Author Topic: Heal the world  (Read 12741 times)

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Ruam

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #20 on: November 06, 2009, 01:49:04 PM »
Another issue is this:

Is global warming all that bad?

A rise in seawater levels would surely be alarming, specially to me, since I live on an island!  but would it really be all that bad?  We are a species who thrives on warm climates, but can adapt to cold ones, if our cold climates became a bit warmer, we'd still be able to live decently, no?

But then, how accurate are the archeological findings??

I mean, How is more water going to cause more deserts?  Sure higher heat will do that in some places.  But in most temperate climates (like northern U.S.A, Canada, Europe, Chili, Southern Africa, Australia)  A rise in temperature means some flora changes, that's pretty much it...  We wouldn't be that much affected, it would mainly be the third world countries.

...

I just don't think it will be CATASTROPHIC, mostly ''bad for some people, good for others''
First of all, you are REALLY egoistic if " it would mainly be the third world countries" is your view on the most populated places on earth in this case.

We humans as a race will most certainly survive, but the problems we will face will will be many, the media and things tend to make things seem more "extreme" (lacking a better word in this case).

Things that happens right now as a result of it getting warmer
  • Deserts are getting more widespread, since you asked how I am now giving a short explanation of evapotranspiration. More heat, more water will evaporate and transpirate (hence the term "evapotranspiration") into the atmosphere. Sure places like Sahara and Gobi already have a negative precipitation-average, but this would make the already rare rains in the deserts and around its edges even more rare. If I have to explain it further, please ask, this is climatology 101 right now.
  • The malaria parasite and the mosquitoes they live in spreads even wider, making its way into the "not so affected" Europe.
  • The fells are being destroyed (if you are not familiar with the term it is mountains above the alpine tree-line), destroying several fairly uncommon eco-systems
  • More water will enter the atmosphere (if you did not already know, steam is also a greenhouse-gas) and not only will it contribute to further heating, it will also make rains along coasts more frequent and/or more intense.
  • Migrating birds such as the Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochylus) that cross the Sahara-desert will most certainly start die in large numbers when the threshold for how much energy these 8g heavy birds can store.
I can make a more complete list if you wish to, this is but a fragment.

As for the "living on an island"-problem, you can breathe fairly easy, I am more worried about the people who live below sea-level at the present (the population of San Francisco and The Netherlands for example).

How can you not like snow? I skipped along the street with a huge smile on my face yesterday when it started snowing.

Quote
Ok, I'll bite. What evidence is there to claim that the climate isn't warming up? Let's have the debate, right here. This is a public forum. You obviously seem to be taking the side of "it isn't really a problem". So lets see your evidence. I think Al Gore's video and the pictures of the ice at the north pole being totally gone this summer are evidence enough for my side for the moment.

Somewhat agreed, "An Inconvenient truth" has several error (for example on how global warming actually works), but the idea is right. And should the North Pole melt, we Scandinavians should invest in a lot of mittens. An interesting thing though is that Antarctica is expected to grow because of the global warming since warmer air can carry more humidity and since the average temperature there is way below 0 centigrades as an average most of the time we will get more precipitation.

I also await the "evidence" of the claim that there is no global warming.

Alastar

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #21 on: November 06, 2009, 01:57:06 PM »
Well, the evidence is along the lines of :the earth is warming on itself, we're not the cause, I think.


And good, see, that's what I wanted, credible explanation of symptoms.

I'm not dismissing third world countries though, it would be terrible for them!  and I hope we can help them!

But... won't more rain be a good thing though?


I LOVE snow, just that when it's march and you've just had 3 months of trudging 30 minutes to an hour every day through 1 feet of the stuff, you're starting to wish spring was here already :)

Ruam

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #22 on: November 06, 2009, 02:40:40 PM »
Well, the evidence is along the lines of :the earth is warming on itself, we're not the cause, I think.


And good, see, that's what I wanted, credible explanation of symptoms.

I'm not dismissing third world countries though, it would be terrible for them!  and I hope we can help them!

But... won't more rain be a good thing though?


I LOVE snow, just that when it's march and you've just had 3 months of trudging 30 minutes to an hour every day through 1 feet of the stuff, you're starting to wish spring was here already :)

Suddenly you sound like a much nicer person, that is good.

I shall try and give a short explanation on how the greenhouse-effect works and see if I can untangle it a bit more.

The different greenhouse-gases vibrate because of the radiation from the sun as a form of resonance you might say. Since heat is actually just movement on an atomic-level these vibration = warmth, after it hits the earth/clouds/water, some of it heats it up and some of it leaves. One of the major faults with Al Gores model of how the global warming works is that if it worked that way we would count the rising temperature in degrees/month instead of stretching it out over several years. Anyway, as the amount of greenhouse-gases increase there is more molecules that can be struck by this radiation and this will spread to the rest of the atmosphere.  In short you could say that the increase of CO2, N2O, SF6, etc. is not confining the heat of the sun, it simply uses more of it. And if you put this next to the reports of the increased amount of (especially) CO2 it is far from unreasonable that this is the cause of the temperature rises that have been noted so far. And if you then consider the humongous amounts of fossilised carbon that we have let out in such a short amount of time...

More rain is a good thing, yes. But the average humidity will in almost every place on earth  be lowered as the increased heat  will "take it back", lowering the levels of ground-water since the ground can only absorb a certain amount of water during a specific amount of time. Everyone can notice that during a heavy rain much water is simply washed away, this will happen to some of the excess rain as well, so everything can not be collected. If you look at a diagram showing how much water air can hold in relation to its temperature you will see that it grows exponentially so every little increase in temperature will have a bigger effect on the local humidity.

archangel.arcanis

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #23 on: November 06, 2009, 04:13:35 PM »
Personally i think there is some evidence to support both claims
Ok, I'll bite. What evidence is there to claim that the climate isn't warming up? Let's have the debate, right here. This is a public forum. You obviously seem to be taking the side of "it isn't really a problem". So lets see your evidence. I think Al Gore's video and the pictures of the ice at the north pole being totally gone this summer are evidence enough for my side for the moment.

Alastar hit my point, I'm of the belief that it isn't man caused. Your comment about having a spare planet is humorous because we do actually. Mars has had the same temperature increase as Earth over the same time frame. I don't think we have put out too much CO2 over there. But until i can find the article that stated this it is just me talking for now.

Also i wouldn't be too quick to use Al Gore's video as your evidence as i recall an article that showed a significant amount of what he used was either a gross misinterpretation of someone's work or an out and out lie. Again i have to find where this was before it is anything more than some guy on the internet talking out of his ass.

To address what Alastar brought up, is it that bad? Well obviously the devil is in the details here, if the global temp goes up 1/2 of a degree it can cause problems but not destroy the world, but a 10 degrees (this is an arbitrary number for sake of discussion only so it is almost definitely not correct) could cause such severe and possibly rapid changes that life on Earth couldn't adapt fast enough to survive. So the question is how much of a change and over what time frame, only after those are answered can we even begin to guess at how bad would it really be.

PhaedrusXY i recall you being a scientist of some kind from seeing your discussions on this board, so i'm sure you will have an upper hand on me in this level of debate. I am also really not qualified to make any real interpretations of any raw data. My point was i would rather an honest discussion than what i have seen so far. It could be that i'm unaware of some real healthy discussion in which people presented real information, not just someone being a pitch man.

I personally don't think global warming is man made, but am willing to accept that as a possibility when someone can show me reasonable evidence. I don't believe Al Gore is a good choice for a spokesman just because anything he puts forth has to be questioned due to his making money off of global warming. I'm not going to dismiss any of it for that alone but it does hurt the credibility of the science if it seems the only person really talking about it has a profit motive for that point of view.
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #24 on: November 06, 2009, 05:06:41 PM »
I personally don't think global warming is man made, but am willing to accept that as a possibility when someone can show me reasonable evidence. I don't believe Al Gore is a good choice for a spokesman just because anything he puts forth has to be questioned due to his making money off of global warming. I'm not going to dismiss any of it for that alone but it does hurt the credibility of the science if it seems the only person really talking about it has a profit motive for that point of view.
He isn't even close to the only person talking about it... Maybe the most famous one, but that's about it. There are papers on this that come out in every edition of Science, Nature, and every other journal remotely related to it.

The evidence is pretty simple it seems to me. Past periods of increased CO2 levels directly coincide with increased average temperatures. This has been measured back for hundreds of thousands of years now (using analysis of the gases released from ice cores mostly). I just read an article on it in Science about a month or two ago. Here is an older reference:

SCIENCE VOL 310 25 NOVEMBER 2005, pg 1313

Here is the summary graph from the paper. The line at the top is global CO2. The line at the bottom is an indicator of global ice.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ltAzuoe9dsod_Aj_g9jRCw?feat=directlink

We're currently dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and the measured atmospheric CO2 has dramatically increased since the industrial revolution. Average temperatures have also gone up, and ice that's been frozen for thousands of years is melting in many, many locations on Earth. If you pay attention to the news at all, you'll remember that there was a lot of hubbub about the fact that almost all of the arctic sea ice melted in the last two summers for the first time in recorded history. The Northwest passage is now easily undertaken by anybody with a boat. We currently have about 385 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. The highest CO2 levels seen in that paper I referenced above, which goes back for 650,000 years?  About 290 ppm.

Can I prove that the CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere directly caused this increase in temperatures? No, of course not. This has nothing to do with my lack of evidence. It is just quite simply impossible to prove something like that. We're looking at historical data here, collected under real conditions. We can't do experiments to confirm this. So the absolute best you can ever get is by analyzing trends and drawing conclusions. I think it is really obvious that we are causing it, though, and (most) arguments to the contrary are deluded, or dishonest.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 05:12:44 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

altpersona

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #25 on: November 06, 2009, 05:17:53 PM »
define the points of contention

is it possible for man to change the global temperature significantly.

if it is, is it happening. or has it happened.

if it is possible, and if the global temperature change is happing one way or another, is it man made or a natural occurrence.

if it is possible, can the quality of good/bad be assigned to the change.

-----------------------------------------------

i say

it is possible

it is happening

it is man made and natural

and its neither good nor bad (i dont believe in good/bad... but if i did i would say bad.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i know that at the place i work alone we release many many poorly regulated tons of gases into the air. (we burn limestone, 20k lbs +) at a time, many times a day. we are a small factory, there are dozens of other similar facilities to ours, and many larger.

i dont know how many cow farts = 1 lb of limestone converted to gas (yes i know cow farts are not made of limestone) (our upper floors regularly have a CO ppm over 1%, this is many times the Ok value)

anyway, i think the number of cow farts globally per day = less than our daily emissions.

i dont think you can have that much carbon added to an existing system w/out fundamentally altering that system.

i also think that the planet has its own agenda for its temperature. (no i dont think the planet has a personality)

i do not know that we are qualified to predict what the natural temperatures would do if left alone. the past may be a good predictor. but many factors cannot be accounted for using strictly historical information.

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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #26 on: November 06, 2009, 05:39:20 PM »
i do not know that we are qualified to predict what the natural temperatures would do if left alone. the past may be a good predictor. but many factors cannot be accounted for using strictly historical information.
So we should do nothing because we're not omniscient? Who the hell is qualified then? What exactly is the point of statements like this? We have a really fkn good idea that we are causing the Earth to warm up, as you admitted yourself. We of course can't be certain, but we're also not certain that we're not all the delusions of a giant amoeba swimming in an ocean of ammonia in some distant galaxy. So... I think we should probably go with our best approximations and predictions (that we're fucking things up, and need to change our behavior) instead of doing nothing because of our lack of omniscience.

Although one interesting thing to me is that before we humans started dumping assloads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and warming things up, we were actually in the middle of a cooling trend and might have even been headed for another ice age (in the next few thousand years or so...). The Earth has also been dramatically warmer than it is now in the past, and for extended periods of time (Antarctica had no ice at all up until like 300,000 years ago, and even the poles would have qualified as sub-tropical by today's standards). So no, we're not going to kill everything off. We might cause global economic and environmental instability to the point that modern civilization collapses, though. And mass extinctions, but that's nothing new either. So I think at worst, we'll destroy civilization, kill a bunch of other species, and maybe ourselves. No big deal, right? We'll probably pop off a bunch of nukes as we go down fighting for arable land and water, too. Awesome. Let's do it.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 05:41:01 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

Alastar

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #27 on: November 06, 2009, 05:44:27 PM »
And zombies, don't forget zombies!

archangel.arcanis

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #28 on: November 06, 2009, 05:48:00 PM »
Adding this to the top since i read your last post after typing it up. Just calm down we are trying to have a reasoned discussion on this, and as you seem very passionate and educated on the subject, I for one would love to hear your insights and thus be better informed.

I will agree that there is a correlation among the graphs shown, baring some anomalies toward the right side of the chart, but correlation != causality. While this does help the case for global warming it is inconclusive. We could ask does the CO2 cause it or does it facilitate higher levels of CO2. We can't answer those because our scale isn't time sensitive enough to show which came first.

The following is an honest fact finding mission. There are some questions that I frequently hear that poke holes in many of the global warming theories that i would like if you could answer.
1. Questions concerning accuracy of CO2 measuring. I believe it was concerning the methods used to measure CO2 in the air were inconsistent. This was heard on talk radio and i don't recall his source so it could just be "make the enemy wrong so i can win" tactics.
2. Solar activity. Like I mentioned earlier Mars has had similar global warming, how does that correlation tie into this if at all?
3. Earth's normal temperature cycle. How does this play into the normal heating and cooling cycle of the world? I recall a Time magazine article asking if an ice age was coming from the 70s. Could we be in a natural warming cycle that is being exacerbated by increases in CO2 emissions?


I know there are more that i just can't think of right now.

Then comes the hard part, Solutions. Assuming that tomorrow we get some solid facts that are completely indisputable, though some would try anyway, that man is causing global warming. How do we fix it?
I think some of the thing that have already been proposed are a good start. Beginning to ween the world off of things that are a large cause of CO2 emissions. But some are just destructive in their own right, painting all streets and roofs white to reflect heat (yea it works but now you have all of the chemical byproducts of making the paint if the paint itself isn't dangerous in its own right). My biggest concern is not going off half cocked like many are trying to do. The world beginning to get away from fossil fuels is a good thing whether GW is true or not, but make sure the replacement(s) can actually do the job first.
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altpersona

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #29 on: November 06, 2009, 05:57:05 PM »
you suggest we 'do something' based on inconclusive evidence? 'do something' despite not knowing if something should be done? how about wethern's law

i dont know that anyone is qualified. we cannot know many factors.

but generally, i agree with most of your post P.

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Alastar

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #30 on: November 06, 2009, 05:58:40 PM »
Well, doign something can't be bad, weither we're sure or not,  not doing something could either be good or bad.

Optimisation dictates we take the path that is sure not to be bad, instead of the one that MAY not be bad.

archangel.arcanis

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #31 on: November 06, 2009, 06:01:33 PM »
Well, doign something can't be bad, weither we're sure or not,  not doing something could either be good or bad.

Optimisation dictates we take the path that is sure not to be bad, instead of the one that MAY not be bad.

You are making a false assumption there. Doing something could be bad, it just depends on what we do. Remember the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'm just saying don't go off half cocked and really fuck things up.
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Alastar

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #32 on: November 06, 2009, 06:03:51 PM »
Oh of course, but like... diminishing CO2 emissions and stopping the use of fossile fuel, can that possibly go bad?

PhaedrusXY

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #33 on: November 06, 2009, 06:10:59 PM »
you suggest we 'do something' based on inconclusive evidence? 'do something' despite not knowing if something should be done? how about wethern's law
I don't think the evidence is "inconclusive". I think it's pretty solid. We'll never know absolutely for sure, even 1000 years from now. You can never know anything like this for certain. It's not something amenable to experiment.

Optimisation dictates we take the path that is sure not to be bad, instead of the one that MAY not be bad.
I agree. You don't sit around until you're sure (oh look, the ice caps melted and we're all dead. Guess GW was true!). The most rational course of action is to start trying to improve things in a reasonable manner. I'm not advocating that we shoot all oil and coal company executives. I support alternative energy research and implementation (the latter has so far been severely lacking in the US), including nuclear, wind, geothermal, solar, "clean coal", etc.

I also do believe that many people are trying to take advantage of this "panic" to make a buck. Unfortunately this includes a lot of people trumping up the use of bio-ethanol derived from corn. I do think that some biofuels might pay off, but corn-derived bioethanol is not one of them, unless some miraculous leap in efficiency is uncovered (and I don't think that's likely). We should be putting money towards things that have a good chance of working, not things that have the biggest lobbying groups.

I also see a lot of just flat out unreasonable objections to this kind of stuff, like "wind farms are ugly". WTF? Ninja, please.

So no, I don't think we really need any more evidence to "prove" global warming. We have enough that we should start acting now (though doing more research certainly won't hurt, so we understand all the factors involved better).
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

archangel.arcanis

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #34 on: November 06, 2009, 06:19:48 PM »
Yes. As always the devil is in the details. If we weren't allowed to use oil or its derivatives tomorrow then no gas, plastic, electricity, ect... Or perhaps we go about reducing CO2 by trying to kill anyone who farts more than twice a day. Obviously those are ridiculous examples but i was just showing that no matter how good an idea something seems you should always pay attention to the details of its execution.

Seeing PhaedrusXY's post i'll add this.
I think despite the fact that we disagree on GW we have similar ideas on what should be done right now. True or not the things that are the alleged cause of GW are harmful in other ways as well. So taking reasonable steady progressions to reduce and phase them out is a good course of action. However most proposals are closer to your reference of executing oil execs. This also has to be a global plan, because if the US quits using oil and all of a sudden another country with less environmental concern starts using more because it is cheaper we are in the same or a worse situation than before.
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altpersona

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #35 on: November 06, 2009, 06:22:34 PM »
how about the inconclusive part being about quality.

you (P_XY) think that getting warmer is 'bad' and should be stopped.

why is it bad?

because it makes it harder for us to live the way we are used to?

because it means we might have mass extinction related to it?

both of these are going to happen one way or another, and could happen at any time.
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #36 on: November 06, 2009, 06:33:29 PM »
how about the inconclusive part being about quality.

you (P_XY) think that getting warmer is 'bad' and should be stopped.

why is it bad?

because it makes it harder for us to live the way we are used to?

because it means we might have mass extinction related to it?

both of these are going to happen one way or another, and could happen at any time.
We might as well argue about why it is "bad" to murder people. I'm not interested in philosophical debates. If my house is on fire, I'm not going to sit around and debate on whether that is a good or bad thing. I'm going to call the fire department.

But some are just destructive in their own right, painting all streets and roofs white to reflect heat (yea it works but now you have all of the chemical byproducts of making the paint if the paint itself isn't dangerous in its own right). My biggest concern is not going off half cocked like many are trying to do. The world beginning to get away from fossil fuels is a good thing whether GW is true or not, but make sure the replacement(s) can actually do the job first.
I'm sure we can come up with eco-friendly alternatives. How about using white shingles instead of black ones? I think the difference is just in the color of sand they use to make them, but I could be wrong.

And I don't think we'll ever be completely independent of fossil fuels, at least not in any of our lifetimes. But we can at least move towards cleaning them up, and using alternatives when possible. I don't buy the argument about "we shouldn't do it unless everyone does it", either. At all. We should be the leaders, if we can. If we develop this new stuff, other people will want to buy/license it. And then we can make money off them. So it's win/win for us. :P
« Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 06:38:50 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

altpersona

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #37 on: November 06, 2009, 06:47:38 PM »
fair nuff...

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CountArioch

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #38 on: November 06, 2009, 07:51:34 PM »
I question if it's the CO2 emissions that's doing it.  I don't refute that the world is getting a touch warmer, and I don't refute that we are putting a bunch of it into the atmosphere (If there are records of how much of a certain substance is being burned, we can make an estimate of how much CO2 that is produced, estimate because there's no such thing as a chemical reaction that is 100% efficient).  And I'm not refuting that mankind is in fact capable of doing so.

I do question how certain we are that it's CO2.  A few years back there was a professor at my college that did a report on the effects of grey infrastructure vs. green infrastructure and climate change that I found fascinating.  

EDIT:  Also, anything labeled "green" is automatically suspect.  If something is "green", it's a marketing gimmick not environmentally sound.  People keep insisting recycling paper is green when in fact it's worse in every way to using it from virgin wood.  (It requires more energy, it's more polluting, trees are a renewable resource and the cheap wood they use for paper grows quickly in farms, recycled paper is ass, we're in no danger of running out of landfill space, people who say they are environmentalists tend to not know biology, chemistry, geology, etc.)
« Last Edit: November 06, 2009, 07:54:51 PM by CountArioch »
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wotmaniac

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Re: Heal the world
« Reply #39 on: November 06, 2009, 10:46:38 PM »
let me jump in on this:

fact -- there has been no warming in the last 10 years (temps actually down just a little in that time)
fact -- our temperature actually has a closer correlation with solar activity than it does with with any other factor
fact -- despite the melting of the arctic ice, Antarctica's ice mass is actually growing (and by no small amount).  pieces fall off it all the time, but it is accumulating quite a bit more than it loses.
fact -- on a related note -- the ice loss in Greenland is only below 6000 feet -- above 6000 feat, it is actually accumilating
fact -- the Kilimanjaro snow-job has nothing to do with the last 50+ years.  It's been loosing its snow-cap for at least 150 years -- and the average temp on and around Kilimanjaro (i.e., the local temp) is actually considerably lower than it was 50 years ago (so, how does "global warming" explain that?).
fact -- many of the scientists who worked on the big study put out by the UN recently, are completely rejecting the conclusions made by the UN -- they are saying that the stated conclusions are not actually supported by the research (i.e. the panic is just political b.s.)

other emerging, credible scientific opinions ("theories", if you will):
-- "greenhouse gas" levels actually follow temp; not the other way around
-- a possible "ice age" is not all that far away (thought probably not in our lifetimes)


Now, am I saying that we can just pollute away with impunity?  of course not.  I like clean air and clean water as much as the next guy -- I'm just not gonna fall for the panic, especially when NO-ONE really understands the true nature of climatology. 

[spoiler]
If you stop ignoring 289 pages telling what the intent is to stretch "more power" in your own god complexion of your interpretation trumps all to cover ability adjustments from aging then I will ignore a quarter page of rules that exist within a sidebar.
I think in this case the grammar is less important than whether the Str and Dex bonus provided to your created undead scales.

Greenbound Summoning RAI
Expanded Gestalt
More Savage Progressions[/spoiler]
Report any wrongs I have done here.