Are farmers cooling Chicago's summers?

Science is always a model of reality, nothing can be proven beyond doubt . Models describe phenomena which occur in reality and try to explain these phenomena. Of course lobbies try to contradict the global warming theory for pure selfish reasons. We all have to make up our own minds whom we trust and I certainly won't trust the petrol industry.

I am always amazed how the opponents of the global warming theory mix up long-time climate change and short-time climate change. "There has always been a climate change" is really not a very intelligent argument because  we talk about changes within a century and not a millenium or even longer periods. During my own life time the glaciers in the Alps have melted at a frightening speed, we can actually watch that by comparing photographs from the 1960s and today. Of course that does not prove that the change is owed to industrial emissions but all the collected data point into that direction and I think we cannot afford to wait until the poles caps have actually melted away - if the theory is right we have to act very soon or future generations will have very hard times to survive.

These days the world seems to be ruled by speculation, global gambling, hedge fonts and incredible greed. Who needs all these billions of dollars - you cannot even buy something useful for all this money. We all could put our energy into the development of renewable energy projects, energy-saving projects, public transportation and  education. Instead we bail out old fashioned car companies who never bothered to read the signs of the day and never updated their company policy. We bail out banks who ruin whole nations by betting against a currency and ridiculing the hard work of millions of people. We allow a tiny minority to exploit the planet in an unprecedented predatory way while millions of people have no food, no clean water, no health care and have to cope with the consequences of this reckless behaviour. The world must be crazy...

Dude, you said it yourself.  "educated assessments".   These are NOT facts.   Not everyone in the scientific community agrees.  So how can you pass it as FACT?   Have you been hanging around someone we all know???  (hee hee)

Also, you say "Carbon dioxide emissions, however, are not fluctuating.  Over the past few centuries, they have gradually increased."

Please tell me at what rate?  What were they before automobiles?  Just so I can see how they've affected things.   Oh wait, you can't... because they had no way to measure that.  Let's just make an educated assessment.

Micrówave wrote:

"Dude, you said it yourself.  "educated assessments".   These are NOT facts.   Not everyone in the scientific community agrees.  So how can you pass it as FACT?"

The conclusions made by scientists can be accepted as 99.9999% fact.  They are simply wise enough to know the difference between conclusion and fact.  When someone is convicted for a crime without video evidence, what proof do they have?  Or do they have evidence that points to the suspect committing the crime, requiring the jury to make a logical conclusion?

I went to the store and bought milk today, but I can't prove it because I didn't capture it on film.  But I do have a picture of my fridge yesterday with no milk in it, there is milk in it today, there is nothing that would indicate that I consumed milk in the last 12 hours, and there are no bowls or cups in my dishwasher or sink.  So are we going to assume I bought milk today, or did someone break into my house and put milk in my fridge while doing nothing else while they were in here?  If you would even consider this possibility, then now you know how foolish you look to the educated world when denying the greenhouse effect.

Until you can provide equally educated assessments that negate the conclusions made by scientists, your statements are nothing but ignorant drivel.  The only scientists who appear to disagree are those with an agenda, most of whom are posing for the oil companies who have plenty to lose if we seek alternative energy sources.

"Please tell me at what rate?  What were they before automobiles?  Just so I can see how they've affected things.   Oh wait, you can't... because they had no way to measure that.  Let's just make an educated assessment."

Did you click on the google link?  Paleoclimatology is the study of the earth's climate throughout history.  They know exactly what progression the earth's co2 levels have taken over the past few centuries (and millennia).  There is absolutely no debating it.

Another great post by YV.  Respond to hers.  I'm done with you.

Well, sorry man.  Wasn't trying to upset you.   Plus, I thought you'd enjoy a good TM joke, lighten up!

But that's what happens to a lot of these people when faced with the facts, they get very offended.  I did click on your links.  Those aren't facts, and there is no indication that 99.99999% of ALL SCIENTISTS agree with the data.  Those are all estimations, we didn't have the capability to measure carbon dioxide levels 100 years ago.  And yes, I know what Greenwashing is.  But those aren't the only people claiming this is all bunk.

You have simply decided to agree with a select group of scientists and refuse to see the other side of the argument, and that's sad, Bob, cause you're usually an intellegent debater.

Not that you care or will even respond anymore, but there are PLENTY of people who believe the expressed goal of environmentalism is to prevent man from changing his environment, from intruding on nature. That is why environmentalism is fundamentally anti-man. Intrusion is necessary for human survival. Only by intrusion can man avoid pestilence and famine. Only by intrusion can man control his life and project long-range goals. Intrusion improves the environment, if by "environment" one means the surroundings of man--the external material conditions of human life. Intrusion is a requirement of human nature. But in the environmentalists' paean to "Nature," human nature is omitted. For environmentalism, the "natural" world is a world without man. Man has no legitimate needs, but trees, ponds, and bacteria somehow do.

They don't mean it? Heed the words of the consistent environmentalists. "The ending of the human epoch on Earth," writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, "would most likely be greeted with a hearty 'Good riddance!'" In a glowing review of Bill McKibben's The End of Nature, biologist David M. Graber writes (Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1989): "Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet . . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." Such is the naked essence of environmentalism: it mourns the death of one whale or tree but actually welcomes the death of billions of people. A more malevolent, man-hating philosophy is unimaginable.

The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives, i.e., the sacrifice of human lives. But an individual is not born in servitude. He has a moral right to live his own life for his own sake. He has no duty to sacrifice it to the needs of others and certainly not to the "needs" of the nonhuman.

Micrówave wrote:

 Let's just make an educated assessment.

It'd sure beat the uneducated kind!

Yes, apparently as seen already in this thread.

That's one of the problems with this place.  You try to have an intellegent conversation, but if you don't agree with something, well then lets start getting pissy.

And then you risk losing someone who actually brings something to this board, and we're left with arguing with Skip over Steve Perry.

Nahhh... you'll never lose me.  We have fundamental differences on this subject, but that's the spice of life.  Cheers.

Cool.  As long as you know I wasn't trying to be an ass, though I know I can be a bit abrasive.  It was truly not personal.