North pole to melt this year?

Arguing that things are better even though the ice keeps decreasing in the North Pole is like watching a man going bald and coming up with the idea for a comb-over.
 
cute swan song hornpharmd, but quite unconvincing nonetheless. you are talking about 30 years out of millions with ice ages that take thousands of years. we also know (as i have shown) that there is great reason to believe that melt offs have been worse in the past 200 years based upon northwest passage openings as long ago as the mid 1800s. you can say what you want, but all you really have shown is that during a 30 years period of mostly positive PDO and therefore many El Nino events we had 6% melting per decade. why is this impressive? it isn't.

since this thread started with your rather alarmist article....we have seen the arctic recover 400,000 square kilometers last year and this year has a chance to recover some more (or not we shall see in the next 4 weeks).

you can make all the extreme statements you want, but the hottest year on record was still 1998 and 11 years later we are waiting......the past 7 years we have actually seen some cooling, but regardless, 1 degree centigrade in 150 some odd years of keeping records is not terribly impressive.

if global warming alarmist theory is correct....we are going to have to start seeing things warm up quite a bit more than they have in the first decade of this new century, because at this rate, nothing that has been predicted will come to pass.

and yes....Globally ice is remaining at its 30 year average during a year's cycle.
 
Texoz....that is a prediction. it has not happened yet.

in the mean time, we have had an open Northwest passage AGAIN....but we had that over a hundred years ago. that was my point. i didn't say we had had an ice free arctic ocean in recorded history....
 
so the earth has good experience of this....thank goodness we are not doing anything that hasn't happened before. in fact, we are only at 10% of what the earth has experienced before, so why all the fuss?

and remember...."man-made" is natural.
 
so mop, first you're "i agree we need to be good stewards" and the next minute you're "why the fuss? the earth has seen worse"

it's not easy to see that you really don't believe we should be good stewards...or that your definition of "good steward" is completely hollow.

what do you believe it means to be a "good steward" to the planet?

do you think we are currently, as a species, being "good stewards" to our planet? if so, what would it take to change your mind? if not, what do you think we should change?

it's not enough to say you want to be a good steward or that you believe we should be good stewards.


the angles mop has tried to argue:

the earth isn't warming, it's actually cooling

any warming is actually due to sunspot activity

it's not warming, see, these icebergs are growing

even if it is warming, we don't know why

ok it's warming, but we're not the cause

ok even if we're the cause, it'll cost too much
(or, it's too late anyway, so we should just deal with it)

eh, the earth has seen worse, so why bother?
 
you're the only one concerned about the premises of my beliefs. you've mistakenly taken my lack of concern as a lack of true understanding of myself - it is you who does not understand me, but i'm well aware of the foundation of my beliefs. i've told you what i believe, and you just don't believe me.

you think that the premises of your beliefs is well grounded, presumably since you have an old book and fairytales to fall back on. you have a set of "right and wrong" that was given to you by a supreme being that you follw, and that's a "good enough" foundation for you. the problem is that you think anyone who doesn't share that can't possibly have a true foundation for their principles because if they don't have that god, how are they really to know right from wrong?
 
about my belief that we should be good stewards to the earth....

what makes my belief unsubstantial? put it into words.

also, what makes your belief substantial, considering it's the same belief?

i don't doubt the fact that you hold my foundations to be unsubstantial. but i have no idea what you consider a substantial foundation rather than, as you put it, "flooring".
 
the fact that you can not defend it beyond the first level of feelings. you basically argue that we should take care of the earth because we "should" without giving any foundational reasons for where that "should" comes from or why that "should" has any merit above someone who believes we should live for now and sieze the day, earth be damned.

on the other hand, i trace my belief to caring for the earth to my belief that it was given to us by God, we are called to steward it as an act of love to Him, to each other and to future generations of people.

you may think my system of beliefs is all "fairy tales" but it is foundational and well-grounded in terms of a cohesive system or epistemological basis for my beliefs, whereas yours is not. you merely believe we should (and i think you are right) but don't have any idea why your feelings have any merit beyond what seems intuitively obvious to you.

once again, i think you are correct, but "why" you are correct and "why" any one should listen to you is another matter.

i can talk to most people in the world, even those who aren't Christians remotely and because of their belief in something beyond they find my reasoning to be quite reasonable. they may believe in Hinduism, Buddhism (some forms only as Buddhism is largely atheistic or agnostic on the question of God), Islam or tribal religions, but what i say connects with their innate sense of things and their basic belief in the supernatural. yours stops far short of this and just appeals to feelings.
 
johnny, i think someone can come up with fairly reasonable natural law ethics, but i have not heard those from you remotely.

needless to say, i would still give the nod to ethics founded in a belief in the supreme because they have a universality to them that cannot be claimed by natural law ethical systems.

but this is a bit moot because you haven't presented either. you have presented far short of either scenario.
 
mop - care to provide an example of a non-theistic set of beliefs that you would say are well-founded?

is it necessary to have an old set of beliefs for them to be well-founded? or is it possible for me to come up with beliefs all by myself and have them well-founded? is it necessary for others to share my beliefs for them to be well-founded?

i haven't provided anything further because i want to know the rules before i play the game.

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
i find your foundations to be as thin, if not thinner, than mine. you make far more conclusory jumps in your belief system than i do.

so where does that leave us?

(your link is dead by the way)
 
it leaves us in serious disagreement.

but i would love to hear why you think my foundations are thin apart from the obvious fact that you don't agree with the premise of design.

in other words, if the premise is true, there is no legitimate way to claim that the foundation is thin. whereas with your worldview, that is quite an easy thing to claim and prove.

so let me know what about my foundations are thin granting the premise of God's existence is true.
 
i am enjoying the conversation by the way. you are doing a great job of getting us to the crux (not meant to offend the irreligious) of the argument.
 
Here a link to a free pdf map of the North American Glaciation approximately 10,000 years ago. It show the maximum extent of the North Polar Ice Cap during the last Ice Age. It has been melting ever since.

Why do you GW'ers hate science?
wink.gif
 
johnny, let's try it this way since you are frustrated with my point.

granting that God does not exist and that he is just a "fairy tale" and only had credence because of a book......what would be a good foundation for ethical thought? help me to understand your perspective as i would like to know if i am missing something.

thanks for trying by the way...truly i am enjoying this.
 
I'm not frustrated and completely understand your point, I just think you are wrong. Your faith-based foundation carries no weight with me. My experience-based foundation is utterly lacking to you. That's just the way it is.

You are coming at this from an angle that "well-founded" beliefs trump "non-well-founded" beliefs. There's a big problem with that:

You are defining "well-founded", but it's your very foundation that I completely disagree with. So why should I value your "founded" beliefs?

At the end of the day, if we have a fundamental disagreement over your core principle (god), then we're never going to agree on the foundation. Your foundation will never satisfy me. Mine will likely never satisfy you. That is ok with me, I just want however we go forward to make sense. I think it's possible for us to take a course of action that makes good sense to both of us even if we fundamentally disagree on the driving force (the "foundation") behind our beliefs.

In reply to:
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