Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay, being the head of this subforum I should do something useful at least once. So I'll start a new topic that I notice hasn't been discussed on here yet.

I'm not gonna have a list of questions for you to answer, since I've noticed there are many different viewpoints on the issue. Discuss away, ladies and gentlemen!

Oh, quit taking the fun out of it. I'm trying to draw battle lines and you just walk off. xd

(I think this thread might be turning upside-down and lighting on fire.)

Okay then...*draw lines*

People who think humanity is the main cause of global warming, go over there. People who don't think global warming is being caused by people, go over there. People who aren't completely sure, go in between them and hope you don't get hit with a lot of mud.

*waits patiently on the "human activity has caused a significant and unnatural rise in global temperature" side*

Sure the world changes and temperatures flux, but right now they're moving way to fast and humans are the ones that have sped it up to this rate. The amount of waste we are putting into the air is making it worse by the minute, there are ways to reduce the impact of human activity, but most people see it as inconvienant. It would reduce profits for rich bureoucrats and anyone involved in oil/petroleum.

But it's fun to generalize!

I'd rather discuss climate change, though right now the biggest argument is how much people are influencing cimate change.

I don't know if it was inevitable or not, but humanity sure has made global warming a lot more severe with all this stupid chemical pollution we're spreading. We need to invest in some environmentally-friendly fuels and stop killing the planet!

a) the earth goes through a regular flux of climate changes. Its not a big deal. We are coming out of another tiny ice age such as this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
40 years ago everyone was worried about "global cooling" and now as the world gets warmed up again it's time for us to all freak out again. Don't believe me about the global cooling scare: http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIceAge_June241974.pdf

b) even so, is this warming a problem? everyone is saying "omg the seas gonna fill with more water from melting ice caps and flood every coastal town in the world" however they are forgetting that when water freezes (as into ice caps) it EXPANDS (hence your ice floating in your drink) so when it melts it will CONTRACT taking up LESS VOLUME not more. the only flooding we'd have to worry about was land locked glaciers flooding nearby land. but hey, im sure we could ship the water to arizona or something. and hey most lakes have been losing water volume, so what harm can it do to fill em back up?

c) what makes me really mad it the Kyoto protocol. it is just bad. IF global warming WERE a problem, the kyoto protocol doesnt require most nations (CHINA and INDIA being some rolleyes ) to do anything. In fact, after signing the EU's carbon emmissions ROSE. It only requires nations like the U.S. were we to sign it, to cut emissions to the point where it would cripple our economy. oooh sounds like fun, lets fall into peer pressure (yes, the US has sunk low enough to be affected by this) and sign it so we look good when we go down the drain. mad

im not saying pollution isnt bad. it is. but not nearly AS bad as some would like to claim. and for the record it's not our (the US's) fault, thanx. let me remind you that we have some of the best pollutant-stopping technology out there. the real problem countriesare ones like China, that in a few years WILL surpass our industry output of CO2 and doesnt use pollutant stopping technology, because that, as we've found slows down industry.