China ever going green ???
- Thread starter rayer
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Natural climate shift is also a fact. Is there solid, conclusive evidence that increasing temperatures (if indeed they are increasing) are caused by carbon dioxide pollution and are not just a result of natural climate shift which has existed since the world began?
I think you've misread my post, global warming is proven fact as there's decades of measurements showing it. What isn't known is the cause, whether it's a continuation of previous warming trends (albeit with an increased rate), a blip due to an unknown reason, or due to man's effect on the planet and it's atmosphere, or a combination of all 3 (the likely one).
My personal belief is that current global warming trends is predominantly down to man made pollution.
Jokester
Edit: Global Warming = fact, Global Warming due to CO2 = theory
Global warming IS a proven fact, and has been known to be for decades. Without it, the average surface temperature of the earth would be about minus 15oC and all water would be locked up as ice. Take a look at Venus to show what global warming can do - hotter than Mercury, but twice as far from the Sun.
In at least one part of the time of the dinosaurs, the average surface temperature of the earth is believed to be 15oC warmer than so, and there was no solid ice anywhere on earth - certainly at sea level, and possibly on any mountain either.
What is up for debate is as Jokester says: how much is man's contribution, and what are the various mechanisms involved? The trouble is, many people don't differentiate between "Global Warming" and "Man-made Global Warming" when they make statements. There are many factors affecting the Earth's climate, and man is just one. The question is: how big a one in relation to the others?
M
To the global warming non-belivers in this thread I find it pretty shocking that you can think that it is all ok and just scaremongering.
But why is it scaremongering? surely scaremongering is thinking that Iran/Iraq etc have WMDs and that we are going to die is scaremongering - while most the stuff we have is "Yes, GW is a problem, and could cause some epic changes - but here are the ways that we can prevent /put the brakes on / try and slow it down"
And my thought on the whole GW subject:
Even if GW warming is true and we are causing it, or if it is false and it's a common thing in the cycle of our planet - surely the methods of renewable energy, reduce - reuse - recycle, and offsetting said to be the saving grace of all this are really beneficial to the world anyway, regardless of whether this whole GW thing is true or not.
Rich
But why is it scaremongering? surely scaremongering is thinking that Iran/Iraq etc have WMDs and that we are going to die is scaremongering - while most the stuff we have is "Yes, GW is a problem, and could cause some epic changes - but here are the ways that we can prevent /put the brakes on / try and slow it down"
And my thought on the whole GW subject:
Even if GW warming is true and we are causing it, or if it is false and it's a common thing in the cycle of our planet - surely the methods of renewable energy, reduce - reuse - recycle, and offsetting said to be the saving grace of all this are really beneficial to the world anyway, regardless of whether this whole GW thing is true or not.
Rich
fair enough, but i've always wanted a 5.0 V8, a loft appartment and tropical holidays. i'm sorry but i care more about these things.
Soldato
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Well put, I'm 50/50 on whether it is mans actions that are increasing GW. Still, it doesn't hurt to recycle, and we all know that it's better to recycle than fill up a landfill.
then you are a fool
Why?
Frankly all the "carbon neutral" advertising on TV is starting to get to me now. They've still not actually proven that this climate change that is occuring is not natural.
It's pretty easy to flip the question on it's head you see.
Fair enough but a lot of us have seen these types of tactics from our governments in the past. If it's not the nuclear threat from the USSR, if it's not UV rays from the sun causing cancer, if it's not the ozone layer about to kill everyone on earth, if it's not the artic ice caps melting, if it's not mass extinctions of thousands of different species occuring, then they have to think up something else to scare us with. Human-caused global warming has been an 'idea' in the making since the 70's. It started off with Thatcher building a load of nuclear power stations and, strangely (at the time), one of the reasons the government was using to get people on board was that they didn't hurt the atmosphere. That really was the catalyst and governments have started using the "omg climate change" excuse for all manner of things - particularly in the last decade or so. It's really hotting up as a money making scheme (ooh a pun!).titchard said:
Governments will actively fund and support all and any researchers that are willing to bias their research in favour of voting that humans are causing the warming. All the while they will actively cut off funds and tarnish the reputations of researchers that beg to differ. In the last few years it has also become increasingly acceptable to flog yourself as "carbon friendly" so everyone is just jumping on the bandwagon. But that's all it is at the moment - a marketing/economic bandwagon. Because nothing has actually been scientifically proven otherwise. For every scientist that gets his research proof-read and published in popular magazines, there are just as many that are publishing less well known articles claiming the very opposite.
The earth does go through ages of cooling and warming, it is just that we are accelerating it to much faster speeds than it usually does it in.
Rich
We went through the industrial revolution 200 years or so ago, and now we're going green. China are going through their industrial revolution now, so I'd say they've got a while to go before being green becomes one of their main goals.
I agree that GW is a problem, but as people have said, no one exactly knows the cause.
What bugs me is the 'fines' that councils impose if you leave a rubbish bag out which is not in its wheeliebin. Or misplacing an item in the wrong bin.
Meanwhile, in the States, Bush is reluctent to sign any 'green' documents because it would hit his economy hard ( Oil and 4x4 pickups etc)
Its seems that our goverment has gone overboard on the issue though, as it is a way to fill up the coffers, through additional tax and masking it as 'we are saving the planet'
If we are to save the planet, surely the main polluters of this world should act as well as our attempts in this country really are just a 'deckchair off the titanic' in the scope of things.
What bugs me is the 'fines' that councils impose if you leave a rubbish bag out which is not in its wheeliebin. Or misplacing an item in the wrong bin.
Meanwhile, in the States, Bush is reluctent to sign any 'green' documents because it would hit his economy hard ( Oil and 4x4 pickups etc)
Its seems that our goverment has gone overboard on the issue though, as it is a way to fill up the coffers, through additional tax and masking it as 'we are saving the planet'
If we are to save the planet, surely the main polluters of this world should act as well as our attempts in this country really are just a 'deckchair off the titanic' in the scope of things.
But we have the hindsight of past experience to show them the way of doing it without polluting so much.
Rich