Doomed to a fatal delusion over climate change

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23991257-25717,00.html

""PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.

"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."

"The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies."

But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What's scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this "climate change delusion", too.

Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: "If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."

And here is a senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist aghast at the horrors described in the report on global warming released on Friday by Rudd's guru, Professor Ross Garnaut: "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ."

Wow. Pay more for food or die. Is that Rudd's next campaign slogan?

Of course, we can laugh at this -- and must -- but the price for such folly may soon be your job, or at least your cash.

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MORE AT LINK

We are all doomed by Dubya Bush's fatal delusion that climate change does not exist!

Poor kid, believed all the phantom stories

Obviously the kids has some problems, but the scientist that released a report of all of the countries that will suffer due to climate change is not "phantom".

I guess the current shortage of drinking water, food riots, fuel prices, adverse weather, he melting of the ice caps, extinction of many type of animals, fawna, flora, insects, fish, marine life and the "smog" days is just "phantom" also.

Last year, the first extreme heat alert in my city was in July for a total of three days the entire month. In June 0f 2008, we had three days and summer had not even begun yet. I guess that is due to global "cooling" not warming.

A Brief History of Ice Ages and Warming

Global warming started long before the "Industrial Revolution" and the invention of the internal combustion engine. Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age-- a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice.

Earth's climate and the biosphere have been in constant flux, dominated by ice ages and glaciers for the past several million years. We are currently enjoying a temporary reprieve from the deep freeze.

Approximately every 100,000 years Earth's climate warms up temporarily. These warm periods, called interglacial periods, appear to last approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years before regressing back to a cold ice age climate. At year 18,000 and counting our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age is much nearer its end than its beginning.

Global warming during Earth's current interglacial warm period has greatly altered our environment and the distribution and diversity of all life. For example:


Approximately 15,000 years ago the earth had warmed sufficiently to halt the advance of glaciers, and sea levels worldwide began to rise.

By 8,000 years ago the land bridge across the Bering Strait was drowned, cutting off the migration of men and animals to North America.

Since the end of the Ice Age, Earth's temperature has risen approximately 16 degrees F and sea levels have risen a total of 300 feet! Forests have returned where once there was only ice.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

Saturday, April 21, 2007

This Earth Day, Professor Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, wants you to calm down. The Earth, he says, is in good shape. "Forests are returning in Europe and the United States. Air quality has improved. Water quality has improved. We grow more food on less land. We've done a reasonably good job in much of the world in conquering hunger. And yet we're acting as though: "How can we stand any more of this?" A leading critic on the theory of man-made global warming, Professor Lindzen has developed a reputation as America's anti-doom-andgloom scientist. And he's not, he says, as lonely as you might think.

More at link:
http://www.lindafrum.com/NewsDetail.aspx?newsid=74

Gee, I wonder why one of the main topics at the G8 Summit in Japan was to "reduce" greenhouse gases by 50% by 2050.

I guess they did not have as much to talk about as we thought.......

The G8 leaders today inched forward on climate change, setting a goal to cut emissions by the middle of the century.

A joint statement issued this morning by the heads of the world’s leading industrialised nations, who are meeting in Japan, agreed to work towards a global target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent by the year 2050.

I guess the "proposed" target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions is not because greenhouse gas leads to global warming and was not discussed in previous years because they do not lead to climate change.

Those pesky G8 leaders, they are just too funny.


They have nothing else to "talk about" and are proposing a cut in greenhouse gases because greenhouse gas emissions are "good" for the planet, that is why they are "trying" to reach a goal to cut them by 50%.


Those leaders just do not know what is good for the planet, good for the environment, good for the economy and good for the people of the countries they represent. Too bad it is too little, too late.



Gee, if those leaders "knew" what they were doing, they would not cut the greenhouse gas emission, but actually increase them.


Those pesky leaders...........

Gee, follow the money

World leaders ALWAYS have it right....

If cutting greenhouse gas emissions saved money, then the world governments would have done "considerable" reductions well before now.

As it stands, the "model" to be used for reduction is not based on the year ending 1990, but if I recall correctly 2005.

So follow what money.........the cost may actually increase, that is why there is considerable pressure in the past to do nothing, until there is a real problem. After all many G8 countries resisted making changes for fear it will harm the economy.

TheShadow said:

We are all doomed by Dubya Bush's fatal delusion that climate change does not exist!

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Absolutely; and by many of the other delusions he has had, some of the grandiose variety.

I know one: That everyone could just get into their SUV, along with their designer luggage, gold credit card and drive to a luxury hotel to escape the wrath of Katrina.

That everyone can afford gas at 4.00 a gallon too. That people will not have to choose between gas and food.

There is a lot more that come to mind, but this is not the PP forum.

An addendum to Jeana's post (above)

.... By the end of the Ice Age, all humans on the planet lived in small, migrating bands that subsisted as hunter-gatherers. At that point in time, humans had only known the climate of the Ice Ages. It was the global climate change (dramatic warming) that marks the end of the Ice Age and beginning of the Holocene that forced human populations in the Middle East to ADAPT culturally by experimenting with the new available food sources (grains, fruits, small animals) that now inhabited the region and ultimately to begin producing their own food by cultivating crops and herding animals. This "agricultural revolution" began slightly later in other parts of the world. In other words, global climate change had a profound impact on human behavior and cultural evolution. Since the onset of agriculture the world's human population has increased a billionfold. By 5000 years ago there were urbanized populations (civilizations). To support such civilizations humans have to clear large tracks of land (> deforestation) to accommodate larger and larger fields; we divert and manipulate water flow to irrigate those crops, and provide water to people and their domesticated animals; we alter the landscape to quarry stones for our buildings, to mine minerals for our tools, weapons and personal adornment, etc; we pollute the water with our waste; we pave over the earth with stone, bricks, concrete, asphalt; we build cities in the desert and drain the resources of other places in order to keep those desert cities blooming; we take from the sea, the earth and the sky whatever suits and in the quantities that our exploding population demands, etc. etc. etc. Human impact on the earth did not begin with the industrial revolution as so many deniers of global warming mistakenly believe. It began about 10,0000 years ago with the agricultural revolution, aka "The Worst Mistake in Human HIstory" (Jared Diamond") along with a naturally warming earth. It is therefore impossible to separate how much of the modern climate/environment that we are familiar with is natural vs human-altered.

IMO, the important thing to realize as face the warming trends of the 21st century is that we "civilized" humans only know the climate of the Holocene, we have never functioned in world that is notably warmer or colder. A significant increase or decrease in global temperature would have a dramatic impact on our way of life the same way it did 10,000 years ago. Only this time there are many, many more of us and our reliance on modern conveniences and resources that are limited and depleted will certainly lead to a terrible battle for survival. Those who can successfully evolve (culturally) and adapt to the new conditions will be the survivors.

Well someone told me that Carbon Dioxide was killing the trees. I thought they still taught biology in school. I guess not.

I guess if there are some people who "believe" that climate change does not exist, well maybe they should check out the following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

Climate change does exist, has always existed, and will always exist.
Believing humans are the direct cause is a bit more difficult to do.

Toby said:

Climate change does exist, has always existed, and will always exist.
Believing humans are the direct cause is a bit more difficult to do.

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Thank you ole Wise One. :bowdown::bowdown:

Of course not, greenhouse gas emission from burning fossil fuel is just what "animals" do, not humans. Animals are also in charge of environmental protections at the coal powered plants also. Oil drilling also.

I saw a cat driving to work today, funny cat, he only lives a 5 minute walk from work but choose to drive. Darn those animals, do they not care about the environment.

Golly gee, humans are not to blame, but those animals are........

Toby said:

Climate change does exist, has always existed, and will always exist.
Believing humans are the direct cause is a bit more difficult to do.

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Amen to that one Toby.:clap::clap::clap:
I think believing we are the direct cause of climate change is just one of the MANY examples of our own vanity. IMO if you want a reason to believe we are doomed look to our love for the seven deadly sins.

So humans may not be entirely to blame, but the actions of those humans has greatly increased the rate of climate change. So who is to blame for climate change when humans have a significant impact though their actions.

What may have been a problem that could have affected the earth in say for example 100 years, with the actions of humans will will increase the impact and be a significant problem in say 20 years. To me when I think of cause and affect, this comes to mind