More Global Warming and Climate Change thoughts

Okay, I'll bite, TBC... (good topic, btw)

I'll counter you on this one just for the sake of good old debate.

Firstly, is it highly possible or no - that in the midst of all this debate about Global Warming, the focus is centred far too much on 'people,' and not enough focus is based truly on 'climate' and 'geo' studies at all?

What I mean is - drastic, long-term climate changes occurred before mankind was ever an
issue. Thousand-year long and longer freezing and heating periods have occurred long before
the industrial revolution - indeed - long before scientists think that 'man' ever walked the
earth. The earth is still here - and yes, I do agree that mankind is polluting the
environment - but is there a need to attribute ALL of the 'climate changes' to mankind and
to 'global warming' issues that point a finger almost exclusively at man? Do we all really think that we have been powerful enough and important enough to collectively ruin the earth and cause a catastrophic almost-to-occur-in our lifetime event? (Sounds a lot like Abraham stories to me, verging on the birth of a new religion to me).

Secondly,
When we hear the terms 'experts agree that' and 'overwhelming consensus is that' - are these
phrases coming from media sources and 'advocacy' groups - or truly from intelligent, highly
skilled analysists, experts, and people who are truly qualified to make such statements. Some are. Some aren't. We should check, shouldn't we? We should examine different sources before we go making strongly voiced arguments, shouldn't we?

Heck - even one of my favourite environmentalists and scientists, David Suzuki, has even
been criticized for having an 'agenda' not directly attached to the REAL truth about global
warming. (ie...reputation is a helluva motivation factor).

Lastly,
Do we NEED to take a side here?

I won't...

YET.

I won't say that "Yes, Global Warming is happening and it is because of man."
I won't say, "No, Global Warming is not happening - mankind is fine in the way that mankind
treats the environment."

What I will say is:

Global Warming is happening and nobody knows why yet.

and

Mankind is abusing the environment in a completely heinous way.

The action that I can take is to check reports and sources until I find that I have enough
information to decide what I believe before I go voicing strong and loud arguments.

The proposed 'plans' (like the Kyoto agreement, for one) that 'experts' have drummed up
don't convince me at all that mankind will solve mankind's abuse of the environment with
'harm reduction' methods. Even if such propositions ARE THE ANSWER...there doesn't seem to
be any decent ENFORCEMENT of the plans so that they can be effective in correcting any
global environment situation that we believe might be cause, in part by mankind.

Again - Mankind will not solve problems caused by Mankind when Mankind cannot even implement what looks like a good plan of action for solving problems.

Then again - I come back to this...are we sure that all the global warming problems are, indeed, caused by man? What if the ideas proposed (ANYWHERE, by ANYONE) for global warming would ONLY WORK if global warming is only caused by mankind's abuse of the environment. These ideas would never WORK if implemented against a causal agent that is not really the cause of the problem. That would be like sending out policemen to respond a crime in Boston but giving the policement a Detroit address.

What about 'cycles' that have been going on forever and the fact that the earth was here for millions and millions of years before mankind every got mankind's dirty little money-grabbing, oil hoarding, polluting, abusive hands on her?

I think it might help to continue to treat the issues separately and study them separately for just a little while longer...like maybe for another day or so.

Maybe it's just the Canadian in me, saying "Don't Act Yet before all the facts are in."

Abuse of the environment is a big TOPIC with many branches of issues...
Environmental changes is a big TOPIC with many branches if issues, too...

Perhaps if we don't lump them together just yet - and we learn as much as possible about each myriad of issues within each topic, we'll find some better answers than we are currently hearing about in our media...

The scariest question: What if the earth is supposed to 'cycle' and do what it is doing, no matter WHO is or is not on earth?

I guess I haven't solved any problems today - but I sure did argue with TBC a lot, huh?

Whoops - I meant - SuperTBC!

Glad you're back.

;)

Global Warming and Climate change thoughts

Well, I know we have been through this once already Teeray, however, I never got to post my rebuttal to your thoughts on global warming. In doing this, I remembered an article that I read in newsweek magazine a few weeks ago called "Global Warming is a Hoax". You can read the full article here . Also I found this timeline which helps to explain important events related to global warming. The timeline is here. To summarize the article in a few words, it details how the republican party along with funds from big oil and energy companies fuel the global warming debate and encourage skepticism on the issue in congress and with the general public. The facts are pretty concrete. The report issued by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), for instance, was written by more than 800 climate researchers and vetted by 2,500 scientists from 130 nations. Compare this with only a few handfuls of scientists who are skepticists of global warming, and you begin to see the real picture. Then take into account the fact that of these few handfuls, many are involved in studies which are being funded by the oil and energy companies. The truth is that President Bush, along with the rest of his party, seem to have problems when it comes to facing the truth, or perhaps they just cant understand it, so I"ll spell it out for them. The earth IS getting hotter due to the greenhouse effect, and the U.S. is fighting an unwinnable war in Iraq. The issues are unrelated except for the fact that our current administration seems to have the same problem as a alcoholic or addict, which is the refusal to face the truth. The only difference here is while the alcoholic or addict is only harming themselves and a few other people, our current government is harming an entire generation of people across the entire globe.

Canadian Penny for your thoughts, Teeray?



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Listening to: Three Days Grace - Never Too Late (Main Version)
via FoxyTunes

Environmental Risks of Wind Power

Well in my search for Windmill Photos I got distracted...

.......by the awful story about Wind Turbines killing bats in Pincher Creek Alberta! lol

To my way of thinking, this little CBC News article is kind of dumb-butt!

It says that people are concerned and DO NOT KNOW WHY EXACTLY the bats are flying into the Windmills. DOH! The answer is given early in the article by a Professor Robert Barclay, and the likely solution to the problem, as well.

If you've ever HEARD a Wind Turbine, you'll understand why bats would fly into them. They HUM and 'whistle' and 'moan.' Likely (As Professor Barclay said) they shut off other 'sonar' senses once they hear the turbine sounds - then end up just schmmmmmushing into 'em. (Yes, schmmmmmmushing is a common Canadian term for 'splat/splatting/smushing into' lol). The solution - put those nasty 'deer' whistles on the Turbines or something - whatever the bats DONT LIKE TO HEAR!

So why would I give a hoop about the bats and put them on the blog?

Well (thanks for asking *rolling my eyes* TBC-who-is-probably-sleeping-right-now), people DO NOT REALIZE HOW DETRIMENTAL many of our animals, rodents, and other creatures are TO OUR ECOSYSTEM.

TBC brought up the topic of 'Global Warming' and I might be somewhat off topic here, however, to my knowledge, the problems of Global Warming are multifarious (having great variety).

Here we have a SITUATION created by people who were trying to HELP the Global Warming, energy/power situation. It was a good idea to study and start developing WIND POWER but now it's affecting the ecosystem!

Now what are we going to do???

We have FOUND SOME ANSWERS out in Southern Alberta that will lead us away, as consumers, from fossil fuels and polluting types of fuels used for energy and power...and along the way, we just killed our bats!

The reason bats are so darned important is that they feed off more harmful pests that are both annoying and dangerous to man and our food crops in Southern Alberta - and to tell you the truth, bats - they're actually pretty cute - and they don't make the worst pets, either! These li'l guys eat insects that carry disease - mostly to our food supplies.

Psssst - here's my fave bat pic - li'l one looks like a mini-pooch upside down covered in wings lol
Ohyeah - here's a 'windmill turbine tower' design plan that someone posted online

Over 500 dead li'l guys were found dead in a local area around certain Wind Turbine fields in S. AB, so in effect, that was enough to kill off the benefit of the bats to a concentrated area! 500 bats DO A LOT OF BENEFICIAL good, so their immediate absense right now is going to affect farmers and communities in that local area presently and for the next few seasons.

What is worse.....we've already seen - in Canada and the USA - a very marked decline in bat population due to other not so altruistic man-made factors (city expansions, pollution, etc). Unlike many other types of small mammal or rodents, many bat species DO NOT reproduce in huge numbers or with great speed. Bats are kind of 'fussy li'l things' that don't have a very high survival rate, as compared with most creatures their size.

Anyhow - that's about enough on that, eh? It's hard for me to tackle TBC's HUGE 'Global Warming' topic without getting side-tracked by these smaller issues.

I still didn't find the pics I wanted to of the Windmill 'farms' that I have actually driven by, and can't spend more time on looking, either - heck - there are more BAT PICS to check out, ya know? lol

Before I go, I will make two direct statements about the 'Global Warming Debate':

I believe that much of the information we receive about 'Global Warming' issues - boils down to plain and simple SCARE TACTICS used for Political Momentum...

And if that is so:

The 'global' public is being side-tracked from the real facts that we need to know about the environment (which is in jeopardy, no doubt!) - in order to solve the REAL environmental issues that are happening in our world.

And Now, Back to You, TBC *Handing over the microphone*

:)

Love Addiction, Cho, and..... Global Warming?

Alright, well I have taken some time to think, and now am ready to respond. I agree with you Teeray, that many factors were what caused the Virginia Tech Massacre. I also have found another article in regards to the prescription drug factor, which you can read here. As far as Love addiction, yes I do know something about it, and addiction in general, and I agree with you in the fact that many people would not consider it an addiction. There are really several types of Love Addicts. One would be co-dependent people, these are the ones who you always see sticking it out through a bad relationship, because they are dependent on whatever emotional needs this person is fulfilling. Another type, is the person who always seems to be seeing "someone". These people are the ones who will find a new attraction a short few days after a breakup, and just move from one relationship to the next never really being fulfilled. I have been both of these people before, and I believe if you fall into one of these categories, you can easily switch to the other. There are other types as well, actually too numerous to mention here. For more information on love addiction try the site for love addiction.

Ok well I've had about enough of talking about Virginia Tech, and Cho. Its time to send this blog in a new direction, and I have the coordinates right here. A highly political and debated issue currently is the issue of Global Warming. For some information on this check out the wikipedia entry on it. Is man causing it? To what degree are we responsible, if we are? Is it a left wing conspiracy? If it is real, how imminent is the threat? These are questions which we all want answers to, and I will do my best to answer with the information available to me. First off, Teeray, Im sure you and your neighbors are cheering on global warming up there in the frigid north. However, Canada and all the northern region needs to stay cold, for obvious reasons, the main one being to keep the polar icecaps frozen. I will say that I do believe Global Warming is occuring, not only because of the statistics and studies done on it, but also because of all the poison man is putting into the atmosphere. I can't believe that all the CO2 we are emitting into the atmosphere has no negative consequences. However, I have not seen conclusive evidence that this is the only cause of recent weather events and average global temperature increases. I believe that the threat is long-term, however it will take many years to reverse this effect. I believe that the suggestion that this is all political, or a left-wing conspiracy, is complete garbage and in itself the suggestion is politically motivated. My opinion is, that we are at a point where we should begin looking for and using other means of energy and transportation, if for no other reason than for the fact that "we don't currently know what, if any, damage we are doing to our environment". That being said, we have not found another earth as of yet in the entire universe. This earth is similar to our own physical bodies, if we don't take care of it we will not prosper and may not even live. Would you put something into your body if you were "unsure" of its effects? Would you need scientific proof to show it causes harm before you would stop? This is exactly what is being asked on the global warming issue. I believe until someone can prove that CO2 is "good" for the earth, we should begin limiting our energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Yes Teeray, Canada will have to stay cold. You should be used to it by now though!!