Resmed and Global warming

We sometimes criticize Resmed for policies we do not like.
One very useful thing Resmed does is to be a major sponsor of a site that presents both sides of th AGW, an issue that is highly controversial.

Gore says the issue is settled.
Others do not think so.
I am trying to read as much as I can on this issue and still cannot come to a conclusion.

Take a look at it and learn for yourself.
Kudos to Resmed for this.

http://www.climatedebatedaily.com/

I agree that Kyoto is wasted effort as are Gore's proposals.

"Global warming" is a part of "global climate change". Global climate change is a part of the dynamic planet we live on ... it is a perfectly normal geological process. We ARE in a warming part of this climate change. The data is clear on this with respect to glacial and sea ice retreat and marine transgression.

Anthropogenic factors (ie. hydrocarbon emissions) may or may not have a “significant” contribution to the current warming but that is irrelevant. What needs to be done is to determine just how it will affect the planet's environment including human society and everything that makes it up. How will agriculture be affected spatially? Solar, wind, and geothermal are ok, but not practical for world wide use – so how are we going to migrate safely to nuclear energy? ... that too is inevitable cuz “peak oil” will be reached this decade if it has not already been reached (I think it has).

The focus should be on how we are going to adapt ... NOT how we can reverse the warming ... it can't be reversed! Silly humans!!!

Thanks for that link, Tom.
I didn't have time to read them all but I skimmed some.
It jogged my memory of something I saw recently, so I did a search on it and found quite a few links (below).

I agree the human species has not taken very good care of the planet, but I highly doubt that the "global warming" we're supposedly experiencing is totally caused by humans.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080625/sc ... ansvolcano

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/20 ... ice-found/

http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_sum ... _id=110976

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... /Under_Ice

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 140649.htm


I think "Mother Nature" has had a hand in it, too. And, it's been occurring periodically since the beginning of time.

Den

Here's my goofy theory - the planet sees Humans as a virus. She's having a fever to try to kill us off.

Good as any, I suppose.

LOL,
Babs

well, from the research I have done it seems that we are MUCH MUCH warmer than any period in the history of earth that we have (including fossil records). And the amount of carbon and such is much higher as well. Unfortunately, I don't have links and such as it came from various books and magazines I read a few months ago when I was deciding for myself. but my personal opinion is that Gore is right - we are heading for some serious global change and it might also include a global environment that humans can no longer exist on.

So, while I differ on the cause from Dream, I agree with him that it is very important to start thinking about how we might continue to exist in such a world.

crossfit wrote:well, from the research I have done it seems that we are MUCH MUCH warmer than any period in the history of earth that we have (including fossil records). And the amount of carbon and such is much higher as well. Unfortunately, I don't have links and such as it came from various books and magazines I read a few months ago when I was deciding for myself. but my personal opinion is that Gore is right - we are heading for some serious global change and it might also include a global environment that humans can no longer exist on.

So, while I differ on the cause from Dream, I agree with him that it is very important to start thinking about how we might continue to exist in such a world.

I suppose if you define the period of the history of the earth starting when NOAA began collecting temperature data or if you think the earth began after the 7th day when Adam found himself cold and nekid ... then yes, this is the warmest time ever.

Seriously though, the earth has been around for about 4 and a half billion years ... and the fossil record goes back 3.6 billion years. Most paleoclimatologists never get passed the Pleistocene (~2.5 million yr). In fact, a lot of the misinformation you find on the web try to spin half facts with statements like "according to the geologic record" ... blaa blaa blaa and then you look at their data plots and it doesn't even go past the start of the Holocene (~ 120,000 yrs).

Arguing about whether global climate change is real is just plain stupid from my perspective ... like arguing whether OSA is real or just simply snoring.

Silly humans need to look at the rock record in its entirety to understand geologic processes. You can't understand the forest by just looking at one tree ... much less one leaf.

here's my view on solving the green house gas issue and energy problem:

1. We need to make BIG corks and plug all volcanos including geysers in Yellowstone, we simply cannot continue allowing these sites to contribute to green house gasses.

(are green HOUSE gasses farts??, if so I need to tell my dog to stoppit!)

2. We need to place black plastic over all the permafrost in alaska and elsewhere to capture the methane gas, we can pipe it to my house and I will heat my pool with it.
The black plastic will melt the permafrost faster releasing the methane gas so we can use it.

from a member of PETA
(People Eating Tasty Animals)

Global warming is only the tip of the iceberg. Pun intended. In fifty years, the entire earth will have an entirely different environment. For those who live in cities or who work indoors all day they may not see much change, other than pollution, but those who live and work on the land already see it.

In fifty years, scientists know that at least 90% of all species will be gone. There have been perhaps less than 10 prior global mass extinctions, but this will likely be the biggest by far. Biodiversity is the key to a balanced environment. In the last 35 years, 29% of all known freshwater aquatic species have died. Land species: 25%, Marine species, 28%.

It will be much warmer than we like. Earth could have reliably sustained 2.5 billion humans. At fast approaching 8 billion humans on one earth, and with the current amount of travel we sustain, it is just a question of time before a Class-4 airborne virus decimates our own population. So the question of overpopulation may be moot for our surviving children. Their job will be trying to patch together a new balance out of what species remain.

From personal experience, whole areas of wild land I remember from childhood are gone - turned into suburbia, where most plants are imported. Native plants and animals are killed as weeds and pests. Butterflies, frogs, turtles, newts, lichens, mosses, lycopodiums, ferns - all gone. Gone from what was once my backyard. The species that survive are the ones that are excellent at filling in the cracks at the edge of human civilization - usually not native - and very invasive. In fact, the non-natives can often so over-populate that they push out the less-vigorous-but-balanced varieties of species that originally inhabited the environment. Our lives are not long enough for us to remember what peace and quiet were once to be found in the wild-spaces now gone. Sense of place for our children is very different from that of our grandparents. Everywhere you see trees felled and topsoil stripped, a piece of our diversity is gone.

In the south - Kudzu, a Chinese import originally used brought to the US as erosion control, covers whole forests in a season. Armadillos are migrating as far north now as North Carolina, where they have never been seen before. Formosan termites, imported by mistake from Taiwan to Louisiana years ago, are traveling north into Georgia and North Carolina, eating our houses as they go.

In the Midwest and New England - Purple Loosestrife is choking out wild flora native fauna depend on. It's beautiful, but it's a biodiversity wasteland.

In the Great Lakes - zebra mussels choke out native fish and microfauna.

Where are all the Italian honey bees we imported to pollinate our crops?

The previously permanent arctic icecap will be gone within five years.

Coral reefs world-wide are dying.

There is no place on the earth's surface above or below the planet's sea level which does not show contamination of pcb's - burned plastics that are cancer-causing agents to all life. We have irrevocably changed the path of our planet's evolutionary environment, for better or worse.

To say humans are only part of the equation seems a mask for a more important truth. When a species outgrows it's sustainable population, the population crashes. Some remain to continue, but many die. Humans have changed that cycle by relying on non-renewable resources that have been hiding in the earth for millions of years. No other species has accomplished such a false rate of species population growth by use of non-renewable resources. Humans are the first. Millions of years of resources in the form of carbon are now released back into the environment, in the form of CO2, pesticides, and a myriad of synthetic chemicals and materials that have never existed prior to the 1950's.

Can we really pretend we haven't majorly affected this planet?

Sorry for the downer. This really is what keeps me up at night. Night after night. It's easy to say 'Nobody knows for sure.' But I know some of the well-funded scientists who have done the studies and I have taken their classes and read their reports. It's not a pretty picture. Thanks for letting me vent.

I pray a lot.

I work with a group of scientists who study climate change, a very skeptical bunch who rely on hard data and who don't make a statement lightly unless there is hard evidence to back it up. Nine years ago, they were saying the kind of things DreamStalker said in this post. For several years now, they have concluded that human intervention is playing a large part in global warming and climate change. Almost all the climate scientists in the world agree, and even most US politicians have reached the point of admitting that global warming is real and we need to do something about it. The US military for decades has had plans to cope in a world affected by the consequences of global warming (wars caused by shortage of food, water, economic and social breakdown, displaced populations).

Only a small handful of scientists worldwide think human activity has no place in global warming, and often they are funded by oil, gas, and coal companies with their own economic agendas. However, this minority gets more than its share of media attention, confusing the public.

We humans are smart enough to do something about it, if we have the individual and collective will. We can mitigate or eliminate much human suffering. Alternative energy can take us far (solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal), if not all the way. We can encourage and use the inventions that are coming. We can break our dependence on oil. There isn't one solution; there needs to be and will be many remedies.

Prayer helps. Meanwhile, watch where you spend your money, who you vote for, and don't buy beach front property if you plan to pass it along to your younger heirs.

it maybe easier to believe we don;t have anything to do with global warming or too little for that matter. this only helps things to stay the same and allow the ones most responsible to do the same. please watch this video is very educative
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
and spread it around is funny and kids can understand it well too.

Wow the winds just blew this thread back up to the top (hurricanes are getting weirder all the time)

While I agree that human use of hydrocarbons has contributed to climate change to some degree, I seriously doubt that prayer will help ...

In fact, I think it is just that type of thinking (that prayer will make it all ok) that keeps some people in denial of the importance of climate change and blowing it off as liberal tree hugger terrorism (can you say BillO-Beck-Limbaugh?).

But yes, don't invest in New Orleans if you expect future returns.

DreamStalker wrote:Wow the winds just blew this thread back up to the top (hurricanes are getting weirder all the time)

While I agree that human use of hydrocarbons has contributed to climate change to some degree, I seriously doubt that prayer will help ...

In fact, I think it is just that type of thinking (that prayer will make it all ok) that keeps some people in denial of the importance of climate change and blowing it off as liberal tree hugger terrorism (can you say BillO-Beck-Limbaugh?).

But yes, don't invest in New Orleans if you expect future returns.

WHERE is all those tree huggers that protested the installation of nuclear power plants back in the 60's?

Had they allowed them to install more nuclear plants we wouldn't be burning fossil fuels to make power today.

Take the first nuclear submarine the Nautilaus, it went some 55,000 miles on enriched uranium the size of a golf ball while emitting zero green house gases.

Think I seen or read somewhere that the new Aircraft carriers once fueled can run some 20 years before needing refueling.

They dug a big hole in the rock in Nevada to store that waste well under ground out of harms way, you can store a lot of golf balls there, or you can build a large golf ball cannon and blast that waste into outer space.

So the way I look at it, those tree huggers are just as responsible for today's energy and climate situation as the biggest polluters.

Now they are talking about going to electric cars, what do you think will happen when we have about 200 million electric cars on the road? How will they recharge them?

Our government won't help with that situation, take the FCC for example, they mandated HDTV by February 09. Now there are millions of TV's, if everyone switches to HDTV's the power consumption will nearly double.

The specs on my old Sony 36" XBR400 was 245-285 watts. It was a big TV weighing over 238 lbs. It burned up and I had to get a new one. So I bought a Panasonic 42" HDTV for half the price of the Sony. While I really like the TV it has one draw back, it consumes 585 watts of power, nearly double of that old TV.

Now just think what is going to happen when the millions of households replace their TV's as mandated by the FCC.

Not very well thought out if you ask me. I think before global warming ends us we will see another asteroid or meteor like the one that ended the domain of the dinosaurs and it will encompass the earth with dust and debris blocking out the sun where another ice age begins and starts things all over.

By then we will all just be fossils in a layer of sediment somewhere and someone from Men in Black will be burning our ass and starting the process all over again.

Oh I agree with 'ya on the nuclear issue ... funny how fear is always used to encourage people to make the wrong decisions (seems to be a hard one for people to figure out).

On the TV deal, we kept our Sony 36" tube TV but our new 42" Sony HDTV uses half the power ... it's an energy star rated LCD flat screen.

As for the KT impact that did in the dinos, it was a rare and special impact. Throughout the course of geologic time, the effects of climate change on planetary life is far more frequent and more significant than meteor impacts.

Babette wrote:Here's my goofy theory - the planet sees Humans as a virus. She's having a fever to try to kill us off.

Good as any, I suppose.

LOL,
Babs

I'm thinking Babs is on the right track.

Den

Form the words of George Carlin " The earth is not in trouble, humans are, and when the earth is tired of us, it will shake us off like a bad case of fleas ":lol: or something like that.
When we started using oil to turn into gasoline, coal was a dirty and polluting the air....any how i'm a sceptic too of this Glabal Warming Fear Tactic.