What is your greatest hope?

[Jellybeans]

i hope that i can continue to stay above ground and enjoy the adrenaline rushes instead of being so afraid of them. if i have to experience something for the rest of my life, i might as well train myself to thrive on it.

 

[ventrilothree]

Scientists cannot accurately determine the average global temperature for the past thousands of years, the fact is it's very difficult to determine the average global temperature nowadays sinnce thermometers are useless since they only measure a difference in temperature, you need satellites for anything reliable. Also look at the graph again, it goes quite a bit past 2000, notice how it levels out?

 

[ventrilothree]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml

This is not a lone source. If you actually take the time (which I have) to try to find the science behind global warming it's actually as simple as "over the last 100 years we've risen by 0.5 degrees (or whatever it is) so in 1000 years we'll be 5 degrees warming (actually i think they exponentially extrapolate it which means it's rising at an ever increasing rate so it will be 2 degrees warmer in the next 100 years, or whatever). They do this through poor computer models which don't take into account so many factors, mainly because they're very complex and we don't understand them (such as the cylces aforementioned) so it's actually equivalent to a fifth grader seeing a scatter plot and drawing a line through them. It's embaressing, if you have any actual proof that is not complete propaganda (statistics that are not fully explained) i would be interested to see it, but i really haven't been able to find it.

 

[lonely_down_under]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml

This is not a lone source. If you actually take the time (which I have) to try to find the science behind global warming it's actually as simple as "over the last 100 years we've risen by 0.5 degrees (or whatever it is) so in 1000 years we'll be 5 degrees warming (actually i think they exponentially extrapolate it which means it's rising at an ever increasing rate so it will be 2 degrees warmer in the next 100 years, or whatever). They do this through poor computer models which don't take into account so many factors, mainly because they're very complex and we don't understand them (such as the cylces aforementioned) so it's actually equivalent to a fifth grader seeing a scatter plot and drawing a line through them. It's embaressing, if you have any actual proof that is not complete propaganda (statistics that are not fully explained) i would be interested to see it, but i really haven't been able to find it.

Thanks for debunking our paranoia, Einstein. Thought you were dead.

 

[ventrilothree]

np

 

[proudmummy]

That my son will grow up (mostly) happy and mentally healthy and will have compassion for others AND for himself...

...and that I will somehow escape this mental torment.

I feel more hope for him than I do for myself.

Same here! (with my son, obviously)

 

[Helyna]

Scientists cannot accurately determine the average global temperature for the past thousands of years, the fact is it's very difficult to determine the average global temperature nowadays sinnce thermometers are useless since they only measure a difference in temperature, you need satellites for anything reliable. Also look at the graph again, it goes quite a bit past 2000, notice how it levels out?

It's actually quite possible to figure out temperatures and CO2 levels for thousands of years with ice cores. I can't explain it, since I'm not a scientist, but you can.

It goes about one year past 2000. Yes, it levels in that, but there are fluctuations.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/etc/graphs.html

Look at the second graph (temperature). It may only be a one degree warming, but in context, it is a lot. Something has happened.

http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm

The top is confusing, but you can work it out if you want. Look at the temperature anomalies (small range of years, but still) and hottest months on record.

I wish I could copy this or put a link directly to it, but you'll have to search. A little more than halfway down the page, called "Temperatures over the last 1 million, 150 thousand, 16 thousand and 150 years".
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/temperature.html

(edit added the hyperlink)

In any case, we know that CO2 can cause warming and we know that temperatures have risen suddenly very recently. I shouldn't have gotten into this because most people can beat me for eloquence or even articulateness hands down. I'm just putting this out there for curious people. Let's get back to the original topic.