Money isn't everything when there is no place left to live and no where to run to.

http://phillymag.com/articles/science_al_gore_is_a_greenhouse_gasbag

I'm not a scientist, but I do know that there are many dissenting opinions on this subject. The above link is just a reminder of the "other" side.... I hope this guy is right!

While I don't doubt that global warming is happening, I doubt that people are causing it. The globe has warmed a number of times before and then cooled off again. I think it's sort of egotistical that people think we are causing this. The earth is big and weather systems are something we don't really understand. While the east is basking in warm weather, the west is buried in snow. I think the easterners are just surprised that they got our weather and we got theirs. I have studied the last big ice age because I study the cave petroglyphs in France and I am aware that there was a little ice age in the middle ages in Europe which lasted a while and they also had a warm period when malaria was endemic in England. Henry VIII's son may have died from malaria though they called it the sweating sickness then, and it may be associated with a disease in China. However, there were palm trees in the southern parts of England in those days and the weather was warm. I think the press tends to get hysterical before they understand the real causes of global warming which may be perfectly natural. It's certainly happened before. I wonder why the world was so warm during the pleistocene when the dinosaurs were running around in Montana and Canada. They were apparently cold blooded though some folks think some were warm blooded. Still it's pretty peculiar that reptiles ruled the world until the big meteor strike and, whammo, they were extinct. While I'm all for reducing pollutants, I also think we should consider the idea the world changes and weather changes periodically. Also, I'd sell my condo on the beach if I had one.

While I don't doubt that global warming is happening, I doubt that people are causing it. The globe has warmed a number of times before and then cooled off again. I think it's sort of egotistical that people think we are causing this. The earth is big and weather systems are something we don't really understand. While the east is basking in warm weather, the west is buried in snow. I think the easterners are just surprised that they got our weather and we got theirs. I have studied the last big ice age because I study the cave petroglyphs in France and I am aware that there was a little ice age in the middle ages in Europe which lasted a while and they also had a warm period when malaria was endemic in England. Henry VIII's son may have died from malaria though they called it the sweating sickness then, and it may be associated with a disease in China. However, there were palm trees in the southern parts of England in those days and the weather was warm. I think the press tends to get hysterical before they understand the real causes of global warming which may be perfectly natural. It's certainly happened before. I wonder why the world was so warm during the pleistocene when the dinosaurs were running around in Montana and Canada. They were apparently cold blooded though some folks think some were warm blooded. Still it's pretty peculiar that reptiles ruled the world until the big meteor strike and, whammo, they were extinct. While I'm all for reducing pollutants, I also think we should consider the idea the world changes and weather changes periodically. Also, I'd sell my condo on the beach if I had one.

Wonderfully put! I agree 100%.... Thanks for explaining that so well!

Karen

While I don't doubt that global warming is happening, I doubt that people are causing it. The globe has warmed a number of times before and then cooled off again. I think it's sort of egotistical that people think we are causing this. The earth is big and weather systems are something we don't really understand. While the east is basking in warm weather, the west is buried in snow. I think the easterners are just surprised that they got our weather and we got theirs. I have studied the last big ice age because I study the cave petroglyphs in France and I am aware that there was a little ice age in the middle ages in Europe which lasted a while and they also had a warm period when malaria was endemic in England. Henry VIII's son may have died from malaria though they called it the sweating sickness then, and it may be associated with a disease in China. However, there were palm trees in the southern parts of England in those days and the weather was warm. I think the press tends to get hysterical before they understand the real causes of global warming which may be perfectly natural. It's certainly happened before. I wonder why the world was so warm during the pleistocene when the dinosaurs were running around in Montana and Canada. They were apparently cold blooded though some folks think some were warm blooded. Still it's pretty peculiar that reptiles ruled the world until the big meteor strike and, whammo, they were extinct. While I'm all for reducing pollutants, I also think we should consider the idea the world changes and weather changes periodically. Also, I'd sell my condo on the beach if I had one.

:clap2: I remember in the not-so-distant past being warned that an ice age was coming. For heaven's sake, scientists can't even predict the weather through the weekend accurately! A relative gave everyone in our family a copy of Gore's dvd for Christmas; I sold ours and another relative's copy on ebay for more than they're worth :confused:

Sure, climate change over time could be a natural phenomenon. But something HAS changed that was never present through all of human history: our ability to pollute.

Thnk about how much humans have done to pollute the air, though, in the last 150-200 years that we didn't do in all the eons preceding current times. It's mind-boggling to consider how much the population has exploded, what impact the industrial revolution and the automobile have had on the atmosphere. I think it's naive to imagine such relentless and immense output of pollutants into our thin shell of protective atmosphere HASN'T had an enormous impact.

Sure, climate change over time could be a natural phenomenon. But something HAS changed that was never present through all of human history: our ability to pollute.

Thnk about how much humans have done to pollute the air, though, in the last 150-200 years that we didn't do in all the eons preceding current times. It's mind-boggling to consider how much the population has exploded, what impact the industrial revolution and the automobile have had on the atmosphere. I think it's naive to imagine such relentless and immense output of pollutants into our thin shell of protective atmosphere HASN'T had an enormous impact.

Well said Alexandra. It is the mindset that the warming of our planet is normal cyclical happenings that scares the crap outta me. If we don't find a way to stop the constant pollution of our planet then we will see the predictions come true.

Hey anyone have that Gore DVD they wanna get rid of? I will seriously buy it from you. I want it bigtime.

While I don't doubt that global warming is happening, I doubt that people are causing it. The globe has warmed a number of times before and then cooled off again. I think it's sort of egotistical that people think we are causing this. The earth is big and weather systems are something we don't really understand. While the east is basking in warm weather, the west is buried in snow. I think the easterners are just surprised that they got our weather and we got theirs. I have studied the last big ice age because I study the cave petroglyphs in France and I am aware that there was a little ice age in the middle ages in Europe which lasted a while and they also had a warm period when malaria was endemic in England. Henry VIII's son may have died from malaria though they called it the sweating sickness then, and it may be associated with a disease in China. However, there were palm trees in the southern parts of England in those days and the weather was warm. I think the press tends to get hysterical before they understand the real causes of global warming which may be perfectly natural. It's certainly happened before. I wonder why the world was so warm during the pleistocene when the dinosaurs were running around in Montana and Canada. They were apparently cold blooded though some folks think some were warm blooded. Still it's pretty peculiar that reptiles ruled the world until the big meteor strike and, whammo, they were extinct. While I'm all for reducing pollutants, I also think we should consider the idea the world changes and weather changes periodically. Also, I'd sell my condo on the beach if I had one.

I have also read about this. North America was still in a mini-ice age as recently as when Washington was crossing the Potomac. Indeed, this is why the exploration of Canada was such a deathly business for so many of the expeditions, particularly in our more northerly regions, and this is why my country remained a land which housed little more than aboriginals, explorers, and fur dealers while the American colonies were fighting for their autonomy.

I have also read that there were palm trees in the south of England and that malaria was endemic there as late as Elizabethan times.

And so it is true that here we have instances of dramatic climate differences which are within recent times and not millennia ago.

We also have information about a major volcanic eruption which occurred during the Mediaeval period. The refuse from this eruption, the volcanic ash, is believed to have interrupted the normal climate pattern for one to two years. The sun was largely blotted out, agriculture was a wash-out, and thus the Europeans suffered a couple of years of famine. I have read that at least a third of the people who populated Europe at that time died of starvation.

It seems that a major contributing factor to the gentleness of the English climate is the gulfstream, for if you consult a map you will see that England lies far, far to the north of pretty much all of the habitable parts of Canada.

Some scientists speculate that the pattern of the gulfstream may be changing. This leave the United Kingdom as a polar country. It would mess up much of Europe in fact.

Though it is certainly true that natural events throw environmental curve balls, I believe that the human race has now reached sufficient mass that we and our lifestyle habits must now be considered as yet another one of those natural events. We are now an additional factor in this business of the global climate.

Though it is certainly true that natural events throw environmental curve balls, I believe that the human race has now reached sufficient mass that we and our lifestyle habits must now be considered as yet another one of those natural events. We are now an additional factor in this business of the global climate.

PRECISELY. :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

I am not convinced that puny humans can actually cause climate changes, but I may just be dull. I wouldn't mind living in Canada if it weren't so cold. Apparently climate change will affect coastal communities first. Since I live on the great plains where drought is normal, depending on El Nino, it's possible that we can survive. During the last big ice age, there was no English channel and much of coastal France was above sea level. So they are discovering cave painting underwater now. Maybe we've been warming for a long time and have just reached the apex. Frankly, I'll take global warming over another ice age any day. But I do think people get hysterical about scientific stuff as reported by the media who really don't understand scientific stuff. Still I hope those poor old polar bears, vicious as they are, get a nice cooling trend so they won't be marooned on ice blocks. I hope this is a natural phenomenon, but I don't think it would hurt us to stop polluting so much. We have dirtied our nest, and as someone said, the earth will survive, but we might not.

Pollution is endemic in the U.S. I lived about a mile from a superfund site in Baytown, Texas, and our Water was well water. People there died of very strange cancers and stuff like that. One of my students died of cancer of the spleen at about age 45. I moved to Oklahoma to escape that and found that Kerr-McGee, not known for their care of the land, had nuclear site about 30 miles south of Tahlequah. They were closed down, but people around Gore said they just thew radiation soaked stuff in the woods and left. Southern winds blow that stuff up here, and our county and Adair county have the highest cancer rates in Oklahoma. No one has made Kerr-McGee clean that site up, and I am pretty convinced that the high cancer rates may have something to do with that site. Because our governments (state and federal) go easy on these companies, many of us are unwittingly being poisoned and killed. I remember when I was in Baytown there was a big todo about a bunch of kids being born without brains in Brownsville, Texas, which gets its water from the Rio Grande which is heavily polluted by American factories in Mexico. One of my students had a child die of a strange brain cancer and another kid died of it in the same very small town, but the authorities told them it had nothing to do with pollution. These kinds of deaths were very, very rare, and it seems to me that two kids dying of this very rare disease in one small town is more than a coincidence. I may not buy the global warming stuff, but I do buy the pollution stuff. We need to clean this up--now.

http://phillymag.com/articles/science_al_gore_is_a_greenhouse_gasbag

I'm not a scientist, but I do know that there are many dissenting opinions on this subject. The above link is just a reminder of the "other" side.... I hope this guy is right!

Excellent article. Thanks, L8BloomR. If only more scientists like Gieg were getting media attention....

Excellent article. Thanks, L8BloomR. If only more scientists like Gieg were getting media attention....

Glad you found the article interesting! Yes, I also wish the media would give the other side a little more print. What I liked about this article was that it cannot be dismissed as "right-wing propaganda", since there is nothing "right-wing" about this guy!

Glad you found the article interesting! Yes, I also wish the media would give the other side a little more print. What I liked about this article was that it cannot be dismissed as "right-wing propaganda", since there is nothing "right-wing" about this guy!

I was fascinated by what Gieg had to say and he certainly does seem to be entirely agenda-free with respect to a political line. This article is worth reading.

And as to whether you entirely agree with him or you feel that our activities are contributing to global warming, Gieg makes a telling point when he points out that the emerging industrial economies of such countries as India and China are and will continue to be major global polluters. Placing controls on pollutants is a complicated and costly business. Now that NAFTA is in place many of our companies deal with this problem by setting up business in Mexico.