While America is freezing...

[BobF]

And here is a quote from Pachauri. He is admitting that the UN IPCC is just following political leads.

Pachauri admits purpose of the UN IPCC report it to make the case that 'action is needed on climate change': 'There will be enough information provided so that rational people across the globe will see that action is needed on climate change'


Pachauri admits the IPCC science reports are tailored to meet the political needs of governments: 'We are an intergovernmental body and we do what the governments of the world want us to do. If the governments decide we should do things differently and come up with a vastly different set of products we would be at their beck and call.'


[url]http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/19/ipcc-chairman-climate-report?CMP=twt_fd
[/URL]

 

[Don M.]

The IPCC, IMO, is just a charade being conducted by governments to make the public "think" that they are serious about taking actions. The rulers of these governments know that by the time that any significant effects of Climate Change occur, they, and all the rest of us, will be long gone. At the present rates of change, it will be well into the next century before rising oceans, etc., really begin to impact the populations. We Cannot cease the use of fossil fuels, unless everyone agrees to turn the clocks back 3 or 4 hundred years. By the time sufficient amounts of alternative energy become available, the weather patterns will be altered such that nothing we can do will change them.

Climate Change must be looked at from a perspective of decades...not just one or two years. In the US, the best indicator might be the ongoing drought in California, and the entire SW, vs. the excessive amounts of snow and precipitation occurring in the Eastern half of the nation...but even this must be looked at in the context of how many more years this continues. If California doesn't get some serious rain in the next 2 or 3 years, we will see the effects at the grocery stores...as a significant amount of our fruits and vegetables come from the San Joaquin Valley.

Many of the "scientific" reports currently being bantered about are increasingly being subsidized by those who would profit from these studies. As such, it is very hard to believe many of them.

The planet is going through the early stages of climate change....as it has done many times in the past. The problem now is that there are over 7 billion people who could be potentially impacted....and that number is scheduled to grow to 9 billion by mid century, and as many as 12 billion by the end of this century. Between overpopulation, and a changing climate, those living 100 years from now will have some serious issues to deal with.

 

[Warrigal]

My thoughts in blue.

I know that a lot of things that change in our environment are being changed by what "man/woman" does, but also, if we go back far enough, the Earth is really an ever-changing planet, not all caused by man.

No-one in their right mind would claim that the earth is static. It is a very dynamic and complex system and just as well, or there would be no life on it at all. We rely on the seasons, the weather, the tides and the cycle of erosion and renewal, the movement of the earth's crust that produces earthquakes and volcanoes.

However, organisms can bring about change. Forests for example can increase the amount of water and oxygen being pumped into the atmosphere while at the same time reducing the CO2 build up. This increases rainfall and promotes further plant growth which allows animal communities to thrive. A lack of plants results in desertification.

Humans collectively constitute an organism that can produce effects that are detrimental to many forms of life, including our own. We cut down the forests unsustainably, pollute the waters and burn fossil fuels at ever increasing rates. The net effect is a disturbance to the balance of the natural systems. Eventually, the natural systems will be affected in ways that we will not like. They are showing signs of this happening now.

Why are we blind to this? My mother used to say "There are none so blind as those who will not see". We are wilfully blind because we don't want to change our ways, or pay a little more for fuel. Eventually both of these inconveniences will be forced on us and we will then most likely complain because no-one told us what would happen.

Well, that last part is certainly not a fact. The warnings have been issued, but just as the OT prophets warnings fell on deaf ears, so it is with the calls to modify our technologies for the sake of our home planet.


It doesn't surprise me, maybe it should scare me if I think of a particular Twilight Zone episode where this gal was living in an apartment in NY City, dying of the heat, the planet I mean, was being "cooked to death" by the Sun. Then she wakes up, realizes she was dreaming, and finds that the planet is actually freezing, or was it the other way around.

All the more reason to enjoy life while we have the chance

This isn't science fiction and there are generations alive today who will curse us for our selfishness.

 

[BobF]

Or generations that will curse us for taking away lots of reasons and ways for creating a decent way for them to stay comfortable even when the weather is severe. No fuels for generation of electricity, pretty sad living for no reason, just mistaken ideas. And so forth, on and on. We have no substitute for these fuels some wish to be taken from us.

In the US we have lots of coals for fuel for the next hundreds of years. Our test plant was ready for testing in Indiana as Obama became President. He shut down the test. And pushed instead for unproven and shown to be inadequate wind and solar methods instead. So Obama changed from a likely winner to likely failures with nothing more than Obama's ideas. He actually blocked the necessary testing of a clean coal process for generating electrical energy. This test plant could have shown us what could really generate energy with out polluting our atmosphere and countries around the world could have benefited from the success of the test. The expense of the test was already spent so nothing lost if the test had proceeded.

This just goes to show that far too much of the push against coal and other fuels is just a nasty POLITICAL effort and very little chance that our windmills and solar items will ever be able to do the job that our other fuel means had been and could be doing. Over all, must less expensive and more efficient that what has been proposed and pushed on us.