[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

If you want to see how the climate is changing, go to the extremes.

Once again, this is very much proof that things are changing. The debate still remains, however as to whether it is human activity that is causing or contributing to the change.

As a student of Pasteur's Wager, I would say the risk of doing nothing outweighs that of taking action. I know many of you out there disagree.

[noutopia]

The first Earth Day they talked about Global Cooling.Whats up wit dat?

[capt. norm]

You have fallen into the Global Warming trap.

Even if we did everything humanly possible, it would have virtually no effect on global climate.

Climate is one of those elements of nature over which we have zero control.

We could sit around, wring our hands and sing Kum-ba-ya for the next 20 years and it would have the same effect on the climate as implimenting the Kyoto Protocol.

Some of us humans just don't realize how tiny and almost insignificant we are when compared to large systems like the world's climate.

[germanicus]

Arctic pack ice is disappearing, making food scarce for sea animals and causing difficulties for the Natives who hunt them. . As trees and bushes march north over what was once tundra, so do beavers...

Hmmm...trees and shrubs for building and heating sources, beavers for food and fur, new lakes created by damming for alternative fishing. Humans are quite adaptable.

[KeyWest]

Mars, Neptune and Mercury are warming.

The sun is going through a cycle and we have little knowledge of long term sun cycles.

An ice age usually follows a gradual, long term rise in temperature.

CO2 levels are lower now than they were 70 million years ago, before we had cyclic ice ages. Some think the rise of the Himalayas acted as a CO2 sink and caused the reduction.

So we may be postponing or preventing a future ice age by increasing the CO2 levels.

[Lazamataz]

Warming climate disrupts Alaska natives' lives

Change or die.

[KeyWest]

Also add Jupiter to the warming list.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1122986/posts

[SamAdams76]

What can we possibly do about it? We have had ice ages and warm spells all through history. The ground under my feet (New England) was under several hundred feet of ice just 20,000 years ago and will be again. This cycle has repeated itself for 30,000,000 years - well before humans or even dinosaurs walked the earth.

So we are pretty vain to think all this "global warming" and "ice age" stuff is on account of us and that we can prevent it by passing a bunch of silly regulations. Fact is that human civilization developed only over the past few thousand years. We do not seem to realize that this is only a tiny sliver of time so far as the Earth is concerned and that our civilization probably happened to develop during a relatively tranquil period of our Earth's climate.

[moonman]

"He cited the cost — estimated at over $100 million — of moving Shishmaref, an Inupiat Eskimo village on Alaska's northwestern coastline, to more stable ground. The village of 600 is on the verge of tumbling into the Bering Sea ..."

That is over $166,667 per Eskimo. Just give them the money and a 1-way ticket to Miami.

[LadyDoc]

20 000 years ago, Minnesota was under a glacier.

20 000 years ago, the Sahara was a grasslands. Indeed, you still can visit the central sahara of Southern Algeria/northern Chad and see rock paintings of men hunting gazelle and elephants.

The Mayan, the Ashkanzi and the Mississippian cultures all disappeared from climate change a hundred years before Colombus.

We are in the recovery phase after "the little ice age". Crops that the Romans grew in England now are growing again.

Climates change. The question is twofold. Is the climate changing: Answer yes.

Question two: is the climate changing due to pollution. Answer questionable. You see, a single volcano or asteroid would cause more pollution than all our factories.

Question three: should we stop pollution. Answer: yes, and go back to living like our ancestors. But not us, merely other people. The Europeans want the US to stop polluting, but don't follow the treaty themselves.

When I go to Manila, I see "globalization": Pollution, traffic, people living in slums working long hours in factories, etc.

But my husband points out that maybe working 12 hours in a factory, coming home to a slum house with no running water, but being able to relax, watch TV, and eat a factory raised chicken is better than working 12 hours planting rice in the hot sun, coming home, eating only rice and a little vegetables--and in famine season not having enough to eat.

And for rural folks, taking away our gasoline SUV and tractors means going back to the mules and walking 12 miles to shop. No more Walmart. Just make our dresses from flour sacks, I guess. And Malthus calculated that mules/oxen would eat more than could be planted, and so people would starve, so stop people from having babies and don't help poor people in times of famine, you only prolong their suffering. A lot of English believed him... and so they let the Irish starve...a million refused to starve and came to the USA...and reject the expert opinions from the philosophical ancestors of Malthus.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Looks like someone's National Science Foundation grant needs renewal.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

The debate still remains, however as to whether it is human activity that is causing or contributing to the change.

Nice to see that you settled the debate by post #4.

If you're espousing a position, say so at the outset.

[Fitzcarraldo]

With a system as large as the Earth, with very poorly known control parameters, the only course of action is to sit back and enjoy the show.

Politicians and environmental radicals are, however, trying to use the threat of dire environmental changes to control our lives.

With all due respect, they can all go to Hell.

[fdsa2]

Thanks for the post!

[metalcor]

In the long run, how is a warming Alaska a bad thing for humans? Is it not one of the most sparsely populated regions of the world? With the fertile soil and abundant sunshine, if the growing season were significantly longer....

Can you imagine the wheat fields, the cattle ranches? I'm for reinstating the homestead act. I'll start packing.

[Clara Lou]

"the marrow in moose bones is weirdly runny"?
Golly, global warming is making moose marrow runny? WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!! [not. What a crock!]

[Publius6961]

Correction.
Most of us disagree.
All it requires is a mature mind, more than a superficial knowledge of history and science, and the ability to arrange priorities.
The risk of doing nothing about the sun's eventual transformation into a gas giant is infinite, yet most normal adults don't waste a whole lot of time fretting about it.
Besides, there are more pressing, immediate and infinitely more directly dangerous issues to deal with. Like being blown up in a train or at the mall...
Oh, yes, not being neurotic also helps.

[1234]

$100,000,000!! to relocate 600 people!!! OUTRAGEOUS waste of presumed taxpayers $$

[biblewonk]

Here in Cedar Rapids we now have Praying Mantis's. We've never had those before.

[fish hawk]

S##t not only happens, it changes.

[CathyRyan]

A cable TV program called Connections did a show on this I think it was called fragile flower