Humans are causing global warming... 90% likely to be the case...

[Neil]

Yeah - so find a solution, which apparently is underway - a chemical which will stop the animals farting - that is the kind of thinking and action that will help mankind. All this "the end is nigh" type preachy "I drive a Prius" smugness ain't doing a damn thing but put off finding a real solution ... as well as piss off the normal average joe, feckin' know-it-all celebrities. Prius - Another example of the government's ineptitude... They give a tax break to tempt people into buying a car:- 1) That in reality is less econimical than a good deisel 2) That is far more complicated to maintain/service 3) That in a few years time will require all its batteries chucking out and bing replace giving the owner an expensive bill, and the environment loads more polution. Way to go!

[MinionZombie]

I know! That's the thing with the Prius, it's not a good car. A diesel Lupo will get you 75mpg. A Prius gets you around about 45mpg - and that's petrol with an electric motor. And like you say - the batteries - the sh*t those are filled with is awful and when they need replacing, what's going to happen to them? There's so much gubment guff that just panders to average joe's panicky need to ease their conscience, when in reality, Britain hasn't done much on the grand scheme - once again, it's the big contenders - America, India and especially China. Also - the Prius is just a crap car ... and the celebs that say "oh I drive a Prius" with that closed-eyes/light voiced smugness are just hypocritical wankers - buy yourself a new forest, shove up a shedload of trees instead, because their 8 other cars are GTO's and Mustangs and all sorts...and that's just the cars (including that vulgar piece of junk the Hummer).

[_liam_]

No theres not .... Show me this "evidence" no need for the tone young man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age evidence climate can change drastically without the knock on effects of industry. i'm not saying industry isnt to blame! i just thing the world is getting warmer anyway, but couple with the greenhouse effect, it may get too warm.

[Danny]

i think, wether we are the cause or not, saving energy and giving up fossil fuels can certainly be a good thing either way, though as for america, and this isnt an anti america thing, america is a pretty damn extravagent country, cus in point las vegas, could you tell vegas to "turn it dwn to 30" and stop using SUV's, not saying there bad, it just wouldnt happen. China are just trying to get into the coal biz, so from there point of view there looking at a lucrative few years, even though there probably gonna have the same atmopshere as london in the 1800's even us in the united kingdom, be it ireland scotland england or wales people individually may be doing great things on a small scale, what with people building eco homes and that, cus we aint known for bringing out the latest technology or something were still connected to our rural routes somewhat, which means buisness's are still yearning to make a huge bank like american or chinese buisness'. case in point building "a casino the size of two football pitches in manchester"....who the hell thinks that is a good idea?

[Terran]

no need for the tone young man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age evidence climate can change drastically without the knock on effects of industry. i'm not saying industry isnt to blame! i just thing the world is getting warmer anyway, but couple with the greenhouse effect, it may get too warm. Well duh there are climate changes....but look at the time scale of the ice ages the world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000- and 100,000-year time scales. The last glacial period ended about ten thousand years ago. .... And this report estimates a 2.5 to 10.4 degrees by the year 2100..... It's been proven that a major problem is methane, which is far more damaging than carbon dioxide - it's the reason why New Zealand didn't meet it's quota on global warming a while back - all the farting sheep - honestly. Oh I looked into it and Methane breaks down into CO2 via chemical reactions in the atmosphere in about 10 years....so its not really the Methane thats bad....its the CO2 that it turns into....CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere can range from 50-200 years.....

[axlish]

Unfortunately, Humans were not there to record the ice age. Are we so certain that these "ages" took millennia to develop, or did they engulf the earth with a span of a few centuries?

[Terran]

Unfortunately, Humans were not there to record the ice age. Are we so certain that these "ages" took millennia to develop, or did they engulf the earth with a span of a few centuries? Heheh do you think people just make up the time scale of these past events.... Ill list some of the ways we discover these things off the top of my head(added some stuff as I forget some finer details)...theres probally some other ways Im forgetting but I didnt want to search long.... So you wonder how we know about past climate before humans were around to measure it.....? The geological record is one way as glaciers move, the ice carves mountain valleys, and even stratches the bedrock.... So things like foreign rocks and large boulders unearthed or moved glacial debris gives evidence of the past several million years. Ice cores are extremely useful and gives detailed information....but they only give us information of approximately the last 200,000 years... When water freezes it trapp bubbles of air inside the ice. This is the best part as it relates to global warming comparisions.... The ratio of oxygen isotopes in this air gives us an indication of the average air temperature at the time the bubble was trapped in ice. The super awsome part is these bubbles also trap atmospheric greenhouse gases that can be measured. Fossil plants and the distribution of pollen show that vegetation has changed, consistent with changing climate. Pollen from plants, buried in shallow deposits of earth, indicate the distribution of vegetation since the last glaciation, about 20,000 years ago. Ancient Plant Distribution describes how vegetation has changed as the ice retreated. Tree rings provide a record of the weather back 3,000 years in some cases, and hundreds of years in many areas. See Tree Rings, a Study of Climate Change. We can determine the past climate of the Earth by mapping the distribution of ancient coals, desert deposits, tropical soils, salt deposits, glacial material, as well as the distribution of plants and animals that are sensitive to climate, such as alligators, palm trees & mangrove swamps. The Paleogeographic Method is whats used for really old stuff...... So the answer is yes we are pretty certain on the timetable of these older events....

[axlish]

I'm not talking about how long the "age" lasted, but how long it took for the "age" to engulf the earth. There is a difference. Could this rapid change be consistent with prior "ages" coming to be? When we look at a timeline of the ages, there is simple black line to separate them. I am curious about the details of that black line.

[Terran]

I'm not talking about how long the "age" lasted, but how long it took for the "age" to engulf the earth. There is a difference. Could this rapid change be consistent with prior "ages" coming to be? When we look at a timeline of the ages, there is simple black line to separate them. I am curious about the details of that black line. As it relates to Ice ages....we can tell both...how long it took them to come to be...and how long it took them to go away....by the same techniques I mentioned before.... I dont know what black line your referring to....so *shrugs*

[kortick]

it is generaly agreed upon that the climate change is part of a natural cycle in which the magnetic poles shift it is proven that antartica was one tropical they found a woolly mammoth with fresh greens in its mouth frozen solid it was flash frozen man may have hastened this with fossil fuels but is in no way the cause of it the mayan calender ends on 2012 some say that is the time when civilization as we know it will change what type of change? find a mayan and ask him...

[_liam_]

im seriously fckin drunk, but yeh, innit. theres no way of provin . flash frozen mammoth with tropical spinach or whatever in its mouth - exactly. in 15 years we'll still be bullsh!ttin on this forum, nothin will be THAT different. just you wait

[Danny]

aye, since 1999 every years been the final year of some calendar or another.

[axlish]

As it relates to Ice ages....we can tell both...how long it took them to come to be...and how long it took them to go away....by the same techniques I mentioned before.... I dont know what black line your referring to....so *shrugs* The last ice age ended 11,600 years ago (roughly). When did it begin to end? How long did it take? Did it take a millinia or did it take a nanosecond? I cannot find jack on this topic. People talk about the beginning and end of such ages, drawing a "black line" at the end and the beginning, but not much discussion goes into the waxing and waning of said ages. I realize that you thought me ignorant after reading my first post, but you should have a clear understanding of what I mean now. The reason I ask this is because humans are alarmed at the rate of global warming. Are we absolutely certain that these atmospheric changes don't happen within a few decades?

[Marie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6321351.stm What's interesting about this is I can guarentee "Joe Public" out there who don't think we are to blame, will not be swayed in the least by such articles[/I] I don't know if I'm in the won't be swayed group, probably, because there is so much evidence to to contrary and you have to admit one thing, that the scientists involved mostly live off of government fundng for research. This smells too much like a play for headlines and a resulting increase in the flow of my tax dollars to these guys to form "Think tanks" to tell me it's my car and air conditioning making the sun burn hotter. M_

[Tricky]

Maybe we're all wrong and the sun is dying!could be heating up as it grows into a white dwarf