[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]Sorry, dude, not even close. The fact is that, the only thing scientists agree on is that the climate is changing... not much to debate there, when has the climate NOT changed? What they DON'T agree on is the contribution of man to climate change. Isn't that odd? If we have such a profound effect on our environment, you would think our contribution would be easy to quantify.In point of fact, our contribution is only noticeable in areas where we congregate en masse (i.e. large cities). So when you're standing in the middle of Los Angeles or Shanghai, you see the smog and everything else, and it seems obvious. Zoom out a few hundred miles and man's contribution quickly disappears. Our contribution is about like a person pushing on the back of a freight train that is rolling downhill. Does that person have a contribution? Yes. Is it significant? Not in the slightest.Something else to consider... we are well aware that there are times when the planet has been covered in ice; likewise, there have been times when there was absolutely no ice on the planet. Life has survived and flourished in spite of these conditions, so why the panic now? Man has been around for over 150,000 years. The climate has changed quite a lot during that time. Is that also our fault?Finally, you said that we should err on the side of caution. However, these same experts who can't agree on the contribution of man to climate change, DO agree that it would cost trillions of dollars to affect the global temperature but only a couple of tenths of a degree. That's an aweful lot for something that would probably have no effect, and to address something that is certainly beyond our control[/citation]
How would the contribution of humans to climate change be easy to quantify? Weather patterns are extremely complex mathmatical problems, essentially, there N-order problems, we can't predict the path of a hurricane with much certainty and that's a storm that has already formed, we use our most powerful supercomputers to solve these type of problems.
Yes, the climate changes often, but the point, is that man changes it out of it's normal cycle, and we haven't been using fossil fuels for more than a 100 years, so, of course in our prior 150,000 years we have effected the environment very little. The issue isn't our existence, it's how we create and use technology, combustion of oil is relatively new. I'll give a you a simpler example, the nuclear powerplants in Japan, their destruction has adversely effected their local environment, we didn't have the technology to do this for all 150,000 years. Do we know what all the impact will be, no, but we can say for sure it will have consequences. If you are in a car accident can we tell you all the bones that will break in your body, no, but we know if you hit another car going 55 mph's , chances are you will sustain injuries. In the same vain, can we say how all the weather will change, as we consume fossil fuels , releasing once previously trapped CO2,no, but we know that this will invariably warm the earth and raising the temperature of the earth will effect current patterns in the ocean which ultimately determines weather on the continents. I don't even understand the debate, here, as far as trillions of dollars we've spent well over trillions of dollars over a century burning fossil fuels, of course, if we started tomorrow and conciously tried to do it, it would cost quite a bit, however, it's cummulative effect that is issue, time, over time, we have impacted it. Think of it like an ion drive, in itself, each ion provides very little thrust, over time, though an ion drive in space is the fastest mode of transportation we've ever developed.
Like I said, I don't understand what is there to really argue about, and what does cost have to do with it, it's simple cause and effect, you release lot's of CO2, you warm up the earth, you warm up the earth, it's climate will change. At the end of the day I simply think it's just stupid to argue against climate change, scientist don't disagree, on this one, oil companies, coal companies, disagree because it will cost them money to create cleaner burning cars or factories that emit less green-house gases, disagree on what that effect will be. But, all scientist agree the earth has gotten warmer and the CO2 levels have increased dramatically over the last 2 centuries.
Maybe you should atleast know what the scientist who disagree, disagree about it's not that the earth has warmed, it's not even that it's due to activities that they disagree, they just disagree as to what the result will be, and these guys are squarely in the minority, kind of like the scientist who disagree that AIDS is caused by HIV (yes there are scientist who believe HIV does not cause AIDS). Finally, I'm asking you the more simple question what does any person, government, or other have to gain by creating the idea of "Climate Change". If it's not true, it makes life easier for everyone, including "governments", so why would they even want to promote it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
lets clear up some points.
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