I am not sure about this global warming thing.

There have always been temperature variations in all of earths history. 

Of course there have been extreme temperature variations in all of earth's history.  The question about global warming is whether we humans can survive the changes without great tragedy.  The Little Ice Age was dramatic enough (for instance, 25% of the population of Finland died) when the world's population was very small, and the most affected areas, like Canada and the northern US, virtually uninhabited.  It would be another thing entirely now.

 The same thing applies to a warming climate.  A difference in sea level or a two hundred year drought is easy to adapt to when all you have to do is move your tent or mud and stick hut somewhere else, but a lot different when a continent that had only a few people now has 20 million.

 I had always assumed I wouldn't live long enough to see the effects of global warming.  I'm 62, and I now think I'm going to see at least one dramatic change, if I'm not seeing it already.

 Finally, we are soon going to stop worrying so much about oil.  We will be facing water wars.  And that is largely a function of overpopulation, combined with warming trends and more extreme weather.

I cannot believe the way the weather has been this year. It goes from one extreme to another. Right ow we are so dry and hot. We need rain so bad. And then there are places that are flooding. It just seem all the weather is so extreme.

Even here in the tropics people were complaining about the heat.  I think that when you live in places with very little temperature variation you become really sensitive to even small variations.  This also happens with menopause, but that's another discussion.  Anyway, a lot of people here in Penang have been telling me that they think it is much hotter now than it used to be.

We don't see much of that in California. While the rest of the country has seen lots of rain (some parts are under water) and other parts of the country see a drought, we are having pretty nice weather around here.

Amazingly, California is always spared the bad weather. It doesn't get too hot in the summer (along the coast, it gets very hot further inlands) and it doesn't get very cold in the summer. Weather is very predictable. No wonder people around here don't see the light.

I don't think so. Wars will be fought over energy resources. Given enough energy, water can be taken from the sea (desalination) at any level. Our planet's surface is 70% water and all we need is energy to use it. Australia is already building some of those near Sydney to fight the constant drought. Every time I look at a western toilet and it says 1GPF (Gallon per Flush) I wonder if thats really necessary. Thats all the water some people have for the entire day, including drinking and hygene. Maybe we should start with the obvious first.

I do believe that we will have to stop using oil before it runs out so we won't choke our world to death, but we can't do it since we need the energy and its so damn cheap.

Andre

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They built a desalinization plant where I live in Florida.  It was supposed to go on-line nearly two years ago, I think, but it still doesn't work properly.  Eventually they may be an option, at least for relatively lightly populated places like Australia.

 California, however, gets its water from the mountain runoff and melt.  In the south they are using glacial melt to make up for the lack of snow cover and the need for more water.  When the glaciers are gone, what then?

 And I don't think that desalinization is going to work well in the central part of the country.

 Floods don't do much to help the water table, either, as most of it runs off.  It's one of the problems we have where I live.  Even when we get what sounds like adequate rainfall, it doesn't help the water table much.  If you get an inch of rain in 15 minutes, it runs straight into the sea.

I always wondered if it would be possible to built a desalination plant on evaporation alone. All you would need is the sun and a lot of area but no further energy. I guess its just not efficient enough.

It's kind of funny. Some areas are under several feet of water and some other areas are seing a drought. No way to spread the water properly.

I think we should start to use water more responsibly and recycle it better. Theoretically it should be a closed loop (water doesn't evaporate into space). It's just a matter of distribution. 

Its truely AMAZING how much talk there is about Global Warming. They have so many ideas to stop it, but I dont really see anything happening. There is so much stuff about it coming in a few years, or even in 100 years! I dont really know what to believe anymore.

We are waiting for the solution that doesn't require any sacrifice on our part.  We'd rather our grandchildren made the hard decisions.  And I'm not sure we really know what to do or that we can do anything that will help much.

 OK, we can do things, but whatever we do is only going to slow the rate.  Even the Kyoto agreement was to slow the rate of putting pollutants into the air, not to stop, and certainly not to reverse the situation. 

Well... I really dont know. it is not like this kind of stuff didnt happen before. Though i do belive that global wwarming is real I do not think that we need to work on a solution. But sientists say that it really will not effect us for another possibly 40-50 years. Though China is builing a massive coal foundation that expands about 100 miles. Release fumes into the air that will contribute to global warming. So might happen a little faster because of that little project the chinesse are doing.

When major climate changes happened in the past there were a lot fewer people to be affected by them, and people really did not expect to have as secure and easy life as we do.  They were less dependent on technology, which can help you get back to basics but doesn't give you sophisticated tools to deal with things, a sort of good/bad thing.

 As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, one quarter of the population of Finland died during the Little Ice Age.   Imagine what that would mean now.

These changes caused famines and wars and epidemics.  They forced vast migrations of animals and people.  That will be a lot harder to handle now, with controlled borders and food supplies that are transported long distances.

All those nature changes I think are part of evolution of Earth. Our planet continuously evolving along with those global warming, el niño, la niña, etc. The human activities maybe sometimes boost those process. The best thing must have is the science that could accurately predict such Earth changes to somehow lessen and prevent disasters.

It's really not much of an Evolution for things to happen within a decade. On a global scale thats like a big accident happening in a split second.

I am not sure about the predictions either. Chaotic systems are inherently hard to predict. Thats why the margin of error is always pretty large, especially for long term predictions. Nevertheless, the trend is quite clear and thats whats frightening.

Andre

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