Amen.... again this is tied into religion, religious zealots believe that the earth is here for us to exploit. That is why they are easly brainwashed to believet that drilling in ANWR, clubbing seals etc..is perfectly ok... and that Global Warming is a commie lie that has been perpetrated by the commies to try to impede our economy...God provides. Anyway, it's a self fulfilling prophecy, if there is global warming, increased tsunamis, hurricanes, etcc..it makes them feel as if the apocalypse is coming adn therefore furthering this bullshit belief. AS for the rest of us ratinosl people who actually want to prevent tragedy from happening, well we're a bunch of hellbound commie atheists anyway.

Seems the same nuts who don't believe in evolution also don't believe in global warming. Guess it's an anti-science thing. Though I did hear recently some evangelicals are getting into saving the Earth.

I think so, and they also did one about cat lovers, and how that's bullshit. I love Penn and Teller, but some of the bullshit they expose is... bullshit. Nobody's perfect, even the great Penn and Teller.

WHOAH!! did they really do one about cat lovers?? i'm not saying everything they do is gospel ha ha ha , i just dont remember if they did one or not

Well, an example of theists ruining the environment is that of deforeststtion. Take the catholics in africa/south america for example. I mean, Catholics discourage birth control, rising population causes deforestation, no birth control also means spread of disease, such as h.i.v, but also, destruction of forest means less medical research is able to be done in order to help find a cure for these diseases! So, the ignorance of catholicism is not only causing deforestation, but also causing the death of many of it's followers!

Just 7? I know people that can help rectify that situation.

Because I am a fairly strict libertarian philosophically and otherwise, I will give one libertarian's viewpoint on this issue:

I care about the enviornment deeply, that's why I don't want the government involved in it whatsoever. I want property owners to sue anyone that devalues their property by polluting onto it. Groups of property owners (like an entire neighborhood) can pool their resources, hire a team of lawyers, and sue the pants off of polluters that devalue their private property with class actions suits. It is lawsuits based on actual private property devaluations that will prevent pollution in the most efficient possible way. We don't need government intervention.

Don't like gas emmissions? Don't vote for politicians that support spending BILLIONS of dollars on wars overseas that seek to prevent oil prices from rising dramatically. Oil prices NEED to be rediculously high before private investors get serious about alternative fuels.

Also, it has always been my assertion that if people REALLY cared about the land that they want to protect, then THEY should buy it! Want to protect the forests? Get a thousand other people like you together, each pitch in a grand or two and pool your resources together. You can buy thousands of acres pretty inexpensively in South America for a million bucks. Care about something? Put your money where your mouth is.

How many of Bill Maher's millions do you think are spent on buying up forest land to prevent the very deforestation he hates? How many of his millions are spent on alternative fuel research, or alt fuel business venture capital? I'm betting none. He wants the taxpayer to fund what he himself is unwilling to pay for personally. This is no different from Christians wanting to use their majority rule to impose backwards laws on the secular population.

EDIT BELOW:

I did a little search around one of my favourite websites ( http://www.kurzweilai.net ) and I found this article and thread which I remember reading years ago. It is certainly something worth considering before taking Maher's dogma, while funny, at face value:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0011.html?

I also want to say, that I actually enjoy Bill Maher alot, and I definately think there IS global warming. However, I still don't think we should make global warming another excuse to give the government more power to control our lives. The government has NEVER done a good job at anything...in fact, it usually makes things worse...what makes you think that they will do a good job now? If scientists and investors are left to do business freely and without regulation, the will ultimately solve all problems. As soon as you start regulating industries, you start seeing corporate and political corruption because power and privaledge are sold to the highest bidder in backroom boodoggle deals.

EDIT AGAIN:

Check this out too:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/frame.html?main=/mindx/show_thread.php?rootID%3D61652

Interesting reading.

"I care about the enviornment deeply, that's why I don't want the government involved in it whatsoever. I want property owners to sue anyone that devalues their property by polluting onto it. Groups of property owners (like an entire neighborhood) can pool their resources, hire a team of lawyers..."

I guess if you dont have property you're out of luck, huh?  Forced to breath the air anyway, forced to drink the tainted water, forced to live with any amount of waste someone with more money wants to dump on you.

"You can buy thousands of acres pretty inexpensively in South America for a million bucks. Care about something? Put your money where your mouth is."

A basic problem here that I have with libertarians.  Your vote in a society is exactly how many dollars you have.  A person with no money or property (or even a little of both) is worthless and has no rights. 

Even if you happen to be a member of the "middle class" and have a small chunk of money/property, it doesnt matter how large your coalition is, you won't beat out the megabillionaires in the top 1%.

"As soon as you start regulating industries, you start seeing corporate and political corruption because power and privaledge are sold to the highest bidder in backroom boodoggle deals."

When some people have more money and power than others there will be corruption.  I fail to see how anything in a total free market libertarian economy is not sold to the highest bidder.

I am a full on Atheist but in no way am i a hippie, i despise them as much as i despise religion. As an Atheist i trust in science to provide the facts of life and in this situation the facts say that us contributing to global warming is like pissing on a forest fire. In the last hundred years our whole industrial era the climate has only gone up about 1-2 degrease F, hundred years before that it when up 5 degrease. So who's full of shit?

In reality the earth has existed for 4 billion years and over that time the earth has went from hot to cold several times. Global warming is a route to an ice age because when the ice melts the salinity of the ocean disrupts a river system that controls our climate, making it ice cold. We have only been here a very short time and to think we could control the weather its just foolish. We are not advanced enough as a species to do something like that, shit we cant even get over the fact that there is no god. So stop going around like whiny bitch hippies and learn something, your talking like the earth is a living thing and your hurting its feelings, your acting like dare i say it, Christan's.

Like the great Pen and teller has on their episode: recycling, the only conspiracy is to get people to worry about the environment so they spend money trying to fix a problem that isn't there, like dont worry give your government money and the problem will go away.

The truth is there is no problem with the earth. The way it is, is natural. We are not running in any short supply of anything, we are not putting anything into the air that isn't already there. No forest is running out of supply we grow trees for the use of paper. Landfills ain't running out of spaces and for an alternate use than oil, methane is a better source of fuel. So if you change the way things are going you would really be disrupting the natural process of the earth for our own survival, and evolution says its survival of the fittest.

As an animal lover myself, I've been turned off a little by some of their comments.  I didn't see the cat lover episode, but I kind of got the idea after they--or rather, Penn--said they would strangle every chimpanzee on the planet to save one person.  Such a scenario is unlikely to present itself, but I can think of several people that I wouldn't save by strangling chimpanzees.  

I've gone back and forth on the issue precisely BECAUSE I haven't studied enough to form an educated opinion.  Because the debate has become so politically charged, I fully expect there to be some "bad science" on both sides, but I also expect big business to have more money to throw at "bad scientists."

I read most of a refutation of The Great Global Warming Swindle at a science website the other day, so right now, I'm currently leaning toward accepting global warming as a very serious issue.  I'm beginning to think I need to spend less time researching my favorite scientific topics and learn a bit more about climatology.  If it's that important, I should educate myself.

Hiya, Iruka,

The political charge has been driven almost entirely by oil money, following in the footsteps of the tobacco industry. It's difficult to find any denial organization that doesn't have Exxon bucks in their pockets.

See Appendix A (PDF)

When you look at the studies, though, it becomes obvious quite quickly that whatever disagreements there might be about the degree of anthropogenic (why can't we just say human caused?) global warming, the basic facts are no longer subject to debate. The denial community, much like the creationist community, is almost entirely a US phenomenon. We rejected Kyoto, but the rest of the world did not. It's been in force since February 15, 2005 when Russia signed on, expanding the list of signatories past the required 55 percent of net carbon emitters.

Here's where to start: http://www.ipcc.ch/

It'd be a shame to have a thread on global warming on a freethinker board, and have no one talking science.

As ever, Jesse 

Have you got a source for this claim?  I'd be very interested to see it.   Don't know what you mean by them "learning."  After all, they got paid before, and if it's the same people, they'll get paid again.  If they can delay action long enough for Exxon to rake in a few more billions, they'll have earned that money too.

A free market that isn't forced to account for external costs, won't.  There's nothing keeping us from doing so; it's already happening in Europe.  You create a carbon currency denominated by the Kyoto standards and then sell them to the carbon emitters to balance the books.  If you don't have the credits for the carbon you want to emit, you don't get to emit.

As ever, Jesse

Is it me or does it seems like atheist = cat people ;p

A lot of the atheists here seem to have a cat or many cats (including myself).  Im curious on where the dog lovers are ;p 

Gizmo, I am a dog lover. I have had cats and I like cats, but I have always favored dogs. I have a three year old beagle named Strummer(after Joe Strummer from the Clash) and he is the man!!

Hey man. I believe it was a CBC fifth estate program that told me about the correlation. This would be the story:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/index.html

There's a video you can watch on that page which the claim was substantiated within. If I picked the wrong episode, let me know in topic or via pm/email. I'll try and track it down later. I'd watch it now to make sure it's the right one, but I'm unfortunately a bit too pressed for time to watch a 40 minute show. If it's the wrong one, you can either look for the right one yourself(which would give you some quality programming to watch as a side benefit), or you can wait until tuesday morning, when I'll have more time to look for the right episode. I am 90% sure this is the right one though.

Yes, but at what cost to the rest of us? This is what I meant. Obviously they don't much care about humanity, they're too wrapped up in making a buck.

They've already achieved this. For ten years running.

I think it's fairly safe to say that kyoto is dead and smelly. Without Russia, the US, and China, there's no point in trying to make it work.

I'm one of those atheist dog people.

I can't stand cats, personally - I find them far too self-righteous and arrogant.  My dog comes when called, knows when it's time to go outside, can do tricks and is always happy to see me.

My girlfriend like cats.  Her reasons?  She doesn't have to take care of it besides put out food and go on vacation.

I'd rather have a pet that can show that it cares for me as opposed to one that's easy to maintain. 

Well, the first  graph shows a time period of 140 years roughly (a small sample).

The second graph shows a time period of 2000 years, again a very small sample (unless you're a creationists, then it's 1/3 of the earth's existance >.> ).

The third graph shows a time period of 450,000 years roughly. A better sample, in which we see 4 ice ages. So roughly every 100,000 years there is an ice age, according to the data. Also, according to the third graph, there have been other times when the Earth has been hotter than now ( 3 times out of 5 samples = 60% of the time before an ice age it has been hotter than now). Also note that the 3rd graph is based on average temperatures from 1961-1990 as the base temperature, which I hope is used only as a control rather than the "correct temperature" for the Earth.

My conclusion:

Yes the Earth is warming, it has in the past (5 times in the last 450K yr according to graph 3) and will in the future. The only difference between now and 100,000 years ago is that now there are people thinking they can "solve" what would appear to be a natural occurrence. My analogy would be "A parent decides to stunt their 5 year old's growth because the parent thought this is how their child should remain indefinitely."(hypothetically of course...)

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That is what caught my attention most when I saw and Inconvinent truth...it is hard to deny that coorolation.