Warming debate shifts to ‘tipping point’

[Roon]

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11079935/

<most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm>

Yet, Bush and the freepers continue to deny that global warming exists.

[dysfunctional press]

1. global warming isn't a part of the intelligent design-

a god would have to be pretty lame-brained not to design around it...

[rzemanfl]

2. Ah hell, a little newkeuler winter will clear that right up. n/t

[Deja Q]

3. I don't think they're ignoring it. They are merely looking outside the box

Reducing the population reduces resource usage, which also contributes to global warming.

They want people to study engineering, as Bill Gates keeps dribbling about.

And nobody in America will accept less than a fair price; so that's when offshoring is used as an excuse... may as well make America look justifiably lazy and stupid before you can get rid of it...

Add in my poll about what to do with an item once it costs too much to repair it? Throw it out and replace it.

America is the proverbial defective TV set.

Now all this might be tinfoilhat fodder and a loose association of a jumble of topics, but it does fit.

[AuntiBush]

4. .

This has me seriously worried. Thanks for the link.

Somethings going on up there in the skies - chemtrails all day everyday fill early morning skies to clouds. Sun never seemed brighter in recent times. Today it was over 70 degrees with folks peeling off their coats & jackets, riding w/car windows down.

New grass is growing, oddly all along the fields. Robins in the morning, the first sign of spring.

You can feel "it." Birds flying in the 1000's, in circles as if they're unsure where they're suppose to be when in fact, they should have flown south for the winter.

:cry:

[rodeodance]

10. Maple trees budded a few weeks ago in Northern WI--should be in a deep

freeze at this time of year.

[rodeodance]

5. and NASA is trying to censor its employees

Scientists under scrutiny
This tipping point debate has stirred controversy within the administration; Hansen said senior political appointees are trying to block him from sharing his views publicly.

When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to withdraw the information because he had not had it screened by the administration in advance, according to a Goddard scientist who did not want to be identified. More recently, NASA officials tried to discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for this article and later insisted he could speak on the record only if an agency spokeswoman listened in on the conversation.

"They're trying to control what's getting out to the public," Hansen said, adding that many of his colleagues are afraid to talk about the issue. "They're not willing to say much, because they've been pressured and they're afraid they'll get into trouble."

[rodeodance]

7. Current rating: 3.5 by 22 users I rated it high--this infor needs to be

read by all. Slowly but surely---


....Current rating: 3.5 by 22 users

[Lorien]

12. Done-but the rating isn't changing (even with twice as many votes).

hmmmm....

[rodeodance]

8. te he--the boss says they monitor to be sure scientists are not misquoted.

.....But Mary L. Cleave, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Office of Earth Science, said the agency insists on monitoring interviews with scientists to ensure they are not misquoted.

"People could see it as a constraint," Cleave said. "As a manager, I might see it as protection."

[rodeodance]

9. "It's not this abstract notion that happens over millions of years,"

....Scientists who read the history of Earth's climate in ancient sediments, ice cores and fossils find clear signs that it has shifted abruptly in the past on a scale that could prove disastrous for modern society. Peter B. deMenocal, an associate professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, said that about 8,200 years ago, a very sudden cooling shut down the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt. As a result, the land temperature in Greenland dropped more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit within a decade or two.

"It's not this abstract notion that happens over millions of years," deMenocal said. "The magnitude of what we're talking about greatly, greatly exceeds anything we've withstood in human history."

[misanthrope]

17. Technically...

...if it happened 8,500 years ago, it was well within the range of human history, just not recorded history.

[Algorem]

6. seems like it alredy tipped

[Lorien]

11. Actually, ALL scientists agree that human activity is the cause

the doubt has come from the MSM and Right Wing faux "scientists". This month's Utne reader writes that since 1988 every scientific paper published in a peer reviewed journal states that human activity is the major cause of global warming. But of over 5,000 mainstream media articles written in the same time period (NYT, LAT, WSJ, WP) 58% cast doubt that human activity is to blame.

[Jayhawk Lib]

14. Some Scientists think

that human activity may cause global warming. We have had a rather mild winter here in the States but Russia and Asia has had record cold weather.

With natural gas prices as high as they are I can not help but think a little warming might be a good thing.

[Lorien]

18. Warming will desalinate the oceans, which could shut down the Gulf

Stream (which is already slowing). Then you'll see some REAL cold weather (as in "Ice Age II").

There are no reputable peer reviewed scientists that have any findings which contradict the belief that global warming is due in large part to human activity.

[CrispyQ]

13. Good article.

"There's no agreement on what it is that constitutes a dangerous climate change," said Marburger, adding that the U.S. government spends $2 billion a year on researching this and other climate change questions.

Yet we spend $1.25 billion a week in Iraq. And most of it probably goes to Halliburton.

[bloom]

15. It seems that it is better to think of Global Warming

not as "Tipped" or "not-Tipped" as if there is nothing we can do - once a certain point is passed.

But as a continuum of bad weather effects that will occur in relation to how much and how little people do or not do - as a whole.


With the ocean "Chimneys" down to 2 from 12 - the weather effects seems about as "tipped" as one would expect at this point.

[The Whiskey Priest]

16. The short term evidence

would seem to support global warming, but we need more study....wait that sound an too much like Bush...