Good news stories about global warming

[mjdtexan]

Sheesh, all of us agree that we need to do more to help our planet, if I am not mistaken, there is not one voice here who has said otherwise. What some of us are saying is that man can not and has not changed the tempature of the planet. It goes through cycles. Its COOLED DOWN the last two years. God controls this, not you.

Again, yes, we are poisoning our planet. Yes, we need to get off of oil for many reasons. Yes, our wild life is being run off. Yes, we need to continue to manage our forest. Yes we need to conserve our waterways.

NO we are not changing our planets tempature. The title in this thread has "Global Warming" in it. We were simply addressing it and its promoters. Its good to be, a) aware, b)talking about it, c) doing something about it, and d) taking a personal stance even ifin its not popular.

Quote:
In fact it means that you get to disagree as loudly as you want too. All of us (I assume) no matter what side of the isle we are on are proud of that. I love debates like this ifin they are kept civil. I dont dislike any of my friends (I consider yall friends) just because they disagree with me. Who knows, its possible I am wrong.

Peace
Mike D
From Texas
By God

 

[Trazmania]

Well i believe that global warming is party our fault to the fact that factory burn coal and fossil fuel just as cars and other pollution causing object. But i all so think that god has a lot to do with climate change i mean after all he did create it. Because like the Ice Age when everything froze over and the earth was covered with smoke that blocked the sun, we weren't the cause of it so i think of global warming as simple the earth changing again just as it had did in the Ice Age when all the Dino's died and i do my part to help with pollution in some way. But i believe that the earth is going through a cycle and maybe the earth is about to enter a new phase, thought i don't think anybody actually knows, but only god, so i think we should make the best of our lives here and not to be in a constance rush and relax, and we all do our part to keep the earth a clean and safe place to live for our children and our future children so they can live happy. So i think we should take action on Global Climate Change in our on way as well as ever one else.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Wow, still civil...

The two large camps on CO2 believe two different things.
We know CO2 levels are high, of that there is no doubt.
However,
Group 1 - Believes CO2 is a cause of global warming.
Group 2 - CO2 levels are caused by global warming.

I'm part of the second group. It is my understanding from
my own personal research that CO2 only accounts for 1%
of greenhouse gasses and that humanity has only added
from .5% to 10% of the existing CO2 that is present.
One volcanic eruption can and has spewed the equivalent
amount of CO2 into the atmoshpere as mankind had in 150
years.

As for "normal" weather, well weather isn't normal, or should I
say climate. I've watched and read from both camps about
the weather patterns from both recent and ancient history
and the baseline data is all over the map.


I believe strongly in God however with conversations like this
it's usually best not to use the God arguement. Whether this
planet is a gift from God or a random event in the universe, it
is still ours to take care of for the limited time we are here.

 

[TexasVet]

Quote:
And that is exactly why the term "global warming" was changed. Too many people (like you) who don't understand that melting polar ice caps changes the weather worldwide. There is no doubt that the caps are melting; you can find pictures of it all over the Web.

The effect of this warming is that the wind that passes over the caps is no longer cooled as it moves along. This, in turn, changes weather patterns. (Basic science, hot air rises, cool air sinks.) The changing patterns means that the weather you have will become more extreme.

For example, snowing in Houston. Extreme drought conditions. (This normally the rainy season around Houston and we're about 5 inches behind on rainfall.) How about the coldest March 13th ever recorded in Houston this year?

Expect more of the same. Droughts, floods, massive hurricanes, tornadoes.

Kathy in Texas

 

[Buster]

Quote:
And that is exactly why the term "global warming" was changed. Too many people (like you) who don't understand that melting polar ice caps changes the weather worldwide. There is no doubt that the caps are melting; you can find pictures of it all over the Web.

The effect of this warming is that the wind that passes over the caps is no longer cooled as it moves along. This, in turn, changes weather patterns. (Basic science, hot air rises, cool air sinks.) The changing patterns means that the weather you have will become more extreme.

For example, snowing in Houston. Extreme drought conditions. (This normally the rainy season around Houston and we're about 5 inches behind on rainfall.) How about the coldest March 13th ever recorded in Houston this year?

Expect more of the same. Droughts, floods, massive hurricanes, tornadoes.

Kathy in Texas

So how do you (or anybody else for that matter) know that's not the natural cycle of things?

 

[TexasVet]

Quote:
I agree!

Many people are sheep, happy following whatever their pastor says, because it's easier that doing research and coming to their own conclusions, and because the rest of the congregation is doing the same.

I blame organized religion for much of the dumbing down of America.

Kathy

 

[Buster]

Quote:
I agree!

Many people are sheep, happy following whatever their pastor says, because it's easier that doing research and coming to their own conclusions, and because the rest of the congregation is doing the same.

I blame organized religion for much of the dumbing down of America.

Kathy

Religion has nothing to do with why I don't believe in Al Gore's interpretation of climate change. I've never been preached one word for or against it in church.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
I agree!

Many people are sheep, happy following whatever their pastor says, because it's easier that doing research and coming to their own conclusions, and because the rest of the congregation is doing the same.

I blame organized religion for much of the dumbing down of America.

Kathy

You drive a Subaru with a bunch of bumper stickers on it don't you?

 

[BaronRenfrew]

OK... I've been asking for good news stories so I'll contribute another.

A few years back I visited Atlanta in the first week of July. It was appropriately hot and something really impressed me. I went to the top of a hotel with a revolving restaurant and got a good bird's eye view of the city. Or so I thought.. the only thing visible was the tall downtown buildings, and the tall buildings of buckhead (a suburb). The rest of the city was a forest. Magnificent pines above all. Better yet, 5 million people..... NO SMOG! I had a great view of that park 50 miles away. It was spooky at night with all the shadows from the streetlights and trees. And the more trees, the less lawnmowers (one lawnmower for an hour being equal to 5 cars in a week).

Granted I don't know if there is a lot of manufacturing, but all those cars should smoke the air. I know Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto have their share of dirty air in winter, let alone the summer, but that picture stays in my mind today. It was enough that we wound up in contact to find that there are serious regulations about cutting trees, and that there are volunteer groups that plant a lot of trees. After our info collecting we were asked to brief a Canadian Senate committee on the issue. We declined, feeling less than experts on the subject.

Trees are no doubt part of the solution, along with burning less energy, eating local, and many other things.

One mature birch tree provides enough oxygen for a family of four (humans). One car with a V8 engine consumes the oxygen in one hour that you will in your lifetime.

An amusing side note: there was a study done in Houston to try and figure out why Houston has the worst smog in the USA. They thought it might be oil refining, cars, industry and other usual suspects. the answer? barbequed fat Of course being a hot city, who cooks indoors?

I also disagree with the quote on organized religion: there is a movement within baptist churches to accept global warming and urge us all to do something about it. The churches have all done good things and bad things, after all, they are only human. (My wife is a church minister.) here's from the NY times on "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change." http://www.baptistcreationcare.org/node/1

So folks: please keep an open mind and make your own informed opinion. the mind is like a parachute, it only works when its open.

 

[BaronRenfrew]

New York times, International Herald Tribune

Ministers want more done about warming
By Neela Banerjee Published: March 10, 2008

Signaling a significant departure from the Southern Baptist Convention's official stance on global warming, 44 Southern Baptist leaders have decided to back a declaration calling for more action on climate change, saying its previous position on the issue was "too timid."

The largest denomination in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, with more than 16 million members, is politically and theologically conservative. Yet its current president, the Reverend Frank Page, signed the initiative, "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change."

Two past presidents of the convention, the Reverend Jack Graham and the Reverend James Merritt, also signed, as did presidents of seminaries and Baptist colleges, editors of Baptist newspapers and pastors of churches, many of them in the younger generation of Baptist leaders.

"We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice," the church leaders wrote in their new declaration.

A 2007 resolution passed by the convention took a more skeptical view of global warming, saying for example, that "the scientific community is divided regarding the extent to which humans are responsible for recent global warming."

Today in Americas
Where education and assimilation collideObama hopes to increase food safetyU.S. reconsiders its '2-war' readiness strategyIn contrast, the new declaration states, "Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better."

The document also urges ministers to preach more about the environment and all Baptists to keep an open mind about environmental policy.

Jonathan Merritt, the national spokesman for the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative and a seminarian at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, said the declaration was a call to all Christians to return to a biblical mandate to guard the world God created.

"The bottom line is that environmental crises are theological problems, and Christians who have been instructed to be 'salt and light' in a dark and sour world cannot abandon this issue to secularists," said Merritt, whose father is James Merritt. "We have to be on the front lines, not in the back pews."

The Southern Baptist signatories join a growing community of evangelical Christians over the last few years who have voiced regret over not having tackled climate change earlier, and who are now pushing for greater awareness and action among their fellow believers, business leaders and politicians.

Experts on the Southern Baptist Convention noted that the initiative marked the growing influence of younger leaders on the discussions among evangelicals. While those younger Baptists remain committed to fighting abortion, for instance, as the declaration notes, the environment is now a top priority, too.

"In no way do we intend to back away from sanctity of life," said the Reverend Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. "I see this as an extension of that same kind of concern. There is no compromise of sanctity of life or holiness of marriage. At the same time I think it is irresponsible to reduce the sanctity of life to one or two issues."

Still, many powerful Southern Baptist leaders and agencies did not sign the declaration, including the convention's influential political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Two years ago, the commission's president, Richard Land, signed a statement saying there was no consensus on global warming.

Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy at the commission, said he saw little chance that the declaration would prove a divisive issue in the denomination