Another voice.
I still think we should be doing everything we can to regain energy Independence on political grounds... now, more than ever.

I have to agree Bruce. It only takes one to examine the crisis over the dispute between Russia, the Ukraine, and the EU to see the extreme potential to manipulate others with the natural resources. Chavez's weak attempt to do that to the US was met with failure and he is now, thankfully, paying the price for it.

And now we have this:

President 'has four years to save Earth'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...m-hansen-obama

Hansen is the leading climate scientist in the G.W. conversation. He's not really studied up on international politics though.

This bit is in his full interview linked from the article:
I like predictions like that. We will see soon enough.

Not sure why the opposite effect, El Niño, is not blamed for global warming if La Niña is blamed for global cooling. El Niños have happened a lot recently. There was a particularly strong one in 1998 which is considered the warmest year in the last decade...

Also, Al Gore's movie told us that that G.W. will change ocean currents, not that ocean currents will change G.W. This was meant to tell us that localized cooling, which certainly does happen, is evidence of overall warming.

It will interesting to see what changes the new administration is going to foist onto an already crumbling industry in this country. There is still a lot of talk about carbon credits and swaps which I think is a bunch of goblygoop.

Czech president attacks Al Gore's climate campaign

I don't know squat about this guy, but there seem to be more people willing to speak out about the possibility that Al Gore may be a fraud.

Gore had to reinvent himself. He had no choice. He basically failed as a politician in his own right so this keeps him on the lecture circuit and keeps cash in his pocket. Pretty good shtick if you can get it.

I hardly think Al Gore was a failure as a politician. He was the VP for 8 years, and had along history prior to that. I think he's a bit extreme, an alarmist (maybe he learned that from the R's) and I disagree with him on a lot of things, but a failure? Did you see how much this guy makes? I don't think he could be considered a failure. Yes he lost against W, but there are a few who still believe he actually won that election.

I don't support those notions.

ok then define "failure" in terms relating to Al Gore please. You may differ with his opinions, as I do in many cases, but a failure - how?

Well global warming causes extreme weather and climate change, right? Isn't the argument that ALL weather will become more extreme, including colder temperatures in some places in winter? I'm not a scientist, so I don't know. I'm asking. I don't know what the science is, but I do believe in global warming.

I like Al gore and I don't believe he was a failure.

I dislike Al Gore and I don't think he was a failure.

There is no question that the temperatures vary from warm to cool. The issue is how responsible are humans for that change, if at all.

I think that is the same guy you posted earlier. If so, he is a quack....like Gore.

You know, if global warming is caused by man, then we have to try and repair the damage. I'm sure no one disagrees with that, but what about if it's not caused by man? Should we just go ahead and let it happen or just accept that it's not our fault and ignore it. If so, why don't we just ignore it anyway?

We adapt. The reasons why we can't just ignore global warming is because it effects every aspect of our life. If the climate changes, most farmers will need to start planting new crops, ecosystems will change and maybe fail, weather patterns will change, etc.

So even if it's just a natural course of events we should try to stop it?

Yes Ali, we should try to change the natural course of the planet.

We can't stop it. I am saying that climate change is unpreferable so we should try to limit what we are doing. If we do have an impact on the environment, we should try to limit it but that is all we can do. Climate change is happening and we need to adapt. It is starting to happen and I do know people in that business, they will have great job security soon.

Climate change is always happening...and human beings survived it before without all the technology we have now.

I am building an underground bunker, anyone want to join me?

Will there be sugary stuff in it? lol

Yes, but our global economy wasn't as dependent on the climate as it is now. One major drought can effect billions.

or flood, or icestorm, or heatwave...

As you said, humans adapt. If they don't they die.

I'd like a ticket merc - please

Bolding mine.
Doesn't mean it was pleasant. Also doesn't mean we can survive the next one. We know more, but we also put a lot more stress on the planet these days.

As with every global change there will be bad things AND good things that come of it. We never hear about the good things.

Bad: sections of the planet become unlivable.
Good: other sections of the planet become livable!

Bad: sea level rise.
Good: Manhattan streets finally clean!

Bad: no ice platforms for polar bears to fish from.
Good: overfishing is a problem anyway!

Bad: change in ocean currents put Britain into permafrost.
Good: George Galloway finally shuts up!

Bad: Alaskan caribou lose homeland.
Good: We can finally drill for oil there!

Hahahahaha

You know, regardless of whether or not human beings are playing a part in global warming (which I believe we definitely are), there are other reasons to try to curtail our output of co2, like health reasons. My god, it used to sicken me driving on the freeway in LA. The smell of all that burning gasoline made me literally ill. And I can smell it here in Savannah too. So it isn't just big cities where there is this impact.

In addition, what about that huge spill at the coal plant last month? Or the oil spills in the oceans? Or the strip mining, which releases all kinds of heavy metals into the environment?

The truth is, as a species, we are not very efficient at getting our needs met in a way that isn't harmful. Don't you all want clean air to breathe? And fresh water to drink, and nutritious food to eat? We NEED to reduce our impact on the environment.

There will a dungeon, with all kinds of toys. If you're good, I'm sure there will be fun stuff to eat and drink. ;)

The rest of your points were clearly jokes, so I'm only going to address this one, which some people might consider to be true.

Let's take Baffin Island for an example. It's cold and desolate now. If it gets warmer, you might think that people would be able to live there more than they do now.

But if you look at pictures, even after it warms up, it will be gravel. Warm gravel instead of cold gravel. It takes hundreds of thousands of years for gravel to turn into soil with organic material in it.

This was the lushest picture of Baffin Island I could find.

And spotted owls... (J/K - I owed ya one :D)

Good lord Glatt what do you have against gravel? Think of the advantages:

- no lawn to mow!
- awesome drainage everywhere!
- don't have to build roads, just drive over the land!
- lots of things available to throw at someone's window when you want to get their attention!

I like your attitude, UT. :)

Someone got me a global warming coffee mug. It has a map of the world painted on it. When you fill it with a hot beverage, all the low-lying areas begin to disappear, including the entire state of Florida. So, if we do have increasing sea levels due to climate change, where will we keep all the old people?

In the Colorado Mountains. :D

Oh for sure. Human beings should definitely clean up their act. I was really playing devils advocate anyway, although I'm really not so convinced now that human beings are responsible for global warming in any case.

We have issues with air pollution here in Oz, but nowhere near that in the US and some other countries.

Life is not very pleasant for billions of people now.

Is it any wonder? There are too damn many of us.

You know, before we learned how to exploit old dinosaurs and plankton for energy, there were manageable numbers of people on the planet. Once we started using coal and oil, we began overpopulating like crazy. Between about 1800 and 1930 the population doubled from around 1 billion to 2 billion people. About 40 years later it doubled again. About 25 years later it doubled again. (do you see a trend here?) http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/hist...ion-growth.htm

From 10,000 years ago to 1750 CE, population world-wide increased on average by about 67,000 people a year. By the 1990s, that many new babies were crowding onto the planet every seven hours. http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu.../keytheme1.htm

:D

Yeah...it's those bloody catholics!

I want one. Just to see if my house will be underwater. And as for the old people, who says we were going to move them. Just Katrina them. :D