Global Warming, is it our fault?

[Combwork]

Is the climate is changing long term, or going through a short 'blip'?

In the 1850's the River Thames froze over with ice thick enough to hold a fair on it. Go back further to the middle of the 17th century, and the weather stayed cold for long enough to freeze the sea between Dover and Calais. These events seem to happen on a 200 to 250 year cycle and last for a few years. As far as I can see, man made pollution has little or no effect; in the 1890's to around 1910 most factories had their own coal powered steam engines. Railway engines burned coal, steam ships burned coal. If you wanted to heat a house you burned coal (sometimes mixed with wood, especially in the countryside). If you analise it, coal smoke is pretty foul stuff yet during this period of maximum industrialization, there was no apparent influence on the climate.

What do you reckon? Are we to 'blame' or is it just another government wheeze to shake more money out of us? Research that questions this orthodoxy seems to get its funding withdrawn pretty damn quick.

[merrylander]

Well what we are getting now is not a deep freeze but just the opposite, the arctic and antarctic ice caps are melting at a fast rate.

Since our property is a mere 400 feet above sea level we will probably end up with a waterfront lot on the Chesapeake Bay.

[Grumpy]

Short answer is I think yes we are responsible. In my opinion we cannot compare say the 1500 through the 1800's with today since most of the really nasty stuff has happened due to industrialization of the world in roughly the last 100 years.

[Combwork]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Short answer is I think yes we are responsible. In my opinion we cannot compare say the 1500 through the 1800's with today since most of the really nasty stuff has happened due to industrialization of the world in roughly the last 100 years.

I think we can compare them, simply because they're examples of short term climate change that had nothing to do with humans. True enough, the nasty stuff did occur in the last 100 years but coal burning reached it's peak around the turn of the century. Why do I keep banging on about coal? Because burned in the way it was in those days (want more heat? Shovel in more coal; build the chimney higher if you have to) it was highly polluting. I've read that as far as cause and effect goes, the pollution we're causing now will affect things some 50 years hence. If this is true, then looking at peak coal burning, we should have seen it's effects in the late 40s/early 50s. But it didn't happen.

I believe that if the climate is changing, it's changing. Instead of spending vast amounts of money trying to prevent it, we should be doing everything possible to deal with it. Think irrigation on a massive scale; think sea defenses where practical. The hot one? If things get warmer long term, land which is now fertile could become barren and land which is now too cold to cultivate could become fertile. If this happens, I reckon one of two things will be the result.

1). People forget political or national boundaries and relocate where they can grow food. In the Northern Hemisphere this could mean Siberia, Greenland, Iceland....... You don't have to dig too deep into the permafrost to find evidence that these areas were once fertile. Even the worst predictions give us time to do this if we have the will.

2). People dig in; strengthen national boundaries and try to repel all borders.

This assumes the worst case scenario doesn't happen. If the climate warms up enough to melt all the ice including permafrost, we could be royally screwed................

[painter]

Hello everyone. Nice site you have here with enjoyable posts.

I was raised in a coal mining town and there were no alternatives for home heating. Propane was used for gas stoves and water tanks. That was a long time ago. Certainly we can't unring a bell. What's done is done.

Just think...thousands of planes and the spent fuel they put into our atmosphere daily. What goes up surely comes down.

Where I live now...pollution from the Manhattan Project has yet to be completely dealt with. There are sooo many risk factors to our dilemma.

China is the primary polluter and sooner or later we all breathe the same air.

It's a tough situation.

painter

[Combwork]

Hi.

This link takes you to a website that puts forward a few counter arguments. http://www.musketeer-porthos.supanet.com/page10.html Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong but I think it's worth reading.

[noonereal]

It's a political commentary not germane to scientific cause and effect.

Plus the music is terrible.

[merrylander]

Hmm, saw on the news that the Chinese are beginning to move toward renewable energy, like windfarms, etc. They will probably get there before we do, but then they have all our money to do it with. Thank you wallyworld.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Hmm, saw on the news that the Chinese are beginning to move toward renewable energy, like windfarms, etc. They will probably get there before we do, but then they have all our money to do it with. Thank you wallyworld.

Good. Then they can resell us Chinese knock offs for pennies on the dollar that need replacement daily.