Tampering with Nature. Is it really that bad?

paramiteabe · #1 06-15-2002, 12:35 AM

Well tonight I was like watching a show on ABC called Tampering with Nature. And it was about how we use our enviorment in our everyday uses and is it really a bad thing? Like from gene therpy to putting chemecals in our crops and animals for the good of man kind. The host of this show was interviewing both sides of view from eviormentalists to activists and how sometimes that they are just brain washing us into believing in globol warming and other such things like the ice sheets melting and flooding the planet and how a lot of these activist are being rediculous in there views.

Well in this show they were talking to Nasa scientist too about these issues and that they say it's a bunch of bull and that the whole thing is a billion dollor industry like green planet and other such activist groups out there trying to make their point across and a profit. And how Hollywood promotes it a lot by showing movies such as Water World to warn us and make us scared. Nasa said the Earth only warmed up about a half of a degree in the last centary and there is nothing really to be concern about. And that climate is constintly changeing ever since the beginning of this planets history. That you should not listen to these rediculous people.

As for me after seeing this show I really don't know what to believe in anymore. I for one think a lot of science helps us out to make a better world but I also believe that tampering with nature can bring a consequence like cloneing. I mean something that extreme like cloneing is never ment to be in my view. What do believe to be true about science and nature and how man kind tampered with it for the better? Who do you bielieve the activist or the scientists?

Gluk Schmuck · #2 06-15-2002, 07:32 AM

:

Originally posted by paramiteabe
1. I for one think a lot of science helps us out to make a better world but I also believe that tampering with nature can bring a consequence like cloneing.

2. I mean something that extreme like cloneing is never ment to be in my view.

1. I don't know what you meant there but it sure was funny.
2. Extreme?

Anyway, tampering with nature? Humans are part of nature. If humans are part of nature then it's impossible not to tamper with nature. Simple.

Doug · #3 06-15-2002, 09:43 AM

:

Originally posted by paramiteabe
Who do you bielieve the activist or the scientists?

It's not an either/or question. A majority of the scientific community believes that global warming is a reality. It's the corporations that would have to clean up their acts that most fear a world consensus that something has to be done. That's why Bush, the lapdog of corporate America, wants nothing to do with the Kyoto accords.

Even the Bush administration believes in global warming. Note this CNN.com article:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration warns in a report to the United Nations of significant effects on the environment from climate change but suggests nothing to deal with heat-trapping "greenhouse" pollution beyond voluntary action by industry.

For the first time, the administration puts most of the blame for recent warming on human activity, pointing to the burning of fossil fuel that releases carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, according to the report released by the Environmental Protection Agency.

"The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability," the report says.

Heres the rest of it:

EPA report blames humans for global warming

By the way, if the program was by the ABC reporter John Stossel, the man is a converted liberal with an ax to grind, and he has been reprimanded for producing reports containing fabricated or false information. I'll provide documentation if I can find it.

The bottom line is, you can always find someone to say: Global warming is a bunch of hoo-ha; or Global warming is going to kill us all next week. Don't go by what you see in a single report.

Edit: Here's a report on John Stossel by the media watchdog FAIR (Fairness in Accuracy in Reporting):
FAIR Report on John Stossel

Statikk HDM · #4 06-15-2002, 01:57 PM

Global warming is hoo ha. It is summertime where I live and its only like 74 degrees for the high temp. Wouldn't global warming be good though? Better growing crops. Animals eat them and flourish. We eat 'em and flourish. THe Cirrrrcle of liiiife!

Sl'askia · #5 06-15-2002, 02:13 PM

Thinking of it that way Statikk yes it would be good...but you have to look at the whole picture. Yes some areas would benfit but the coastal regions would become flooded due to the melting icecaps. (Bye bye Florida and Manhatan...) If I remember right...if the icecaps completely melted...the sea level would rise by 12 feet. That is enough to flood most of the worlds coastal cities. (hmmm most of Hawaii would go back under the sea...oops...) In other words...you would lose a lot of land mass due to icecap melting.
But such of thing we may not see in our lifetimes...as changes in climate happen to slowly for most of us to notice really (those that care anyway). But the reason we are talking about it now is that we as humans, unlike any other animal, have the power to reverse the flow of change. This can be good and bad.
Example: Dams. They provide us with electricity and a source of water...but as a negitive result, the envirnoment down stream suffers. The much needed silt to nourish the land downstream becomes very little to none at all. The dam themselves disrupt salmon runs, bringing many species of salmon close to extinction.
My point is is that for just about every thing humans do to make their lives easier...animals and the environment suffer.
How far are we willing to go before the whole ecosystem collapses?

One, Two, Middlesboogie · #6 06-15-2002, 02:28 PM

Can I correct you on the icecap thingy, Rach?

Even if the ice caps completely melted, the sea level would not rise. The ice is already taking up as much space as it is ever going to, since it is displacing the water. Therefore, whether it's in liquid form or solid form, the sea level will stay the same no matter whate state the polar caps are in.

In fact, since ice takes up more space than an equivalent mass of liquid water, if the ice caps melted, the sea level would probably drop.

I think the figures for the sea level rising by 12 feet if the caps melted are a miscalculation; generated by adding an amount of water to the sea equivalent to the mass of the ice caps.

Sl'askia · #7 06-15-2002, 02:34 PM

True Anna...but a lot of ice is over land as well...and therefore not displacing any water. (Antarctica used to be a sub topical continent if I remember right back in prehistoric days...)

Danny · #8 06-15-2002, 02:36 PM

You're forgetting that much of the ice in the ice caps is above sea level, Anna...

Doug · #9 06-15-2002, 03:57 PM

:

Originally posted by Statikk HDM
Global warming is hoo ha. It is summertime where I live and its only like 74 degrees for the high temp.

It's spring where you live; summer doesn't start in the northern hemisphere until June 21st.

One can't evaluate the state of the global climate by the average temperature in one area over a couple-week period.

paramiteabe · #10 06-16-2002, 12:41 AM

Earths climate has only gone up one degree or something like that. I just don't think there is any globol warming. And to correct you on the dam situation with the enviorment. dam companies now do something to make salmon or any fish get through the dam and back up stream. They transport the salmon through special compartments in the dam and that lets the fish through.

And even lumber companies nowadays are renewing the enviorment. Every time they cut down a forest they replant new trees to renew the landscape. A lot of companies have come a long way since their beginnings. I mean you would think that since we cut forest down to make paper and other things that we would have no more forest. Well half of Americas forest are comming back. So that tells you that we must be learning from our mistakes in the past.

Sl'askia · #11 06-16-2002, 12:06 PM

Yes but there are still a lot of companies that don't take such measures. For instance the loggers down in South America. They just keep cutting and cutting without regard to the damage they are causing, only thinking of the immediate profit they gain. The thing is...there are a lot of people and companies that still don't care and those are pretty much canceling out the efforts of the ones that do care...

Jacob · #12 06-16-2002, 06:22 PM

I really couldn't care less about the enviroment at the mo. Dont really know why, i think its a shame for the animals in the rainforests which i being hacked down but otherwise i think 'Pah'. Come on, if you were to choose between $/£200,000,000 or helping the enviroment abit...what would you choose?

(By the by, i know the cutting down people dont get that much munni...but still)

Danny · #13 06-16-2002, 06:39 PM

:

Originally posted by paramiteabe
Well half of Americas forest are comming back.

Who told you that? Bush?

paramiteabe · #14 06-17-2002, 01:09 AM

Nope I think I read it somewhere in a magazine awhile back.

Gluk Schmuck · #15 06-17-2002, 10:01 AM

:

Originally posted by paramiteabe
Nope I think I read it somewhere in a magazine awhile back.

Was it by the same people who made The Truth For Youth?

paramiteabe · #16 06-17-2002, 10:10 AM

Whats Truth for Youth? Do you read it? I never even heard of it. And I probably got it from National Geographic.

LuxoJr · #17 06-17-2002, 11:07 AM

The All American Bible, no less.

Jacob · #18 06-17-2002, 04:59 PM

:

Whats Truth for Youth? Do you read it?

Your American arn't you?

paramiteabe · #19 06-18-2002, 02:46 AM

Yea I am American but it doesent mean that I read that or what ever it is. I barely read magazines I just sometimes look at them that catches my eye like Star Wars Insider or game magazines or some times National Geographic if its something I like. And besides who really cares ya know!

abe22 · #20 06-18-2002, 06:44 AM

I read on the internet at school last term that in 5 years time the temperature is going to rise 4 degrees more then it already is! So, if that is true coastal towns are stuffed! (It was from CNN.com or something similar so it's probably true!)
My opinion is that Global Warming is bad. I don't think nothing good can come out of it. We had a beautiful world and we wreaked it in 200 years
what makes people think we can change it now?

Jacob · #21 06-18-2002, 02:18 PM

:

Yea I am American but it doesent mean that I read that or what ever it is.

No, you misunderstand. Its just i could tell your American by the remark:

"Do you read it?"

Go onto the website and then realise what it is...and then curse yourself for being American.

PinkHaired Mudokon CWR · #22 06-19-2002, 06:55 PM

Or It could be in time magazines!

Sl'askia · #23 06-19-2002, 08:29 PM

It was recently discovered that baciteria in our guts causes white pox in coral.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/r...20617_417.html

Merk...

Danny · #24 06-20-2002, 08:09 PM

Then don't throw up in a rock pool...

PinkHaired Mudokon CWR · #25 06-20-2002, 08:43 PM

:

Originally posted by Danny
Then don't throw up in a rock pool...

Huh? Did I miss something?

Danny · #26 06-20-2002, 08:54 PM

:

Originally posted by PinkHaired Mudokon CWR
Huh? Did I miss something?

Rach's post, apparently...