Arctic summer ice anomaly shocks scientists

[Tormod]

Well, whether we can quantify it to the nearest digit or not is immaterial. Fact remains, pumping millions of tons of carbon that was isolated from the rest of the system for millions of years into the atmosphere each year, simply cannot be a good thing.

 

It's no use we ignore the obvious.

 

Sure, we don't know exactly how much damage is being done, but damage is being done nonetheless, and it surely is something we can do something about.

 

Listen to yourself! Which damage is being done?

 

Yes, we need to do something. But what? We can't do *everything*.

[Boerseun]

Listen to yourself! Which damage is being done?

 

Yes, we need to do something. But what? We can't do *everything*.

Huh?

 

'Course we can't do everything, but that's no reason for us to do nothing. We can slow down on the highways and use less fuel, we can boil kettles with only as much water as is needed, we can discourage the use of plastic plants, there's a heck of a lot that can be done do slow down the rate at which we inject carbon into the atmosphere. And we can do all of this as consumers, on our own day-to-day level.

[Tormod]

I agree to all those things - they should be done *anyway*, regardless of global warming, because global warming is not the only issue at hand - I'd say pollution, reckless use of natural resources, oil spills, litter problems etc is a much larger problem - both because it is *obvious* that it is caused by humans, and because it has immediate impacts on us.

 

The problem with global warming is, as has been mentioned several times now, is that we don't know if, or perhaps people will be more comfortable if I say "how much", we are contributing to it. We have no clear way of measuring this because we don't even know *what* is contributing. Heck, we're not even sure if the global warming trend will naturally slow and reverse itself.

 

That's why my point is that we should not try to think that me must do everything we can to stop global warming. We should, however, do everything we can to act responsibly in our own environment.

 

It may not come as a surprise but I have read lots and lots of articles and papers on global warming and I am still not convinced that the scientists know what's going on. So my problem is that we're being told the world is about to end, when in fact nobody knows what will happen, nor what we can do about it. It's a typical scare tactic, and has nothing to do with science.

 

Heck, we're all scared shitless that the world will be this much warmer and that much less habitable in 100 years or whatever. But where is the evidence for this? Nada.

 

Research into global warming has been going on for - what - 20 years? At most.

 

Read this article:

 

England's warming 'not natural'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5357606.stm

 

Note:

 

Since the 1950s, CET has risen by about 1C - more than the global average, but less than the increase recorded in parts of the world thought to be particularly sensitive to climate disruption such as the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Peninsula.

 

Note - "more than the global average", "since 1950", "thought to be".

 

If they have data since the 1600s, it would be natural to point out that there have indeed been other periods since 1600 where the temperatures in Britain have increased by more than 1C, and also gone down by more than 1C. The problem with their data is that prior to 1900 I suspect the quality of the data is not very good.

 

And 1C over 56 years...they fail to explain in that article what the impact of that is. They also fail to predict what will happen to the temperature in the next 56 years.

 

The only scientific backup they provide is an "anthropogenic forcing" model which needs better explanation.

 

Such stories are *bad science* because they are more effective at scaring people than anything else. It gives no useful information.

 

I'd rather recommend this site:

http://www.realclimate.org/

[Tormod]

Just to clearly state my POV (before I am labeled as a diehard sceptic): I am not saying global warming isn't happening (scientists have proven that it is).

 

However, we still need to figure out what the human-contributed aspect is and how to stop it/minimize it, and if possible, reverse it (the human contribution, not global warming itself, which is inevitable - it's a cyclical thing).

 

I do think climate research is extremely important! And I also think it's vital that people are *aware* of the actual issues, and that they learn *what to do* and (vitally) *why*.

 

That is, after all, why we keep posting news about climate and environment issues when we can.