Dairy thread got me thinking about bigger issues...

about how different people filter media information and contextualize it in their lives accoridng to their core beliefs, whatever they may be...

So, just a thought... how many people here think global warming is a myth or something not to be concerned about in your daily life?

Tue. Jan 17, 10:40am

I became a vegetarian because my own work (I am a biologist, so maybe this is not so much of a media contextualization thing) results caused me to become worried about sustainability.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006, 10:44 AM

I believe that global warming is a real phenomenon, and feel that the U.S. should be more responsible about pollution, waste, and energy, regardless of whether or not global warming itself is the reason... Media can really sway things one way or the other, but I believe the majority of scientists who say that global warming is a real pattern.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006, 1:27 PM

cycles

I think the earth does things in cycles. Global warming is most likely real, but its normal. I do think that we should not be wasteful and try to do better for ourselves and the environment. But the earth is going to do whatever it wants.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006, 4:59 PM

Expanding on what the above poster is saying... We are a blip in respect to how old the earth really is... Issues that we think are going to be a problem in the future may not even be of concern. For instance... if you were to tell the people in NY in 1900 that in 100 years there would be 8 million people living there - they would be shocked and say "what are they going to do with all of the horse poop and how are they going to feed all the horses needed for 8 million people? Can you imagine them getting all worked up and making committees and groups trying to solve this issue.. expending all that energy? Gee, now we have cars... don't need horses...
Another example my husband uses for needing oil and gas.. and running out of these resources. Imagine you are in a 10x10 room filled with pistachios just high enough- almost to the ceiling... after awhile, of eating pistachios- will you go hungry? Or- will finding un shelled pistachios become such a chore that you will die before you really run out of pistachios?
Government should just get out of the way and the market will find its own way and come up with solutions to any problem.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006, 9:01 PM

Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006, 9:09 PM

I believe that there is agreement within the scientific community that global warming is a very serious problem that, if continued unchecked, would eventually make the earth inhabitable. It is a problem caused by our use of fossil fuels and is not a natural occurence in the life of our planet. Conservation and environmental protection are not natural functions of capitalism - there must be governmental intervention. The market won't solve the problem - the market is the problem.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006, 10:53 PM

There was a recent study that showed that PLANTS actually create something like 30% of the methane in the environment, and that methane is the second-largest factor in global warming (obviously, carbon monixide is the largest).

There are also the cycle theories. Everyone believes that ice ages are cyclical; why don't people think that "warm ages" are cyclical too?

I'm not saying that humans have nothing to do with it, just that, really, even the scientific community has no idea...

Link

Thursday, January 19, 2006, 10:22 AM

Here's another link to a different article on the same study; this one is from CNN.com.

Link

Thursday, January 19, 2006, 10:23 AM

"no" idea is an overstatement (speaking as someone within the scientific community).

There certainly is climate change throughout Earth's history -- most recently ice-age cyclicity -- that predates the evolution of people. However, the scientific community is at this point as united as it ever is (it is not the nature of science to be uniting) in agreeing that the RATE at which warming is now occurring is unprecedentedly fast, and that human activities absolutely are contributing to it.

The plant paper speaks to the fact that we are still finding what _else_ contributes to Earth's atmosphere, and how the whole system works together. But no one is arguing that we don't have a disproportionate influence on the system.

neon

Thursday, January 19, 2006, 10:46 AM

I'd like to hear more responses ...

Sunday, January 22, 2006, 4:02 PM

What a load of @@@@@ that the market will solve this problem! If it were up to the market we'd still have slavery and companies would work free people to complete exhaustion and employ tiny children in this country. That's the market for you! We have created this problem, now we dont' know if we can solve it before we have catastrophic results. There may be no way to stop it.

Sunday, January 22, 2006, 11:54 PM

There seems to be a pretty good "market" for smart environmentalism. In a way, clean air is the ultimate consumer luxury item, much like clean (Fuji water anyone?) is. Hybrid car technology is improving rapidly, there is an emerging market there as well.

This need not be a simplistic debate about outdated ideology vs outdated ideology. Just look at the acutal issue as free of bias as possible. What would Jerry say? "sometimes you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right"

Monday, January 23, 2006, 11:35 AM

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