19-square-mile ice sheet breaks loose in Canada

Stephen Harper's an idiot. Leave it to him to welcome devastating climate changes.

I saw a special on the NG Channel awhile back that showed an old WW1 trench battle area up in the alps between Italy and Austria that had been covered with ice and snow from 1915 until recently. It was re-discovered because the snow and ice sheet had retreated. How is this relevant?

Because the fact that the area got covered in 1915 and stayed under ice until 85 years later, due to natural causes. The advancing ice sheets back in 1915 were not the results of "global cooling" but a natural pattern of rise and fall of the earth's temperature and weather conditions. Not so much to do with mankind.

Just this past month, NASA has stated that for the month of August, it was the first time in 100 years there was not sunspot activity on the sun. What does this mean? Well to quote from a source:

In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases. (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=84872)

Can we be better stewards of the earth and put less chemicals and garbage in the oceans and waters? Yes I am for that. Do we need to be more environmentally friendly and cut down our use of fossil fuels, and stop killing off many of the animal and plant life (including humans) yes I agree. But to say that we are destroying the earth with global warming is pure hype and hysteria.

I disagree with your opinion Alphaape.

I'm sure we could shoot links back and forth to defend our side. But in my opinion, we're on the way to a global event that might not happen till after I'm long gone, but I don't want to be a part of that if we can avoid it. I want my generations and yours to have the earth, a healthy earth. < :-)

careful, Alphaape. showing any doubt about global warming these days is akin to denying the holocaust. a lot of gullibles out there have whipped themselves into a frenzy over a very "chic" issue.

OMGlobalWTFarming

any doubt about global warming these days is akin to denying the holocaust" I agree. It does seem to be going in that direction.

skip, horsefella, et. al.: akinning global warming to the holocaust is just ludicrous, though it's clear what you are hinting at. YES, many people take offense to and argue tooth and nail against the moronic 'opinion' (for it's certainly not fact!) that what's happening COULD be natural (they even admit the potential that it's not) or, even worse, that there is no such thing as global warming. We'll also be the same ones pointing our fingers and saying, "I told you so" when you watch your grandbabies dying for lack of food, resources, and extreme weather all caused by the unwillingness of people to take preventative measures, etc.

Even in our lifetimes, I believe, we'll see the beginning of the worst; not armageddon, not the holocaust, just extremely radical environmental shifts, flooding, stronger than ever hurricanes and typhoons, etc. Someday, the fools who deny it will be forced to come to their senses, but of course there'll be only shrugging and 'it's not my fault!' or 'what could I have done?' coming from their lips. Sad, truly sad.

Quebec will be next.

adaydream, I am not saying that we should just pollute to our hearts content. If you look at my post, I did say that we need to be more careful with the earth, put less "gunk" into the air and water, and better protect the plant and animal life on earth so that we can continue to live here. What I am saying is, yes thre are 6 billion of us here, but in the grand scale, we are just a small part on what happens here on earth.

Look at it this way, the sun is 93 million miles away. And something as natural (they have a cyclic period of their appearance the same as weather systems here on earth) as no sunspot activity, or increased sunspot activity (knocks out our satellite communications and other electronic devices) that far away can have an effect on our weather here on earth. Or lets look at the moon, only 250,000 miles away, and the effect that its gravity has on the rising and lowering of ocean tides.

With the power of such natual phenomena will it really make that much of a difference if I get rid of my car and drive a Prius? Yes we can be better keepers of the earth and try to protect our water and other natural resources (that means to stop killing whales for "scientific research"), but I don't think that man will be the cause of either the next ice age (as was the case in the 1970's when the talk was too many pollutants in the air would cause gas clouds to form to block out the sun) or the polar ice caps to melt.

Alphaape - But to say that we are destroying the earth with global warming is pure hype and hysteria.

I understood everything you said. It's just my personal opinion that without some drastic changes we're going to have drastic consequences in the next 100 years. I can't bring you a link to show my proof. Just my opinion. Doesn't makes yours wrong. < :-)

Alphaape:

NASA has stated that for the month of August, it was the first time in 100 years there was not sunspot activity on the sun.

But don't you understand that man and his fossil fuels are now affecting the sun and it's spots?

sdmsec, LOL :> I hope that you are being sarcastic in your comments.

But for those who are taking him serious, sunspot temperatures are normally estimated to be in the ranges of 4,000-4,500K compared to the surrounding area of 5,800K.

So can someone explain to me how the emissions generated from my '91 Windom are affecting something that is 93 million miles away (sarcasim intended).

But, I do hope that we become better keepers of the earth, and not try to rely on hype to get people into doing better for the earth.

It's a shame (and revealing about the fervor of the issue) that you even had to wonder about whether my comments were serious or not.

I guess Al Gore might be able to pull it off with a straight face.

So Smithinjapan and adaydream, what exactly are you doing to be more environmentally friendly? I want to hear your 'drastic changes'. And what's all the whining for? Canadians especially would welcome the warmer weather.

sdmsec, I got your joke. But I guarentee that there are others out there that would not and somehow blame the industrial countries. I have had to explain some of the science behind global weather patterns to family members and you wouldn't believe what they thought was real. And I am not a scientist either, just a person who can reason and read.

I seem to recall that the last winter in the US was one of the coldest on record, and that there was still snow in April falling. From reading this year's Farmer's Almanac, it will be another very hard and cold winter. I can't wait to see how Rev. Al Gore explains this.

smithinjapan- on the other hand, I have a sneaking suspicion that in 15-20 years, we are all going to be bitching about the cold weather and blushing about how we got duped by the auto industry and their $40000 "Green" cars and the like. Im all for people being environmentally friendly, but there is an undercurrent of militantcy (sp?)with this movement. When challenged, the only rejoinder is "But what about the kids??" or "In a hundred years, you'll see!" A lot of PC hogwash

We in Canada would love to have warmer weather, it is like a refrigerator here.

The region’s ice shelf over the summer has lost 82 square miles (212 square kilometers), reducing the Arctic Ocean ice cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began 30 years ago

SECOND-biggest retreat since in only 30 years! 30 years is virtually nothing in the life of the planet. Now is the time of year when Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum ice coverage, yet you would think it's some new and profound event when AP's piece is worded in such a way (loss of 82 sq kilometers/212 square kilometers) to make the situation appear dire and whip AGWers into a frenzy, (as seen above with posts like smithinjapan's.) The question should be what is the average ice loss over, say, the last 1000-2000 years and what is the GAIN since last year. We are, after all, in a cooling trend and it appears the arctic ice is starting to recover.

Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage: Increase twice the size of Germany: "colder weather" to blame. -- September 3, 2008

http://www.dailytech.com/Arctic+Sees+Massive+Gain+in+Ice+Coverage/article12851.htm

As adaydream says, 'we could shoot links back and forth to defend our side,' but that seems like an easy way out. More often than not the AGWers are afraid to look at the facts and thrive on hype. SmithinJapan talks about "...the fools who deny it being forced to come to their senses" and "argue tooth and nail against the moronic 'opinion' (for it's certainly not fact!) that what's happening COULD be natural..." What makes you so sure these warming/cooling cycles are not natural, Smith? In your post above - and also with previous posts - you were worrying/ranting about "stronger than ever hurricanes and typhoons". To give you another perspective on the increasing hurricanes at least prior 2 posts were made with links to the world's foremost hurricane expert (William Gray) who said that increasing hurricanes had nothing to do with global warming and that it was a cyclical thing. Maybe Gray was right, maybe he was wrong. But it seems you are not even interested in considering other people's points of view, even if they're experts.

Small factoid: CO2 makes up only .033% of the earth's atmosphere and man's contribution to that is a small fraction. Even in the past when man's output of CO2 was increasing dramatically, such as in the post WW2 days there was at least one period when earth's temperatures went into a prolonged cooling spell (1940-1975.) How do the AGWers account for that I wonder? Or maybe it is just ignored.

As Alphaape mentioned, the sun currently has no sunspots and is between cycles. I'm not looking forward to the coming cool period which will, no doubt, be blamed on global warming. In fact, it's already started.

Global warming could stop NATURALLY for ten years,' say scientists

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-563104/Global-warming-stop-NATURALLY-years-say-scientists.html

JT: If only to balance things out a bit, it would be nice if you would occasionally add stories on such things such as the increase in ice coverage in Antarctica (rather than the shearing off of ice shelves due to natural phenomena), or the record cold spells experienced in places like China and in various other places around the planet over the past 1-2 years. Not as much fun I know but...

Moderator: We can only publish what the news agencies send us.

Here we are - the sydney morning herald reported a couple of days ago that... "it is human carbon emissions which are to blame for the fact that the coldest August has been recorded in Australia for more than 60 years."

Big chill a symptom of climate chaos -- The freezing temperatures are proof of the urgent need to cut carbon pollution

http://news.smh.com.au/national/big-chill-a-symptom-of-climate-chaos-20080901-46yx.html

In addition to melting ice in the arctic some of the other problems global warming is responsible for are:

Acne, brothels struggle, bubonic plague, cannibalism, circumcision in decline, cockroach migration, cremation to end, crocodile sex, diarrhoea, early marriages, Earth lopsided, Earth slowing down, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, fainting, lawyers' income increased, killer cornflakes, Meaching (end of the world), mammoth dung melt, Mont Blanc grows, mountain (Everest) shrinking, radars taken out, smaller brains, spiders invade Scotland, whales lose weight, whales wiped out, white Christmas dream ends.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

The Guardian even had a story the other day which said that an "oxygen crisis" might "threaten human survival" - hahaha.

It will be interesting to see how long the ms media and politicians will be able to keep flogging this dead horse.