A Conference at UNCW was aimed at informing the public about global warming.
Researchers say as the temperatures rise, so do the chances of hurricanes.
We've just started hurricane season and named storms are on residents' minds.
"This area seems to be very dependent on weather," Wilmington resident Maryann Egerter said.
Conference organizers say the global warming discussion is timely.
"The trends are not good. That's the key thing to remember its not going to get nicer. A warming world is going to make things tougher for us on the coast," Key note speaker and Professor, Dr. Larry Cahoon said.
Scientists attending the conference believe there are ways to slow the process...and they say it starts with you.
"Energy efficiency would be the first place to start. I mean, who likes paying a high power bill?" Dr. Cahoon said.
The global warming conference continues tomorrow at 9 in the morning at the Warwick Center at UNCW.
Take a look at this information
Take a look at this information
The Long Emergency:
Surviving the End of the Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
by James Howard Kunstler
ISBN: 0871138883 (hardcover)
ISBN: 0802142494 (paperback)
You know what i think is
You know what i think is funny... seeing all these people driving around town with save the trees and clean up the earth/air and all that stuff yet they are driving these rusty old cars that spit out NASTY black/grey smoke, and they are smoking and blowing it into.. get this... THE AIR!!!!
There are too many global
There are too many global warming deniers out there, it seems like more and more every day, calling the anti-emissions movement a global swindle and hoax, a myth, a conspiracy of depopulationists, global government types, and self-serving politicians like Maurice Strong and Al Gore; and saying that us believers and activists are zealots of some new "Ecotheist" religion; that we are dupes, victims of pop-culture hysteria - and worse! They seek to obscure the facts and deny the consensus about the most critical issue of our time and the direst threat ever faced by our precious Mother Earth!
I would love to see a skilled writer tackle some of these books and review/debunk them. These books distract from the fact the debate has long been over and the time for action is now. We are running out of time to get the populace fully behind this. We can't just ignore these heretics and traitors.
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism" by Christopher C. Horner.
"Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming", by Patrick J. Michaels
"Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years", by Dennis T. Avery
"Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media", by Patrick J. Michaels
"The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming", by Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr.
"The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World", by Bjorn Lomborg
"The Chilling Stars: The New Theory of Climate Change", by Henrik Svensmark
"Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death", by Ronald Baily
"Global Warming - Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology", by Marcel Leroux
"Is the Temperature Rising? The Uncertain Science of Global Warming", by S. George Philander
"Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't Worry About Global Warming", by Thomas Gale Moore
"It's the Sun, Not Your SUV: Co2 Will Not Destroy the Earth", by John Zyrkowski
"Global Warming: The Truth Behind the Myth", by Michael L. Parsons
"Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate: How Truth Became Controversial", by Mihkel M. Mathiesen
"Global Warming: Opposing Viewpoints", by Tamara L. Roleff
"Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense?", by Dixie Lee Ray
"Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate", by S. Fred Singer
"Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming", by Christopher Essex
"Apocalypse Not: Science, Economics, and Environmentalism", by Ben Bolch
"Silencing Science", by Steven Milloy
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds", by Charles Mackay
"State of Fear" by Michael Chrichton
It won't be easy
If my memory serves me correctly back in the 70's these scientists were warning all of us about the up coming danger of a future ice age. Now they are all of a sudden warning us about global warming and the dangers there of. If you want this to move forward, one thing you need to do is take Al Gore out of the picture. About half of the country will refuse to go along with anything he is involved in because over time he contradicts himself so much. I already use energy efficient light bulbs, energy star appliances, windows, thicker insulation, have readjusted my thermostat, and have an energy star metal roof on my house. I do it to save me and my family money, not because of Al Gore's claims. I agree, man needs to do what ever he can to clean our environment, but research also shows man is not totally responsible. The Earth has warmed and cooled ever since it was created, and man had nothing to do with it in the past. The USA is doing more than any country to lower pollution. Think back about how dirty our air was 20 or 30 years ago, and how we have already cleaned it up since then. Countries like China and India and other developing countries need to be on this band wagon too. We can't keep the globe clean all by ourselves no matter how hard we try. Also as long as one of Al Gore's mansions uses as much energy in one week as my humble house uses in one year, he will never be able to convince me he really cares, and by anyone buying carbon credits from some other company that is really trying their best to conserve energy does nothing unless he does his part too. It just evens it out. Who really needs a pool house that uses as much energy as an average household of four uses? Sounds like a double standard to me.
also wanted to mention the
also wanted to mention the jets he uses to get to places... ha he is such a joke
Although I am not a huge
Although I am not a huge believer that man is totally responsible for global warming-(I believe it is a natural occurance in the cycle of the Earth and it will get so cold in thousands of years again)-I do believe in energy conservation and keeping the skies clean. Solar power for homes is a great option with photovaic shingles. The cost is high in the beginning but maybe some tax incentives would offset the cost. Don't let the government pay for solar but let us take that off our income taxes. Diesel cars with clean burning diesel is also a great saver. My diesel Volswagon Jetta gets 45 m.p.g. Yes 45 m.p.g. I don't worry about the price of fuel anymore because I use a lot less than my 19 m.p.g. Chrysler P.T. cruiser used to get. Sold that car, thank God. The clean burning diesel is very clean nowadays and is starting to be used even in Wilmington. These are things scientists should really be recommending for people to do. Conservation by driving less is a four letter word in America. People love driving for the covenience of it. The Toyota Prius gets 50 m.p.g. but the price makes it a turn-off. Again some huge tax incentives should be in place until every american household owns a car that gets at least 35 miles to the gallon. Tax incentives were in place for the Prius a few years ago but now they have no tax incentives where you could get a tax credit for owning a hybrid. If Congress wants to help with the global warming issue, then Congress needs to listen to what the people want (I'll stop laughing in a few minutes with that statement). Ha Ha--Congress listen-wait.......I'm still laughing.
P.S. I'm still laughing.
Good post on going green, but....
...it would require a total alteration of our national mindset, and I'm not sure tax incentives would accomplish that. Americans have consistently shown that they don't want to drive small, light cars that get great gas mileage. They want to feel safe when they're on College Road with an eighteen-wheeler five feet on either side of them.
There's a whole lot of "let's just do it now" attitude surrounding the issue of going green, but the exuberance has so far run into a solid wall of reality. Just a few of the bricks in that wall:
* After forty years, solar cell technology has made no advances, and remains the highest cost per Watt of any common generation method.
* What's green to one is an eco-nightmare to another. Wind and tidal generators are under attack because of their killing birds and interfereing with fish spawning cycles. The cheapest, cleanest electrical generation method is nuclear, but the minute you announce you want to build a nuclear plant, the forces of darkness start lining up against you.
* While biodiesel is becoming more common and filling an increasing niche in our energy needs, ethanol is still an "energy negative" fuel supplement. (You exhaust more BTUs making it than you recover burning it.) Since all our ethanol is produced domestically (thanks to politicians) and mainly from corn, it's also starting to bump heads with food production. No American is going to starve, but we are already paying more for any product containing or raised on corn. That's not to say that no one will starve, however: Those bags of excess American corn that feed the Third World will vanish if we make a major technological breakthrough and ethanol production takes off.
The simple fact is that we have to look at the issue of going green with less of the "what's cool" aspect that surrounds every single issue in this country, and approach it with the knowledge that we have one heckuva job ahead of us. After all, the internal combustion engine using petroleum based fuel is still the lowest cost, most efficient method of energy conversion available for use in mobile equipment, and nothing we have so far developed has yet to compete with it.
While we can all do SOMETHING, be it adjusting our thermostats, driving less, using energy efficient appliances, etc, the brilliant, innovative technical breakthroughs we're counting on to solve our energy needs while protecting the environment simply aren't coming along at a great pace. In a lot of cases we now discuss (such as hydrogen fuel cells) they likely never will, and the technology will never pan out.
I think the greatest "green contribution" that our younger generation could do would be to stop running away from degrees in engineering and science, simply because they're tough subjects and studying cuts into party time. The road ahead of us is going to require tens of thousands of engineers and scientists to solve our energy problems and fill our energy needs. We can all yakk about global warming and greener energy until the cows come home, but it's going to take a lot more than yakking to even put a dent in the problem.