Donutz

Yes, but they'll never point to some actual process that would explain the increase from a "natural" point of view. Increase in volcanic activity? Nope. Hasn't increased. Massive decrease in plant life? That's not natural, sorry. Increases in global forest fires? With less forest to burn than ever before, and humankind working like crazy to put them out when they happen, that seems like a stretch. Some natural chemical reaction? OK, be specific please. Aliens? Magic? Bigfoot?

On the other hand, we can measure the amount of crap that's coming out of cars, ships, coal-fired electrical plants, factories, etc etc etc etc etc and we can calculate how much we must be producing globally (certainly within an order of magnitude) and it's more than enough to account for 100% of the CO2 increase.

So the denialists continue to scream "no it ain't neither", but never come up with any specific alternative.

And yes, I realize that I'm turning this into a political debate I may have to move it yet.

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Illegitimi non carborundum

Mountain Days: 30

extra0

I read somewhere that the oil sands are the single largest source of air pollution on earth, so it doesn't surprise me people (employees and benefactors) from alberta are trying to discredit that...even though it's killing them.

Oil sands also have a profound negative impact on lakes/local water quality and they are preparing to mow down 25,000 square miles of the Boreal forest in expansion.

Of all places, Canada is doing more than their part in destroying snowboarding.

ARSENALFAN

I lean towards the global warming side of the equation. The problem is that every single person in Alberta has a job, most of them very high paying, and have never experienced unemployment in their life. There are so many jobs to take advantage of, the hard part is picking one. If you don't like your cushy 80k a year job you just go somewhere the next day and accept a nice raise. The average home is 500K and nobody seems to have a problem making the payments as well as getting in their 2 hot Mexican vacations a year. So humans take pleasure over misery. Human nature I guess. Kinda sickening but true.

Bones

Yeah...no.

NASA says that the pollution caused by the oil sands is comparable to a large sized coal fired generating plant or a moderate sized city. There are 600 coal-fired generating plants in the US alone

While it is true that producing oil sands oil causes a bigger footprint than drilling for conventional oil, it can also be transported in a much safer and less "impact-ful" manner through pipeline rather than the Exxon Valdez

The method of production is all pretty irrelevant on a global environmental scale: the real pollution comes when this oil (be it Alberta Oil Sands or Saudi Crude) is burned, not produced. There is no such thing as dirty oil or clean oil, there is only easy oil or expensive oil. It is all dirty.

The sad truth is that while we'd all love to have a convenient target like Big Oil or Mining companies to blame for our environmental woes, it is all a lie. We're the ones who burn the oil, we're the plastic consumers, we're the throw-away generation. If we didn't buy, Big Oil would be out of business. If we didn't want new cellphones or I-pads every few months, then cooper and gold mining demand would moderate.

Bones

And a reply just for Donutz.

Global warming due to increased atmospheric CO2 has never been proven in a scientific sense. Basically because the planet is such a complex thing with so many variables, it is damn near impossible to "prove". And we're not talking about mankind being the sole cause of all this, we're talking about mankind contributing just enough to be the tipping point. There is always going to be "wiggle room" for the deniers. Hell, we don't even know for certain what killed the dinosaurs or what caused or ended the last ice age. We don't even know where the "tipping point" is. Climate change advocates are never going to win the argument over climate change deniers. And it is tedious and a waste of time and energy to continue arguing.

That said, I definitely fall on the "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" side of the debate.

In my mind, the best way to "win" the argument is to prove to climate change deniers that it is too expensive to continue down the "fossil fuel as energy" economic path. Case in point, the Alberta Oil Sands are only viable because of the current world price of oil, just like Gold Rush Alaska exists because of the price of gold.

C.B.

Not to be disrespectfull, but this is miss-informed, the amount of burned acerage in the last 30 years is a fraction of what had burned from the 1830- 1950.

Also deforestation in north America is a myth, there is more trees today than 100 years ago. In fact we consume less than 1/3 of the forest than what is sustainable.

Donutz

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other, but that's what I said. So I'm misinformed but you agree with me???

Oh for Christs sake. So where are all the people living now that weren't here 100 years ago? In the desert? In the bottom of the rivers? C.B., I'm old enough to remember the lower mainland in the 60's and there's NO FUCKING WAY there's more trees here now. I have pictures in my photo album of the north shore with almost no houses on it (now it's houses almost all the way up).

Ever heard of clearcuts? BC in particular is lousy with them. The natives in the Amazon are being forced out of their traditional lands by deforestation. There are satellite pix showing before and after, and there are a lot less trees than before. So where are all these magical new trees going in? The desert, again?

Sometimes the bullshit that comes out of the republitard grist mill just drives me goofy.

And with this post, I realize I'm going to have to move this thread. Sorry, OP. You've been threadjacked.

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Mountain Days: 30

Donutz

And it's in politics now. You don't have to be respectul

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Mountain Days: 30

Sudden_Death

I think this a huge point. Things in nature while robust and adaptable are still fragile. Take a freshwater lake and make it 5% salt and watch what happens. We have no idea what % could be the tipping point and we probably should try our best not to find out.

Edit, wrote this before seeing your post on tipping points.

HoboMaster

Only because the U.S is buying them... It's the only reason Alberta is pursuing such destructive means. You can blame one country or another but the reality is that as long as we have a global market and culture based on over-consumption someone's gonna be fucking something up somewhere.

Supply and demand

In other news, I'm glad you guys are thinking about this. Global warming is not the end of the world as the liberal media likes to portray it, but it's going to seriously exacerbate the massive issue of too many people and not enough resources which continues to become more dire everyday. We suck dick at changing as is, when we have to re-adapt large-scale systems like Agriculture to new climates it's not going to be pretty at all... (especially considering most of our agriculture is hardly sustainable at all, desert farming anyone?)

(Good call Donutz haha)

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