Global Warming: The New Religion

[renrich]

PB, my apologies if I misread you on unions. Don't know when you grew up but when I did and in my country, today is a cakewalk compared to the conditions of life in the 30s, 40s and 50s. My country is incomparably more affluent today than it was back then and then it was incomparably more affluent than when my parents were children.. My family was considered a middle class family but the conditions we lived in during the 30s and early 40s would be considered practically poverty stricken today. A family with husband and wife and two children living in a two bedroom, one bath house with one car garage, no insulation in the walls or ceiling, gas jets for space heaters, obviously no AC, no TV, no PCs, no dishwasher(except me) no washing machine, no disposall, one old car, never went out to eat, a big trip was driving 300 miles to South Texas to see grand parents on the farm where there was no indoor plumbing. My first job was when I was 12, working in a drugstore on Saturdays and delivering prescriptions on a bicycle, some in the dark. Usually worked around ten hours and got paid three dollars. PB, there is nothing in the Constitution that says we are guaranteed to have two cars(or any car at all) a boat, a motorcycle, air conditioning, cable TV(or any TV) stereo systems, eating out, getting the lady's hair colored, a PC with high speed hookup, bottled water, cigarettes, beer or whisky, Ipods, cell phones, $100 sneakers, etc. Cut out all those non essentials, which I didn't have growing up and almost any family could afford health insurance. To say that "today is just a much tougher game" is just plain wrong. Phil Gramm told the truth that we here in the US and especially in the media have become a nation of whiners and complainers.

[pbfoot]

Different time no doubt I remember visiting my Grandparents from the Ukraine in Alberta with no electricity storing food in the well because of the temp etc , my parents when my Dad got out of the RCAF had a table 2 chairs and a bed but times have changed . I agree the young people today want everything all at once as opposed to the way our forefathers got things with cash and as they could afford it .
However no longer can a person get a job without having a resume or CV in hand you can't even get in the door , I believe starting out today is a whole new game then what you or I had to put up with

[renrich]

PB, where I live and also in Texas there are help wanted signs everywhere and no resume needed. Granted, they are not management jobs but construction or jobs in oil and gas. Nothing wrong with that. When I went to work after college and military, I took a pay cut from what I earned in the oil patch during summers. Speaking of military, today in my country a high school graduate with a clean record can join the military and have a decent paying, interesting and honorable career, get out in twenty years with good retirement and start a second career. The possibilities in the US today are limitless in both the private and public sector. Only thing to hold one back is being worthless and lazy. At least in Alberta the food would keep if stored in the ground. In Texas it would rot. My grandfather slaughtered hogs every fall and cured the meat in a smokehouse. That and chickens were the meat sources. As a kid I wondered why we were in Texas and never ate beef. Cows furnished milk, butter and cream, not beef. They had no electricity, but bought ice for an ice box and used coal oil lanterns for light.

[JugBR]

Originally Posted by Flyboy2

Alright will do.... these are just my points but i believe that like any other controversy, there really is no right or wrong point... guess we'll just have to wait a thousand years to see who was really right

on this case, a few decades !

[renrich]

I can't figure out how our cities will be under water when the Antarctic ice pack is growing.

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by renrich

I can't figure out how our cities will be under water when the Antarctic ice pack is growing.

The Southern hemisphere never had Ice ages at least none I'm aware of

[renrich]

What I am referring to is that I have heard several reports that the southern ice cap is the thickest now ever measured which must mean that more water(which the Antarctic ice cap contains a large share of the world's supply) is now bound up in the solid form of ice so that sea level will have a hard time rising.

[Njaco]

So does anyone want to know how the government will handle alternative sources of energy? New Jersey Politics and GW 101:

In 2005 then Govenor Cody signed a bill authorizing off-shore wind farms.
Just today, the energy companies and the BPU have introduce plans to build some by 2012.

2005 to 2012.

Anybody else want to complain about how long off-shore drilling is gonna take?

[Bearcat]

This just in:

At top of Greenland, new worrisome cracks in ice
news-science-20080821-SCI.Greenland.Glaciers

WASHINGTON — In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said Thursday.

And that's led the university professor who spotted the wounds in the massive Petermann glacier to predict disintegration of a major portion of the Northern Hemisphere's largest floating glacier within the year.

If it does worsen and other northern Greenland glaciers melt faster, then it could speed up sea level rise, already increasing because of melt in sourthern Greenland.

The crack is 7 miles long and about half a mile wide. It is about half the width of the 500 square mile floating part of the glacier. Other smaller fractures can be seen in images of the ice tongue, a long narrow sliver of the glacier.

"The pictures speak for themselves," said Jason Box, a glacier expert at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University who spotted the changes while studying new satellite images. "This crack is moving, and moving closer and closer to the front. It's just a matter of time till a much larger piece is going to break off.... It is imminent."

The chunk that came off the glacier between July 10 and July 24 is about half the size of Manhattan and doesn't worry Box as much as the cracks. The Petermann glacier had a larger breakaway ice chunk in 2000. But the overall picture worries some scientists.

"As we see this phenomenon occurring further and further north — and Petermann is as far north as you can get — it certainly adds to the concern," said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Center for the Study of Earth from Space at the University of Colorado.

The question that now faces scientists is: Are the fractures part of normal glacier stress or are they the beginning of the effects of global warming?

"It certainly is a major event," said NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally in a telephone interview from a conference on glaciers in Ireland. "It's a signal but we don't know what it means."

It is too early to say it is clearly global warming, Zwally said. Scientists don't like to attribute single events to global warming, but often say such events fit a pattern.

University of Colorado professor Konrad Steffen, who returned from Greenland Wednesday and has studied the Petermann glacier in the past, said that what Box saw is not too different from what he saw in the 1990s: "The crack is not alarming... I would say it is normal."

However, scientists note that it fits with the trend of melting glacial ice they first saw in the southern part of the massive island and seems to be marching north with time. Big cracks and breakaway pieces are foreboding signs of what's ahead.

Further south in Greenland, Box's satellite images show that the Jakobshavn glacier, the fastest retreating glacier in the world, set new records for how far it has moved inland.

That concerns Colorado's Abdalati: "It could go back for miles and miles and there's no real mechanism to stop it."

[pbfoot]

Sounds like a good size chunk of ice to go careeming all over the Atlantic however on the bright side the Danes finally perfected Habburak and the now have the worlds first carrier capable F 16's

[tpikdave]

"However, scientists note that it fits with the trend of melting glacial ice"

"Scientists" is a generic all inclusive term that leads one to believe that "All" scientists are of the same opinion.

Damn it all, who writes this "crap" anyway? Journalists ought to be more responsible concerning what they write. Thanks to teachers and the media it is taken as gospel by kids in school who will grow up and spread the same BS to others including their own kids!!!

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by tpikdave

"However, scientists note that it fits with the trend of melting glacial ice"

"Scientists" is a generic all inclusive term that leads one to believe that "All" scientists are of the same opinion.

Damn it all, who writes this "crap" anyway? Journalists ought to be more responsible concerning what they write. Thanks to teachers and the media it is taken as gospel by kids in school who will grow up and spread the same BS to others including their own kids!!!

Science and technology reporters plus I would imagine its a encompassing group of various disciplines.

[Njaco]

a growing giant crack

sounds like Britany Spears or a dope dealer dropped his stash.

[tpikdave]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

Science and technology reporters plus I would imagine its a encompassing group of various disciplines.

See, you have fallen for it too. Lord, I can't wait for the comet to hit. That will make all this bs moot.

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by tpikdave

See, you have fallen for it too. Lord, I can't wait for the comet to hit. That will make all this bs moot.

People usually believe what they want to believe, which makes the whole discussion quite difficult.