Would any of these things help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus work towards reversing global warming?
1. Adoption of organic farming on a commercial scale by having the government at all levels mandate that a certain percentage of the foodstuffs and fiber purchased for the military, prisons and school lunch programs be produced without using petroleum-based fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, feed additives etcetera.
2. Widespread use of biodiesel fuel in government and commercial vehicles.
3. Eliminating urban sprawl and the corporate power that fosters it in order to reduce the need for and use of personal automobiles: New Urbanism, reduce business hours and maybe implement Blue Laws so large stores like Super Wal-Mart and Home Depot won’t be as profitable as they can be operating 24-7.
4. Adoption of waste disposal technologies that generate biogas/biomethane so the carbon that biomass and organic waste materials would put into the air anyway as they decay could be cycled through energy extraction processes.
5. Nationwide semi-public mass transportation system using trains and buses to provide transportation between and within urban centers that have populations of at least 5,000 people.
If any of these things would work to reverse global warming, why is it I have never encountered any environmentalist on any internet forum that is willing to accept them when they learn that I do not believe that global warming is a bona fide scientific fact?
I have a bachelor’s degree in biology from Emory University, so I know something about the scientific method. I am aware that for any hypothesis to be scientifically valid it must be tested through a controlled experiment. Since we do not have a duplicate of the earth to serve as a control group in an experiment, we cannot test the hypothesis that global warming is caused by manmade greenhouse gases. We don’t have an earth that is without manmade greenhouse gases, so we have no way of knowing what effect manmade greenhouse gases have on the earth we do have.
Furthermore, I am not convinced that the earth is truly getting any warmer as a whole. It is true that the air over urban centers has gotten warmer over the past 20 years or so, but there is some indication that the air over non-urban centers has shown no change in temperature over the past 50 years or so. Any increase in temperature measurements likely is due to the fact over the past 40, and especially the past 20, years, land-based weather monitoring stations have been overtaken by urban sprawl. Since urban surfaces (roads, buildings, parking lots) trap more heat than woodland or farmland or water does, it is only natural that recorded temperatures have gone up. But, since this stored heat has not traveled to non-urban areas, it does not add up to global warming.
I support the 5 options I have outlined here, but I do so to achieve goals other than combating global warming. I support these things in order to promote national security by reducing our dependence on oil imports from hostile countries, save money by harnessing nature to do what we now have petroleum and manmade chemicals do, promote local economic self-reliance and improve societal cohesion by promoting neighborhoods and communities rather than suburbs. But, because I don’t accept the left’s global warming dogma, I get nothing but hostility from left-leaning environmentalists. This tells me that the true goal of left-leaning environmentalists is not the saving of the environment, but rather the destruction of America through the worshipping of nature.
I am a big fan of your #3, 5 and to some extent #1(I would do this differently) goals.
Your 2nd to last paragraph is very interesting. I have an example for you: take a look at the forests of British Columbia. There are large areas that are currently being destroyed by a pest that usually is conrolled by much of the population dying off during the below-freezing winters. However, recently winters have not been cold enough to kill these pests and so forests are being ravaged. it is possible that this is an isolated incident, but also look at the icecap on mt Kilimanjaro, for instance.
I'm sure you will have plenty more to say.
Also, I think that the destruction of america through nature worship is true for some environmentalists. Overall though, if you define America as the way that most of "us" live, then by and large this type of living may in fact need to be destroyed. nature may already have this in the works for us too. The global warming dogma can be avoided too if in groups we stop talking on the world-scale level and work very locally. At least we have about the same agenda there, right?
I'm not sure if I agree that the temperature is not warming... one of the basic things you learn in science is that water takes a while to warm up and cool down... when you live on the coast you'll know that the ocean plays a major role on how warm the coast is... oceans stay longer warmer into the winter and cooler into the summer... now when you take that into account and see that the polar ice caps are melting that a huge indication of how much the ocean has warmed... think how much energy you need to boil a pot of water and then how much bigger the ocean is and how much energy it has had to absorb to warm up...
I think the world is warming I just don't know how much of that can be attributed to human activities
Your 2nd to last paragraph is very interesting. I have an example for you: take a look at the forests of British Columbia. There are large areas that are currently being destroyed by a pest that usually is conrolled by much of the population dying off during the below-freezing winters. However, recently winters have not been cold enough to kill these pests and so forests are being ravaged. it is possible that this is an isolated incident, but also look at the icecap on mt Kilimanjaro, for instance.
Shouldn't global warming be, by its very definition, a global phenomenom? Sure we have locations that seem to be warmer than normal, but we also have places that have unusual cold snaps (the record snow in NY state last week for instance or a 4th of July here in Florida that barely saw 80 degrees as happened where I live several years ago). Furthermore, the 2 coldest winters and the 2nd coolest summer on record for Florida have occurred in the last 30 years.
The globe is not getting warmer overall. Surface temperatures (over land) have shown a slight warming in recent decades, but the atmosphere has remained the same according to satellite data. Cities have gotten warmer, but the surrounding countrysides have not.
The work of Harry Hillaker, a climatologist for the State of Iowa, indicates that we have had urban warming (as sprawl overtakes weather monitoring stations that used to be isolated). Furthermore, have a look at Tom Bethell's book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. The first chapter explains how the global warming is likely a political hoax that the left dreamed up when the global cooling and other doom and gloom scenarios of the 1970s didn't work out. BTW: I didn't read Bethell's 2nd chapter because I don't support nuclear power from a national security standpoint and I doubt that radiation is as good as Bethell would have us believe.
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Also, I think that the destruction of america through nature worship is true for some environmentalists. Overall though, if you define America as the way that most of "us" live,
You mean in a disposable society in which too much energy and too many natural resources are wasted?
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The global warming dogma can be avoided too if in groups we stop talking on the world-scale level and work very locally. At least we have about the same agenda there, right?
Environmentalists (I call myself a conservationist) should simply forget global warming and package their goals as something that a majority of people can decide to support.
I'm not sure if I agree that the temperature is not warming... one of the basic things you learn in science is that water takes a while to warm up and cool down...
As is the case with any thermal mass. But, if global warming is truly global, how long should it take for the air and oceans to shown signs of warming up?
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when you live on the coast you'll know that the ocean plays a major role on how warm the coast is... oceans stay longer warmer into the winter and cooler into the summer...
I live maybe 40 miles from the Atlantic. We have our 1st 90 degree day by the end of April and we can still be 90 degrees well into October. After a certain point South, your proximity to the ocean doesn’t count for much.
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now when you take that into account and see that the polar ice caps are melting that a huge indication of how much the ocean has warmed...
There seems to be some indication that ice sheets are growing in some places even if they are thinning in others.
“The polar ice packs are growing, year by year. Recent studies predict even faster growth, especially in the Antarctic. An article in this month's issue of Nature predicts drastic growth of the polar ice caps.
”Moreover, in a study published in the International Journal of Climatology, Polar Snow Cover Changes and Global Warming, researchers H. Ye and J. R. Maher estimated the amount of water released by melting of glaciers would end up as snow at the poles.
”They predict a small net increase of snow in the Northern Hemisphere but forecast a huge increase in the Antarctic, amounting to as much as 10 additional inches of snow per year.
"’The accumulation would be most noticeable in the south polar region and the total accumulation of water in the snow cover could result in a removal of about 900 x 1012 litres of water from the ocean yearly ... and result in thicker ice caps, especially in Antarctica and central to northern Greenland,’ they wrote.”
“And that's where Holloway's research comes in. The problem, he says, is that the Arctic ice is constantly moving, pushed along by Arctic winds. But there is natural fluctuation in the pattern and intensity of these winds. Sometimes they push the ice outward from the North Pole, causing it to jam up mostly against Northern Canada. At other times, the ice stays closer to the pole. This, Holloway argues, is the most likely cause for the apparent thinning. The submarine measurements, he says, were taken at just those spots mostly likely to be thinned by changing Arctic wind patterns. But the ice didn't disappear -- it just moved somewhere else. The total Arctic ice loss, Holloway estimates, is closer to 12 percent, of which maybe 3 percent can be attributed to warmer global temperatures. His conclusion: This small reduction is well within the range of natural variability and may have nothing to do with global warming.”
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I think the world is warming I just don't know how much of that can be attributed to human activities
The fact is we don’t have a spare earth to experiment with. We do not have an earth that is without humans so we cannot scientifically prove that humans are causing global warming.
"Shouldn't global warming be, by its very definition, a global phenomenom?" - Global warming is concerned with climate change. Climate change means that overall temperatures increase, not daily or weekly freak weather. how long have we scientifically been keeping track of weather anyways? Maybe 100 years? maybe a little more or a little less. The point is that weather records are going to keep being set whether warm or cold for a while at least. Also, record snow could point to the fact that more evaporation is occuring. Forget that fact that it is snow(a cold front attributed to weather is likely to blame). The fact that it is record shows that somewhere more evaporation occured, implying increased temperature somewhere.
"The globe is not getting warmer overall. Surface temperatures (over land) have shown a slight warming in recent decades, but the atmosphere has remained the same according to satellite data. Cities have gotten warmer, but the surrounding countrysides have not."
At the end of the day, one cannot argue against the fact that cities have been and continue to get bigger. meaning that there is more land area devoted to cities. meaning that there is a greater land area at higher temperatures.
"You mean in a disposable society in which too much energy and too many natural resources are wasted?" I won't hesitate to say yes to this.
"Environmentalists (I call myself a conservationist) should simply forget global warming and package their goals as something that a majority of people can decide to support." The example I use now is that i tell people if they don't believe in global warming or whatever" Go stand beside a busy highway. Tell me about the air quality. Even if i don't care if the earth is warming, the point is that we are poilluting and pollution is bad. If it is not bad for the environment then it is surely bad for our health. We also do not NEED to pollute like this, so why would we not want to cut down on it?
oceans occupy most of our planet and I've heard number of people mention that the ocean temperature has risen by 2 degrees... which is a very high number for how much water has to raise in temperature... also I don't believe the warming would be uniform... the planet is constantly changing and so is the weather... most scientist now agree that global warming is in effect... I'll see if I can find some info on supporting this...
"Shouldn't global warming be, by its very definition, a global phenomenom?" - Global warming is concerned with climate change. Climate change means that overall temperatures increase, not daily or weekly freak weather. how long have we scientifically been keeping track of weather anyways?
But we haven’t had an overall temperature increase. Some places (mainly urban areas) may have gotten warmer over the past few decades, but other places have either remained the same or gotten cooler. Land areas may have warmed, but the oceans and atmosphere have not. There is no global warming because temperatures have not increased on a global scale.
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Maybe 100 years? maybe a little more or a little less. The point is that weather records are going to keep being set whether warm or cold for a while at least.
Chances are weather records have always been being set; it’s just that no one could or would record them except for the past century or so.
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Also, record snow could point to the fact that more evaporation is occuring.
The water has to come from somewhere, but this does not automatically mean global warming because if some regions have gotten warmer so extra evaporation could take place, other regions must be either the same as before or even colder because the evaporated water is still falling as frozen precip.
I would venture that the overall amount of precipitation has not changed. Some regions may be getting more rain or snow in recent years, but other regions are having droughts. I doubt that there has been any net change in global precipitation.
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Forget that fact that it is snow(a cold front attributed to weather is likely to blame).
Why wouldn’t global warming lead to warm fronts coming from the cold regions where our cold fronts now come from?
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The fact that it is record shows that somewhere more evaporation occured, implying increased temperature somewhere.
But the fact that it is still snowing indicates that temperatures have not gone up everywhere, thus there is no global warming.
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"The globe is not getting warmer overall. Surface temperatures (over land) have shown a slight warming in recent decades, but the atmosphere has remained the same according to satellite data. Cities have gotten warmer, but the surrounding countrysides have not."
At the end of the day, one cannot argue against the fact that cities have been and continue to get bigger. meaning that there is more land area devoted to cities. meaning that there is a greater land area at higher temperatures.
And chances are the increase in temperatures has come from an increase in heat-storing surfaces (roads, parking lots, buildings) and not because of any greenhouse gases.
"Environmentalists (I call myself a conservationist) should simply forget global warming and package their goals as something that a majority of people can decide to support." The example I use now is that i tell people if they don't believe in global warming or whatever" Go stand beside a busy highway. Tell me about the air quality. Even if i don't care if the earth is warming, the point is that we are poilluting and pollution is bad. If it is not bad for the environment then it is surely bad for our health. We also do not NEED to pollute like this, so why would we not want to cut down on it?Because too many people insist on having an SUV or pickup truck, when a more fuel efficient station wagon would do.
oceans occupy most of our planet and I've heard number of people mention that the ocean temperature has risen by 2 degrees... which is a very high number for how much water has to raise in temperature... also I don't believe the warming would be uniform... the planet is constantly changing and so is the weather... most scientist now agree that global warming is in effect... I'll see if I can find some info on supporting this...
I once ran across a website about a study of coral in (if I remember right) the Indian Ocean. According to the coral growth patterns the oceans are cooler now than they were a century ago.
Folks, these are facts that are observable and measurable:
Things are changing - all over the world. There's no mystery to it.
I invite you to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore (feel free to independently verify his work and that of his mentor) and "Melting Planet" by Judith Helfand.
Both are documentaries.
Watch both movies and we can chat later.
Here in the USA, there is a lot of political spin and doublespeak as I am sure goes on esewhere as well.
"Global Warming" need only increase by one degree to make the global weather patterns change.
In fact, these changes have been, and continue to be, observed and noted for years and years.
In my personal life, I have observed macro and micro changes such as when particular plants use to emerge or bloom and what they are doing now.
Last year, here in New Jersey, in the middle of winter where it normally used to be cold (either below freezing or hovering above it) it was 60 degrees fahrenheit during the day and down to 15 degrees and hail stones later on during one 24 hour period and that odd pattern continued. People had no idea what kind of clothes to wear...
The true goal of environmentalists?
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