Interesting you should mention how ice ages always follow warming trends:
http://en.rian.ru/science/20080122/97519953.html Russian scientist says earth could face new ice age.

Oh, and your post made me laugh. Thank you.

[QUOTE=jande2211]

Jande, perhaps it will help if you consider for a moment that science doesn't consider knowledge to be about 'facts' or 'non facts'. There are hypotheses, which are more or less supported by the available evidence. But you have to be careful what you consider as persuasive evidence. In nutrition, it's easy, because you can easily make a personal dietary adjustment, hopefully stick with it concientiously long enough to see that whether or not it's improving your health and/or body comp and make an informed personal decision about the advisability of continuing it accordingly. In the field of climate change, if where you live is enjoying milder seasons because of that is how that locale is being affected by this stage of human induced global warming, you are quite likely to simplistically assume that it is a good thing, when if considered as part of the larger global picture of climate change, it is anything but. In this case the best way to make an objective assessment of who is telling the porkies is to listen to the consensus (oops that awful word again Jande, but be brave I'm sure you can cope ) among the experts in the field, which in this case, are climatologists. Remember, this doesn't include self appointed 'expert' climatologists. This means professionals who have been trained to objectively interpret the enormous amount of climate data that is being collected all over the world at any moment. Among these experts, there is overwhelming consensus that manmade CO2 emissions are fast reaching very dangerous levels. The best evidence seems to be if carbon emissions are not slashed by 90% by 2030, it will become almost impossible for the planet to recover without runaway global warming. If you can't or won't choose to listen to actual climate experts, then I'm not silly enough to think I can change your mind. Suffice to say that the evidence is there if you choose to make yourself aware of it, and your children's children will condemn you for eternity if you miss this opportunity. Because after them, there just won't be many children left for the 10's of thousands of years it has always taken this planet to recover from runaway global warming events. A few people will no doubt survive. Humans are good at surviving. Let's hope we can avoid it being just a few by addressing this problem now.

This is scary stuff, and it will indeed require considerable effort to achieve that target. Perhaps this species is just not up to the job, and kneejerk hillbilly ignorance like yours will prevail. I earnestly hope this is not the case. But many biologists have already observed that this is, given human greed, a far more likely scenario. I am an incurable optimist, and one encouraging sign is that the Bush Administration, hardly a , what did you say, 'GW bonehead' organization, is showing remarkable signs of finally coming to their senses and realizing that the time to act is now and act forcefully to meet this challenge.

Stuart

Thanks for finding and posting. There is some good news though: Over 400 scientists dispute GW
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....ty.SenateReport
I didn't hear this on the regular news, but no suprise there.

Oh, and even Al Gore doesn't realllllly believe this tripe. He wouldn't take one silly little oath:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....Minority.Pledge

I've given no reason for you to suspect cowardice on my part. In fact, I've indicated bravery: how DARE I deny GW drivel! How DARE I think!
Love it.



People like Dr. Roy Spencer, you mean, right? http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy...bal-warming.htm It has pictures, so you'll be OK reading it. Without more facts (and not so much emotion), no you will not change my mind. I am pretty sure I won't change yours either. I just want to make sure people like you don't rob me in your phoney quest. You've pointed out in another post "what if we (deniers) are right . . ." and then you made no sense. So, what if we are right? No one gets hurt. But the real question is what is you GWers are wrong? What will that cost the world? Let's see . . .

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” — Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” — Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “Population, Resources, Environment” (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, 323)

“If you ask me, it’d be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won’t give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.” — Amory Lovins, The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy … would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” — Paul Ehrlich, “An Ecologist’s Perspective on Nuclear Power”, May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report.

“We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the same industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” — Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University. He joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with Environmental Defense, is a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), serving most recently as a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

“We’ve already had too much economic growth in the US. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure.” — Ehrlich again.

“The planet is about to break out with fever, indeed it may already have, and we [human beings] are the disease. We should be at war with ourselves and our lifestyles.” — Thomas Lovejoy, assistant secretary to the Smithsonian Institution.

“The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world.” — John Shuttleworth, FoE manual writer.

“People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this (ban of DDT) is as good a way as any.” — Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund.

“We can and should seize upon the energy crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity for making some very fundamental changes that we should be making anyhow for other reasons.” — Russell Train (EPA Administrator at the time, and soon thereafter became head of the World Wildlife Fund), Science 184 p. 1050, 7 June 1974

The world has a cancer, and that cancer is man. — Alan Gregg, former longtime official of the Rockerfeller Foundation

[I]Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape.[/I] — John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. — Dave Forman, Earth First! and Sierra Club director (1995-1997)

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. — John Davis, editor of Earth First! journal

“We have to get rid of that warm medieval period.” — Jonathan Overpeck, a Professor at U of Arizona and IPCC Lead Author in an email to David Deming, a professor at U of Oklahoma.

No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” — Christine Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister, Calgary Herald 14 Dec, 1998.


So, man is evil so let's eradicate him -- or only eradicate those that don't deserve to be here. Nice. And technology is bad. Guess these folks don't like their computers. Or heat. Or a/c. Or those jets that take them on vacation.




Or not there, if you choose to make yourself aware of it. Else, your own children's children will condemn you for being a sucker. Considering GWers think Man is the problem, I find you being worried about our progeny wacky. Maybe you're not in lockstep enough.



Stuart, Stuart, Stuart. Talk about hillbilly kneejerk ignorance. You're spewing it all over the place. The Bush admin . . . and just what did the Clinton admin do? They had 8 years too, ya know. Get real. You're right about something: this GW nonsense IS scary. GWers would deny a better way of life for those countries that are 3rd world. Screw malaria! DDTs are eeeeevil. Scary indeed.

For once I agree with you, Stuart.

However, I think you might be a bit more likely to make your point if you were a little less disparaging of the other people in the conversation.

Beth

It is suitable, Stuart, not so much in the context of 'believers' or 'non-believers' but in the context of how people view the effects of a diet that is based on animal products and the effect of such a diet (or not) on climate change and how that impacts our way of life and our dietary choices. The post that began this thread is a good example of how it concerns us as low carbers and the sentiments it contains best expressed in the following quote from the OP:



If meat production is really contributing to climate change, those that believe it to be so should be willing to immediately switch to a grain and plant based diet as a matter of their moral duty to make any and all sacrifices for the good of the planet and future generations no matter the long-term effects on their own health and wellbeing.
OTOH, if meat production is not contributing to climate change, then the threat of lowered availability and rising prices (to discourage what others believe to be a threat) that may make a way of eating may of us rely on for our health beyond our financial means is quite a concern.
It comes down to one group wanting to impose their opinions and beliefs, as well as how to act on them, on the rest of the world population.


On a moderator note for all participants in this tread: Personal insults violate the forum rules and could result in the loss of posting privileges. Please keep the discussion polite and on topic.

Great post, Jande2211. Here are a few more eye-openers -

Helen Cox, Union of Concerned Scientists: "free enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process. Capitalism is destroying the Earth. Every time you turn on an electric outlet, you are making another brainless baby."

Stephen Schneider, lead UN IPCC report author: "To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest."

Mayer Hillman, senior fellow emeritus, Policy Studies Institute - "When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it. This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not."

Lisa, I don't think you have framed the question correctly. The question is not whether meat production contributes to global warming, it's whether a particular mode of meat production, intensive factory farming contributes to global warming. There is no question that intensively raised animals fed a diet of grain emit lots of methane. Any Californian who has driven from LA to SF and noses past the enormous Coalinga feed lot could tell you that. The question is whether other ways of producing enough meat to assure a healthy diet for the world's population would lessen that problem, and the answer is yes.

I do think this discussion belongs on the board, but I fail to see how jande's vitriol advances the conversation. I used to tell my freshman composition students that, contrary to popular belief, no one is entitled to his opinion. Such entitlement leads to sloppy arguments. Jande would not have passed my freshman compositon course. The board should enforce certain standards.

This thread is now locked, as it has become too heated on off-topic matters. Please reveiw our policy http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=343128

Doreen