If we cause the temperature to rise a few degrees in the next century, so what? It gets a little warmer, the seas rise a little. Why should I think this is particularly important?
I think it’s all a bunch of bullshit, you know the nuclear power fear-mongering, the ozone layer.
Anti-establishment alarmist bullshit is fun.
Proponents like to make appeals to athority and say it’s generally accepted and most scientists agree with global warming, but that doesn’t make it so:
http://www.sitewave.net/PPROJECT/pproject.htm
I just find it hard to get worked up about Co2. Its effect as a greenhouse gas is very small. The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor.
On the other hand, I flip flop on this a lot. Tomorrow, I may be panicked about it again.
mr. jp: I understand how it is hard to get worried about global warming and it is possible that the Anthropomorphic effect is minimal but you live in Denmark, I would think that a resident of a peninsula country with huge amounts of shoreline would be very worried about the rise of sea water levels, irregardless of cause.* If the sea level rises 6 inches, what does that do to Denmark? If it rises 3 feet what does it do to your country?
If humans are having a negative effect, wouldn’t you want this investigated and possible reduced? I can see not panicking over a slow and very possibly natural process, but we should continue to investigate and look for ways to reduce emissions.
Jim
- Sorry for the run-on sentence
Worse yet, what does it do to the Netherlands? So much of the country is below sea level – how high can they make those dikes?
If the influx of fresh water from the melting Artic ice cap disrupts the Gulf Current (as it is theorized) expect to have a frozen solid Denmark in a few years afterwards, not a warmer place.
Meanwhile tropical storms get more destructive, some islands and low laying countries are washed out of the map and a good part of the agricultural infrastructure would have to be re-adapted top the new climate patterns.
Manbearpig is gonna get you, mr. jp! 
I, for one, am very concerned about the quality of life my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will experience. :rolleyes:
I am not sure of your age, but the effects of the current warming trend is likely to adversely affect your Grandchildren, is that possible important enough to you Mr Rolleyes?
Jim
mr. jp … I understand where you’re coming from. It’s easy to conform that in the short-term past (last 30 years), the temperature has been getting warmer. But I can’t see how the role of human activity in this warming is in any way knowable – there’s no doppleganger humanless Earth with which to compare.
What Exit asks the right questions here, and does not assume the conclusions. Obtaining data about global warming that does not contain assumed, speculative conclusions is no small feat.
Slight whoosh here – I can’t tell if you’re sarcastically disagreeing with the OP, or if you are playing it straight and are agreeing. Being this is the SDMB, I’ll take a stab and guess the former is the case.
OK, so here’s the thing – there was concern in the very recent past (mid 1970s) that the Earth was going through global cooling. So what are our data here – a few decades of cooling followed by a few decades of (geologically rapid?) warming? And we have no way of distinguishing man-made effects from natural geological fluctuations, right (IOW, any experiments we can conceive of have no control)?
well, they raised the dikes higher after the 1953 flooding disaster, and they’ve worked fine for half a century.(some of them are 40 feet high.)
Even if global warming raises sea levels 3-5 feet as predicted, it will be a gradual process over a decade or more. That should be enough time to add another 15% to their height.
It’s true that the primary greenhouse gas is water vapor. Water vapor exists in equilibrium with liquid water, and the total amount in the atmosphere controlled by the average temperature of the earth.
There are equilibrium mechanisms for carbon dioxide, like CO2 absorption by plants, or dissolved CO2 in the oceans, but plants are not able to absorb the CO2 required to keep an equilibrium, and the oceans are becoming saturated. As the temperature rises, more water vapor enters the atmosphere, and a feedback loop is established.
Global climate changes are not going to wipe out life as we know it, but everyone’s going to be affected, and the overwhelming majority of the effects are going to be bad.
I have faith that the Netherlands can handle the rising waters better than most countries. I only stress Denmark because of mr. jp’s location field.
bordelond: Thank you, I came to this board mostly convinced of the Anthropomorphic effect. But many threads on this board and follow-up reading have made me much more open minded about the entire process. It still looks like most scientific studies are pointing to a significant sea-level rise over the next 50-100 years but the cause is very hard to prove to a high degree of accuracy.
I still believe reduced emissions are a very worthwhile goal as emissions affect a wide variety of global environmental concerns and not just global warming.
Jim
Postive feedback can change conditions in a big hurry. I don’t have a lot of respect for those who say, “Well, it’s just a couple a degrees and that gives us plenty of time even if the rise is caused by our activities.” We don’t own the earth, we are only usufructuaries[sup]1[/sup] and owe our successors an earth that is as good for their purposes as the one we inherited was for ours.
Those future generations will make technological advances over today and will adapt to conditions as they find them-provided those conditions don’t change too fast. There is nothing catastrophic about changing our way of doing things so as to minimize our effect on the climate. It will result in dislocations but I question the view that it will increase costs out of reason and result in losses of jobs for people.
- One who is entitled to enjoy the benefit of the use of something belonging to another without imparing its substance.
Yeah, I hear that, and I get all scared, and then I wonder how the hell they know what plants are able to absorb. Won’t more plants grow in an environment that supports them? Won’t they grow bigger? Won’t we get algae blooms in the ocean? How do you know? How good are the models? They don’t look very good.
So, I relax again.
Then I start thinking about all the other things that we mess with and fuck up as a species and think about the intrinsic hazard of altering with complex chaotic systems and then I get worried again.
Then I think that a multi-billion year old complex system must be exceedingly hardy and really we’re thinking too much of ourselves as a race if we think we can destroy the world, and I feel calm again because we really are insignificant.
Than I think that that’s no reason we can’t fuck it for ourselves and get scared.
Then I think it’s just fear-mongering like ozone and whatnot
In the end, I kind of think that nobody knows, but on general principles I’m in favor of conservation and treading lightly on mother earth where possible.
Then I say “What are you Scylla, some kind of fucking hippy?” and I want to burn down the rain forest and build an industrial complex.
I’m extremely conflicted on this issue.
I’m more concerned about clean water and air and I think that should be our priority.
Marc
That is the problem with having 6 heads. 
These issues are tied together if you worry about man’s effect on Global warming. The emissions that Greens and most Scientist want to reduce are a major portion of Air Pollution. Coal burning power plants; Clear cutting forests by burning them out, motor vehicle emissions, etc all affect the Air in a very measurable way. The also affect water quality. Building roads and parking lots near wetlands increases toxic run-off and if the wetlands have been removed or reduced significantly then the pollution begins to change the estuaries quite a bit. Heavy industries & development have caused major changes already.
I think it is safe to say the environment is one large interconnected engine and we do have a need to keep it running clean.
Jim
Okay, here’s one thing I remember from seeing An Inconvenient Truth (which, if the OP seriously wants an answer to his question, he should watch as soon as possible):
The ice and snow, particularly at the poles, is melting/disappearing. Ice reflects sunlight; water absorbs it. So the more the polar ice melts, the more radiation from the sun the earth will absorb, the warmer it will get, and the harder it will be to reverse the process.
Have you ever wanted to put a bullet in every Panda that wouldn’t screw to save it’s species? 