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Global Warming


Shorty

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Well I kinda stand in the middle when it comes to Global Warming. The Earth naturally is gonna get warmer then get cool down. There have been periods when its been warmer then this. But I dont think we are helping either. I think we might be aplyifying the prooblem.

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personally i can't find one approach to this question. especially the one which would completely satisfy me..

sometimes i think that government should use a 'greener' policy. the climate is getting warmer and we can't denny it. i also do feel it as there is almost no snow during winters in my country anymore :/ the whole stuff with air pollution should also be solved

on the other hand, sometimes i take a completely different approach. it is in human nature to cope with problems. and when some particular problem occurs, at first people tend to ignore it. but when the problem is obvious and becomes an obstacle to the majority, people start really thinking about it and then the problem is solved. so this approach is quite egoistic, but the idea is that when we'll run out of oil, gas, etc.; the earth will be even more polluted; there will be even more huricanes, floods, droughts, etc. then the humanity will be really worried about it and create a sollution.

the first approach is well known. the second one came to me because i see people who own factories, sell oil and make profit in ways that also add to the global warming. they are not interested in quiting their job yet, because it is still profitable.

however, the second approach rellies on human ability to solve any problem and if i'm wrong then acting in this way would simply destroy our earth, which is not too good :)

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Right now it may seem that everything is going well and the end of the world isn't due to arrive anytime soon. However, as I do geography, I can assure you that in the next 50 years we are going to have major problems that the human race have never encountered before. Either we adapt to them, or we will all be exterminated and only the strongest will survive.

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has anyone watched al gores movie on this? i forgot what its called, but in that he shows some funky graphs relating to the growth of increase in temperature and how the humans are exponentially increasing it... its scary stuff

Be careful... Al Gore's movie ("An Inconvenient Truth") might as well be titled "An Exercise in Correlation vs. Causation."

Gore essentially shows the audience graphs that show correlation of two phenomena, X and Y, and then leaves it up to the audience to make the logical leap that X caused Y. He does this over and over again, with impressive frequency in one feature-length film. The movie practically made my skin crawl, because few of the supposed causal relationships have been really shown to exist scientifically. He took the cake by using the so-called "hockeystick graph" as evidence of global warming -- even though this very same graph has been the subject of intense scrutiny and even ire from professional climatologists, because it was created from carefully cherry-picked data. He also ignores the vast mountain of contrary data to the left of the origin of that graph.

My personal take on global warming is that it either isn't happening, or it isn't being directly caused by human CO2 production. The evidence just isn't reliable enough yet to draw any conclusions. However, I am an envrionmentalist (I ride my bike to work, and so should you), and I'll grudgingly support any campaign that actually causes people to curb their wasteful habits and stop their pollution, even if that campaign is unfortunately based on bad or limited science.

- Warren

Edited by chroot
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  • 4 weeks later...
Be careful... Al Gore's movie ("An Inconvenient Truth") might as well be titled "An Exercise in Correlation vs. Causation."

Gore essentially shows the audience graphs that show correlation of two phenomena, X and Y, and then leaves it up to the audience to make the logical leap that X caused Y. He does this over and over again, with impressive frequency in one feature-length film. The movie practically made my skin crawl, because few of the supposed causal relationships have been really shown to exist scientifically. He took the cake by using the so-called "hockeystick graph" as evidence of global warming -- even though this very same graph has been the subject of intense scrutiny and even ire from professional climatologists, because it was created from carefully cherry-picked data. He also ignores the vast mountain of contrary data to the left of the origin of that graph.

My personal take on global warming is that it either isn't happening, or it isn't being directly caused by human CO2 production. The evidence just isn't reliable enough yet to draw any conclusions. However, I am an envrionmentalist (I ride my bike to work, and so should you), and I'll grudgingly support any campaign that actually causes people to curb their wasteful habits and stop their pollution, even if that campaign is unfortunately based on bad or limited science.

- Warren

I have to agree with you on this topic. I am all for cleaning up the environment, but I don't believe that global warming is a threat. Humans may be contributing or causing it, but I have yet to see any sweeping evidence that the world is going to end because of it. As a motorcycle rider, it might seem strange that I care about the environment, but the desert that I ride in is one of the most beautiful places ever, and I want to keep it that way. I have seen Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth," and it was absolutely ridiculous. The graphs he used were unlabeled, he only used computer models to show ice melting, and when he showed mountains covered in snow, and then showed the same mountains a few years later with little snow, he did not say if both pictures were taken at the same time during the year. I found the whole movie to be a poorly done propaganda piece to spur the carbon-credit company Gore owns. There is a book that I recommend to anyone who wants to get more information on the subject. The book is called "State of Fear," and it is by Michael Crichton, the author of "Jurassic Park." He addresses the confusion about global warming, and shows a way to look at the world that is very similar to the IB way, which is to always seek truth. he explains that global warming is all part of a fear mentality that is fed by the media. The hype surrounding the End of the World scenarios that are always in the news, SARS, bird flu, west nile virus, mad cow disease, and countless others are all explained in this book. This doesn't mean that none of these things are dangerous, but the threat surrounding these events is exaggerated to sell the news. Crichton has other sources on all this, at his website http://www.crichton-official.com/index.html . I strongly recommend this to anyone who wants to know more.

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How ironic, I'm actually supposed to be studying for my chemistry test on the option environmental chem right now because my test is on Tuesday lol. Naturally, I'm not yet :lol: .

But umm, first of all, Al Gore's movie is very manipulative and basically wants to brainwash everyone into believing his beliefs..I do believe that global warming is occurring and that humans aren't making things better with our automobile emissions, but not quite to the extent that Al Gore is suggesting.

I think we do need to curb our wasteful tendencies and be more environmentally friendly but it's hard to convince billions of other people to do the same..especially corporations who want to cut costs.

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I've always thought of global warming as something that occurs naturally but the stuff we put into the atmosphere amplifies the effect. Temperatures and weather around the world are acting wonky possibly due to the amplified effects. This fact was firmly reinforced on 9/11. The day all planes were forced to be grounded the temperature decreased 1 C.

I always watched Al Gore's movie and all he showed was a correlation between the increased emissions of CO2 and temperature but I believe he is correct to some degree because we are partly to blame for all the green house gases we put into the atmosphere. I believe the earth goes through cycles of increased temperature and decreased temperature because of what we're going through now and 10,000 years ago the Ice Age.

Thats just some stuff I learned in science and other resources.

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  • 2 weeks later...
How do you explain all the horrible anomaly weather that has been occurring these past few years?

Temperature fluctuations in every single country has increased.

Prove it.

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I stand somewhere in the middle - I'm not sure we're going through global warming. In the media there's a lot of conflicting information : expert A says that we're going through global warming, expert B says the Earth is cooling, etc. No matter if we are or we aren't experiencing climate change, we should definitely change our habits and reduce our ecological footprint.

Edited by homeroom
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Global warming exists. We do not know if it is exaggerated or not. That would be the media exaggerating it, if so. Either way, our reaction has not been exaggerated. Outside the European Union there has been far too little action taken.

Edited by ozZiiiii
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I think that global warming is exactly how the Comedy Central show South Park portrays it... In the episode, for those of you who haven't seen it, involves Al Gore running about ranting about how this beast that he calls ManBearPig, 1/2 man, 1/2 bear, 1/2 pig, is going to kill us all. ManBearPig is a symbol for Global Warming and it is just a bunch of crap. believe it or not people, we are still coming out of the last ice age and the world is bound to get warmer. for all of the people who say that "An Inconvenient Truth" is a scientific backing for global warming is completely insane. The Graphs that he uses to compare the global temperature and the CO2 emissions from cars are not labeled truthfully and therefore cannot be used as a viable resource for the theory of Global Warming. I agree with joesaelens about this and i also am a motorcycle rider. there is no place more beautiful to me than the desert. I am not one to destroy something i love but i don't believe that Global warming is going to be the death of us all.

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i think im in the middle too. I realise that the climate may be changing and that we almost definitely have played a hand in that, but i dont believe its as drastic as the media have made it out to be. I think, regardless whether it was us completely who caused it or partly the natural processes as well, we should be trying to lessen our ecological footprint as homeroom put it and improve our technologies to lessen our impact on the world because we can. We are the only species that ever existed on this planet that has manipulated it to fit our lives. So i think we should be start trying to change things for the benefit of the world, regardless of who or what caused the problems.

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I remember before we entered IB we once had a Geography class where our affectionate teacher told us about the troubles of global warming and how mankind has caused this because of greed and bla bla

Then my friend (he is in IB1 with me now), who is very smart but also very lazy, then asked ''when is global warming going to be really problematic - like floods that will submerge continents and stuff?''

My teacher told us

My friend calculates while the teacher continued her emotional speech

My friend: ``YES!!! I'll be dead by then! YES! YES! I don't have to worry about global warming!´´

Class laughs. Teacher shocked.

It was funny

That is awesome. I went to see my eighth grade history/english teacher, and he said the same thing. he said, "You guys have to worry about al this crap, but I get to be dead. HA HA!" By the way, your "emotional" teacher is a perfect example of why I don't believe global warming is a threat, because there is always emotion surrounding its discussion. In true science, emotion is not a factor.

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