly this rapidy. Even the greatest mass-extinctions of post-Cambrian times, the Permian extinction event that heralded the emergence of the dinosaurs, took hundreds of thousands of years to happen and that is a geological snap of the fingers. Add in that this time there might not be enough of the various sinks (sequestering CO2 in limestone, increased acidification of surface water, plankton & algae growth, etc) and it's possible that we're headed for that sort of "90%+ of all species dying" event.

Now before someone gets on their soap box and starts tell about "creating panic" and "it won't be that bad" - remember it doesn't take a drastic change in median temperature to radically alter the climate. As a number of people from US are aware, England is a rather wet country. Yet just a few degrees of sustained temperature elevation would make it resemble the inland portions of Spain. Now factor in things such as a booming global population, shrinking areas of arable land and potable water, and you can start to get an idea of just how much damage "a few degrees warmer" can do. We're already seeing just how little leeway there in the worlds food supply now due to a relatively minor drought in the American Midwest. If the majority of the global food production areas were hit... I'll leave that to your imaginations but remember this. Humanities history has several times more wars and massacres than cases of different people cooperating.

Age : 31 Posts : 152

It's real. Scientifically proven. We are hurrying along the process, which is also proven. 1995, the polar caps were expansive, with at least 3 miles of extra ice. 2010, the polar caps are reduced to approximately half their size, as well as the indigenous species that live there dying at an increased rate.

Global Warming/Pollution --> Smog/Hot Weather --> Things die/Ice melts

Is simple o3o~

Age : 29 Posts : 4301

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