So Sir John Houghton, director general of the UK's Met Office, has told a farming conference in Oxford that climate change (global warming) was now "irreversible", as consequence of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

Oh, really.

Although the mean global atmospheric carbon content has increased significantly, and has, in all probability, caused some increase in the mean global temperature, it is still estimated to be between 5 and 10% of what it has been in the geologic past. Even as recently as 200M years ago, the atmospher contain over 2000ppm of carbon, with an estimated global mean temperature of around 68 degrees F. Since then, atmospheric carbon has plunged, and sits at about 380ppm, with a global mean temperature of around 54 degrees F. So for the last 200M years or so the mean global temperature has GONE DOWN.

Is it me, or should someone tell Chicken Little the sky isn't falling.

I don't know, around my neighborhood we're still waiting on a major snowfall. we had a meager dusitng a weak or so back but there isn't any left on the ground, it's downright balmy out for this time of year and it's just been raining a lot. It was very warm and wet earlier in the year too, my state even had some major flooding and everything grew like crazy during the spring and summer. I find it hard to just write off the concept of global warming entirely when I'm seeing what can be interpreted as evidence of it right in my own backyard.

Yeah tell that to these guys.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-12-31b.htm


Though I'm sure man does play a big role in the stability of the earth's climate, I'm not entirely convinced that the end of the world is nigh. I think the truth lies somewhere between Rush Limbaugh and Al Gore.

I always wondered how it would be reversed. Its all laughable anyway the earth naturaly cools and warms peridocially throughout its history. Greenland was alot warmer, for example, in the time of the Vikings, or for example when shelly wrote frankenstein it was a wee bit colder. What is imprtant to remember in all of this is that man does effect the enviroment wether man has an impact on global warming (here I mean not causeal but the possiblity that we might be compunding the effect) or not is debatable. I believe it is such a buzz word because it gets funding and scientist like to get funding. The good of all this is awarness mankind really should take a hard look at some of the things that can have a severe impact on our society and changes in climate can do that.

Interestingly enough jet engine contrails may cool, or contribute to cooling the atmosphere. See (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/contrail.html). There have been several studies which have indicated that vapor trails left by commercial jets "shade" the earth enough to produce a measurable difference (drop) in temperature. The scary part is the “global warming Chicken Littles” are suggesting we deploy a “fleet” of aircraft to intentionally produce these climate cooling clouds to “avoid catastrophic global warming”.

My concern is the effect will be significant enough to set off “Chicken Little's Ice Age”.

I'd rather more heat than living on top of a mile thick ice sheet.

I suspect the 6 billion plus humans on this rock are probably generating a lot of carbon that is going into the atmosphere, increasing the "green house effect" and global warming. Atmospheric carbon is up some 50% since the start of the industrial age and around 380 PPM. However, it is still well below the 2,000 +PPM it was in the not so distant geologic past. At that point the estimated mean global temp was 64F, or about 10-11 degrees warmer than it is now, which isn't all that bad.

"A rise of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels would cause global effects -- such as massive species extinctions and melting of ice sheets"

here’s the rest, It's from the UN report that came out this week, there was all so an Issue of national geographic about 2 years ago on the subject.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020201754.html

Global warming, what ever the cause isn’t going to destroy the earth, it's just going to be really hard to live on it.

Global Warming is a cute phrase, but its actually not real. Or at least not man made. It was Warmer in the middle ages than it is now.

Thanks for clearing that up, I’ll be sure to let the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and National Geographic know that you have proven their research wrong.

No problem, did they actually do any research though? I recall them not actually proving anything with actual research.

I can't prove it but I think you'll disagree with my next comment...

I recently heard about the panel that voted to declare that Man is probably the cause of global warming.

Its nice that we can vote on science now. I'd like to vote to repeal the law of gravity, millions of people are killed by it every year.

You don’t have to believe in climate change, it believes in you...

Of course w ebelieve in climate change, the earths climate changes all the time. It goes through 100 and 1000 year highs and lows. We happen to be going into a high from a low. Before the Middle ages there was a high. I simply dont believe that man caused it. Thats bullshit. Climate shifts happen for 2 reasons, an eliptical orbit with the sun and solar activity. And sometimes Volcanic activity. As for greenhouse gasses, well thats just a manbearpig boogie man made up to scare everyone. Liberals need thier own version of guilt and hell since they got rid of the actual religious versions.

If plants hadn’t changed the atmosphere millions of years ago there wouldn’t be a breathable atmosphere for us now. If plants can have a global effect why not people. EVERYTHING in the environment has an effect on the environment. Denial has never been a good strategy for any thing.

And then they discovered that plants while impacting te environment, minimally didnt actually create the atmosphere, the millions of active volcanos spewing debris, steam and hydrogen into the air did. Global warming is just a buzz word to scare people into becoming more liberal, the phenominon is natural, not man made.

Volcanoes give off gasses that we cant breath, plants change that in to oxygen so we can breath. You are correct that is a natural phenomenon, not a liberal phenomenon. There is no reason you can’t be conservative and care about the environment, wouldn’t you want to project you business or investments from climate change, not just liberals.

Bah. Global warming IS happening... but it IS natural. It's an amusing thing really, humans as a whole tend to just see THEIR little piece of time. The temperature has increased since most of us have been alive, but it was indeed warmer BEFORE we were all here. In the entire history of humans, the climate has gone through an umpteen amount of climate changes. There was the two or three (I can't remember, I'm bloody tired) ice ages that humans have survived, the little ice age right after the middle ages, and quite a few bouts of global warming. If you're going to rant and rave about how it's gotten hotter in the last 50 years, take a few steps back and look at the last 50,000 years and shut up.

The only true threat to human survival as far as the climate goes, is whether or not we'll be able to survive when the next ice age rolls around. With all our technology, and how dependent we are on it... I'm starting to question how well we'll fare.

And the only thing I'm really concerned about man and all his infinite technology affecting, is our groundwater. Drinking water. Don't get me started on the shit that's in most of our water supplies.

When volcanos erupt, they let out more than just poisons, they also let out steam, what makes steam? Water... whats water made out of? Hydrogen and Oxygen, the mixture of air we breath normally is what? Thats right something like 70% hydrogen, 29% oxygen 1% other.