Those who deny human impact (like I said, Im sure they exist) are wrong, but that doesn't mean they are the worst people in history.
Well, when their policies are based off of nonscientific material when those policies in effect increases the calamity of the problem they're addressing, they're certainly far from the best people in history.
^ Trump is clearly a denier of global warming, and he's the one directing the new investment into fossil fuels as the prime energy source for the US, as in those pipeline projects he's signed off on. He's also pulling out of the Paris Agreement, I believe, and emasculating the EPA. So, yeah, that's all seriously bad news for Planet Earth.
Goofle
05-19-2017 06:08 PM
^I don't judge Chula based on his drunk posts.
@ frown - Depends on your perspective. Increased carbon output and whatever else that has impacted on the minimal warming we have seen has improved our societies immeasurably. There's a balance to find.
Frownland
05-19-2017 06:15 PM
"Minimal warming."
Credibility? Credibility? Are you there? You were here a little over a year ago, where'd you go?
Goofle
05-19-2017 06:22 PM
There's been minimal warming. I think that's an agreed upon thing. Anyway, back to the point of finding a balance between environmentalism and industrial improvements.
Frownland
05-19-2017 06:25 PM
I guess it depends on how you define minimal. On a number scale? Sure that's small as ****. In terms of impact? Gargantuan.
Sure, the change is not something you feel, the way you can feel the weather change from one day to the next, but for the reasons I laid out earlier, what look like small changes can have, as Frownland says, "gargantuan" impact.
Spoiler for Reasons I laid out earlier:
How seriously should we take global warming? By most accounts, very seriously indeed, especially as there seems to be a critical tipping point at which the whole process takes on a greater velocity. Quite when that tipping point is reached won't be clear until after the event - but that doesn't mean it's not coming, like the giddy moment at the top of a roller coaster....
From memory, here are two items that worry me about the way global warming is set to escalate:-
i) sheets of (white) ice are great reflectors of heat, but the more they reduce, the more they are replaced by areas of (dark) land and sea. As we all know from secondary school, dark colours are good absorbers of heat, so the warmer the planet gets, the more solar heat it will absorb.
ii) the permafrost, that permanently frozen subsoil across Canada and Russia, is beginning to thaw. Unfortunately for us, there are unknown quantities of methane gas locked in the subsoil. In Canada they are studying the methane which is now bubbling up in marshes and swampland which, within living memory, were frozen solid all year round. The double bad luck is that methane has a powerful greenhouse-gas effect, so the warmer the planet gets, the more solar heat it will trap.
IMO it's a dangerous mistake to use a term like "minimal warming" which in two words downplays the problem without examining it. Isn't that like a cancer doctor saying "That tumor looks minimal. This cosmetic cream will cover it up and you can continue to enjoy a normal life." ?
__________________________________________________ ____________
