An excursus on global warming:

If we can feel the effects, it probably aint global warming.  Global warming, as in the major climate change of a few degrees celsius, is measured over a span of at least 20 years by the scientists who actually measure these things.  

Although my part of the globe has changed from zone 4 to zone 5b (roughly an annual increase of lowest temperatures of 5-8 degrees celsius) in the last 20 years (USDA weather zones), that alone does not mean that the entire globe has warmed up. I cannot make a good faith argument that the entire Earth has warmed just because I can now grow plants that I could not before.

There are places, as some ultraconservatives in the US have pointed out, that have actually cooled in this same time.  The key to remember is that the average temperature world wide has risen.

This is especially disconcerting because this comes at a time when scientists expected a period of global cooling!  If the average climate has become warmer during this period, the Al Gores of this world really are doing all of us a big favor. 

The conservatives in the US have changed their message; they've stopped saying that there isn't any global warming, but are now saying that global warming isn't man-made and therefore is beyond the purview of political decisions.  Such reasoning is warped and wrong. 

Global warming is an example of a political issue in which democracies need strong leaders with a vision of the future.  Most democracies are as short-sighted as are most dictatorships, but at least we have the choice of picking the leaders who will make a positive change.

MNb wrote on 04/24/09 at 23:48:51:


Dear chessfriend, it's useless to argue with those who want to make the case that there isn't significant, human-caused global warming going on.  It's a ideological position for the vast majority of them, and not one that they're ever likely to surrender.  If Rush Limbaugh (not to imply that The Hand is a follower of his) said that the earth was flat, they'd all be arguing for it the next day.  The only thing we can do is keep their candidates out of office.

I doubt they have much chance of being elected in your country, but unfortunately, they do in mine.

MNb wrote on 04/24/09 at 21:29:51:



While at the same time some areas have seen the coldest weather they have ever recorded.   1,000 years ago Greenland was....green. When we (humanity) figure out how to control the heating effect Sol has on its planets, we will have solved global heating.  Dyson sphere anyone? How much polar ice has melted due to this very post>? Remind me again how you are solving this global problem by posting on a chess site?

mnb: relax, our globe is actually cooling recently.  Likely the result of decreased solar activity over the past decade.  What is the average temp of the Earth again?

Oh Ok...  Sorry especially to Antillian...  I thought you were mocking my question.  So again I apologise...
Zatara

Markovich wrote on 04/22/09 at 13:35:45:


Of course, this time around, mercury poisoning will prevent this...

@Markovic thanks for your reply!!   

@Antillian really you have nothing better to do than write a reply like that???  I guess chess is too hard so you have to write foolish replies...

Zatara wrote on 04/22/09 at 02:48:10:


According to NASA, these will be about as bad as the solar flares of 1958.  I was 11 back then, and I well remember the widespread devastation as waves of super-hot plasma swept out of the sky and burnt Chicago to a crisp.  Fortunately our family had gone fishing in Wisconsin, and so our lives were spared.  But for the next two years we had to stay up in Wisconsin, subsisting on fish.  Fortunately for me and my brother and sister, fish fat stimulates the intellect, and so we all became super-intelligent.