Can humans tackle problems of global warming in time?

[CrystalAce]

We all know how the much hyped-up Copenhagen Climate Summit ended up. Some say that it was a failure, some claim that it was a huge success while some believe that even though it was not a huge success it was better than a failure.

In all these bickering and differences among nations, do you think we, humans, can tackle this issue before it takes a heavy toll on us?

What kind of world do you picture if this issue is not solved in time? And if it is solved & handled efficiently in time, what kind of world do you picture then?

What are your other views in this subject that you like to share?

[.Tatty.]

I turn of my power at the plug and put my bottles/boxes in the recycling bin. Therefore i shun any responsibility for Global Warming.

On a Global Scale, surely it's too late to implement an effective counter measure strategy especially with China in their industrial revolution of sorts

But as i stated before, i shun responsibility so yeah IT'S ALL YOU PEOPLE'S FAULT!

[RexCars]

Without going into too much detail, the U.S. government hasn't appropriated the funds for serious, concentrated geospatial trend analysis.

We're too busy paying for corporate and private contracts (work which too often results in little productivity towards the war-effort).

LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM.

[TheAsterisk!]

Your poll is insufficiently limiting.
I don't put much faith in global warming, let alone the anthropogenic variety, but I can much more easily chalk it up to incompetence and asinine politicians than any genuine conspiracy.

Frankly, though, the flimsy science doesn't matter to me, because eventually science will weed out the flaws (though it might take a few decades), but the social movement around it all scares the crap out of me.
I really can't wait until a few decades from now, when it's socially expired, and when all my apparently mad claims of social similarities to Lysenkoism and eugenics will look far less bizarre.

As a note on the term "climate change," before someone uses it: There's definitely climate change, but to say the climate is changing is to say absolutely nothing interesting.
It's never been static, it never will be static, and it isn't static.
You may as well say that you've discovered carnivorous predators, for all the meaning "climate change" has.

And as for your hope of collaboration, it won't happen, at least not everywhere. There are far too many animosities between states.

Finally, before someone trots out a model they think will convince me, I ask everyone to recall Lord Kelvin's estimation of the Earth's age (Abridged Version: He used thermodynamics to set it between 20 and 400 million years (actual is 4.4 billion or so), and his math was flawless, but he failed to account for heat generated by pressure or radiation, so his model wasn't accurate), and its ramifications for mathematical models describing systems we don't well understand, the Earth and its climate among them.
Which, you know, makes dictating national and international policy on such models somewhere between foolish and dangerous.

If someone tells you they know the Earth is warming, they're full of crap, just as they are if they tell you it's cooling or isn't changing. The only honest claim is one of confusion, ignorance, and climatology's relative immaturity as a field in science.

[CrystalAce]

I guess, the conflict still exits today of whether Global Warming is true or not evident from the release of many documents pointing out it is a hoax which were subsequently labelled as false. I'm clearly perplexed at all these facts presented to us by all these sceintists and alike. Though, most part of me say it's for real, have to support the majority. And I do my part in keeping the environment clean.

But seeing all these hyped-up bickering and no good results, one would assume if it's just some political mess-up. And in fact, it has turn out to become one, with a clash between developing and developed world. It's tad difficult to say who's right and who's wrong. I guess we are doomed after all...but deep-down I hope not.

[TheAsterisk!]

If you're talking about the e-mails stolen from researchers, no, they don't factor into my opinion.
Global warming is simply poor science, as is most climatology and environmentalism.
Frankly, we have no idea how climates and ecosystems work because, at least up until the 1960s, we kept blindly adhering to a quaint view of nature popular in ancient Greece, wherein man is separate and distinct from nature, and if left alone nature does fine.
Problem is that nature can't be left alone, since we'll always have an effect on the ecosystems we inhabit.
As a result of that, though, the study of climate and ecosystems is hideously immature, and nobody really knows much of anything. It's like medicine in the Middle Ages in application, though the methods of inquiry should be far more refined.

[TheAsterisk!]

Crap! I double posted, and now I've waited too long to use the delete option. Any moderator who sees this, could you please delete it?
Thanks.

[-Batman-]

Global Warming is a major threat, and It needs to be stopped, I'm serial.

[Souji Seta]

Actually, I read in a Science Magazine that in a recent study, scientists found out that the Ozone Layer was getting better, as if curing its wounds. As long as people continue to outlaw CFC, they estimate it to be back in tiptop shape by 2050. I'm sure that if a couple of volcanoes erupt, it would hasten the Ozone Layer's recovery. Yes, volcanic eruption, I read an article before that Volcanic Eruption helps the Ozone Layer.

[Aki no iko]

No we cannot, for a large variety of reasons.

[Eris]

Our political systems are just not well equipped to deal with major paradigm shifts in society like this, and it's only been done successfully a few times throughout history (the reconstruction of the American south is a good example). But on the other hand, our oil reserves are going to run dry pretty soon, so that will give us a push towards renewable energy whether the politicians like it or not.

I'm carefully optimistic we'll be able to deal with it in time, probably through technology since the politicians have demonstrated that they are nincompoops with the mental maturity of 5 year olds; but I'm not convinced.

Another problem is that scientists overall are not particularly good at talking to politicians and the press. Scientists speak science to these laymen, who subsequently misinterpret what they are saying since almost every word in science is has a specific meaning and which usually differs quite a bit from what it means in colloquial English. It was the same thing with the whole LHC black whole mess.

Actually, I read in a Science Magazine that in a recent study, scientists found out that the Ozone Layer was getting better, as if curing its wounds. As long as people continue to outlaw CFC, they estimate it to be back in tiptop shape by 2050. I'm sure that if a couple of volcanoes erupt, it would hasten the Ozone Layer's recovery. Yes, volcanic eruption, I read an article before that Volcanic Eruption helps the Ozone Layer.

I hope you realize that the ozone hole and global warming are two entirely different phenomena. The ozone hole allows harmful UV-rays to pass through the atmosphere, which is bad for people who get skin cancer, but otherwise has negligible effect on the global temperature.

[Saint Seiya]

we cant solve something thats not real

[Dreams]

I don't think so. Copenhagen was supposed to achieve something, but in the end they just came up with BS terms. "We will attempt to...," they aren't taking it really seriously despite what they're trying to do. The developing nations just want to develop, which would cause a higher carbon dioxide emission rate from their countries, but obviously, the first world nations refuse to lose any of their luxuries, so we're stuck. Rising first world countries wish to develop, and they will. Population is going to increase dramatically, no one wants to live in a third world environment, so those nations will just keep developing, first world nations just keep doing whatever they can to keep their positions intact. All in all, I find this entire thing hopeless, and just hope that maybe the polar bears somehow learn to swim. B|

[chad00031]

We can If we act as one...