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Nothing Matters Anymore. Climate Change/Global Warming Will Drive Humans To Extinction In A Matter Of Decades — Page 2

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Meh. Nothing lasts forever.
Why complain about it? You've already stated that you believe the car has gone off the cliff. Why not enjoy yourself on the way down?
You say we shouldn't be debating Star Wars and such because the world is gonna end in 200 years? SO WHAT?? I'll be dead by then and not becasue of global warming, but because we all have an expiration date. I'm not gonna give up my hobbies and what few joys I have in life just cause we're all gonna die (unless, of course, that would help the situation, which it won't).
My dad had that talk with me when I was very small.  Death is the only thing life promises and pays off on. Deal with it!
And, no, he didn't put it to me that way :p

Ray’s Lounge
Biggs in ANH edit idea
ROTJ opening edit idea

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http://www.lcars.org.uk/lcars_a148.htm

"The fact is that the universe is going to stop expanding and it is going to collapse in on itself. We've got to do something before it's too late."
"How much time do we have left?"
"Sixty trillion years, seventy at the most."
"Oh, no."

Jack and Patric, Star Trek Deep Space Nine "Chrysalis"

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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When I was in college, some 150 years ago, one of the guys on my floor used to run from room to room, spraying an aerosol can, screaming "FUCK THE OZONE LAYER!!!"

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Post Praetorian said:

Having experienced the hysteria that was the Global Cooling scare of the 70s and early 80s (where the Secretary General of the UN even made so bold as to declare we had been irrevocably committed to sustained cooling), I have to be at the very least cynical that Global Warming was to begin only a decade or two afterwards.

I am by no means a Global Warming denier, but I am a skeptic of all things doom and gloom.

1) I recall the prediction that we would have exhausted the worldwide supply of tungsten by the late 1990s.

2) I recall be schooled that we would exhaust our fossil fuels by the year 2010.

3) I recall reading an old history text that warned that the world was running dangerously short of coal back in the 1880s...

4) And how many distopian predictions were there during the height of the Cold War that mankind would be long gone prior to the advent of the year 2000?

5) And might we have forgotten the Y2K computer bug that was set to erase all technological progress?

This is not to say that care is not warranted and excesses should not be curbed, but rather it is an observation that the medias love nothing more than a hysterical public, and will typically do whatever it requires to keep them agitated...their cash-flow depends upon it.

This is why there are few in-depth investigations into the unlikelihood (or even relative lack of importance) of any of the above examples coming to pass while the hysteria is in full gear. It is also why the positive balance to such negativity is rarely offered.

To give some fair examples of solutions and/or assuagements from your concern of global warming:

1) To contend with California's impending drought, it need look no further than the existing technology of desalinization. Yes, water will cost more, but likely it is currently undervalued anyway so it will encourage conservation. Further, with increased familiarity with the systems it is not unreasonable to assume prices will descend with time. 

2) If GW actually happens:

a) There should be a great deal more arable land opened up in countries whose grounds are currently permafrost.

b) CO2 levels in the atmosphere are currently at their lowest levels in hundreds of millions of years...increasing that CO2 will increase the rate of plant growth according to experiments conducted at greenhouses worldwide (as an aquaculturist I frequently must contrive to raise CO2 in my habitats in order to spark lush plant growth). Increased growth will serve to trap higher levels of carbon in the fibers, roots, and trunks of plants, removing it from the atmosphere...as it has been doing for hundreds of millions of years... 

c) Increasing temperature increases habitat diversity and range. 

d) Increased temperature allows for a greater level of humidity...which may naturally lead to greater cloud cover, which may lead to less skin cancer.

Further, greater cloud cover would potentially reject more solar energy due to the higher refractive index of water crystals in the high atmosphere and the lighter color of clouds relative to that of the ground...

e) A higher global temperature should reduce heating costs and the combustion of fossil fuels...

f) Historically, periods of warmth have been strongly linked to periods of decreased global hostilities due to the increase in crop yields.

g) As the percentage of Oxygen in the atmosphere is displaced by CO2 it is expected that forest fires should be fewer, smaller, and more frequently doused by increased rainfall.

Certainly many of these items could be debated (something for which I have no inclination as they are merely presented to demonstrate that one-sided discussions often limit their scope to the worst-case scenarios to the exclusion of the rest of reality), but the point at hand is that far from being the worst news imaginable, Global Warming at worst likely offers the world new opportunities to try different things...and, in my humble opinion, is certainly far better than the previous worry: the threat of a new ice age, now overdue, that would shrink arable land and humanity's ability to survive to only a few hospitable zones...so cheer up!

 Thank you!

In fact I found a science text book once when I was a kid that was from the late sixties and it claimed that we had gone so far that there was no way to prevent global cooling and that by the year 1985 no one would be able to live on either coast of the United States. I wish I could remember the book but I was in grade school so I just wrote it off as something insane in an old book and didn't think about it for years until the global warming scare hit the fan.

By the way 1985 was the year I was born and I live in Delaware, right on the east coast and as far as I know we are not under a giant ice cap at the moment.

To say I am skeptical about any prediction of the end of the world is putting it lightly.

Also I have to wonder how many of the people who make the most noise about green house gases and predict doom and gloom really believe what they are saying.  With some research I notice that the richer and more important people still travel all over the world in private jets and own beach houses.  If they really believe we will all be dead soon due to greenhouse gases and the beaches will be under water then wouldn't they be getting rid of those things instead of spending more money on them.

Also if we are doomed and there is nothing we can do about it then why panic? After all if there is nothing we can do playing the blame game and getting depressed and upset makes nos sense, why not just enjoy the time we have while we have it.  If anyone here has seen the TNG episode The Inner Light, then you saw how those people responded to a doom they could not prevent.  They preserved the most important part of the their civilation and then got on with living their lives.  If this is the end of days that is how I intend to face it.

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 (Edited)

TV's Frink said:

When I was in college, some 150 years ago, one of the guys on my floor used to run from room to room, spraying an aerosol can...

In other words, 1865. 

Mary Bellis said:

Metal spray cans were being tested as early as 1862. They were constructed from heavy steel and were too bulky to be commercially successful.

It's highly unlikely that a college student would have a spray can back then...

TV's Frink said:

...screaming "FUCK THE OZONE LAYER!!!"

...or spout profanity...or know what the ozone layer is...

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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TV's Frink said:

When I was in college, some 150 years ago, one of the guys on my floor used to run from room to room, spraying an aerosol can, screaming "FUCK THE OZONE LAYER!!!"

So he was the pioneer of chemtrails.

真実

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Danfun128 said:

TV's Frink said:

When I was in college, some 150 years ago, one of the guys on my floor used to run from room to room, spraying an aerosol can...

In other words, 1865. 

Mary Bellis said:

Metal spray cans were being tested as early as 1862. They were constructed from heavy steel and were too bulky to be commercially successful.

It's highly unlikely that a college student would have a spray can back then...

TV's Frink said:

...screaming "FUCK THE OZONE LAYER!!!"

...or spout profanity...or know what the ozone layer is...

 That wasn't a very fun response.

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I'd be more concerned about amusement park robots malfunctioning and going on homicidal rampages, to be quite honest.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

I'd be more concerned about amusement park robots malfunctioning and going on homicidal rampages, to be quite honest.

 So would I.

I am also worried about rich guys using diamonds to build killer space lasers, and taking out all of the world's governments.

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Maybe if California would invest in desalination, and less on looking like melted muppets, there wouldn't be an issue with water. Right next to the fucking ocean, and have a water shortage? Of course our Government doesn't invest in solutions.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

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EyeShotFirst said:

Right next to the fucking ocean, and have a water shortage?

Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink. 

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DuracellEnergizer said:

EyeShotFirst said:

Right next to the fucking ocean, and have a water shortage?

Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink. 

 No one can drink seawater without desalinization, and we don't know what impact could happen if that plan was taken. That ocean might as well be not water at all.

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It is not clear what you mean by "impact." With hundreds of desalinization plants worldwide (California has even built a couple of them), seemingly the impact is well understood:

Salt water is converted into fresh water and trace elements and minerals. Said minerals may be returned to the fresh water to prevent mineral loss in humans drinking said water. Some filters require changing to prevent organisms from entering the intake lines. An accumulation of salt from the process may be packaged and sold or returned to the ocean.

I was once…but now I’m not… Further: zyzzogeton

“It wasn’t the flood that destroyed the pantry…”

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generalfrevious said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

EyeShotFirst said:

Right next to the fucking ocean, and have a water shortage?

Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink. 

 No one can drink seawater without desalinization, and we don't know what impact could happen if that plan was taken. That ocean might as well be not water at all.

I take it you've never read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. =P 

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reality is an illusion and nothing matters, go watch some fucking anime or something

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Nanner Split said:

go watch some fucking anime or something

 I will do just that.

真実

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Nanner Split said:

reality is an illusion

I hope to God you're right.

and nothing matters

I hope to God you're wrong.

go watch some fucking anime or something

I'm not an anime kind of guy. Can you suggest something for a noob like me?

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DuracellEnergizer said:

go watch some fucking anime or something

I'm not an anime kind of guy. Can you suggest something for a noob like me?

How about some porn?

真実

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There's non-porn anime?  I don't believe it.

(DE, watch Akira, then call it quits, knowing it's all downhill from there)

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Well my suggestions would be:

Psycho-pass (2012) and Cowboy Bebop (1998).

真実

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Cowboy Bebop all the way.

I have been rewatching it this weekend and it is has aged very well and has a great sense of humor.  Not only that but it has a really good dub and the who series can be had on Bluray for under $40.  It's well worth checking out.

I think my favorite episode is Toys in the attic.

"Lesson three, if you see a stranger follow him!"

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Reality probably is an illusion.

A great many things do not matter, although some probably do.

The vast majority of anime is rubbish.