I always believe scientists...but it's hard to tell who's being manipulated and who isn't...

I know the earth is getting warmer, that's a fact.  The cause is the thing being debated.  Is it people, a natural phenomenon, or both?

~Zoo

Yes, it is hotly debated.

Tonight these Scientists were adament it's NOT man. They also didn't seem too alarmed with all the hoopla. If they're not worried why should we?

If they're not worried why should we?

Well...we should be worried.  It's causing a massive shift in the artic...as in the lowest recorded ice coverage.  That could have major ramifications for people...not to mention all the artic organisms.  Polar bears are getting hit hard...even resorting to cannabilism in some cases.

Let me ask you, though...did they have any scientists on that special that were concerned about global warming?  If not, then it was pretty biased.  To present an accurate report you have to have both sides of the issue lay down their evidence so that you can decide for yourself.  IPCC doesn't even do it's own research...so they wouldn't be the best source for any hard data.  They do take into account other peer reviewed reports...but I'd like to hear it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.

Reducing our carbon emissions certainly wouldn't be a bad thing.  Even humans aren't responsible, all the crap we're pumping into the atmosphere has to be doing something.

~Zoo

Polar bears are getting hit hard...even resorting to cannabilism in some cases.

They brought up the Polar bears and said the stuff written about them are not true. I can't recall exactly what was said tho, now..... other than they dismissed the negativity surrounding them. I do remember they said the population of these polar bears is on the rise.

did they have any scientists on that special that were concerned about global warming

no, but I understood why for this particular special. It was because we are NOT hearing the other side. The media is always one sided. But it would be interesting to see a live debate done. Instead of politicians put the Scientists up there. I'd watch that!!

all the crap we're pumping into the atmosphere has to be doing something.

maybe or maybe the atmosphere is alot bigger than what man can do to it.

They brought up the Polar bears and said the stuff written about them are not true

I went to a lecture last night presented by Dr. Ian Stirling, a scientist who has studied polar bears for 40 years.  Am I expected to believe he's talking out of his ass when he said that polar bears were on the decline because of lack of ice?  Hunting grounds are melting, starvation is on the rise, high cub mortality when the ice breaks earlier than it should...come now, I don't think he'd lie about it.

~Zoo

The planet warms, the planet cools, the galaxy spins around. Where's the beer?

Oh...and this...uh, we had an ozone hole issue awhile back, didn't we? Chloroflurocarbons(CFCs) were banned because of that...so we can have an effect on the atmosphere.

Locally we have one hell of an effect on the environment-acid rain, toxic and nuclear wastes, clear cutting, strip mining, and a host of other things. While those aren't on a global scale it shows the massive trauma we can have on an area.

We've also been responsible for the extinction of so many things. One of the greatest examples of that would be the passenger pigeon, a flock of which was reported as taking 3 days to fly through an area. They were hunted to extinction...millions and millions of birds and we killed them all. So yes, people can have an effect on things in extreme ways...it's foolish to think otherwise.

Individually we may be no more than a microbe in a petri dish...but if you get enough of us together we can cause a nasty infection. An infection of one single organ in the human body can bring us down...lungs, liver, heart, kidneys, brain...and the whole thing buckles and dies. It's not impossible for us to screw up the planet, we've done it to local areas, you just have to extrapolate to see the potential.

~Zoo

How many years back has it been since the ice age? Global Warming has been occurring since then obviously. Now it hasn’t been that long ago that "scientists" were predicting a future ice age, huh. Solar rotations and money do interesting things to an activists' agenda. If for one moment you think the human race is responsible for global warming and can stop it, get over yourself.

Do you believe everything you see on TV?

As opposed to believing everything we see on the movies?

SC, there's debate for a reason. Because there are a lot of variables we simply do not know.

I know. I was being flippant about both.

k...as long as you know!

Yeah..TV isn't the greatest place to be gathering information...especially speculative scientific data. Woe to the sensationalist media.



Maybe they're not the cause...but they could just as well be a catalyst.

~Zoo

HOWEVER, zoo...stating conclusively that we are the cause is the kind of "junk science" we've all been talking about. I have met very few people who oppose the idea of environmental responsibility, I for one am just tired of people attempting to bully us into living a luddite lifestyle or paying them "protection money" (carbon credits) based on scare tactics.

...and I would not be one of those people. I'm just about trying to figure out exactly what is happening as well as keeping the possibilities open. People who swing to far to one side of a debate often don't bother considering the debate at all, but take it up as more of a blind obsession. You see people like Gore with the mindset of "OMG IT'S LIKE TOTALLY HAPPENING FREAK OUT!!! *BURIES CAR AND PLANTS A TREE OVER IT*" and then the other side of that spectra is "GLOBAL WARMING IS BULLSHIT!!! *DOES DONUTS IN SHOPPING MALL PARKING LOT FOR HOURS ON END TO PROVE POINT*" Until I see conclusive proof of the cause on either side, I'm willing to consider either possibility. It's quite a circus in my head when I'm weighing these things.

Although, I do believe steps to reduce carbon emissions as well as other various things we like to pump out can only lead to a reduction of negative effects that we have on the environment regardless of whether global warming is our fault or not.

~Zoo