I have two concerns during this election. One is campaign finance reform. The other is the economy. But one that does grab my attention and is really worrying me after what I tell you is the Environment. Tonight, I heard the Reverend Jerry Falwell and a Republican Congressman named Dana Rohrabacher say that there is no such thing as global warming. WHAT? I was rolling on the floor!! The reverend says that its all a myth and that God won't let something like that happen. The Congressman says its a myth created by the Democrats to jack up taxes on gasoline. That was another HAHAHA! The argument they added was that only 1 percent of the pollution that goes high enough in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels. The rest comes from people, plants, animals and cow farts? Also, they said that oil is not a threat to the environment. That before oil, cities would be full of cow manure and that was worse. Man, with thinking like that, shouldn't we all worry about a Republican run ------------------ I Want To Thank God For Making Me A Rocketfan
Republicans are FUNny people. Cow farts!?!?! No such thing as global warming. Well I guess those polar ice caps have been melting due animals and farts huh? hehehehehe ------------------ Fun Police Says: 1. Posting in appropriate forums Sucks! 2. Grammar and sentence structure are not FUN! 3. Duplicate threads are really FUN! 4. Conduct yourself in a FUN way! The Fun Police are Watching. Eat MANGOES & Have FUN or be Assimilated.
I heard once that 100 cow farts equal 1,000 CEO farts, factoring in maturation of future farts. I here Cheney and Gore's futures are maturing quite nicely.
And aren't the Republicans in front in the election race..........................only in America ------------------ Discombobulation Imminent
I think the jury is still out on global warming. Have we really been able to measure such things long enough to know whether or not we're dealing with normal cycles or something else? I'm all for doing something about environmental issues, but I still don't think all of the facts have been taken into consideration (or discovered for that matter). [This message has been edited by TraJ (edited August 05, 2000).]
Almu, can you cite any evidence that global warming has been proven as 100% factual? Same question on evolution, too. ------------------ I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled.
Actually, Almu, they were referring not to the amount of general pollution in the air, but to the levels of "greenhouse gasses". Human pollution and fossil fuel use accounts for only about 1% of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. The majority actually comes from volcanic eruptions world wide. Granted there's a lot of cars being driven every day, but there are also large amounts of low-level techtonic activity releasing carbon dioxide every day. Almu, do you know how far back we have accurate world-wide temperature data? About 60 years. See, this may be hard to understand but nobody was concerned with global warming from 1500 to now so nobody tried taking data. Do you know what the big scare in the 1970's was? I don't know if you're old enough to remember (I'm not but I've looked back in the archives 'cause I was curious) but the front page on all of the news-weeklies was global cooling. The leading thought of the day was the world was heading into a new ice age and we had to do something to stop it. I'm not shivering yet... My point is not to say we need to dismiss global warming out of hand, just that we need to realize that we don't actually know that much about natural temperature cycles. Much work still has to be done before we can see with any degree of confidence that we do indeed need to take steps to reduce our emissions (which as I've said, and even most enivormental groups don't dispute this, are almost insignificant). ------------------ [This message has been edited by dylan (edited August 04, 2000).]
Neil Frank once said at some meterological convention that the idea that man could say whether or not there really is global warming is a joke. He said it's extremely arrogant to assume we have the information necessary to say it's happening. As someone pointed out earlier, only about 30 years ago these same scientists were telling us we were about to enter a new ice age. ------------------
yeah, that one weatherman on channel two.. the one with the moustache that's usually on in the afternoon (this is about four years back) said the same thing.. bout how we dont' know enough yet bout the environment cycles.. to make a claim about global warming. but realistically.. human pollution has contributed to the degradation of the environment.. land stripping.. deforestation.. ozone layer... you can't deny that---or can you? does anyone have numbers on the contribution of recycling to the environment.. i mean, how effective is it really? ------------------ i need a vacation
I saw that on Politically Incorrect last night and it was the kind of thing that gets me mad also. I mean Bill Maher is wrongly informed, but because he was the host of the show and a comedian, everytime someone tried to ask him whetehr or not he ACTUALLY knew anything about the subject besides what he reads in the paper, he made some stupid little joke or somehting. I like Maher a lot, and his HBO special was funny as all hell, but sometimes he goes overboard. Anyway, I think the accurate scientific rebuttal has been discussed appropriately know. We are in a period where things are slightly warmer. But this is mostly natural. Because of the alignment of the planets, their rotation, gravity,etc ,etc every someodd thousand of years we go into an ice age. We all know the last Ice Age was about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. It is during this period that people crossed the Bering LAnd Bridge into Norht America, although the exact date is still under debate (theyre beginning to think earlier than they had previoulsy thought--read any books by Tom DIllehay on Monte Verde, a site in South America that he excavated if you want to know more about this topic). ANyway, there are numerous evidences of the earth going into and out of Ice Ages in the past. They range from coastline positions to rock analyses to level of certain types of oxygen (O2 versus O3) in shells on the ocean floor (essentially during the Ice Ages, all of the ice that forms uses one of these types of oxygen from the oceans leaving the other type in abundance to be used to form shells, etc). The periods in between Ice Ages are known as interglacial periods. We are obvioulsy presently in an interglacial period. We are actually in a superinterglacial period as it is a little hotter this period than some of the last (on a time line graph of tempatures it would basically look like someones heartbeat with this peak being a little higher). However, there have been some superinterglacial periods in the past and the likely result is going ot be that it will be a couple hundred more years or som before the next ice age starts. It is all cyclical and determined by or alignment with certain things in the universe. Ok, bye bye ------------------ Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women!
Now, having said all that, let me add that I do recognize that polluters have to be punished and that steps have to be taken to keep the environment clean. It's just that I don't think big government is a particularly good way of accomplishing much of that. I mean, if you think Houston or Cleveland are bad, perhaps you ought to take a tour of Eastern Europe and tell me how well 50-plus years of big government prevented pollution. ------------------ I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled.
Tectonics is the major reason why CO2 is abundant in the atmosphere (I used to work w/ someone that blamed the Space Shuttles)... but the argument holds that the system is so utterly fragile, that minor changes have significant impacts. The Earth doesn't care if the Larsen Ice Shelf melts or if the Filsner Ice Shelf falls into the water (1.5 degree celsius change global). However, inhabitants of Manhattan, Charleston and Houston may have something to fear. In the meantime, my winters in Utah get wetter and warmer *yeecchh* (where's the powder!). Unfortunately, on the larger time scale... our activity doesn't really matter a damn. If there's an orbital variance, the magnetism of the planet 'flips'... then people are f@cked. Environmentalists and Republicans alike can suffer the same fate of 'moving to Mars'. ------------------ "At one of these governors' conferences, George [W. Bush] turns to me and says: 'What are they talking about?' I said: 'I don't know.' He said: 'You don't know anything, do you?' And I said: 'Not one thing.' [Bush] said: 'Neither do I.' And we kind of high-fived." --Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico shares a verbal exchange that took place between he and George W. Bush. (Quote is from the Los Angeles Times, 5/31/00) Dubyah Speaks
RM95: BK is right. It is the responsibility of the arguer that holds the position 'x exists' to show it to be true. That's why I remain an Atheist. No work. Regarding global warming, it seems as if everyone agrees with the principle model (if you cut down the trees, then CO2 isn't photosynthesized, and it builds up, yadda yadda yadda). The differences of opinion lie in the analysis of the data. It is here that someone could just as easily posit a normal occurrence as a factor as the global warming model. Obviously this isn't exclusively the case; however, the system has a trend of fluctuating. What's a girl to do. Irregardless, the planet is screwed. ------------------ "At one of these governors' conferences, George [W. Bush] turns to me and says: 'What are they talking about?' I said: 'I don't know.' He said: 'You don't know anything, do you?' And I said: 'Not one thing.' [Bush] said: 'Neither do I.' And we kind of high-fived." --Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico shares a verbal exchange that took place between he and George W. Bush. (Quote is from the Los Angeles Times, 5/31/00) Dubyah Speaks
No theory is infallible, that's one of the conditions of a good theory, that it can't be proven. I didn't mean to make anyone think that I thought these things (global warming and evolution) were entirely true. I was just asking the exact opposite question to BK. I just think it's counter-productive to blame it on the Democrats and say that God would never do anything like that. So God wouldn't allow global warming, but he would allow 109 people to die in a Concorde jet? ------------------ Going for the Rolls Royce! visit www.swirve.com [This message has been edited by Rocketman95 (edited August 04, 2000).]
Well, I know that's what you're doing but I don't think it's very productive. Agreed. ****, we disagree about politics. That doesn't mean God's taking sides here. As theONION said this week, "Damn, that's more Germans than the French killed in all of World War II!" ------------------ I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled.
For centuries scientists of the day have been saying how were going to run out of food in no short time at all? I remember one famous incident where two scientists bet about 20 or 30 years ago on th elevel of certain minerals and resources in 20 years. One of course, looked at the rate at which they were depleting, the rate of population growth, and figured, as any mathmatician would, that we would have run out of thsoe resources by now (the numbers usually DO point to that). The other, however, sat back and researched and realized that "scientists" had been saying the same thing for decades and it never came true, realized that things would be doen to ensure these resources still existed and bet agaisnt the guy. NBow I am pretty sure this was a pretty substantial bet, like $10,000 or something. Of course, 20 years later, not only had we not run out of any, we had actually increased our levels of some of the resources bet upon (find new ones, etc, etc). It is an old debated argument. I take the side that we will always find a way to come through. ------------------ Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women!
Kagy, if there is a hell, I'm going there simply for laughing at that last line. ------------------ Going for the Rolls Royce! visit www.swirve.com
I am sure God will come up with a more clever way to annhilate the human race than global warming. (makes me think of burning ants with a magnifying glass) How much longer does the human species have the lease on earth anyway? One century? Ten? ------------------ I am so exasperated that I could expectorate.
I wouldn't say that we have the lease. We're squatters on Insectae's leasehold rights. Being misanthropic is fun. If you drew out the earth's timeline onto a football field, the last two inches would cover primary human development. The last .025 millimeters would cover the Christian era. ------------------ "At one of these governors' conferences, George [W. Bush] turns to me and says: 'What are they talking about?' I said: 'I don't know.' He said: 'You don't know anything, do you?' And I said: 'Not one thing.' [Bush] said: 'Neither do I.' And we kind of high-fived." --Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico shares a verbal exchange that took place between he and George W. Bush. (Quote is from the Los Angeles Times, 5/31/00) Dubyah Speaks