Anyone se 60 Minutes Last Nite - the scientist on global warming?

[leftyladyfrommo]

It was a repeat.

That really upset me. How scientists are not allowed to say what they know to be true because it is not politically expedient.

We have ten years to the tipping point. And then what? The deserts just get larger and larger and hotter and drier. And other areas get way too much rain?

I have a question? If we can get so upset about smokers why can't we get that upset about global warming and air pollution? That is a way bigger threat to our overall health and livlihood than smoking.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Because we'd have to point the finger at ourselves.

It's far easier to point the finger at the evil, filthy swine over there (the smokers) than to point the fingers at righteous, moral, ourselves who always have a good excuse for the way we use resources while that other guy is just wasting gas.

[Ian David]

2. What if we could use smokers to sequester carbon dioxide...

by filling them up like giant CO2 balloons, and then floating them all out to sea?

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. I smoke and that doesn't sound like much fun to me.

But I never smoke in public. Only in my own home and only once in a while.

[Ian David]

5. But the dolphins would have something fun to ballance on their noses n/t

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. I wouldn't mind becoming a plaything for the dolphins.

Might be a lot better than summer in Kansas City.

[lonestarnot]

4. Because we would all take our cigarettes and due to global warming

we would be quickly deflated with the heat and more than likely blown back with sea winds and come down in your neighborhood. That many smokers in one place with one nonsmoker would be catastrophic to you the nonsmoker. :smoke:

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. I doubt very much that we have ten years.

Already, the following things are happening:

Siberian permafrost melting, threatening to release billions of tonnes of methane from frozen peat bogs.

Drought in Amazon basin threatens to turn rainforest into desert.

Melting polar ice caps and glaciers are releasing enough fresh water into the oceans to potentially shut off the Atlantic conveyor current and trigger severely cold climate for most of Europe.

It seems as though we may be PAST the tipping point.

[leftyladyfrommo]

8. I've thought the same thing.

We don't have any way to stop this stuff. It is just going to keep on happening at its own speed.

One thing though. The areas of desert and the areas of wet forest may just shift to new areas. Right now the deserts are expanding but the areas that get the moisture are getting way too much at once. Maybe that is the future. Bad storms on the Gulf Coast - no one will be able to live there permanently - only during the safe months. East coast looks like it may get a whole lot wetter pretty fast.

Seems to me like the weather in the Midwest is moderating. We use to have just awful, cold winters and hot summers. Now it seems like the winters aren't so bad - not nearly as cold and almost no snow here - and our most recent summers have been pretty mild. This one is pretty hot but we have had several years of really mild summers.

[donsu]

10. agree, we have way less then 10 yrs.

global warming is going faster and faster

[zbdent]

9. You have to remember, the fundies have their own "scientists"

who, for some reason, still believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and yet can use the "cyclical" argument about how the Earth goes through hot and cold periods ... which is true, but the Earth would only reflect this through studying periods of MILLIONS and BILLIONS of years, not just X thousand ... and the "scientists" can wrap their "logic" around this without skipping a beat ...

[electron_blue]

11. The first world will never willingly give up its luxuries, o "necessities

we'd have to give up many things most of us consider 'necessities'. Not gonna happen willingly.

[survivor999]

12. There will still be enough resources

for the .1% of the population that will be able to afford them. The rest of us will have to live (or die) in the desert and whatnot.

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. I thought you were going to say that everyone would get

raptured and those of us left would have plenty.