Clean Air Makes Hurricanes Worse

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Well isn't this a kick in the pants. To think that all this time, I thought pollution was a major cause of global warming that was causing an intensification of hurricanes. While it's true that warmer water temperature cause bigger and more damaging hurricanes, this report indicates that cleaner air may also result in worse hurricanes - in other words, pollutants actually reduce the impact of hurricanes.

 

Just what we need... excuses for anti-eco people

The long term effects of pollution are worse than a few hurricanes, though. If global warming does happen on a big scale (Think the movie The Day After Tomorrow, just taking longer), then we are far more screwed than a hurricane or four.

 

Most scientists already consider the damage done. Nothing we do will stop global warming......and the ice age which will inevitably follow when the polar ice caps melt. All we can do now is slow down the process, which we definitely should make an effort to do.

 

And there is always the slight chance that if we slow it down, something could happen to lessen the catastrophic events that will eventually occur.

 

Interesting -- I noticed that the Washington Post magazine of this week (a comparatively liberal publication) ran a cover article on the idea that global warming and the like is essentially a giant hoax. Aldeth, since you live in MD, perhaps you managed to read this?

 

Considering that the entire scientific community (including the very same scientists that Bush commissioned to disprove global warming) is of the opinion that global warming is a very serious and very real threat it's pretty clear that any claim that global warming is a hoax would be, well, a hoax. If not a hoax.....such claims would at least qualify as "stupid".

 

You really have to stop doing that, Drew. There are plenty of scientists who do not think that global warming is a serious threat, especially after the discovery of a planetary cycle of warming and cooling. "The majority" I could see, and wouldn't argue with (maybe you know something I don't), but "the entirety"? Chill with the sweeping generalizations.

 

Good luck finding a peer reviewed scientist succesfully arguing against global warming. There aren't any. In the scientific and medical communities, if it isn't peer reviewed, it's worthless. It is an empirical fact that the temperature on the planet earth is not only steadilly increasing, but the rate at which it is increasing is also increasing. In other words, global warming is a fact. The scientific community may not all agree on it's ramifications, but it doesn't change the fact that Global Warming is happening. The scientific community universally accepts the existence of Global Warming even if they don't all agree about what it means.

[ June 04, 2006, 00:08: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

If by that you mean that they all accept that the globe is warming temperature-wise, and that the rate at which it is doing it is increasing, then yeah; you can't argue with data. But the why is still contested, as well as the severity of the danger. One thing I think we can both agree on is that the industrial byproducts and other stuff we're putting out is not helping.

 

True, but those arguing that Global Warming is a natural phenomenon are no longer taken seriously in the scientific community. Even Bush's hired guns refused to argue that Global Warming is not a problem or that we (humans) aren't the ones causing it. The scientists writing "scholarly papers" about the "Global Warming Hoax" aren't submitting their work for peer review and there is a very good reason for this. These scientists are lying.....and usually on the payroll someone with a vested interest in the status quo. Any scientific work of merit is submitted for peer review. If it is not, the work should not be taken seriously.

 

@Oaz - nope, haven't seen the article.

@Drew, Fel - While it is an exaggeration to say that the entire scientific community views global warming as a serious threat, it is totally accurate to say that the vast majority do so. In an article I read about two months ago, it stated that 85% of scientists believe that global warming is a serious threat, and that the majority of the this threat has been enduced by humans. So yes, it's not all, but it is overwhelmingly the majority - 5 say yes for every 1 that says no.

 

@Drew:
Actually, a lot of scientists now are looking at it as a totally natural process that humans have barely impacted. This looks especially convincing when you look at global temperature trends over the past 100 years instead of 20. If taken in this light, we can see that we are simply on the upswing of the global temperature cycle, and it should be starting to cool off in the next 10-20 years.

This is getting even more support as we begin to understand the geo-magnetic cycle as well, and that it is on a downswing. This potentially explains the biggest question in global warming: why is the greatest effect and weakest o-zone around the arctic and antarctic? The idea that human influences have significantly influenced that is all but bogus.

 

Because air circulates around the globe. That's why we've found DDT in the fat of polar bears. It wasn't because someone sprayed DDT on the tundra. I do not know why the ozone layer is thickest around the equatorial regions and thinnest as you move away from those regions. I do know it's been that way since we've been measuring it. Logically though, the area that was the thinnest (polar regions) is the area where the holes develop first.

 

I can confirm that the ozone layer is DEFINITELY thinner the closer you get to the Antarctic. I probably live closer to the Antarctic than any of you (except Rotku and Deathmage) and you definitely get sunburnt after quarter of an hour in the sun here during the summer. Whereas when I have been in the blazing sun of the Mediterranean or California, it has taken hours to get the same effect.

 

And the scientific community at large thinks that they are crackpots and sellouts. These scientists also tend to be on the payroll of large industrial companies and their work is almost never submitted for peer review.....and on those few occasions that it is the work gets ripped to shreds by the scientific community at large. Go figure.

 

And if they are wrong and it doesn't we wasted 10-20 years of preparation. Might as well prepare for something that 85% (as Aldeth said) of scientists believe will happen.


@Drew:
Or they could also be on payroll of companies that don't want people to think that global warming will happen so their profits don't go down (oil companies...).

 

Here is an interesting article from one of those crackpots who don't believe in global warming.

Maybe I'm naive, but that certainly seemed reasonable to me.

 

Quite clever, trying to claim that you are naive/reasonable regarding your articles on Clinton/Gore. I still remember the Gore/Unabomber thread you crafted a while back. This continues the tradition. It's quite "reasonalbe" from that perspective, I would say.

Well, yes I'm sure FOX News and Ann Coulter would agree. How much are they paying these guys to write these kinds of articles now?

[ June 16, 2006, 17:16: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Well, Snook, nobody says that all scientists agree with the "global warming theory" (taken here to include causes and consequences, not only the fact that global warming exists). So, it's not so hard to find quotes from several of those. Still, that article seems to me a hack job.

Let's see, the author of the article: "Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company". No scientist. That sounds to me like a think tank/lobbying firm.

the scientist quoted: Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University: googling his name, you find that he is member of the "Institute of Public Affairs" a conservative think thank based in Melbourne. He is indeed a bona-fide scientist, albeit a geologist. Also, note that he is a well known climate change skeptic (which can also be said about several of the other scientists quoted).

I find it kind of funny though that the author of the article argues that those who take climate change seriously are not really experts in the area, and then the "climate skeptics" he cites turn out to be mostly geologists.