NationStates Jolt Archive

Ok, the day after tomorrow was a kick-ass movie but most of it is fantasy right? Well yes in some parts, but look around. Its already beginning. Any of you read the new lately? Hundreds dead in haiti from tropical storms, record numbers of tornados in the midwest, last summer was the hottest for europe in decades that actually resulted in people dying. I live in tucson and we get our first 100 degree day in about the second week of may. We havent even gotten close to that. Three more days and it will be the coldest first 5 months in tucsons history. Remeber el nino and la nina a couple years ago? Not to mention in many parts of the world the sea has risen drastically. Ugh, and i bet there are a lot that I am still missing. Feel free to fill me in. Dont look now, but we really have to rethink our enviormental policies.

Hey! I live in Scottsdale. (Snottsdale)

I read an article in the Arizona republic about this despite the fact that it is a horrible newspaper. The guy writing the article was a scientist and his dismissed most of what was happening around the world. His dismissals were pretty spurious though and could mostly be disproved without too much effort. He also drove it to partisan lines by blaming liberal policies and Sen. McCain as well as moveon.org and several other groups for hyping this up. I think he was being silly as well as not really proving anything in his article. He was right on though in pointing out that it would not happen like the movie did - in 2 days - but it will happen eventually. Besides that, I still need to see the movie which I intend to do today or tomorrow.

www.lomborg.com

Go read some of his articles... It's not as bad as the enviormentalists claim.

Last year it rained in the middle of July.

I live in Southern California. I haven't seen something like that EVER.

Read the sceptical environmentalist.

Four years ago Virginia got 18 inches of snow.

A decade or so ago, the Thames(sp?) in London froze over.

Today it's 103 outside.

Strongest hurricane season ever is predicted for 2004.

The Southern and Western US has been in drought for the past seven years.

Forest fires across most of South and West.

What do these have in common? Nada.

Virginia gets 20 inches once a decade, ice storms every five years.

The Thames feezes once every hundred years.

Florida is Hell's tanning bed.

Periodic shifts in ocean currents cause warmer seas and big ass storms.

It didn't rain for a helluva long time.

The result of the above.

People are dieing in Haiti because of lack of funding and proper codes for building. A bad storm hit, and sadly they suffered.

Technically, we are in an abnormal period of time, Earth seems to be more commonly in an Ice Age according to past examples.

Last I heard was this hurricane season isn't going to be the worst, but it is supposed to be strong.

I was born in Mesa (tomorrow's my b-day), and Phoenix has been weel into the 100s, so just because Tuscon isn't, I wouldn't get to worried about not being in an oven! ;)

The rain and tornados are the same as in 1993, remember that flood, wow. But everything is similiar today as it was before the flood. More tornadoes are just caused by an active atmosphere, especially since many fronts seem to be colliding in the Midwestern area, along with the jet stream that brings moisture. Just because there are many tornadoes don't mean anything, Iowa recently has had 100s when we reguarly have less than 50-90. It's just a basic change in weather.

Besides, I think most people would notice the climate changing, it is highly unprobably that this could happen within the period of a year. We would notice somehow what was happening.

Just my thoughts and what I know.

Exactly, Crim. Global climate change happens, both on long term scales (hence the ice ages) and shorter ones (the El Nino, for instance) as well as spotty change sprinkled throughout the globe and occuring for no obvious reason.

The question isn't does it happen (because it obviously does), but how do our actions affect those normal changes. On that point, the evidence is still vauge at best. I'm not saying we don't have a detremental effect on the environment, because I suspect we do, but the scope and impact of that effect are yet to be determined.

The Day After Tomorrow is pure Hollywood in disaster-epic mode and is hogwash. It does, though, give important focus to the question of how are we affecting the climate and what can we do to minimize that effect and preserve the world for our children.

If there's one thing I picked up from my boring-as-hell historical geology class, it's that the climate has changed, is changing, and will continue to change. Our environmental policies might speed it up a bit or slow it down, but in the end the time difference will be both minute and inconsequential. If you're going to worry about the environment, worry about pollution and the other things that harm the earth itself, not global warming/cooling/whatever. It's going to happen sooner or later anyway, whether we like it or not.

Actually, the movie isn't hogwash at all. But the time tables for the occurances are. Tornadoes have happened before LA and other major cities were there, a giant tidal wave like that is almost impossible unless a meteoroid hits the Earth, or a giant Earthquake were to occur. The movie is very true in the sense it could all happen, but the time tables are totally incorrect. We'd all know if an asteroid capable of destorying the East Coast was going to hit, or if tornadoes were going to destroy LA.

Before I head back to my RPing, I was hearing about one theory about the above ground nuclear tests right after WW2 and how that shifted the climate to a noticable degree.

Where as a professor friend of mine remembers he knew the first week of school was almost always postponed because of a hurricane, after the war was over, hurrricanes hit much more randomly.

I, personally, haven't checked that out in depth... but hell, I'm just tossing it out there.

We'd all know if an asteroid capable of destorying the East Coast was going to hit, or if tornadoes were going to destroy LA.Wrong.

Scientists have predicted that an asteroid big enough to do that to the earth would give six seconds of warning. A big ass flash of light, a deafening boom and them the shockwaves of fire or water.

Tornados can form in a matter of a few minutes. Systems like the one in the movie could form in a half hour. They happen occasionally in the plains, but not so strong usually.

We'd all know if an asteroid capable of destorying the East Coast was going to hit, or if tornadoes were going to destroy LA.Wrong.

Scientists have predicted that an asteroid big enough to do that to the earth would give six seconds of warning. A big ass flash of light, a deafening boom and them the shockwaves of fire or water.

Tornados can form in a matter of a few minutes. Systems like the one in the movie could form in a half hour. They happen occasionally in the plains, but not so strong usually.

You might want to brush up on your meteorology Crimmond. An asteriod large enough to stike Earth within the next 100 years have all been found (that are within 100 years of Earth). Smaller asteriods might not have that much warning, but thousands of people are looking up at the sky to ensure every moving object is found and categorized. I read an artcile that said only 99% of asteroids that could hit the Earth in the next 100 years have been found.

Also, tornadoes can form in minutes, yes. But do you know what NEXRAD, Dopplar Radar, etc. are? They measure certain components of the atmospher, some of their features are to measure rotation in the atmosphere. Systems like the one in the movie could occur in seconds, unless you are counting it from clear sunny day to stormy severe weather, in which case it can take anywhere from 10 minutes, to days if the system is strong enough.