10 Predictions About Global Warming That Have Come True

Alternative title for non-believers: 10 Ways God Is Testing Our Faith By Making The Environment More Better

Link

Alright, who wants to list predictions of Jesus in the Old Testament? If we're going to P&C it up, let's not go with half measures!

My browser tab is labeled: 10 Predictions About Global War...
1) The insects will rise against us!
2) The PostOffice will be resurrected by a man playing off the hopes and dreams of others.
3) The International Space Station will be retrofitted with a giant laser, and promptly shot out of the sky by China's ground based lasers.
4) Someone will have to raise taxes.
5) No one will be quite sure exactly who we are fighting, or why.
6) God will be on our side.
7) God will be on their side.
8) People will die.
9) Some Journalist will snap a photo of an American Robot planting a flag over the rubble of a burning Chinese robot and win an award of some kind.
10) A few years later some jerk will make a video-game out of it.

10) A few years later some alien jerk from Alpha Centauri will make a video-game out of it, because we'll all be dead.

Fixed it for ya. =P

fangblackbone wrote:
10) A few years later some alien jerk from Alpha Centauri will make a video-game out of it, because we'll all be dead.

Fixed it for ya. =P

Thrall you to Progenitor!

IMAGE(http://www.firaxis.com/smac/images/Caretaker/CARETAKERCOLOR.jpg)

Sigh, do people actually fall for this sort of crap?
Selectively choosing predictions made by various diffrent "experts" (many of whom disagree with each other on the various other points) and in retrospect claiming that they were oracles of the future as to the results of global climate change is pure crap.
Oh I love this, the guy who "predicted" #5 (mind you this was over 100 years ago, apparently we just now noticed the hurricanes) also was a social activist... he proposed that we use fire hoses as a means of crowd control.

wordsmythe wrote:

Alright, who wants to list predictions of Jesus in the Old Testament? If we're going to P&C it up, let's not go with half measures! :)

You are limiting yourself too much there, to keep in the spirit of the linked article, you'd need to go with predictions made by any christian religious leader ever. Such a list must surely prove that Christ is indeed God made Flesh, and that he is coming back. I mean the restablishment of Isreal?! That's got to be divinely inspired.

I have to agree with Nos. This is one of the rhetorical tricks used by Tim Ball, Michael Crichton and others to take things out of context to "prove" that global warming does not exist, is unstoppable, or is not related to human activity. It's not a serious look at how well we've done at predicting effects.

For a survey of this kind, we'd need to pick a source period of time and look at all the predictions we can find made within that time period, then rank them. Picking predictions from much before the 80's is silly, since that's when the theory was firmed up and the models started appearing.

Nosferatu wrote:

I mean the restablishment of Isreal?! That's got to be divinely inspired.

God sure rolled a natural 1 on that one.

I love the environmentally conscious / Christian dichotomy. Makes perfect sense.

The US National Park system was a famous Conservative innovation. Used to be the Conservatives were concerned about how we used nature.

Robear wrote:

The US National Park system was a famous Conservative innovation. Used to be the Conservatives were concerned about how we used nature.

That was when environmentalism and stewardship we pretty much synonimous... now environmentalism is people are bad, get rid of them.

Staats wrote:

I love the environmentally conscious / Christian dichotomy. Makes perfect sense.

wordsmythe wrote:

Alright, who wants to list predictions of Jesus in the Old Testament? If we're going to P&C it up, let's not go with half measures! :)

I'm just saying, if we're going to use fallacious arguments, why not throw a few of them in the same thread?

Might as well stick them in one place. 1 = 0:

x = y.
Then x^2 = xy.
Subtract the same thing from both sides:
x^2 - y^2 = xy - y2.
Dividing by (x-y), obtain
x + y = y.
Since x = y, we see that
2 y = y.
Thus 2 = 1, since we started with y nonzero.
Subtracting 1 from both sides,
1 = 0.

Staats wrote:

Might as well stick them in one place. 1 = 0:

x = y.
Then x^2 = xy.
Subtract the same thing from both sides:
x^2 - y^2 = xy - y2.
Dividing by (x-y), obtain
x + y = y.
Since x = y, we see that
2 y = y.
Thus 2 = 1, since we started with y nonzero.
Subtracting 1 from both sides,
1 = 0.

no that's just really bad math. since x=y; x-y is 0, and division by zero is undefined (or using a variant mathamatical notation it is infinity, which still makes the answer jibberish from that point on, since infinity in that scheme only has numerical value when when being divided by itself, or multiplied by zero. so basically x+y, when both x and y are infinity are equal to infinity.)

That was when environmentalism and stewardship we pretty much synonimous... now environmentalism is people are bad, get rid of them.

The fallacy here is that not all environmentalists, or even anything approaching a majority, believe this. You are generalizing from the radical fringe. When Republicans lump in the Sierra Club with Earth First!, that's political grandstanding, and it's the kind of reasoning that explains $1 per century mineral rights leases, clear-cutting national forests and even selling off their acreage to developers.

All the Elk hunters I know in Colorado and Wyoming are members of the NRA and solid Republicans. They also want to shoot developers and think the current Department of Interior sucks the sweat off a dog's balls.

Nosferatu wrote:

no that's just really bad math.

...And that's just really bad lack of capitaliztion in your entire post!

Nosferatu wrote:

Sigh, do people actually fall for this sort of crap?
Selectively choosing predictions made by various diffrent "experts" (many of whom disagree with each other on the various other points) and in retrospect claiming that they were oracles of the future as to the results of global climate change is pure crap.

And of course, if someone selectively chooses their support, we can ignore that support as false.

And of course, if someone selectively chooses their support, we can ignore that support as false.

And that's the problem with this article. I'm a Global Warming fence-sitter. I have little doubt that we're screwing up the earth and I'm for making changes, but I also wonder how much is true and how much is grandstanding...I really don't know. I'm not arguing specific evidence, but all I'm saying is that I can't tell how much is science and how much is politics. But articles like this lend credence to the left wing conspiracy. Nos's points above were outstanding and true. Articles like this only hurt the cause to everyone but ardent supporters.

Kind of like I'm in agreement that something has to be done with our healthcare system. Is universal coverage an option? I don't really know, but I'm kind of warming to the idea of at least looking at parts of it. All of a sudden "Sicko" comes out and now the face of the movement is Michael Moore...if he's for universal coverage, how can I be for it?

Nosferatu wrote:
Robear wrote:

The US National Park system was a famous Conservative innovation. Used to be the Conservatives were concerned about how we used nature.

That was when environmentalism and stewardship we pretty much synonimous... now environmentalism is people are bad, get rid of them.

That was when environmentalism and stewardship didn't get in the way of corporate profits. Now environmentalism is bad for the economy, practice scorched earth and sell off the proceeds to boost the GDP.

See, I can do it too, Nos.

Bassmasa wrote:

Kind of like I'm in agreement that something has to be done with our healthcare system. Is universal coverage an option? I don't really know, but I'm kind of warming to the idea of at least looking at parts of it. All of a sudden "Sicko" comes out and now the face of the movement is Michael Moore...if he's for universal coverage, how can I be for it?

Well, every modern nation except for the United States has a universal health care system, and we're consistently sliding down the list ranking nations by the average quality of health care for their citizens.

Just because Michael Moore is in favor of something doesn't mean you have to be opposed to it. Likewise, just because Ann Coulter is in favor of something doesn't mean you have to be opposed to it either. Extremists will be extremists on both sides of the debate, we have to ignore them and deal with the issues instead.

And that's the problem with this article. I'm a Global Warming fence-sitter. I have little doubt that we're screwing up the earth and I'm for making changes, but I also wonder how much is true and how much is grandstanding...I really don't know. I'm not arguing specific evidence, but all I'm saying is that I can't tell how much is science and how much is politics.

Then read up on the science. Start following http://www.sciencedaily.com/ for example, they have a lot of actual, non-political coverage of papers and conventions and the like. If you want to know the global warming orthodoxy and get deeper into the scientific arguments, check out http://www.realclimate.org. (Note that that site is often attacked as being biased by detractors, but you can judge the quality of the information for yourself.)

I would advise against overtly political sites - Earth First, Greenpeace, Junkscience.com, anyone with an agenda is not going to give you unbiased coverage. (Note - it's not usual to claim that websites run by scientists about their specialities are inherently biased, but you'll see that claim made as well.) Avoid the screamers, avoid non-experts who purport to "correct" experts, check credentials and backgrounds. That will help you make your choice about who to trust for information.

Farscry wrote:

Just because Michael Moore is in favor of something doesn't mean you have to be opposed to it. Likewise, just because Ann Coulter is in favor of something doesn't mean you have to be opposed to it either. Extremists will be extremists on both sides of the debate, we have to ignore them and deal with the issues instead. :D

I agree with Bass on this, though. The mere fact that an extremist endorses something makes me suspicious of it.

Farscry wrote:

That was when environmentalism and stewardship didn't get in the way of corporate profits.

That's not true.

Just because Michael Moore is in favor of something doesn't mean you have to be opposed to it.

Right. But, if a person that represents almost everything about mankind that I find revolting throws his weight behind a concept that I once ardantly opposed, but am now beginning to warm up to, that's going to make me think twice about it.

EDIT: If it matters, Michael Moore and Ann Coulter are cut from the same cloth in my book, they're equally revolting.

Avoid the screamers, avoid non-experts who purport to "correct" experts, check credentials and backgrounds. That will help you make your choice about who to trust for information.

Thanks for the links, I appreciate those. I'll admit to being personally lazy on the topic in general, but speaking in terms of society now, who has time to check all this stuff out and make a rational, unbiased decision? I sure don't, not on every topic anyway, so by default my opinions are formed from snippets here and there, some truthful, some not. On this topic, the loudest voices are the ones I hear (not that this is good, but I'm being honest) and the link posted in the first post of this thread does much more harm than good to my support of the GW cause. I would argue that 99% of other Americans have the same conecpt of GW that I do, which is ignorant. So, when this guy publishes an article like this one that is ridiculous on its face but is positioned as "proof" for GW, it's not necessarily a point for anti-GW as much as a strike against GW.

Bassmasa wrote:

EDIT: If it matters, Michael Moore and Ann Coulter are cut from the same cloth in my book, they're equally revolting.

That was my point. Coulter throws her weight against universal health care, Moore throws his weight in favor of it. You find both people equally revolting. Hence, you should disregard both and pretend they don't exist.

You can find ridiculous extremists both for and against debatable issues at every turn. If you're going to use the presence of an extremist as grounds for questioning that side of a debate, then you're going to run into a zero sum equation and shouldn't worry about it.

wordsmythe wrote:
Farscry wrote:

That was when environmentalism and stewardship didn't get in the way of corporate profits.

That's not true.

Nor was what Nos wrote. That was my point: showing that for every extremist/overly-biased viewpoint, there's an equal and opposite extremist viewpoint.

Farscry wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Farscry wrote:

That was when environmentalism and stewardship didn't get in the way of corporate profits.

That's not true.

Nor was what Nos wrote. That was my point: showing that for every extremist/overly-biased viewpoint, there's an equal and opposite extremist viewpoint. ;)

I took his as hyperbole, though.

wordsmythe wrote:
Farscry wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Farscry wrote:

That was when environmentalism and stewardship didn't get in the way of corporate profits.

That's not true.

Nor was what Nos wrote. That was my point: showing that for every extremist/overly-biased viewpoint, there's an equal and opposite extremist viewpoint. ;)

I took his as hyperbole, though.

I guess I'm puzzled why, with the way I wrote my response to him, my statement wasn't taken as hyperbole. I do think that a lot of the debate between modern Republican politicians (neocons mostly) and environmentalists stems from a conflict on how the balance between business interests and environmental interests should be balanced.

However, advocating a scorched earth policy and selling the proceeds is about as hyperbolic a statement as I can imagine, much like Nos's statement that people=bad, nature=good.

I'm actually a bit insulted that you couldn't see that I was writing a hyperbolic statement. I'm not an extremist, though I lean pretty far on certain issues, enough to pull me out of the center.

Farscry wrote:

However, advocating a scorched earth policy and selling the proceeds is about as hyperbolic a statement as I can imagine, much like Nos's statement that people=bad, nature=good.

I'm actually a bit insulted that you couldn't see that I was writing a hyperbolic statement. I'm not an extremist, though I lean pretty far on certain issues, enough to pull me out of the center.

I apologize. I guess I just see your statement said with a staight face more often.

wordsmythe wrote:

I apologize. I guess I just see your statement said with a staight face more often.

I think I just need to do a better job of making it clear between when I'm being serious and when I'm being sarcastic/hyperbolic/whatever. Sorry about that, hopefully no hard feelings on the confusion!

Farscry wrote:

hopefully no hard feelings on the confusion!

[Homoerotic banter]?